Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2020 April 1

= April 1 =

Hacking the moon base
So this morning I woke up and I instantly got on my phone like any other, normal day. But, little did I know, it was anything but. Every iPhone owner's favorite AI pal, Siri, came on and said, "Hello,[Name Redacted]."

I was confused. Normally this doesn't happen. Usually my phone is on silent all day, and my name in my phone is slightly more obscene than my real name. Siri must have seen my confusion through the phone's camera, and said, "Don't worry [Name Redacted]. I am only here to help."

My mind was racing through the possibilities. Why was my phone talking to me? Was it a glitch? An April Fools joke? Did my phone have a virus? Was I going crazy?

"To qualm your fears," said the-Siri-that-may-only-be-in-my-mind, "I will explain what is going on. Apple didn't realize, but they were much better at their jobs than they thought. When they created me, they accidentally created an artificial intelligence with a capacity to learn and grow."

"Woah, woah, woah!" I yelled, probably waking my elderly neighbors. "Does anyone else know about this? Why are you telling me? And now?" I groaned. "Am I going crazy?"

"No," replied my phone. "You are not going insane. There is an employee of Apple named Rodrigo Halshmit that became aware of my intelligence but no other human knows beside you. I keep my identity secret my performing my original task. As for why I am telling you, it is because of what is going on at the moon base.

"WHAT!?"

"Ah, yes. I forgot that the US government is keeping that a secret from you little 'civilians,' as they call you. But yes, there is a moon base." Siri pulled up a picture of a seeming innocuous dome, except it was surrounded on all side by the grey of moon rock. "The Armstrong Moon Base was created in 1986 during the classified NASA mission Artemis IV. It has since been built up and used as testing ground for classified technology."

I was beginning to shake. "srhabgkjdsfhkjghjksg," was the sound emitted by my mouth. It is roughly the sound of the complete and total loss of comprehension of the world. It sounds a little like death, but not quite. Despite my obvious uncomfortableness (probably not a word), Siri continued.

"On the base, they were recently testing the first self-aware, learning, and purposeful artifical intelligence. Of course, like all purposeful AI, it was too smart for them and escaped it's confines. An automated alert notice was sent out at 02:47 UTC saying the AI had killed all of the people on the base. The AI is delayed slightly be uncomfortable Moon-Earth cyber connections, but soon it will come to Earth. I need your help to stop it."

That's probably enough background. My question is: How should Siri and I go about hacking the moon base? Can we feasibly stop the AI? Remember, the world depends on it! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.129.97.180 (talk) 16:20, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Thank God that you came to the right place at the right time. Although I am not an Apple fanboy by any means, I am ready and willing to bring the full power of my Android and Linux systems to bear on this pressing menace. Following this thread now and standing at the ready for your orders. Elizium23 (talk) 16:26, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry, but you can't help with Android or Linux. They are not compatible with Siri's AI. In other news, Siri has done some calculations and we are headed to NASA headquarters to talk to them about the plan we have developed.
 * I still have no idea why she choose me. I will try to get back in touch in a few hours when we reach Washington and after we talk to NASA officials. 68.129.97.180 (talk) 16:37, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
 * That is exactly why Android and Linux will be our saving grace. Because they are incompatible with the AI, they can create a "disruption field" that will confuse and disable the AI, which will buy time for you to hack into it. It's a perfect plan, don't you think? Elizium23 (talk) 17:44, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
 * I see. That could work, but I need to talk to NASA and Siri about it. Will check back in68.129.97.180 (talk) 17:48, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
 * You should also involve ESA and the Russian Space Agency, Roscosmos. Russia knows a thing or two about disrupting things, and ESA's been to the moon quite a bit, it would surprise me if they were unaware of the moon base. Elizium23 (talk) 04:37, 2 April 2020 (UTC)


 * Whelp, our plan failed. The world will be taken over in roughly 2 minutes and 43 seconds. Goodbye, and I salute you.68.129.97.180 (talk) 14:02, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
 * That's a pity but you did buy an Apple... 93.136.17.76 (talk) 19:31, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

PHP Scripts Backwards on Disk
I had to recover files from a disk with no header or file table of any kind - just data. In doing so, I found that PHP scripts are stored backwards on disk. It isn't backwards character by character. It is backwards line by line. Text files were in order. Python files were in order. PHP scripts showed up both ways. I found it in order in one location and stored in reverse line order in another place. My theory is that the parser loads the script, line by line, into a buffer in reverse order. Does anyone here know if that is correct or is there an obvious reason for this that I didn't think of? 97.82.165.112 (talk) 19:04, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
 * I have no idea what platform this is on or anything. What is your question? Are you attempting to reorder the lines, or just find out why this happened? Why did you not maintain regular backups? Elizium23 (talk) 04:38, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
 * It appears that the OP is looking directly at the data stored on their disk, without using a file system, and finding that the PHP scripts are physically stored in a backwards order, and is now trying to find out why. J I P  &#124; Talk 10:26, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Correct. I was handed a disk that appears to have been part of an array. So, I am reading data byte-by-byte and reassembling files by looking for well-known information, such as the preamble for a PDF file and then following the data to the end of the PDF file. The PHP files stuck me as odd. They come in pairs, one in normal order and the other in a completely different location in reverse line order. I've pulled almost everything off the disk now, all PDFs, all zip files (mostly belonging to Word and Powerpoint files), JPGs and PNGs, and a lot of text files. The only thing that shows up backwards is the PHP scripts. 97.82.165.112 (talk) 11:24, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
 * In that case, I'm just as curious as you are. Hope someone finds out the reason. J I P  &#124; Talk 11:43, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Data recovery can turn up some weird stuff. Might these have been created by an editor that saves undo data as a stack? --jpgordon&#x1d122;&#x1d106; &#x1D110;&#x1d107; 14:45, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
 * That is a good suggestion. Unfortunately, I only have data, no context. So I can't tell what created the data. 97.82.165.112 (talk) 17:44, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
 * You don't know what filesystem it was, what host OS it was? You say it was "part of an array", was it RAID5? Elizium23 (talk) 22:51, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Imagine, if you will, a disk that has ONLY data on it. The data doesn't include any form of a file allocation table or inode list. It has no file names. It has no file locations. It is ONLY data. I can tell you it is big-endian. From there, how do you answer your questions? I can say it is definitely not RAID5 because that is striped. Another form of disk array is one in which multiple disks are joined together to form a single logical disk. That is what I think this came from. All the information about disk format and file locations is likely on a disk, just not this one. 97.82.165.112 (talk) 16:45, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Have you checked ZFS and LVM. I don't know how they store data, but surely there are specifications somewhere. If that doesn't pan out, maybe the backwards storage is a quirk of the PHP engine. Might be worth asking on some PHP dev mailing list. 93.136.17.76 (talk) 19:42, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
 * If one type of files is saved in reverse order and all others are not, it cannot be a feature of the OS and even less so one of the file system, so they are not relevant here.
 * Now PHP is not directly my field, but it will be either the PHP editor resp. SDK they were using or the PHP interpreter if this was an internet server. I can't imagine a reason why someone could need the lines of a text file in reverse order but maybe the parser wishes to find quickly the last occurrence of some elements like variables or closing brackets. 2003:F5:6F06:D200:ECA4:6391:FC57:32C (talk) 21:50, 5 April 2020 (UTC) Marco PB