Pointless & impractical vehicles
- Thread starter PeteXXX
- Start date
Page may contain affiliate links. Please see terms for details.
Seevio
Guru
- Location
- South Glos
That's just nuts!
I'm really sorry. I hate puns with a passion but it was just asking for it.
Profpointy
Legendary Member
I heard a story from a (non-expert) computer security course. As a bit of fun / warm-up exercise they did some lock-picking. The trainer/consultant recounted them having an initial meeting, sales pitch even, with the client where they were shown into a meeting room whilst everyone was gathered up. There was a locked cabinet in the corner so one of the guys picked the very basic lock and found it contained a router. They plugged a laptop into it and snooped all the passwords off the line. When the client's team came in they said "we've done a quick sweep and here is a load of login ids and passwords". They client was impressed and horrified and "htf did you do that sat in a meeting room?". They got the gig!
This was in pre-wifi days so you'd need to plug in to the physical ethernet, but also UNIX passwords, at least for ftp were back then sent in clear text over the LAN. The proper modern way of doing it it avoids this. You don't even store the passwords in a readable form but in a one-way encrypted form which can't be decrypted; instead you encrypt your password-attempt and see if that matches the stored encrypted version.
Dogtrousers
Kilometre nibbler
Not so long ago (only a few years - maybe ten years) I forgot my password for, er, a nationwide cycling organisation. I did the usual password reset rigmarole and they sent me an email with my password in it! So it was stored in clear text and sent out over email in clear. I wasn't terribly impressed. I'm sure they've fixed things since.
Edit: Just been through my emails, and it was 10 years ago. It doesn't look quite as bad as I remembered. What they sent me was not the password that I had set, but a temporary regenerated password. However they didn't force me to reset it when I logged in, and it didn't have a limited lifetime - because I got several emails with an identical password over a period of months. So apologies to the un-named nationwide organisation. You weren't quite as bad as I thought 10 years ago.
Edit: Just been through my emails, and it was 10 years ago. It doesn't look quite as bad as I remembered. What they sent me was not the password that I had set, but a temporary regenerated password. However they didn't force me to reset it when I logged in, and it didn't have a limited lifetime - because I got several emails with an identical password over a period of months. So apologies to the un-named nationwide organisation. You weren't quite as bad as I thought 10 years ago.
Last edited:
ebikeerwidnes
Guru
- Location
- Z’ha’dum
On teh subject of padlocks
when I started teaching I was an IT teacher - I was given 2 wheeled cabinets containing 25 laptops
The cabinets had padlocks on them so they could be locked up over lunch and after school
as soon as we saw them the Head of IT and me both commented "what idiot decided a combination padlock was a good idea with kids around"
On top of which the "IT Support" (which was rubbish - we looked after ourselves!) insisted on keeping the special ket needed to change the combination so we couldn;t even change it every few weeks!
Well - I had one class of 15/16 year old for a lot of lessons every week - you can probably see where this is going
now - I wasn;t stupid - the padlocks were stored on the hasp - but locked and with the combination rings spun round to a random point
anyway - after quite a few weeks I noticed something weird about one of the padlocks
after the kids had left I looked and realised the padlock had been opened but left looking closed but actually opened so I would notice it when I came to use it myself - but not obvious to anyone else
Personally I thought that was well done - so when I had them next I said so
One kid admitted that every time I turned my back he had another go at the padlock - started at 0000 and just worked his way up
took him WEEKS to crack it and he needed to make sure the piece of paper he kept showing how far he had got was kept safe
Pretty impressive
We asked the IT Support to come and change the number but they refused - which was weird
anyway - a few weeks later I had to go on a course for a day
when I came back this lad was dying to tell be something - and he was obviously not happy about it
turns out that the school had brought in a supply teacher - as usual - so the Head of Department had told her the combination
but she didn;t want to write ti down in case the kids found it so she memorised it
and was heard walking around the room during the lesson muttering the number
so all that work by this lad was wasted - he heard her muttering the number he had spent weeks cracking!!!
we did have an interesting discussion about secuity and stuff with the class
anyway - what was the topic???
when I started teaching I was an IT teacher - I was given 2 wheeled cabinets containing 25 laptops
The cabinets had padlocks on them so they could be locked up over lunch and after school
as soon as we saw them the Head of IT and me both commented "what idiot decided a combination padlock was a good idea with kids around"
On top of which the "IT Support" (which was rubbish - we looked after ourselves!) insisted on keeping the special ket needed to change the combination so we couldn;t even change it every few weeks!
Well - I had one class of 15/16 year old for a lot of lessons every week - you can probably see where this is going
now - I wasn;t stupid - the padlocks were stored on the hasp - but locked and with the combination rings spun round to a random point
anyway - after quite a few weeks I noticed something weird about one of the padlocks
after the kids had left I looked and realised the padlock had been opened but left looking closed but actually opened so I would notice it when I came to use it myself - but not obvious to anyone else
Personally I thought that was well done - so when I had them next I said so
One kid admitted that every time I turned my back he had another go at the padlock - started at 0000 and just worked his way up
took him WEEKS to crack it and he needed to make sure the piece of paper he kept showing how far he had got was kept safe
Pretty impressive
We asked the IT Support to come and change the number but they refused - which was weird
anyway - a few weeks later I had to go on a course for a day
when I came back this lad was dying to tell be something - and he was obviously not happy about it
turns out that the school had brought in a supply teacher - as usual - so the Head of Department had told her the combination
but she didn;t want to write ti down in case the kids found it so she memorised it
and was heard walking around the room during the lesson muttering the number
so all that work by this lad was wasted - he heard her muttering the number he had spent weeks cracking!!!
we did have an interesting discussion about secuity and stuff with the class
anyway - what was the topic???
ebikeerwidnes
Guru
- Location
- Z’ha’dum
Well - if you are going to make a totally over the top and stupid car then you may as well go all the way and do a good job
I mean - it looks well done and well made
well designed might be a matter of opinion!!!
Joey Shabadoo
My pronouns are "He", "Him" and "buggerlugs"
Want!
ebikeerwidnes
Guru
- Location
- Z’ha’dum
I gave this a "cool" emoji - we need a "super cool" one for this though
Dogtrousers
Kilometre nibbler
The Fiat Clench
Drago
Legendary Member
- Location
- Suburban Poshshire
Those are conversion kits sold in Germany, which also includes a detuned to 20BHP. The driving age is 18 there but these jobs qualify as a class of vehicle that dan be driven by 16 year olds.
Andy in Germany
Guru
- Location
- Rottenburg am Neckar
What you are describing is a "Mofa"; they can indeed be driven from 16 and are limited to a fairly low speed, but they have different styled numberplates.
However, the car in the picture has a normal car plate, from Oberallgäu by the looks of it.
Last edited:
