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.