Programmer Arrested For Logic Bombing 'Whac-A-Mole'

McGruber writes "WFTV.com has the curious story of programmer Marvin Wimberly, who was arrested for having installed a logic bomb on Whac-A-Mole arcade games made by Bob's Space Racers in Holly Hill, Florida."

Why programmers will never rule the world....

[Auroch]

Mostly because any good software engineer could put a hard-to-find bug in the code. Thank goodness it takes a good social engineer to make money off it - and the two skills don't often overlap in real life (as much as software engineers seem to think they do).

The other reason programmers will never rule the world - eventually the whack-a-person machines will require Marvin to come fix them.

He should be working as a government contractor

[517714]

At least when you defraud the government you don't have to worry about being prosecuted: http://news.slashdot.org/story/11/02/20/0228236/Feds-Pay-Millions-For-Bogus-Spy-Software [slashdot.org]

Re:Why programmers will never rule the world....

[pieterh]

419 scams depend on finding someone greedy; one original form was to find a house who's owner had left on holiday, bribe the watchman for the keys, and then sell it to another person on the basis of "OK, we've had a few good parties here, you know I'm a great guy, but suddenly I have to leave the country and need $10,000 real quick", at which the mark realizes this is a great opportunity (the house is easily worth ten times that), and offers to buy it.

Houses in Lagos, Nigeria (when I worked there) sometimes had "419! Not for Sale!" painted on their walls, when their owners were away.

However, social engineering depends on decent peoples' trust; head hunted calling the receptionist and asking, "who's your best Java developer?", or emailing the tech support from a hacked account so you look like the boss, and asking, "hey, give me ssh access and a new password, ok?"

What this guy did was more like simple robbery, getting money by force.

Re:Planned Obsolescence

[number11]

Perhaps some forward-thinking bloke, back in the day 40 years ago, installed a 130V lamp instead of a 120V, which is a common "trick" for

...decreasing the lifetime of the lamp. Undervolting harms the lifespan AND puts out less light. You never want to undervolt your light source.

Don't be silly. A 130-volt bulb has a higher resistance (for the same wattage rating) than a 120-volt bulb therefore at 120 volts pulls less current. It puts out less light, and runs at a lower temperature. And lasts longer. That's what most 'long life' bulbs are. The effect on lifetime is governed by the 12th power of the ratio of voltages, i.e. a 1500hr 130-volt bulb would last almost twice as long at 120 volts (1500e(130/120)).