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Comment by rbanffy | Hacker News Reader

> Not to be confused with Encom MCP

MCP is the most user hostile OS I've ever seen. It may be less intelligent, but shows the same contempt for users as its fictional counterpart.

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Not surprising, considering the "guardian" process is called J_EDGAR_HOOVER. Rumor has it it will even drop fake emails in your inbox urging you to kill yourself if your username starts with MLK_

Was the MLK_ thing a joke? If not, could you provide a reference?

Sorry, yes. The J_EDGAR_HOOVER guardian process is actually real, but the MLK_ thing is something I just made up, based on the very real J Edgar Hoover sending Martin Luther King Jr a letter encouraging him to commit suicide.

In case you really did miss it the whole subthread is a joke based on Encom MCP being a fictional OS that tries to kill it's user.

I did miss it :). Thanks for letting me into the joke.

okay. if you can respond about a fictional OS that tries to kill it's user, i can respond with a real song featuring a fictional robot trying to destroy all operating systems

https://youtu.be/1Lb3CNe6k4Q

Not a joke.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FBI%E2%80%93King_suicide_lette...

They're pretty clearly asking if the email thing is a joke.

Email is no joke

Then a source shouldn’t be hard to provide…

It’s kind of a sensitive subject. Not worth getting sued over.

https://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-email...

How is this article relevant?

"Email is no joke" -> "It’s kind of a sensitive subject."

i.e. someone did sue about email. it's relevant.

Safety first has a price.

You can't hack an OS you can't use.

I worked on an HP3000 in the early 90s. It had a software package that changed all of the error messages to resemble IBM360 error messages, just to throw would be attackers off.

Was that package really intended to be a security feature? To me that seems like a low effort way of landing a contract with an over-specific requirement. But security practices used to be way different so that explanation is also plausible.

It was one feature of a security package. I honestly don't recall the name. I should clarify that I'm talking about error messages one might see during login. Not system-wide/post-login error messages. Looked like an IBM login but got you into an HP.

What? Was this something on the CSL (Contributed Software Library)? Don't recall anything like that...

Besides... I'd expect something emulating S/3x.

You could alter the system message catalog however you liked... Sounds like something that would happen to Whitman College's system :)

If no one could use the OS it wouldn't have survived longer than UNIX, and still be the option to go for high security deployments in some specific workloads.

I'm joking, of course. You CAN use MCP, if you need to. It won't be a pleasant experience, however. It can sense your fear.

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