‘But officer! She told me she was 16!’
p2pnet news view | Off Topic:- Among the many technological marvels on display at the Beijing Olympics, the Chinese have added yet another: the magical age extender.
It can instantly make anyone several years older; the catch is that it only works on members of the Chinese Olympic gymnastics team.
Per The Register »»»
Search engine hacker Stryde Hax has unearthed copies of official registration documents by Chinese sporting authorities (the General Administration of Sport) that show the age of a Chinese double gold medal winning gymnast to be 14 – two years younger than the age that appears on her government-issued passport. The Excel files, purged by censors from the official site and from Google`s document cache, were found in the document translation cache of Chinese search engine Baidu.
Note that:
- The Chinese women`s team won a gold medal thanks to its ultra-limber adolescents; and,
- No, high schoolers can’t use this technique to get a fake ID so they can buy beer.
The funniest part is that the Chinese remembered to purge Google’s cache but forgot about their own home-grown search engine.
To quote the ancient Tao philosopher Ho Ma Simpshuan:
“Doh!”
Dan Tynan – Tynan on Technology (beta)
[Tynan slugs his personal blog, 'Tech talk without the usual BS.' He's been writing and editing stories about technology and its discontents for more than 20 years. During that time he's been an editor in chief and an executive editor for national magazines, written for more than 50 publications, and taken home a closet full of awards. He's also the author of Computer Privacy Annoyances, soon to be a major motion picture starring Ashton Kutcher.]
[This post originally appeared on Infoworld's Notes From the Field.]
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August 25th, 2008 at 1:28 pm
What would happen to a Chinese citizen if they were caught falsifying information on a government application? I’m guessing prison time. Obviously the Chinese government is far above it’s own laws, but we knew that already…
August 25th, 2008 at 9:18 pm
And of course, the IOC will do absolutely nothing about this…
August 25th, 2008 at 10:16 pm
Just playing devil’s advocate here… how do we know Stryde Hax’s discovery is real? Can we verify his work?
Looks like the verdict is already in – the Chinese Government is guilty, regardless what evidents it can provide.
Where is the due process we value so highly?
August 26th, 2008 at 1:17 am
would not younger athletes be at a disadvantage in terms of experience so what advantage did they gain?
British diver was 14 and allowed to compete so whats the difference?
August 26th, 2008 at 10:22 am
The difference is that younger gymnasts (to a point) are more limber and flexible than older gymnasts. This apparently comes into play more in gymanstics than in diving, but I’m no expert on the matter.
Anyway, the IOC has made sure the Olympics are nothing but advertising and money-making, so it’s hard to see why we should care about one more reality show.
August 26th, 2008 at 12:35 pm
What is the big deal about it?
Are we forgetting who really manufactures our ipods?
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