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

June 25, 2002 5:27 PM

How is this (1,2) possible?
posted by macadamiaranch to Bugs at 5:27 PM (57 comments total)

If you look closely (at the source) you'll note that the double has a space in front of the 's'.
posted by mattpfeff at 5:29 PM on June 25, 2002

(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...)



posted by macadamiaranch at 5:29 PM on June 25, 2002

damn. missed that. flush thread if necessary. thanks.
posted by macadamiaranch at 5:30 PM on June 25, 2002

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).
posted by mathowie (staff) at 5:37 PM on June 25, 2002

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...
posted by snarkout at 6:39 PM on June 25, 2002

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!
posted by snarkout at 6:43 PM on June 25, 2002

I love that you used doppelgang as a verb.
posted by iconomy at 7:01 PM on June 25, 2002

I'm just disappointed that baby jesus doesn't comment more often.
posted by insomnyuk at 7:15 PM on June 25, 2002

As a latecomer, I too have often wondered - who is baby jesus? moz? iceburg273? Someone else entirely? Will we ever know???
posted by yhbc at 7:25 PM on June 25, 2002

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

and no, we never will.
posted by rebeccablood at 7:41 PM on June 25, 2002

Remember doublepostguy?

those were the days.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 7:49 PM on June 25, 2002

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?
posted by insomnyuk at 8:01 PM on June 25, 2002

*cries*

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


posted by rebeccablood at 8:06 PM on June 25, 2002

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.
posted by insomnyuk at 8:12 PM on June 25, 2002

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?
posted by plemeljr at 10:12 PM on June 25, 2002

sorry matt. I didn't know your preference on that.
posted by rebeccablood at 10:18 PM on June 25, 2002

wait! d'oh!
posted by rebeccablood at 10:20 PM on June 25, 2002

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

Sorry, I couldn't resist.
posted by plemeljr at 10:20 PM on June 25, 2002

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.
posted by sugarfish at 12:08 AM on June 26, 2002

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.
posted by dogmatic at 12:42 AM on June 26, 2002

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.
posted by jonmc at 3:30 AM on June 26, 2002

Will the real mathowie please stand up? That hack just messes me right up--I'm goin' back ta bed....
posted by ashbury at 4:58 AM on June 26, 2002

If baby jesus accidentally snorted water out his nose, would it come out wine?
posted by me3dia at 8:48 AM on June 26, 2002

me3dia - depends on if he'd been picking or not.
posted by SpecialK at 9:05 AM on June 26, 2002

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.




posted by Eamon at 9:57 AM on June 26, 2002

I can't wait for registration to open back up.
posted by eyeballkid at 10:03 AM on June 26, 2002

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.
posted by Irontom at 10:08 AM on June 26, 2002

I think he did implement a fix, but only in MetaFilter, not in MetaTalk.
posted by eyeballkid at 10:11 AM on June 26, 2002

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.
posted by iceberg273 at 10:26 AM on June 26, 2002

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!).
posted by Eamon at 10:40 AM on June 26, 2002

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.
posted by Irontom at 10:57 AM on June 26, 2002

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.

posted by Eamon at 12:58 PM on June 26, 2002

spoofing is now impossible.

I'll work on the username hack.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 1:22 PM on June 26, 2002

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.
posted by plemeljr at 1:22 PM on June 26, 2002

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.
posted by willnot at 1:24 PM on June 26, 2002

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
posted by bshort at 1:25 PM on June 26, 2002

woops, just trying it out.
posted by bshort at 1:25 PM on June 26, 2002

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.
posted by Marquis at 1:27 PM on June 26, 2002

Please do not confuse me for the Son of God.

You get that too?
posted by rushmc at 3:05 PM on June 26, 2002

It's confuse with; not confuse for, dammit! :)
posted by MiguelCardoso at 4:37 PM on June 26, 2002

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. :)
posted by picopebbles at 4:49 PM on June 26, 2002

It depends on whether the Son of God has asked you to confuse icey or not.
posted by kindall at 9:47 PM on June 26, 2002

Please do not confuse me for the Son of God.


*stops worshipping icey*
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 9:59 PM on June 26, 2002

*cries*
posted by iceberg273 at 7:08 AM on June 27, 2002

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.
posted by Irontom at 8:07 AM on June 27, 2002

You tell 'em, Tom. Uh....that IS you, right?
posted by ColdChef at 8:15 AM on June 27, 2002

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. :)
posted by Marquis at 9:35 AM on June 27, 2002

Spoofing is like a fine spice, it is to be used only sparingly lest it offend and eventually bore the recipient.
posted by insomnyuk at 1:00 PM on June 27, 2002

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

[etc.]
posted by gleuschk at 2:04 PM on June 27, 2002

whatcha up to, y2karl?
posted by mathowie (staff) at 3:28 PM on June 27, 2002

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...
posted by y2karl at 4:20 PM on June 27, 2002

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 ;-)
posted by dg at 6:00 PM on June 27, 2002

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.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 6:29 PM on June 27, 2002

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.
posted by goneill at 8:45 PM on June 27, 2002

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.
posted by dg at 9:19 PM on June 27, 2002

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?
posted by Hackworth at 10:14 PM on July 3, 2002