Re: Netscape "random" number seed generator code available
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- In article <199509251159.EAA08528@mycroft.rand.org>, jim@acm.org (Jim Gillogly) wrote:
I'm nervous enough about all the Easter Eggs that have been reported in Netscape, like the secret keystroke shortcut to get to Fishcam, or the different behavior it exhibits when it finds a certain obscurely-named directory at the top level.
Would you please elaborate? TIA, - -- - -- Lucky Green <mailto:shamrock@netcom.com> PGP encrypted mail preferred. - --- [This message has been signed by an auto-signing service. A valid signature means only that it has been received at the address corresponding to the signature and forwarded.] -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 Comment: Gratis auto-signing service iQBFAwUBMGdsfSoZzwIn1bdtAQG3ZwGAk5ZFceYsUmo9OgQJ9oVZGcNcXnorr9a2 cLP/xy3vB/COr3uKjfr0mcYY6JMMLxfa =nXHi -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Date: Mon, 25 Sep 1995 22:59:11 -0400 From: Lucky Green <shamrock@netcom.com> Subject: Re: Netscape "random" number seed generator code available In article <199509251159.EAA08528@mycroft.rand.org>, jim@acm.org (Jim Gillogly) wrote: >I'm nervous enough about all the Easter Eggs that have been reported in >Netscape, like the secret keystroke shortcut to get to Fishcam, or the >different behavior it exhibits when it finds a certain obscurely-named >directory at the top level. Would you please elaborate? Personally, I like the Easter Eggs in Netscape and other software products. I don't know if there's an consensus definition of `Easter Egg', but my working definition is something like ``An unpublicized, unharmful, preferably amusing, feature for which interested users may hunt.'' I think that such things add some fun for curious users and indicate a bit of `hacker spirit' in the development team -- meaning `hacker' in the classic sense, not the media-bastardize synonym of `cracker'. I also think that in Netscape their existance is an indication that the managment at Netscape is a bit less uptight than management at some other places. I didn't know about the FishCam Easter Egg, but I know that Netscape has a couple of Easter Eggs related to the activity indicator in the top right of the display. Typically this is the Big N logo with animated meteors, etc. flying by when the window is active. One Easter Egg temporarily turns this into a compass which spins to indicate activity. Another causes the animation to show a dragon (Mozilla) breathing fire for the remainder of the session. I won't spoil your fun by telling how to find them. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBMGgMNJNR+/jb2ZlNAQEnnQP/TAYOTJtoWX8Pn0cXrKNSlpTCFnyWxC+3 U1E5xUxWMXsbEet3ENu35NtR03ZeyZCVr5viKTTmLptwFf/Qac4isTU78G3YOFTe A3dX2KZfshxDtrk+n3Rx+NQtUSA+qRn/r0mPYLlFrsMCIXi/sUVhQKY1BH1eRXUK tghPqDV0exE= =jgb5 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- Rick Busdiecker Please do not send electronic junk mail! net: rfb@lehman.com or rfb@cmu.edu PGP Public Key: 0xDBD9994D www: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs.cmu.edu/user/rfb/http/home.html send mail, subject "send index" for mailbot info, "send pgp key" gets my key
In article <199509251159.EAA08528@mycroft.rand.org>, jim@acm.org (Jim Gillogly) wrote:
I'm nervous enough about all the Easter Eggs that have been reported in Netscape, like the secret keystroke shortcut to get to Fishcam, or the different behavior it exhibits when it finds a certain obscurely-named directory at the top level.
Rick Busdiecker <rfb@lehman.com> writes: Personally, I like the Easter Eggs in Netscape and other software products. I don't know if there's an consensus definition of `Easter Egg', but my working definition is something like ``An unpublicized, unharmful, preferably amusing, feature for which interested users may hunt.'' I think that such things add some fun for curious users and
I enjoy Easter Eggs in general, and I agree that a program with fun stuff like this in it gives one a warm fuzzy feeling about the relaxed management style at the company that produces it. On the other hand, of all kinds of mass market software, network-aware software needs to have the most trust from the users, because it alone has the capability of passing information out of your machine. My preference is always to have source code available for security-critical functions so that I can verify that it's not only doing what I want, but also doing nothing that I don't want. For a program like Netscape it doesn't make sense to supply source code, of course, and the Easter Eggs already provide some evidence that it's doing something that I didn't "buy" (assuming I've bought it, of course).
From there it's a short step to the questions "What else is it doing that I didn't pay for? Reading my PGP key generation environment? Interesting. What else?"
I didn't know about the FishCam Easter Egg, but I know that Netscape
Ctrl-alt-f if you're a PC type, or Ctrl-meta-f if you're on a Sun; I'm calling the diamond to the left of the space bar a "meta". Jim Gillogly Hevensday, 5 Winterfilth S.R. 1995, 16:14
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