Mr. Boffo embedded with scannable tag for mobile phones

Comments ⁶

1. Howard Tayler

   I used scannable tags as part of the Schlock Mercenary story a few months ago. The most recent installment is here:

   http://www.schlockmercenary.com/d/20100502.html

   It’s not a link to web content, though. It’s straight text, that tells you what her device is saying to the security camera. It’s very much in-story.

2. Gar Molloy

   @Howard: Oooh, clever! Too clever for me though, what does it say?

3. Howard Tayler

   It’s computer geek humor.

   fnord UID=***** PASS=***** CMD=”overwrite daylog, prev 28800sec, sleep, 6000sec, noprompt” fnord

   And yes, there were Unix sysadmins on my forums screaming at the characters for leaving a back door open in their security camera software.

   Interestingly, “database insertion attacks” actually work with some traffic cameras in Europe. Put the right code on your front bumper, and when the camera tries to read your license plate and stick in the database, the whole system goes down.

   Truth? Stranger than fiction. Stranger even than science fiction.

4. Gar Molloy

   Well the western world’s gotten quite futuristic. We still don’t have our hoversocks, but at least we’re at the beginning stages of humanity’s hive mind.

5. Tom Wood

   I’m a little underwhelmed at the flying car.

6. Robert Gidley

   Thanks for explaining this, Alan! I thought it was just some weird modern art that was appearing in “Mister Boffo” this week.

   I can report that scanning the “Seattle Times” version of “Mister Boffo” using a BlackBerry with the Microsoft Tag app installed, I can scan the tag and in a very 21st Century way, quickly and easily receive the following content:

   “Unsupported Device
   We’re sorry, the video format is not compatible with your device.”

   I feel so connected!