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Step 1
Choose to play a game on the entertainment system and you will find something that is essentially, Tetris, the game of stacking. different shaped blocks that is so annoyingly addictive you're surprised there isn't a support group for it? Well, the designers of this game, the version made specifically for the airline, were kind enough to throw in certain customizable variables; allowing the player to strategically plan his or her next move and an open door to crash an in-flight entertainment system. This trick gives you the kind of advantage that essentially makes the game no fun to play, and will ruin the trip for the hundred other passengers. So, you can make your nerdiest dreams come true by pressing the + button or ^ arrow, you can choose the maximum value, which is 4.
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Step 2
Notice that in front of you – or to the side of you – or in the fictional plane where this can actually happen, there lies a phone console, which actually has the ability to control the screen that is also touch sensitive! That's right: on a commercial airliner, they can't make a bathroom larger than the average person's girth that doesn't also house the collective odors of the previous 1,000 occupants, but they have a television screen that can be controlled by the designated control panel, the phone and by touch. Although this is a magical leap in probability, the ability to crash and in-flight entertainment system, still works, based on a simple mathematical principle.
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Step 3
Suspend your disbelief, re-tape the nose piece on your horn-rimmed glasses and ready your pocket protector. You will need to study boundary values to better – or actually understand the basic coding principle that makes this devious little trick possible. Using the phone's keypad and the magic touch screen, highlight the maximum value of 4 and change it to 5. Why 5, you ask? Well, lazy programmers will often not check their lines of code and having set the boundary values in the code to 0 and 5 – 1 being the lowest and 4 being the highest – and in doing so, they have essentially written bad code. For example: the code is designed to recognize the greater than or less than equivalents of the boundary numbers, greater than 0 and less than 5. However, for those of you astute enough to still understand what I'm talking about, you will know that the code was most likely written to read for the chosen value to be < = 5. By making the constraint off by a value of 1, the system is now left wide open for some on to crash an in-flight entertainment system.
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Step 4
Press your + button again, and the highlighted 5, should now increase by a single increment every time. You will know that what you've done is right, if 6 is the next number you see, and if the only person to refer to you as cool, is your mother. Now, quickly, before anyone notices and calls a jock over to give you a wedgie, set the value to 127. Why 127? Because that magic number is what's known as a 1 byte signed integer. This means that, 127 is the upper bound – or limit of a signed integer and when 1 is added to this number, it essentially becomes negative. Therefore, you are left with -128 and, if you really understand 2's complement, then you are also left alone on Saturday nights. Essentially, by reaching the boundary condition of 127, then exceeding it, you effectively crash an in-flight entertainment system. You will notice that after your screen briefly flashes -128, it will go black, shortly followed by all of the other screens on the plane. Congratulations, you've just made an already trying and uncomfortable situation even more so!
