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"@" on Twitter

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Re: "@" on Twitter

#101

Post by marcins »

agency wrote: post #55
weberc2 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds like a pretty PHP-specific bug. Downvoters: most programming languages don’t silently convert strings (i.e., usernames) to array indices. Even Python doesn’t do this. While this particular bug probably wouldn’t be possible in most other languages, I’m only commenting because it’s rare and amusing to see bugs that are so language specific. I’m not making a generic “lol PHP” joke.

JavaScript does. var arr = ["one", "two", "three"]; arr["2"] === "three"; // true

JavaScript object property keys are always strings, so technically it’s `arr[2]` that has the 2 coerced to a string.

Re: "@" on Twitter

#102

Post by kiliankoe »

frou_dh wrote: post #87

It seems a bit gross when usernames and normal pages are mashed into the same namespace, e.g. https://twitter.com/search I guess Github does the same: https://github.com/pulls Reddit has the nice /u/... thing, but I suppose that is a bit awkward when saying URLs out loud.

Especially since it forces you to basically map out your entire site before letting users register accounts. Or you rename users squatting your routes later on, which seems like a terrible idea.

Re: "@" on Twitter

#103

Post by T2_t2 »

oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #92
sulam wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Classic! We named our guild in EQ "NULL", as a joke. People would comment that we had a problem when they saw us running around with " " running over our head. It bit us on the ass when someone went to Sony's EQ con one year, and they literally couldn't print out their badge because "your guild name is NULL? Really?"

> they literally couldn't print out their badge I still don't quite get how this doesn't work. Why are they handling "NULL" as a special case? What's coercing "NULL" into null?

Bad coding.

Re: "@" on Twitter

#104

Post by Keloo »

make3 wrote: post #80
paultopia wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now I want to change my name to NaN

you probably don't, if the story about the cars with plates on a variations of "NO PLATE" is any indication https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/licensed-to-bill/

Maybe try car plate sql injection. :D http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-URBVGKEBRss/U0GgQetIwEI/AAAAAAAAC2...

Re: "@" on Twitter

#105

Post by dyukqu »

sulam wrote: post #66
ChuckMcM wrote: post #8

That must be Bobby Droptables twitter account :-)

Classic! We named our guild in EQ "NULL", as a joke. People would comment that we had a problem when they saw us running around with " " running over our head. It bit us on the ass when someone went to Sony's EQ con one year, and they literally couldn't print out their badge because "your guild name is NULL? Really?"

It reminded me of a Wired article from 2015 about a guy with the last name "Null" - https://www.wired.com/2015/11/null/

Re: "@" on Twitter

#106

Post by eddyg »

kiliankoe wrote: post #102
frou_dh wrote: post #87

It seems a bit gross when usernames and normal pages are mashed into the same namespace, e.g. https://twitter.com/search I guess Github does the same: https://github.com/pulls Reddit has the nice /u/... thing, but I suppose that is a bit awkward when saying URLs out loud.

Especially since it forces you to basically map out your entire site before letting users register accounts. Or you rename users squatting your routes later on, which seems like a terrible idea.

Or, you take advantage of lists like this[0] and make sure users can’t pick names that would be “problematic”.

[0] https://zimbatm.github.io/hostnames-and-usernames-to-reserve...

Re: "@" on Twitter

#107

Post by rusk »

smelendez wrote: post #71
ClassyJacket wrote: post #20

Slightly related but very interesting: the 2010 Twitter bug where simply tweeting "Accept [username]" would automatically force them to follow you. My understanding is that for the sake of simpler interfaces such as SMS, which they let hold the whole service back for a long long time, they had a "follow [username]" feature - and if the person had to approve follow requests, it would send one to them. To accept the re…

Facebook had this bug as far as accepting group requests very early on, maybe around 2010. Early enough that groups were limited to your college. I wrote a script to accept invitations to every group ID from 1 to 10000. It even added me to groups that didn't exist yet, presumably just adding my ID and the group ID to a table. So when someone created a group to rant about me being in all their groups, I was in it and,…

“Move fast and break things” lol

Re: "@" on Twitter

#108

Post by pmarreck »

smelendez wrote: post #71
ClassyJacket wrote: post #20

Slightly related but very interesting: the 2010 Twitter bug where simply tweeting "Accept [username]" would automatically force them to follow you. My understanding is that for the sake of simpler interfaces such as SMS, which they let hold the whole service back for a long long time, they had a "follow [username]" feature - and if the person had to approve follow requests, it would send one to them. To accept the re…

Facebook had this bug as far as accepting group requests very early on, maybe around 2010. Early enough that groups were limited to your college. I wrote a script to accept invitations to every group ID from 1 to 10000. It even added me to groups that didn't exist yet, presumably just adding my ID and the group ID to a table. So when someone created a group to rant about me being in all their groups, I was in it and,…

> So when someone created a group to rant about me being in all their groups, I was in it and, as the first member, an admin.

fucking hilarity

Re: "@" on Twitter

#109

Post by pmarreck »

igravious wrote: post #96
osrec wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it easier to think of them as an "ordered" hash map rather than an array...

http://php.net/manual/en/language.types.array.php First sentence, “An array in PHP is actually an ordered map.”

I just read at least half that page and this idiotic design confirms exactly why I feel PHP should be considered harmful

Re: "@" on Twitter

#110

Post by pmarreck »

rayascott wrote: post #93
ClassyJacket wrote: post #20

Slightly related but very interesting: the 2010 Twitter bug where simply tweeting "Accept [username]" would automatically force them to follow you. My understanding is that for the sake of simpler interfaces such as SMS, which they let hold the whole service back for a long long time, they had a "follow [username]" feature - and if the person had to approve follow requests, it would send one to them. To accept the re…

“Next time you make a seemingly obvious mistake, don't feel too bad. Even Twitter did it.” There most infamous “mistake”, at least as I see it, was neglecting to backup their database data. That was just unforgivable.

I bet they had a backup, it was just never tested... pretty common mistake
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