Potential heat issues (April's Fool on webui)

[Skirk]

That was simply awesome. Most creative April fools prank I've seen in some time.
Thanks Merlin for all you hard work.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

^ This. Being located in New Zealand I suspect I was one of the first to see the mischief. I had a heads up reminder of April Fool's just before checking the router as the kids had put food dye in the toilet cistern

However Merlin's work was much more creative.

Thanks for the laugh

 

[MrBrian]

Thanks for the laugh. Good one...

 

[Bitgod]

Yeah, not terribly funny. I just logged into my router while reading about DVR and router malware (!) that goes looking for Synology devices to infect, and wanting to check on what ports I had left open, and I find the banner askew.

My first thought was WTF. The second was "is this some stupid April Fools? I better check the ASUS forum".

At least I only wasted a minute.

 

[Builder71]

Crap, I missed it, didn't log into the router yesterday.

Nice joke.

 

[gregnukem]

Merlin is the best!

 

[mightyoakbob]

I have to admit however, I didn't expect anyone would go through the trouble of a factory default reset to fix what I made a glaring visual trick - sorry for those who went through such length in an attempt to "fix" it. That was why I overdid it with the red and blue glow and also making it interactive, not just with the slanted banner.

There is no doubt that this was a very original and clever trick and I will admit utterly harmless in the direct sense. The router security was not in any way compromised.

Having said all of the above, the problem with doing things like this is that there can easily be unintended consequences because you cannot predict how people will react to the prank. Given enough people on the receiving end and it may well have been the last straw for someone who's lively hood depended on his/her secure data transfer that day.

Myself, I spent a couple of anxious hours trying to work out what to do and trying different things. I realized it was an April Fool thing but didn't for one moment think that Merlin was the culprit, I assumed I'd be hacked.

So, I closed down port 21 which I'd just opened, pulled the data stick out of the router, and tried different browsers. When two different machines showed the problem I factory rest my router and spent 90 minutes putting it all back. I even changed all my passwords.

My wife was paranoid about security before this and I've had endless grief from her since. "Why can't you use Asus firmware, not good enough for you and now look what's happened. Perhaps the next prank will be more serious, go back to Asus firmware before there is something serious. etc. etc."

So although I admire the cleverness of it, I could really have done without it.


Cheers,

Bob.

 

[L&LD]

Bob,

I don't think the problem is the free RMerlin firmware; time to upgrade the wife.

 

[atkinsom]

Bob,

I don't think the problem is the free RMerlin firmware; time to upgrade the wife.

ROFL!!! So true...people need to get a sense of humor. A great prank by a cool Canuck in Merlin.

 

[mightyoakbob]

ROFL!!! So true...people need to get a sense of humor. A great prank by a cool Canuck in Merlin.

I do have a sense of humor thanks, when something is funny. You can do something apparently harmless like this and for the majority that's and end to it but for someone somewhere in the world the consequences could be out of all proportion. I surprised that isn't obvious to all. When a butterfly flaps its wings......

Bob.

 

[toor]

it took me all of 10 seconds to figure out it was an april fools joke. apparently you have a caption that says "omg this is a joke by merlin, here is a sample of dna to prove it was me!!"

I would not take it out of the firmware. leave it for all future releases.

 

[Deleted member 27741]

You guys are a bunch of sycophants.

Seriously, Bob had a problem. Stop telling him how cool that is or how ok it is or how quickly YOU figured it out.

 

[toor]

Seriously, Bob had a problem. Stop telling him how cool that is or how ok it is or how quickly YOU figured it out.

You need a fresh bowl of cereal, looks like someone pissed in yours.

Nice job creating a new login for this post.....

 

[atkinsom]

Alrighty then....guess we're all different and we'll leave it at that. Cheers to everyone.

 

[thiggins]

Closing Thread

Everyone has had enough fun with this. Closing the thread so that we move on.

 

[RMerlin]

As Tim said, I think this has played itself out by now, so best to lock this out.

In closing, while the majority of users actually enjoyed it, I can understand the worries shown by some users - that was obviously unexpected and unintentional. Because of this, I definitely will not be repeating the experience in the future. The existing code will be removed before the next release (that was already planned to happen in any case).

As for reusing the glow effect as a permanent effect on the webui as some people suggested, I will have to see. I have an idea in mind that might be cool, but I have to think it over first before deciding if I want to go ahead with the idea. I might set up a poll at some point to see what you folks think about it.

 

[KevTech]

First let me start with the fact that since I Know HTML and CCS I knew this was a joke at the start.

That being said I then saw this comment from Merlin.

And to be "professional" would imply that I'm doing this on a professional level. And (once again) unlike these others, I'm not - I'm doing this as a hobby, not as a professional.

I just wanted to point out that to someone in some country you may be considered as professional since you have a professional company (Asus) using your name and code (example is IPv6 patch) on their site that was put in an official firmware release plus the fact you have access to beta firmware the general public does not.

I know some other 3rd party firmware makers have disclaimers on their site and/or changelog of their firmware freeing them from any liability should you use their firmware but I could not find one for Merlin firmware. Maybe there is one and I missed it.

Anyway, if you do not have a disclaimer you may want to add one just to cover your behind should someone try to file some sort of claim someday. You have to remember that this firmware is being used worldwide and laws are different depending on what country they reside.

 

[RMerlin]

Anyway, if you do not have a disclaimer you may want to add one just to cover your behind should someone try to file some sort of claim someday. You have to remember that this firmware is being used worldwide and laws are different depending on what country they reside.

Disclaimer is already on the Wiki, but probably a good idea to add it to the README - thanks.