Some friends of ours had for years now tortured my girlfriend, who, admittedly, is easy to scare, with practical jokes. I wish to wreak upon them a technical revenge. What I’m thinking, is a video container into which one can have, say, a rip of a horror movie, but with a personalised scary bit inserted into the stream. So far, so good, that’s a piece of piss, obviously. However. What I want is something that will play the inserted clip once, thus startling and hopefully spooking them, then delete itself so that then when they rewind it to figure out wtf just happened, it’s not there. Does such a tool exist? If not, it is clearly a quick-hit profitable practical joke that a decent coder could knock up. Links or offers to beta-test plz. She needs some payback… 
Probably @japhroaig might be best to ask about this, being the super-whizz-kid haxxz0r that he is…
But maybe a lower tech solution could be employed? Do you know how they will be watching the rip? Are we talking vlc? Streamed from a media player, dvd/blu-ray?
I’ve been playing with codecs for over a decade now.
I can’t think of any way to implement this in the way you describe using standard and available tools.
The closest I can think of would have to involve a custom video player, or using IP streaming. Video files don’t have executable code, and video players don’t look for executable stuff inside video files. This is basic security stuff.
It’s conceivable though that if one could MITM the client and Netflix or YouTube or whatever, then it would be doable to inject your own custom video into the stream.
There may be self-deletion implemented in DRM, but I refuse to get my hands dirty with that gross stuff.
Yeah… I can’t think of a way unless you had remote control over the stream (which means your adversary already knows something is up) or remote control over the device (which is ethically dubious).
Can we perhaps think of a different prank that accomplishes the same goals? (I like pranks)
Funny you bring this up. I’ve been mitm’ing tls for a couple months now, and its a pain in the ass. You generally have to either get the end user to do something complex and stupid (install a bundle cert and new authority), get a rogue-but-trusted authority to issue a cert (I.e. Iran and China), or heatbleed them (which doesn’t really work for long lived connections).
When I mitm someone its exclusively idiots who turn off dns checks, sni, htst, etc. And I present them an obviously forged cert. Cause they are stupid skiddies.
This wouldn’t work with even a casual video viewer (and that’s a feature of tls! It makes it hard for people like me to fuck around with shit)
It’s difficult? Awww, piss. I suppose I’ll just have to jump out of a cupboard with a werewolf mask on then, or something. Shame, cos that would have really spooked them.
Huh… Just a thought. Although almost certainly illegal: Reprogram their remote, and plugin your own input to the tv, such that the normal commands on the remote are set to your pirate channel.
Then you have a laptop in the next room with your custom copy playing from it, using a control program, possibly doable in VLC could execute this prank. You’d need your own hidden IR sensor within line of sight of the remote hooked into the system too, so that if they skip back, the pirate system would be able to react appropriately.
Having been pranked pretty well myself, I’m all for simplicity with stuff like this. Shaving cream in the toothpaste, white vinegar in the bottled water, or if you’ve got access to their car, sugar packets held onto the visor with their tops torn off (and hence, a sweet, but ticking time bomb) are always good. I, myself, have opened my work locker to have a work-locker-full of popcorn cascading around my ankles (definitely good for a laugh, especially for the “Real Genius” fans among us).
If you’re a really awful human being, and you have access to a telephone that’s not traced to you (biz phone, or better, use the iPhones at the Apple store), make random telephone calls and when the voicemail picks up, use some variation of this text:
“Hello. This is a service call regarding your water and sewage bill. It appears there was a mistake with our computer systems and our estimates show that you have a $238.44 shortfall in your account for which you will shortly receive a bill in the mail. If you have any questions, please call [your pal’s number].”
Yes, it’s awful because it messes with the voicemail’d person as well as your mark, but done across a wide enough base, your mark will DEFINITELY receive nasty phone calls. Which is to say, you shouldn’t do it, because it’s awful and shitty and juvenile all wrapped into one.
I was thinking of some kind of screen sharing but you’d have to be able to somehow switch the screens to the exact same point in the movie at the exact moment that they decided to rewind without letting them see the screen switch.
Maybe a remote switch box that switched between inputs and once they start rewinding the real copy just leave the box switched over and you don’t have to faff around with injecting another stream or scene etc.
Depends on the set up and how much access you have to it and if you could somehow hide the screen switch in the moment that they started to rewind… you could poke them in the eye I guess.
But I think there’s a more ‘magicky’ solution to this that would end up being easier than the technological versions.
If @GilbertWham was in charge of the remote, rather than the scaree, this would be a lot easier, but also more suspect.
Overcomplicated. Can’t you instead contrive to be conveniently located in the next room (or something) at the time and switch the file / USB drive / DVD when they’re not looking?
Fuck it, I’ll just blow up their house.
System Language --> Swahili --> OK? --> ئۇيغۇرچە
This topic was automatically closed after 384 days. New replies are no longer allowed.
