This is the internet upside down

August 10, 2006 2:09 PM

They'll never piggyback on your wireless againYour router makes the computer look funny. (via MeTa)
posted by klangklangston (62 comments total)

Oh heavens. That is suuucch a dizzying effect. I can't imagine how baffled the receiving user would be: "All the images on the internet are upside-down!" How would you even BEGIN to troubleshoot that?
posted by Milkman Dan at 2:13 PM on August 10, 2006

That's incredible.
posted by xmutex at 2:14 PM on August 10, 2006

awesome.
posted by jba at 2:14 PM on August 10, 2006

I really think this is a dupe, but I'm not sure.
posted by delmoi at 2:15 PM on August 10, 2006

Why not just encrypt your wireless if you worried about your neighbours stealing it?
posted by A189Nut at 2:16 PM on August 10, 2006

Blurry net actually makes my head hurt.

We must harness this technology and use it for nefarious gain.
posted by padraigin at 2:19 PM on August 10, 2006

Why not just encrypt your wireless if you worried about your neighbours stealing it?

Because it's more fun this way--he says so in the article.
posted by MrMoonPie at 2:25 PM on August 10, 2006

Revenge is a dish best served co..metomemysweetsatan.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 2:25 PM on August 10, 2006

delmoi: read the MeTa.
posted by anomie at 2:26 PM on August 10, 2006

posted by deadfather at 2:26 PM on August 10, 2006

Come on, those images are not upside down. Remember geometry? Bet you sat through that class thinking you would never use it in real life.
posted by econous at 2:28 PM on August 10, 2006

On the other hand...
posted by econous at 2:28 PM on August 10, 2006

I wonnnnder if there's a webalizing tool (like Workfriendly or the Dialectizer) that could simulate this just for the funnuvit.

(Unrelated but funny: Metafilter in hacker dialect)
posted by Milkman Dan at 2:31 PM on August 10, 2006

The guy in my apartment building has this turned on. He thinks he's so goddamned clever.

But I can type upside-down.
posted by koeselitz at 2:40 PM on August 10, 2006

Beautiful.
posted by Ynoxas at 2:42 PM on August 10, 2006

That's funny.

How about replacing random images with pictures of kittens? Porn?
Replacing search phrases with nonsense? Or replacing every incidence of random search word with "chocholate monkey love"?
Inserting rude words at random in all FoxNews text?
posted by spazzm at 2:51 PM on August 10, 2006

Or you could just let your neighbor use your wireless. Works for me.
posted by LarryC at 2:51 PM on August 10, 2006

how'd you do that deadfather?
posted by Unregistered User at 2:52 PM on August 10, 2006

i don't think it's a dupe, i've just seen it a million times over the past 3 weeks or so.
posted by StrasbourgSecaucus at 2:53 PM on August 10, 2006 [1 favorite has favorites]

I've got a better idea... steal the SBC FreedomLink wifi account screen and serve them that. They can buy some activation time by the day. Make sure the activation payment goes to your Paypal address. Gosh, you haven't heard that SBC accepts Paypal?
posted by chef_boyardee at 2:58 PM on August 10, 2006

Unregistered User: I just turned my monitor upside down for a second. Go ahead, try it.
posted by deadfather at 3:04 PM on August 10, 2006

heh. Unregistered User, it's an img:
posted by carsonb at 3:07 PM on August 10, 2006

posted by hangashore at 3:09 PM on August 10, 2006

fLob4l warming ,hooraY~
posted by brundlefly at 3:19 PM on August 10, 2006

¿umop apisdn
posted by zsazsa at 3:30 PM on August 10, 2006 [1 favorite has favorites]

We cannot rule out the dark hand of uosuaq here.

(e; f, b)
posted by kurumi at 3:35 PM on August 10, 2006

oh how I'd love to see a question over at askmefi from this poor user.
posted by killyb at 3:47 PM on August 10, 2006

Brilliant!
posted by letitrain at 3:48 PM on August 10, 2006

I really think this is a dupe, but I'm not sure.

It was on MetaChat on July 28th.
posted by ericb at 3:54 PM on August 10, 2006

Is this what nerds do for fun?
posted by aaronetc at 3:58 PM on August 10, 2006

posted by interrobang at 4:03 PM on August 10, 2006

oh my god what is this zombo.com and why is it so hilarious
posted by timory at 4:06 PM on August 10, 2006

*mumbles* HTML showoffs.....
posted by wheelieman at 4:08 PM on August 10, 2006

Don't worry, Timory, you can post a good FPP the next time Tom Waits goes on tour.
posted by klangklangston at 4:21 PM on August 10, 2006

(Whups. Misdirected snark. Ignore.)
posted by klangklangston at 4:22 PM on August 10, 2006

I wonnnnder if there's a webalizing tool ... that could simulate this just for the funnuvit.

There is, though the site escapes me.. something like 'men at work' or 'drunk at work'.. I'm sure it's been linked to before.
posted by unmake at 4:26 PM on August 10, 2006

Hats off to Addiction for bringing it here, even if it has been floating around the net for a few days. It's really funny.
posted by caddis at 4:50 PM on August 10, 2006

This is cool but it's also impractical for most people. It works if you have a Unix/Linux machine doing the DHCP, firewall, proxy and NAT for your wireless network. But for those of us who use a wifi router that does built-in DHCP, NAT and firewall, not so easy.

But it's still funny.
posted by drmarcj at 5:03 PM on August 10, 2006

those images are not upside down

They're inverticalled vertically inverted!
posted by CynicalKnight at 5:13 PM on August 10, 2006

Thats the best thing I have seen all week.
posted by rubyeyo at 5:30 PM on August 10, 2006

Wouldn't it be more fun to redirect to gnoa? I had this on my ip for a little while to annoy curious port scanners.
posted by IronLizard at 5:47 PM on August 10, 2006

It was on MetaChat on July 28th.

And on Slashdot the day before. I'm pretty-sure that's where they ripped it from.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 5:55 PM on August 10, 2006

The BlurryNet™ is, by far, the best variation. There are just so many applications.

"Sure, Grandma. I'll set up your computer..."
posted by cribcage at 5:58 PM on August 10, 2006

Thank god he didn't redirect to goatse...
posted by BrotherCaine at 6:17 PM on August 10, 2006

Hysterical.
posted by dejah420 at 6:36 PM on August 10, 2006

I just let my neighbors use my wireless. I consider it paying it forward for the times I'm going to tap into somebody else's unsecured wireless.
posted by iconjack at 6:56 PM on August 10, 2006

This is probably an 'if you have to ask, don't ask' situation, but I am not even close to savvy enough to figure out how to give this a try. Anyone care to dumb it down and walk me through?
posted by scarylarry at 7:48 PM on August 10, 2006

Couldn't you superimpose "stop stealing my internet connection, Joe!" onto every photo?
posted by bugmuncher at 7:55 PM on August 10, 2006

Wouldn't it be more fun to superimpose "Joe is a bandwidth thief and I s3xx043d his mother~!!!!1" onto every photo?
posted by bugmuncher at 7:58 PM on August 10, 2006

If someone does this to me, I think I'll have their router mogrify-flip a few gigabytes of satellite photos for me.
posted by aye at 8:13 PM on August 10, 2006

for those of us who use a wifi router that does built-in DHCP, NAT and firewall, not so easy.

Although you wouldn't need to run the squid proxy on the router, or course, so you'd just need to have a linux box inside your network somewhere (and be willing to be a little loosey-goosey with your network security).
posted by whir at 8:55 PM on August 10, 2006

Has anyone wrapped this up as a WRT module?

Please??
posted by baylink at 9:01 PM on August 10, 2006

I was just thinking the same thing, baylink.

All of you with the "wouldn't it just be better/easier to do X" comments just don't get it.
posted by mkultra at 9:07 PM on August 10, 2006

It would be asking a lot of a WRT to do all that heavy image processing on the fly with, what, 16MB of RAM and a 125 MHz CPU? Let alone running perl and squid on it. It would probably need a lot of storage to serve the images from, too, unless you have one of the routers that you can hook a USB drive up to (though I guess you could use a samba/nfs share).

But maybe there are other proxy servers for the WRT. I imagine it wouldn't be too hard to get the squid / mogrify stuff running on a windows machine, either, and use that for the proxy/image munging bit.
posted by whir at 9:27 PM on August 10, 2006

(Of course, running kitten net or the like would be easy to do just from his instructions.)
posted by whir at 9:29 PM on August 10, 2006

Evil variation on the theme: POP3/IMAP transparent proxy which inserts inappropriate phrases and replaces certain words in the recipient's email.
posted by Freaky at 10:33 PM on August 10, 2006

I've used many wireless networks that didn't belong to me. It's nice, having a random wireless connection in a place away from home.

I always leave my wireless open to one and all. If I notice a traffic / bandwidth problem, I'll close it off. But the idea of wireless being everywhere, run by nobody, allowed by all ... that is pretty awesome.

Plus, the more we all use random wireless networks, the less we can be spied upon.

Think about it, and be a pal and leave your wireless network open to your neighbors. One day soon, this might be very important.
posted by kenlayne at 11:51 PM on August 10, 2006

It's also fun when you end up in one of those public sex offender databases because your neighbor traded kiddie porn over your connection.
posted by uncle harold at 4:15 AM on August 11, 2006

Alt GR + cursor changes your screen orientation in XP. Seems like an easy fix if you just want to leech + still view images.
posted by bifter at 5:00 AM on August 11, 2006

aaronetc writes "Is this what nerds do for fun?"

Yes.
posted by Mitheral at 9:48 AM on August 11, 2006

Secure your wireless or shut the fuck up.
posted by Artw at 10:09 AM on August 11, 2006

I wonnnnder if there's a webalizing tool ... that could simulate this just for the funnuvit.

There is, though the site escapes me.. something like 'men at work' or 'drunk at work'.. I'm sure it's been linked to before.
posted by unmake

Maybe you mean drunkmenworkhere.org? Lots of stuff there, link goes to their archive.
posted by Termite at 11:42 AM on August 11, 2006