Two Slashes

Yesterday, during a math class, I was treated to the particularly laughable claims made by a fellow student in the class.  No, these weren’t claims of his potent masculinity or demonstrations of his intelligence.  This kid claimed that he was the mastermind behind Storm (I wonder what Fox News broadcast he’s been watching recently) and that he knows a super-secret backdoor into any Windows XP computer called the “administrator account.”  Pardon me for laughing.

It’s people like this that often make me wonder whether some mandatory licensing/certification scheme for computing is necessary, not only to prove you have skills, but to prove you can contribute to society by using the device in an appropriate way.

Among other things, the requirements could include:

• A decent grasp of a human language. None of this “im in ur dataz lolz” crap – just plain English, Spanish, Yiddish…you get the idea.
• Aptitude in interacting with others. This probably goes along with the language requirement I just mentioned above, but there should be a reasonable level of intelligence in dealing with other people.  (Regular participation in an IRC channel might be a great way to fulfill this.)
• A reasonable level of knowledge in various day-to-day applications including a word processor, spreadsheet application, and perhaps an image editor.
• An avoidance of nuisance fonts like Comic Sans. Enough said.
• An extensive vocabulary of computing terms. This also includes knowing when and what term to use.  (That monitor on your desk is not the entire computer, you know.)

I can think of other things, but I don’t want to limit the number of people who can get a license to my small circles of friends.  That just wouldn’t be fair.  (I would love to know what suggestions you have for the list, though.)

While the kid might think he looks intelligent to the rest of the people in the class, I have not yet revealed to him that I’m a computer science major.  (I’m waiting for the opportune moment to reveal that information.  Until then, I’ll have to settle with mentally calling him an idiot over and over in my head.)  Of course, doing so might make him realize just how outlandish he appears.

I’m in support of the free access to information when the information makes a worthwhile contribution to society, but I don’t consider free stupidity to be worth anything more than a chuckle or two (or a guffaw, depending upon the act in question).

So, when can we build those licensing centers?

I’ve been sent this link (or to other places that ultimately end up there) by at least five different people today, so I figure it’s worth the time it takes for me to publicly discuss rant about. (In case you don’t want to click the link above, the basic story is that some woman has decided that she can worm her way out of accepting license agreements by convincing bribing her cat to accept on her behalf.)

Aside from the usual complaints about whether allowing a feline to even enter into a binding contract is admissible in a court, I have a few concerns of my own about whether the idea is sheer brilliance or just another demonstration of stupidity.  (I’m leaning towards the latter, personally.)

Success!! He presses the button of his own free will. Admittedly, he was coerced and rewarded, but really, nobody forced my cat to step on the button and become party to a software license agreement. At the very least, we know he was not under duress.

[...]

This same strategy could be used with small dogs, children (preferably the neighbors’), or even a carefully crafted button presser that moves up and down as the wind sways a tree outside your window. Mother nature is responsible for the license agreement! I swear!

My first complaint revolves around whether the concept is nothing more than a glorified, furry Rube Goldberg machine.  When you think about it, the entire point of this elaborate setup is to accept a license agreement, though the woman who came up with the idea seems to think that she’s clever by allowing her cat to be the one to actually push the button.  I could accomplish the same thing with dominoes, quarters, or even a bowling ball, but are the dominoes going to own up to what they’ve done if and when they’re called into the courtroom?  Is the cat? In either case, the object hitting “Accept” is just an instrument, and probably would be bypassed straight for the next intelligent life form on the ladder (namely, the cat’s owner).

I’m also curious as to what the cat’s reaction might be if it could understand that it was “accepting” a legally-binding(?) document on behalf of its owner.  Something tells me it wouldn’t be hugs and kisses.  A hairball probably isn’t out of the question, though.

On the other hand, perhaps this is a statement that EULAs are way too long for their own good, which is why the majority of people don’t even bother to read them anymore.  Perhaps a few lawyers should quit making sure they get paid by the word and write up something the common man can read.  But while the length of a license agreement might explain that woman’s desire to avoid any legal ramifications (through hidden meanings, loopholes, or otherwise), she could do so just as easily by using the product in an appropriate manner.  Nobody’s going to care if you’re using Acrobat Reader (to use the example from the article) to read PDFs.  You might have bigger fish to fry if you were planning on reverse-engineering the application, though.

The good guys over at Slashdot picked up on the story too (come to think of it, that might be one of the places I ended up reading about the cat from), and the comments are mostly in agreement that the woman who wrote the original article up needs to have some common sense beaten into her.  (Of course, they also came up with their own license agreements, but that’s beside the point.)

If, after all of this, you’re still looking for something worth staring at, you can go pick up one of these.  I hope Woot doesn’t start selling them, though, because I have no desire to see one in my next Bag of Crap.

And for what it’s worth, I’m not a lawyer, though I might sound like one.  I wish I could easily make tons of cash simply by needlessly inflating sentences when I’m getting paid per word, but, alas, computer scientists don’t often get opportunities like that.