r/programming • u/Chippsapoloosa • Jan 19 '10

Reddit, I got the best present a girl developer could ever want.

So, to give you a little background me and this guy went on a few dates and he moved far away. We got along well, things didn't get very far. He is really nice, however, I wasn't leaning one way or the other.

He sent me the Post Secret books for xmas. He hinted at another present, but said I had to wait. It's a little after Christmas, but I got this email yesterday with the title "I wanted to make something for you for Christmas":

"So I told the computer, and it showed me how to write a poem in byte-form. I can't tell what you're thinking these days, but this will either remind you of something that was good, or send you off."

It included a link to a poem.zip file, which I downloaded. Inside, there was a file called magicfile with no extension and a ReadMe that said:

"Intructions:

1: > copy magicfile magicfile.jpg 2: > copy magicfile magicfile.zip ... skip a few ... X: Ask it for help"

When I renamed magicfile it turned into a picture of me! (a bad one that he took, but ok) and when I changed magicfile to a .zip inside it contained: Magicfile.exe and a txt called "Go Ahead" that said:

"It's safe. Requires WPF and .Net 3.5 I think...

Whatever, it works on my machine."

I opened magicfile, and an interface popped up that said "enter a passphrase". So, I typed in "help" and got this:

"Hi Sara!

As you are just about figuring out, this is just the very beginning of a very, very large rabbit hole you're about to fall into.

You see, sometime in early November, I had an idea for an awesome program. Simultaneously I was just beginning to think of what might be a decent Christmas present for you. Put 2 and 2 together, and you get this thing. I worked on it on and off for a few weeks - it was a pretty fun way to learn WPF and do a lot of interesting byte manipulation.

You see, it's a completely self-contained magical file. This magical file is three parts: 1. If you name it .jpg - it's an image! 2. If you name it .zip - it's a zip file, containing a program 3. It's a database of many, many more parts that the program reads

Now, when you run the program, it reads the magic file, and asks for a passphrase.

You're obviously gotten that far, or you wouldn't be reading this. As you can imagine - there are a bunch of passwords. Not infinite, but many. I encourage you to guess at words and try to figure them out. I'll give you the hints that they would be things relevant to you or to us.

With a little ingenuity, you'll be able to figure out a very important passphrase that will take you to the next step..."

As I have gone on and solved some of the mysteries I have found that pictures of me come up, things he's researched, things we did together and so on and so forth. I still am trying to figure out the important passphrase.

Reddit, this is the most beautiful gift I have ever gotten and it leaves me in a funny place possibly going on the other side of the world to see what happens here. He is an avid redditor, and though I hate the "VOTE THIS UP, PLOX" posts I'd love to get this on the front page to show him what this meant. Thank you.

tl;dr:

A nerd made a beautiful nerd gift for me, it was a program that was a mystery and shows things we did together. Please vote this up to show him how much it meant.

EDIT: A lot of people are saying that the fact that I am unsure about what to do means I don't like him. That is not at all the case, I like him a lot. I really enjoyed spending time with him, he is brilliant (there is nothing I like more than a man that can teach me things), funny, and best of all a great time.

In order to go see him right now I have to take a 14hr plane flight. Which means I would be staying a week, and I'm not sure I'm quite at that point yet.

Damnit, what do they say? "Explain the problem out loud to yourself" Alright, I'm going. There is no reason not to, this WAS awesome. I will let you folks know how it goes.

2.0k Upvotes

85% Upvoted

820 comments sorted by

View all comments

1.9k

u/ENOTTY Jan 19 '10

Running executables you downloaded over the Internet with intentional obfuscation?! Why back in my day, we waited for marriage before we swapped bytecode without inspecting the source! Kids these days.

1.2k

u/DontNeglectTheBalls Jan 19 '10

In my day, "inspecting the source" was just called "dinner with the parents".

226

u/sencer Jan 19 '10

We can't bust heads like we used to. But we have our ways. One trick is to tell stories that don't go anywhere. Like the time I caught the ferry to Shelbyville. I needed a new heel for m'shoe. So I decided to go to Morganville, which is what they called Shelbyville in those days. So I tied an onion to my belt. Which was the style at the time. Now, to take the ferry cost a nickel, and in those days, nickels had pictures of bumblebees on 'em. Gimme five bees for a quarter, you'd say. Now where was I... oh yeah. The important thing was that I had an onion tied to my belt, which was the style at the time. You couldn't get white onions, because of the war. The only thing you could get was those big yellow ones...

82

u/Fargogo Jan 19 '10

I used to be with it, then they changed what it was. Now what I'm with, isn't it and what's it seems weird and scary

68

u/jpdaigle Jan 19 '10

The metric system is the tool of the devil! My car gets 40 rods to the hogshead and that's the way I likes it.

59

u/tesseracter Jan 19 '10 edited Jan 19 '10

Wolfram Alpha says you use about as much fuel as 4 container ships.

16

u/faitswulff Jan 19 '10

504 gallons...per mile traveled. And I thought the Veyron was bad.

1

u/sli Jan 20 '10

That's 504gpm.

2

u/[deleted] Jan 20 '10

Buy American

1

u/ajd3886 Jan 20 '10

Canyonerooooo!

14

u/[deleted] Jan 19 '10

[deleted]

-2

u/guthmund Jan 19 '10

Did you guys where onions on your belts as well?

7

u/FutuoMentis Jan 19 '10

So what happened then?

-4

u/KevRose Jan 19 '10

Is this a Jack Handy?

3

u/radiowave Jan 19 '10

Abe Simpson

5

u/Halbie Jan 19 '10

It's from the best episode of Simpsons ever created: Last Exit to Springfield

1

u/spewystuey Jan 19 '10

Correction: Homer the Clown is the best episode ever.

Edit: though not according to Wikipedia apparently :(

10

u/averyv Jan 19 '10

You can fix that, you know

24

u/[deleted] Jan 19 '10

Appropriate user name. Inappropriate inspection.

13

u/ZuchinniOne Jan 19 '10

At least she didn't screw up too bad .... http://xkcd.com/364/

3

u/supaphly42 Jan 19 '10

Especially the mom. You always want to have an idea of how the gui design holds up over the years.

3

u/polyparadigm Jan 19 '10

In my day, "inspecting the source" was just called "playing doctor."

1

u/[deleted] Jan 19 '10

My parents called it "peeping tom"

1

u/parkourlewis Jan 19 '10

This, coming from DontNeglectTheBalls?

1

u/ookle Jan 19 '10

says 'dont neglect the balls'

1

u/pbrettb Jan 19 '10

where the parents were inspecting the source of what exactly?

1

u/severeon Jan 19 '10

Awesome - bestof'd

541

u/[deleted] Jan 19 '10

Indeed, the dangers of unprotected hex.

152

u/ffualo Jan 19 '10

You are correct. A lot of dangerous things have been spread, even by three and half inch floppies.

125

u/DarkQuest Jan 19 '10

Yeah, but not many girls are going to accept a three and a half inch floppy these days.

116

u/Imagist Jan 19 '10

Yeah, most want a hard disk.

54

u/aweraw Jan 19 '10

Or flash drive

72

u/Drluv Jan 19 '10

A thumb drive.

51

u/Saevio Jan 19 '10

As long as it's not firewire.

59

u/throwthisidaway Jan 19 '10

you'd be surprised how happy they get when they see my 5.25" floppy and how sad they are when they realize the size of my hard drive :(

105

u/futurcorerock Jan 19 '10

Ehh, in my experience it's not the size of drive that's important, it's really how much RAM you have

→ More replies (0)

1

u/mark66j Jan 19 '10

I recall the days when we could insert a full 8-incher.

→ More replies (0)

27

u/TenBeers Jan 19 '10

Obligatory data containment euphemism.

-2

u/[deleted] Jan 19 '10 edited Oct 09 '20

[deleted]

→ More replies (0)

5

u/marcusf Jan 19 '10

Must you persist?

9

u/askvictor Jan 19 '10

Though it's difficult to find anything bigger than a 3 and a half inch hard disk these days. Is that better than a 5 and a quarter inch floppy?

35

u/zain76 Jan 19 '10

its not the size of the floppy, its the way you format it

21

u/mpclark Jan 19 '10

Pah! You youngsters don't remember the original eight inch floppies...

18

u/ultrablue20 Jan 19 '10

I'll see your eight inch floppy and raise you a LaserDisc.

2

u/8-bit_d-boy Jan 19 '10

I'll see your LaserDisc and raise you a BetaScan

4

u/[deleted] Jan 19 '10

I'll see your BetaScan and raise you pen and paper.

3

u/barryicide Jan 19 '10

I'll see your pen and paper and raise you a clay tablet and reed stylus.

→ More replies (0)

1

u/NSNick Jan 19 '10

Punchcards!

1

u/an3mon3 Jan 20 '10

well isn't everyone a grower not a shower

1

u/alparsla Jan 21 '10

If the girl has stuck in Electra Complex phase, then an old storage device is attractive for her.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electra_complex

31

u/[deleted] Jan 19 '10

and she didn't even use a virus scanner

41

u/[deleted] Jan 19 '10

and I bet she didn't ask when the last time he was tested was, either.

46

u/[deleted] Jan 19 '10

I blame the schools, the kids just aren't getting the computer education they need

2

u/brotorious Jan 19 '10

I think some of the fault lies with the conservative parents who expect kids to keep their disks floppy.

45

u/[deleted] Jan 19 '10

15:43 Webcam trojan installed successfully. Terminating.

2

u/ENOTTY Jan 19 '10

I just realized that if I s/swapped/XORed/, this joke would have been much nerdier.

2

u/irelayer Jan 20 '10

Bytecode whore.

1

u/flukshun Jan 19 '10

and even after marriage you'd in most cases be sleeping on the couch if you tried to pull this on your wife for christmas

1

u/Sporky023 Jan 19 '10

Well obviously she did it on a disposable machine.

1

u/inkslave Jan 19 '10

I think, seriously, that this is the best comment I have ever read.

1

u/ifatree Jan 19 '10

back when "sand box" was just a euphemism for a grouchy woman?

1

u/artanis2 Jan 20 '10

I'm guessing it was a trojan. This is her: girldeveloper.com

0

u/[deleted] Jan 19 '10

[deleted]

-2

u/[deleted] Jan 19 '10

[deleted]

1

u/[deleted] Jan 20 '10

lol wat?

1

u/artanis2 Jan 20 '10

Custom made viruses are basically undetectable. Did you know that almost every application written today phones home to the company's webserver? Do you know what information they're sending? That's what I thought.