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Reminds me of when a security researcher discovered that, in addition to some serious security flaws, certain Siemens PLCs had monkeys hidden in their firmware:
by _zzaw 4y ago
Reminds me of when a security researcher discovered that, in addition to some serious security flaws, certain Siemens PLCs had monkeys hidden in their firmware: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2011/08/serious-security-holes-found-in-siemens-control-systems-targeted-by-stuxnet/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2011/08/serio...
According to the researcher who found it, "they didn’t think it was very funny.”
I love easter eggs myself—classic Apple software in particular had a lot of these, and I really miss finding them—but they're admittedly a risk. I remember one obscure Easter egg in Mac OS 7.6 that occasionally caused crashes at boot time after displaying a bizarre message about how "bluets and granola bars / make a chewy snack". Cute, but probably not something Apple wants to be getting customer support requests about.
As far as the topic at hand, I don't believe these weird noises are an Easter egg, either. I'd guess it's a recording patched in somehow by someone who works for the airline.
- exmadscientist 4y ago> risk And that's what it boils down to, isn't it? Personally I draw the line somewhere around "software that's controlling something". If software can directly screw up or cause damage in the Real World™, that's a good reason it shouldn't have easter eggs in it. If the trouble has to indirect through one or more meatbags who know better before becoming reified, well, the harm caused by any easter eggs is probably much less than the harm caused by reported bugs already closed WONTFIX with a laugh. (Note: PAX do not in fact know better, ever, as any airline employee can and will tell you.)
- jtvjan 4y agoI looked up the story behind the "Bluets and Granola Bars" easter egg. Apparently, the System Error Handler, part of the boot ROM, used to display a popup that said "Welcome to Macintosh" at startup, before the operating system loaded. However, in System 7.6, this was replaced by a new splash screen with the Mac OS logo, and the old "Welcome to Macintosh" message in the system resource file was replaced with the Granola message (probably under the assumption that it would never be shown). However, if the operating system fails to suppress the boot ROM's popup for whatever reason, the Granola message shows through.