Uncle John's Presents Book of the Dumb 2 (11 page)

People sure have a love-hate relationship with technology: when we score something sweet on eBay, we love it. When the computer swallows half of our book manuscript and we have to make up a barely-plausible lie to our editor about what happened to the half of the book we owe her, well, then, quite obviously, we hate it (please don't tell our editor about the lie about the manuscript. It's just between us).

Just because something is hi-tech and gee-whiz, doesn't mean that it can't be used stupidly—which brings us to this chapter, in which technology is used in ways that would shame those that thought it up.

 

W
e've long passed the point
where the Guinness World Records have simply become utterly ridiculous; when there is an actual world record for Farthest Spaghetti Nasal Ejection (7.5 inches, held by one Kevin Cole of Carlsbad, New Mexico, whose mother, we're sure, must be prouder than spit), it may be time to pack it in.

Nevertheless, a new and particularly useless world record caught our eye recently: the world record for SMS messaging—that's sending a message using the keypad of a cellular phone for those of you who are still living in the age where all phones did was transmit voices. Today's kids spend a lot of time bumping into things because they're trying to send text messages and walk at the same time.

In June 2004, Singapore (where four out of five people have a cell phone, and that fifth person is talked about disparagingly) hosted 125 competitors who limbered up their fingers to tap out the following 160-character message in the shortest amount of time:

“The razor-toothed piranhas of the genera Serrasalmus and Pygocentrus are the most ferocious freshwater fish in the world. In reality they seldom attack a human.” (We knew that.)

When the smoke cleared, the winner was 23-year-old Kimberly Yeo, who hammered out the message in just 43.24
seconds. That was a full 23 seconds faster than the previous record holder, Briton James Trusler. However, Yeo's time was only .2 seconds faster than the runner-up, 18-year-old Ashley Tan, proving that if SMS messaging ever becomes an Olympic sport Singapore will have the Dream Team.

What is this skill actually good for? Aside from passing along information about the dietary habits of certain piranha species, not a whole lot. And of course, the fact that you can say the above factoid into your cell phone several times faster than you can type it seems to have escaped everyone's attention entirely. Nevertheless, previous record holder James Trusler is already gearing up to reclaim his title, stating: “I'm very positive that I can break this record.” Live that dream, James! At least it's better than blowing pasta out your nose.

Source:
The Straits Times
(Singapore)

 

C
ars these days are so packed with nifty technical gadgets
that it's a rare individual who can keep himself from fiddling around with them to try to see how they all work. But some people, especially George Sam Youssef of Australia, might be better off not touching the tech.

One day, Youssef decided to buy a replica pistol in Brisbane, and then use it to carjack a very nice, very expensive BMW. And why stop there? Youssef's next stop was a bank, which he robbed to the tune of $10,000 Australian.

Then he dumped the car and took a bus headed out of town—but not before fiddling with the BMW's Global Positioning system, into which he had entered his father's address, making it a lot easier to track him down. It also didn't help that Youssef's fingerprints were all over the car.

At his trial, the defense tried to gain leniency through the innovative strategy of admitting Youssef's utter lack of criminal skills; “He would have to be one of the most inept armed robbers to come before a court,” said defense barrister Mal Harrison, after his client pled guilty to deprivation of liberty, entering a vehicle and unlawful use of a vehicle with aggravation (that'd be the carjacking), as well as robbery with aggravation (for that bank episode).

A bold maneuver! Which didn't work, as Youssef was then sentenced to six years in the pen. They won't need a GPS to find him now.

Source:
news.com.au
,
abc.net.au

 

W
e've all heard stories of shifty waiters and waitresses
taking down credit card numbers from customers and then using them to buy toys, houses, and ponies. But generally there should be a short interval between the theft of a card number and the accrual of aberrant charges—say, at least a couple of hours. Don't thieves know it's good manners to let your stomach settle before hitting you with the charges?

Someone tell that to “Sheng” and “Han,” two waiters from Shanghai. They were waiting on a customer in the restaurant where they worked when Mr. Customer handed over a credit card to pay for lunch. Shortly thereafter, the two of them told Mr. Customer that there was a problem with the receipt, and it would take a couple minutes for them to resolve it. And then shortly after that, Mr. Customer got a call on his cell phone; it was his credit card company, and they wanted to know if he in fact just now purchased $3,000 worth of cell phones. Well, no, he hadn't; he'd just bought lunch. But he could guess who it was
trying
to buy the phones. Sheng and Han were picked up and charged with theft not long after that.

What we want to know is, did Mr. Customer then have to pay for his lunch? And did he leave a tip? We're guessing no on both counts.

Source: CBS News

 

A
s any geek will tell you,
the hot trend in home computer geekery is wireless networks: with just a couple of wireless cards and about a day and a half of screaming technological hairpulling before you give up and pay your nephew a case of Mountain Dew to set everything up, you can compute effortlessly anywhere in your house, without wires. Truly, never have so many done so much in order to play online poker in so many nooks and crannies of the house.

But there's a dark side to wireless networking. If you're not careful and don't protect your connection, people can log into it anonymously and use it to do all sorts of bad things. Like Myron Tereshchuk, a fellow from Maryland who had it in for MicroPatent, a company in Connecticut. Tereshchuk believed the firm was in someway responsible for some of the misfortunes his own business had, and took to sending the company threatening e-mails and extortion demands.

Normally something like that would be traceable—to be technical about it, you could look at the e-mail header and see the path the e-mail took from the sending computer to the receiving computer. But Tereshchuk masked his identity by driving around the Washington, DC, area and looking for unsecured wireless networks to log into; when he found one, he'd use it to mail off his threats. These and other tactics kept Tereshchuk one step ahead of the company he was trying to blackmail.

So, yes, Tereshchuk did a fine job in covering his tracks on the technical front. But when it came to other aspects of identity obscuring, he was, well,
less
“ept.” For example, there
was that time he decided to attempt to extort $17 million from the MicroPatent, or else he'd release some corporate secrets he'd recovered; he demanded the company cut a check payable to “Myron Tereshchuk.” As they say, this was the big break investigators were looking for.

One wonders why a man whose desire for anonymity caused him to drive around a major metropolitan area looking for home networks to hack into would suddenly just plop his name out there like fool. We suppose when $17 million is on the line, people's thinking just gets a little fuzzy.

Armed with a big fat honkin' clue like Tereshchuk's name, the FBI began following him around (at one point noting observing him driving erratically as he paid attention to something in the passenger seat—driving and Web browsing don't mix) and eventually got a warrant for his house. Inside they found evidence linking him to the harassment of MicroPatent, as well as some other interesting goodies, like grenades and a recipe for ricin, a nasty poison. Clearly this fellow was just a ball of fun. Tereshchuk was hauled in and eventually pled guilty to “attempted extortion affecting commerce.”

Oh well. It was a good plan. A technologically sneaky plan. Too bad the weakest link in Tereshchuk's plan was himself.

Source:
The Register
(UK), U.S. Department of Justice

 

E
very now and again
—by which you can understand to mean probably every fifteen seconds—some idiot somewhere in the world gets the bright idea to put up a joke auction listing on eBay, the world's largest online auction site. Because who doesn't enjoy a good joke auction?

Well, we have two reasons to not file a joke auction on eBay. The first, of course, is that every joke auction eventually has to be taken down by some tech geek at eBay whose very expensive degree in information systems technology is being used to delete an attempt at auction-based humor. So whether or not the joke succeeds in being funny, removing it certainly isn't the high point of the tech's day.

Also, there's the outside chance that some profoundly creepy person won't think your auction is a joke at all. Just ask Daniel O'Dee, a Brit who apparently got a little soused and thought it would be a hoot to auction his body on eBay. Well, quickly enough, the eBay techs took down the auction, but they weren't fast enough on the draw; in O'Dee's e-mail queue was a note from “Donnie, the Hanover Cannibal,” who, unaware that the body O'Dee was offering was his very own, offered £2,000 for what Donnie believed was a corpse. Donnie hinted darkly at a cabal of continental cannibals who pooled their resources for fresh human corpses and were interested in O'Dee's dead body auction.

O'Dee, almost certainly creeped out beyond all sensibility, responded to the Hanover homophage that the auction had
been for his own body and was just a joke. The Hanover Cannibal's response: “I'm disappointed that is was your own body you were selling as I want one as soon as possible. If you have any other access to a fresh corpse I would be interested. I guarantee that it will be more than a fair price.” O'Dee didn't respond to this message, which apparently the Cannibal thought to be rude; Donnie then sent a death threat. Quoth O'Dee to the local paper: “I'm trying to put it out of my mind. It's safe to say I won't be visiting Germany.”

Now, of course, it's entirely possible that Donnie the Cannibal is just some dude jerking O'Dee's chain. But, you know, what if he
wasn't
? The correct response to
that,
and we say this with a full measure of masculinity, is “
Eek
!”

So please, no fake eBay auctions. Do it for your soul and those nice eBay techs. Not to mention your liver, your heart and other edible portions of your body.

Source:
thisisplymouth.co.uk
, United Press International

 

W
e feel pretty strongly about this:
unless you are in fact an elite computer hacker (or, “l337 h4xx0r” as the online community likes to spell it these days), don't go out of your way to
represent
yourself as an elite computer hacker. It's only going to end in pain, and possibly a prison term.

Exhibit #1 is Simon Jones, of Southhampton, England. By day, our friend Mr. Jones was a supermarket shelf-stacker. Ah, but at night! At night he was—well, a supermarket shelf stacker as well. However, he
also
happened to be a supermarket shelf-stacker with a science degree, which is to say, someone who possibly expected something else from his professional career than stacking cans of peas. Not that there's anything
wrong
with stacking peas—someone has to do it, and we're glad they do, since it makes the canned peas easier to find—but you don't actually need a science degree to do it.

And so, not unlike a misunderstood scientist in a comic book whose squashed dreams drive him to a life of crime, Simon Jones found himself planning mischief online. His target: Playboy, an institution founded on the principle of showing nubile young women in various states of undress. Was Simon planning to use his mad hacker “skillz” to tunnel into Playboy's online subscriber database, holding it at ransom until a terrified Hugh Hefner shelled out cash and bunnies? Well, no. Jones's “skillz” were apparently more modest than that. What he
did
have, though, were passwords to Playboy accounts that he found somewhere online, and from his lair (better known as his bedroom in his parent's house), he used
those to “prove” to Playboy that he was an elite hacker called “PayMaster 69” who was just itchin' to expose Playboy's subscriber database.