Eight Characters Will Crash Almost Any Application on a Mac

CommanderFrank

CommanderFrank

Cat Can't Scratch It
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In the latest release of OSX Mountain Lion, an odd glitch has been found that will crash the system by typing in eight seemingly innocuous characters. It seems likely that Apple will remedy this situation as quickly as possible, but until then pranksters are going to have a field day with this exploit. :D

Looks like it triggers on anything starting with file:// (+/) case-insensitive, but then something later in the data extraction makes the incorrect assumption that the string should start with file:// (+/) lowercase, and throws an assert. It’s really quite bad that a bug inside the data detectors can bring down a whole app.
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Twilight shift tonight... wonder what time the Apple Store in the mall closes...
 
So much effort. Usually you can do this by trying to use it normally for an hour or two.. :p
 
I can confirm that typing File:/// will crash the apps. That's insane.
 
pgwalsh said:
I can confirm that typing File:/// will crash the apps. That's insane.
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Maybe you're typing stuff wrong or don't understand the genius of this feature? I mean if a terrorist ran into the room and demanded to read your emails you could autocrash the application! :eek:
 
No one remembers crashing windows 9x by typing c:/? Even today you can't name a folder that, although it won't bluescreen the system anymore.
 
Ryokurin said:
No one remembers crashing windows 9x by typing c:/? Even today you can't name a folder that, although it won't bluescreen the system anymore.
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Well, that was in the 90's. This is 15 years later, and I would normally have guessed that most OS makers would have fixed for something like this. Or at least not creating new bugs like that.
 
Since it crashes every app this is obviously a system library bug in a particular procedure or function or object. It should not be that hard to track down.

Here's my question. How the HELL did anyone even find it?
 
TechLarry said:
Since it crashes every app this is obviously a system library bug in a particular procedure or function or object. It should not be that hard to track down.

Here's my question. How the HELL did anyone even find it?
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Probably trigger finger or someone with Parkinson's when typing file:// in a browser window.
 
Cant rag on Apple too much for this one, its happened to every OS. Pretty hilarious though this crashed, as file:/// isnt that uncommon... (I know this one has a capital F but still....)
 
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