22 votes

The McDonald’s ice cream machine hacking saga has a new twist

9 comments

  1. [3]
    Akir
    Link
    Well that’s the funniest thing I have read all week. Does Taylor not have access to the engineers who created their system? Or at least their documentation or sources? I honestly cannot tell if...

    …Taylor copied Kytch's method so literally that it used the startup's "man-in-the-middle" technique to intercept the machine's data—despite having full access to the machine's internals as its manufacturer. "Who puts a man-in-the-middle on themselves?" O'Sullivan asks. "It's like spying on your own conversation. You'd just add connectivity to the computer."

    Well that’s the funniest thing I have read all week. Does Taylor not have access to the engineers who created their system? Or at least their documentation or sources? I honestly cannot tell if they are just being comic book evil or if they are just incredibly inept.

    This whole saga is a perfect example of how trade secrets hurt the entire industry they are involved in.

    8 votes
  2. [5]
    lou
    (edited )
    Link
    I literally cannot remember the last time I saw or heard of a broken McDonald's ice cream machine. I'm kinda wondering if I ever saw a broken one. And I love their ice cream. I am not in the US.

    I literally cannot remember the last time I saw or heard of a broken McDonald's ice cream machine. I'm kinda wondering if I ever saw a broken one. And I love their ice cream. I am not in the US.

    1 vote
    1. [4]
      cfabbro
      (edited )
      Link Parent
      That pretty much perfectly illustrates the problem with anecdotal evidence. But for actual hard data, you can check the ice cream machine status on the site mentioned in the article:...

      That pretty much perfectly illustrates the problem with anecdotal evidence. But for actual hard data, you can check the ice cream machine status on the site mentioned in the article:
      https://mcbroken.com/

      Currently 9.74% of all the machines worldwide in the US, Canada, UK, and Germany are broken.
      Edit: 9.73% now, so I guess a few were fixed in that time. ;)

      5 votes
      1. [3]
        cfabbro
        Link Parent
        11.97% broken machine total now. Damn, so many more machines broke over the course of the day. E.g. New York went from 21.4% broken when I checked yesterday, to 34.7% now. I wonder if that sort of...

        11.97% broken machine total now. Damn, so many more machines broke over the course of the day. E.g. New York went from 21.4% broken when I checked yesterday, to 34.7% now. I wonder if that sort of daily breakage rate is normal? If so, no wonder why this diagnostic tool startup exists.

        1. [2]
          MimicSquid
          Link Parent
          Absolutely anecdotal, but I always eat fast food when I'm on the road, and Thanksgiving sees lots of travel. It's likely that the machines are seeing higher than average demand this weekend.

          Absolutely anecdotal, but I always eat fast food when I'm on the road, and Thanksgiving sees lots of travel. It's likely that the machines are seeing higher than average demand this weekend.

          1 vote
          1. cfabbro
            (edited )
            Link Parent
            Ah, yeah that would probably explain it. I forgot that it was Thanksgiving weekend in the US, and how many Americans often travel for it. Canadian Thanksgiving was in Oct, but it's not really that...

            Ah, yeah that would probably explain it. I forgot that it was Thanksgiving weekend in the US, and how many Americans often travel for it. Canadian Thanksgiving was in Oct, but it's not really that culturally important of a holiday for us, so we rarely travel far for it.

            2 votes