Loophole Abuse/Real Life: Difference between revisions

* Anyone that has circled 'X' when teachers told you to find it. [[Mathematician's Answer|Mathematicians will surely applaud such an answer...]]

* The ''IOCCC'' (International Obfuscated C Code Contest) has a separate yearly award for "worst abuse of the rules", which is awarded precisely for invoking this trope. Obviously, this means the rules will be amended for the next year. For instance, one year's winner is the world's shortest self-reproducing program, which turned out to be a zero-length program which indeed generates a zero-length output. Therefore, contest entries must now be a minimum of one byte in length.<ref>The entries must build without manual assistance. And they may not bypass the code size limit with makefile define flags. But they can take advantage of the fact that several types of characters like empty space does not count for the main size limit.</ref>

* ''The Real Hustle'' showcased an old hustle which involved betting that some random guy can't do everything you can. Touch your nose. He touches his nose. Lick your glass. He licks his glass. Take some drink. He takes some drink. Spit the drink back out...

* Avoided by most Internet services (forums, hosts, etc.) in that their Terms of Use specifically say you can be reprimanded for any reason by the owners/moderators. Effectively seals the "Ain't no rule" loophole.

** Similarly, try reading a software EULA or copyright agreement all the way through. They [[Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness|can be paraphrased as]] saying "We can do whatever we want, whenever we want, and you have no rights whatsoever." The phrase "in perpetuity throughout the universe" is popular.

* Ain't no rule that says [[The Colbert Report|a fictional pundit]] can't run for President. Unfortunately, the Democratic Party of South Carolina decided there ''was'' a rule that said all candidates had to be "serious".

** There isn't a rule about candidates having to be serious in the UK, which resulted in a rock star founding the Monster Raving Loony Party. And harming the political system not at all.

** And before that, censorship laws only forbade the display of pubic hair; ''genitals'' were, technically, okay. You can see where this is going...

** Likewise, the used schoolgirl panties started being sold in vending machines because there wasn't a law on the books restricting it.

* After the devastating casualties suffered from the use of poison gas in World War I, a treaty was signed banning the use of chemical weapons, the deadliest weapons of the day. However, this treaty failed to keep up with technology, and after protests against bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it was noted that there ain't no rule against using nuclear weapons.

** The US had, at the time and until very recently, never actually signed a treaty banning production and use of chemical weapons (including that section of the Geneva Conventions). It wouldn't have been a treaty violation even if it had been chemical weapons being used.

* This is probably the reason why there are so many "dumb laws"; laws in areas like "no pet crocodiles on the street" or "it's illegal to bathe a donkey". Someone abused a loophole, and the city/county/etc. had to implement a law that would make future generations wonder "wtf"?

* Adam Hills, a comedian, has an artificial foot. He can drive, but his license stipulates that he "must wear [his] artificial right foot" while doing so. As Adam points out: "...doesn't say where."

** That particular loophole was intentional, to allow for heat-lamps for terrariums and such. He's still abusing the hell out of it, though.

** He did not get away with it. They called him out on the similarities of his so called heating-device with lightbulbs.

** In fact, most posts in US elections have only the barest minimum of requirements. Residency is usually the only one, with age being second most common. Technically, anyone who fills these requirements is "qualified" to run for the office.

*** Though this comes from one of the basic ideas that anyone can and should be able to run for office rather than limiting office to nobility or what have you. However, many such positions, such as attorney general and judge, do have additional requirements, such as "must have actively practiced law for at least X years prior".

* [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pachinko Pachinko machines] work like this in Japan, where gambling for cash is illegal. These and other devices dispense Pachinko balls, which are exchanged at the casino for prizes or tokens, which can then be exchanged for cash by a merchant who is nominally not affiliated with the casino. . One prize exchange may serve a number of nearby parlors, getting a percentage of the prize's value when it is collected by the parlor.

* The ATF used to define a machine gun as a gun that fires more than one bullet per pull of the '''trigger'''. The [[wikipedia:Sputter Gun|Sputter Gun]] has no trigger. The ATF caught on and changed the wording. Also, they sometimes tried to "catch" what obviously is a faulty semi-auto (some mechanisms can shoot twice when worn—not that they're safe enough to be useful at this stage) under this.

*** That's still an [https://web.archive.org/web/20150113025337/http://jpfo.org/common-sense/cs55.htm understatement].

* The Filipino programmers charged with the creation of the highly-destructive ILOVEYOU virus were not charged with anything by Philippine state prosecutors because there were no laws in the Philippines regarding malware at the time. So, yes, they got away with crippling ''millions'' of computers and caused '''billions''' of dollars in damages worldwide because the Philippine justice system was behind the times—something Filipinos old enough to remember the hubbub view with a peculiar mix of misplaced pride and sheepish embarrassment.

* Wanna bribe a politician, but don't want to go to jail? Simple! Lobbying. It's been said that there are ten ways to bribe a crooked politician, and a hundred ways to bribe an honest one.

* During the 1980s, [[Ronald Reagan]] enacted a law which imposed a 49.4% tariff on overseas goods, among them those so-called "metric" motorcycles (Metric meaning they use fasteners and other parts sized in metric units, an oddity considering the United States being the lone holdout with imperial measurements) such as those from Honda whom [[Cool Bike|Harley-Davidson]] felt wasn't playing fair with them (though to the Japanese manufacturers' credit, Harley's build quality during the AMF era was [[The Alleged Car|spotty]] to say the least, and even Sonny Barger of [[All Bikers Are Hells Angels|Hells Angels]] fame admitted to it in an interview). As such, Harley lobbied the government into restraining the Japanese from competing against them in the heavyweight (750cc and up) motorcycle segment. There was however nothing technical or legal that prevented the Japanese from manufacturing a slightly-detuned motor, so they came up with variants of their existing bikes that are modified somewhat with shorter strokes and/or cylinder bores to get around the tariff restrictions. Ironically enough, the VF700C Magna<ref>[https://ultimatemotorcycling.com/2020/02/18/honda-vf700c-magna-one-of-the-hondas-that-harley-built-tariff-bike/ Honda VF700C Magna : One of the Hondas that Harley Built (Tariff Bike)]</ref> produced in response to the tariffs had ''somewhat more horsepower'' than the non-compliant model.

* A British schoolboy was annoyed when he found out that boys weren't allowed to wear shorts in hot weather, so he looked up the uniform rules, and found [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-13362586 there was no rule against boys wearing skirts].

* A rare positive example, [[Nintendo]] actually used R.O.B to get the NES into the American market: America was still reeling from [[The Great Video Game Crash of 1983]], and no toy store would dare market a product as a "video game". R.O.B., however, allowed Nintendo to make the NES look much more toy-like and less like a video game console, and convinced toy stores to stock it.

* In US states where the minimum gambling age is 21 (including Native American casinos), there are bingo variety slot machine casinos where you only have to be at least 18 to play (same as tournament bingo). The slot machines' winning combination is determined by the outcome of your current bingo card rather than just the slot spin meaning that you're playing the bingo card upon activation of a spin, thus lowering the legal age.

* There are a number of blind spots where some places in the united states lack any law specifically forbidding underage strippers from performing live, like mentioned [http://www.projo.com/news/content/teen_dancers_07-21-09_Q6F39ID_v80.3985e27.html here.]

* In medieval Germany serfs couldn't carry swords, but as a sword was defined as (among other requirements) being double bladed, nothing stopped [[Knife Nut|really big knifes]], as long as they were single bladed.

* Ain't no rule saying states [[wikipedia:National Popular Vote Interstate Compact|can't award all their electoral votes to the winner of the popular vote]].

* A joke involving a particularly unpopular village head goes thus: One day, while he was walking around the village at night, a young man bumped into him, and claimed that he couldn't see him because it was too dark. The next day the head passed a rule saying, everyone walking on the streets at night must carry a lantern. That night, the same man bumped into him again, and showed the lantern to the annoyed village head and pointed out that there is no rule that the lantern should have a candle. The village head made an [[Obvious Rule Patch]] the next day, saying that the lantern must also have a candle. That night, the man bumped into him again, and this time the Loophole Abuse was that the rule doesn't say the candle has to be lit. The embarrassed head cancelled the rule on the following day.

* [[wikipedia:Filibuster|The filibuster]], in which a politician prevents a bill from being voted on by extending debate indefinitely. It's actually [[Older Than They Think|as old as the Roman Republic]].

* [[wikipedia:Gerrymandering|Gerrymandering]].

* The Westboro Baptist Church basically does this to be real life trolls.

* In online auctions (primarily eBay), it's not uncommon to find automated pieces of software that were programmed to monitor the auction and always bid with the absolute minimum price without the person having to ever actually be at the computer.

* Whenever something is released under a "pay what you like" plan (Such as the Humble Bundle Indie Bundle) a lot of people select the minimum price, especially if it's as low as $0.01. (And plenty of people still pirate it anyways.)

** Likewise, icons often aren't handled by the mature filter. Some trolls on those sites regularly put pictures of asses or stuff that normally would be placed under "mature" to shock people with the mature filter on. It was less common in ''deviantART'' where the icon size was limited to only 50x50 pixels, but on other art sites with bigger avatars....

** For that matter, "Photo-dumping" is not allowed on some art sites...but people love to take these and then place them under a "Photograph" categorization so they get away with it.

* An old Irish joke takes advantage of this:

Murphy thought for a moment. "All right, angel, I've made my decision. '''I'd like a glass eye!'''" }}

** Of course, there's further Loophole Abuse to be had when you realize that Murphy [[Exact Words|never specified]] that the glass eyes had to ''replace'' the real eyes. The angel could just as easily make glass eyes appear and hand them over.

** Other variations of the joke (usually with the person getting double being a Lawyer) have Murphy asking for a ton of money, a ton of success, and then to be scared ''half'' to death.

*** Or to be shown something so funny he'd laugh himself half to death.

*** Or to donate a kidney.

* More legal Loophole Abuse, Wal-Mart. While this practice is ''hardly'' unique to Wal-Mart, they just happen to be the most well-known example of it. The practice in question are to skirting around labour laws.

** Meanwhile, up in Canada, solicitation for prostitution is illegal, but prostitution itself isn't, leading officially recognized loophole abuse: if a prostitute and customer can arrange a sex-for-money deal without either one actually proposing a sex-for-money deal, no crime has been committed.

* On [[Yahoo!]] Answers, there's no such rule that you cannot vote for your own answer. This makes it a paradise for [[Trolls]] who can easily score 13 points by writing ''nonsense''. 2 points for the answer, 1 point for the vote, and 10 points if the answer gets selected as the best by voters (which is often just one).

{{quote|'''Uwe Boll:''' Maybe you know it but it's not so easy to finance movies in total. And the reason I am able to do these kind of movies is I have a tax shelter fund in Germany, and if you invest in a movie in Germany you get basically fifty percent back from the government.}}

* [[Rule 34]] on most art-sites is often ignored...unless it violates site policies in some way. A notable one is that characters who're canonically underage. Cue people drawing the characters as young adults so they could upload rule 34 of them.

** Three: If a program contains some "educational and informative" information, they can legally count as an "E/I". Many talk shows got away with this because some provide information to the viewers.

* While profanity is strictly monitored on cable and broadcast television, it has to count if heard but [[Getting Crap Past the Radar|not mouthed off]]. This means, if a character lip sync the swear word without having it heard or replace it with an animal sound like a dolphin chirp or the classic bleep, a TV Network can get away with it.

* '''[[wikipedia:First Amendment to the United States Constitution|The First Amendment of the United States Constitution]]''': ''Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise there of; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.''

** Noticed a major loophole… it states congress, which consist of United States House of Representatives and United States Senate. However, it doesn’t mention school officials, state governors, city mayors, local officials, and even the President.

*** Many students reporters keeps getting screwed by this issues, with one exception... see below.

*** [[Howard Stern]] also got screw by the FCC thanks to this loophole.

* If you’re a high school student and want to run school newspapers, you should [http://www.firstamendmentschools.org/freedoms/faq.aspx?id=12818 anticipate censorship by the schools] unless you don’t have them sponsor it. Make it an [https://web.archive.org/web/20130513034618/http://www.splc.org/news/report_detail.asp?id=1230&edition=37 independently run] and offer it off-campus either having it available a news stand on public grounds or publish it online. There’s nothing the schools can do if the work is off-campus thanks to the Fourth Amendment since it would be considered private property.

** '''Two''': If both parents are U.S. citizens, the child is a "natural-born citizen", which is how Milder got around this since her parents are New Jersey along with the rule mentioned above.

** '''Three''': If a child is born outside the United States and one parent is a citizen and lived in the U.S. for at least one year, the child would still be declared a natural-born. Even if he was born in his father's native of Kenya, [http://ivn.us/2013/08/13/defining-natural-born-citizen/ Obama] was still been allowed to become US President because his mother, Ann Dunham, was born in Wichita, Kansas.

* Electric cigarettes were patented in 1963, but it wasn't put into production until 2004… ten years before they were released into the market. While tobacco adverts were banned from airing on American TV in 1971, RJ Reynolds got around it since there wasn’t anything on electric versions. [http://kdvr.com/2013/11/11/loophole-allows-tv-advertising-of-e-cigarettes/ Needless to say] congress caught wind of this and begun to work on a bill to [[Obvious Rule Patch|fix it]].

** However, multiple Supreme Court decisions have established the precedent that the term "arms" as used in the Second Amendment includes firearms.

* If a story is banned from being released in one country, a reporter with the forbidden story can just get it to another country and have it publish online to make it viewable in the forbidden country anyways.

* When it comes to prisons, there are reasons why guards have to perform searches for weapons since inmates often can get crafty while confined in their cells. While having a weapon is illegal, the materials to make one aren’t often the case. The most common of prison-made weapon is a knife-like device known as a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shiv_%28weapon%29 shiv]. The materials to made them are easy to find, making a shiv is simple, and it can be hidden almost anywhere with an easy reach. This makes stabbing a common form of attacks behind prison walls, both inmates and guards are fair game.

* When it comes to some local city ordinances regarding pets, there are some who got around many loopholes in them. This was meant to control the pet population, mostly to due resources and health codes.

** When it comes to dogs, those who have them as a pet outnumber those who has a cat for a pet because due to laws limiting how many dogs one can have. As a result, many housing tenures locations, both private and public housing, have their own pet policies to keep the amount in check.

** Some housing locations would permit pets that can be confined in their personal homes, like a pet cage. However, there aren’t many rules against letting them out for awhile since many veterinarians do recommend this to allow them to be outside of the cage. This is mostly for their mental health to be kept in check, not to mention exercise.

** When it comes to dogs and cats, most places do have a policy against them unless they happen to be service animals. If a tenant requires a pet dog or cat for medical needs, like guide dog, they can be excuse to have one.

* Australian gun-laws restrict pump-action shotguns. Enter Adler Hunting Arms Company with a ''lever'' action shotgun.

* The American NFA unconstitutionally regulates firearms that shoot more than one bullet per pull of the trigger. Finding ways around it is an industry onto itself. The most common is "bumbfire" where recoil pushes the trigger back, after which it is pushed forward into a stationary finger. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fE3KVOQ54IE It also doesn't cover] bullets shot by ''releasing'' the trigger.

** "Firearm" shotguns are shotguns (in the sense that they are designed to fire shot) are short longarms that are not legally "shotguns" because they were not built with a shoulder stock and the NFA's definition of "Shotgun" (and by extension its definition of short barreled shotgun) only covers weapons originally designed with shoulder stocks. They are not Any Other Weapon because they are too long.

* Between the two World Wars international regulations prevented export of firearms with shoulder-stocks to warlord heavy China. For this reason, pistols and [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=alpefGkv2VI machine pistols] capable of mounting a shoulder stock became massively common. It also fueled Chinese manufacture of firearms, which gives examples of Chinese [[Shoddy Knockoff Product]]s decades before the the concept entered public conception.

** And to cap this off his actual travel cost every month was effectively zero, as he simply made the trip by travelling as air crew in a company plane.

* Back in 2009, and yes a clip of the case can be found [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVyg_IBZGKE here], a teenager in Texas had trouble getting her car started and didn't want to be late for school. Luckily for her, she happened to have a horse since there wasn't any rule on what kind of mode of transport a student can take to school. This ended up a bit subverted, as the principal demanded to know why a horse was being brought in the first place after being asked.

* Going back on the ''BetaMax'' issue, the concept of home videos introduced a new market for many indie studios since the rating system only dealt with films released in the theaters at the time thanks to children being part of those going to them. However, it was often seen as a form of censorship, and [http://www.filmadvisoryboard.com/ratings/ rating system] for the DTV market wasn't around. This lead to many to simply release their films as DTV, but it meant a film meant for adults could end up in the hands of children. If you ever heard of [[Video Nasties]], well, you can thank to this loophole.

* The Center of Diseases Control and Prevention has released a graphic [https://www.cdc.gov/cpr/zombie/novel.htm novel] about zombies while United States Department of Defense Strategic Command CONOP worked on training students in military planning, by using zombies. This was to due to another country could take the US military plans as a declaration of war. Since zombies were "fictional", both groups used this in order to inform the public on disease control and civil breakdown. [http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2014/images/05/16/dod.zombie.apocalypse.plan.pdf CONOP 8888] listed in the link.

* While the Volstead Act during the [[Prohibition]] era banned the production, sale and distribution of alcohol in the United States, it wasn't without its loopholes: the act allowed grape farmers to sell grape concentrates "on the legal fiction that it was a non-intoxicating fruit-juice for home consumption"; while there was a warning advising drinkers not to let the grape concentrate sit for too long as it would otherwise ferment, many simply ignored the warning especially as it was merely there to allay any legal suspicion. Besides the sale of grape concentrates which were surreptitiously fermented into actual wine, some posed as religious organisations or clergymen in order to take advantage of an exemption allowing the use of sacramental wine.

* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGEicwdjI3U Episode 6] of ''Bargain Racement'' by [[Bad Obsession Motorsport]] details the efforts made by mechanic/racers Nik Blackhurst and Richard Brunning to navigate the "grey areas" of the British Racing and Sports Car Club's regulations for the [https://citycarcup.co.uk/ City Car Cup] after their car came in second in the inaugural race.

* The Church of Latter-Day Saints stipulates that its members should not take part in any sort of vice, be it drinking, smoking or gambling. There is, however nothing keeping Mormons from ''investing or working'' in casinos so as long as they're not directly placing bets or partaking in any related vices themselves. It is through this that one YouTube documentary argued that it was ''Mormon investors'' and not the Italian-American Mafia who built [[Las Vegas]].

* Roger Neilson, ice hockey coach, is known for among other things, [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tonxd_9_lY exploiting loopholes].

* While political advertisements are naturally subject to regulation, there's nothing keeping those running for public office in the Philippines from putting up thinly-veiled ads ''prior'' to the actual campaign period, [[Screw the Rules, I Have Money|for as long as they have the resources]]. The courts ruled in favour of this as a matter of fact, based on the technicality that the COMELEC (Commission on Elections) has no jurisdiction over any publicity campaigns by (would-be) candidates until the actual election season starts.