Tynan on Tech

(You’ll find a whizzy interactive version of this quiz with working radio buttons and everything at Infoworld.com. Here we’re just interested in the jokes, m’am.)

Seems like everything went down this past week — YouTube, Hotmail, iTunes DRM, and Google’s stock price among them. Can you pick up the pieces in our snarky news quiz? Some questions aren’t as easy as they look. Most answers are worth 10 points, and at least one is impossible to get wrong. Ready? Then let’s begin.

– Dan Tynan

1. A Moroccan IT engineer has been sentenced to three years in jail for creating a fake Facebook profile for a member of the Moroccan royal family. Which one?

a. Prince Moulay Rachid
b. Prince Moulay Hassan
c. Prince Rogers Nelson
d. Prince Albert in the can

2. When the FCC convened a public hearing on Net Neutrality at Harvard this week, Comcast took pains to pump up the attendance. What did it do?

a. Sent letters to its supporters urging them to attend
b. Shut down cable TV service to Boston during the hearing
c. Paid people to pack the hall before anyone else showed up
d. Purchased banner ads on Bit Torrent sites promoting the event

3. This week the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority did something that affected Net users across the globe. What did the PTA do?

a. Shut down YouTube worldwide
b. Took MSN Hotmail offline
c. Paid people to attend Comcast’s FCC hearing
d. Closed down Starbucks

4. Quick — how many days’ worth of e-mail are missing from White House archives?

a. 202
b. 473
c. 1,000+
d. A lot

5. DVD Jon has cracked another encryption case, offering a free program that strips DRM from songs purchased from iTunes. What’s the new app called?

a. misterTwister
b. doubleTwist
c. twistedSister
d. twistedPanties

6. Our nation’s intelligence agencies have found a new place to look for terrorists. Where?

a. Facebook
b. Google Earth
c. World of Warcraft
d. Hannah, Montana

7. “We really botched this. … You guys have to do a better job with our customers than what was shown here. This was especially true because you put me out on a limb making a commitment. This is not OK.” Who said it, and what was he so steamed about?

a. Microsoft co-president Jim Allchin on shifting “Vista capable” requirements
b. Microsoft board member Jon Shirley on the lack of Vista drivers
c. Microsoft Windows chief Steven Sinofsky on Vista incompatibilities
d. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer on drugs

8. Trouble in Google paradise? Since hitting a high of more than $740 last November, Google stock has dropped like a rock. Where were its shares trading when the market closed on Tuesday, Feb. 26?

a. $664
b. $564
c. $464
d. $364

9. Whistleblower site WikiLeaks.org WikiLeaks.be is getting help from some legal heavyweights in its battle with Bank Julius Baer. Who’s in WikiLeaks’ corner?

a. CDT & Public Citizen
b. ACLU & EFF
c. Former Law & Order star Fred Thompson
d. WTF & ROFLMAO

10. It’s evolution math time. Take the fine, in dollars, recently levied on Microsoft by the European Union. Multiply by the likelihood that a U.S. teen bought music on CD last year. Add the number of species catalogued so far by the new Encyclopedia of Life online. Put them in a petri dish and let nature take its course. What do you get?

a. 750 billion
b. 750,030,000
c. 750,030
d. 75

(Answers after the jump.)

YDKT - 29 Feb 08 - The Answers:

Now that you know how you scored, you probably want to know why. Check out the answers below for the gory details. And be sure to return next year for another news quiz, ripped straight from the tech headlines.

Question 1: Which Morrocan royal got mocked on Facebook?

10 points
a. Prince Moulay Rachid

Twenty-six-year-old Fouad Mourtada is facing three years in the pokey for creating a Facebook page for Prince Rachid, which his supporters claim was simply a tribute to the man second in line to assume the Moroccan throne. Prince Moulay Hassan is first in line, followed somewhat later by Prince Rogers Nelson, the artist formerly known as “the artist formerly known as.”

Question 2: What did Comcast do to ensure a full house at its FCC hearing?

10 points
c. Paid people to pack the hall before anyone else showed up

Comcast claims it hired people off the street merely to secure seats for employees who wished to attend the hearing, but many inexplicably failed to show up. Meanwhile, supporters of Net Neutrality and Comcast opponents were forced to wait outside. But Comcast wasn’t suppressing criticism, it was merely demonstrating intelligent human traffic management. Right?

Question 3: What did the Pakistanis do to the Net?

10 points
a. Shut down YouTube worldwide

In an attempt to block anti-Islamic videos on YouTube, Pakistan’s Telecom Authority ordered the country’s ISPs to cut off traffic to YouTube. One of them goofed and sent instructions that misrouted everyone’s YouTube traffic for two hours last Sunday. In apparently unrelated events, Hotmail also went down for several hours this week, and all 17 billion Starbucks outlets closed for three hours last Tuesday for employee training. Apparently that’s how long it takes to insert the microchips that cause the barristas to say “tall, grande, and venti” intead of “small, medium, and large.”

Question 4: The White House managed to erase cover up nuke misplace how many days’ worth of e-mail?

10 points
d.A lot

5 points
a. 202
b. 473
c. 1,000+

You can’t lose with this question — though those of us who’d like to know what really happened during the Bush Administration may never win. Depending on the source, the White House lost either 202 days (according to Rep. Thomas Davis, R-Va.), 473 days (per the White House report issued in 2005), or more than 1,000 days (the revised estimate now given by Steven McDevitt, author of said report). Total messages lost: somewhere between 1 and 10 million — a lot of e-mail to flush down the memory hole.

Question 5: What is DVD Jon calling his iTunes-busting beta app?

10 points
b. doubleTwist

Jon Lech Johansen’s software converts legally purchased (but locked) iTunes songs into MP3s, which allows them to play on any device, even — horrors — those not made by Apple. So far, there has been no response from Cupertino. You know DRM is dead when this doesn’t get Steve Jobs’ boxers in a bunch.

Question 6: What’s the new anti-terror battleground?

10 points
c. World of Warcraft

In a report to Congress [PDF], the Office of the Director of National Intelligence revealed several new data-mining initiatives, including one aimed directly at multiplayer games like World of Warcraft. I guess the plan is to fight them in the virtual world so we don’t have to fight them in the real world. Or something like that.

Question 7: Who botched what and got left out on a limb?

10 points
a. Microsoft co-president Jim Allchin on shifting “Vista capable” requirements

In an e-mail introduced as evidence in the newly certified class-action suit against Microsoft, Allchin revealed his frustration with the types of hardware that got labeled “Vista capable.” This was just one of dozens of e-mails from top Microsoft executives who were just as ticked off about Vista as the rest of us. After climbing out on the limb, Allchin chopped it off — resigning his post on the day Vista was released to consumers.

Question 8: Where in the world is Google’s share price?

10 points
c. $464

Give or take a couple of dimes. Google’s stock price has dropped from stratospheric to merely out of this world, thanks to slowed growth in ad clicks. The bottom line? Sergey and Larry may have to rethink their plans to buy Australia and rename it Googlevania.

Question 9: Who’s wresting with Baer on behalf of WikiLeaks?

10 points
b. ACLU & EFF

The American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Frontier Foundation have filed briefs in support of WikiLeaks, which found its .org domain taken offline by a California judge, after being sued by Baer for revealing confidential bank documents. A followup hearing is scheduled for Friday, Feb. 29. Bring popcorn; it ought to be a good show.

Question 10: What’s Microsoft fines times teen CD purchases plus species?

10 points
b. 750,030,000

Microsoft got dinged for approximately $1.3 billion in new fines relating to anti-trust violations. Roughly one in two teens bought music in 2007 on shiny plastic platters, down from 60 percent in 2006. So far, 30,000 species have made it into the encyclopedia, though the EOL ultimately plans to include all 1.8 million known specimans. So 1.3B * (1/2) + 30K = 750,030,000, more or less. Talk about survival of the fittest. Show up next week for another brain-bending quiz.

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