Let me tell you about the time Twitter’s Vine app was Rickrolled by a 16-year-old kid.
On Monday, a Cleveland teen managed to hack Vine and bypass the app’s strict time limit to upload all 3 minutes and 33 seconds of “Never Gonna Give You Up,” the 1980s Rick Astley pop hit that has been re-appropriated in recent years as a bait-and-switch Internet prank.
Will Smidlein, a 16-year-old web developer, took responsibility for the hack, tweeting the following Monday night:
I think I broke Vine.vine.co/v/b3gY2OnrgZn
— Will Smidlein (@ws) June 3, 2013
Though he objects to the use of the word “hack” (finding it too “strong”), he declined to go into detail regarding how he got around the Vine’s limitations in order to Rickroll the app. He answered some questions for The Verge, but otherwise made it clear that he won’t be giving interviews to other publications.
And it’s not because he’s some jerk, either. It really seems like Smidlein is sorry for Rickrolling Vine’s 13 million users (or at least their engineers):
I truly feel awful for the engineers whose day I ruined with my stupid messing around.
— Will Smidlein (@ws) June 3, 2013
Still, it’s hard to blame him if he wants to take some joy in the fact that he revived an almost-dead-yet-never-truly-dies meme and managed to interrupt 13 million people from using Vine for a short while.
We love a little mischief here at Social News Daily, so we’re going to go ahead and applaud Will Smidlein who managed an epic troll and emerged a humble boss about it all.
And really, this just goes to show that Vine needs better security. But I’ll keep using Vine until that day because I’m never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down …
Sorry, I’ll stop myself. Did you catch Vine’s Rickroll prank? And if you happen to be Will Smidlein reading this and decide to grant another interview on the prank, we’d love to have you. You can email us by clicking here.
Smart kid, hoping he goes into a career to use those skills for good!