Unoffical empeg BBS

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#103365 - 08/07/2002 06:27 Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me.
tfabris
carpal tunnel

Registered: 20/12/1999
Posts: 31563
Loc: Seattle, WA
It is 6:11 AM and I have not gotten any significant amount of sleep so far since last night. A neighbor's dog had wandered onto our property to bark at a racoon at about 1AM and barked constantly until about 5 am when I got sick of it and went out to investigate.

I only logged onto the internet this morning so that I could grab the complaint form from our county Animal Control web site. The form is now filled out and will be mailed today. Since I had my PC on already, I thought, "what the heck", and I checked the messages on the BBS. That's when I discovered the random spam messages from the new user "empegbot".

For those who haven't yet noticed this, this morning there were a handful of new messages on this BBS posted under the name "empegbot". These messages were generated by a computer program which logs onto the BBS without any user intervention and pulls random words from an internal list. Although this is very clever, it clearly crosses the line from being simply an annoyance, and now falls into the category of outright hacking.

Now, most days, I'd locate the user in question, and politely and privately request that he stop. But there were two things that made me do otherwise:

- The aforementioned lack of sleep and general irritation level.
- I saw that it was Yz33d.

So. The following users have now been permanently banned from the BBS:

- Yz33d
- empegbot
- all connections from the IP address range 216.78.183.***

And there was much rejoicing.

If anyone besides Yz33d has an IP address which falls into that range, contact me and we'll see what we can do. Of course, if your address falls into that range, you can't read this message so I have no idea how you'll know to contact me. Oh well, I'm tired and can't think clearly at the moment.

Oh, and by the way, Drakino: I recommend you do the same for riocar.org. I think he's under "Yz33b" on that site.
_________________________
Tony Fabris

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#103366 - 08/07/2002 06:41 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me. [Re: tfabris]
peter
carpal tunnel

Registered: 13/07/2000
Posts: 4172
Loc: Cambridge, England
So. The following users have now been permanently banned from the BBS:

- Yz33d


Please reconsider this. An empeg bbs without Yz33d would seem rather empty and stilted now. He is a valued member of the community, and should not IMO be stifled by other valued members of the community, however temporarily irritable they might be.

Peter

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#103367 - 08/07/2002 06:46 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me. [Re: peter]
tfabris
carpal tunnel

Registered: 20/12/1999
Posts: 31563
Loc: Seattle, WA
I didn't ban him because he was irritating. If I was going to do that, I would have done so long ago. The ban is because he crossed the line into outright hacking.

There has only been one other ban on the BBS, and it was for the same reason. Although it was a different style of hacking, the other user tried to upload a PHP exploit as a file attachment.
_________________________
Tony Fabris

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#103368 - 08/07/2002 06:48 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me. [Re: peter]
rob
carpal tunnel

Registered: 21/05/1999
Posts: 5335
Loc: Cambridge UK
I think "valued" might be going a bit far. How about "tolerated"?

(Barely)

Rob

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#103369 - 08/07/2002 06:50 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me. [Re: tfabris]
peter
carpal tunnel

Registered: 13/07/2000
Posts: 4172
Loc: Cambridge, England
I didn't ban him because he was irritating. If I was going to do that, I would have done so long ago. The ban is because he crossed the line into outright hacking.

So where did...

Now, most days, I'd locate the user in question, and politely and privately request that he stop.

...come from?

This is, of course, not my board and I cannot overrule you. I can only request politely that Yz33d be reinstated, for the good of the community.

Peter

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#103370 - 08/07/2002 06:53 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me. [Re: tfabris]
SE_Sport_Driver
carpal tunnel

Registered: 05/01/2001
Posts: 4903
Loc: Detroit, MI USA
I have to admit I'm a little shocked... He has been a troll from day 1 but this is something differant all together... He even seemed to be contributing to the BBS by offering suggestions to others...

But if this is true, and I do trust Tony to know whether or not that is the case, I support the decision.

It's one thing to use the BBS as "free hosting" and claim ignorance, but it's another to spam our boards..

PS - So I gotta ask, was he "Osama" or "Satan"?
_________________________
Brad B.

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#103371 - 08/07/2002 06:53 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me. [Re: peter]
tfabris
carpal tunnel

Registered: 20/12/1999
Posts: 31563
Loc: Seattle, WA
I will consider this, of course. Let's see how it pans out.
_________________________
Tony Fabris

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#103372 - 08/07/2002 07:00 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me. [Re: peter]
rob
carpal tunnel

Registered: 21/05/1999
Posts: 5335
Loc: Cambridge UK
If he's a member of this community then setting a random spam bot loose here is tantamount to crapping on your own front lawn. There's already so much traffic here than you and I, Peter, are about the only empeg people who regularly read the BBS now. ALMOST every post that yz33d has made is a troll - list them and see!

Of course, if he sends chocolate I might change my opinion.

Rob

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#103373 - 08/07/2002 07:01 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me. [Re: SE_Sport_Driver]
tfabris
carpal tunnel

Registered: 20/12/1999
Posts: 31563
Loc: Seattle, WA
PS - So I gotta ask, was he "Osama" or "Satan"?

Not as far as I can tell. Osama, Satan, and Yz33d are from three totally different IP ranges. However, Yz33d and Empegbot both posted from the exact same IP address within a short period of time, hence my certainty in that particular matter.

Unfortunately, Yz33d is a dialup account with a NATed address, so I had to ban a range instead of just a single address. Hope it doesn't inconvenience anyone else.
_________________________
Tony Fabris

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#103374 - 08/07/2002 07:08 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with m [Re: peter]
jimhogan
carpal tunnel

Registered: 06/10/1999
Posts: 2591
Loc: Seattle, WA, U.S.A.
He is a valued member of the community

Well, let's drink a toast to diversity of opinion!

I generally have done my best to simply ignore any thread/branch with Yz's ID in it (It helps keep my blood pressure down) but I had to read this thread.

I would not lose any sleep if he hadn't pulled this stunt and remained to post more inane contrarian drivel on the BBS, but he did pull this stunt. I'd expect Tony would react in the same fashion to activity from anyone who wasn't demonstrably ignorant of the consequences of their behavior and of BBS norms, noisy racoon or not.

I don't find this a huge surprise. Some folks with attention-seeking, provocative personalities tend to escalate their behaviors when they get bored.
_________________________
Jim


'Tis the exceptional fellow who lies awake at night thinking of his successes.

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#103375 - 08/07/2002 07:10 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with m [Re: jimhogan]
tfabris
carpal tunnel

Registered: 20/12/1999
Posts: 31563
Loc: Seattle, WA
Thanks, Jim. And by the way, it was the neighbor's dog that was noisy. Racoons are generally quiet.
_________________________
Tony Fabris

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#103376 - 08/07/2002 07:15 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with m [Re: tfabris]
jimhogan
carpal tunnel

Registered: 06/10/1999
Posts: 2591
Loc: Seattle, WA, U.S.A.
it was the neighbor's dog that was noisy.

Oh, yeah, sorry! I'm feeling a little fuzzy. I didn't get *any* sleep last night!

(But root-cause analysis suggests that it was still the racoon's fault!!)
_________________________
Jim


'Tis the exceptional fellow who lies awake at night thinking of his successes.

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#103377 - 08/07/2002 07:21 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with m [Re: jimhogan]
tfabris
carpal tunnel

Registered: 20/12/1999
Posts: 31563
Loc: Seattle, WA
(But root-cause analysis suggests that it was still the racoon's fault!!)

That's one way to look at it, I suppose. Then again, there's the school of thought which says that the racoons were living here long before the dogs and the people ever showed up. And besides, Animal Control doesn't have a form to fill out for racoons.
_________________________
Tony Fabris

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#103378 - 08/07/2002 07:26 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me. [Re: rob]
peter
carpal tunnel

Registered: 13/07/2000
Posts: 4172
Loc: Cambridge, England
If he's a member of this community then setting a random spam bot loose here is tantamount to crapping on your own front lawn.

True. But I think there's a difference between a bot set to 3,000 posts a day and one set to 3. The former would be an earnest attempt to destroy the board (and no public board, by definition, is defensible against a concerted attack of that type), the latter an exercise for all concerned in learning about trust relationships and the tragedy of the commons. Sure, an admin should have explained matters to the hacker, and deactivated the bot's account (in that order). Deactivating the hacker's account seemed like overkill, that's all.

Mind you, I'd be upset if all 2,200 board members simultaneously wondered how hard it would be to write an empeg bot. It's just that the law of averages makes that pretty darn unlikely. If all 2,200 board members made as many helpful posts per day as Tony Fabris, then the board would be unreadable then, too. Part of being a non-disfunctional community is inclusiveness and diversity.

ALMOST every post that yz33d has made is a troll - list them and see!

A lot of them are trolls (and there some I thought were genuinely offensive). But the ones that aren't trolls are often brilliant, like this one, and (possibly my favourite BBS post ever) this one. I would hate to miss out on such posts in future.

Peter

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#103379 - 08/07/2002 07:26 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with m [Re: jimhogan]
pgrzelak
carpal tunnel

Registered: 15/08/2000
Posts: 4859
Loc: New Jersey, USA
Greetings!

If it is of any help or concern, I was using Sam Spade tools to track the source ownership. I am behind a firewall at the moment, and cannot look directly.

In any case, it is part of Bell South's ADSL / broadband service. It does not cover the complete band of IP addresses out of Bell South, and it is likely that the address can be reassigned with something outside your block range. It is very likely that blocking this range will lock out other users.

I would also recommend he not be blocked. Granted, the bot is generating spam messages and many of his messages are trolls. But he does add to the discussions somewhat. If he would terminate the bot willingly...
_________________________
Paul Grzelak
200GB with 48MB RAM, Illuminated Buttons and Digital Outputs

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#103380 - 08/07/2002 07:33 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with m [Re: tfabris]
jimhogan
carpal tunnel

Registered: 06/10/1999
Posts: 2591
Loc: Seattle, WA, U.S.A.
And besides, Animal Control doesn't have a form to fill out for racoons.

QED !
_________________________
Jim


'Tis the exceptional fellow who lies awake at night thinking of his successes.

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#103381 - 08/07/2002 07:37 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me. [Re: peter]
rob
carpal tunnel

Registered: 21/05/1999
Posts: 5335
Loc: Cambridge UK
I think there's a difference between a bot set to 3,000 posts a day and one set to 3

..and the internet WORM was supposed to replicate only once an hour. I would have had more faith in RTM's coding ability than Yz33d!

Rob

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#103382 - 08/07/2002 07:40 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me. [Re: rob]
peter
carpal tunnel

Registered: 13/07/2000
Posts: 4172
Loc: Cambridge, England
and the internet WORM was supposed to replicate only once an hour. I would have had more faith in RTM's coding ability than Yz33d!

But empeg-bot was open-sourced: if it had a severe bug, we could have fixed it

Peter

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#103383 - 08/07/2002 07:43 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me. [Re: peter]
rob
carpal tunnel

Registered: 21/05/1999
Posts: 5335
Loc: Cambridge UK
if it had a severe bug, we could have fixed it

So if we let him come back, can we fix Yz33d on the same terms?

Rob

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#103384 - 08/07/2002 07:57 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me. [Re: peter]
wfaulk
carpal tunnel

Registered: 25/12/2000
Posts: 16706
Loc: Raleigh, NC US
As glad as I am to see the guy gone, I am forced to also consider whether this was the correct thing to do based on two different criteria. (God, I hate defending people I don't like.) First, there's the question of whether that was the appropriate democratic thing to do. I'd have to say that he broke a law, but I don't know that that law is written down somewhere or not. I believe that he probably should have been told to stop and then, if he didn't, been banned. After all, as far as we know, he does have an empeg, and this board is a useful resource for those who do. The other point is whether or not this just wounded him. It's unfortunately possible that he might now come back with a vengeance, which would be an exceptionally bad thing.

On the other hand, the Paranoid Conspiracy Man in me is screaming that this is Tony's cheap and lazy way to deactivate his Yz33d alter ego. But PCM has been known to be wrong.
_________________________
Bitt Faulk

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#103385 - 08/07/2002 08:07 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me. [Re: peter]
Terminator
old hand

Registered: 12/01/2000
Posts: 1079
Loc: Dallas, TX
hehe those posts sound like they were someone elses words not his.

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#103386 - 08/07/2002 08:08 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me. [Re: wfaulk]
rob
carpal tunnel

Registered: 21/05/1999
Posts: 5335
Loc: Cambridge UK
Hmm, well this isn't a democracy so shall we ban Tony, just in case?

Rob

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#103387 - 08/07/2002 08:19 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me. [Re: rob]
wfaulk
carpal tunnel

Registered: 25/12/2000
Posts: 16706
Loc: Raleigh, NC US
See, now you're combining Hyper-Liberal Democracy Man with Paranoid Conspiracy Man, and that combination never turns out well. Somehow, through methods unclear to me, he tends to turn into Fascist Schizoid Man. (Though I did really love that episode of The Prisoner.)
_________________________
Bitt Faulk

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#103388 - 08/07/2002 08:23 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me. [Re: tfabris]
DeadFire
addict

Registered: 30/05/2002
Posts: 695
Tony, given your exact situation, I would have done exactly the same thing.

I'm relatively new to the BBS; I have probably posted a few things that were already covered eons ago. But people were nice enough to explain that to me or even tell me to the answer to my question as opposed to pointing me to it.

I don't know much about Yz33d or how annoying he might be because I haven't been here long and haven't read many posts. (Although, what I have read of his were rather funny.) But I understand that the exact thing he did was wrong, no matter if it was 3 or 3,000 posts.

In fact, I believe I remember a warning when signing up not too long ago, against doing exactly that. So in essence, he knew of the possible consequences when he did what he did, and therefore his punishment is appropriate.

Yes, it would have been kind to give him warning. And I'm sure normally, Tony, you would have done so. But in that situation, as I said, I would have done the same and not let myself feel bad about it for long, if at all.

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#103389 - 08/07/2002 08:52 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me. [Re: DeadFire]
SE_Sport_Driver
carpal tunnel

Registered: 05/01/2001
Posts: 4903
Loc: Detroit, MI USA
Justin, you must have joined recently because the "free web hosting" thread was considered his warning in my opinion... (basically, he attached a bunch of html files and linked them together to host a page... eating up bandwidth). He HAS been pretty cool lately, so I could see how you'd think he was kind of a funny guy.
_________________________
Brad B.

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#103390 - 08/07/2002 09:03 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me. [Re: SE_Sport_Driver]
peter
carpal tunnel

Registered: 13/07/2000
Posts: 4172
Loc: Cambridge, England
he attached a bunch of html files and linked them together to host a page... eating up bandwidth

I thought the funniest thing about that (which, if you read the page he was trying to "host", was obviously just a neat trick rather than a genuine attempt to get a page hosted) was that Tony got so annoyed about it after it was him who had told Yz33d how to do it in the first place...

Peter

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#103391 - 08/07/2002 09:07 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me. [Re: rob]
tfabris
carpal tunnel

Registered: 20/12/1999
Posts: 31563
Loc: Seattle, WA
I'm surprised at the amount of defense popping up in favor of our "Deezy" friend.

Whether or not one thinks he "has been pretty cool lately" (and count me among those, by the way), the fact is, he used a scripted exploit against the BBS (opensource or not, childishly simple or not).

If he wishes, he can go try shit like that on Slashdot or something. Let's see how forgiving they are over there.
_________________________
Tony Fabris

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#103392 - 08/07/2002 09:08 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me. [Re: tfabris]
lockuplever
enthusiast

Registered: 30/01/2002
Posts: 264
Loc: Tucson, AZ
I didn't understand what happened until I started reading the other posts. I hate that kind of crap. If it is in fact Yz33d, then the punishment is just, however, he denies the accusation in the "Want to buy Button kit but your email fails" post, with "Why would I want to kill anyone (or anything)?". I AM NOT DEFENDING HIM! If Tony says it's Yz33d, then that's good enough for me.
_________________________
Steve

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#103393 - 08/07/2002 09:12 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me. [Re: tfabris]
thinfourth2
Pooh-Bah

Registered: 13/04/2001
Posts: 1742
Loc: The land of the pale blue peop...
I think that it should be remembered that this board is not just a load of code it is a load of quite cool people Folk like Yz33d are sort of like the village idiot Tolerated but i don't know if we should chuck him out. Slap his wrists somehow.

This ain't slashdot due to the folk, i think that he needs to learn some manners !

Can he still read the board if he is dumped out if so he can send an e-mail and explain his actions.
_________________________
P.Allison fixer of big engines Mk2+Mk2a signed by God / Hacked by the Lord Aberdeen Scotland

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#103394 - 08/07/2002 09:14 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me. [Re: peter]
tfabris
carpal tunnel

Registered: 20/12/1999
Posts: 31563
Loc: Seattle, WA
it was him who had told Yz33d how to do it in the first place...

I only intended that information to be used in reference to making your own BBS icon available. And it was only because Yz33d had been linking an image from Microsoft which tried to set a cookie. I don't think you can blame me in this situation.

Just because I tell someone a piece of public knowledge (especially blindingly obvious public knowledge), doesn't mean that I can be blamed when they use that knowledge for evil.
_________________________
Tony Fabris

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#103395 - 08/07/2002 09:17 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me. [Re: thinfourth2]
tfabris
carpal tunnel

Registered: 20/12/1999
Posts: 31563
Loc: Seattle, WA
i think that he needs to learn some manners !

Although his manners have always been poor, that's got nothing to do with the ban.
_________________________
Tony Fabris

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#103396 - 08/07/2002 09:20 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me. [Re: tfabris]
SE_Sport_Driver
carpal tunnel

Registered: 05/01/2001
Posts: 4903
Loc: Detroit, MI USA
Agreed Tony. You were also telling EVERYONE how to attach an icon and no one else abused it. I was SO tempted to show how to use profanity... (someone else revealed it) because I knew he'd abuse it... I think he just gave up?
_________________________
Brad B.

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#103397 - 08/07/2002 09:24 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me. [Re: tfabris]
peter
carpal tunnel

Registered: 13/07/2000
Posts: 4172
Loc: Cambridge, England
I'm surprised at the amount of defense popping up in favor of our "Deezy" friend.

Er, well of course you are! I hope you wouldn't have banned him in the first place if you'd thought he might get defended...

the fact is, he used a scripted exploit against the BBS

No, he didn't. If he had been using it "against" the BBS, he would have set the post count to 3,000 from day one. He held the power to destroy this board in his hand, and declined to use it. That makes him a "white hat". Indeed, as the BBS software at no point behaved other than as designed, it arguably doesn't even count as an exploit.

Peter

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#103398 - 08/07/2002 09:25 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me. [Re: tfabris]
peter
carpal tunnel

Registered: 13/07/2000
Posts: 4172
Loc: Cambridge, England
Just because I tell someone a piece of public knowledge (especially blindingly obvious public knowledge), doesn't mean that I can be blamed when they use that knowledge for evil.

"Evil", Tony?

Peter

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#103399 - 08/07/2002 09:29 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me. [Re: tfabris]
tonyc
carpal tunnel

Registered: 27/06/1999
Posts: 7058
Loc: Pittsburgh, PA
Incidentally I hijacked the "Satan" account a while back (the password was, cleverly, "Satan") just to keep whoever the original owner was from trolling the BBS with it. But sadly I forgot the password, unless PaulH revives him, Satan will never again torment this BBS.
_________________________
- Tony C
my empeg stuff

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#103400 - 08/07/2002 09:34 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me. [Re: peter]
tfabris
carpal tunnel

Registered: 20/12/1999
Posts: 31563
Loc: Seattle, WA
Indeed, as the BBS software at no point behaved other than as designed, it arguably doesn't even count as an exploit.

Semantics. I don't think he should be using this BBS as his own personal script-testing playground.

That makes him a "white hat".

No, it makes him a budding script kiddie. If he were a White Hat, he would have apologized to this BBS and then sent the information to the UBBThreads people. Instead, he left the script to auto-execute, thinking it was clever and fun.

Say, does anyone remember, once upon a time, when this BBS hosted lively and intelligent discussions about in-car MP3 players? Back in the old days, when everyone here was focused on the topic(s) at hand, before we had people trying to script exploits?
_________________________
Tony Fabris

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#103401 - 08/07/2002 09:36 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me. [Re: tonyc]
SE_Sport_Driver
carpal tunnel

Registered: 05/01/2001
Posts: 4903
Loc: Detroit, MI USA
yn0t_, way to go!
_________________________
Brad B.

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#103402 - 08/07/2002 09:44 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me. [Re: tfabris]
tonyc
carpal tunnel

Registered: 27/06/1999
Posts: 7058
Loc: Pittsburgh, PA
Not that I get a vote here, but I'm with Fabris on this one. I personally don't find even Peter's examples of "funny" posts all that interesting or funny, and whatever good his posts might have are far outweighed by his teenager-like instincts for trolling and testing out goofy script-kiddie crap on the BBS. I live by the motto "don't shit where you eat" and this guy claims to want to be a good citizen of the BBS, yet takes every possible opportunity to either say or do something stupid and childish. If he really wanted to stay here, he would have heeded one of the dozen or so warnings he's had.

This BBS has always had a great balance of on-topic empeg discussion and off-topic discussion of whatever issues we bring up. We all have similarities (our love for our music and our toys) yet we also all have our differences, and those make for good discussion. Yz33d never seemed to add much on the thought-provoking discussions, he just seemed to spew uninformed opinions that his mom and dad probably indoctrinated him with, and could never logically defend anything he said.

So I am rather happy he's gone, though I'm sure he'll figure out how to use an anonymous proxy and log in soon enough. I commend Tony for taking the initiative to maintain the quality of this BBS, and make sure that we don't lose valuable members who get fed up with the BS on the BBS, a great portion of which came out of the asshole/mouth of Yz33d. However, I also value the opinions of his supporters, so maybe there can be some kind of compromise like a one month ban or something. Something to get the message across, but maybe keep him around if he can play by the very simple and fair (but, as mentioned, unwritten) rules of the BBS.
_________________________
- Tony C
my empeg stuff

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#103403 - 08/07/2002 09:56 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me. [Re: tonyc]
robricc
carpal tunnel

Registered: 30/10/2000
Posts: 4931
Loc: New Jersey, USA
just to keep whoever the original owner was from trolling the BBS with it

I know who Satan was. He is currently an upstanding member of this board. I didn't think any of Satan's posts were out of line. "Satan" was wondering why he couldn't log into his account anymore. The last thing you want to do is mess with Satan.
_________________________
-Rob Riccardelli
80GB 16MB MK2 090000736

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#103404 - 08/07/2002 10:00 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me. [Re: robricc]
tonyc
carpal tunnel

Registered: 27/06/1999
Posts: 7058
Loc: Pittsburgh, PA
I am sure he's an upstanding member of the BBS, and that's all well and good... The posts weren't "out of line," but they were pointless and, in my opinion, not very funny. If he wanted to keep his account secure, he shoulda used a smarter password. Satan never was the smartest guy in the world, though.

"Dude! Do you realize we just melvined Death?"


Edited by yn0t_ (08/07/2002 10:00)
_________________________
- Tony C
my empeg stuff

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#103405 - 08/07/2002 10:00 Recent Ban [Re: tonyc]
revlmwest
addict

Registered: 05/06/2002
Posts: 497
Loc: Hartsville, South Carolina for...
The idea that rules must be posted seems out of place. This isn't a company with policy concerns. Its more like a conversation between friends. Nobody has to tell me not be confrontational to an extreme or rude without reason. I know to be polite because I want people to be polite to me. If you aren't I probably won't have a conversation with you again unless I have to.

In my eyes this is all Tony has done. He's saved us all from having to deal with an individual that doesn't want to play by obvious rules (obvious because you wouldn't want them done to you). IF Tony wants to let him back then hurray for mercy. If not then hurray for justice.
_________________________
Michael West

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#103406 - 08/07/2002 10:00 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me. [Re: tonyc]
tfabris
carpal tunnel

Registered: 20/12/1999
Posts: 31563
Loc: Seattle, WA
Thanks for your support, other Tony.

I would like to suggest that this thread doesn't turn into a Yz33d-bashing thread, though. Despite any disagreements we may have had with his opinions, he was always entitled to them. As I stated earlier in this thread, I am among those who sometimes found his contributions amusing. And he was genuinely helpful to me once, by coming up with a Javascript code example that was very useful to me.

And whether or not "don't write scripted exploits against this BBS" was a written rule is irrelevant. You just don't do stuff like that. There's just some stuff in this world you don't do. I don't go digging up my neighbor's flower beds expecting nothing to happen in retaliation. I don't allow my dogs to wander onto my neighbor's property and bark all night.

Whether or not this kid has the potential to be a valued member of this BBS, by loosing a scripted exploit, he has demonstrated his propensity to do precisely the opposite. Because he has already made clear his antisocial world-view, I don't see how he could be expected to stop doing this sort of thing in the future. Hence the ban.
_________________________
Tony Fabris

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#103407 - 08/07/2002 10:03 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me. [Re: tfabris]
tonyc
carpal tunnel

Registered: 27/06/1999
Posts: 7058
Loc: Pittsburgh, PA
I would like to suggest that this thread doesn't turn into a Yz33d-bashing thread

But it's SOOOOOOOO fun! Blame my corporate proxy, if they weren't blocking that golf game from the "Link o' the Day" then I'd be playing that instead of posting here.
_________________________
- Tony C
my empeg stuff

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#103408 - 08/07/2002 10:12 Loosing [Re: tfabris]
tms13
old hand

Registered: 30/07/2001
Posts: 1115
Loc: Lochcarron and Edinburgh
In reply to:

... by loosing a scripted exploit...


I do hope Bitt's reading this! It's heartwarming to see the verb "to loose" used correctly on the Net for a change.
_________________________
Toby Speight
030103016 (80GB Mk2a, blue)
030102806 (0GB Mk2a, blue)

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#103409 - 08/07/2002 10:43 Re: Loosing [Re: tms13]
jimhogan
carpal tunnel

Registered: 06/10/1999
Posts: 2591
Loc: Seattle, WA, U.S.A.
I do hope Bitt's reading this! It's heartwarming to see the verb "to loose" used correctly on the Net for a change.

Well, I can't speak for Bitt, but I can tell you that it warms my cold, cold heart!

Support the fight for the billion-hour work week!
_________________________
Jim


'Tis the exceptional fellow who lies awake at night thinking of his successes.

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#103410 - 08/07/2002 10:44 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me. [Re: tonyc]
peter
carpal tunnel

Registered: 13/07/2000
Posts: 4172
Loc: Cambridge, England
maybe there can be some kind of compromise like a one month ban or something. Something to get the message across, but maybe keep him around if he can play by the very simple and fair (but, as mentioned, unwritten) rules of the BBS.

That could work, yes.

Peter

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#103411 - 08/07/2002 10:46 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me. [Re: peter]
SE_Sport_Driver
carpal tunnel

Registered: 05/01/2001
Posts: 4903
Loc: Detroit, MI USA
Make him type the rules 100 times on the chalk board.
_________________________
Brad B.

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#103412 - 08/07/2002 10:51 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with m [Re: tfabris]
drakino
carpal tunnel

Registered: 08/06/1999
Posts: 7868
Well since Tony asked me in IM, I'll post about it here as well.

I agree that the ban should be there. While it was a trivial thing, it still ewas an annoynance and he had been warned before. While it wasn't a true exploit (just some simple code that he still had to run manually), it was still not acceptable. While I woun't outright ban that IP range on riocar.org, I will be watching carefully what happens.

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#103413 - 08/07/2002 10:51 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me. [Re: SE_Sport_Driver]
tfabris
carpal tunnel

Registered: 20/12/1999
Posts: 31563
Loc: Seattle, WA
He'd just write a script to do it for him.
_________________________
Tony Fabris

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#103414 - 08/07/2002 10:54 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me. [Re: tfabris]
tonyc
carpal tunnel

Registered: 27/06/1999
Posts: 7058
Loc: Pittsburgh, PA
He'd just write a script to do it for him.

Bart Simpson would be proud, indeed.
_________________________
- Tony C
my empeg stuff

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#103415 - 08/07/2002 11:13 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me. [Re: tfabris]
Dignan
carpal tunnel

Registered: 08/03/2000
Posts: 12318
Loc: Sterling, VA
Man, I've gotta read the General forum more often! I'd fallen so far behind that I could only keep up with the Off Topic forum now.

I'm with the ban, but it's unfortunate we can't see what his reaction is. He sure covered his ass with that HTML thing, and I think he should have gotten the freakin HINT that we didn't like that sort of thing.

I'd like to see his excuse for this one.
_________________________
Matt

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#103416 - 08/07/2002 11:21 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me. [Re: tfabris]
eternalsun
Pooh-Bah

Registered: 09/09/1999
Posts: 1721
Loc: San Jose, CA
I would chalk this up to inexperience. If I was a lot younger and still in high school I might have even tried something silly like this. I hate to say this, but can this ban on yz33d be temporary?

Calvin

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#103417 - 08/07/2002 11:24 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me. [Re: eternalsun]
Dignan
carpal tunnel

Registered: 08/03/2000
Posts: 12318
Loc: Sterling, VA
I've been wondering, where did he say how young he is? Everyone keeps saying "oh he's just a kid". I was just wondering.
_________________________
Matt

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#103418 - 08/07/2002 11:27 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me. [Re: eternalsun]
tfabris
carpal tunnel

Registered: 20/12/1999
Posts: 31563
Loc: Seattle, WA
but can this ban on yz33d be temporary?

Well, since I'm just an acting admin because PaulH doesn't read the BBS very often, the actual final say in this matter is all Paul's.

My opinion is that even if he begs for mercy and promises never to do that sort of thing again, he's already got two strikes against him going into it. And as I've said already, he's been vocal about his world-view and his attitude, which doesn't bode well for the idea of someone who can be reformed.
_________________________
Tony Fabris

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#103419 - 08/07/2002 11:28 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me. [Re: tfabris]
loren
carpal tunnel

Registered: 23/08/2000
Posts: 3826
Loc: SLC, UT, USA
good call, good riddance.
_________________________
|| loren ||

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#103420 - 08/07/2002 11:31 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me. [Re: Dignan]
tfabris
carpal tunnel

Registered: 20/12/1999
Posts: 31563
Loc: Seattle, WA
I've been wondering, where did he say how young he is?

I don't recall exactly, but he's either 17 or 18 at the moment if I remember right.
_________________________
Tony Fabris

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#103421 - 08/07/2002 11:32 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with m [Re: tfabris]
PaulH
enthusiast

Registered: 19/05/1999
Posts: 379
Loc: England
Thanks Tony. I agree with these actions, we don't want to tolerate such abuse to the BBS. I have been lucky enough until today to be able to host this server free of charge.

Unfortunatly that is likely to change now my provider wants to charge me to host the server. I am currently looking into options on what to do with this BBS.

In the meantime I'd like to thank Tony and othe other moderators, as well as all of the users contrbutions that make this such a great bbs.

Cheers

Paul

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#103422 - 08/07/2002 11:44 Re: Loosing [Re: tms13]
wfaulk
carpal tunnel

Registered: 25/12/2000
Posts: 16706
Loc: Raleigh, NC US
    I do hope Bitt's reading this!
I feel that I should have some sort of erudite and/or funny rejoinder to this, but I guess I'm just a little slow today. Oh, well.
_________________________
Bitt Faulk

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#103423 - 08/07/2002 11:55 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with m [Re: PaulH]
tonyc
carpal tunnel

Registered: 27/06/1999
Posts: 7058
Loc: Pittsburgh, PA
Unfortunatly that is likely to change now my provider wants to charge me to host the server. I am currently looking into options on what to do with this BBS.

Wow. That's sad news that they want to charge now. I hope you can work out some way to continue to have the BBS free of charge. If not, I think the options would be:

1) If the charges are reasonable, try to solicit donations from the BBS community. The people here have shown a willingness to support good projects with their hard-earned dollars (Mark Lord has received some donations, among many others who've sold empeg-related goods and services.) I am sure there would be a lot of support for a donation campaign if the costs were reasonable and we could be guaranteed the BBS would stay around.

2) Move the BBS to another server. RioCar.org would be the obvious first candidate, but I'll let Tom comment on how feasable that would be.

3) Transfer ownership of the BBS to someone else who has their own free hosting arrangements (or doesn't mind footing the bill.) That's the least preferable option if you ask me.

In any event I look forward to updates on this, and I hope you can find a way to keep the BBS as it is right now.
_________________________
- Tony C
my empeg stuff

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#103424 - 08/07/2002 11:56 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with m [Re: PaulH]
puckalicious
member

Registered: 18/01/2002
Posts: 171
Anyone else interested in a poll? I really think the "ban" vote will heavily outweigh the "stay" vote.

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#103425 - 08/07/2002 11:58 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with m [Re: puckalicious]
tonyc
carpal tunnel

Registered: 27/06/1999
Posts: 7058
Loc: Pittsburgh, PA
Anyone else interested in a poll? I really think the "ban" vote will heavily outweigh the "stay" vote.

Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it.

None of this matters unless we can find a new home for the BBS, by the way...
_________________________
- Tony C
my empeg stuff

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#103426 - 08/07/2002 11:59 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me. [Re: tfabris]
rob
carpal tunnel

Registered: 21/05/1999
Posts: 5335
Loc: Cambridge UK
he's already got two strikes against him

Don't you get three strikes before you're locked up forever for spitting on the sidewalk?

Rob

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#103427 - 08/07/2002 12:28 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me. [Re: rob]
butter
enthusiast

Registered: 07/03/2002
Posts: 211
Loc: State side
unless your a priest, than it's multiple tykes and your out
_________________________
_______
Tobin
Mark IIa - 60gb - Smoke
[blue]fitter, happier, more productive[/blue]

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#103428 - 08/07/2002 13:51 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me. [Re: butter]
JBjorgen
carpal tunnel

Registered: 19/01/2002
Posts: 3582
Loc: Columbus, OH
unless your a priest, than it's multiple tykes and your out
Dude...that was wrong (but funny)...hope we don't have any catholic folk here that will be offended.

I wonder if it would be possible to make any account from that IP range read-only. That way, we never have to listen to his crap, and we don't have to feel guilty about banning him from the wealth of information around here.
_________________________
~ John

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#103429 - 08/07/2002 14:01 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me. [Re: JBjorgen]
SE_Sport_Driver
carpal tunnel

Registered: 05/01/2001
Posts: 4903
Loc: Detroit, MI USA
If Catholics are going to be mad at anybody, it had better be the corrupt beurocracy, not the people that point it out.
_________________________
Brad B.

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#103430 - 08/07/2002 15:32 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me. [Re: tfabris]
tfabris
carpal tunnel

Registered: 20/12/1999
Posts: 31563
Loc: Seattle, WA
Well, maybe he'll drop in here and have something to say in his defense, seeing as how he's just registered under a new username. Seems that address range block wasn't enough.
_________________________
Tony Fabris

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#103431 - 08/07/2002 15:37 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me. [Re: tfabris]
maczrool
pooh-bah

Registered: 13/01/2002
Posts: 1649
Loc: Louisiana, USA
Could you block by MAC address? I realize this isn't ideal, but I am curious if this is even possible.

Stu
_________________________
If you want it to break, buy Sony!

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#103432 - 08/07/2002 15:39 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me. [Re: maczrool]
tfabris
carpal tunnel

Registered: 20/12/1999
Posts: 31563
Loc: Seattle, WA
Could you block by MAC address?

I doubt it.
_________________________
Tony Fabris

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#103433 - 08/07/2002 15:41 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me. [Re: peter]
mlord
carpal tunnel

Registered: 29/08/2000
Posts: 14472
Loc: Canada
Or perhaps permanently set his BBS "title" to "novice", regardless of post count.

-ml

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#103434 - 08/07/2002 16:09 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me. [Re: maczrool]
Roger
carpal tunnel

Registered: 18/01/2000
Posts: 5680
Loc: London, UK
Not usually -- the MAC address is rarely (never?) propogated beyond the local network -- it's only needed for the IP -> Ethernet mapping.
_________________________
-- roger

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#103435 - 08/07/2002 16:13 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me. [Re: Roger]
lectric
pooh-bah

Registered: 20/01/2002
Posts: 2085
Loc: New Orleans, LA
Correct. A MAC address is never passed through a gateway.

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#103436 - 08/07/2002 16:15 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me. [Re: mlord]
tfabris
carpal tunnel

Registered: 20/12/1999
Posts: 31563
Loc: Seattle, WA
Or perhaps permanently set his BBS "title" to "novice", regardless of post count.

Even his script wouldn't have increased his post count, it was under another user name.
_________________________
Tony Fabris

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#103437 - 08/07/2002 16:17 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me. [Re: lectric]
lectric
pooh-bah

Registered: 20/01/2002
Posts: 2085
Loc: New Orleans, LA
I should say, the MAC of the gateway is passed on instead of the MAC of the NIC. Although I wonder if Tunneling would still pass the original MAC. Hmmmm... gonna have to go try that.

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#103438 - 08/07/2002 16:20 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me. [Re: tfabris]
Anonymous
Unregistered


I didn't make the empegbot to try piss anyone off or spam the forums. I only made 5 posts with the empegbot. And now look there is a thread about it with 65 posts in one day. That's more than 10 times the posts I made with the empegbot.
I didn't make empegbot to try to 'exploit' the BBS or 'do evil' as tony puts it. I thought the random sentences it would make were funny and thought people would laugh at it and think it was funny rather than use it as an excuse to express their hatred. I didn't mean any harm with it and I didn't think 5 posts hurt anyone, but obviously it is unwanted, so I won't use it.
The program isn't a monster that will run loose, join up with Frankenstein and wreck havoc on the BBS and delete your files and plant spider eggs under the skin of your face. It was just a program I made that would make random funny sentences and then post them on the BBS. "chicks run around dolphins. whales press next to tahoes." See I just did that with empegbot. I thought it was pretty harmless, and maybe someone might even laugh at it, and the BBS would become a more humorous and enjoyable place. I wasn't trying to 'f*ck' with Tony Fabris or anyone else. And I believe anyone with a little common sense would be able to see that. I appreciate the support, peter, pgrzelac, thinfourth and anyone else.

I don't see making 5 posts intended to be humorous as crapping on someone's frontyard or pulling up their flowerbed. I see it as like telling someone a joke. I would think telling someone how much you hate them and calling them names like _yn0t has done would be more akin to crapping on someone's yard or pulling up their flowers. I truly feel sorry for you yn0t that you feel the need to hate someone, especially since I never did anything against you except disagree with you in politics. Anyways, I don't hate you, and eventhough you may be older in years than me, I think you really need to grow up.
If empegbot was really bothering anyone, I would have stopped voluntarily. Like I said, my goal was not to try to piss anyone off. And making 3,000 posts never crossed my mind, althooouuuuugh....I would have a cool title.....no, I'm not interested in destroying this BBS and its wealth of information.
I think many of the posters in this thread cannot see empegbot for it was, maybe you just misjudged my intentions, but I think the reaction is ridiculous, a waste of time, and just plain foolish. I am not interested in being around people concentrated on hating and name calling. The BBS is a great place to share information and there are a lot of good people on here.
I apologize for any evil atrocities committed by empegbot, and I hope you all will be able to recover from the horrid destruction this beast has caused.


Edited by d33zY (08/07/2002 16:29)

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#103439 - 08/07/2002 16:27 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me. [Re: ]
tfabris
carpal tunnel

Registered: 20/12/1999
Posts: 31563
Loc: Seattle, WA
I only made 5 posts with the empegbot.

And it was coded, according to its user profile, do do this once per day. That alone is a problem. A simple change of a single variable in the script, and it could have brought down the BBS with spam traffic.

This is not a joke, and it is not white-hat-hacking. You just don't do stuff like that.

Currently, it's up to you and PaulH to work out terms of an account restoration. I'll leave it up to him.
_________________________
Tony Fabris

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#103440 - 08/07/2002 16:40 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me. [Re: ]
Dignan
carpal tunnel

Registered: 08/03/2000
Posts: 12318
Loc: Sterling, VA
In addition to Tony's objections to the bot, you have to realize that it's just posting random sentences in threads with real discussions going on. Some people (like me) read everything in flat mode, and all of a sudden here's a completely random post about whales and tahoes, and maybe that leads off on a completely unrelated topic and totally interrupts the thread that people are trying to read for content. Sure, threads go off subject, but usually it's gradual and people get back on track. I could just post to a thread with random sentences and it would be the same thing, whether it's a bot or not.

Plus, it's kinda dumb.
_________________________
Matt

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#103441 - 08/07/2002 16:40 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me. [Re: tfabris]
Anonymous
Unregistered


"A simple change of a single variable in the script, and it could have brought down the BBS with spam traffic"

So you were afraid I might trip, land on the keyboard which would accidently open up the empegbot source and accidently change that varible to 3,000 and then accidently run it just by chance? I'll admit it could happen. If I wanted to spam the BBS then I could have done it and still can, and I'm sure anyone else on here that knows javascript could do it, too. In fact, some one could do it by hand if they wanted to. President Bush could nuke the whole world if he wanted to, but I don't think he will.

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#103442 - 08/07/2002 16:43 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me. [Re: ]
tfabris
carpal tunnel

Registered: 20/12/1999
Posts: 31563
Loc: Seattle, WA
So you were afraid I might trip, land on the keyboard which would accidently open up the empegbot source and accidently change that varible to 3,000 and then accidently run it just by chance?

No, I'm afraid that you might decide to do it deliberately.

Script kiddies tend to do that sort of thing when they're bored.
_________________________
Tony Fabris

Top
#103443 - 08/07/2002 17:08 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me. [Re: peter]
smu
old hand

Registered: 30/07/2000
Posts: 879
Loc: Germany (Ruhrgebiet)
No, he didn't. If he had been using it "against" the BBS, he would have set the post count to 3,000 from day one. He held the power to destroy this board in his hand, and declined to use it. That makes him a "white hat". Indeed, as the BBS software at no point behaved other than as designed, it arguably doesn't even count as an exploit.

I disagree with you. He did cause damage (i.e. annoyance) to the community, and as such, it is an exploit. You might call him a "grey hat" at best, because he didn't try to pull the BBS down (DOS attack).

But anyway, he got a warning when he used the BBS to host a page (even though that was more a proof of concept type thing). Now he did abuse the BBS again, even though he was warned previously. Therefore a ban is certainly OK.
We could remove the ban again after a few days or weeks, but certainly not too early.

cu,
sven
_________________________
proud owner of MkII 40GB & MkIIa 60GB both lit by God and HiJacked by Lord

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#103444 - 08/07/2002 19:04 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me. [Re: ]
mlord
carpal tunnel

Registered: 29/08/2000
Posts: 14472
Loc: Canada
Mmm.. I read the entire (large) text posted, and I still didn't see the magic words.. well.. ?

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#103445 - 08/07/2002 19:32 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me. [Re: ]
lockuplever
enthusiast

Registered: 30/01/2002
Posts: 264
Loc: Tucson, AZ
I didn't make the empegbot to try piss anyone off or spam the forums. I only made 5 posts with the empegbot. And now look there is a thread about it with 65 posts in one day. That's more than 10 times the posts I made with the empegbot.

And with this kind of response, you don't feel like you did anything wrong? A lot of people that post here take it very seriously, maybe too much sometimes, but nonetheless, this reminds me of vandalism. Not very harmful, but very annoying.
_________________________
Steve

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#103446 - 08/07/2002 19:46 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me. [Re: tfabris]
ricin
veteran

Registered: 19/06/2000
Posts: 1495
Loc: US: CA
Whoa. Almost makes me feel bad for pointing him out. Even though you would have figured out who it was anyway...
_________________________
Donato
MkII/080000565
MkIIa/010101253
ricin.us

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#103447 - 08/07/2002 20:11 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me. [Re: ricin]
tfabris
carpal tunnel

Registered: 20/12/1999
Posts: 31563
Loc: Seattle, WA
Almost makes me feel bad for pointing him out. Even though you would have figured out who it was anyway...

I didn't go on anyone else's information, I looked up the addresses myself. You had nothing to do with it.
_________________________
Tony Fabris

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#103448 - 08/07/2002 21:24 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me. [Re: lockuplever]
Anonymous
Unregistered


No, I didn't do anything wrong.

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#103449 - 08/07/2002 21:28 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me. [Re: ]
tfabris
carpal tunnel

Registered: 20/12/1999
Posts: 31563
Loc: Seattle, WA
No, I didn't do anything wrong.

Your incorrect perception that you haven't done anything wrong is precisely the root of the problem, and precisely why I don't believe you should be granted continued access to this BBS.
_________________________
Tony Fabris

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#103450 - 08/07/2002 21:29 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me. [Re: ]
DeadFire
addict

Registered: 30/05/2002
Posts: 695
Actually, yes, you did. You see, the fact that empegbot didn't make very many posts and therefore was not harmful is irrelevant. What's relevant is that it could easily have been set to spam the board and bring it down - i.e. it was potentially harmful.

You have no remorse about doing it because you actually didn't do any damage. But that doesn't make it any less wrong. Now my opinion was that perhaps a warning would have been in order, but were I in Tony's position at the time, I would not have given a warning. I would have done exactly what he did. I formed that opinion without knowing anything of your history on this board.

Now having been informed of your history on this board, my opinion has changed to that of complete agreement with Tony's decision.

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#103451 - 08/07/2002 21:32 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me. [Re: DeadFire]
tfabris
carpal tunnel

Registered: 20/12/1999
Posts: 31563
Loc: Seattle, WA
Don't we all wish we were teenagers again, so we could know everything and be right all the time?
_________________________
Tony Fabris

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#103452 - 08/07/2002 21:35 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me. [Re: DeadFire]
tfabris
carpal tunnel

Registered: 20/12/1999
Posts: 31563
Loc: Seattle, WA
What's relevant is that it could easily have been set to spam the board and bring it down - i.e. it was potentially harmful.

And actually, if you think about it, five randomly-generated posts per day, even though not damaging from a DoS point of view, is stil harmful.
_________________________
Tony Fabris

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#103453 - 08/07/2002 21:40 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me. [Re: mlord]
Anonymous
Unregistered


If you are looking for an apology, read the last sentence of that post.

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#103454 - 08/07/2002 21:42 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me. [Re: tfabris]
Anonymous
Unregistered


"No, I'm afraid that you might decide to do it deliberately.
Script kiddies tend to do that sort of thing when they're bored. "


OK, so based on your speculation that I might decide to deliberately attack the BBS out of boredom, you've concluded that I was "f*cking" with you", "doing evil", and it was cause to be banned.

Say you see a guy with a gun in a holster. Sure there exists the possibility that he might get bored and just decide to deliberately shoot you, but it isn't that likely and it won't make your position any better to go punch him in the face. Sure, you may knock him out with one punch, but you probably won't and now the chances of him shooting you are a lot more likely than if you would have just left him alone and minded your own business. I'm not saying I will spam the BBS, cause I won't. I just want to point out your lack of thinking the situation through. You are on a witch hunt, and to be honest with you, I think it is stupid. And you don't have to try to ban me. I don't want to be a part of this community any more.

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#103455 - 08/07/2002 21:49 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me. [Re: ]
tfabris
carpal tunnel

Registered: 20/12/1999
Posts: 31563
Loc: Seattle, WA
One of the things you said made me stop and think. You said I'm on a witch hunt. This is an interesting analogy, and I hope it's not true.
_________________________
Tony Fabris

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#103456 - 08/07/2002 22:00 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with m [Re: ]
drakino
carpal tunnel

Registered: 08/06/1999
Posts: 7868
Ugg, metaphors. Anyhow, plain and simple, here is the reason many people here had a problem with your actions:

You have done similar things in the past to show off. No harm was done by the hosting trick, but it was made clear that it, and similar actions are not wanted here. Want to explore the powers of your new found HTML/scripting knowledge? Do it on your own equipment, and not the BBS used by hundreds of people. Point us to your work in an Off Topic post, instead of forcing people to see it by putting it at the end of threads in the general fourm.

I had a similar incident once at work. I learned about Code Red, and accidently made it look like I was trying to attack a few sites on the internet. This was red flagged in the proxy logs (the source of the problem was my proxy was set and the request ran out the private network gateway). Anyhow, I got contacted by some pretty high up people because of the red flags set off. I appologized. Why? Well even though I had no intent on causing harm, I made it appear that way, and I wasted IT resources tracking it down. I did something wrong, and I should have been a bit more careful to ensure the test machines settings were set to limit traffic to the test network. Had I kept the additude of you in this empegbot situation, I would have been out of a job.

Also, to discourage any thoughts you might have of "revenge", just keep in mind it will probably be the FBI contacting you if any computer laws are broken. And DoS and other similar simple attacks are against the law. They are very good at their job when it comes to issues on the internet, and you don't want to deal with them on the receiving end of an investigation. I've worked with them in the past being a sysadmin who had a machine used to bounce some hacks off of.

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#103457 - 08/07/2002 22:04 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with m [Re: drakino]
tfabris
carpal tunnel

Registered: 20/12/1999
Posts: 31563
Loc: Seattle, WA
Want to explore the powers of your new found HTML/scripting knowledge? Do it on your own equipment

Or better yet, try it on some other online user community and see how long their admins tolerate it. The fact that we're even allowing you to state your case here says something, I think.
_________________________
Tony Fabris

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#103458 - 08/07/2002 22:05 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with m [Re: tfabris]
DeadFire
addict

Registered: 30/05/2002
Posts: 695
It does indeed. I was actually surprised that you pointed out he was back instead of just blocking the new username and or IP/Domain range.

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#103459 - 08/07/2002 22:13 Re: Recent Ban [Re: drakino]
revlmwest
addict

Registered: 05/06/2002
Posts: 497
Loc: Hartsville, South Carolina for...
Drakino is quite right... Attitude is really everything. If I bump into someone at the mall I say excuse me. There was nothing intentional or even harmful to apologize for. If I'm going to do that for a complete stranger how much more should I be willing to do it for a community of people that I have something in common with and are willing to put up with my insanely basic questions.

In short if you would ere on the side of graciousness instead of correctness this would cease to be an issue.


Edited by revlmwest (08/07/2002 23:06)
_________________________
Michael West

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#103460 - 08/07/2002 22:22 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with m [Re: DeadFire]
tfabris
carpal tunnel

Registered: 20/12/1999
Posts: 31563
Loc: Seattle, WA
I was actually surprised that you pointed out he was back instead of just blocking the new username and or IP/Domain range.

Figured it would be OK to give him a chance to see what was going on, and perhaps give him an opportunity to admit wrongdoing and promise he wouldn't pull a stunt like that again. Instead, he refuses to admit he did anything wrong.

Wow, reading the above paragraph, it really does sound like a witch hunt, doesn't it? Okay, let's examine this metaphor a little further...

What were the primary characteristics of the infamous Salem witch trials?

    - Salem was a small, tightly-knit community.

    - An ergot fungus infection in the town's grain supply caused sickness and strange behavior in some of the members of the community.

    - The lack of scientific knowledge about the ergot fungus made the community assume that demonic posession and witchcraft were the causes of the illnesses.

    - Certain members of the community were singled out as the source of the witchcraft.

    - These accused witches were unable to defend themselves against the accusation, because they were being accused of something that doesn't exist and therefore can't be proved or disproved.

    - Some of the accused witches were executed for these nonexistent crimes.

Generally, when someone uses the "witch hunt" metaphor, they're referring to one or more of the following things:

    - Someone being used as a scapegoat for a larger unrelated problem.

    - Someone being unjustly accused.

    - Someone being unable to defend themselves against their accusers.

    - Someone being punished just because they're different.

I do see some similarities here, but I'm not sure this situation really qualifies as a witch hunt...
_________________________
Tony Fabris

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#103461 - 08/07/2002 22:26 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with m [Re: tfabris]
canuckInOR
carpal tunnel

Registered: 13/02/2002
Posts: 3212
Loc: Portland, OR
Racoons are generally quiet.

Hah! When I lived in Toronto, I lived near the Don Valley, which is one of few greenways in the city. It doubled as our local mountain biking trail, garbage dump, and racoon breeding ground. These aren't yer ordinary country bumpkin racoons, though -- I've seen those at my parents acreage in Texas. These were urban hoodlums that were consistently about the size of... I was going to say basketball, but that'd be a runt. They were mean, and possibly rabid, too -- it's prudent to cross the street when you see them. I can't begin to count the number of times I heard screaming racoons fighting any domestic animal stupid enough to get close (kinda like Yz33d ) -- more times than I ever heard any of the abundant neighbourhood dogs, anyway.

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#103462 - 08/07/2002 22:37 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with m [Re: canuckInOR]
Laura
pooh-bah

Registered: 16/06/2000
Posts: 1682
Loc: Greenhills, Ohio
I hear them playing in my backyard most nights, kind of a loud chittering noise. I don't mind though, they sound like they are having fun. They are cute and not so mean until they reach sexual maturity, that is when they can turn mean. At least that is what I was told by people that raised orphan cubs.
_________________________
Laura

MKI #017/90

whatever

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#103463 - 08/07/2002 22:38 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with m [Re: tfabris]
Tyris
journeyman

Registered: 07/04/2002
Posts: 51
Loc: Texas, USA
Just thought I should add my opinion...

I fully support Tony's decision for a ban. While I don't know very much about Yz33d, I don't think any of his posts would have affected my opinion here. Many of the other messageboards that I follow are filled with bots, script kiddies, and plain idiots. It makes those boards very difficult to read for the members that actually try to extract valuable information from the mess. After spending a few months with this well-maintained BBS, I have fallen in love (so to speak...) with being able to read a whole thread without any posts of complete crap. In my mind, if someone annoys a good portion of the board's members, they should suffer dire consequences, no matter how they personally feel about what they did. So, Yz33d, even though I know next to nothing about you, I definately feel that you deserve a ban. The last thing I want is to see this wonderful community ruined by a bunch of script-kiddies.
_________________________
Tyris
MkIIa 10gb Blue - 040103702

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#103464 - 08/07/2002 22:44 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me. [Re: tfabris]
canuckInOR
carpal tunnel

Registered: 13/02/2002
Posts: 3212
Loc: Portland, OR
He'd just write a script to [write his lines] for him.

You know, I once got away with this very thing back in grade seven. We had a daisy wheel printer, so it wasn't a dot matrix printout that might have given the game away. I didn't even have to write the program -- my brother had done the same thing a couple months before...

One of the few times a computer has been a labour saving device in my life, I think...

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#103465 - 08/07/2002 22:48 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with m [Re: ]
dWarf
new poster

Registered: 09/08/2000
Posts: 6
Loc: Oakville, ON, CA
>Say you see a guy with a gun in a holster. Sure there exists the
>possibility that he might get bored and just decide to deliberately
>shoot you, but it isn't that likely...

Problem is that you took the gun out of the holster, started waving it around, and took a few pot-shots above everyone's head...how was Tony to know if you might start aiming lower?
_________________________
MKII 080000075 - 18G, [green]green[/green]

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#103466 - 08/07/2002 23:07 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with m [Re: revlmwest]
Anonymous
Unregistered


"Attitude is really everything. If I bump into someone at the mall I say excuse me. There was nothing intentional or even harmful to apologize for"

I completely agree. Now imagine you bump into someone at the mall and they turn around and call you a fucking bastard. Then are you gonna feel much like apologizing? If Tony would have just asked me not to use the bot and told me why, then I would've apologized.

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#103467 - 08/07/2002 23:13 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with m [Re: ]
SE_Sport_Driver
carpal tunnel

Registered: 05/01/2001
Posts: 4903
Loc: Detroit, MI USA
You could appologize to everyone BUT Tony or at least PaulH if that's the case. You bumped into everyone, not just the person that called you out on it.
_________________________
Brad B.

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#103468 - 08/07/2002 23:21 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with m [Re: dWarf]
Anonymous
Unregistered


"Problem is that you took the gun out of the holster, started waving it around, and took a few pot-shots above everyone's head...how was Tony to know if you might start aiming lower? "

Well I didn't mean it to be like that. I meant it to be more like "hey, look at this cool gun I got".

Certainly if I would have known that many of you would see this harmless (in my opinion) bot as bloody murder, then I never would have posted it here. The whole thing was a joke, meant to make people laugh, everything right down to the profile. And personally, I think if Tony wouldn't have overreacted (once again, in my opinion), then I sincerely think nobody would have had a problem with it. I think when one highly respected member of a community has an opinion, people tend to mindlessly agree with it without thinking for themselves.
I think if someone like _yn0t would have made the bot, then Tony Fabris and many others would have just laughed at it and then forgot about it. But the snowball starts rolling down the hill and the witch hunt commences and it gets blowed way out of proportion and now I am being prosecuted for something I didn't even commit (3,000 posts). I hear Minority Report is good.

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#103469 - 08/07/2002 23:33 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with m [Re: ]
Terminator
old hand

Registered: 12/01/2000
Posts: 1079
Loc: Dallas, TX
You said you don't want to be here any more. Why are you still here defending yourself?

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#103470 - 08/07/2002 23:38 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with m [Re: ]
drakino
carpal tunnel

Registered: 08/06/1999
Posts: 7868
Argh, drop the metaphors...

Back to the specific point. You did something that most people here thought was wrong. That ended, everyone returned to the normal posts. A short time later, a similar issue arrises in the general fourm, and again the source of it is the same person. In this case, you. This was the second major incident on the BBS, people disapproved of the random posts, and Tony F. as an active admin, did something about it. The incident again crossed the line of abuse of the BBS on a technical level, so a ban was put into place to prevent it.

Had Tony C (yn0t) for some bizarre reason decided to break his normal mold and try the same thing, I am sure he would have been met with the same initial reaction you got to the web hosting incident. Had Tony C then continued on this path, while also doing an assorted amount of other minor things to irritate some of the users here; then caused another major incident, he would also be banned.

THIS WAS NOT YOUR FIRST, SECOND, OR THIRD INCIDENT HERE!!! Instead it was another one to add to the list, and another one to go without an appology. Since it was unknown at the time what the bot was going to do, and the potential existed for even worse annoyances, the ban was the right thing to do. The sooner you understand these simple facts, the sooner things might return to normal here, with or without you.

What is right and wrong changes wherever you go. Most of the time this is unspoken, and that is true here. It is a caring, useful, and productive BBS. What may seem right elsewhere for some reason might not be here. Your stunts are not welcome here, and you have been told this several times. Drop it, accept the facts, and move on.

Sorry to be so blunt. But it seems like it is the only way to talk about this situation without it getting off track.

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#103471 - 08/07/2002 23:49 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with m [Re: drakino]
Anonymous
Unregistered


I don't believe right and wrong changes wherever you go.

And one fact you are over looking is that if I wanted to attack the BBS then I would have done it. Just like if a police officer wanted to shoot you then he would. Or if God wanted you dead then you wouldn't be breathing right now. My point is, don't blame someone for something they didn't commit but were only capable of committing. Otherwise, you'd have to accuse your father of raping you as a child. Afterall, he had the ability to do it and probably could've gotten away with it, but he didn't do it.

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#103472 - 08/07/2002 23:57 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with m [Re: ]
oliver
addict

Registered: 02/04/2002
Posts: 691
Wow, this must be one of the fastest growing threads on this bbs.

What i don't understand is why we all can't just get along. I find spam to be annoying, but this one incident didn't get out of control. In my mind, i think at this rate somebody might change Yz33d's code and crash this bbs. I think some kind of resolution needs to be figured out quick, before this gets escalated to the next level.

This bbs is the greatest thing that could have happened to our empegs, please don’t let a select few wreck it for the rest of us!

That’s just my 2 cents, I’ve been reading this tread for a bit now, and just thought I should post a thought. It is late, so please allow spelling mistakes
_________________________
Oliver mk1 30gb: 129 | mk2a 30gb: 040104126

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#103473 - 09/07/2002 00:08 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with m [Re: ]
drakino
carpal tunnel

Registered: 08/06/1999
Posts: 7868
I don't believe right and wrong changes wherever you go.

Then thats a problem you will have to live with for the rest of your life. It's the truth. Things I do at home that are acceptable may not be at work. Eating a cow in certain countries is wrong. Doing immature scripting stunts here is wrong. Doing it again is still wrong, and worse then the first time. Plain and simple.

I am blaming you for something you did do, and that is the undenyable and provable. I am not however blaming you for a mass spam attack on the BBS, as that never happened. You created a bot that annoyed users of this BBS. This annoyed people even before an admin caught word of it. What you did was wrong, plain and simple.

You are commiting the same mistakes you have in the past. You argue a point, but half assed. You search for exactly the one word you want and turn it into the subject, ignoring everything else around it, including the actual meat of the discussion. Did you not see the big capital letters in my earlier post highlighting my main point? Or are you simply choosing to ignore it, figuring that somehow everyone else will as well?

I'm done with this thread. It's wasting my time for no reason. I hope for your sake that you gain wisdom here shortly. You despratly need it, and your life would be much easier with it. Unfortunatly you seem doomed to the same self torture that so many people put themselved into for their entire lives. Sad really, but sometimes there is nothing anyone can do to change it.

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#103474 - 09/07/2002 01:20 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with m [Re: drakino]
Anonymous
Unregistered


Well, it's ironic that I can turn every single point you make around and apply it to you. No, I don't think making 5 posts is wrong. I don't think I'll be doomed to hell for it. So far, nothing you have said has convinced me of it. You can make all the personal insults you want, but I still stand by everything I have said.

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#103475 - 09/07/2002 02:19 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with m [Re: ]
thinfourth2
Pooh-Bah

Registered: 13/04/2001
Posts: 1742
Loc: The land of the pale blue peop...
I must admit that i don't think that y/dz33d has done anything to try and destroy the board pissed a few folk off yes but not a concerted effort to wreck anything.

Yes i did find the random posts mildly amusing but i am glad to see the back of it.

Can we just draw this to a close let him back in under his old name.


AND Y/DZ33D DON'T DO IT AGAIN

If you want to learn about scripting etc try and write a few programs for your empeg i am sure there is folk here that might help you.
_________________________
P.Allison fixer of big engines Mk2+Mk2a signed by God / Hacked by the Lord Aberdeen Scotland

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#103476 - 09/07/2002 02:37 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me. [Re: tfabris]
ricin
veteran

Registered: 19/06/2000
Posts: 1495
Loc: US: CA
I know; that's why I said what I said. It wasn't that hard to figure out anyway...

My take on it is that he should have asked for permission, or used another bbs (or mock up site) for testing. However, even with what he did do, it doesn't constitute a full permanent ban. In fact, I feel that the remarks about him in this thread are probably punishment enough.
_________________________
Donato
MkII/080000565
MkIIa/010101253
ricin.us

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#103477 - 09/07/2002 03:06 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with m [Re: ]
smu
old hand

Registered: 30/07/2000
Posts: 879
Loc: Germany (Ruhrgebiet)
The point is _not_ what you could have done, but what you did.
You annoyed this community again and again, have been told to stop your stupid stunts again and again, and now annoyed this community again using an automated attack. And since you have been warned to not do such stupid things again, it doesn't matter that you intended it as a joke.
The potential that this very same approach could have been used for a DoS attack only made it worse. The ban was and is a fair penalty, even if the approach couldn't be used for a DoS attack.
And you still didn't apologize to anyone.

cu,
sven
_________________________
proud owner of MkII 40GB & MkIIa 60GB both lit by God and HiJacked by Lord

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#103478 - 09/07/2002 05:09 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with m [Re: thinfourth2]
pgrzelak
carpal tunnel

Registered: 15/08/2000
Posts: 4859
Loc: New Jersey, USA
Greetings!

Agreed. I really do not think there is anything to be gained by banning him, as long as he agrees not to run the bot against the forums again. I think the issue has moved from the bot itself. In fact, there might be something useful the bot can do - in the Off Topic forum, create a random generated oracle, where people with the time and desire can post questions and have them answered in a humorous random way.

As to the metaphors and attitudes, I think it is a little out of hand at the moment.

I do not think any damage was done, nor did anything really get out of hand. yz33d did irritate a lot of people, but was it because of the bot, or because of his opinions / attitude?

I also think that it is not possible to ban him technically without injuring other users. The IP block that he is coming from is registered as a large broadband ISP (BellSouth). Blocking the small range that was already set up will not be enough, because it does not cover their entire DHCP range. Also, blocking that range may impact other BBS users in that region. Plus, at best, it is a hollow threat. Someone who really wanted to would re-route the traffic or come in from another ISP. Given that this is a privately run board located in a publicly accessible area, there is no truely effective way to block a user that specifically wants to get back in. I don't have that much experience with BBS software, so please correct me if I am wrong.

I agree with thinfourth2 in that the incident should be closed. I know yz33d does not see any problem with what he did - I hope he understands that it annoyed a lot of people and will not repeat it for that reason, if for no other.
_________________________
Paul Grzelak
200GB with 48MB RAM, Illuminated Buttons and Digital Outputs

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#103479 - 09/07/2002 05:34 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with m [Re: pgrzelak]
Dignan
carpal tunnel

Registered: 08/03/2000
Posts: 12318
Loc: Sterling, VA
Oh, he didn't do anything wrong. It was just a bot. Before that it was just an abuse of the file attachment function. Not to mention a whole bunch of other things.

The thing you're not seeing is that he's worsening in his behavior. Sure, we tolerated some bad statements. Then we all let him have his opinion on mental illness. Then we forgave him without any reprecussions for the file attachment function. Then he goes and lets loose a bot on the board? Come on, doesn't anyone who is defending him see a pattern?

He keeps saying that it's due to his newly gained knowledge that he tries these things. I would never do such a thing, and neither would anyone here. I'm just learning JS and Perl and a whole lot of new stuff, but I wouldn't use it in a way that would hurt the board at all.
_________________________
Matt

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#103480 - 09/07/2002 05:37 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with m [Re: ]
JeffS
carpal tunnel

Registered: 14/01/2002
Posts: 2858
Loc: Atlanta, GA
"Now imagine you bump into someone at the mall and they turn around and call you a * *. Then are you gonna feel much like apologizing?"

I would, but that's just me.

I've read enough of your posts to know you won't change your mind on this, but I wish you'd understand that this isn't about politics or ideaology. This is about real people who really care about this bbs. It may be in a way you don't understand, it may be over something you can't believe. I'm sorry for that, but please try and understand that whether you ment to or not, your actions have caused others on this board to become angry, and whether or not you realize it, most of them here are pretty tolerant when it comes to other opinions. I have never in my life been able to disagree with others so fundamentaly and then go on to discuss other things with no love lost. Yet some of the members here do have a problem with the things you've done. If you have any respect for what this board stands for, consider that real people have been effected by your actions, not because your ideas or feelings tell you, but because the people themselves are telling you.

The sad thing here is that I am guessing that you could be forgiven, if it was what you wanted. You seek to be right, but (as I find with my wife all the time) rightness in the end doesn't matter if people got hurt. You keep saying that people disagree with your political views, but that isn't their problem with your words. Their problem is the WAY you argue. Now again you make your points with hostility instead of taking others into account.

I'm sorry for just adding one more post, but like others I suppose I can't read all of this and not react.
_________________________
-Jeff
Rome did not create a great empire by having meetings; they did it by killing all those who opposed them.

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#103481 - 09/07/2002 05:57 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with m [Re: tfabris]
pca
old hand

Registered: 20/07/1999
Posts: 1102
Loc: UK
Hey, if you go on a which hunt what do you use as a witch call? Make the sound of broomsticks, perhaps

pca

_________________________
Experience is what you get just after it would have helped...

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#103482 - 09/07/2002 06:13 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with m [Re: Dignan]
pgrzelak
carpal tunnel

Registered: 15/08/2000
Posts: 4859
Loc: New Jersey, USA
Greetings!

You misunderstand. I do not agree with his actions at all, and this is not the place to experiment with new skills. It is not up to me to decide if he should be banned from the board based on his previous actions. There is no question - the owners / administrators of the board will decide if his actions warrant banning. I just do not think it would be effective, that's all.
_________________________
Paul Grzelak
200GB with 48MB RAM, Illuminated Buttons and Digital Outputs

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#103483 - 09/07/2002 06:15 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with m [Re: pgrzelak]
Dignan
carpal tunnel

Registered: 08/03/2000
Posts: 12318
Loc: Sterling, VA
Normally, I would agree with you, but what I was trying to get across is that his actions are getting worse with more potential for harm, and it's probably safer to get him out of here. But like you said, that's not our call.
_________________________
Matt

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#103484 - 09/07/2002 06:15 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with m [Re: pca]
pgrzelak
carpal tunnel

Registered: 15/08/2000
Posts: 4859
Loc: New Jersey, USA
Maybe one of those "Chant" CDs, Mike Oldfield's "Tubular Bells" or perhaps Carl Orff's "Carmina Burana - O Fortuna"
_________________________
Paul Grzelak
200GB with 48MB RAM, Illuminated Buttons and Digital Outputs

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#103485 - 09/07/2002 06:19 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with m [Re: pgrzelak]
JeffS
carpal tunnel

Registered: 14/01/2002
Posts: 2858
Loc: Atlanta, GA
or just "Witch Hunt" off of everyone's favorite Ruch CD (see, any conversation can be about Rush).
_________________________
-Jeff
Rome did not create a great empire by having meetings; they did it by killing all those who opposed them.

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#103486 - 09/07/2002 06:19 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me. [Re: tfabris]
frog51
pooh-bah

Registered: 09/08/2000
Posts: 2091
Loc: Edinburgh, Scotland
For what it's worth I am 100% behind Tony's decision. There is definitely a difference between youthful immaturity and abusing an otherwise superb community - whether it be by posting flames/trolls or by hacking the board itself.

Good behaviour and politeness are getting too rare these days - the empeg bulletin board seems to have a much higher percentage of erudite, well mannered individuals than some others we could all mention, and I for one like it that way.

If everyone here was the same as Yz33d then he'd fit in fine, but we aren't.

So good on ya, tfabris!
_________________________
Rory
MkIIa, blue lit buttons, memory upgrade, 1Tb in Subaru Forester STi
MkII, 240Gb in Mark Lord dock
MkII, 80Gb SSD in dock

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#103487 - 09/07/2002 06:43 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me. [Re: frog51]
Dignan
carpal tunnel

Registered: 08/03/2000
Posts: 12318
Loc: Sterling, VA
If everyone here was the same as Yz33d then he'd fit in fine, but we aren't.

Yeah, but then there'd be hundreds of bot posts a day
_________________________
Matt

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#103488 - 09/07/2002 07:16 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me. [Re: ]
mlord
carpal tunnel

Registered: 29/08/2000
Posts: 14472
Loc: Canada
Not exactly what I meant, and the total utter lack of sincerity is not exactly encouraging, either.

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#103489 - 09/07/2002 07:19 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with m [Re: JeffS]
BleachLPB
enthusiast

Registered: 01/11/2001
Posts: 354
Loc: Maryland
Hmm admittadly - as I was reading through all this nonsense, and Whats his face first mentioned "Witch hunt", the first thing I thought of was the Rush song off Moving Pictures. Then - I thought of Salem...

Well - I've got Rush on the brain - going to see them tonight!!!

Oh - crap - I wandered off topic.
_________________________
BleachLPB ------------- NewFace MK2a

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#103490 - 09/07/2002 07:22 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with m [Re: ]
mlord
carpal tunnel

Registered: 29/08/2000
Posts: 14472
Loc: Canada
>Well I didn't mean it to be like that. I meant it to be more like "hey, look at this cool gun I got".

This turkey's been in L.A. too long. And why is he still posting?

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#103491 - 09/07/2002 07:44 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with m [Re: mlord]
muzza
Pooh-Bah

Registered: 21/07/1999
Posts: 1765
Loc: Brisbane, Queensland, Australi...
Why would you say to anyone "look at this cool gun I got"? Especially to people who you know will take offence to it. you didn't just show your friends at home, you took the gun down to the local school, loaded it in the playground and announced you had a loaded weapon.

This is not a witch hunt. Otherwise there would be a systematic culling of people who posted anything slightly off topic. This is purely enforcing the 'spirit' of the community.
Picture that we are all sitting around a table, large as it may be, having relevant conversations and being generally constructive. Someone has quite extreme views which, despite annoying people, they are allowed to air and the conversation continues. Now that person starts interjecting with random words and phrases, with the potential to take over the conversation and have the whole group kicked out of the convention centre. How long will that person be tolerated?

As for 'this thread is bigger than anything the bot made', what a load of crap. Only because you didn't let it run free and only because we feel so strongly about it. If you'd let it run free it could have been longer than this thread in minutes. It's not a case of 'but although it had the potential, I didn't let it do anything'. If you're pulled over for drunk driving, usually it's because you could potentially kill someone.
Be thankfull that we are even letting you in under a different name.

If you can't see the point in this whole thread then you truely don't deserve to be part of this community.


I think I've made my vote clear.
_________________________
-- Murray I What part of 'no' don't you understand? Is it the 'N', or the 'Zero'?

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#103492 - 09/07/2002 07:48 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with m [Re: muzza]
mlord
carpal tunnel

Registered: 29/08/2000
Posts: 14472
Loc: Canada
>Why would you say to anyone "look at this cool gun I got"?

It's probably a fairly normal sort of thing down there in LA LA LAnd.

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#103493 - 09/07/2002 08:13 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with m [Re: mlord]
wfaulk
carpal tunnel

Registered: 25/12/2000
Posts: 16706
Loc: Raleigh, NC US
I beleive that he's from Louisiana, not Los Angeles. Or so he's claimed a few times.
_________________________
Bitt Faulk

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#103494 - 09/07/2002 08:22 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with m [Re: wfaulk]
mlord
carpal tunnel

Registered: 29/08/2000
Posts: 14472
Loc: Canada
Ooops my mistake.

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#103495 - 09/07/2002 08:24 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with m [Re: mlord]
wfaulk
carpal tunnel

Registered: 25/12/2000
Posts: 16706
Loc: Raleigh, NC US
Of course, there are probably as many gun nuts in Louisiana as there are in Los Angeles. They just take a different form.
_________________________
Bitt Faulk

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#103496 - 09/07/2002 08:35 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with m [Re: wfaulk]
rob
carpal tunnel

Registered: 21/05/1999
Posts: 5335
Loc: Cambridge UK
there are probably as many gun nuts in Louisiana as there are in Los Angeles. They just take a different form.

Less complicated to operate no doubt.

Rob

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#103497 - 09/07/2002 10:01 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with m [Re: BleachLPB]
tfabris
carpal tunnel

Registered: 20/12/1999
Posts: 31563
Loc: Seattle, WA
Well - I've got Rush on the brain - going to see them tonight!!

I expect a full concert review including set list in the Off Topic forum tomorrow.

Enjoy the show, I've got my tickets already for later this year.
_________________________
Tony Fabris

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#103498 - 09/07/2002 10:18 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with m [Re: wfaulk]
maczrool
pooh-bah

Registered: 13/01/2002
Posts: 1649
Loc: Louisiana, USA
Since he's apparently on Bellsouth's IP addresses then he probably isn't from Los Angeles.

Stu
_________________________
If you want it to break, buy Sony!

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#103499 - 09/07/2002 10:19 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me. [Re: robricc]
ithoughti
old hand

Registered: 17/07/2001
Posts: 721
Loc: Boston, MA USA
Ah, poor Satan. He never was very technically savvy. I... I mean He should have picked a better password. Oh well.

By the way, hijacking someone's account by stealing the password should be a bannable offence, no matter who's annoyingly evil acount it is.

_________________________
---------
//matt

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#103500 - 09/07/2002 10:22 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with m [Re: pgrzelak]
tfabris
carpal tunnel

Registered: 20/12/1999
Posts: 31563
Loc: Seattle, WA
I also think that it is not possible to ban him technically without injuring other users. The IP block that he is coming from is registered as a large broadband ISP (BellSouth). Blocking the small range that was already set up will not be enough, because it does not cover their entire DHCP range.

Discovered this, of course. Hence his ability to create a new user account and respond here. I removed the IP range ban yesterday so that no one else from Bellsouth gets blocked.

As you point out, it's difficult to systematically ban a user without some manual labor on the part of the admins. I can kill a given account, or I can prevent accounts using a specific return email, but that doesn't stop the user from masquerading under another email address, including addresses from free web-based email services.

I knew all of this going in. I knew he'd figure it out and come back in under another username. I knew he'd find this thread and respond to it. What I didn't know is what he'd say when he came back. I was hoping he'd see how much reactionary anger was generated by his bot (directly and indirectly), and admit that it was wrong to do it, apologize, and promise not to do it any more. He didn't.

At the current time, he denies he's done anything wrong and has not displayed any remorse for his actions. He's been given the opportunity to apologize properly, and has refused to do so. As I've stated before, his publicly-displayed disdain for community order makes it difficult to believe that he'd behave himself in the future.

However, there are those who believe that he really didn't do any harm, and that the ban was an overreaction.

I now have the following choices, which I open up to a poll.
What do we do now?
Only one choice allowed


Votes accepted starting: 27/06/2004 19:33
View the results of this poll.
_________________________
Tony Fabris

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#103501 - 09/07/2002 10:24 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me. [Re: ithoughti]
tonyc
carpal tunnel

Registered: 27/06/1999
Posts: 7058
Loc: Pittsburgh, PA
By the way, hijacking someone's account by stealing the password should be a bannable offence, no matter who's annoyingly evil acount it is.


As a "white hat" who writes security software for a large company, I would counter that having an easily guessable password should be a bannable offense.
_________________________
- Tony C
my empeg stuff

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#103502 - 09/07/2002 10:27 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with m [Re: tfabris]
peter
carpal tunnel

Registered: 13/07/2000
Posts: 4172
Loc: Cambridge, England
Ban the new account and any future ones he creates.

As you point out in the same message, this is simply not technically feasible; this is a separate point to whether or not it would be justified.

Peter

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#103503 - 09/07/2002 10:32 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with m [Re: rob]
loren
carpal tunnel

Registered: 23/08/2000
Posts: 3826
Loc: SLC, UT, USA
Watch it there pahdnuh, that's my home state your talking about... and it's not that they are simpler, they are just more out in the open, i.e. mounted on gun racks in the back of pickup trucks.
_________________________
|| loren ||

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#103504 - 09/07/2002 10:32 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with m [Re: tfabris]
Dignan
carpal tunnel

Registered: 08/03/2000
Posts: 12318
Loc: Sterling, VA
Frankly, I don't know.

All I know is that I haven't liked anything he's posted, and I won't respond to anything he posts in the future if he remains here (unless it's really offending, which is highly likely).

It doesn't look to me that we can do all that much anyway...
_________________________
Matt

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#103505 - 09/07/2002 10:33 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with m [Re: peter]
tfabris
carpal tunnel

Registered: 20/12/1999
Posts: 31563
Loc: Seattle, WA
this is simply not technically feasible

It's feasible if Paul and I are willing to do the manual labor required. It just means that as many times as he creates new email addresses to add accounts from, that's how many times we have to delete the accounts.

And if he starts using some kind of scripts with which to create email accounts, we can just go to the trouble of documenting his actions and getting BellSouth to cancel his mommy's internet account, which should effectively put a stop to it for the next ten years or so (as long as he's still living with his parents).
_________________________
Tony Fabris

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#103506 - 09/07/2002 10:33 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with m [Re: Dignan]
tonyc
carpal tunnel

Registered: 27/06/1999
Posts: 7058
Loc: Pittsburgh, PA
It doesn't look to me that we can do all that much anyway...

Unless UBBthreads starts to employ the killfile concept... Which would suit me just fine...
_________________________
- Tony C
my empeg stuff

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#103507 - 09/07/2002 10:37 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with m [Re: tfabris]
loren
carpal tunnel

Registered: 23/08/2000
Posts: 3826
Loc: SLC, UT, USA
continual banning will just throw gas on the flames. Just ignore it and it will go away. People never seem to get this in online communites. The more actions you take against someone, the more they are apt to react. If everyone collectively ignores a problem person, they will get bored real quick.
_________________________
|| loren ||

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#103508 - 09/07/2002 10:39 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with m [Re: loren]
tfabris
carpal tunnel

Registered: 20/12/1999
Posts: 31563
Loc: Seattle, WA
I agree with that in principle, Loren. However, when he started using an active script to do his dirty work, it couldn't be ignored.
_________________________
Tony Fabris

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#103509 - 09/07/2002 10:40 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with m [Re: loren]
DeadFire
addict

Registered: 30/05/2002
Posts: 695
Given his particular view, I believe that boredom was one of the worries here. "Script kiddies" like to see what they can get away with when they're bored. So if you ignore him... he may eventually decide he can do what he wants again without repercussions.

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#103510 - 09/07/2002 10:42 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with m [Re: tfabris]
loren
carpal tunnel

Registered: 23/08/2000
Posts: 3826
Loc: SLC, UT, USA
don't get me wrong, i agree with your actions, i'm just wagering that if we continue to attempt to ban him he'll just get more pissed and cause more problems. Which is why i say leave things the way they are now.
_________________________
|| loren ||

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#103511 - 09/07/2002 10:43 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with m [Re: loren]
Dignan
carpal tunnel

Registered: 08/03/2000
Posts: 12318
Loc: Sterling, VA
I think he's been ignored for quite a while. Plus, we don't have to talk to him for him to do something like the bot again. He can do that on his own.

I doubt Infopop will change anything. I hate that company now. Their service to me was horrible when I tried web hosting there. UBB.x is a terrible, overcomplicated message board. But considering how paranoid they were when it came to access of their servers (can I please telnet? NO! can I please SSH? NO! can I please change one small permission? NO!) I'm suprised they allow larger security holes in their products.
_________________________
Matt

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#103512 - 09/07/2002 11:51 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with m [Re: Dignan]
smu
old hand

Registered: 30/07/2000
Posts: 879
Loc: Germany (Ruhrgebiet)
I'm suprised they allow larger security holes in their products.

Technically, that isn't exactly a security hole. empegbot simply (ab)uses the normal webinterface every one of us uses to post messages and/or replies.
It could be made a little more difficult to actually exploit that interface, but the only way to close that "hole" is to completely disallow posts to the BBS.

cu,
sven
_________________________
proud owner of MkII 40GB & MkIIa 60GB both lit by God and HiJacked by Lord

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#103513 - 09/07/2002 12:01 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with m [Re: smu]
wfaulk
carpal tunnel

Registered: 25/12/2000
Posts: 16706
Loc: Raleigh, NC US
Well, the fact that the messages were listed as in reply to ``eb responds to no one'' or some such confused me slightly. Not that I'm even remotely interested in knowing how it happened.
_________________________
Bitt Faulk

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#103514 - 09/07/2002 12:04 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with m [Re: tfabris]
SE_Sport_Driver
carpal tunnel

Registered: 05/01/2001
Posts: 4903
Loc: Detroit, MI USA
I actually had more sympathy before he retorted.. a little "I'm sorry, I didn't think it'd be such a big deal" would have done.

This BBS is private and we all agree to certain things when signing up.
_________________________
Brad B.

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#103515 - 09/07/2002 12:05 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with m [Re: smu]
Dignan
carpal tunnel

Registered: 08/03/2000
Posts: 12318
Loc: Sterling, VA
Ah, sorry. did not know that.

I'd appreciate it if someone explained how it worked to me. whether here or in a PM. I swear I would never do that and have absolutely no interest in doing it, but I am quite curious as to how it (the bot) works.
_________________________
Matt

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#103516 - 09/07/2002 12:42 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with m [Re: Dignan]
smu
old hand

Registered: 30/07/2000
Posts: 879
Loc: Germany (Ruhrgebiet)
Well, take a look at the user profile of empegbot, the source is listed there.

I didn't look at it intensively and I don't know JavaScript anyway, but it seems to basically post a reply using the the normal web interface for replies of the BBS to inject its random texts to the BBS.
If you want to know how he could change the original posters BBS name with the "eb does not reply to anyone" text, just take a look at the HTML code of the normal reply page. All necessary input is right in there.

BTW: This could also (and pretty easily AFAICT) be used for a nice add on to the UEBBS: It could be used to provide a mail interface to the BBS with some lines of perl, leading to an immediate (bi-directional) link between the BBS and a mailinglist. Another TODO on my list, I guess.

cu,
sven
_________________________
proud owner of MkII 40GB & MkIIa 60GB both lit by God and HiJacked by Lord

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#103517 - 09/07/2002 13:48 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with m [Re: tfabris]
Daria
carpal tunnel

Registered: 24/01/2002
Posts: 3937
Loc: Providence, RI
One of the things you said made me stop and think. You said I'm on a witch hunt. This is an interesting analogy, and I hope it's not true.

Well, you get to decide if it's true, both by your intent and your actions.

It does remind me of an off-topic thing. We have a digital message sign on one of the buildings here which faces a major street about a hundred feet away. It's used for announcements, as well as for "artistic purposes", like poetry. Pictures exist as do movies.

Just after it happened, a university vice president was quoted as saying they were attempting to find and deal with the culprits. I sent a pissy email to the university president (as an alumni, not as an employee, of course) accusing them of being on a witch hunt, and saying it was one of the reasons this school paled to certain others.

A month later I got a piece of mail which proved to me that our president reads his own email. It said, in its entirety, literally:
"there was and is no witch hunt"




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#103518 - 09/07/2002 13:56 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me. [Re: tfabris]
lopan
old hand

Registered: 28/01/2002
Posts: 970
Loc: Manassas VA
To think I actually felt guilty the last time for starting crap with him. It sucks that he got banned... but it was his stupidity that did it... not the powers that be. I think a lot of toleration was dished out in his case. I don't blame Tony or any other admin in his position. Then again I butted heads with him on more than one occasion so can I vote twice?
_________________________
Brett 60Gb MK2a with Led's

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#103519 - 09/07/2002 14:59 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with m [Re: Daria]
wfaulk
carpal tunnel

Registered: 25/12/2000
Posts: 16706
Loc: Raleigh, NC US
Sorry to take this totally off topic, but this is one of my most significant pet peeves:
    ... as an alumni, not as an employee ...
That's ``as an alumnus'' (or ``alumna'', if you were a woman). ``Alumni'' is plural (as is ``alumnae'', which can be used if all of the people referenced are female).

Which leads me to may most significant pet peeve (of which you are most definitely not guilty): the singular of ``alumnus'' is not ``alum''. This has been showing up all over the place, even in nominally well-edited journalistic papers. ``Alum'' is an aluminum salt. (Remember those old Tweety and Sylvester cartoons where Sylvester's mouth shrank down to nothing?)

And again, sorry.
_________________________
Bitt Faulk

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#103520 - 09/07/2002 15:06 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with m [Re: wfaulk]
Daria
carpal tunnel

Registered: 24/01/2002
Posts: 3937
Loc: Providence, RI
Don't be sorry, you're right, and I should (and did) know better.

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#103521 - 09/07/2002 15:30 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me. [Re: ]
tanstaafl.
carpal tunnel

Registered: 08/07/1999
Posts: 5539
Loc: Ajijic, Mexico
Say you see a guy with a gun in a holster. Sure there exists the possibility that he might get bored and just decide to deliberately shoot you, but it isn't that likely

The likelihood depends on the history of his actions in the past. Is he Jesse James, out to shoot people just for kicks? Is he Wyatt Earp, sworn to uphold the law and protect the innocent? Is he Robert Morris*, armed with a different sort of "weapon" out to experiment and play a small prank that gets out of hand and causes untold damage?

Paul, based on the PMs we've exchanged, you're a bright kid and I like you personally. But the thought of you loose on this bbs armed with just enough html knowledge to be really dangerous, combined with your past history of irresponsibility and uninformed contentiousness, frankly scares the hell out of me.

tanstaafl.

*You won't know who Robert Morris is, of course, and you won't bother to look him up either as you won't consider him to be important to you any time in the next 10 minutes or so. Your loss.
_________________________
"There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"

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#103522 - 09/07/2002 15:46 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me. [Re: tanstaafl.]
ineedcolor
addict

Registered: 10/01/2001
Posts: 630
Loc: Windsor, Ontario Canada
"You won't know who Robert Morris is, of course, and you won't bother to look him up either as you won't consider him to be important to you any time in the next 10 minutes or so. Your loss."

Well, I did look it up and I know who R. Morris is now....

"On November 2, 1988, Robert Morris, Jr., a graduate student in Computer Science at Cornell, wrote an experimental, self-replicating, self-propagating program called a worm and injected it into the Internet. He chose to release it from MIT, to disguise the fact that the worm came from Cornell. Morris soon discovered that the program was replicating and reinfecting machines at a much faster rate than he had anticipated---there was a bug. Ultimately, many machines at locations around the country either crashed or became ``catatonic.'' When Morris realized what was happening, he contacted a friend at Harvard to discuss a solution. Eventually, they sent an anonymous message from Harvard over the network, instructing programmers how to kill the worm and prevent reinfection. However, because the network route was clogged, this message did not get through until it was too late.

Computers were affected at many sites, including universities, military sites, and medical research facilities. The estimated cost of dealing with the worm at each installation ranged from $200 to more than $53,000. The program took advantage of a hole in the debug mode of the Unix sendmail program, which runs on a system and waits for other systems to connect to it and give it email, and a hole in the finger daemon fingerd, which serves finger requests (see Finger). People at the University of California at Berkeley and MIT had copies of the program and were actively disassembling it (returning the program back into its source form) to try to figure out how it worked.

Teams of programmers worked non-stop to come up with at least a temporary fix, to prevent the continued spread of the worm. After about twelve hours, the team at Berkeley came up with steps that would help retard the spread of the virus. Another method was also discovered at Purdue and widely published. The information didn't get out as quickly as it could have, however, since so many sites had completely disconnected themselves from the network.

After a few days, things slowly began to return to normalcy and everyone wanted to know who had done it all. Morris was later named in The New York Times as the author (though this hadn't yet been officially proven, there was a substantial body of evidence pointing to Morris).

Robert T. Morris was convicted of violating the computer Fraud and Abuse Act (Title 18), and sentenced to three years of probation, 400 hours of community service, a fine of $10,050, and the costs of his supervision. His appeal, filed in December, 1990, was rejected the following March"


Apologies for the length but it is interesting stuff...
_________________________
01001010 01101111 01101000 01101110

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#103523 - 09/07/2002 16:02 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me. [Re: tanstaafl.]
Anonymous
Unregistered


OK then. I am sorry. I didn't think making the few attachments were harmful, in the sense of them actually hurting the BBS, and ditto with the BOT. But if it makes things any better then I apologize. No, I didn't think it was a big deal and I still don't, but it obviously is to you guys, so I am sorry.

For anyone interested in how it works, it opens up, say you have it set to 3, 3 random threads from an internal list. Then it picks a random number of sentences, say from 1 to 8, then for each of those sentences it picks a random sentence format. I only had made 3 different formats so far. For example: plural noun + plural verb + propositional phrase + plural noun. So it would pick a random plural noun from a list in the program, a random verb appropiate for plural nouns, and random propositional phrase, and then another random plural noun. So you might get something like "dogs eat with empegs." You could make lists for every type of word - singular nouns, articles, gerands, whatever. And you could make very complex sentence srtuctures. Anyways, then it would write the sentences to the corresponding text box on each reply page, then it would change the value 'replyto' to 'eb replies to noone' and the preview value to 0 then it would submit them. That's it. You had to open it up every time you wanted to make your 3 random posts. If you wanted to have it automatically post, then you'd have to add some code that makes it reply at a certain time of day and leave it open all the time.

Anyways, I attached (don't worry, it's not too big, I don't think it'll crash the BBS) a program that'll change the reply message for you if anyone is interested.


Attachments
102581-changereply.hta (329 downloads)


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#103524 - 09/07/2002 16:05 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me. [Re: ineedcolor]
Anonymous
Unregistered


Well the most damage the empegbot could have done was make a shitload of posts, but in that case you could just modify the program to automatically delete the posts.

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#103525 - 09/07/2002 16:13 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with m [Re: wfaulk]
maczrool
pooh-bah

Registered: 13/01/2002
Posts: 1649
Loc: Louisiana, USA
In reply to:

the singular of ``alumnus'' is not ``alum''. This has been showing up all over the place, even in nominally well-edited journalistic papers. ``Alum'' is an aluminum salt.




I disagree. According to my dictionary (Random House Second Edition) and in my understanding, "alum" is an accepted informal abbreviation for "alumna" or "alumnus." Certainly it does not have a place in "journalistic papers," but its use is not restricted to references to an aluminum salt.

Stu
_________________________
If you want it to break, buy Sony!

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#103526 - 09/07/2002 16:14 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me. [Re: ]
Anonymous
Unregistered


You could probably modify it to do PM's too.

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#103527 - 09/07/2002 16:58 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with m [Re: ]
drakino
carpal tunnel

Registered: 08/06/1999
Posts: 7868
This post right here proves a few things to me. One is that you are actually very much like I was just a few years ago. The reason I wrote the posts I did here to you was not to insult you in any way, but try to steer you towards the right direction at a dangerous point of your life.

As I talked about earlier, my curiosity still gets me from time to time, and causes major incidents (the Code Red incident). As I said before, I have my job because I was sorry for what was done, and I moved on. I spent enough time showing the IT folks that I never had the complete virus, and couldn't have spread it. What I did do though had the potential to lock up an IIS thread for a while. The rest of the time was spent apologizing and convincing them that I would be more careful in the future.

The path I have taken has led to an awesome paying job, and great computer experience at age 22. I've been in the field since I was 16, and have only had one fast food job for a period of 9 months. Hitting the "adult" work force at that early age did force some things into me, and one was realizing how the world works. You don't walk up to your boss and say that you are right, he is wrong, and argue the fact for 30 minutes. You accept that the world is not perfect and move on. If you don't, you create a hostile work environment, or worse, a loss of a job.

As Doug mentioned, even an innocent program like the worm Robert Morris made can land some brutal penalties. Learn to tread lightly in life, and things will go much better for you. Use your talents properly, and your likely to impress someone who will make your life even better. I can tell you have the ability and the needed enthusiasm, just tweak your attitude a bit and things will go much smoother.

I hope to see you stick around here and try to add something to the community. I learned my lesson quickly here that this community wasn't like most others out there, when I started one of the early hot threads. Things have changed quite a bit for me since then, and I think the community would agree that my contributions have far outweighed the "trouble" I started early on.

I do think this is the last chance the community is really willing to give you though. Better make good use of it.

And if you need help, feel free to contact me, I have quite a bit of HTML and Javascript experience, webmaster is one of my previous jobs before I headed down the IT path.

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#103528 - 09/07/2002 17:20 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me. [Re: ]
tfabris
carpal tunnel

Registered: 20/12/1999
Posts: 31563
Loc: Seattle, WA
OK then. I am sorry.

Apology accepted.

Well the most damage the empegbot could have done was make a sh*tload of posts

Right. I think it might have been a little extreme to compare your program to that first Morris worm, I don't think it could have done that kind of damage. If you chose to let it run rampant, though, it could have made the BBS a complete, unavigable mess.

Here's another analogy that might help...

A friend of mine once said that, as a prank, instead of TP'ing someone's house, it was better just to leave the roll of toilet paper on their front porch. Indicating that if you'd wanted to, you COULD have TP'd the house, but you didn't.

Although you probably didn't mean it as a threat of vandalism, the impression that the bot gave was the same as leaving the roll of TP on the front porch. That's why everyone is so upset about it.

I get the feeling that you're beginning to understand what's going on here and why we're so protective over this online community.

Hey, I have an idea...

One of the reasons that people online feel that they can get away with pissing other people off is anonymity. If someone can hide behind a screen name, without people knowing who they really are, they're more likely to behave in an antisocial fashion. This is one of the reasons Usenet is filled with so much crap and flame wars these days.

What would you say to actually filling out your BBS profile? Real name, real email address (spam-proofed of course), ICQ number, everything. I'm not asking you to enter your address and phone number, but just enough information so that people could reach you outside of the BBS if they had to.

What do you say?
_________________________
Tony Fabris

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#103529 - 09/07/2002 17:26 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me. [Re: rob]
elvis
enthusiast

Registered: 18/01/2002
Posts: 270
Loc: Arizona USA
v'nice
_________________________
Elvis

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#103530 - 09/07/2002 18:03 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with m [Re: maczrool]
wfaulk
carpal tunnel

Registered: 25/12/2000
Posts: 16706
Loc: Raleigh, NC US
You are within your rights to disagree, but you're still wrong.

You'll find that some dictionaries are more conciliatory than others, and the Random House folks seem to lean in that direction, possibly more than most. Personally, I find that ``alum'', assuming that you're placing the emphasis on the second syllable, to make it simply an abbreviation of ``alumnus'', breaks the rhythm of the language.

I would also argue that ``accepted informal'' is exceedingly close to an oxymoron, but that's a different story.
_________________________
Bitt Faulk

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#103531 - 09/07/2002 18:23 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with m [Re: wfaulk]
tanstaafl.
carpal tunnel

Registered: 08/07/1999
Posts: 5539
Loc: Ajijic, Mexico
close to an oxymoron,

I always thought that an oxymoron was some sort of stupid cow.

tanstaafl.
_________________________
"There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"

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#103532 - 09/07/2002 20:12 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with m [Re: wfaulk]
maczrool
pooh-bah

Registered: 13/01/2002
Posts: 1649
Loc: Louisiana, USA
With the exception of Merriam-Webster, all the dictionaries I have come across side with me. Perhaps you and Webster should just accept the evolution (devolution?) of the English language .

Stu
_________________________
If you want it to break, buy Sony!

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#103533 - 09/07/2002 20:17 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with m [Re: tanstaafl.]
BAKup
addict

Registered: 11/11/2001
Posts: 552
Loc: Houston, TX
I always thought that an oxymoron was some sort of stupid cow.

No, no, no...That's not an oxymoron...This is an oxymoron: Microsoft Works.
_________________________
--Ben
78GB MkIIa, Dead tuner.

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#103534 - 09/07/2002 22:37 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with m [Re: BAKup]
muzza
Pooh-Bah

Registered: 21/07/1999
Posts: 1765
Loc: Brisbane, Queensland, Australi...
Military intilligence
Council worker
Fun Run
Transparent police investigation
_________________________
-- Murray I What part of 'no' don't you understand? Is it the 'N', or the 'Zero'?

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#103535 - 09/07/2002 22:41 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me. [Re: tfabris]
muzza
Pooh-Bah

Registered: 21/07/1999
Posts: 1765
Loc: Brisbane, Queensland, Australi...
He obviously has too much time on his hands, why not put him to good use? Are there any programming jobs which would be really helpful? Maybe a few features for Jemplode? if he published the source to be checked before compliation, we'd all win.
How bout it Yz33d? You up to some constructive programming?
_________________________
-- Murray I What part of 'no' don't you understand? Is it the 'N', or the 'Zero'?

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#103536 - 09/07/2002 23:22 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with m [Re: drakino]
svferris
addict

Registered: 06/11/2001
Posts: 700
Loc: San Diego, CA, USA
I'd just like to say what a very good and informative post this was, Drakino. I think everybody could learn something from it. This was my favorite part:

Hitting the "adult" work force at that early age did force some things into me, and one was realizing how the world works. You don't walk up to your boss and say that you are right, he is wrong, and argue the fact for 30 minutes. You accept that the world is not perfect and move on.

I too have learned (and am still learning) this. You don't walk up to your boss or other superior and tell them you're right, at least not right away. Once you've earned the respect of your co-workers and boss, then you might be able to get away with more things. But the important thing is to earn their respect. This really applies to all aspects of life.

This is exactly why (as mentioned earlier), if say tfabris or mlord had done something like this, we probably would have laughed and asked them nicely to stop. But, Yz33d has had numerous incidents with people, and has thus not earned their respect. Therefore, he received a harsher treatment.

So, Yz33d (and everybody else)...learn to respect your peers and they'll respect you.
_________________________
__________________ Scott MKIIa 10GB - 2.0b11 w/Hijack MKIIa 60GB - 2.0 final w/Hijack

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#103537 - 10/07/2002 00:14 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with m [Re: svferris]
lockuplever
enthusiast

Registered: 30/01/2002
Posts: 264
Loc: Tucson, AZ
Touché
_________________________
Steve

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#103538 - 10/07/2002 02:21 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me. [Re: muzza]
rob
carpal tunnel

Registered: 21/05/1999
Posts: 5335
Loc: Cambridge UK
Hey good plan - if we can't ban him then let's patronise him to death!

Rob

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#103539 - 10/07/2002 02:33 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me. [Re: tfabris]
rob
carpal tunnel

Registered: 21/05/1999
Posts: 5335
Loc: Cambridge UK
You sure picked the wrong day to quit sniffing glue.

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#103540 - 10/07/2002 06:12 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me. [Re: rob]
Dignan
carpal tunnel

Registered: 08/03/2000
Posts: 12318
Loc: Sterling, VA
Oh lord, lets not go starting Airplane quotes in this thread

Anyway, do what you want, Tony. Whether yz33d is here or not it doesn't change the fact that we all enjoy this community.
_________________________
Matt

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#103541 - 10/07/2002 09:54 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me. [Re: rob]
tfabris
carpal tunnel

Registered: 20/12/1999
Posts: 31563
Loc: Seattle, WA
Hey good plan - if we can't ban him then let's patronise him to death!

Hey, if the shoe fits.

Reminds me of an old "Cheers" episode. Couldn't find the exact text on the 'net, but as I recall, the exchange went something like this:

    Sam (to departing customer): Thank you for patronizing me.

    Frasier: Sam, I know you were trying to use a big word there, but I think what you meant was, "thank you for your patronage". See, 'patronage' means they're your customer. 'Patronizing' is the way you might speak to a small, dull child.

    Sam: You mean, like right now?

    Frasier: Aren't you a clever boy.
_________________________
Tony Fabris

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#103542 - 10/07/2002 10:38 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me. [Re: tfabris]
JBjorgen
carpal tunnel

Registered: 19/01/2002
Posts: 3582
Loc: Columbus, OH
It'd be a crying shame if this thread actually got longer than the tuner thread...

I think it's run its course and everyone has had a chance to blow off some steam. Just a suggestion, Tony, but maybe you should just lock it up and let it die.
_________________________
~ John

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#103543 - 10/07/2002 10:54 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me. [Re: muzza]
jheathco
enthusiast

Registered: 21/12/2001
Posts: 326
Loc: Mission Viejo, California
Sure looks like it's on its way
_________________________
John Heathco - 30gig MKIIa w/ tuner module

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#103544 - 10/07/2002 10:54 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me. [Re: JBjorgen]
tonyc
carpal tunnel

Registered: 27/06/1999
Posts: 7058
Loc: Pittsburgh, PA
Word.

(Last Post?)
_________________________
- Tony C
my empeg stuff

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#103545 - 10/07/2002 11:15 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me. [Re: JBjorgen]
tfabris
carpal tunnel

Registered: 20/12/1999
Posts: 31563
Loc: Seattle, WA
Tony, but maybe you should just lock it up and let it die.

He hasn't responded to my suggestion yet.
_________________________
Tony Fabris

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#103546 - 10/07/2002 12:05 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me. [Re: tfabris]
maczrool
pooh-bah

Registered: 13/01/2002
Posts: 1649
Loc: Louisiana, USA
Has anyone taken a look at d33zY's profile?

Stu
_________________________
If you want it to break, buy Sony!

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#103547 - 10/07/2002 12:12 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me. [Re: maczrool]
tfabris
carpal tunnel

Registered: 20/12/1999
Posts: 31563
Loc: Seattle, WA
Yeah, I looked at it yesterday. Cute. "BBS Outlaw" and "Creating Frankenstein".

Still doesn't have his real email address in it. We'll see how it pans out.
_________________________
Tony Fabris

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#103548 - 10/07/2002 12:37 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with m [Re: svferris]
Neutrino
addict

Registered: 23/01/2002
Posts: 506
Loc: The Great Pacific NorthWest
This is an extremely complex situational equation. Dependent on the so many things. The social structure of the working body. The attitudes of the bosses and workers alike, all working for a common goal, just there for the money or status etc. As I am a veteran in my line of work and also have worked for the same company for over 10 years I have no trouble with telling anyone that I disagree. But one of the things I learned early was to do it with tact and respect. I understand the chain of command and have no problem working within it. I have never had a problem with telling my superiors that they were wrong. I have always done it with respect and if they still did not agree with me than I followed their lead and did as they asked. I think as an employee who is paid to think that it is my duty to do so. It is also my duty to follow their requests if they differ from mine.

_________________________
No matter where you might be, there you are.

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#103549 - 10/07/2002 12:43 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me. [Re: tfabris]
BleachLPB
enthusiast

Registered: 01/11/2001
Posts: 354
Loc: Maryland
Well, its nice to see that it seems this is being resolved. I've been reading over this thread for the last few days - but found it difficult to find anything new to say that hasn't been said, but I must say both "sides" have brought very good points. I found it hard to pick a side, although I agree with what Tony did - I especially like the Toilet Paper analogy.

Not to beat a dead horse - but attitude does go very far in a situation like this. I have been involved in some activities in my youth that draw a similarity to what Yz33d did. In High school, I was involved in various publications - Yearbook, newspaper, etc and as such, our classes were held in a computer lab full of crappy Macs - well I suppose they were "decent" at the time, they got the job done. I thought it would be amusing to load a plugin on one of the computers that would cause the mouse pointer to turn into a small mouse, and proceed to take a crap on the screen, leaving a steaming pile of black poo there, complete with sound effect. Well, much to my dismay, the teacher did not find this at all amusing. Turns out, this, and subsequent pranks and such would land me in a hot seat of trouble, and my attitude contributed to my penalty. I was banned from the English department computers for the rest of the year, and they relocated the English dept. computer lab we used into the English wing of my school so the teachers could watch it. I ended up being banned from all school computers as word spread, and the school was caused to draft a "Proper computer use" policy or something.

Well, I straightened up my act and within a year or so, I was being respected for my abilities - since I learned to put them to good use. The very same teachers that were involved with my punishment respected me as I had earned their trust back.

Sorry if this is a little long winded - but I usually don't say very much. While even to this day the things that I did are very amusing sounding, and I still laugh, I would not think of doing these things anymore, especially now at my job. Even so, attitude definitely goes a far way. I hope Yz33d has the opportunity to stay, some of his more recent posts seem to indicate that he may earn the respect of the BBS.

I would be pissed, however, if a barking dog kept me up all night. You know, I'm not suggesting anything, but a better life awaits that dog at a big farm in the country, and it would be a shame if it were to become a passenger of a van travelling to said remote location, only for the occupants of the vehicle to release... Ahhh I digress.
_________________________
BleachLPB ------------- NewFace MK2a

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#103550 - 10/07/2002 12:55 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me. [Re: BleachLPB]
tfabris
carpal tunnel

Registered: 20/12/1999
Posts: 31563
Loc: Seattle, WA
Yeah, the mouse graphic thing is a very good analogy.

but a better life awaits that dog at a big farm in the country

I think that's how it got here, actually.

There are perfectly acceptable barking-dog control laws in place in my county, so such extreme measures are not necessary:

    Sec. G-IV 1.51 Abatement of Nuisance – Barking/Howling

    A. For purposes of this Section, evidence that the dog has barked or howled for an aggregate period of twenty (20) minutes out of one hour shall be sufficient for conviction; provided, however, that any barking or howling provoked by a loose running dog or other animal or nearby pedestrians shall not be included in such aggregate time. Provocation in the forms listed herein must occur within 100 feet of the barking or howling dog to be sufficient.

    B. For purposes of this Section, evidence that two or more dogs are provoking each other to bark shall be sufficient for conviction under this Section, so long as the barking continues for an aggregate twenty (20) minutes out of one hour, regardless of which dog commenced the barking. In such instances, owners of each dog involved shall be subject to citation. Proof that any individual dog barked for an aggregate twenty (20) minutes out of an hour shall not be required if it is shown that the barking of the two or more dogs was continuous sequentially or in concert for a twenty (20) minute period.

    C. Upon receipt of any complaint based on continuous or incessant barking or howling, an Animal Control Officer shall investigate and take a report from any complaining witness.

    D. Upon evaluation of the report, if in the opinion of the Animal Control Officer a valid complaint exists, the officer shall contact the owner of the animal complained about with a warning letter sent via certified mail, and advise the owner of the existence of the complaint and instruct the owner to abate the nuisance. This shall constitute the animal owner’s first Notice and Warning. Any person aggrieved by any action resulting from application of this provision may appeal such decision as specified in Section G-IV 1.61.

    E. If the Animal Control Officer is unable to contact the owner personally, he shall leave posted on the premises in a conspicuous location a notice to contact Animal Control within five (5) days regarding the complaint.

    F. If a second complaint is received within a six month period after the giving of such notice and warning regarding a dog barking or howling incessantly and continuously, whether or not the owner has responded to Animal Control as set forth in paragraph E above, the Animal Control Officer shall investigate the second complaint and take a report from any complaining witness.

    G. Upon evaluation of the report, if in the opinion of the Animal Control Officer the dog is creating a nuisance by barking or howling incessantly or continuously, the Animal Control Officer shall issue a citation to the owner of said animal for a violation of this Section. Such violation shall be an infraction. Personal appearance before the court shall be mandatory. Forfeiture of bail shall not constitute a resolution of a violation of this Section.

    H. If the Animal Control Officer receives a third complaint regarding the same animal within one year from the first complaint, he shall repeat the process set forth in paragraphs F and G, above.

    I. If the Animal Control Officer received a complaint after one year or more has elapsed since the most recent prior complaint, the officer shall issue a warning and continue pursuant to paragraphs C through H, above.

    J. All complaints received by the Animal Control Officer shall be destroyed two years after receipt.

    K. Nothing in this Section shall be construed to prevent any party from bringing a civil action to abate the nuisance.

    L. During the investigation of complaints, both parties will be encouraged to settle local disputes with the option of mediation. A brochure from Mediation Services of Nevada County will be provided to complainant.

The first official complaint has been filed with Animal Control. We'll see how it pans out...
_________________________
Tony Fabris

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#103551 - 10/07/2002 13:02 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me. [Re: tfabris]
g_attrill
old hand

Registered: 14/04/2002
Posts: 1172
Loc: Hants, UK
When I was at school about six years ago the only two PCs were in the library (the rest where Acorns - yay!). When one of them had a problem a friend booted it into DOS to do something (config.sys I think). The librarian came across and didn't understand what he was doing and sent him to the Headteacher. There he got a severe bollocking from the who was told he was trying to "hack" the PC - she refused to listing to any explanations.
He is now fairly senior in the Hampshire County Council Education IT support service, and recently he gleefully told me he was able to administer a severe bollocking back to the very same Headteacher for puchasing unapproved PCs which they would find very difficult to support!

What goes around comes around - even if it takes six years!

Gareth

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#103552 - 10/07/2002 13:11 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me. [Re: g_attrill]
Dignan
carpal tunnel

Registered: 08/03/2000
Posts: 12318
Loc: Sterling, VA
I so love stories like that.

Mine doesn't have a cool ending, but oh well. In high school a friend and I wanted to run our school band's web site. Unfortunately, it was on the school's servers. That meant we had to go to the library, have a librarian type in the log/pass for us, and stand there by our computer (which was behind a chained-off area), while we did whatever work we wanted to do.

So my friend and I moved it to a free account on xoom.com or somewhere. Man did that kill it. I don't think our band has a web site any more
_________________________
Matt

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#103553 - 10/07/2002 14:27 Re: Yz33d sure picked the wrong day to f*ck with me. [Re: g_attrill]
andym
carpal tunnel

Registered: 17/01/2002
Posts: 3995
Loc: Manchester UK
In reply to:

He is now fairly senior in the Hampshire County Council Education IT support service, and recently he gleefully told me he was able to administer a severe bollocking back to the very same Headteacher for puchasing unapproved PCs which they would find very difficult to support!



Nice!
_________________________
Cheers,

Andy M

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