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Journeyman Geek

12:17 AM

→ 21 messages moved to Chimney

Journeyman Geek

12:35 AM

→ 5 messages moved to Chimney

Sonic the Anonymous WizHog

2:01 AM

@JNat Cross-site spammer: stackexchange.com/users/15568078/ethan (cc @ShaWiz)

Journeyman Geek

2:36 AM

feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/pjJWqwKlTrA/… nothing ever really changes. Other than well, coin phones... ;p

Shree

5:03 AM

Ahh Thanks to SE. Is this on topic ? meta.stackexchange.com/questions/332296/…

forest

-4

Q: Stack Overflow is not trying to start audio

After a thorough investigation and inquiry, we were able to get an update on this. The ads in question were not intending to start audio but were rather checking to see if there was an audio player present as part of a bot/fraud detection system. For those who might still be wondering about the a...

oh my god

Is this really excusing the malicious ads?

I was told that work was done to prevent this from happening again.

Now there are two conflicting messages from two people who are both staff.

One saying that this is a severe problem and that they are not OK with it.

Another saying that it's totally fine and doesn't break any laws.

Journeyman Geek

Well - could be both.

forest

Oh shit, I totally forgot about not linking to questions in here that I answer.

Journeyman Geek

Its not a haxxor. Just the usual ad companies trying everything possible to remain profitable in an environment that they don't quite understand why things don't work wonderfully and everyone is happy to see their ads and somehow no one ever would do the sort of things they themselves might happily do

forest

It's actually not usual, although it's not extremely unusual. It's a bad business practice.

Journeyman Geek

5:15 AM

But nothing stops SE from working on and assisting browser vendors to work on adding stuff that mitigates the worst of it

@forest you mean there's ad companies that don't go above and beyond to ensure that their ads are seen, and seen by human eyeballs so they get paid? ;p

forest

I still find it amusing that any post I make gets instantly downvoted, but only if I post it near you. :^)

Journeyman Geek

causation isn't correlation.

forest

@JourneymanGeek Well, there are ad companies that are both malicious and non-malicious.

Journeyman Geek

I've honestly never seen any one that I trust

forest

Other way around. Correlation is not causation.

Journeyman Geek

5:17 AM

Well, whatever.

forest

Just a nitpick lol

Journeyman Geek

I don't go around downvoting things cause I disagree. Posting scathing answers/comments is much more entertaining.

forest

I know you've told me not to distrust staff or accuse them of anything, but I seriously find it excruciatingly difficult to give staff the benefit of the doubt when I see posts like that.

Journeyman Geek

@forest in this situation I think what nick says might have a lot more weight

and not just with SE

or SO or whatever

forest

I really, truly hope so.

Journeyman Geek

5:19 AM

So "The ad's not malicious"

forest

Because as an infosec person, browser fingerprinting is the bane of my existence.

You have no idea how much sensitive information is leaked and stolen due to that shit.

It's a very creepy feeling seeing someone sell detailed information on 100,000 children's browsing habits, knowing that they got it all from sketchy fingerprinting ads that they managed to hack.

Journeyman Geek

vs "Oh, the heck with this. I don't like it - and while we're not going to nuke it right now, we'd like people to keep complaining, and we will try to do things that keep our users safe"

And while I like the CMs, and I do think they have a pretty critical role - they're primarily messengers here.

On the other hand, the stuff you hear from the SRE team probably has a git commit or three lined up ;p

forest

I'm not sure which is which.

Journeyman Geek

sigh

You do know what Nick does right?

forest

Nope. I have no clue who he is.

Journeyman Geek

5:23 AM

I mean, that's a very serious question

ah

forest

Remember, I don't spend that much time on Meta.

Journeyman Geek

Drat the lack of staff page

forest

I'm on Information Security and Cryptography 99.5% of the time.

Journeyman Geek

Oh, that's normal

As per his profile...

forest

I see two people labeled staff. One person says it's a very bad thing and they're working to fix it, and that, in bold, they're not OK with this. Then I see another staff come in with an update repeating a lie that was told to them by the ad company (does he really thing it's fraud detection? That's not what AudioContext fingerprinting is for) and that what they're doing is technically legal, so it won't stop.

Journeyman Geek

5:24 AM

@forest as per his profile...

> I am the Architecture Lead for Stack Overflow. My day job consists of being a Developer, Site Reliability Engineer, and DBA. I design and build very fast things in hopes of making life easier for millions of developers.

So pretty much - he's the person who actually at the very least directs the implementation of the stuff he talks about

forest

Who is Juan then? Does he have more power than Nick?

Journeyman Geek

(source: meta.stackexchange.com/users/135201/nick-craver?tab=profile)

forest

If so, why is Nick saying that this is totally OK and that they'll keep doing this fingerprinting?

Journeyman Geek

Lemme try to remember what they call that team

forest

Is he just stepping out of line, or is this the final, official response?

Journeyman Geek

5:27 AM

But basically If memory serves, and someone will correct me, he's kinda in charge of the team of folks whose main job is, well, interacting with us

Cat and Caesar work with him

But he's probably be asking the Ad team (which is its own team) who would go "eh... we'll check"

Annoyingly I don't remember how the CM team is laid out these days :/

forest

ah

So he's not the one in charge of actually determining if malvertising is permitted on SE?

Journeyman Geek

Ah, language

Malvertising?

forest

It's a term for malicious advertising, such as using fingerprinting to track users cross-session.

Journeyman Geek

He's not the one who is in charge of determining the nature and source of ads on SE

@forest do note how much less.... aggressive that sounds.

forest

Malvertising is a specific term in the trade. It's not meant to sound aggressive or passive.

Journeyman Geek

5:30 AM

He is however the person who probably can talk to the ad team especially if we start seeing, I donno porno ads and... get them to set them on fire

forest

But it's Nick who is in charge of preventing ads from doing malicious things?

Journeyman Geek

No

He's in charge of the team of folks that do the sysadminny and dbish things

forest

Yeah then I'm still confused as to what SE's official stance is.

Journeyman Geek

but he's probably the person who can go "Eh, we need safe-frame and feature-policy" and write the stuff

forest

Fingerprinting ads to bypass security controls: allowed by SE or not?

Journeyman Geek

5:32 AM

or get someone to write the stuff

forest

@JourneymanGeek Well, the purpose of fingerprinting is to bypass those controls. :P

They're pretty much impossible to prevent.

Journeyman Geek

@forest well, we don't have those things now

And honestly, if you're worried about fingerprinting, shouldn't you just treat all ad-like things as hostile, and treat them like mushrooms?

forest

Sure, and those things would help with some things (so ads couldn't keylog for example), but it wouldn't do anything about fingerprinting, which is what people are so upset about.

Oh I'm not worried about it personally. I have that all disabled.

But that doesn't mean that I don't think it's an incredibly malicious thing to allow.

@SmokeDetector No, I am not looking for varicose veins treatment in Dubai. Thanks for asking!

:p

I wonder how bad it would look for Stack Exchange if someone managed to hack that ad company and published a massive fingerprint database of all users with extreme details about their computer.

It's something they're seriously risking. Though most likely it wouldn't be published. :/

Journeyman Geek

If you did it responsibly?

It would likely get a good enough response

forest

Oh no if I did it I'd just put it on some pastebin along with some ASCII art.

Journeyman Geek

5:37 AM

eh

might work too

forest

Probably. I can almost guarantee it'd get SE to change their stance about malvertising.

But... I'm lazy. I'd probably need to get paid to want to pop an ad distributor.

theregister.co.uk/2019/06/27/…

"Against site policy" lol jk we allow it now :^)

Journeyman Geek

5:56 AM

→ 4 messages moved to Chimney

forest

How come there isn't a bot to automatically move to Chimney?

Journeyman Geek

cause you need RO powers

and the script, well... kinda sometimes dosen't do all of it

wordpress.se's 404 page is adorable

forest

lol wow I got suspended for 30 minutes for using the f-word.

I keep forgetting to be more cautious when you're in the same rooms. :p

(Unless that's correlation and not causation as well. dunno)

Amusing though that it only happens if I'm also criticizing SE policies, but not if I use it to criticize the policies of any other company. Now that at least isn't just coincidence. Oh well.

@JourneymanGeek I recall you (or someone else) telling me that words like the f-word are acceptable (when used sparingly) on the network in chat if they are not used as an insult (e.g. "I f'ed up" is ok, but "f you" is not). Is that not correct? Is there an official policy I can read to show it's flat-out disallowed?

Journeyman Geek

@forest Oh it isn't

I try to ignore them, but SOME PEOPLE NEED TO RUIN IT FOR EVERYONE DON'T THEY

forest

Isn't acceptable or isn't flat-out disallowed?

Journeyman Geek

6:05 AM

Its disallowed

forest

Huh, I've even seen staff use it. Never flagged it because I always assumed they'd ban me.

Hm... since it's likely a user flag, is the f-word automatically detected by the system, or does it guarantee that someone active in the room has flagged it? You said you ignore them so assuming you're telling the truth (I've never known you to flat out lie), that means it must be another person?

Journeyman Geek

gimme a moment

Looking up the rules

forest

ok

Journeyman Geek

meta.stackexchange.com/questions/271267/… I don't see anything specific there

forest

I mean, I would appeal the suspension via email, but I'm still waiting for a reply from a month ago.

Well, is there anyone who I can ask to manually remove the suspension?

Journeyman Geek

6:08 AM

BUT

147

Q: Are expletives (cursing, swear words or vulgar language) allowed on SE sites?

Can I use salty, expletive-laden language on Stack Exchange sites, like Q*Bert? For more information, see "What kind of behavior is expected of users?" in the Help Center. Return to FAQ index

support faq etiquette profanity

chat is an SE site...

@forest honestly? Why else do you think I keep politely reminding people not to swear?

Cause this... stuff... keeps happening

forest

> If you continue to use expletives, you will be placed on timed suspension.

Hm, that doesn't jive.

Journeyman Geek

Sometimes to people I actually sympathise with

forest

Is it permissible to search for the f-word and auto-flag?

(Assuming of course it's not done on English.SE lol)

Journeyman Geek

Occasionally weeks or months after the fact

.... That's... Kinda a bit of an act of potential petulance

It does no one any good

forest

Well if it's disallowed, what's wrong with flagging it? Anyway how do you even flag from the chat search feature? It just shows an option for history or permalink.

Wow, even Shog9 is breaking the rules regularly. :o

Journeyman Geek

6:11 AM

Donno. It's just a horrible thing to do

forest

And here I thought mods were held to higher standards. :/

Journeyman Geek

Hah

We try

Sometimes we even live up to those standards

forest

Is it impossible to flag messages in history without clicking "load older messages" a thousand times? Or transcript messages or whatever they're called.

Journeyman Geek

Lol. Idk. So imagine the people who do that, or farm comment flags like that...

forest

Well if it's the proper thing to do when upholding the rules.

I'd hate to be held to higher standards than other people.

hm

Journeyman Geek

6:14 AM

Lol

forest

Maybe send an email to report a code of conduct violation? But that seems excessive.

Journeyman Geek

It takes actual work to be polite when you're mad at someone

forest

You don't have to be polite if you don't want. Long as you don't ban me, I don't care.

Journeyman Geek

Eh.

Said higher standards ;p

forest

true

Journeyman Geek

6:16 AM

And occasionally you can do a lot more damage and annoyance that way ;p

forest

Since I'm 70% sure who flagged it, I wonder how many times they used that word. If it's more than just a few, I wonder how long they can get suspended if I flag a new one every 30 minutes. Doesn't it also increase suspension times if multiple messages are deleted for abusive chats in succession?

Or is that only for manual kicks from moderators?

Journeyman Geek

Needs a 10ker to approve. Maybe more

I forget.

forest

ah

Well since it gets shown to so many people, it seems to get always approved.

Are moderators capable of flagging as a regular user, or are all their actions mod actions?

Journeyman Geek

Well that's one reason we have the Language! Rule on RA

forest

In chat, that is.

Journeyman Geek

6:19 AM

And mods help fix things

forest

Well I didn't get suspended in RA. I'm well aware of that rule there. :P

Journeyman Geek

Eh. It's more of a shared courtesy

And I got that a few times myself.

forest

So SE must have removed the ability to flag old comments.

I wonder if they can still be flagged directly via a POST request.

@JourneymanGeek Can I undo an abusive/offensive flag in chat? E.g. can I flag your post to obtain the POST request and then undo the flag immediately after?

Journeyman Geek

Say wot?

forest

Like, if I submit a flag for offensive, can I undo the flag like I can for posts?

Journeyman Geek

6:30 AM

Don't think so

forest

Well I probably can't ask you to curse so I can flag it legitimately. :P

Journeyman Geek

Won't work - I'm a mod ;p

forest

Mods can't get flags acted on?

Or do you mean mods are incapable of cursing? :P

Journeyman Geek

Also eh I'd not be inclined to help anyway. You do annoy me 😁

@forest yes

@forest eh. Usually in no less than 2 languages

forest

@JourneymanGeek So if I flag a random comment of yours, nothing will happen?

I mean, I just want to test something out but don't want to get banned for false flagging. :P

Journeyman Geek

6:44 AM

@forest probably not to me

forest

Well this certainly isn't intuitive.

"chatusr: t=<whole bunch of base64>"

And here I was hoping it'd be something like a POST to "/flag" with parameters "id: 1234", "fkey: 5678".

@JourneymanGeek I got so good at trolling that now I can annoy someone without even trying! Wee!

Journeyman Geek

7:06 AM

@forest oh you work at it

@forest rofl

forest

@JourneymanGeek You'd know if I was trying! Biggest things I've done beyond causing week-long sh*tstorms on various forums was causing more than a dozen people in an IRC channel that I hated to quit due to, apparently, getting traumatized (nickspam with links can be vicious). But just having an aura of annoying? That's something that comes naturally. I've actually softened up significantly. :P

Journeyman Geek

The chat API is one of SE's forgotten projects that I am sad about

That would make it easier. Most chatbots are horrible yet beautiful hacks

@forest not something to be proud of

forest

Well that's why I prefer IRC. Chatbots are so much easier to set up.

Journeyman Geek

IRC is a protocol. And a really stable one

forest

@JourneymanGeek Hey if people can be proud of things they don't control like their race or the country they live in, I can be proud of being influential enough to impact massive communities!

Journeyman Geek

7:09 AM

So easier

@forest depends on the impact

forest

"stable" tell that to all the IRC services and IRCds that violate the RFC. :P

Well usually the impact is just a sh*tstorm which is fun to watch. Not harmful in the long run.

Journeyman Geek

Well yeah but if you wanted to follow it you could

Compare it to matrix

forest

Never used matrix.

I just see people on IRC with [m] in their name and I instantly hate them.

Journeyman Geek

It's a work in progress but it kinda grows on you.

forest

But... can you use Matrix with telnet and not have any issues? :P

Journeyman Geek

7:12 AM

@forest eh. Why?

@forest well it uses https as a backend

forest

Because they're, for lack of a better term, complete noobs who don't understand the culture of the channel they're in. The kind of people who think IRC is just your average chat site.

@JourneymanGeek Well then openssl s_client. It's like netcat, but for TLS.

Journeyman Geek

Funny but that's true of a lot of IRC anyway

And matrix is niche

forest

Is it? Maybe I just had a bad experience the first few times I saw Matrix users.

I mean, it just irks me to no end to see someone ask "how do I change my name?".

Journeyman Geek

Well I only even know about it cause I needed a notification system

forest

Although, in the case of hunter2, ignorance can be really, really funny.

Ah. I've used bouncers for notification.

Journeyman Geek

7:17 AM

Well, the nice thing is you run the whole stack, there's a command line client (which I hook into stuff) and it kinda just works once you have it set up

the less nice thing is you're abusing a chat client ;p

forest

Using a command line client is abusing it? huh?

Journeyman Geek

naw, rather that its chat

so you're literally opening a DM session with a bot to send notifications

its... inelegant

forest

ew

Journeyman Geek

for 'local' notifications I was using GFW (on the windows side) and gntp send to send messages

but that's ugly in its own way

What's the phrase

it works, but its kinda held together by duct tape and prayer?

forest

Haphazard?

Though in computer lingo, that's called a hack.

Journeyman Geek

7:21 AM

yup

Yes it is

And there's many almost ok options.

forest

Almost everything I develop ends up being really hacky. lol

Even had a phase where I'd write spambots in obscure languages just because.

See how ugly I could make it while still being functional. Wrote a few IRC bots like that too.

Journeyman Geek

gotify looks ok but I can't find mentions of desktop clients - I'd want windows and linux support...

I mean if it was 'easy' I'd ask for haiku clients as well ;p

forest

heh

Journeyman Geek

(though, matrix, and I guess IRC would do that)

forest

Shame there will never be a client for TempleOS.

Journeyman Geek

7:25 AM

eh

did templeos even do networking?

forest

Nope. God said it must never do networking.

That's why there'll never be a client for it, sadly.

Journeyman Geek

ya... a chat client without networking would be tricky

forest

Well that, and Terry Davis being dead and all.

(rip)

Journeyman Geek

heh, It might almost run on my old project box but...

I'm not sure what god thinks of sata

forest

Well SATA can downgrade to PIO mode which I'm sure it supports.

Journeyman Geek

7:29 AM

eh, maybe

forest

Might be limited to IDE though. Dunno.

Journeyman Geek

and this is a pretty old box

kinda one of the first generation to be native sata

(thinkpad R60. Oddly enough, after about 12 years it still runs)

and If I had the forsight to keep the ram from the two newer laptopss I junked cause they died, I could have maxed this out at 2gb ;p

but both debian(this is the last gen that was 32 bit only) and haiku (well some software only runs 64 bit) run reasonably on this

oh

and 1024x768 4:3 sceen

and a proper proper thinkpad keyboard

forest

It's weird to think that Terry Davis died almost exactly a year ago. :(

I even talked with him on IRC. He was a very odd person.

Journeyman Geek

that seems unsurprising

forest

He would literally spend hours talking to a markov bot.

And replying as if he understood it. I think he went like 16 hours straight.

Journeyman Geek

7:35 AM

Honestly - any sort of mental illness is... difficult

Even the ones that kinda take place, well, in this reality

and the support structure in many cultures is terrible, even if you manage to get over it

forest

The stigma doesn't help either.

Journeyman Geek

nope

M.A.R.

8:04 AM

@forest IKR :/ People call everyone with a mental health condition here "crazy".

Even people who should know better. Like nurses and doctors

JNat

10:07 AM

@SonictheAnonymousWizHog gone

Feeds

11:21 AM

After the test, she said that if she had a choice, she wouldn’t defend herself against drones using a tennis ball and racket, though she would absolutely pick them over other sports equipment. But, she added, "Drones don't bother me."

404

1:24 PM

@Feeds Ugh. An ad added as a Sunday update was fine, but replacing a regularly scheduled Friday comic with an ad... :-/

I demand my money back.

Also, a new Area 51 proposal:

2

Ocean Nomads

Proposed Q&A site for captains of ocean capable privately owned vessels

Currently in definition.

Needs more programming questions.

Journeyman Geek

@404 so a cheque for 0.00?

Mithrandir

→ 14 messages moved to Chimney

rene

8:00 PM

Happy?

Kevin B

happy

Tinkeringbell

Nah. Just content. But that's good too ;)

rene

As long as the content is worth an upvote I'm happy

Tinkeringbell

I'd upvote myself right now :)

rene

You can have my vote as well. Let's do a happy voting ring

Tinkeringbell

8:12 PM

Hmmm. If anything, this is a good time for vote fraud. I just marked myself absent from mod duties anyways today ;)

Sonic the Anonymous WizHog

On all sites?

(Side note: I missed that "content" pun for a second)

Tinkeringbell

@SonictheAnonymousWizHog No, just this one. I'm going to camp on IPS this vacation.

rene

@SonictheAnonymousWizHog not for a third?

Man, I'm good at this ...

Sonic the Anonymous WizHog

@Tinkeringbell Does the vacation system require you to put in a time?

@rene I plead the fifth

rene

lol

Tinkeringbell

8:16 PM

@SonictheAnonymousWizHog Not that I know.

My sixth sense says these puns are going to get way worse...

Sonic the Anonymous WizHog

In any case, I like that my contributions to the FAQs on locking have been indirectly acknowledged in the moderator newsletter.

rene

Some links have to wait before I can read those ...

Tinkeringbell

In the meantime I've become a victim of targeted advertising... Some Twitter account selling custom made stitch markers is liking my crochet tweets. To block or not block, that's the question...

Kevin B

flag

Tinkeringbell

There's flags on Twitter? ;)

rene

8:22 PM

Maybe advertize them back?

@Tinkeringbell yes, but no mods ...

Tinkeringbell

@rene Hmmm. I find it a pretty desperate and annoying action. I know that everything I put on Twitter is very public... But I'd rather people admire the stuff I make, instead of seeing it as a business opportunity.

Not really deserving of more advertising

@rene I'm a mod and on Twitter ;)

rene

close vote all tweets

4

@Tinkeringbell you're influencing ...

Tinkeringbell

@rene I've become my own worst nightmare it seems. :P

@rene Not mine. Mine are on topic, not opinion based, broad or unclear. Just awesome XD

rene

8:37 PM

I give you that ;)

Tinkeringbell

Aww thanks! I really needed that :P

rene

8:55 PM

> IE 10 is good and fast

2

that is unlikely ....

Tinkeringbell

9:25 PM

Depends on what you're used to, I guess

Sonic the Anonymous WizHog

9:35 PM

@rene Fun fact: SE held out and supported IE10 for a long time.

I guess the lack of bug reports about it were because there were very few users who actually used it.

404

10:06 PM

TL;DR: Install an adblocker. Take SE and all its sites off your whitelist. — Nic Hartley 6 hours ago

Reminded me of Why Stack Overflow Doesn’t Care About Ad Blockers and the comments under it.

Some folks bemoaned the loss of "trust" between the users and SE inc.

To me, it's regression to the normal, healthy level. Trust as far as you can throw a piano.

The very idea of trusting a company is harmful. The person who wrote that nice blog post... does not work here anymore. Another person took his place, without any users noticing. And the new person does not mind experimenting with the new exciting forms of advertisement.

Journeyman Geek

10:42 PM

@404 SE still dosen't care about adblockers

Sonic the Anonymous WizHog

But for the sites that do care about ad blockers, I do use Nano Defender to block the anti-adblock prompts

In Russia, answers downvote you. — bmargulies 32 secs ago

Journeyman Geek

11:16 PM

And there's different parts of the company we have different expectations of and different levels of ability to communicate to if not influence.

I'm honestly more concerned with our ability to communicate and effect change as far as the Q&A engine and network goes (which has sometimes been lacking). We have never had much communication with careers and ads

So trust them? I hardly know them. And there's been times I have been pretty much ... Not a fan... Of them.

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