explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

1698: Theft Quadrants

2016-06-27T12:28:17Z

108.162.219.71: /* Explanation */ typo

{{comic
| number = 1698
| date = June 24, 2016
| title = Theft Quadrants
| image = theft quadrants.png
| titletext = TinyURL was the most popular link shortener for long enough that it made it into a lot of printed publications. I wonder what year the domain will finally lapse and get picked up by a porn site.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|How difficult would it be to steal TinyURL, really? Is it a real problem?}}

This is a "{{w|Time management#The Eisenhower Method|Eisenhower box}}" comparing how difficult it is to steal a specified thing with the severity of the theft.

It is very hard to steal {{w|Gold Codes|nuclear launch codes}}. They are protected by many layers of federal security. That's a good thing, too, since if they were stolen, they could be used to start a {{w|Nuclear warfare|nuclear war}} which would be bad{{Citation needed}}.

It is also hard to steal the {{w|Crown Jewels of the United Kingdom|Crown Jewels}}, since they are protected by a [http://yeomenoftheguard.com/Windsor%20Castle.jpg complex security system]. But if they were stolen, it wouldn't be so bad for most people.

It wouldn't be too hard to steal the a {{w|Wienermobile}} (a car shaped like a hot-dog, advertising the Oscar Mayer brand). There have been made several versions of this car, and it would not be more difficult to steal than any other car, although harder to hide though. [[Randall]] seems to considers that such a stolen vehicles would not be too bad, although he has previously refereed to a stolen Wienermobile in [[935: Missed Connections]], which is driven recklessly almost hitting someone. But it is not bad enough to consider it a big problem in a context where it is compared with stolen nuclear codes.

It also wouldn't be hard (or at least, not as hard as stealing nuclear launch codes or the Crown Jewels) to steal the {{w|TinyURL|tinyurl.com}} domain name, but the consequences of that could be significant and is thus listed under very bad. The joke if of course that this is listed as just as bad as the risk of a nuclear war, and of course it is not as significant, but it could swiftly result in damage to a lot of important computers, and ruin references in journals etc.

TinyURL offers a URL shortening service. They provide short URLs that redirect to long ones. This is useful if you want to write down a very long URL as it saves typing and is more accurate. Other companies, including [https://bitly.com/ bit.ly],[https://goo.gl/ Google] and Twitter offer a similar service. TinyURL was, for a while, the most popular of these URL shortening services. If their domain name were stolen, all the redirects from short URLs could be changed to forward traffic to sites hosting, for example, malware. This would have significant effects on a large number of people, because TinyURL is used in many places both online and (as the title text notes) even sometimes offline.

Domain hijacking is relatively common. If a cracker can obtain personal information about the domain owner, they can impersonate them to the domain registrar, and obtain control of the domain, and with that control [[792: Password Reuse|defraud a large number of people]].

As the title text notes, sites can be particularly vulnerable if they do not maintain their web site, as the registrar is free then to sell the same domain to any third party. A [https://reports.internic.net/cgi/whois?whois_nic=tinyurl.com&type=domain whois search] as of June 2016 finds that the tinyurl.com domain is next due for renewal in June 2018.

==Transcript==
:[A chart with an Eisenhower box, consisting of four labeled squares. To the left the rows are labeled and two lines goes to from these labels to a description of what the labels refer to. Below is a similar labeling of the columns also with two lines going from these labels to the description.]
{| class="wikitable"
| rowspan="2"|How hard thing would be to steal
| Hard
| The Crown Jewels||The nuclear launch codes
|-
| Easy
| The Oscar Mayer Wienermobile||The tinyurl.com domain name
|-
| colspan="2" rowspan="2"|
| Not that bad
| Very bad
|-
|colspan="2"|How bad it would be if someone stole it
|}

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Charts]]

Talk:626: Newton and Leibniz

2016-06-06T23:52:54Z

108.162.219.71:

Is the "break-out sunglasses" a theme on xkcd now?--Classhole 02:38, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

"dramatically pulling off his sunglasses" ?? I'm fairly certain I've never seen the show much less one of these bits, but I thought I understood him to typically be ''putting on'' his sunglasses (?) -- [[User:Brettpeirce|Brettpeirce]] ([[User talk:Brettpeirce|talk]]) 14:48, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
:The introduction to a glossy Hollywoodland whodunnit is Derivatives? With a take on glasses?
:I really need to get a TV and catch up on all the wonderful stuff I have been missing out on.
:Does it go into any details about how the two protagonists solved their issues?
:I'd really like to see a study on the state of mind that gave the world fluxions and a computer close up of the journey from "fluxions to calculus notation" in 8 years.

[[User:Weatherlawyer| I used Google News BEFORE it was clickbait]] ([[User talk:Weatherlawyer|talk]]) 00:58, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

Talk:626: Newton and Leibniz

2016-06-06T23:50:00Z

108.162.219.71:

Talk:862: Let Go

2015-09-12T19:26:06Z

108.162.219.71: compliment to previous writer

Try an RSS feed. You only have to refresh one source, which cuts back on all the links that you visit daily massively. Google reader is what I prefer myself, but that's just me. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|purple|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 10:04, 9 March 2013 (UTC)
:RIP Google Reader. --[[User:Jeff|Jeff]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 19:17, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

First of all, please pardon my english, I am not a native speaker. I'm afraid I don't entirely share your point of view about Oman and the Indian Ocean. First because what I see on the map is not the Indian Ocean. It's Cyprus, Northern Egypt and the Middle East (lands are white) and the Mediterranean Sea, the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf (seas are grey).
'''I agree that we can't see Oman on this map''', though. But (99% of) Oman is not situated on the Persian Gulf; it's on the Gulf of... Oman and on the Arabian Sea, both of which can be considered as parts of the Indian Ocean.
Nevertheless, thanks for your explanation. I love xkcd and I am sure I used to miss a lot of the fun, when I read it without knowing this wiki. Xavier [[Special:Contributions/82.226.129.79|82.226.129.79]] 12:40, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

:That's the joke, right? That they don't know where it is or can't find it. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.215.158|108.162.215.158]] 12:28, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
::So, where are the bees?

:If you want to pass as a native English speaker, you'll have to write a lot worse English than that well-written sample.[[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.71|108.162.219.71]] 19:26, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

I get the impression that dormant African bee genes won out over the Italian strain when they were confronted with the poisonous residue from careless orchard owners. It would explain that some bees remained whilst whole colonies deserted.

Wherever they are: May the force be with you, little sweeties.

[[User:Weatherlawyer| I used Google News BEFORE it was clickbait]] ([[User talk:Weatherlawyer|talk]]) 14:20, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

I just checked, and Cards Against Humanity came out a few months after this comic, so "Bees" wouldn't be a reference - if anything, CAH would be referencing XKCD.[[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.66|141.101.98.66]] 09:21, 25 June 2015 (UTC)