Slashdot Mirror
A New Benefit For Logged-In Readers: Meet Slashdot's ROT13 Initiative
We appreciate all the support we've gotten over the years from Slashdot's logged-in users. They take part actively in discussions, and in exchange for their active interest in the site, we like to give a few perks over and above what our beloved anonymous readers get. But we never want to deprive anonymous readers of the actual features of the site — whether you're a logged-in account holder, anonymous, a subscriber, or have a username but are browsing anonymously at any given moment, Slashdot has always been freely available to read for anyone with a browser and an uncensored Internet connection. It's a balance we try to maintain, too, Sure, we'd like you to login, and we think it has some worthwhile benefits (like tracking comment responses, building karma, and using the Zoo system to keep track of your friends and foes), but we'll never force you to. Today, we're building on this approach, by introducing a feature that benefits every logged-in user, but still leaves the page free to read for all. We'll be phasing in over the next few days a button that logged-in users and subscribers can click to decrypt the text of each Slashdot posting with the trivial transform known as Rot13. Read more, below!
Don't panic. You don't have to do anything at all, especially for right now. For the rest of the week at least, though, you'll notice that stories are rendered a bit harder to read, because they've been ROT13'd. "Encrypted" seems too strong a word for it, since ROT13 is about as tough an encryption as Pig Latin is, and more consistent. You'll just need to click once more to read the full, plaintext version of each story. After we complete a few shakedown days, subscribers and other logged-in users will always be able to get through to the plaintext just that simply, and for anonymous readers, it'll be nearly as easy: they'll just need to click one button, and watch one painless interstitial ad, to reach each story's plaintext. For the masses who read anonymously but don't want to suffer through any more ads? (Believe us, we understand.) Not to worry! As we transition away from offering the plaintext along with the ROT13 version, there will be several great options for translating ROT13 text; you'll just need to copy and paste the text, or in some cases the URL for the story you'd like to read, into the engine of your choice. We favor the spartan rot13.com, but there are others. Heck, if you're a CS grad, or even an amateur programmer at all, you've probably written a ROT13 translation program, or you can pipe the text through a built-in function in the language of your choice. (Let us know your favorite translation system in the comments below.) If you have any questions about the transition, please let us know.
Note: You'll notice that comments are still in plaintext for now by default. They will probably stay this way for a while, too, even for anonymous readers. The conversion process itself for the 19.2 million comments in our database is pretty trivial, actually, but there have been some glitches with the way that the transform handles things like code inside of comments, and it would be a shame to break any of that code. And it's a near certainty that only anonymous readers will ever see reader comments encrypted with ROT13, when all those details are worked out.
Note: You'll notice that comments are still in plaintext for now by default. They will probably stay this way for a while, too, even for anonymous readers. The conversion process itself for the 19.2 million comments in our database is pretty trivial, actually, but there have been some glitches with the way that the transform handles things like code inside of comments, and it would be a shame to break any of that code. And it's a near certainty that only anonymous readers will ever see reader comments encrypted with ROT13, when all those details are worked out.
svefg cbfg
The only person in the world that is so bad that his NORMAL writing looks like Rot13...
...or actual ad spamming. Naah, april fools'
"Hello, IT... Have you tried turning it off and on again? Yeah... No problem."
Lame. This is pretty lame even by Slashdot standards.
...someone at slashdot has lost their mind.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Wait, what day is it?
To anyone brave enough to decode the stories themselves. Would that count as RTFA?
How about letting logged in users filter out all april fools jokes?
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
More April 1 bullshit. Can't they at least come up with one thing that is actually funny?
Or just rename it April 1 troll day and be done with it.
I admit to being the anonymous lurker myself sometimes, but this reinforces me to actually login when I hit /. daily and post instead of just read.
Let's use DOUBLE Rot-13 encryption to make it even more secure!
Now the April Fool's jokes on /. are just tired and worn out. There are days why I wonder why I still come here. I guess old habits die hard. Can we not do this shit next year guys?
Vs lbh nfxrq Oehpr Fpuarvre gb qrpelcg guvf, ur'q pehfu lbhe fxhyy jvgu uvf ynhtu.
I am officially gone from
Seems like a perfect candidate for a simple one-line APL ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/APL_(programming_language) ) function. This should be something like {/~{\}, but my keyboard doesn't have the required keys to enter any of the characters needed. Can anyone help?
No. Well...maybe. Actually, yes. It really just depends.
I appreciate this extra security since the Cisco "type 7" encryption was broken earlier this year.
And as a long-time Usenet reader, I can basically de-crypt ROT13 in my sleep.
Karma: Excellent. 15 moderator points expire sometime.
Where it would be quicker to write a perl script to do ROT13 translation, than to read the editors' description of what the site did with it.
Assuming it's not an April 1 joke, and it might be (an unusually ponderous one at that).
I can't resist an excuse to do this in tr.
tr 'a-z' 'n-za-m' HERE
Put your message here
HERE
Trivial I know. I'll bet half to slashdot could not resist immediately coding ROT-13 in their favorite language.
tr 'a-z' 'n-za-m' HERE
And slashdot mashes up the double less thans.
... is 'super members' of the community that have proven their knowledge, there is too much bullshit getting modded insightful when it is outright incorrect. I'd like to see slashdot select logged in moderators get the ability to mark false insightful posts as 'false/incorrect' and turn that posters post a different color.
The amount of disinformation from either youth, the uninformed, trolls, or paid hacks to disrupt intelligent discussion on the internet is something I've grown increasingly weary of. It seems increasingly difficult to have intelligent discussions online. There are people who DO KNOW and understand the world at a higher level then most posters on slashdot and these people could help guide discussions when these forces of stupid / distortion appear.
http://consciouslifenews.com/paid-internet-shill-shadowy-groups-manipulate-internet-opinion-debate/1147073/
I love reading the impotent rage in the comments. Keep whining; the April 1st articles will just keep rolling in.
Well, it's no "OMG!!! Ponies!!!" but I guess it's the thought that counts. Happy April Fool's Day to you, too!
If I was a CS grad.. I'd make an app that blocks Slashdot for me each April 1st....
Yes I'm getting old.
---
Haven't seen anything in this thread yet about NCX or ubfgf svyrf.
if you run firefox then you can use leetkey to do all sorts of fun things with/to your text
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
The joke is on Slashdot, I for one have been using ROT26 for several years already.
H cmd n btwrst pr l mñn tmrpn crc d m cs.
Singularity: a belief in the "God" idea with the "demiurge" relation inverted.
Bring on the ponies! I can take it.
Don't panic. You don't have to do anything at all
The Adams family's lawyers are sending the takedown notice now... also, reading a slashdot story is now a felony, since the content is cryptographically protected by slashdot's patented Rot-13 DRM technology.
Gotta love them lawyers!
Free Martian Whores!
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2064678&cid=35688196
kartune85 : Incapable of reason, observation or learning. A kind of dim, drab, flightless parrot.
Jul jnf fhpu n cbbe rapelcgvba nytbevguz pubfra? Rirelbar xabjf gevcyr-ebg13 vf orggre.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Cryptography experts have proven long ago that ROT-13 is weak against simple brute-force attack. But it turns out that there is also a little-known security hole in ROT-26, which allows a sophisticated eavesdropper to read the message WITHOUT EVEN KNOWING THE PASSWORD.
Cryptography experts suggest, for robust security, the use of at least ROT-39 encoding should be encouraged. This takes a minimum number of log_2[2^39] tries to decode by brute force.
Some experts have suggested that ROT-39 shares the same security hole as ROT-13, but I don't believe I've seen that result confirmed in peer-reviewed literature.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
I hate Anonymous Coward on Slashdot...
What used to be some witty humor and unusual perspectives has become noise and spamming and just posting too fast everywhere.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
I thought I'd forgotten how to read!
Bastards.
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
Can we please have a my little pwny theme in rot13? I really really liked that theme!
Guvf pbagrag erdhverf n fynfuqbg cyngvahz nppbhag gb ivrj.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
I usually have a pretty decent sense of humor. However this ROT13 joke, is not funny and shows no creativity. For a website that USED to be about news nerds/ stuff that matters, this is a new low. You are forcing your target audience to do more work, which may temporarily drive up ad clicks, but in the long run you will loose your base and the site will continue to decline.
insert inflammatory comment here!
Triple-rot13 FTW!
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
I don't care. I look forward to it each April 1st. I certainly don't begrudge them not being funny to all people. April 1st is like National Nerd Day.
Its fun to be a geek, humor is what you make of it, my suggestion, take a step back and enjoy the day.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Used to be funnier and well thought out and silly, but now it's just comedy by committee, with all kinds of notes from the network executives. /., eh?
.
Where's the pink pages? Where's the OMG ponies? Where's the cuteness of fvcking with the CSS and some actual intelligence behind an April Fool's day joke?
:>(
. It's kind of like letting the pointy-haired bosses write a comedy script by committee, zat's what you get with the new
to avoid Slashdot.
Emacs. Can your editor do that?
(Sorry, couldn't resist.)
Sorry, I forgot there are ads on the Web; I use Lynx.
Slashdot really doesn't know how to monetize their assets. If they had any common sense the "decoder" would require a "free download" and bundle spyware/adware/malware/shitware.
-insert SEO blogspam here-
Closing my browser, because I don't want to deal with the lame April Fool's jokes. I finally started reading /. again after being away for a year, and the quality really has gone downhill... I'll probably be back tomorrow, but we'll see how long it lasts.
Yeah this sucks. I'm probably done with slashdot. I think it is enough to require login to contribute or post is crap. I have slashdot in one of my tabs and take a quick scan at the articles,. I created an account, but I still can't just glance at them. Slashdot advertisers,maybe you should tell them that this idea is shit-tastic.
Have gnu, will travel.
I use bookmarklets to handle rot-13 encoding when I find it. Highlight, click bookmark, read as plain text. Simple.
Enjoy!
"Space Exploration is not endless circles in low earth orbit." -Buzz Aldrin
Great, so now my RSS feed is going to be broken for the rest of the day? I like April Fools' as much as the next guy, but not when it effectively breaks the whole site for the day.
ponies would not use rot13, bring back the ponies!!!! because ponies!!!
bring bak the ponies!!
rot-13's a turn off
The Slashdot logo should be changed to Fynfuqbg.
Any sufficiently simple magic can be passed off as mere advanced technology.
Hey all, since I didn't have an account on slashdot, I created a bookmarklet to decode the rot13 via jQuery. http://bl.ocks.org/dergachev/5285534 Only belatedly did I realize that in order to share it on Slashdot, I'd have to create an account anyhow. Fail!
You can preserve the existing encryption engine by simply using more rounds. The 2-round version has been broken, so cryptographers recommend using the full 16 rounds, as is done in other encryption systems.
April Fool right back at you. I just submit Slashdot URL to Google Translate ROT13 to English to get the whole site decrypted.
Where it would be quicker to write a perl script to do ROT13 translation, than to read the editors' description of what the site did with it.
Assuming it's not an April 1 joke, and it might be (an unusually ponderous one at that).
You have a problem: Rot13 translation. You write a perl script. Now you have two problems.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
What happened? Me /. is written in Alphabet Soup...
Unequivocally the realest of the realz...
I certainly hope this is just an April Fool's gag. As it is, I won't bother reading anything on Slashdot today due to the hassle. Way to drive away readers!
Dear Slashdot, Please bring back gnome2. Gnome3 isn't as good. Yrs, David Maas
I call it!
You've succeeded in causing me to avoid slashdot for an entire day. I'm all for april fools' jokes, but I'll be damn if I'll click an extra link to read a story.
... rnfvre guna qvttvat hc gur pbqr V cebonoyl qvq jevgr ng bar gvzr ...
Now I have to open every article to read it.
At least I knew they would be worth reading.
Next year go for funny + !annoying.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
I'm logged in but this steps f'';'d up RSS feed. Do something about it :/
I'm logged in and am still only viewing ROT-13. I don't know if this is just an April Fool's Day joke, but if the whole of the internet decided to go this route, I would stop using it altogether. Period. Might even lose a few lbs :-P
If this is the route /.is going to take, then they have just lost a VERY loyal reader.
Yeah, it was funny and original for the first story or two. Now it's damned frustrating. Away with Rot13 or whatever you're calling this crud. Happy April Fools Day from Atlanta.
Computing and Programming Since 1975 The Best Kept Secret in Technical Support Master of the Bare Metal Clean Install
This might actually be useful for a day if it encouraged people to
create accounts but why am I still seeing rot13 after I log in?
I don't mind logging in but I don't like to have to click on every
article to read the summary even after I do log in.
Whatever fucking idiot that thought this was funny can't even execute it properly. I'm logged in and still getting the April Fools shit. This is hands down, THE STUPIDEST thing the /. staff have EVER done. Congratulations, you 0wned your own site.
Asshats.
I'm sorry, but I don't see how this adds value to your site. It might increase the number of clicks-per-visit, much the way slideshows do for some websites, but don't tell me this feature is to make my experience better.
JGS!
Nuff said. End of story.
If it's not an April Fools joke, it's one of the dumbest ideas I've ever seen on Slashdot!
English motherf*cker, do you speak it?! The speak English in what?!?!
And if you undo the rot-13 on your own, you've committed a DMCA violation and Slashdot can sue you. No, I'm not kidding about that. Legally, they could. There are no requirements in the DMCA that a technological measure which control access to a copyrighted work need to be non-trivial to defeat. Even when it's just rot-13, bypassing it is a violation of the DMCA.
So, I logged in... and its still all scrambled.... bad move slashdot.
And slashdot mashes up the double less thans.
And in 2013, the average 5th grader knows about HTML escapes. What year are you posting from?
I'm not sure, it has ROT-13 in it so I'm guessing late 80's.
Chrome: https://www.quixey.com/search?q=rot13&platform=8675384
Firefox: https://www.quixey.com/search?q=rot13&platform=8675382
Time-disoriented discrimintation!
-Ultimate Stickman Game Developer Infinite World Puzzler
I knew I should have taken the day off from reading Slashdot. Worst April Fools' Day prank ever, anywhere. Not funny, just very annoying. Good job whomever came up with it, and whomever allowed it. Congrats, you have erased any shred of a doubt that you are humorless nerds, and not intelligent geeks.
This is a hacked account, for which the owner can not be held responsible.
OK, I logged in for the first time in years.. and stories are still scrambled. It's no longer April 1 where I am. Fail.
See subject
(I feel like this is what a machine made by Dunderbeck's son might do...)
I'm surprised that there's not a page or at least a reference on Wikipedia for Dunderbeck/Dunderbeck's machine
coding is life
This made the website almost completely unusable in Lynx today. My employer thanks you.
hey!
I'm still on the original release, I think I missed 12 new versions of Rise of the Triad....
I am going to dig out a copy of Netscape, with built in ROT13!
Today's ROT13 gag generated lots of butthurt, especially from Anonymous Cowards. Even some of the copypasta ninjas steered clear of the stories for a whole day.
Maybe it wasn't funny, but it was satisfying. Kudos. :)
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law
I think a lot of people need the joke explaining to them. The only articles that were encrypted into nonsense were April fools. So for example, the google scent fool. Slashdot have done you a favour, making those pointless April 1st articles gobbledigook, so we can skim past them and pick up the real news without wondering whether it's a ruse. There wasn't much real news, it turns out!
To add insult to injury, you haven't unscrambled them again, and it's April 2 here (and well inside it, too)
Does anyone want to buy a 4 digit Slashdot user ID? I don't want to be associated with this once great website any more.
... and today's pet project has
This was great! With one odd exception, it told me exactly which stories were April Fools' jokes, and let me ignore them when I wanted, and laugh at them when I wanted. Please do this again every year! (But yes, you may want to triple the encryption strength...)