Sociological meat

We live in the information world - a world where we are constantly surrounded by the means of collecting, accumulating and analyzing all kinds of information. We are not afraid anymore that our surveillance cameras are constantly fixed on us, network traffic is logged, purchases using bank cards are being analyzed, etc ... No one is surprised at the ubiquitous questionnaires and opinion polls. But while these systems are passive, while not trying to brazenly get into our lives - many of them do not pay attention.

But, “I think I was counted” ©

Recently on Habré ran topics ( 1 2 ) about Google App Engine. Only here, as it turned out later, one of the goals of topic No. 1 was to conduct load testing of an application running on GAE. The results of such testing, we saw in the second topic. Here we are faced with unobtrusive social engineering and as a result received very useful information (for those who are interested in the topic). Thanks to the authors of the articles: BarsMonster and TolTol . The author of the first topic received massive traffic to his application due to the fact that the topic is interesting for the Habrasoobshchestvo and the page had a lot of impressions (especially considering the exit to the main page).
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Today we are faced with another manifestation of social engineering. Habrayuzer BananaFish laid out on the public review an interesting puzzle, voicing the existence of a solution. Then he played on the weakness of the average Habrayuzer before the temptation to be first, to solve the unsolvable and surprise everyone with the course of his thoughts. The effect was reaching - on the day all the bright powers of the minds, instead of fighting the evil of everyday work, were thrown at solving an unsolvable task. And despite the informal substantiations of many participants of the fact that the task most likely has no solution, anyway they beat their heads against the wall, cut the paper and blew their brains with geometric primitives. After a day of bullying the public, the creator of the topic renamed it the Topical of Evil and we can again see the pages of Habrakhabr the Black Lord. It is necessary to pay tribute to two Habravchanin ( Starrow and Yan169 ), who successfully found a solution, finding a loophole in poorly defined conditions.

It was not Epic fail of one random habrauser, it was clearly a planned hooligan trick, and she went 100%. And why is it possible to plan? Yes, because we become predictable and the notorious Habraeffection more and more reminds me of the usual herd instinct.