Comments on: Could it be the first known sockpuppet? (June 2002)

Could it be the first known sockpuppet? (June 2002)

macadamiaranch — Tue, 25 Jun 2002 17:27:10 -0800

How is this (1,2) possible?

By: mattpfeff

mattpfeff — Tue, 25 Jun 2002 17:29:02 -0800

If you look closely (at the source) you'll note that the double has a space in front of the 's'.

By: macadamiaranch

macadamiaranch — Tue, 25 Jun 2002 17:29:54 -0800

(psst--snarkout I'm not stalking or anything. actually, i thought i recognized your name on another board & i went to see if you were the same person by looking you up here & lo and behold...i found this.)

(it wasn't you by the way...on the other board...)

By: macadamiaranch

macadamiaranch — Tue, 25 Jun 2002 17:30:30 -0800

damn. missed that. flush thread if necessary. thanks.

By: mathowie

mathowie — Tue, 25 Jun 2002 17:37:47 -0800

I have changed the way usernames are done, so this shouldn't be possible, but probably was back when the second username was made (also, it was probably made through the 5k which I don't believe did those checks).

By: skallas

skallas — Tue, 25 Jun 2002 17:38:10 -0800

Maybe you're really stalking the guy with the space in front of his name.

By: snarkout

snarkout — Tue, 25 Jun 2002 18:39:15 -0800

Gawrsh. The eyes of the world are upon me and my evil doppelganger.

That account was used by some clever person as an example of ways in which one could spoof another MeFi user. Fortunately, it wasn't done maliciously.

And Mac, don't make me get a restraining order...

By: snarkout

snarkout — Tue, 25 Jun 2002 18:43:39 -0800

Now I am going to go post a link to "Get Your War On" and three Palestinian/Israeli threads and blame it on my evil twin. Ciao, gang!

By: iconomy

iconomy — Tue, 25 Jun 2002 19:01:53 -0800

I love that you used doppelgang as a verb.

By: insomnyuk

insomnyuk — Tue, 25 Jun 2002 19:15:36 -0800

I'm just disappointed that baby jesus doesn't comment more often.

By: yhbc

yhbc — Tue, 25 Jun 2002 19:25:22 -0800

As a latecomer, I too have often wondered - who is baby jesus? moz? iceburg273? Someone else entirely? Will we ever know???

By: rebeccablood

rebeccablood — Tue, 25 Jun 2002 19:41:54 -0800

baby jesus is funniest and most endearing in in small, spaced out portions.

and no, we never will.

By: mathowie

mathowie — Tue, 25 Jun 2002 19:49:15 -0800

Remember doublepostguy?

those were the days.

By: insomnyuk

insomnyuk — Tue, 25 Jun 2002 20:01:14 -0800

mathowie: did you just edit your own post? At first it just looked like

Remember doublepostguy?

posted by mathowie ....

and I didn't see "those were the days."

Are my eyes playing tricks on me?

By: rebeccablood

rebeccablood — Tue, 25 Jun 2002 20:06:07 -0800

*cries*

posted by mathowie at 8:02 PM PST on June 25

By: insomnyuk

insomnyuk — Tue, 25 Jun 2002 20:12:04 -0800

That's clever rebecca, but I see through your subterfuge ;)

You really had me going for a second, until I checked this, just to be sure. I'm such a dork.

By: plemeljr

plemeljr — Tue, 25 Jun 2002 22:12:14 -0800

I would prefer that people don't use that hack, as it floods my inbox with more mail.

posted by mathowie at 8:15 PM PST on June 25

That's clever rebecca, but I see through your subterfuge ;)
Really, I think that is more believable when you do this, no?

By: rebeccablood

rebeccablood — Tue, 25 Jun 2002 22:18:25 -0800

sorry matt. I didn't know your preference on that.

By: rebeccablood

rebeccablood — Tue, 25 Jun 2002 22:20:46 -0800

wait! d'oh!

By: plemeljr

plemeljr — Tue, 25 Jun 2002 22:20:58 -0800

rebecca - pssst....psst....

Sorry, I couldn't resist.

By: sugarfish

sugarfish — Wed, 26 Jun 2002 00:08:50 -0800

dude, don't you think if baby jesus could perform the righteous trick of turning water into wine* he could get a MeFi account?

i'm just sayin'.

*extent of my knowledge of the tricks of baby jesus, besides, you know, crying.

By: dogmatic

dogmatic — Wed, 26 Jun 2002 00:42:13 -0800

I don't know if the baby jesus turned water into wine. I think he had to be twenty-one to do that.

But, according to Thomas, the baby jesus did zap and kill people he didn't agree with.

By: jonmc

jonmc — Wed, 26 Jun 2002 03:30:25 -0800

sugarfish - baby jesus could also rouch his nose with the tip of his tongue, wiggle his ears, and do ventriloquism.

He also played a mean harmonica.

By: ashbury

ashbury — Wed, 26 Jun 2002 04:58:08 -0800

Will the real mathowie please stand up? That hack just messes me right up--I'm goin' back ta bed....

By: me3dia

me3dia — Wed, 26 Jun 2002 08:48:51 -0800

If baby jesus accidentally snorted water out his nose, would it come out wine?

By: SpecialK

SpecialK — Wed, 26 Jun 2002 09:05:10 -0800

me3dia - depends on if he'd been picking or not.

By: Eamon

Eamon — Wed, 26 Jun 2002 09:57:51 -0800

What about the unicode problem? I could imagine a lot of mischief being caused by somebody with the user name "mаthowie," (that's the cyrillic character а instead of 'a') for instance.

By: eyeballkid

eyeballkid — Wed, 26 Jun 2002 10:03:14 -0800

I can't wait for registration to open back up.

By: Irontom

Irontom — Wed, 26 Jun 2002 10:08:50 -0800

And, of course, now that you've mentioned it, all sorts of people who think it's "cute" to fuck with a good thing now have another resource to do so, having either been enlightened or reminded of it.

I still don't understand why Matt hasn't implemented a fix to stop the one that Rebeccablood used above.

By: eyeballkid

eyeballkid — Wed, 26 Jun 2002 10:11:26 -0800

I think he did implement a fix, but only in MetaFilter, not in MetaTalk.

By: iceberg273

iceberg273 — Wed, 26 Jun 2002 10:26:06 -0800

As a latecomer, I too have often wondered - who is baby jesus? moz? iceburg273? Someone else entirely? Will we ever know???

Please do not confuse me for the Son of God.

By: Eamon

Eamon — Wed, 26 Jun 2002 10:40:58 -0800

I've always found that argument lacking, Irontom -- it's the same argument that's been going on between the open- and closed-source programmers regarding the security of their products. If Matt notices my post, he may decide to restrict new user names to a certain character set (if he hasn't done so already), and the problem will never occur. If I hadn't posted, I'm certain that somebody else would've just done it (it's from a Slashdot article, for crying out loud!).

By: Irontom

Irontom — Wed, 26 Jun 2002 10:57:06 -0800

It boils down to a difference in viewpoint, I think. Would rebeccablood, or any of those who've demonstrated their prowess with the spoofed comment hack since it was first revealed on June 14 have come up with this on their own?

(PLEASE note that I am not trying to cast aspersions at anyone's prowess, technical or otherwise).

There's not even any point in engaging in the discussion - most people don't share my sense of "appropriateness", and I will simply get shouted down like I did when I questioned the tactic of googlebombing.

By: Eamon

Eamon — Wed, 26 Jun 2002 12:58:53 -0800

I think there's a difference between questioning the appropriateness of an action and arguing that information regarding the action should not be shared. These two debates are only casually related, and while I believe we're on the same side for the former (I'm not a big fan of googlebombing or username spoofing), it appears that we disagree on the latter.

By: mathowie

mathowie — Wed, 26 Jun 2002 13:22:08 -0800

spoofing is now impossible.

I'll work on the username hack.

By: plemeljr

plemeljr — Wed, 26 Jun 2002 13:22:21 -0800

Personally, I think the spoofed comment rebecca and I did fall within the, gee that's cool category. This falls within the category because it doesn't happen very much, and when it does it is done playfully. Hopefully the comment spoof and the name spoof won't be used for *evil* uses, but I think that when the signup is opened again, this might happen. I say this knowing that I am one of the people spreading the spoof. But I think users such as Irontom, among others, who strive to bring some measure of decorum to the place help reign in those of us who go a wee bit too far. But in the end, I have to agree with Eamon [both posts] and say information is not good/evil, but the actions taken on that information could be.

By: willnot

willnot — Wed, 26 Jun 2002 13:24:55 -0800

First revealed June 14? You have to go back to at least Sept. 2001, and probably even further back than that before I ever noticed it.

By: bshort

bshort — Wed, 26 Jun 2002 13:25:25 -0800

I would prefer that
people don't use that hack, as it floods my inbox with more mail.
posted by
mathowie at href="/mefi/2315#39877">8:15 PM PST on June 25

By: bshort

bshort — Wed, 26 Jun 2002 13:25:39 -0800

woops, just trying it out.

By: Marquis

Marquis — Wed, 26 Jun 2002 13:27:14 -0800

since it was first revealed on June 14

Not to dwell on the details, Irontom, but before you go all righteous-indignant, spoofing's been around for a long time.

MeFiSearch is timing out, but from a quick look in MeTa history:
March 8, 2001 (That's MeTa post #379).

And following none of the previous "call-outs" of the trick did it become an epidemic.

By: rushmc

rushmc — Wed, 26 Jun 2002 15:05:30 -0800

Please do not confuse me for the Son of God.

You get that too?

By: MiguelCardoso

MiguelCardoso — Wed, 26 Jun 2002 16:37:13 -0800

It's confuse with; not confuse for, dammit! :)

By: picopebbles

picopebbles — Wed, 26 Jun 2002 16:49:29 -0800

Not necessarily: could just be a missing comma ("Please do not confuse me, for the Son of God!"). However, given today's events, Americans would probably be safer subsituting Pete and his sake in the second clause. :)

By: kindall

kindall — Wed, 26 Jun 2002 21:47:03 -0800

It depends on whether the Son of God has asked you to confuse icey or not.

By: stavrosthewonderchicken

stavrosthewonderchicken — Wed, 26 Jun 2002 21:59:29 -0800

Please do not confuse me for the Son of God.

*stops worshipping icey*

By: iceberg273

iceberg273 — Thu, 27 Jun 2002 07:08:55 -0800

*cries*

By: Irontom

Irontom — Thu, 27 Jun 2002 08:07:12 -0800

I wasnt trying to be righteously indignant - more like resignedly annoyed.

The real question (for me) is how spoofing can be considered playful? It means that I have to go to each user's comments list so that I can parse out who really said what. There's no context here beyond the words on the screen and it's a lot of work to puzzle out this kind of (unfunny to me) prank. It seems to me to be deceitful at best, and more likely malicious.

Finally, it wouldn't take an epidemic of this "playfulness" to destroy my trust in this site, just a few episodes of people placing their words in the meta-mouths of others.

By: ColdChef

ColdChef — Thu, 27 Jun 2002 08:15:29 -0800

You tell 'em, Tom. Uh....that IS you, right?

By: Marquis

Marquis — Thu, 27 Jun 2002 09:35:16 -0800

You're right, Irontom. Comment spoofing is "playful" only while the trick is near-obvious and used for comedic effect. Used for other purposes it becomes "deceitful at best, and more likely malicious". We take for granted the fact that MeFi is a friendly community. Nobody wants to destroy it. But you're right that if we defend loopholes like this, it could end up as an invitation to visigoths and vandals who aren't so well-intentioned.

Sooo.... I guess it's a good thing Matt fixed the hole. Um. :)

By: insomnyuk

insomnyuk — Thu, 27 Jun 2002 13:00:23 -0800

Spoofing is like a fine spice, it is to be used only sparingly lest it offend and eventually bore the recipient.

By: gleuschk

gleuschk — Thu, 27 Jun 2002 14:04:14 -0800

The spice must flow! He who can destroy the spice, controls the spice!

[etc.]

By: y2karl

y2karl — Thu, 27 Jun 2002 15:16:27 -0800

*cries*
posted by babycurly at 3:01 AM PST on June 29

*sigh*

By: mathowie

mathowie — Thu, 27 Jun 2002 15:28:09 -0800

whatcha up to, y2karl?

By: y2karl

y2karl — Thu, 27 Jun 2002 16:20:19 -0800

Just confirming the fix. babyyoda and the linked thread and comment above aside, I will note I've not employed this trick. I never use my powers for evil...

By: dg

dg — Thu, 27 Jun 2002 18:00:50 -0800

Considering the shortage of new user logins, I think it is a shameful waste of resources that some people have two (or more - is there really more than one person here, are all the users really just Matt's personalities), while those tragically deprived of the right to participate and doomed forever to lurk "outside the wall" have none. Perhaps those wastrels who are extravagantly using more than their rightful one user number should surrender them to the authorities and they can then be released to those who really need them ;-)

By: mathowie

mathowie — Thu, 27 Jun 2002 18:29:34 -0800

dg, someone can have a thousand identities, the only time they use resources is if they choose to load the site logged in as one.

The problem with the database isn't that it's like a physical container that can only fit so much data, the problem is the processing for grabbing special, custom data for so many people. If someone has a thousand usernames to themself and doesn't log in ever, that's just fab and doesn't tax the server in the least bit. If a thousand users are using those up, that's much, much harder on resources.

By: goneill

goneill — Thu, 27 Jun 2002 20:45:30 -0800

come on people, when has anyone seen mathowie say:

*cries*
If you haven't been reading long enough to determine a howie post, well, you should keep reading.

By: dg

dg — Thu, 27 Jun 2002 21:19:23 -0800

Sorry, mathowie, my weak attempt at humour obviously failed :-{

Related though - does a lurker use significantly less resources than a member? I guess sorting in different ways, generating new links and comments info etc has some extra overhead? Just curious.

By: Hackworth

Hackworth — Wed, 03 Jul 2002 22:14:04 -0800

speaking of UIN fixes, i could have sworn that my UIN was 1182 before, but now it's 1860. Am I smoking crack or did something change?