This is the code in the Apollo Guidance Computer for Apollo 11.
It’s part of the LUMINARY sofware, which ran on the AGC on the Lunar Module. It’s meant to check if the landing radar is pointed toward the lunar surface - because the LM went through several orientations, the landing radar could be pointed to the front or the side or down. You’re landing on the Moon. Point it down.
Point is, you have to verify user input. Even if your users are the most meticulous and highly trained individuals in history. You have to see if they’re lying. So you get to the BURNBABY.
Browse the code in GitHub - this code is in THE_LUNAR_LANDING.agc
Sanitizing user input for the Moon landings.
Meanwhile in 2026, ask AI to change an authentication phone number and it says, “Sure thing!” And is ABLE to do it.
I don’t understand what this comment is meant to convey. Could you explain a bit further?
It’s trying to convey that software and engineering discipline has gone to shit. Software written to have some of the most skilled humans at the given task in 69 still had safeguards to double check that the user, despite being one of the most eminent experts, did not provide incorrect input.
Fast forward to 2026 and things have worsened to the point where ostensible “engineers” deploy systems that allow attackers to access people’s accounts simply by asking a bot, which blindly trusts the attackers.
I don’t know yet to which degree I agree, but that’s what the comment is meant to convey in my interpretation.
Thanks! 🙏
The first one insisted to make sure one of the most competent human beings who ever existed oriented a thing downward in order to not die during a very well-rehearsed procedure.
The second one is a reference to social media companies “outsourcing” support to chatbots with no intelligence and plenty of control, allowing people to prompt said chatbots into giving them other people’s accounts.
I knew I should’ve waited until I hadn’t just woken up before trying to understand the comment. 😆
I’ll take the blame, I shortened the statements maybe a bit too much, assuming the references would work. But they were explained well by the other replies.
I was learning in the 90s from lessons on AOL how to sanitize inputs and salt passwords along with HTML 1.0. It baffles me how corporations let stupid things happen now.
No worries! Once I got the meaning, the brevity makes it funnier. 😆
Yeah, it’s pretty baffling… One of my two life mottos is “hard hard could it be!”