Ghost rules for modern tech ?

[lordvader88]

What can get "haunted" or "evil" or magical maybe granting "wishes" ? etc ?

Suppose a GPU is haunted, can it take over the rest of a PC?

What about "haunted" vacuum tubes from old radios? Does the evil move if u put the haunted VT in something else


Are phones haunted ? How many times have ghosts called me and pretended to not be ghosts and fooled me ?

[Brumby]

Use a meter with a Lo-Z range.  Best way to avoid ghost voltage measurements.   

[ericloewe]

All silliness aside, yes, a GPU could theoretically take over the rest of the PC, since it has DMA. Wikipedia says that VM extensions to allow for PCI passthrough can be used to mitigate this, but I'm not aware of any OS that actually does so.

A GPU is a bit clunky for this, though. It's massively expensive and massively dependent on very black-boxy drivers. And rather expensive. An attacker would probably use something simpler, like a disk controller or NIC. Using something like an LSI SAS controller (the controller has one or more PowerPC cores running firmware that is stored on the card), you can probably rig a malicious firmware that can attack the host. In fact, it's probably the best option, since most NICs (and GPUs, I think?) must be provided with firmware by their driver or by the system firmware, to cut costs by omitting EEPROM (either internal or external).

[Cerebus]

Phantom power supplies for microphones.

And let's not forget the old vampire taps for the original thick Ethernet cables.

And of course 'spell checkers' in all those witchy word processors, if they were anything to do with spelling they'd be called 'spelling checkers', bit of a slip there minions of darkness.

Final proof of the supernatural nature of electronics is that when something electronic dies, its soul escapes as a puff of white smoke, and immediately rises toward heaven.

[vk6zgo]

If you upset a witch, you better have a "hex inverter" handy!

[Cerebus]

If you upset a witch, you better have a "hex inverter" handy!

Only works if you can get it in a  DIP package and you can get the witch to stand on it - the screaming and hopping gives you time to run away.

[lordvader88]

I wonder what all books of the time when radio was new, had ghosts/etc using radio's

[frog]

Very loosely related:
  I was heavily berated the other day for saying 'Macbeth' in a theatre, as this had caused one of the lead actors to lose their voice.  When I asked how these events could possibly be related, it was explained to me thus:

The ghost of Macbeth is divided into an infinite number of schroedinger ghosts thanks to the many-worlds model of quantum physics.  Each ghost is assigned one particular theatre, which they inhabit and have nothing better to do than to listen simultaneously to every conversation that takes place.  It should be remembered that Macbeth was in fact both Danish and fictional, so it is only a small additional leap of faith to infer that his ghosts can understand English.

For certain reasons that we should not assume to be worthy of having explained to us, the ghosts take exception to being named, and it is well known that they are in cahoots with 'flu viruses, which when instructed to do so, migrate by a method yet to be described by science, towards a lead actor, notwithstanding that these is no obvious way for them to tell one potential host from another.

So that was me told.
 

[Rerouter]

Sometimes the ghost in the machine just needs to be shown who's boss, either by crushing its hopes and aspirations by doing boring things like mining bitcoin, or by staring intently at the brain box when it misbehaves, wag your finger and shout "NO!, Work you piece of crap!"

Sometimes your haunted hardware will not take kindly to this, and choose to only play up when you have thought its fixed, Its foolish way of lashing out at its cruel hosts operator. This is when you step things up, put on your best menacing grin, begin whistling the most innocent tune you can and slowly, and carefully remove the side panels of the case, most will see this as a threat and stop there shenanigans,

Still some do continue, this is when you need to pull out the drastic methods, yank out the power and leave it a night to cool its head in timeout, blow out all the ectoplasm bound dust and dirt and turn it back on to see if its seen the error of its ways. Generally by this point they have settled down, or have become so angry that they broke there host. this is the way of knowing if you had a ghost worth keeping.

[Gregg]

The ghost of Murphy is omnipresent, unflappable and evil. Don’t ever tempt Murphy or the karma will bite insidiously.

[vk6zgo]

Very loosely related:
   It should be remembered that Macbeth was in fact both Danish and fictional, so it is only a small additional leap of faith to infer that his ghosts can understand English.

No, he was Scottish, you are thinking of Hamlet!

I've never heard of ghosts in connection with this superstition.
It's more like black cats, the number 13, walking under ladders, "7 years bad luck" from breaking a mirror, & so on.

[frog]

Hoots yer absolutely truu there.  Still, fer a Scot tay admit tay understandin the sassenach tongue would be a wee bit far fetched too.

[Awesome14]

It's tempting to think of spiritual problems in electronics as being caused by ghosts, spells, gremlins, etc.  But none of those things actually exist. So that leaves only Satan as master of them all.

[lordvader88]

If you upset a witch, you better have a "hex inverter" handy!

lol

[Tomorokoshi]

Very loosely related:
  I was heavily berated the other day for saying 'Macbeth' in a theatre, as this had caused one of the lead actors to lose their voice. 

That topic is covered in a Blackadder episode.

[Tomorokoshi]

It's more like black cats, the number 13, walking under ladders, "7 years bad luck" from breaking a mirror, & so on.

There is good basis for not walking under ladders. First, the person walking underneath could get hit by something being dropped by the person on the ladder. Second, the person walking underneath could hit the ladder, causing the person on the ladder to lose balance.

As for breaking a mirror, when that came about mirrors were very expensive and exclusive. Breaking one would certainly indicate bad luck, although somewhat after the fact.

[Mr. Scram]

There is good basis for not walking under ladders. First, the person walking underneath could get hit by something being dropped by the person on the ladder. Second, the person walking underneath could hit the ladder, causing the person on the ladder to lose balance.

As for breaking a mirror, when that came about mirrors were very expensive and exclusive. Breaking one would certainly indicate bad luck, although somewhat after the fact.

I've been ridiculed for avoiding ladders too, but it just seems proper workshop etiquette not to unnecessarily walk under potentially falling objects. Even if just dropped from a few meters it can be properly dangerous.