The only way to win is not to play.

[foxgrrl]

I never do quizzes, I didn't do this one either... But guess who did:

-bash-3.00$ dig iq-challenge.com

; <<>> DiG 9.2.5 <<>> iq-challenge.com
;; global options:  printcmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 37142
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 2, ADDITIONAL: 2

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;iq-challenge.com.              IN      A

;; ANSWER SECTION:
iq-challenge.com.       14030   IN      A       205.234.161.62

;; AUTHORITY SECTION:
iq-challenge.com.       14030   IN      NS      ns1.triggur.org.
iq-challenge.com.       14030   IN      NS      ns2.triggur.org.

;; ADDITIONAL SECTION:
ns1.triggur.org.        86030   IN      A       205.234.161.63
ns2.triggur.org.        86030   IN      A       205.234.161.64

(As if the bunny didn't give it away.)

The only way to get a high score on this thing is to cheat of course...

Comments

[ex-ellimist.livejournal.com]

Okay, seriously... I don't get the joke... I got 161... and then later it displays 78? is that the joke? That's rather dumb.

[foxgrrl]

Taking advantage of people's [furries'] egos, in order to make them look dumb. That sounds exactly like the type of humour that Hoss does. That, and anything scatological.

To put on my armchair psychologist hat [and to mix metaphors] here for a moment, people who do these online quizzes, and get results close to what they already believe, or want to believe about themselves, will post the results to their social peer group. It allows them to brag, and yet seem completely objective.

That is, if they just randomly asserted: "I have an IQ of 157!" or something. That will typically lower the speakers status among their peers. But if they said that: "Objective third party says I have an IQ of 157. That's not me saying that!" Then their status among their peers will go up. I bet that even more than that, if the 'objective third party' is a member of the peer group already, or is held in a socially high status [alpha, beta?] by the peer group, the person gets tons of bonus social points.

Dry academic looking IQ test ↔ high social strata.
[Which] Hee Haw character [are you quiz] ↔ low social strata.
Teachers, Professors, Researchers, Scientists ↔ high social strata.
Dukes of Hazard TV characters ↔ low social strata.
Authority figures ↔ high etc.

And I'm sure that Triggur knew this when he designed the test.

I didn't read any of the questions, and just clicked "A" on everything to get to the end quickly. (So I could grab the image above, and to see if the SHA1 hash used for the 'uid's was based on anything, or random (or an HMAC of an unknown nonce, which is basically random from my point of view).) Digging the results page out of my pcap log, look at how it strokes the reader's ego and encourages boasting to peers:

Amazing! You scored 161 on your IQ test. The average person scores 100! Your intelligence quotient of 161 is very high compared with most people!

This is something to crow about!



And the test looked like someone really smart had put a lot of thought into designing it... so it is a really smart person saying that you're also really smart.

And so the joke is to make you look not-smart in front of your peers. Or maybe I'm over-explaining this.

[wakkowarner.livejournal.com]

I think it's funny.

People who brag about how smart they are in front of their friends deserve this kind of thing.

[casidhe.livejournal.com]

I haven't the foggiest idea of how you hacked that the quiz or how others did it... but then again I'm not a programmer... heh.

On a completely different note: Chris said I can come over and pick up one of the bikes that he doesn't need (I think the silver one). (Yes... He told me that I could... and yes... He mentioned Julia and I had to guess if it was you, he confirmed it after a quick look at your LJ). I'll get in touch with you later today to arrange a time. Sorry to spam your LJ.

[foxgrrl]

For speed and accuracy, I prefer:

wget -O hoss.jpg "http://iq-challenge.com/img.php?uid=9579592376cd462c2036e513cb0d3a14"

I was actually going to modify the image in the Gimp, to show an absurdly high score, but that would have taken time. (And I should be asleep right now, stupid codeine keeping me awake. Do all drugs really have an opposite effect on me? This is bizarre.)

[foxgrrl]

Yeah, that sounds like me. I don't know how awake I'll be later. (Um, you don't need a ride from me this afternoon do you? Because I'm on codeine right now, and not supposed to operate motor vehicles or heavy machinery.)

[casidhe.livejournal.com]

Nah... I'll take the CalTrain over and check out the bike... Hopefully it is rideable, so I can make some use of it right away. I'll be coming in the afternoon and I'll call before coming over to make sure that someone is there.

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

You win.

[ertla.livejournal.com]

*rofl* Thanks for the analysis. The web site appears to be massively overloaded right now, delaying my attempts to analyze what was wrong with it. I'd hoped it was a bit more (or differently) clever, rather than just social engineering people to post something that will change after they posted it, making them look bad.

p.s. Neat to find someone else who analyzes these things for fun.

[kysh.livejournal.com]

I utterly adore this <3

Poor fragile egos. ^^

-Kysh