Have you seen the Onion's "Dolphins Not So Intelligent On Land" report? Is it just me or does this (obviously fictional) study remind anyone else of the hacking challenges going on in the OS X world the past few days:
After capturing the dolphins from the ocean, Lindell and his colleagues tagged them and placed them under the intense, high-wattage lights of a moisture-proof lab. The researchers then administered an extensive battery of tests designed to measure everything from the dolphins' self-awareness to their aptitude for writing and reading comprehension...
Funny, right? Well, I thought so... For some reason, though, the "hacking contests" (equally absurd) don't make me laugh quite as hard. Maybe I don't find it as funny because in the back of my mind, I know that there are people who think the OS X contests have merit. I mean, to say that the challenges were "skewed" is beyond understantement - the the rm-my-mac competition competition allowed anybody from the Internet to connect to it and create a local account and the challenge was to find a local exploit. OF COURSE somebody could. Then we had the University of Wisconsin challenge, which locked the machine down and had only HTTP and SSH open. So, somebody needed to find a 0day remote exploit. OF COURSE somebody couldn't.
Blah, what a waste of time.
Posted by Ed at March 14, 2006 10:31 AM