sugardeath

Break Things, Please!

I posted this in my status on Facebook, but crossposting yields wider audiences.  Amber conscripted me to build a simple submission and voting script for an upcoming Doctor Who fanvideo contest.  I think I'm mostly done with it, which means that there's a ton of bugs to be fixed, naturally.  I've already gotten the obvious SQL injection one (look at one of the submissions on the vote page, it has a drop table statement in it that should've cleared all the submissions) and Richard already helped me fix one that came up if the page was open in two different tabs or browsers (just a simple check fixed it; a stupid one, but simple), but I want people to keep trying to break it.  Amber doesn't need it until the end of April or so, so I've got plenty of time to beef it up if anything is found. 

So, go for it.  Try all your stupid little user tricks, things I would never have thought of as the programmer (such as the multiple tab thing Richard showed me).

This project was really fun.  I got to learn some more php, expand upon my sql, learn how to use sql within php, and probably most fun of all: learn how to use ajax.  Since voters are to vote on multiple categories, I did not want to have to reload the page every time they voted in one category, that would be a waste of the voter's time.  Especially when the page gets to be pretty long with a ton of submissions (I'm assuming it will get long (there's twenty-nine categories after all), and that there will be a ton of submissions).  So, instead, when they vote on a category, it'll just collapse the form in that category into a "Thank you for voting!" message and the voter can go on unabated.  I like it, it's really cool :razz:

The thing logs based on IP address, so of course if you go to another computer and try to vote again, you'll succeed.  And of course if you use a proxy, etc. etc. 

--A dude just walked past my window and freaked me the hell out.  Looks like he was checking something on the outside of the buildings.--

Amber said that the people who will be participating are unlikely to go about vote stuffing in this manner since... well, they're generally fourteen year old fangirls who know shit about computers (though they can kick my ass at video editing, that's for sure). 

But yeah, try anything, everything.  And if you break it or find something that you think might be broken, just leave a comment on this post.

Also, yes.  It is intentionally ugly (this is Corey's big issue for some reason, and yet his IPRO site looks like it was made in frontpage).  I plan to just php include() them into Amber's site later on and CSS the hell out of them.

The link again.

I watched A Dog's Breakfast before going to bed last night.  It was surprisingly good.  It stars David Hewlett (Rodney McKay, Stargate: Atlantis), his sister Kate Hewlett (Jeannie Miller, Mckay's sister, Stargate: Atlantis), and Paul McGillion (Dr. Carson Beckett, Stargate: Atlantis; Young Dr. Ernest Littlefield, Stargate: SG-1 "The Torment of Tantalus").  The Hewletts again play siblings, with McGillion as Kate's actor fiancé.  It started out a little.. slowish for me, but then just took a turn for the awesome.  Especially the cameo by Christopher Judge (Teal'c, Stargate: SG-1).  Holy hell.  He plays such a serious character on SG-1, and while I knew he was a funny guy, I didn't realize just how awesome he could be.  He really needs more comedy jobs.  It's a small cast, and it's basically all Stargate regulars, but it's so refreshing to see them all outside of the Sci-Fi genre doing some good ol' comedy.

I recommend the movie, even if you aren't a fan of Stargate.  David Hewlett's performance is top-notch and his chemistry with Kate is perfect (which probably has something to do with the fact that, you know, they're siblings and all).  McGillion is great too (one of my all time favorite actors on Atlantis). 

The Prometheus ship set/stage also makes an appearance, as McGillion's character is an actor on a really bad Sci-Fi show (where Rachel Lutrell, also of Atlantis fame, makes a cameo) that seemingly takes place aboard an advanced space ship.