MIT Hacks XKCD Talk With AACS key

Reader Hanji alerts us to a hack pulled off when Randall Munroe, author of the popular webcomic XKCD, spoke at MIT by invitation of the Lab for Computer Science. MIT hackers dropped hundreds of labelled playpen balls onto the audience from hatches in the ceiling. The labels bore XKCD's logo as well as the recently discovered 16-byte AACS processing key. At another point in Munroe's talk he was stalked by remote-controlled mechanical velociraptors; but fortunately he had been supplied with a squirt gun full of grape juice.

Re:Wow!

[Nasarius]

Learn your history [mit.edu], n00b.

LSC != LCS

[Anonymous Coward]

The xkcd talk was hosted by the MIT Lecture Series Committee, not the MIT Labratory for Computer Science (which was merged with the AI Lab to form CSAIL a few years ago, and thus no longer formally exists).

Re:Wow!

[EvanED]

Actually, there's a reason [xkcd.com] behind the playpen balls (not pens). It's a reference to the strip.

Some notes

[Hanji]

• It was LSC, the Lecture Series Committee, not LCS, the Lab for Computer Science (now known as CSAIL) that invited him. They're a student group that shows movies and sponsors talks like this.
• /. linked to the second page of photos; The first [mit.edu], which isn't entirely obviously linked from the linked page, has some excellent photos of the balls falling from the hatch.

Re:Wow!

[Anonymous Coward]

The grape fruit juice and the raptors come from a blog entry [xkcd.com] about a letter he received.

Re:Wow!

[foobat]

and the velociraptors http://xkcd.com/c87.html [xkcd.com]

LSC

[Anonymous Coward]

SUX!

References

[mu22le]

The playpen balls [mit.edu] were a reference to one of xkcd's more popular comics, Grownups [xkcd.com]. The message on the playpen balls was a reference to some of xkcd's comics "My hobby...".

Re:A hack?

[Anonymous Coward]

In fact, most etymologies of the modern usage of the term hack go back to this use in the 1960s at MIT.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hack_(technology) [wikipedia.org]

Re:Wow!

[MtHuurne]

They chose velociraptors [xkcd.com] for a reason [xkcd.com].

Re:LSC

[Anonymous Coward]

in stereo!

Re:Not to be contrarian, but

[k3vlar]

The term 'hack' has long been applied to various pranks on the MIT campus. Please read this article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_hack [wikipedia.org]

Velociraptors

[Kuvter]

For those who may have missed the Velociraptor [xkcd.com] joke, another one here [xkcd.com], and one more for good measure [xkcd.com].

I love xkcd!

Re:LSC

[Anonymous Coward]

Awwww. I miss that. LSC suxxxx! :)

Re:Not to be contrarian, but

[Simon Garlick]

Playpen balls are an xkcd in-joke.

http://xkcd.com/c150.html [xkcd.com]

Humor + Encryption == XKCD!

[Anonymous Coward]

int getRandomNumber() {
  /* P.S. Schneier approves! */
  return 4;  // Chosen by fair dice roll, guaranteed to be random.
}

Re:Wow!

[dysfunct]

Nice ideas, but IMHO this would be blown way out of proportion and not necessarily the right kind of thing for this occasion. xkcd can have quite complex humor but is also quite pragmatic and simple.

Also, if you don't already know, being afraid of and protecting yourself from velociraptor attacks and playpen balls as sexual innuendo are a common meme at xkcd and on its forum. Simple things like releasing playpen balls and stalking Randall Munroe with velociraptors seem to be the perfect hack considering the general spirit of the comic. In the end, the sophistication doesn't matter if it completely misses the joke and just doesn't feel right for the occasion. There's a right time and place to show off your tech skills, but this one just wasn't.

XKCD: Hover over the comics

[gsn]

The comics have the Title attribute defined. For example http://xkcd.com/c253.html [xkcd.com]. I read them all and noticed this a week later and then had to go back and read them all again.

I love xkcd.

Get the Long Titles extension.

[Anonymous Coward]

Firefox doesn't show the whole titles (i.e. hovertext) without the Long Titles extension. Get it. Enjoy it. :D

Don't miss..

[Ahnteis]

Don't miss the alt text.

Re:Americans demand tougher sentencing for hackers

[compro01]

What was the name of that Internet "law" (more like an observation) that once you reach a point far enough to the political right, your viewpoint becomes indistinguishable from satire?

i believe you're refering to Poe's law:

"Without the use of a winking smiley or other blatant display of humor, it is impossible to make a parody of fundamentalism that someone won't mistake for the real thing."

Heh

[glwtta]

So, like 27 people link to the playpen balls comic, but no one mentions that someone actually baked him a cake shaped like the internet [mit.edu] - a deliciously(!) multi-layered reference to XKCD?