327: Exploits of a Mom - Revision history

2A01:E0A:F4D:B2E0:C4B0:289C:1F6E:C4CF at 08:12, 23 March 2026

2026-03-23T08:12:47Z

Lettherebedarklight: /* Trivia */ add Category:Comics with a Spanish translation

2025-12-15T09:00:11Z

‎Trivia: add Category:Comics with a Spanish translation

Bchecketts: Spelling correction

2025-05-21T16:43:39Z

Spelling correction

FaviFake: Undo revision 370674 by Avrayter (talk) - paragraph formatting already complicated nough

2025-03-28T15:39:55Z

Undo revision 370674 by Avrayter (talk) - paragraph formatting already complicated nough

Avrayter: /* Explanation */ citation needed

2025-03-28T14:12:25Z

‎Explanation: citation needed

172.70.86.133: /* Explanation */ Hard to say whether they'd consider Miss Roberts as a once-'trapped' victim, culpable of ensnareing the "Help!" person, negligent as failing to raise concerns already or merely the unknowing recipient of the clue that something is amiss.

2025-03-18T22:00:58Z

‎Explanation: Hard to say whether they'd consider Miss Roberts as a once-'trapped' victim, culpable of ensnareing the "Help!" person, negligent as failing to raise concerns already or merely the unknowing recipient of the clue that something is amiss.

172.70.91.67: /* Explanation */ added whitespace, apostrophe; slightly rearranged for better and less ambiguous narrative flow

2025-03-18T21:54:05Z

‎Explanation: added whitespace, apostrophe; slightly rearranged for better and less ambiguous narrative flow

172.70.110.183: Previous version had said the daughter's "first [name]" was Elaine, which is not true. Her first name is "Help I'm trapped in a driver's license factory" and her middle name is Elaine.

2025-03-18T20:25:32Z

Previous version had said the daughter's "first [name]" was Elaine, which is not true. Her first name is "Help I'm trapped in a driver's license factory" and her middle name is Elaine.

Kynde at 20:48, 10 February 2025

2025-02-10T20:48:46Z

172.69.43.156: Undo revision 338006 by 172.71.142.137 (talk) Unnecessary

2024-03-23T03:21:52Z

Undo revision 338006 by 172.71.142.137 (talk) Unnecessary

@@ Line 44: / Line 44: @@
 ==Transcript==
-:[Mrs. Roberts receives a call from her son's school on her wireless phone. She is standing with a cup of hot coffee or tea (shown with a small line above the cup) facing a small round three-legged table to the right. The voice of the caller is indicated to come from the phone with a zigzag line.]
+:[Mrs. Roberts receives a call from her son's school on her wireless phone. She is standing with a cup of a hot beverage (shown with a small line above the cup) facing a small round three-legged table to the right. The voice of the caller is indicated to come from the phone with a zigzag line.]
 :Voice over the phone: Hi, This is your son's school. We're having some computer trouble.

← Older revision		Revision as of 09:00, 15 December 2025
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	[[Category:Comics with xkcd store products]]		[[Category:Comics with xkcd store products]]
	[[Category:Comics with lowercase text]]		[[Category:Comics with lowercase text]]
		+	[[Category:Comics with a Spanish translation]]

@@ Line 61: / Line 61: @@
 ==Trivia==
 * This comic has become rather famous, spawning a site at http://bobby-tables.com about preventing SQL injection and also at the official [https://docs.python.org/2/library/sqlite3.html Python SQLite documentation]. Noted security expert {{w|Bruce Schneier}} (who often quotes xkcd) [https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2010/10/pen-and-paper_s.html mentioned a similar attack] that happened in the 2010 Swedish general elections, and [https://blog.xkcd.com/2010/05/03/color-survey-results/ several people tried it on Randall's color survey].
-* This is the first xkcd comic featuring [[Mrs. Roberts]], her daughter later names [[Elaine Roberts]], with the titel text name as her middle names, and [[Little Bobby Tables]].
+* This is the first xkcd comic featuring [[Mrs. Roberts]], her daughter later names [[Elaine Roberts]], with the title text name as her middle names, and [[Little Bobby Tables]].
 * This comic used to be [https://web.archive.org/web/20220125023401/https://store.xkcd.com/products/signed-prints available as a signed print] in the xkcd store before it was [[Store|shut down]].

@@ Line 8: / Line 8: @@
 ==Explanation==
-[[Mrs. Roberts]] receives a call from her son's school. The caller, likely one of the school's administrators, asks if she really named her son Robert'); DROP TABLE Students;--, a rather unusual name{{citation needed}}. Perhaps surprisingly, Mrs. Roberts responds in the affirmative, claiming that she uses the nickname "[[Little Bobby Tables]]." As the full name is read into the school's system's databases without {{w|Data sanitization#SQL injection|data sanitization}}, it causes the "Students" table in the database to be dropped, meaning it gets deleted.
+[[Mrs. Roberts]] receives a call from her son's school. The caller, likely one of the school's administrators, asks if she really named her son Robert'); DROP TABLE Students;--, a rather unusual name. Perhaps surprisingly, Mrs. Roberts responds in the affirmative, claiming that she uses the nickname "[[Little Bobby Tables]]." As the full name is read into the school's system's databases without {{w|Data sanitization#SQL injection|data sanitization}}, it causes the "Students" table in the database to be dropped, meaning it gets deleted.
 This comic was a prequel for the [[:Category:1337|1337 series]] where the entire family is shown for the first time. The title of this comic is a pun: "exploit" can mean an accomplishment or heroic deed, but in computer science, the term refers to a program or technique that takes advantage of a vulnerability in other software. The title can also refer to her choice of name for her son, which is rather extraordinary. In {{w|SQL}}, a database programming language, commands are separated by semicolons <code>;</code>, and strings of text are often delimited using single quotes <code>'</code>. Parts of commands may also be enclosed in parentheses <code>(</code> and <code>)</code>. Data entries are stored as "rows" within named "tables" of similar items (e.g., <code>Students</code>). The command to delete an entire table (and thus every row of data in that table) is <code>DROP TABLE</code>, as in <code>DROP TABLE Students;</code>. In [[1253: Exoplanet Names]], someone (presumably Mrs. Roberts) attempts to perform a similar trick, submitting the name <code>e'); DROP TABLE PLANETS;--</code> to the IAU.

@@ Line 8: / Line 8: @@
 ==Explanation==
-[[Mrs. Roberts]] receives a call from her son's school. The caller, likely one of the school's administrators, asks if she really named her son Robert'); DROP TABLE Students;--, a rather unusual name. Perhaps surprisingly, Mrs. Roberts responds in the affirmative, claiming that she uses the nickname "[[Little Bobby Tables]]." As the full name is read into the school's system's databases without {{w|Data sanitization#SQL injection|data sanitization}}, it causes the "Students" table in the database to be dropped, meaning it gets deleted.
+[[Mrs. Roberts]] receives a call from her son's school. The caller, likely one of the school's administrators, asks if she really named her son Robert'); DROP TABLE Students;--, a rather unusual name{{citation needed}}. Perhaps surprisingly, Mrs. Roberts responds in the affirmative, claiming that she uses the nickname "[[Little Bobby Tables]]." As the full name is read into the school's system's databases without {{w|Data sanitization#SQL injection|data sanitization}}, it causes the "Students" table in the database to be dropped, meaning it gets deleted.
 This comic was a prequel for the [[:Category:1337|1337 series]] where the entire family is shown for the first time. The title of this comic is a pun: "exploit" can mean an accomplishment or heroic deed, but in computer science, the term refers to a program or technique that takes advantage of a vulnerability in other software. The title can also refer to her choice of name for her son, which is rather extraordinary. In {{w|SQL}}, a database programming language, commands are separated by semicolons <code>;</code>, and strings of text are often delimited using single quotes <code>'</code>. Parts of commands may also be enclosed in parentheses <code>(</code> and <code>)</code>. Data entries are stored as "rows" within named "tables" of similar items (e.g., <code>Students</code>). The command to delete an entire table (and thus every row of data in that table) is <code>DROP TABLE</code>, as in <code>DROP TABLE Students;</code>. In [[1253: Exoplanet Names]], someone (presumably Mrs. Roberts) attempts to perform a similar trick, submitting the name <code>e'); DROP TABLE PLANETS;--</code> to the IAU.

@@ Line 40: / Line 40: @@
 Note that the single quote after Robert is now sanitized by doubling it, which changes it from malicious code to harmless data, and the full first 'name' of the student <code>Robert');DROP TABLE Students;--</code> is now stored correctly. It should be noted that while data sanitization can mitigate the risks of SQL injection, the proper prevention technique is to use {{w|Prepared statement}}s. Noting the difference between the "actual" name using the word TABLE and the child's nickname being Bobby Tables, one could argue that there's an implied reference to one of the most argued topics of database naming conventions - should table names be singular or plural.
-The title text references that Mrs. Roberts' daughter is named "Help I'm trapped in a driver's license factory". This is a play on how if someone is stuck and forced to work in a manufacturing factory/plant, then they will write on the product {{tvtropes|HelpHelpTrappedInTitleFactory|"Help I'm trapped in a ____ factory"}} in order to tell people on the outside. Having this name would cause any police officer who pulls her over to show some concern. And getting the license in the first place would likely be difficult. The idea of inserting a help message like this was already used in [[10: Pi Equals]]. It was later revealed that the daughter's middle and last names (which she more generally was known by) together are "[[Elaine Roberts]]".
+The title text references that Mrs. Roberts' daughter is named "Help I'm trapped in a driver's license factory". This is a play on how if someone is stuck and forced to work in a manufacturing factory/plant, then they will write on the product {{tvtropes|HelpHelpTrappedInTitleFactory|"Help I'm trapped in a ____ factory"}} in order to tell people on the outside. Having this name would cause any police officer who pulls her over to show some concern towards the hypothetical artesan who created the identification. And getting the license in the first place would likely be difficult. The idea of inserting a help message like this was already used in [[10: Pi Equals]]. It was later revealed that the daughter's middle and last names (which she more generally was known by) together are "[[Elaine Roberts]]".
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← Older revision		Revision as of 03:21, 23 March 2024
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	[[Category:Comics with lowercase text]]		[[Category:Comics with lowercase text]]
−	~~[[Category:"Help, I'm trapped in a factory"]]~~