Sherlock and the case of not understanding basic cyber security
My slight re-write of yesterday's Sherlock to make one thing a little less stupid. This may also count as a review. *spoilers*
Holmes: It's a top secret intra-government database. It'll be protected by a password policy incorporating a random series of both alpha-numeric and non-alpha-numeric characters in a variety of cases. It's a password style that's designed to defy logic and reason, so it's beyond even my amazing skills of deduction. It's precisely designed to be. It would take a supercomputer to crack it in the time we have available before that nice werewolf boy goes barmy and kills himself because of an astonishingly ridiculous plot twist that I just can't solve unless I see a photo of the guy and have my vague suspicions about this contrived acronym confirmed. I mean, really, I should have probably looked at him better and maybe noticed something like dirt on his trousers from wandering in the woods regularly, and maybe he had some sort of residue that would tie him to rigging up equipment in a forest clearing... perhaps tying in with earlier when we visited the clearing. Maybe we should have visited in daylight instead of only in the middle of the night when we couldn't really see anything that might have given us some actual evidence to go on (like the wires, pressure pads or fog machines). Then we wouldn't have needed all this bollocks about mind palaces based on a word and a tenuous connection to an obscure CIA program that I may have read about once, wherever the heck it is you accidentally manage to read about top secret US government weapons programs. But when you've eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. Phew, thank goodness I got that fan service line in there, that'll distract them from the giant leaps of illogic in this episode. By the way, sorry about terrorising you by telephone, Watson**. It was all done scientifically, except it actually wasn't, and it was only a slightly evil thing to do to a military vet who canonically suffers from PTSD (sometimes). Oh look, this soldier guy's got quite a few books about Maggie Thatcher...
Watson: Never mind all that. No one will care and they'll praise the writing of this episode as flawless because of the truly witty one liners and incredibly pretty visuals. It'll go down as a classic, even though it doesn't deserve it, on the strength of the other episodes of this show being really rather good. But the password will be a long random series of numbers, letters and characters?
Holmes: Yes! *paces in impotent frustration*
Watson: Like that one. *points at the post-it note* tacked to the computer monitor where the guy has written his very complicated password down so he can remember it*
*credit to Luke Darby for the post-it note idea.
** Telephone Obsession. It's infecting Gatiss.
Holmes: It's a top secret intra-government database. It'll be protected by a password policy incorporating a random series of both alpha-numeric and non-alpha-numeric characters in a variety of cases. It's a password style that's designed to defy logic and reason, so it's beyond even my amazing skills of deduction. It's precisely designed to be. It would take a supercomputer to crack it in the time we have available before that nice werewolf boy goes barmy and kills himself because of an astonishingly ridiculous plot twist that I just can't solve unless I see a photo of the guy and have my vague suspicions about this contrived acronym confirmed. I mean, really, I should have probably looked at him better and maybe noticed something like dirt on his trousers from wandering in the woods regularly, and maybe he had some sort of residue that would tie him to rigging up equipment in a forest clearing... perhaps tying in with earlier when we visited the clearing. Maybe we should have visited in daylight instead of only in the middle of the night when we couldn't really see anything that might have given us some actual evidence to go on (like the wires, pressure pads or fog machines). Then we wouldn't have needed all this bollocks about mind palaces based on a word and a tenuous connection to an obscure CIA program that I may have read about once, wherever the heck it is you accidentally manage to read about top secret US government weapons programs. But when you've eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. Phew, thank goodness I got that fan service line in there, that'll distract them from the giant leaps of illogic in this episode. By the way, sorry about terrorising you by telephone, Watson**. It was all done scientifically, except it actually wasn't, and it was only a slightly evil thing to do to a military vet who canonically suffers from PTSD (sometimes). Oh look, this soldier guy's got quite a few books about Maggie Thatcher...
Watson: Never mind all that. No one will care and they'll praise the writing of this episode as flawless because of the truly witty one liners and incredibly pretty visuals. It'll go down as a classic, even though it doesn't deserve it, on the strength of the other episodes of this show being really rather good. But the password will be a long random series of numbers, letters and characters?
Holmes: Yes! *paces in impotent frustration*
Watson: Like that one. *points at the post-it note* tacked to the computer monitor where the guy has written his very complicated password down so he can remember it*
*credit to Luke Darby for the post-it note idea.
** Telephone Obsession. It's infecting Gatiss.