[wp-hackers] "The Matrix Has You" easter egg

[Mike Schinkel]

I'm thinking this thread does a good job of illustrating the "Curse of Knowledge":

   http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/30/business/30know.html

(link via Joel Spolsky)

-Mike

On Oct 23, 2010, at 5:29 PM, Ryan Bilesky wrote:

> I wold imagine it is a small group of people who would be confused or even
> scared by it, and those people probably aren't those who host their own
> website, they are the people who would hire a developer to setup their
> website.  Now, this is just an assumption but regardless i find the easter
> egg quite amusing and have trigger it on purpose even, and anything short of
> removing it or having it off by default would have the same affect my
> javascript suggestion would, an effect which I don't believe is much if
> any.  And I don't foresee it going away.
> 
> On Sat, Oct 23, 2010 at 12:48 PM, Alex Hempton-Smith
> <hempsworth at gmail.com>wrote:
> 
>> Many people use control panels with their hosts that give one-click
>> installs. It's also present on wordpress.com.
>> 
>> -- Alex
>> 
>> 
>> On Sat, Oct 23, 2010 at 9:43 PM, Ryan Bilesky <rbilesky at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>>> calling it a "frightening easter egg" is a bit overkill, i mean its just
>>> plain overkill.  The point of the idea is this, if you manage WP installs
>>> for someone, you can add the javascript so they won't ever see it.  IMO
>>> anyone who is able to install and manage WP by there own should have no
>>> problem with that, it would only cause a problem maybe for some horribly
>>> non-technical person, like my parents.  In which case there is probably
>>> someone with some technical ability who runs the site handles upgrades,
>>> ect.
>>> 
>>> Plus the javascript can be added in via a plugin so really if someone
>>> writes
>>> the plugin its a simple as installing a plugin.
>>> 
>>> On Sat, Oct 23, 2010 at 9:43 AM, Chris Williams <chris at clwill.com>
>> wrote:
>>> 
>>>> Thanks to the incredible evangelism of WP a relatively new and
>>>> inexperienced web master sets up a WP blog.  It has the "famous
>> 5-minute
>>>> install".  Couldn't be easier.
>>>> 
>>>> Then as we saw with the OP, he or one of his users stumbles upon a
>> rather
>>>> frightening easter egg, and he/they become alarmed that they've been
>>> hacked.
>>>> WP's reputation as a reliable and easy platform is sullied as they
>> spend
>>>> time searching the internet to find a resolution.  Only to find that it
>>> was
>>>> "a joke", installed as part of the program from the original bona fide
>>>> sources.
>>>> 
>>>> Your solution is to suggest they write javascript to disable this?
>>> Really?
>>>> How was this person to know about this risk in the first place?  How
>>> many
>>>> more potentially scary and alarming easter eggs do you expect them to
>>>> magically know about and prevent?  What level of Computer Science
>>> expertise
>>>> is required to manage a WP install, beyond the "5-minute install"?  And
>>>> isn't your solution like locking the barn door after the horse is gone?
>>>> 
>>>> ________________________________
>>>> From: Ryan Bilesky <rbilesky at gmail.com>
>>>> Subject: Re: [wp-hackers] "The Matrix Has You" easter egg
>>>> 
>>>> If you don't like the easter egg use javascript to prevent both radio
>>>> buttons for any given revision from being selected at the same time.
>>>> Problem solved.
>>>> 
>>>> 
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>>>> 
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