by rented_mule
1 subcomments
- Late one evening, about 15 years ago, we were wondering why we were seeing several hits per second from a single IP address on our company's search page. It didn't follow any of the patterns of the (admittedly simple) bot detection we had in place. It wasn't bad enough to be a problem, but we were trying to watch some real-time metrics and it was a distraction.
We had a monitor on the wall showing the most popular search terms over the past hour. A few minutes into the event, we saw a search term steadily move to the top of the list. It was something like `'[]`. After thinking about it for a few minutes, we concluded a user left their browser on our search page, a cat stepped on their keyboard in just the right pattern, and then sat down on the F5-key (i.e., refresh key).
No way to know if we got it right, but it was the best we came up with in the 20-ish minutes before it stopped. Oh the things you'll diagnose...
- Some internal Skype versions had cat detection. When the client discovered cat-like key presses, the other side would see a cat walking animation instead of typing animation. Don’t think this feature ever made it to a public release.
by shepherdjerred
1 subcomments
- Unfortunately the program can be bypassed by typing “human”
Ultimately all this does is incentivize cats to type more accurately when inputting malicious commands
- > When cats walk or climb on your keyboard, they can enter random commands and data, damage your files, and even crash your computer.
And they might turn you into the Freakazoid
- Q: My cat is deaf. Can you help me?
A: PawSense detects the paws of even deaf cats. Even if a cat is deaf, PawSense blocks cat typing once detected. This makes it harder for the cat to mess up your programs, data files, and operating system.
However, PawSense does not include a miracle cure for deafness.
- This is timely. Out of my five cats, my primary boy has been really needy or making a game out of hop on table, walk on keyboards, get picked up, scritched and tossed down. Repeat. Even cat tv on youtube hasn't been helping.
by BrandoElFollito
0 subcomment
- I work in IT and I've seen it all.
Well until my family was adopted (and enslaved) by a cat who walked in one day and never left.
Windows 11 having a full screen countdown I've never heard about? Check
A key combination that disables the keyboard? Check
The disabled magnifier that shows up anyway, but now with a setting that forces to to hard boot because you see nothing? Check
I do not mention the 90 or 180° rotation of the screen, a switch of the keyboard and display to Turkish and others.
This cat is an IT desease.
- > Except when playing a sound (when a cat is detected) PawSense occupies less than 120K of RAM.
Maybe add a 1999 or 2000 datestamp to this (it won the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ig_Nobel_Prize_winners... Ig Nobel prize in Computer Science in 2000...)
- I give it One Star: It keeps locking me out of my computer whenever I rage at video games, which makes me rage further.
by SanjayMehta
1 subcomments
- Aluminium foil on flat surfaces works very well.
After the cat has been trained to avoid the shelf or desk, you can remove the foil.
- Noice! I use xtrlock on Linux [1], but it requires preparation. It doesn't play the annoying noise it just locks the keyboard. You can set it to trigger after a few minutes of inactivity which is nice. But you'll still find cats warming their bellies on your keyboard.
[1] For Wayland there's this: https://github.com/Kuze2571/Kaylock
- Is there a Mac version of this? I could honestly use it
by two-sandwich
1 subcomments
- Oh, I really believed this was some strange keylogger spyware. Maybe it is? I really can't tell.
Either this was the hook to get people to install it, or the front to make it seem like a real thing when people find it and google "why is pawsense installed on my computer".
> Even while you use your other software, PawSense constantly monitors keyboard activity. PawSense analyzes keypress timings and combinations to distinguish cat typing from human typing.
- How good! Just need the cat to try it.
Hacker News