A lesson in Input Validation

The Picard Maneuver@startrek.websitemod to Lemmy Shitpost@lemmy.world – 985 points –
64

You are viewing a single comment

my brain is churning through char limits... i just cant believe it would be large enough through multiple systems..but then, i dont know the char count of the script, compression techniques used, encapsulation etc.

It can just fetch the information one line at a time like a printing machine. I don't think the receipt machine has that much memory to hold everything

im talkin about the half a dozen systems that data flowed through before hitting the printer.

Maybe this isn't a big chain. I worked for a local pizza place a while back, and they had their own website set up by the owner. It would have been up to him to set the limit.

If his printer wasnt one from just eat linked to the just eat order machine we might have had the same problem. The printer was dumb, it likely just responded to whatever input it recieves. In the case of just eat orders they likely have a char limit so its never an issue.

Theres a couple clues that suggest it's a Canadian cannabis dispensary. Which is interesting as many use the same web app for menus and online orders (Dutchie), though some don't.

The script is ~55k characters long, depending on the source. This transcript, 55k, includes who is saying the line, as well as descriptive elements of the story, so the actual 'words only' version will be a bit shorter. This one is 99k and includes even more description of the visual elements. From what I've seen, though, most of transcripts have these non verbal inclusions, so the person who added it to the special instructions likely copied those over as well.

I can't speak to the other points, but allowing 55k characters is definitely wild.

youre not gettin more than maaybe 512 outta me if i was asked to store/move 'special instructions' with no requirement

a part of me thinks someone connected directly to this printer and printed it. i cant imagine someone pasting 55k into an online form and it making it intact all the way to the print job.

reality is, this would have been truncated client side before it even hit the wires.

And if everyone in the chain thought the same, sending this by hand instead of using client would have this effect