Why I Sometimes Donate
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- dMullins
"How Firebug Help Me Hack My Way Into Driving/Traffic School"
Its not often that you hear someone screaming to themselves...“Damnit, I’m desperate to get traffic school”
Believe it or not, I was cursing this at the top of my lungs last week.
While returning home from northern California a month ago, I happened upon a county that employs aircraft to catch speeders. Having always been cynical about those “Patrolled by Aircraft” signs, I was both surprised and skeptical of the citation that a CHP Officer was handing me.
“No thanks, I’ve got plenty of those at home”, I said to the officer as he tried to hand me the ticket.
“The airplane caught you at 84, I insist“, he replied as he pushed the ticket further in the passenger window.
I submitted, and proceeded to drive 5 mph under the speed limit for the remainder of the 13 hour drive. Memorable drive to say the least.
Several weeks passed and I received the details about my ticket in the mail. Being true to my roots, I waited until the second-to-last possible day to pay the ticket. I visit the county’s courthouse website in order to pay my fine and notice the ticket says (in very small print, might I add):
“In order to be eligible for traffic school, you must call the court prior to paying your bail”.
Okay, no big deal. I call the courthouse only to get a voicemail box...a FULL voicemail box that won’t take anything from me. Assuming this was just a fluke, I decided to call again in a couple hours. Same full voicemail box.
Even after having spent several hours using my finely honed research skills, I was never able to find someone at that courthouse to pick up the phone. I called everyone in that f@#&ing town short of 911 (and boy was I close to doing that). How can a public office simply not pick up the telephone?
Enter Plan C. I proceed through the payment process hoping their system was as antiquated as most other courthouse sites are. Seeing a Microsoft VB Script error in the left frame, I’m fairly confident I can accomplish what I need. Firebug, don’t fail me now!
I get the the first confirmation screen regarding my payment due. It tells me $202 is my bail, but I know that in order to get traffic school, my fine should be $252. So I delve into the late-90’s era HTML in search of a <form> using Firebug’s inspector. About 8 nested tables and 500+ lines of code later, SUCCESS! I found the form, and given the obscurity and sheer number of input values within that form, I decided to simply change every instance of $202 to $252.
Honestly, I wasn’t sure if this would actually change what was submitted to the court, but I had to give it a try. I click the “Proceed” button, reach the “Confirm Your Payment” page and see that its confirming my payment for $252...did that just work?
I’m delighted to tell you that in the mail yesterday was a confirmation of my request for traffic school! Firebug saved me countless headaches, and countless extra money paid to insurance companies over the next 5 years. For that, Firebug, you have earned a well-deserved donation in my name! Kudos, and I encourage others to find opportunities like this in life to give back to things/people that help us get shit done.
- tasty0
cue smooth criminal?
- JG_LB0
cliffnotes?
- SteveJobs0
hackers of the world unite?
