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In a former life I created a system that was unusable by people with the very real surname “Null”. Not my proudest moment.
by pohl 6y ago
In a former life I created a system that was unusable by people with the very real surname “Null”. Not my proudest moment.
- schoen 6y agoThere's a plot point about someone named Root in Cryptonomicon, but I have met someone with this surname (who, I think not familiar with its special meaning, requested "root" as her username on a computer system).
- no_identd 6y ago[Smirking in Person of Interest reference intensifies]
- alsetmusic 6y agoI can see how this happens, but come on. Write your software to account for these edge cases. Reminds me of people who can’t register for services because of non-western names: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/australasia/man-called-phuc-dat-bich-posts-passport-facebook-prove-his-name-real-a6741586.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/australasia/man-cal... https://qz.com/1249588/how-i-learned-to-live-with-a-name-thats-a-constant-source-of-humiliation/ https://qz.com/1249588/how-i-learned-to-live-with-a-name-tha... And of course, the king: https://xkcd.com/327/ https://xkcd.com/327/
- PurpleFoxy 6y agoI actually can’t see how this happens. I can’t even imagine how you could get strings to actually care what the content is. Inserted unsafely in to sql maybe?
- shakna 6y ago> Inserted unsafely in to sql maybe? Precisely. SQL Injection attacks used to be very, very common. Whilst using parameterized queries today is now hopefully the norm, it was normal at one point to just use string interpolation. And then instead of paramaterizing after you hit your first bug, introducing a function to try and sanitise your strings, but still using interpolation.
- pohl 6y agoWe were young. The world was new. We had a marshaling bug. It’s no great mystery.