Cheaters

L

Lars Enderin

Isn't it obvious? Lars (or perhaps Tristram) tried to muzzle me, but
screwed up.

Obvious if you suffer from paranoia, perhaps. Neither Tristram nor I
have been using Google Groups for some time. I just checked, however. No
posts since Oct 3, 1:43 am, have appeared in GG in the thread in
question, but they are available, e g, at aoie.org and at
news.albasani.net, which keeps postings back to January. Maybe Google
has a thread length limit?
This sort of incompetence is of course why the bad guys tend to keep
losing. That, and they eventually turn on each other.

You have a vivid imagination. Reality does not affect you much.
 
S

scuzwalla

Google likely uses a distributed system to handle the traffic loads that
it gets.  It is possible that they use some sort of session affinity as
well, so that a user is more likely to reach the same cluster node
repeatedly.  Given those two possibilities, it becomes possible that
posts you made within a small time-frame were all sent to one machine
that was/is overwhelmed and that the process of replicating the post to
other cluster nodes throughout google was delayed. Of course, this is
just an educated guess.

And it's a wrong guess. Mind you, Google might use an implementation
similar to what you described. But under your hypothesis regarding
this somehow causing my posts to go missing, ALL of my posts would go
missing, not solely those to a single thread!
So like I said, you /may/ have been cheated, but it wouldn't be the
conclusion that I would jump to if the same events happened to me.

You have not been the target of a fairly vicious smear campaign
combined with underhanded tactics to try to muzzle you from replying
in your own defense for the past year! So frankly you're in no
position to either judge me or to say WHAT conclusion you'd jump to if
"the same events" happened to you, *in the same context*.
 
S

scuzwalla

[snip]

NO FEEDBACK LOOPS!
Isn't it obvious? Lars (or perhaps Tristram) tried to muzzle me, but
screwed up.

[insult deleted]

No, you're the crazy one.

None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at
all true.
Neither Tristram nor I have been using Google Groups for some time.

I didn't claim otherwise. I expressed a suspicion that one of you has
recently *hacked* Google Groups (or, more likely, hired someone to do
it that actually has enough brain cells to do the job), not that one
of you has recently *posted through* Google Groups.
I just checked, however. No
posts since Oct 3, 1:43 am, have appeared in GG in the thread in
question, but they are available, e g, at aoie.org and at
news.albasani.net, which keeps postings back to January.

Doesn't matter. Our battle will be won or lost in Google's archives,
and if my posts there are no longer being made available via Google's
archive, then you've "won" -- except that cheating is really losing in
disguise.
This sort of incompetence is of course why the bad guys tend to keep
losing. That, and they eventually turn on each other.

[insult deleted]

No, you're the crazy one.

None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at
all true.
 
B

blmblm

On Oct 6, 7:36 am, (e-mail address removed) <[email protected]> wrote:

[ snip ]

[ snip ]
I'd say "never attribute to malice that which can be explained by
stupidity [or other error]", but -- who knows.

The selective nature of the "hick-up" makes it difficult to explain by
stupidity. (Its failure to really keep me muzzled, on the other hand,
can easily be explained by stupidity. :))
It *is* interesting that apparently whatever is/was wrong is/was
somewhat localized. I did notice someone complaining recently
about what sounds like a similar problem in a rec.* group where
I lurk.

Where a flamewar was going on?

I can't really say -- I haven't noticed one, but I read only a small
fraction of the posts there.

Would it be rude to ask whether you've informed Google of your
suspicions? because surely if someone *were* tampering with their
archives they'd want to know about it, right?
 
T

thufir

Well, apparently GG posts to a certain thread in a certain other
newsgroup (from any account) are now being rejected, not even silently
but with a bogus claim of having been posted successfully.

If I know the thread and newsgroup you mean -- the news server I use
shows 21 posts made today, some by (e-mail address removed). They don't seem
to show up if I look for them with Google's "advanced search" interface
(searching both on author and group), but apparently they did make it to
at least part of the outside world. "For the record", "just sayin'",
whatever.

[ snip ]



Just out of curiosity, what if you go by profile?

http://groups.google.com/groups/profile?
enc_user=oBz6FxMAAABW3iPUo5bjdQQaaDY3R3gLWMj6vob75xS36mXc24h6ww



you can click on "show all" and then search

Restrict this search to author (e-mail address removed)


Google handles this stuff a bit oddly. For instance, if a profile is
banned then it's virtually impossible to get to their "profile", but if
you do manage to bring it up there will be language about how the account
has been banned.



-Thufir
 
T

thufir

I didn't claim otherwise. I expressed a suspicion that one of you has
recently *hacked* Google Groups (or, more likely, hired someone to do it
that actually has enough brain cells to do the job), not that one of you
has recently *posted through* Google Groups.



That would be an achievement!


-Thufir
 
A

Arne Vajhøj

(Besides, your monstrosity wouldn't compile anyway, not with that line
break in the middle of a string constant. It would have needed to be
more like

private static String STANDARD = "None of the nasty things" +
" that you have said or implied about me are at all true";

to work.)

Todays exercise in "how to use a newsreader" is: learn how to
see whether the a line break is in the news post itself or just
shown as such by the newsreader.

Arne
 
A

Arne Vajhøj

I didn't claim otherwise. I expressed a suspicion that one of you has
recently *hacked* Google Groups (or, more likely, hired someone to do
it that actually has enough brain cells to do the job), not that one
of you has recently *posted through* Google Groups.

Interesting hypothesis.

Why don't you report it to Google or to the police in wherever
jurisdiction Google belongs ?

If you believe a crime has been committed then it is your duty to
do so !

We all know that Google and the police will act just like the readers
here: roll on the floor laughing at you.

But at least to them you it would be new fun - here it is just
yesterdays fun repeated.

Arne
 
B

blmblm

On Oct 6, 7:36 am, (e-mail address removed) <[email protected]> wrote:

[ snip ]

[ snip ]

I'm not sure about the group in question (rec.arts.sf.fandom), but
in another group I follow (alt.folklore.computers) there are also
reports of something wrong ....

And indeed, based on a quick look at Google's archives for
alt.folklore.computers -- something is broken, all right:
Some groups of posts that should show up as a single thread
are instead being displayed as if there were multiple threads.
And no, I don't notice anything especially flame-ish about the
threads/posts in question.

One thing that's true both of the misthreaded(?) posts in afc
and the ones in the group scuzwall's referring to is that they're
part of huge sprawling threads that have gone on for a while.
I'm not curious enough to investigate further right now, but
I'm more and more inclined to suspect that whatever is wrong
is a result of error rather than malice.

Just sayin'.
 
B

blmblm

Eventually the posts in question did show up in Google's archives,
but not properly threaded from their predecessors. Who knows what's
up with that ....
Just out of curiosity, what if you go by profile?

That works now, but then so do searches on author, etc. Huh.

[ snip ]
 
N

nebulous99

[snip]

NO FEEDBACK LOOPS!

What I write in response to Lars Enderin is no skin off your nose.
I didn't claim otherwise. I expressed a suspicion that one of you has
recently *hacked* Google Groups (or, more likely, hired someone to do
it that actually has enough brain cells to do the job), not that one
of you has recently *posted through* Google Groups.

[several implied insults deleted]

No. You will treat other people with more dignity and respect, or
else.

None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at
all true.
 
N

nebulous99

I'm not sure about the group in question (rec.arts.sf.fandom), but
in another group I follow (alt.folklore.computers) there are also
reports of something wrong ....

And indeed, based on a quick look at Google's archives for
alt.folklore.computers -- something is broken, all right:
Some groups of posts that should show up as a single thread
are instead being displayed as if there were multiple threads.
And no, I don't notice anything especially flame-ish about the
threads/posts in question.

So it's collateral damage, rather than similar but separate attacks.
Attacks by "somebody" who wanted to forcibly prevent me from hanging
replies off their attack posts so that people who found the latter
would think the attack had gone unchallenged. That somebody must have
done something exceptionally crude and simple, with false positives,
such as altering Google's threading code to not insert new posts into
a thread in its internal data structures if that thread had over 3000
posts, or some such simple numeric-threshold-based thing.

Of course, we both know exactly who it must be, and which of the
affected threads was the target. There is only one thread after all in
which one of the participants would be motivated to do such a thing,
given your observation that none of the other affected threads is
"flame-ish". So we know which thread was the actual target and which
were just collateral damage. That just leaves which participant it
was.

The timing tells us that. The timing was maximally disadvantageous to
my side, instead of advantageous or some intermediate state, which
proves both that it wasn't just a random glitch and that it wasn't me.
Additionally, you and I don't seem the type to engage in such a
dishonest and underhanded tactic.

And only one other participant remains at this point.

The most shocking thing is that I am now hearing that Google Groups
had a major outage from Oct. 3 to Oct. 5 or so, which is exactly when
the thread-splitting attack code was uploaded. Apparently, the
attacker's klutzing around inside Google's systems caused some serious
problems even beyond the effects of the attack code itself. Talk about
collateral damage! Not to mention reckless disregard, vandalism,
abuse, sociopathic/narcissistic behavior ...

Whoever did it (and we all know who) ought to be strung up and made to
confess, then thrown into the deepest darkest cell that can be found
for him, preferably somewhere within the sewage system of Calcutta.

With no net access.
I'm more and more inclined to suspect that whatever is wrong
is a result of error rather than malice.

The timing proves otherwise. See above.
 
A

Arne Vajhøj

So it's collateral damage, rather than similar but separate attacks.
Attacks by "somebody" who wanted to forcibly prevent me from hanging
replies off their attack posts so that people who found the latter
would think the attack had gone unchallenged. That somebody must have
done something exceptionally crude and simple, with false positives,
such as altering Google's threading code to not insert new posts into
a thread in its internal data structures if that thread had over 3000
posts, or some such simple numeric-threshold-based thing.

Of course, we both know exactly who it must be, and which of the
affected threads was the target. There is only one thread after all in
which one of the participants would be motivated to do such a thing,
given your observation that none of the other affected threads is
"flame-ish". So we know which thread was the actual target and which
were just collateral damage. That just leaves which participant it
was.

The timing tells us that. The timing was maximally disadvantageous to
my side, instead of advantageous or some intermediate state, which
proves both that it wasn't just a random glitch and that it wasn't me.
Additionally, you and I don't seem the type to engage in such a
dishonest and underhanded tactic.

And only one other participant remains at this point.

The most shocking thing is that I am now hearing that Google Groups
had a major outage from Oct. 3 to Oct. 5 or so, which is exactly when
the thread-splitting attack code was uploaded. Apparently, the
attacker's klutzing around inside Google's systems caused some serious
problems even beyond the effects of the attack code itself. Talk about
collateral damage! Not to mention reckless disregard, vandalism,
abuse, sociopathic/narcissistic behavior ...

Whoever did it (and we all know who) ought to be strung up and made to
confess, then thrown into the deepest darkest cell that can be found
for him, preferably somewhere within the sewage system of Calcutta.

I am sure your nice doctor will be very interested in reading
this and discuss it with you.

It is much more original than classic cases like where people
believe they are Napoleon.

Arne
 
L

Lars Enderin

(e-mail address removed) wrote:

[snip paranoid, reality-challenged, outlandish speculation]
The most shocking thing is that I am now hearing that Google Groups
had a major outage from Oct. 3 to Oct. 5 or so, which is exactly when
the thread-splitting attack code was uploaded. Apparently, the
attacker's klutzing around inside Google's systems caused some serious
problems even beyond the effects of the attack code itself. Talk about
collateral damage! Not to mention reckless disregard, vandalism,
abuse, sociopathic/narcissistic behavior ...

The outage could have been caused by anything on the server side. One
side-effect was probably that the threading information got lost for the
longest threads. I wouldn't know the first thing about how to cause such
a calamity intentionally. It's all in your imagination.
The timing proves otherwise. See above.

It doesn't prove anything. The timing is important only to you.
 
4

42trout

No. That was a dead topic. You should not have revived it.
[implied vicious insult deleted]

No, you're the stupid one.

None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at
all true.

Paul Derbyshire has nothing java-related to say. Maybe he should find
somewhere else for his rants?
 
N

nebulous99

[misquotes and insults me]

Do not misquote me again. Your post contained supposed "quoted
material" that did not occur in the post that you followed up to nor
summarize material that did. That is incorrect. Stop being dishonest.

You're the stupid one.

None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at
all true.
No, you're the stupid one.

[insult deleted]

No, you're the stupid one.

None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at
all true.
 
N

nebulous99

[large volumes of unused quoted material deleted]

What a waste of bandwidth. Learn to trim! Only newbies and idiots
quote all of a long post and then add only four lines of original
text.
Whoever did it (and we all know who) ought to be strung up and made to
confess, then thrown into the deepest darkest cell that can be found
for him, preferably somewhere within the sewage system of Calcutta.

[implied vicious insult deleted]

No, you're the crazy one.

None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at
all true.
 
N

nebulous99

(e-mail address removed) wrote:

[vicious insult deleted]

No, you're the crazy one.

None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at
all true.
The most shocking thing is that I am now hearing that Google Groups
had a major outage from Oct. 3 to Oct. 5 or so, which is exactly when
the thread-splitting attack code was uploaded. Apparently, the
attacker's klutzing around inside Google's systems caused some serious
problems even beyond the effects of the attack code itself. Talk about
collateral damage! Not to mention reckless disregard, vandalism,
abuse, sociopathic/narcissistic behavior ...

The outage could have been caused by anything on the server side. One
side-effect was probably that the threading information got lost for the
longest threads. I wouldn't know the first thing about how to cause such
a calamity intentionally. [insult deleted]

No, you're the crazy one.

None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at
all true.

As for the calamity, no doubt the proximate cause was a hired gun.

How much did trying to shut me up cost you, Lars? Inquiring minds want
to know. :)
The timing proves otherwise. See above.

[calls me a liar]

No, you're the liar.

None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at
all true.
 

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