It’s a depressing fact of online life that websites are often shameless in using shady practices, like misdirection and obfuscation, to get us to sign up to, or to agree to, something we do not want.
Today’s puzzles exaggerate the cunning tricks websites use to extract our personal data – but only just!
1) Naughty negatives
Which button do you press if you don’t want marketing alerts?
2) Cheeky checkboxes
How do you untick all checkboxes in three clicks? [Each box is either ticked or unticked]
3) Tricky toggles
Each of the two toggles in the pop-up below has two positions: on and off. At least one of the toggles is set to off.
If you click I’m feeling lucky when both toggles are on, you will opt out of cookies. If, on the other hand, you click I’m feeling lucky when at least one of the toggles is off, then both toggles spin. When the toggles end their spin you have no idea which toggle is which, nor which way round the toggles are. (The toggles could have swapped positions with each other, and either one or both could be upside down. During the spin, however, a toggle that is on stays on, and a toggle that is off stays off. )
You are allowed to click the toggles between on/off positions as much as you like. What strategy guarantees you opt out of cookies with at most three clicks of I’m feeling lucky?
Today’s puzzles are taken from Terms & Conditions Apply, a free game in which you are bombarded with pop-ups and must get to the end without signing up to cookies, T&Cs, newsletters, or any other data-extraction device. The game is a send-up of the tricks used by websites to get you to things you don’t want to do, setting the player tasks including word challenges, logic puzzles, dexterity tests and optical illusions.
The game was devised and built by the technologist Jonathan Plackett, and I helped with the design and presentation of the puzzles. If you enjoy this column, I guarantee you will love the game. It will take you only a few minutes to complete: click here to play. (To be clear: the game collects zero data on you.)
Plackett came up with the idea for Terms & Conditions Apply after realising that navigating online T&Cs is very much like being in a video game. You are in what is essentially a hostile environment, and are forced to use your wits to avoid falling into traps (i.e signing up for something you don’t want to.) Different websites challenge you with different sets of rules and clicks.
“I wanted to create a fun and challenging game to test these skills we’re all unwillingly acquiring, and to expose some of the dark patterns being used by these pop-ups to trick us into giving up our personal data,” says Plackett, who developed the game as a personal project at his employers Wieden+Kennedy.
Since maths, logic and word puzzles often rely on misdirection to befuddle the solver, the idea of using versions of classic puzzles as pop-up challenges was a natural fit.
Each task in Terms & Conditions Apply is like a mini IQ test. The aim is always to escape without handing over any data. You get the fun of solving rapid-fire puzzles, and the extra pleasure of sticking it to the man!
I’ll be back at 5pm UK today with the solutions to the three puzzles above. PLEASE NO SPOILERS. Discuss web deviousness instead.
Click here to play Terms & Conditions Apply.
A great source on website trickery, which names and shames some of the most egregious examples, is DarkPatterns.org.
Jonathan Plackett is the author, together with Karrie Fransman, of Gender Swapped Fairy Tales.
I set a puzzle here every two weeks on a Monday. I’m always on the look-out for great puzzles. If you would like to suggest one, email me.
I’m the author of several books of puzzles, most recently the Language Lover’s Puzzle Book. I also give school talks about maths and puzzles (restrictions allowing). If your school is interested please get in touch.
The Link LonkMay 17, 2021 at 01:01PM
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Can you solve it? Are you smart enough to opt out of cookies? - The Guardian
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