4 ms·

> to make sure random base64 didn't contain profanity I would have said "why bother" until this happened to us. A customer rang us up in a fury because some d

by beachy 5y ago

> to make sure random base64 didn't contain profanity I would have said "why bother" until this happened to us. A customer rang us up in a fury because some demo/ random data that we generated happened to have the word "penis" in it. They were convinced we must have put it there because we thought he was a cock. It was very difficult to defuse the situation.

unknownOrigin 5y ago
> I would have said "why bother" until this happened to us. Aah, the good ole "one customer is unhappy, let's waste a week of time on this" approach to IT management. Takes guts to tell such customers "here's your refund, now piss off", but it is the right thing to do.
- solarkraft 5y ago
  Not just that, also “let’s all stop having fun”. (Not about this case, but
shpx 5y ago
Recently on HN someone thought that reddit.com/imgur directing to a post on /r/Drugs meant something when it's just a randomly generated ID. All 5 letter word that I tried worked because there's been so many posts. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28676096 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28676096
resonious 5y ago
I just recently saw a randomly generated ID of ours in production that starts with "doggy". Thankfully "doggy" is pretty innocent, but it really made me think "wow what if it was something bad". Unfortunate that that exact scenario seems to have happened to you already.
eps 5y ago
I have a bus ticket from Stockholm with the serial of F4CK. Totally made my day back then to be honest.
- rowanG077 5y ago
  No you see. The bus company put it there to tell you to F4Ck off.
  - nusaru 5y ago
    Please note: HN is not Reddit.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
- gambiting 5y ago
  A guy at my school(in Poland) got in serious trouble because of his hoodie with the huge FCUK logo on it. It took actually showing the principal that this is a legit company[0] and not just a play on "FUCK". [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Connection_(clothing) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Connection_(clothing)
  - bellyfullofbac 5y ago
    I mean, it was still a play on the word, just being done by a legit company. Not that legit means mature. I was doing a student event when I saw someone wear "K1SS MY 4RSE". I told him "What an obnoxious hoodie.". He meekly said "I thought it said 'Kiss my force'.". I later saw him in a corner praying. I should've asked him what Allah would've thought about him talking to him wearing that hoodie.
boyter 5y ago
Reminds me of this great story https://thedailywtf.com/articles/The-Automated-Curse-Generator https://thedailywtf.com/articles/The-Automated-Curse-Generat...
foldr 5y ago
We had a similar situation with a random name generator that just picked first names and last names at random. One result of this was 'Gaylord Dickinson', which sounds like it could only possibly have been made up as a homophobic joke, but which was just the random combination of two quite common first and last names.
randac 5y ago
I got a CAPTCHA variant not long ago that was along the lines of "U2KYS". Pretty toxic!
- CRConrad 5y ago
  "You too kiss" is "toxic"? How? Or am I missing something?
dmd 5y ago
I was pretty happy when my randomly generated imgur URL of a photo of a telephone cake I made ended up being xxTEL. https://imgur.com/gallery/xXtEL https://imgur.com/gallery/xXtEL

by beachy 5y ago

unknownOrigin 5y ago

> I would have said "why bother" until this happened to us. Aah, the good ole "one customer is unhappy, let's waste a week of time on this" approach to IT management. Takes guts to tell such customers "here's your refund, now piss off", but it is the right thing to do.

solarkraft 5y ago
Not just that, also “let’s all stop having fun”. (Not about this case, but

shpx 5y ago

Recently on HN someone thought that reddit.com/imgur directing to a post on /r/Drugs meant something when it's just a randomly generated ID. All 5 letter word that I tried worked because there's been so many posts. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28676096 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28676096

resonious 5y ago

I just recently saw a randomly generated ID of ours in production that starts with "doggy". Thankfully "doggy" is pretty innocent, but it really made me think "wow what if it was something bad". Unfortunate that that exact scenario seems to have happened to you already.

eps 5y ago

I have a bus ticket from Stockholm with the serial of F4CK. Totally made my day back then to be honest.

rowanG077 5y ago
No you see. The bus company put it there to tell you to F4Ck off.
- nusaru 5y ago
  Please note: HN is not Reddit.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
gambiting 5y ago
A guy at my school(in Poland) got in serious trouble because of his hoodie with the huge FCUK logo on it. It took actually showing the principal that this is a legit company[0] and not just a play on "FUCK". [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Connection_(clothing) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Connection_(clothing)
- bellyfullofbac 5y ago
  I mean, it was still a play on the word, just being done by a legit company. Not that legit means mature. I was doing a student event when I saw someone wear "K1SS MY 4RSE". I told him "What an obnoxious hoodie.". He meekly said "I thought it said 'Kiss my force'.". I later saw him in a corner praying. I should've asked him what Allah would've thought about him talking to him wearing that hoodie.

boyter 5y ago

Reminds me of this great story https://thedailywtf.com/articles/The-Automated-Curse-Generator https://thedailywtf.com/articles/The-Automated-Curse-Generat...

foldr 5y ago

We had a similar situation with a random name generator that just picked first names and last names at random. One result of this was 'Gaylord Dickinson', which sounds like it could only possibly have been made up as a homophobic joke, but which was just the random combination of two quite common first and last names.

randac 5y ago

I got a CAPTCHA variant not long ago that was along the lines of "U2KYS". Pretty toxic!

CRConrad 5y ago
"You too kiss" is "toxic"? How? Or am I missing something?

dmd 5y ago

I was pretty happy when my randomly generated imgur URL of a photo of a telephone cake I made ended up being xxTEL. https://imgur.com/gallery/xXtEL https://imgur.com/gallery/xXtEL