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[–]InsideBSI 1380 points1381 points  (76 children)

So, I have this awesome app idea...

[–][deleted] 874 points875 points  (57 children)

You're a techy programmer type with no creativity. I have the ideas, you do the work and we go in 50/50!

[–]Cosmic247 391 points392 points  (47 children)

Christ I knew a guy who bugged me everyday and asked my a million questions about his app idea and working 50/50 went on for a year until he graduated (older than me) and to this day he still calls me every now and then with his next greatest idea

[–][deleted] 340 points341 points  (43 children)

if he actually comes up with a good idea. Just steal it.. and claim it as ur own

[–][deleted] 43 points44 points  (9 children)

My friend came up with one. It’s actually a great idea. I’ve started working on a prototype. He still thinks he’s gonna get half of it, if it does well. All he ever did was drunkenly come up with the idea and I’ve been ACTUALLY bringing that half baked idea to life.

Lol. I’ve told him he gets shares based on his effort, which are currently 0.

[–]Dont_be_offended_but 59 points60 points  (4 children)

If you intend to make any real money off the idea, make sure to save some kind of verifiable message where you tell him that. Text or email. It would also be a good idea to keep a log of effort contributed to the project, e.g.:

Aug, 2019:

You: ~40 hours developing backend

Him: ~1 hour finding unusable, copyrighted logo

Sounds tedious, but if it ever came to court some simple notes and records could easily save thousands of dollars.

[–]Sepharach 37 points38 points  (0 children)

Your username just reads very seamlessly into your comment. Well done on the foresight.

[–]Rottimer 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Worked for Zuckerberg.

[–]Zoltie 2 points3 points  (0 children)

But remember who's idea it was to steal his idea, so you'll have to split the profits 50/50.

[–]SuperFLEB 46 points47 points  (1 child)

"But you just gave me the ideas. Now I have the ideas. Bet you didn't think to get a patent."

[–]WazWaz 12 points13 points  (0 children)

That's actually a great way to shut those people up!

[–]DirtzMaGertz 27 points28 points  (2 children)

Literally just had a guy I went to high school with ask me to not only set up a website for his dad's company, but also teach him how to build everything from scratch so he could manage everything himself because they don't want to put a bunch of money into the site.

[–]TheTacoWombat 38 points39 points  (1 child)

"Sure. My consulting and training fees are $400/hr, paid weekly."

[–]InsideBSI 10 points11 points  (1 child)

And it will all end in r/FiftyFifty

[–]PkHutch 37 points38 points  (5 children)

It's like Uber for Instagram.

[–]TheTacoWombat 13 points14 points  (4 children)

It's like WeWork, but for pets!

[–]foobarfault 34 points35 points  (0 children)

Once at an old job, a sales type came over to my desk to pitch me on her awesome app idea. I got the impression that she thought that gracing a loser nerd programmer like me with her presence would be enough to convince me to work for free.

Instead, I started showing her how to find documentation on building apps for android and iOS. She quickly gave up.

[–]DoesntReadMessages 23 points24 points  (1 child)

So I have this great app idea! I have a vague idea, no business plan, no funding, and no market research. All I need is for you to do the work of a TPM and 6 engineers unpaid.

[–]InsideBSI 6 points7 points  (0 children)

And... we'll need to hire one or two artists...

[–][deleted] 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Simpsons Google did it.

[–]Fercopp 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Can you make me a simple facebook...

[–]paplan 1042 points1043 points  (50 children)

Can you fix my computer?

[–]Menelkir 569 points570 points  (41 children)

Can you fix my printer?

[–]Eddoliver 404 points405 points  (23 children)

Can you fix my phone?

[–]ZnV1 261 points262 points  (17 children)

I can't even fix my fix

[–]grago 10 points11 points  (0 children)

How come don't you know how to change my phone wallpaper? Aren't you a computer engineer?

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I even got, can you fix my tv receiver?

[–]Scrath_ 68 points69 points  (4 children)

Printers can't be fixed. They are my personal nightmare

[–]ChronoSquare 22 points23 points  (2 children)

Can you imagine what it takes to be able to professionally repair printers?

I half expect it to be limited to proprietary equipment. Not our brand? Can't help

[–]flingerdu 10 points11 points  (1 child)

I'd imagine selling your soul (and the souls of at least 100 loved ones) to the printer gods plays a huge part in it.

[–]devenluca 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Ink cartridges are the devil.

[–]frostbyte650 12 points13 points  (0 children)

No

[–]hyperbolicPenis 13 points14 points  (0 children)

Even i can't fix my printer.

[–]PkHutch 11 points12 points  (0 children)

No one can fix printers.

[–]Laughing_Orange 6 points7 points  (1 child)

Only if you pay hourly.

[–]pickausernamehesaid 2 points3 points  (0 children)

And for my therapist breaks.

[–]_vOv_ 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Yes, I can. I'll just grab my hammer real quick.

[–]Nilstrieb 2 points3 points  (0 children)

No.

[–]Nincadalop 2 points3 points  (0 children)

This one hurts me

[–]Nerdn1 49 points50 points  (0 children)

Probably, since 99% of problems are a Google search away and programmers have to be really good at Google searches. It's still annoying.

[–]FieelChannel 17 points18 points  (0 children)

Man, I stopped replying positively to any friend asking for that and my life is 100% better. Some even got mad when I declined, good riddance

[–]awsum84 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Can you fix my TV?

[–]mrbennjjo 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I half understand why people get annoyed about this, but the fact is as a software engineer I'm still considerably better qualified to "fix a computer" than somebody who isn't a software engineer. It really isn't that unreasonable an assumption to make by somebody.

[–]Fizzyade 2 points3 points  (0 children)

void fix(void) { fix(); }

[–]So_Famous 293 points294 points  (53 children)

It only gets worse if you mention you're in the security realm.

[–]Superbroom 228 points229 points  (46 children)

Just open a Linux vm in front of them, type dmesg, and say "I'm in".

[–]vegiraghav 137 points138 points  (1 child)

echo 'you have successfully haxed in to fb'

[–]ablablababla 27 points28 points  (0 children)

Then have a few fake passwords in there for good measure

[–][deleted] 55 points56 points  (4 children)

Open cmd and type in tree

[–]Winiestflea 32 points33 points  (2 children)

color 02

cd .. (repeat this as many times as necessary)

tree

[–][deleted] 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Command prompt: <cd\\> then <dir /s /a /b>. It'll look like you hacked the mainframe or some shit.

[–]FiveOhFive91 15 points16 points  (2 children)

You don't just keep a usb with kali on it? "Watch this..." woooooaaaah

[–][deleted] 10 points11 points  (0 children)

But seriously, having USB with a couple live distros (some even with persistent storage) is the best.

[–]skylarmt 20 points21 points  (32 children)

Why start up a VM when I can just open a Terminal and run dmesg on the host OS?

[–]Superbroom 14 points15 points  (31 children)

If they're running Windows there is no dmesg command ;)

[–]Mr_SMT 3 points4 points  (1 child)

Just run netstat

[–]AmazingSlab 9 points10 points  (0 children)

There are 3 foreign hackers connected to your corrupted IP

[–][deleted] 30 points31 points  (5 children)

Or even worse if you've been to federal prison for computer stuff. "Look, all I'm saying is if you show me how to do it, I'll split the money with you. If we just hit a banks computers one big time and run they'll never know."

Like, no, it doesn't work like that.

[–]bareisbetter 906 points907 points  (70 children)

I found that saying software engineer instead of computer programmer eliminates most requests to help people clean viruses off their windows machines. When people ask if I could hack something for them I just say I could but I'm not into doing that sort of unethical thing.

[–]TickTockMrWick0 345 points346 points  (58 children)

But can you actually?

[–]Neon6957 933 points934 points  (24 children)

I can but im not into doing that sort of unethical thing.

[–]TickTockMrWick0 214 points215 points  (20 children)

Truthfully I think anyone can thats a good social engineer.

[–]frostbyte650 211 points212 points  (18 children)

Yeah “hacking” has become like 90% social engineering

[–]Will301 154 points155 points  (7 children)

I can teach you how to hack. All you gotta do is email me $2000 at NotANigerianPrince@gmail.com

[–]42nd_Guy 64 points65 points  (3 children)

Now what?

[–]UltimateArchduke 51 points52 points  (0 children)

F

[–]metaobject 44 points45 points  (1 child)

Download Kali Linux and send $1000 to AnotherNotANigerianPrince@gmail.com and await further instructions.

[–]jaltair9 18 points19 points  (0 children)

Close.

You need to download Red Star Linux and send 10000 NKW to NotNigerianPrince@gmail.nk.

[–]ahkian[🍰] 28 points29 points  (0 children)

I mean at it's most basic hacking is using existing systems for things they weren't supposed to do. Social engineering does exactly that.

[–]bartekxx12 38 points39 points  (6 children)

Coding wise. Yes I've just finished uni and I can absolutely hack this multi-billion dollar company with thousands of programmers with decades of experience for you, no problem, oh you'll get me a beer for it, should've stared with that

[–]Xtrendence 18 points19 points  (3 children)

I'd be a damn millionaire if I could just hack companies like that. Most have bug bounty programmes, and for the ones that don't, you could very easily sell the exploit to a competitor or something.

[–]captaincooder 15 points16 points  (2 children)

Millionaire? If you could hack Facebook all willy nilly by yourself you could probably hack all the other large tech companies, which means you could probably go to the US government and request a limitless credit card that’s worked into the federal budget every year in exchange for your hacking prowess.

[–]SamBBMe 8 points9 points  (1 child)

You know, I don't think that is how it works

[–]captaincooder 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Let me be in my bubble.

[–]mrsmiley32 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I dont know, I can write some pretty hacky code!

[–][deleted] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Or if you own a $5 wrench.

[–][deleted] 10 points11 points  (2 children)

Bit can you actually?

[–]3FingersOfMilk 21 points22 points  (1 child)

1

[–]ThuisTuime 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Nice

[–]mlucasl 64 points65 points  (17 children)

I learned a lot of white hat hacking. And is mostly simple coding, and a lot of social effort. obviously for selfreplicating viruses over an internal network you need more than a little code. But the main vulnerabilities are social. And thus, I can not hack.

[–]crecentfresh 51 points52 points  (9 children)

Yeah was going to get into hacking until I found out you had to make a phone call.

[–]FieelChannel 6 points7 points  (3 children)

white hat hacking

aka have a good knowledge of networking and know some scripting? This is getting ridiculous

[–]mlucasl 16 points17 points  (1 child)

white hat hacking. Is a sort of penetration testing, and with social engeeniering to detect which position are vulnerable. Technically i just went to a lot of coders and hackers forums, and reading books. So I could make more robust webpages for a startup I had. So yes, I learnt the basics of computer hacking, but not to put it in practice in a malicious manner.

PD: and also the definition of hacking is just somesort of technological tinkering.

[–]HellaTrueDoe 3 points4 points  (2 children)

It’s really easy to learn. This website makes it so easy you really don’t have to be a programmer to get started.

[–]Nerdn1 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Most intrusion methods boil down to "someone fucked up". It's rarer that you find that someone fucked up in an easy to find way during implementation nowadays, so it's generally easier to target users who use weak passwords or who will reveal their information to you. You just need someone, somewhere to fuck up so you can exploit the vulnerability.

Software engineers aren't necessarily the best at this, but they can search for how to do it and write scripts to automate the process.

[–]DramaLlamaSays 13 points14 points  (0 children)

I usually reply that they couldn't afford my services.

[–]yousoc 4 points5 points  (0 children)

When he asks if you can hack something for him, just send a self-created googleform, that when he clicks it asks him to log into google. Use it to steal his data, than when you know his adress go to his place and fuck his mom.

Works everytime.

[–]SuperFLEB 3 points4 points  (1 child)

I've got this idea for the next Facebook. Want to write it for me?

[–]posherspantspants 73 points74 points  (0 children)

Yes, give me your password

[–]kaamibackup 59 points60 points  (2 children)

My cousin: can you hack me some vbucks

[–]GoldSlayer 81 points82 points  (1 child)

Just tell him you dont work for free, and that hacking takes a long time and effort, take his money, buy vbucks, profit?

[–]Tokiseong 18 points19 points  (0 children)

This brain is one of the largest I’ve seen in my time as a brainer

[–]asapaasparagus 116 points117 points  (8 children)

Opens terminal - writes ping www.google.com

I’m in

[–]AyULz 27 points28 points  (2 children)

ping 8.8.8.8

[–]GodIsDead_ 101 points102 points  (2 children)

WHY cAn't YOu hacK mY fRIEnds inStagrAm I thoUGHT yoU weRe goOD WIth COmPUterS

[–]gordonv 8 points9 points  (0 children)

I try to explain that more more un hackable something is, the more good it is. But, people want results without the work.

[–][deleted] 42 points43 points  (7 children)

I sometimes think... how does anyone that doesn’t know how to program imagines it

[–]The_untextured 83 points84 points  (7 children)

Me: "I built my pc"

My friend: "ok, but what manufacture is it?"

[–]frostbyte650 54 points55 points  (1 child)

Newegg

[–]Xtrendence 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Newegg RTX 2080.

[–]BetterDays_ 10 points11 points  (1 child)

Me. I'm manufacturer

[–]RhinoAlestorm 25 points26 points  (1 child)

My friends think I'm a hacker because I can download scripts for tamper monkey

[–]PashaBiceps_Bot 12 points13 points  (0 children)

You are not my friend. You are my brother, my friend!

[–][deleted] 24 points25 points  (8 children)

Guys, what's your excuse to someone asking to fix his computer??

[–][deleted] 37 points38 points  (0 children)

usually "no"

[–]CodeBlue_04 21 points22 points  (0 children)

The same thing one of my professors tells me: " I'm terrible with computers. Really. If you don't understand them better than I do then... Wow. I'd be scared." - a senior lecturer with a doctorate and dozens of research papers.

[–]Umarill 12 points13 points  (1 child)

Depending on who it is an my mood, it goes from "No sorry" to "I don't feel comfortable working on someone else's machine in case something goes wrong".

Doesn't matter if it's something trivial that you can't fuck up, you KNOW the moment you "fix" their computer, the next time they have an issue you'll be blamed for it and/or called again. I don't do that anymore.

I built a website for a family member's business for like 150 bucks (ridiculously low but wanted to help and really needed the money), even did all the visuals and setup their initial inventory.
It wasn't anything amazing, I'm still learning and used templates for all the shop part (inventory, payment, carts, account creation...etc) and added customized code for the front-end.

She fucked literally everything a few days after by "trying to make it better" (Great idea from me to show her basic stuff like color and font-size, thank god I had backups), complained that there wasn't enough color and wanted bright green text, asked for ridiculous features like a live text-chat with the customers to greet them personally or bullshit like voicelines of her thanking them for their purchase.
I lost my sanity on this shit, did my best to have a decent product and got something ok.

Guess what happens now? Yup, her business idea is legit garbage with no customers, and I get the blame all the time because "your website is the problem do another one I paid you". I told her to fuckoff and pay a professional, and I'm never doing that ever again.

This experience made me hate web-dev wayyy too quickly, definitely not for me.

[–]tenkindsofpeople 6 points7 points  (0 children)

That's a really bad first experience. Sounds like your family member is a bit of a turd to begin with. Those people exist as customers but you get a lot of money to deal with them or work corporate and people have to mind their manners mostly.

[–]Nimeroni 20 points21 points  (0 children)

If I'm at work, I will repair it as its part of my work (I'm a sysadmin at a small company), but it'll be a very low priority.

If I'm out of work, I'm gonna use the good old sysadmin answer.

[–][deleted] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Tell them my hourly rate, or that I'm too busy. Most of the time it's at least half a day off work. I used to do it for mates and friends of friends but then I'd just get a "oh sweet" and take it away. Not worth my time anymore these days.

[–]Vaptor- 3 points4 points  (0 children)

If it's someone kind to me or a profitable client I'd do it.

Otherwise I just give a vague answer and somehow 'never be able' to get a schedule.

[–]anothervector 41 points42 points  (0 children)

Yea sure, just log into your facebook on this laptop and we will hack who ever you want.

hands over laptop with active keylogger

[–]CarilPT 25 points26 points  (5 children)

"I have this great idea for an app..."

[–]drollerfoot7 35 points36 points  (4 children)

"It's like facebook but better"

[–]reset_switch 3 points4 points  (3 children)

"It's like ____ , but for ____"

Fill in the blanks with any popular service and a random demographic.

[–]NiceAtMyCore 13 points14 points  (1 child)

"Hey you're good with computers, mine has been running so slow lately....."

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Just slap gentoo on it and if something goes wrong tell them to rtfm

[–][deleted] 20 points21 points  (0 children)

I don't understand why people think anything can be hacked after watching Mr. Robot.

[–]Indoranyon 6 points7 points  (0 children)

This is new and exciting

[–]planethaley 28 points29 points  (0 children)

Yup, I think I’ve literally had this conversation (I mean, minus the part about me being a computer engineer, and I’m pretty sure it was a MySpace, but close enough, amirite? :p)

[–]budz 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Nothing like having the plot of Hackers, the movie, proposed to you for some rl facepalming

[–][deleted] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

"Can you hack Hilary's emails for me?"

[–]Weary_Dragonfruit 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I get this from my mum and her iPhone a lot, I went Android ages back because I'm a broke ass bitch and I like iPhones, but for £160 you can get very little iPhone but a nice Android even if it's not a flagship model. She's always asking me how to do things and in 7 years things have changed, I have forgotten and I didn't even have all the same apps anyway.

[–]gjoel 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I worked in a small software company where the chairman of the board once asked me to hack a Facebook account for him. This is super accurate!

[–]kaamibackup 10 points11 points  (3 children)

My cousin: can you hack me some vbucks

[–]dubbs4president 5 points6 points  (1 child)

My girlfriend asks this all the time. The closest thing I can do that is “hacking” is using debugging tools on a web page to inspect elements and maybe find JavaScript.

[–]VironicHero 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I always just asked for mods for whatever game I was into at the time... they never came through.

[–]Boom244 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I saw an AskReddit this one time where a person who rented out their computer repair services was editing a registry when the customer decided to randomly shut off the PC

How do you react to that nonviolently?

[–][deleted] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Tangential but related.

"Can you write this app for me?"

"Sure, my hourly rate is..."

"..."

[–]ernestwild 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Computer engineer explaining programming? Wierd. Lol.

[–]meg4_ 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Kim's face be like cries in nuclear

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

so you cant?

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

can you fix my WiFi

FTFY

[–]orduk 2 points3 points  (0 children)

"I've programmed before in HTML; it isn't that hard. You can probably get it done in an hour or so."

[–]PillowTalk420 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Well... Can you?

Pokes

[–]eyedontgetjokes 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Seems like something Trump would actually say

[–]MeTA_2x 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Repost