Long Term Effects of Gizmodo CES Prank 426
theodp noted that someone from Gizmodo brought a TV-B-Gone to CES and used it to turn off a wall of monitors during demos. Funny yes, it earned him a ban for life and may have repercussions to other bloggers struggling to be treated as equals with traditional journalists in the future. But also this might lead to a future with encryption on remotes.
Encryption on remotes? (Score:5, Insightful)
Electrical tape (Score:4, Insightful)
Encryption's going a little too far (Score:5, Insightful)
I wish they would stop calling these things "gates", and worry about the future of bloggers. Yes, the CES created two classes: "press" and "blogger", and yes, members of that underclass acted in a juvenile manner, bad enough to cause a stink that will appear in the "press". It will appear in the "press" tomorrow. See, yesterday it was all over the blogs, and now it's hit the aggregators. Sooner or later those with press credentials will catch on to the story.
Well if the blogger's aren't willing to act... (Score:5, Insightful)
In the article it stated they weren't being taken as seriously as the Press; and when someone decides it'd be cute to do some practical joking, at the expense of others, it just reaffirms the assumptions they aren't to be taken seriously.
Seems like a pretty immature prank (Score:5, Insightful)
The guy should be banned for life. At least with IR remotes you can stick a bit of tape over the receive to stop it. I imagine that wireless technologies could be extremely vulnerable to similar pranks (and sabotage). Imagine the trouble someone could cause just by blocking signals, or sending spurious malformed messages designed to kill a device.
A desperate attempt at relevance (Score:3, Insightful)
Funny, no; childish, yes.
It's a shame spanking is no longer deemed appropriate.
Re:Well if the blogger's aren't willing to act... (Score:5, Insightful)
For a short-term chuckle, they've managed to damage the long-term credibility of bloggers who were actually trying to earn proper press credentials. The trade show guys all know each other; the news will get around. The event organizers have a choice:
. (a) inconvenience the paying customer by recommending that they cover their IR ports on displays
. (b) inconvenience the non-revenue-generating bloggers by showing them the door
The smart ones will do both, though they'll play the good-guy with their customers and issue an article in a newsletter that provides helpful tips to "Make your booth time a better experience!" Bloggers will be downgraded to the status of the great unwashed masses
Re:Well if the blogger's aren't willing to act... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Encrypted remotes? (Score:2, Insightful)
There really isn't any excuse though for this kind of behaviour. It is flat out wrong to be interfering with the show. No "security researcher" cred for this; it is just mean.
I love my Spy Remote (Score:1, Insightful)
I have no problem turning off a non-watched CNN at lunch, but I wouldn't turn off a football game at a sports bar. That would be rude. But I don't understand the need to be constantly distracted by TVs. To quote Bill Cosby, "Parents don't want justice, they just want silence."
Re:Well if the blogger's aren't willing to act... (Score:5, Insightful)
What does being a blogger have to do with playing a prank? Anyone on the floor can play a prank. Having a press credential doesn't make an iota of difference. Kicking out bloggers won't reduce the risk of interference any more than kicking out the white males or the booth babes would.
Not funny... (Score:5, Insightful)
A ethical line is crossed when a blogger creates the news instead of reporting it.
Vandalism. (Score:5, Insightful)
This kind of stuff is what you do only *ïf* you are prepared to face the consequences, and even though maybe turning off TVs would not have a lot of effect at the doctor's office or at some random public area, in this kind of technology shows it really affects the people.
Re:Well if the blogger's aren't willing to act... (Score:4, Insightful)
In some cases they will act professional and not resort to juvenile tactics, in others they will resort to exactly that. (not including Yellow Papers in this, naturally.)
Really it boils down to if you want to be treated professionally, act professionally, more so when your already being scrutinized.
I hate TV-B-gone (Score:5, Insightful)
The device is designed to turn off other people's TVs. If you don't like TV, or televised sports, avoid those places that have them on. Be a discerning consumer and create a market for places that will provide and pleasant atmosphere for you. Don't be a petulant child and turn the TVs off. I don't come into your place and turn your computer, or stereo off, or slam shut the book you are reading. If I did you'd take great offense, and would feel violated. Well the world is not all about you. Get over it. Don't do things whose analog you wouldn't like done to yourself.
This might have been a rant. It might be a troll. But I really would love to hear a justification of this device that does not amount to a fascist imposition of one person's will upon others. And these things do not have enough buttons to really validate the rudimentary universal remote argument, and they are targeted at individuals not institutions, so I won't buy that some institutions with large numbers of TVs might find it useful for start/end of day stuff.
Re:Seems like a pretty immature prank (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:right... (Score:3, Insightful)
I really find your post offensive in the sense that it adds nothing to the discussion and seems to be refuting something that was not said. What was the point of your post, really?
No one fucking said trade shows never go under. What the fuck?
Re:Well if the blogger's aren't willing to act... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Encrypted remotes? (Score:2, Insightful)
Vandalism is a crime, but the presenters are to blame? Yeah, this was clearly entrapment. Who could resist the lure of shutting off TVs with exposed IR ports?
Where are we at as a society that we blame people for being victims, when they haven't done anything to provoke an attack?
Just watched Gizmodo's 'hilarious' prank... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I hate TV-B-gone (Score:3, Insightful)
This is not normally associated with fascism. [wikipedia.org]
I would have thought this would be obvious. Are you one of those people who finds humor sinful? If your company can't handle having itself be the butt of a joke, then it can't handle business with my company. On the other hand, if it can, then we can probably work around whatever other communications problems exist.
Humor is, IMHO, the single most important facility in interpersonal relations.
Its what lets unlike people work together without fighting. Laugh it off, and the problem doesn't seem so difficult to overcome, or so personal.
Dead Gizmodo - don't expect a Macworld invite (Score:5, Insightful)
If I were a marketing staffer or PR guy I wouldn't want them anywhere near a press conference. People can lose their jobs over press demos not working, so they aren't going to take the chance of inviting four year olds in the future.
A complete over reaction (Score:1, Insightful)
He.Turned.Off.Televisions. This is now a heinous crime? It's vandalism? It deserves flogging and imprisonment?
Yes he disrupted a couple of demonstrations, how many times had the presenter been through his script? For how many days? What exactly was lost by this disruption? How will the consumer electronics industry survive this loss?
Yes he went beyond the news and created the news. This is a time honored tradition and I'm sure Hunter S. Thompson would approve, particularly in light of what CES truly is. To quote Gizmodo "a disgusting, bloated beast oozing everything that makes this industry horrible. Nay, everything that makes our culture horrible"
I congratulate the inventors of the TV Be-Gone device for coming up with a wonderful gizmo and then Gizmodo for using it to demonstrate how pathetic our society has become.
Gizmodo's assessment of the CES show is particularly interesting: http://gizmodo.com/342495/ten-reasons-were-doomed-ces-edition [gizmodo.com]
Re:Well if the blogger's aren't willing to act... (Score:3, Insightful)
Bloggers will be downgraded to the status of the great unwashed masses.
Oh please. Downgraded? I thought the neat thing about blogging was that it was done by people like me... a member of the unwashed masses!
prank (Score:4, Insightful)
If you leave something THAT open to pranking at a public or semi-public event, it's going to happen. That's like leaving LAN jacks open all over the place at the conference and having an unsecured credit card processing machine on the same network. You deserve what you get for that level of carelessness.
On a completely different take, this is not possible with every remote. For example, all Apple remotes have the ability to "pair" with a computer, to prevent a computer from responding to any remote besides its own This is not rocket science, and it's not new. Pairing of remotes to equipment has been going on for years and won't cost them a nickel more to add to the chip. It involves each remote having and transmitting its serial number along with the command, and the computer can simply be told to only listen to commands from one (or a small group of) serial numbers. The only thing they will have to deal with is the occasional tech call from a customer that's managed to pair a different remote to their unit.
I for one would like to see this happen several more times until the manufactures get their heads out of the sand. This is unfortunately what it takes to motivate them. They won't lift a finger until it starts to cost them.
Additionally, it's sometimes hard to find where on a set the IR receiver is at. On the Apple's it's behind the big apple on the front of the unit or the black dot near the latch on the laptops. On some sets, where they have a large black border, it can be hard to locate. Also, the prankster should have been very easy to spot for anyone educated in such things. Most digital cameras are VERY senstitive to IR light, and to anyone with a digital camera looking at the LCD preview screen, or to anyone with a web cam pointed into the audience, that remote would go off like a strobe. It should have taken them less than 20 seconds to find this joker.
Re:I love my Spy Remote (Score:5, Insightful)
You, sir, are a douchebag. Same goes for your coworker and manager.
Try to comprehend this: IT'S NOT YOUR FUCKING TV.
Instead of being polite and asking the proprietor, "Excuse me, would it be possible to turn the TV off?", you impose your will on them and anybody else that comes into that establishment.
Do I like TVs in these places? Usually not. If there is no one around, I'll ask the owner or staff member to turn it off or to let me do it. NEVER has such a request been refused. If I was refused for what appears to be no good reason, I'll remember that for next time and not give them my money.
Re:The difference between a blogger and a journali (Score:5, Insightful)
If he can write good code, it doesn't matter if he has a degree or a diploma or nothing. You will find very few people here on slashdot who disagree with that. So I don't see why a McDonald's burger flipper blogging on politics cannot have better commentary than a graduate of Harvard Journalism. Journalists have to earn the public's respect, something they have been failing at the last 20 years. I get a sense that journalists have some warped sense of entitlement towards their degree and profession.
Re:Tv-B-Gone: Guranteed for next year CES (Score:5, Insightful)
Alas (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:A complete over reaction (Score:2, Insightful)
Just in case you believe it, I suggest you try standing up in front of a crowd of people and try to present something while some coward in the audience anonymously fucks with you, doing their best to embarrass and humiliate you with no better reason than they thought it might be amusing. Vendors spend a lot of money to be at those shows and have the opportunity to present. Gizmodo should compensate Motorola for their costs to present, which is probably in the neighborhood of $200k or more when you include everything. See how funny they think it is then. Assholes.
It's not an overreaction. Credentialed members of the press would face the same criticism, would likely lose their jobs, and are probably unlikely to pull such an amateurish stunt in the first place. If bloggers want to be recognized as "real" press, they have to act like it.
Remember when freedom of the press and not revealing confidential sources was tested in court for a blogger? If I remember right, it was versus Apple. Do you think this helps, or hurts the next guy?
Just block IR ports (Score:3, Insightful)
You could also use non transparent IR blasters to control and block unwanted nerd attacks out.
Re:A complete over reaction (Score:5, Insightful)
Ever presented anything to an important client? Now as you are doing your presentation and right in the middle of it, take out your visual portion of it. Now pretend that the visual portion of it is what you are selling.
Not exactly so small.
Re:right... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Encryption on remotes? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Vandalism. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Or fixed in hardware.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I hate TV-B-gone (Score:3, Insightful)
Its what lets unlike people work together without fighting
But the TV-B-Gone isn't used on people you have any sort of relationship with- if you did, you could ask them to turn the TV down or off and they will usually oblige. All it's ever used for is anonymous passive-aggressive pranks and asserting that what you want the TV to do is more important than what everyone else in the immediate area wants, which usually includes the TV's rightful owner and a number of people in the middle of watching it.
Re:Well if the blogger's aren't willing to act... (Score:4, Insightful)
Not a politician, but I have worked my share of trade show booths. You pay a pretty penny to put your wares on display at a trade show, and as the customer of the trade show, you have expectations as to how the event organizers run the event. If someone pranked my display, I have every expectation that the event organizer will eject said prankster. I didn't include the "do nothing" option because it really isn't an option for the event organizer.
Whoa, clearly you haven't been to a trade show on a press pass. There are tons of perks for the press - give aways, press-only days, non-public demos in the hospitality suite
There are a bunch of bloggers who are trying to establish that blogging is as valid a "press" medium as the traditional outlets. If they're successful in establishing that expectation, they and their peers move up in the food chain. The pranks executed by this handful of bloggers will reflect poorly on the perception of all bloggers. Members of the press are expected to behave in a certain manner - they're supposed to present an unbiased report of events. An individual who is effectively vandalizing a trade show booth can hardly be considered "unbiased." Similarly, if the local NBC affiliate was caught pranking a trade show booth, I'd expect the event organizer to black-list them permanently.
Re:I love my Spy Remote (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously, the "I don't have a TV" crowd don't even realize how ignorant they are. I can assume by your wording that you do have a TV, you just watch movies instead of broadcast television. Here is a secret. Movies are not inherently better than TV. Heck, even books are not inherently better than TV.
And the Cosby joke you reference isn't saying the parents are right. It is saying that parents are self serving pieces of crap that will be unjust to get what they want. By using that quote, you are openly admitting that you don't care about right or wrong as long as you get your way. Do your children know that you are a bad person, and are willing to screw them for your convenience?
Re:I love my Spy Remote (Score:3, Insightful)
Secretly turning off somebody's tv is not a trivial act. Have you considered that a restaurant proprietor who knows nothing about electronics and a lot about food might ignorantly assume something is wrong with his television, and that he might spend hundreds of dollars trying to fix the problem?
Moving a chair in a restaurant isn't exactly going to trick anybody into thinking that the floor is suddenly on an incline, so it's hardly comparable. More comparable acts include walking up to the television to turn it off, or telling the proprietor to turn it off. This is what the post to which you are replying suggested.
future (Score:1, Insightful)
uh...yea, right. I think they'll also require fire extinguishers on all porches by law so people can easily put out flaming bags of poo. I think you are absolutely right...because there is nothing worse than having to turn TV's back on or cover their LED's with a piece of black tape. That surely justifies increasing the cost of all TV's and making all previous universal remotes useless by adding encryption. I'm certain your right...so don't worry about making such silly statements.
Re:I hate TV-B-gone (Score:4, Insightful)
Example: Some friends and I saran wrapped a co-workers cube for his birthday. Every item individually wrapped. Funny? Of course. No one was hurt, no ones reputation was at stake.
Same thing but do it when you KNOW he has an important visitor from another company coming to see a presentation. Now my company will fire me and my professional reputation will be tarnished.
A mature person sees the difference between these two things. One is funny, one gets you fired.
Re:I love my Spy Remote (Score:5, Insightful)
Pray tell, what did I destroy? The TV still functioned. They turned it back on just before we left. NOBODY noticed that it was off except my table for around 30 minutes. The place was packed and the 50 inch plasma was 15 feet directly in front of me. The workers can't speak English and were too busy to serve meals to turn off the TV.
Actually my current manager is the best manager that I have ever had. He gets technology and he gets people. He stands up for me, and is very understanding of personal situations. The coworker that wanted three of them is one of the most ethical people I know. It is a huge stretch of the imagination to say, "turn off tv" to "sabotage databases". I would never, ever mess with the data at my job. I work with the transmission of medical records. It is not an exaggeration to say people could die if I do that. Why kill someone's mom or son because I hate my job?
Yes, I have a projector hooked up to a DVD. It is on for two hours once maybe every three days. I do this because it would be way too easy for me to sit down and watch TV and waste my evening. My six year old would be watching ALL THE TIME. So I cut down on the amount he watches, and I have much more control over content. Instead of "American Idol" he and I build Legos, and he learned to read at a very early age and do math at a very early age. Not having broadcast TV in our home has been one of the best decisions that my wife and I have made. I don't know about you, but I like quiet. Quiet allows me to think. Quiet allows me to work. Quiet allows me to have conversations and relationships with people I care about. Why do you crave distractions?
It is saying that parents are self serving pieces of crap that will be unjust to get what they want.
Wow, are you 19 years old? Do you have kids? In the same comedy bit, Cosby said, "My wife and I used to be intellectuals." And then they had kids. I am not the world's best husband or father, but I do try my best.
Re:The importance of CES (Score:3, Insightful)
Hell I once spent two hours walking up and down isles in a trade show juggling a competitors glowing ball giveaways to get people to come to our booth and talk to us. Guess what? Small sacrifice of pride and we got attention and customers that allowed the company to double in size and survive. I left the company for another opportunity but the stock I did keep bought me a new car. So you hold to your high and mighty morals and I will not regret one bit going to the show and juggling a little to get attention, nor the hours I put in prepping as I drive around in the car it bought me.
If you want the end of big mega-corporations as you claim, then support ways for little companies to find each other and work together.
Re:I love my Spy Remote (Score:3, Insightful)
I think you're missing the GP's point. That poster doesn't care how you feel about TV, he cares about you surreptitiously turning it off against the wishes of the owner or whoever has the right to control it. It's no different than walking into a party and changing the music everyone is listening to without asking. You aren't a jerk for not liking TV, you're a jerk for being rude to others.
While I'm being pedantic I'll just go over the top and mention that I think you're misusing [sic] [wikipedia.org].
Re:Sure, cos NOBODY ELSE will do it... (Score:2, Insightful)
Heres a test: take some code somebody has been working on for 4 weeks and move it somewhere to make it look like its been deleted then watch them for a few hours whilst they try to explain to their boss what happened. You expect them to laugh once you produce the 'deleted' code? I mean it should be funny, no lives were lost right?
Re:I love my Spy Remote (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I love my Spy Remote (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:I love my Spy Remote (Score:4, Insightful)
Main Entry: vandalism
Pronunciation: 'vand-&l-"i-z&m
Function: noun
: the willful or malicious destruction or defacement of property
Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of Law. Merriam-Webster, Inc. 12 Jan. 2008.
You should stop talking. Your actions cannot be justified, and your attempt at it just makes you look worse.
Pray tell, what did I destroy? The TV still functioned. They turned it back on just before we left. NOBODY noticed that it was off except my table for around 30 minutes. The place was packed and the 50 inch plasma was 15 feet directly in front of me. The workers can't speak English and were too busy to serve meals to turn off the TV.
Put it this way: You're rushing down a single-file escalator, and there's a person in front of you. Instead of saying, "Excuse me," you shove your way past the person. Your initial attempt at justification is like saying it's not a big deal because the guy didn't get hurt, he dusted himself off and everything was back to normal. It wasn't like you pushed him down the escalator or anything. Then, you go on to effectively say, well, the guy's handicapped, so it wasn't as if he could retaliate. And then you also include the interesting bit of information that the guy doesn't speak English, as if that changes anything, or makes you better than him somehow.
Of course, your boss and your coworker condone and would willingly partake in such behavior, as if it was the most natural thing to do. So if they were right behind you, they would've pushed their way past the guy as well right behind you.
Actually my current manager is the best manager that I have ever had. He gets technology and he gets people. He stands up for me, and is very understanding of personal situations. The coworker that wanted three of them is one of the most ethical people I know. ...
Instead of "American Idol" he and I build Legos, and he learned to read at a very early age and do math at a very early age.
I don't care how great of a father you think you are (and I'm not saying you're not), how awesome your boss is, how ethical your worker is in the workplace. They're irrelevant. And the fact that you don't like television because it interferes with your ability to function normally is also irrelevant. It's not your television, it's not your restaurant. If you don't like the environment there, you go find a better place. Otherwise, if eating there is so important to you, deal with it. If you seek to impose your will upon others, and you think that's OK, you're a douche by my book. And if your environment actually condones such behavior, there's a lot of douchebaggery going on around you.
Oh, and it's interesting you say your coworker is one of the most ethical people you know. They say that the measure of a person isn't by what they do when there are consequences or the threat of consequences, but by what they do when there are no consequences. Quite frankly your coworker might be ethical, but that may be because he does not want to risk his job. I'm not so sure he's the kind of person I'd like to associate with. And I'm not sure you are either.
Look, nobody's perfect. Everybody's going to get pushed past that line at some point, and if we haven't already, we're all going to do something wrong to someone, or a group of people. But most people at least have the decency to be shameful about it; they do go around boasting about it, much less try to defend it after they bring it up. You remind me of the other douchebag here that started boasting about how he insulted this girl by calling her a slut, and how him and his buddies ganged up on her boyfriend for trying to defend her. But these things happen to even the best of us. It's not something to be proud of though, and moreso than the act itself, that is the most offensive part I find about what you've said.
Pranks involving TV-B-Gone were funny when I was in high school. If I was 14, I probably would've had a go
Re:Why do we still even use IR remotes? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I love my Spy Remote (Score:4, Insightful)
Any time you would use your TV-B-Gone, ask yourself "Would I be comfortable just walking up to wherever the TV is and turning it off, without offering any explanation to anyone else here?" Then ask yourself "Would I be comfortable announcing in a loud voice 'I'm going to turn off the TV now.' before clicking your TV-B-Gone?"
If you answered "no" to either of these questions, then yes! You're being a jerk! You're merely using technology to hide from responsibility for your actions, and justifying it to yourself!
If you answered "yes", then you're [probably] fine! But consider putting this to the test by actually announcing your intent to everyone before just quietly clicking "off" and not telling anyone!
Have fun! And remember kids, ask your parents before you try this at home!