Sometimes I am someone else

October 25, 2006 6:15 AM

For a moment, I was logged on as another user (darthduckie ? sp) It happened on AskMe, but when I came here, I was lobstah again. I didn't try to post as that user, so I'm not sure how deeply I was logged in. Does this happen much?
posted by lobstah to Bugs at 6:15 AM (40 comments total)

Woah.
posted by loquacious at 6:17 AM on October 25, 2006

Woah was my reaction too. a little more info:

For the past few days, I have occasionally found myself logged out as I navigated to another page on the site. I would try to login again, but it wouldn't allow me, as if I had used a wrong password. If I navigated back, I would still be logged on, or, if I left the site entirely, and then returned, I would be automatically logged on.
posted by lobstah at 6:24 AM on October 25, 2006

Another data point: I've had the same thing happening -- being apparently logged out as I navigate to another page of the site (I'm clued in by the presence of ads), then when I moved to another page, being logged in. Also, once when I noticed there were ads on the page, I refreshed, and appeared to be logged in after the refresh.

I have not noticed myself logged on as another user, though.
posted by jayder at 6:44 AM on October 25, 2006

Someone might as well ask (obvious as it is): public/shared terminal? Any possibility that darthduckie used the computer sometime in the past?
posted by Mid at 6:46 AM on October 25, 2006

We've seen this happen a few times recently, mostly with people who are using Google Accelerator or whatever it's called. Are you guys using that? You won't be able to post as another user or edit their information, even if you do seemto be logged in as them.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 6:47 AM on October 25, 2006

Are any of you connecting through a proxy server?

Well, sometimes you don't even know if you are. Your ISP might have an invisible proxy. If you're at a university, you might connect through one. If you're on a wireless link, you might be going through a proxy.

The point is, I've had proxies fuck up in the past, and confuse me for another metafilter user who was connecting to the site through the same proxy. I appeared as someone who I happen to know was at the same university as me, and we figured it was the proxy messing us around. Caching something it shouldn't. Could that be the answer?
posted by Jimbob at 6:47 AM on October 25, 2006

(Yeah, Google Accelerator counts as a proxy server, as far as I know.)
posted by Jimbob at 6:48 AM on October 25, 2006

This happens to me from time to time from the office. It is always the same other MeFite username too.

It happens to me maybe once a month.

100% of the time reloading the page fixes it.
posted by birdherder at 6:52 AM on October 25, 2006

Ah, yes...It seems my lovely wife has indeed, added Google Accelerator to my bag of tricks. I will attend to her accordingly :P
posted by lobstah at 6:54 AM on October 25, 2006

You are seeing copies of the page downloaded by another user on your proxy server (Google Accelerator) but if you try and post, it will pull up your personal cookie details and be fine.

I can't think of a simple fix aside from removing that line of text on comment pages.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 7:00 AM on October 25, 2006

darthduckie here...I am using Google accelerator too, so that pretty much explains that.
posted by DarthDuckie at 7:25 AM on October 25, 2006

I will attend to her accordingly

*cues omnious music and moody lighting*

So, yet another reason to avoid Google's accelerator (and unrelated, toolbar).

I prefer my data unsullied by you mortals. When I send an HTTP request, it and it's response had better be pure. Goddamn soil commies.
posted by loquacious at 7:28 AM on October 25, 2006

Of course, I did just utilize the Coral Cache network. To propagate a link to filthy commies.

I'm such a contradiction.
posted by loquacious at 7:31 AM on October 25, 2006

heh...this is the same woman who once scanned a 10 page document at some ridiculous dpi and tried to email it as a jpeg to her brother's law firm, crashing their mail server.These events aside, she is a wonderful artist, and I adore her.
posted by lobstah at 7:37 AM on October 25, 2006

I am convinced it's spelled "whoa" and not "woah."
posted by mattbucher at 7:39 AM on October 25, 2006

HELP!! THIS IS JONMC. I"M STUCK WITH THIS LOGIN. MAYDAY! MAYDAY!
posted by KevinSkomsvold at 7:40 AM on October 25, 2006

You are seeing copies of the page downloaded by another user on your proxy server (Google Accelerator) but if you try and post, it will pull up your personal cookie details and be fine.

this is crazy interesting -- is there any way to explain that to the unwashed lowtech masses? because I'd love to understand how that happens, in my ignorance I thought it was impossible
posted by matteo at 7:49 AM on October 25, 2006

is there any way to explain that to the unwashed lowtech masses?

Yeah I think so. Google has a service for people who want to access pages on the web faster. Instead of going to the original server to get new copies of the pages, Google will send you the most recent version of the page they have. So usually when you load a MetaFilter page, you are going all the way to the MetaFilter machine to get a copy of the page. If you use Google's service, you only go as far as Google which has super fast pipes and can often serve you the page faster than the MetaFilter machine. Google keeps fairly current copies of lots and lots of web pages, apparently. You'll really notice a speed improvement if you are trying to hit pages on servers with high load, or pages that don't change often.

The downside to this, with pages that change rapidly is that you may be looking at a page that is minutes older that the page that lives on the MetaFilter server. The other downside is that on pages like MetaFilter pages, where there is text identifying who the person is who loaded the page last in the header, Google sending you "their" copy of a page is actually sending you, in this case, darthduckie's copy, complete with header that says "hi darthduckie" or whatever. Your own computer still knows that you are you, based on your cookie, but the page you see has the raw HTML of someone else's page. This seems to only happen if you and the other MeFite are using the same Google server, though I'm not sure what that means exactly.

Does that make sense?
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 8:12 AM on October 25, 2006

You can prevent that from happening by making metafilter uncacheable, but that would kind of throw the baby out with the bathwater.

You should definitely make profile pages uncacheable, though, if you haven't already.
posted by empath at 8:31 AM on October 25, 2006

For a moment, I was logged in as mathowie, and I deleted all of you. But then I woke up and you're still here.
posted by I Am Not a Lobster at 8:34 AM on October 25, 2006

lobstah: no joke, the same thing has happened to me a couple times and it is always under your name. I never tried posting either (although the nasty thought ran through my mind that I could post something outrageously offensive and start a huge flame war and watch as you tried to convince people it wasn't you, but it was only a passing reverie).
posted by Falconetti at 8:35 AM on October 25, 2006

Tonight, on I Love lobstah: "Luuuccy, chu got some s'plainin to do!"

"Wah!"
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 8:42 AM on October 25, 2006

thanks jessamyn, it's clear now
posted by matteo at 9:35 AM on October 25, 2006

actually, it's kind of like the tech equivalent of demonic possession


(img src of Linda Blair puking pea soup)
posted by matteo at 9:37 AM on October 25, 2006

Here is the bug, noticed over a year ago. Apparently I need to change the cache headers or something. Every problem I have with Google is always made to be my fault.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 10:30 AM on October 25, 2006

This also happened once with someone I knew who worked at Microsoft. In large companies, everyone goes through the same proxy server and some of them do caching just as jessamyn described above.

That means she got a page that had been recently served to another user, who also happened to work at Microsoft.
posted by vacapinta at 10:31 AM on October 25, 2006

for a moment i was sure mathowie was implementing the random sockpuppet assignment which was once suggested...
posted by quonsar at 10:44 AM on October 25, 2006

Ok, I added:

<CFHEADER NAME="Cache-Control" VALUE="private">

to the comment pages. I think that'll keep google from caching the login info.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 11:00 AM on October 25, 2006

I love happy endings.
posted by Samuel Farrow at 12:18 PM on October 25, 2006

Google which has super fast pipes

I believe the technical term is "tubes."
posted by nickmark at 1:09 PM on October 25, 2006

Google Crossloginator!

It would be a great April Fool's prank if Matt switched everyone's usernames around (without fucking up their accounts forever or really allowing new posts to wind up on the other person's account).
posted by scarabic at 1:36 PM on October 25, 2006

This happens to me at work, where there is a proxy server and several other mefites. It's a bit disconcerting sometimes, because some of them have crazy big fonts and wild white backgrounds, but as has been said, I cannot post as or edit the profile of the other users. No Google product involved in my case.
posted by owhydididoit at 2:10 PM on October 25, 2006

Postscript to my prior post. Yes, I am using Google Web Accelerator. Never crossed my mind that that would be the problem.
posted by jayder at 2:31 PM on October 25, 2006

For a moment, I was logged in as mathowie, and I deleted all of you. But then I woke up and you're still here.

You joke. But back when I first joined there was a strange interaction between the computer system where I work and Metafilter, such that if I switched between various workstations I would find myself logged in as mathowie. Of course, I was too damn boring & responsible to do anything other than report this to Matt.
posted by Johnny Assay at 2:32 PM on October 25, 2006

Every problem I have with Google is always made to be my fault.

I can't help but think of "Mother", off of The Police's Synchronicity:

Every problem I have with Google
Is always made to be my fault
Every problem I have with Google
Is always made to be my fault

All my bughunt expeditions
Always come crashing to a halt
Every problem I have with Google
Is always made to be my fault

Oh Google
Googlegooglegooglegooglegooglegoogle
posted by cortex at 3:23 PM on October 25, 2006

Well, cortex, you know what will be expected of you, now.
posted by cgc373 at 3:45 PM on October 25, 2006

Is that my cortex on the phone?
posted by cgc373 at 3:46 PM on October 25, 2006

cortex, you could have used another Sting song to say "Every bug you make" but my hat's off to you for taking a higher road.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 4:19 PM on October 25, 2006

Isn't Andy Summers to blame for "Mother"?
posted by ?! at 7:10 PM on October 25, 2006

So the Internets are a series of tubes, and the Google is like Harry Tuttle crossing the air pipe with the shit pipe outside Sam Lowrey's apartment?
posted by flabdablet at 8:38 AM on October 26, 2006