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Did I just win?

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Re: Did I just win?

#111

Post by mitchtbaum »

dredmorbius wrote: post #55

This reminds me of an old folk tale of the trickster and the rich man. A king passing through a town finds a man about to be punished for fraud. He intercedes and asks what the matter is. The trickster says in his defence, "I ask people for things, and they give then to me". The king is incredulous but poses a challenge: "You must ask and receive money from the richest man in town." The trickster agrees, but being sh…

That seems to have worked because the king had an unmanageable level of overconfidence, whereas this worked because they already had mutual trust[0]. Advice from a friend passes easily through the "harm test" heuristic filter which takes place immediately after hearing any untrusted (doubted) person advising one to change course (and potentially other places if someone learns they need to apply it there too).

By mixing in advanced machinery, our innate heuristics like harm measurement need many more dimensions of analysis. Hackers, in tune with modern machines, recognize this as a blunder since we have seen trust misused with secrets in machines before; still how can a "[s]cientist and security researcher" and "farmer and shoe-repair-man with a handheld" alike learn to recognize wider effects of their machine-enabled actions?

0: https://twitter.com/search?q=from%3ASc00bzT%20to%3ADefuseSec...

Re: Did I just win?

#113

Post by 0xcde4c3db »

cortesoft wrote: post #49
aerovistae wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A guy issued a challenge saying he'd give $100 to anyone who could trick him into inserting a certain string into any of his software projects. Another guy responded "You should put this challenge on your website." The first guy said "Good idea" and proceeded to do so, thus including the string in one of his software projects: his website. GG

He basically did this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsrU2dMBVUQ

I completely forgot about that exchange. I was about 90% sure that link was going to be a clip of Superman: The Animated Series when Clark first encounters Mr. Mxyzptlk. I can't find it on YouTube, but it goes like this:

Mr. Mxyzptlk: You, my friend, are the ultimate challenge! We're going to have very merry games, you and I!

Superman: A game has rules! Your stunts are just random idiocy!

Mr. Mxyzptlk: Okay, I'll give you a rule! If you can make me say, spell or otherwise reveal my name backwards and I'll split, until our dimensions come into alignment again in... oh, three months, give or take.

Superman: I can't even say your name forwards - how am I supposed to say it backwards?

Mr. Mxyzptlk: No, dope, you don't have to say it, you have to get me to say it!

Superman: Say what?

Mr. Mxyzptlk: Kltpzyxm! Gosh, you're thick! Now, for the last time... ah, nuts!

Re: Did I just win?

#114

Post by sc00bz »

frostymarvelous wrote: post #101
sc00bz wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is awesome :)

Aren't you the winner?

Yes, I think this counts as proof: https://twitter.com/Sc00bzT/status/731243916951994368

My win was legit, but there's no way for me to prove that. Well if this was a PR stunt then I should of @defcon or at least #defcon to get a larger audience, but in all reality I'm banned from PayPal and haven't used Bitcoin. Which is why I said I'll settle for a beer, but I should of asked for zcoin after it launches... shit now this is all a PR stunt for "Zooko money".

Anyway if anyone working at PayPal sees this and wants to hook me up by unbanning me that would be nice.

Re: Did I just win?

#115

Post by nickpsecurity »

exolymph wrote: post #110
nickpsecurity wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on what the desired outcome it. I read the challenge as compromising one of the pieces of software on the website. Doing that with social engineering was the desired outcome. The attacker thought out of the box to tackle a lesser challenge: getting a string on the website itself. It was technically true under rules, funny, and contest issuer even owned up to it. It's not the real challenge, though. No real-wo…

Websites are made of software.

Lol. I'm not repeating myself twice if you're not seeing the point.

Re: Did I just win?

#116

Post by CiPHPerCoder »

jsemrau wrote: post #97
CiPHPerCoder wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What exactly could DefuseSec be marketing here? Disclosure: He and I have been friends for years.

I always wonder why in general there is such a distrust / avoidance of marketing in tech communities.

I can't speak for others, but I see marketing as manipulation and I see manipulation as a dehumanizing act that robs humans of their own agency.

Re: Did I just win?

#117

Post by dredmorbius »

dredmorbius wrote: post #55

This reminds me of an old folk tale of the trickster and the rich man. A king passing through a town finds a man about to be punished for fraud. He intercedes and asks what the matter is. The trickster says in his defence, "I ask people for things, and they give then to me". The king is incredulous but poses a challenge: "You must ask and receive money from the richest man in town." The trickster agrees, but being sh…

Hrm. Not in Shah's World Tales, though I still recommend that as well.

Re: Did I just win?

#118

Post by eridius »

eridius wrote: post #47

Calling a website that happens to host static content in the same repo as its PHP source a "release of a software project" really seems like a stretch.

Why was I downvoted heavily for this, without even a single comment explaining why I'm wrong? This was a serious comment, and I still believe what I said, so it's rather rude to be treated this way.

Re: Did I just win?

#119

Post by kyllo »

dredmorbius wrote: post #55

This reminds me of an old folk tale of the trickster and the rich man. A king passing through a town finds a man about to be punished for fraud. He intercedes and asks what the matter is. The trickster says in his defence, "I ask people for things, and they give then to me". The king is incredulous but poses a challenge: "You must ask and receive money from the richest man in town." The trickster agrees, but being sh…

A much lower-brow version of the same joke, from the movie Dumb and Dumber:

    Lloyd: I'll bet you twenty dollars I can get you gambling before the day is out!

    Harry: No!

    Lloyd: I'll give you three to one odds.

    Harry: No.

    Lloyd: Five to one.

    Harry: No.

    Lloyd: Ten to one?

    Harry: You're on!

    Lloyd: I'm gonna get ya!

    Harry: Nu uh!

    Lloyd: I don't know how but I'm gonna get ya.
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