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.

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

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.

I think "valued" might be going a bit far. How about "tolerated"?

(Barely)

Rob

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

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"?

I will consider this, of course. Let's see how it pans out.

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

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.

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.

Thanks, Jim. And by the way, it was the neighbor's dog that was noisy. Racoons are generally quiet.

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!!)

(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.

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

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...

And besides, Animal Control doesn't have a form to fill out for racoons.

QED !

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

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

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

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.

hehe those posts sound like they were someone elses words not his.

Hmm, well this isn't a democracy so shall we ban Tony, just in case?

Rob

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.)

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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

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

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.

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?

yn0t_, way to go!

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.

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.

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?"

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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

Make him type the rules 100 times on the chalk board.

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.

He'd just write a script to do it for him.

He'd just write a script to do it for him.

Bart Simpson would be proud, indeed.

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.

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

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.

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.

good call, good riddance.

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.

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

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.

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.

Anyone else interested in a poll? I really think the "ban" vote will heavily outweigh the "stay" vote.

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...

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

unless your a priest, than it's multiple tykes and your out

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.

If Catholics are going to be mad at anybody, it had better be the corrupt beurocracy, not the people that point it out.

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.

Could you block by MAC address? I realize this isn't ideal, but I am curious if this is even possible.

Stu

Could you block by MAC address?

I doubt it.

Or perhaps permanently set his BBS "title" to "novice", regardless of post count.

-ml

Not usually -- the MAC address is rarely (never?) propogated beyond the local network -- it's only needed for the IP -> Ethernet mapping.

Correct. A MAC address is never passed through a gateway.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

"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.

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.

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

Mmm.. I read the entire (large) text posted, and I still didn't see the magic words.. well.. ?

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.

Whoa. Almost makes me feel bad for pointing him out. Even though you would have figured out who it was anyway...

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.

No, I didn't do anything wrong.

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.

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.

Don't we all wish we were teenagers again, so we could know everything and be right all the time?

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.

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

"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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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...

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.

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.

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.

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...

>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?

"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.

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.

"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.

You said you don't want to be here any more. Why are you still here defending yourself?

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

"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.

Hey, if you go on a which hunt what do you use as a witch call? Make the sound of broomsticks, perhaps

pca

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.

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.

Maybe one of those "Chant" CDs, Mike Oldfield's "Tubular Bells" or perhaps Carl Orff's "Carmina Burana - O Fortuna"

or just "Witch Hunt" off of everyone's favorite Ruch CD (see, any conversation can be about Rush).

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!

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

Not exactly what I meant, and the total utter lack of sincerity is not exactly encouraging, either.

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.

>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?

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.

>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.

I beleive that he's from Louisiana, not Los Angeles. Or so he's claimed a few times.

Ooops my mistake.

Of course, there are probably as many gun nuts in Louisiana as there are in Los Angeles. They just take a different form.

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

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.

Since he's apparently on Bellsouth's IP addresses then he probably isn't from Los Angeles.

Stu

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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...

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).

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...

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.