AntiSocial Media, Slideshow Presentation by Judd Bagley Options

[WordBomb]

I see both Judd and Slim as rather sneaky, underhanded, manipulative types more interested in promoting their own agendas than in openly and straightforwardly exploring the facts. Both can get highly indignant (and sometimes schoolmarmish) over parts of the other's behavior that they can pick apart and ruthlessly skewer, but will clam up when it comes to responding to uneasy questions about their own behavior.

Everything above is opinion -- and thus not worth arguing over -- until the part about my clamming up when it comes to responding to uneasy questions. That's just not true. I'll talk about all of this all day long. That said, I do tend to get minimalist when discussing it here on WR, since it's all been said so many times and I hate to subject everybody to the minutiae over and over again.

But at least they're finally now actually participating in a frank discussion in a venue without clique buddies to censor anything they don't like.

That's very true. I should not have attacked SV last night as I did. At least she's willing to talk about it. That's very admirable, particularly given the mostly hostile crowd here. Slim, I apologize for that.

WordBomb: Wasn't it a dirty trick to put links in your e-mails that purport to go to Wikipedia user pages but actually go to pages in your own site or blog?

No, it was not a dirty trick, in my opinion. To understand why I did it, it might help to understand the prevailing circumstances: I knew with certainty that email sent to SlimVirgin was opened by Gary Weiss. I was fairly certain I knew what that meant -- SlimVirgin forwarded it to Weiss. But Occam's Razor, which I referenced earlier, would suggest that the simplest solution was that SlimVirgin was Gary Weiss. In fact, that seemed to explain a lot of things in those earliest days, particularly the way SlimVirgin appeared out of nowhere to ban me, and the way she said over and over that all the evidence I'd amassed and sent to her proving what's now completely obvious "didn't amount to much" (or something like that). The disguised link was my way of ruling out the possibility that SV was actually Gary Weiss. I didn't give a fig for Slim's IP address...as long as it wasn't 151.202.102.139.

Dirty trick? No.

Resourceful? Yes.

[Hell Freezes Over]

But at least they're finally now actually participating in a frank discussion in a venue without clique buddies to censor anything they don't like.

That's very true. I should not have attacked SV last night as I did. At least she's willing to talk about it. That's very admirable, particularly given the mostly hostile crowd here. Slim, I apologize for that.

Thank you. I apologize again for my tone when I replied.

My request is that you very carefully check anything you say about me in future. Your claim in this thread, for example, that, "In email to me, before she knew what I'd done, she said she'd not shared my emails with anybody," isn't correct. I was always clear with you that I'd forwarded your e-mails to others, including ArbCom.

Did that include Mantanmoreland? I honestly can't remember. I have nothing in my gmail archive showing I did, and I usually don't delete gmails, so that suggests I didn't. But I can't rule it out, though I can say with certainty that I had no idea at that point that MM might be GW, except for your claim, and I really didn't care who he was. I was more concerned about your claims that he was sockpuppeting. I handed the whole issue over to FloNight pretty quickly and left it to her to decide what to do about the sockpuppetry. Then Fred Bauder stepped in and warned MM (I had forwarded Fred some of your e-mails, and I think you wrote to him too), and that was that, at least as far as the early socks were concerned.

[UseOnceAndDestroy]

As for your e-mails, you know you were playing silly buggers (call it spyware, call it tracking, call it spoofing; it doesn't change that you were up to no good).

Quite what's "no good" about it is unclear. It seems to have achieved something positive.

For clarity: your use of the term "spyware" makes you a liar. The term has overtones which do not reflect the reality of the story you're misrepresenting.

And as others have noted, it makes you an anonymous liar, lying about an identifiable and above-board person. Are you going to fix that?

I just find it frustrating that there are so many inaccuracies floating around

Then stop floating them.

[Jon Awbrey]

A pseudonym has no rights at all.

Strictly speaking, HFO is a Pseu-Pseu-Pseudonym, and counting.

I suppose that Pseudo³nymph would do, for short.

Jon

[Somey]

That whole "tracking pixels = spyware" thing was one of the main reasons I, personally, took Wordbomb's side in the first place. (Well, that and Martin Luther (T-H-L-K-D)...!)

To be honest, when he first joined WR, Wordbomb wasn't quite as "well-behaved" as he is now, and there was a period of about a month there when we actually considered banning him. Remember, he tried to do that stuff here too, which caused us all sorts of trouble - because even then, there were enough Wikipedia-types here who bought into the "OMG it's spyware" nonsense that we had to do something, which meant we had to disable embedded images for everybody here until I was able to get the image-host whitelist feature working, which was about a year later because I'm such a lazy sod. (Not to mention the fact that I had to clean out all the "naughty" posts... though that only took a few minutes.) Of course, Wordbomb couldn't necessarily trust us WR admins either, given that we were all acting anonymously too.

Anyhoo, the overreaction to the tracking pixels tended to indicate to me and most of the other admins/mods that "they" were trying to demonize him beyond what should have been considered reasonable.

I think the Big Difference, all along, was that I (and to some extent, "we") felt that you couldn't blame him for trying, given that people's livelihoods were involved - and by that I mean the employees of Overstock.com and their families, who IMO were being set up as potential innocent victims in a rather dirty short-selling campaign. Sadly, that sort of thing never really occurs to Wall Street financier-types, or Wikipedia admins either, as it would seem.

Lastly, the crucial question for SlimVirgin in this case has always been, did she know Mantanmoreland was Weiss all along? But asking it remains rather pointless, IMO - even if she did know, she has to keep saying "no," or it contradicts all sorts of statements made earlier on. Not to mention the fact that the more conspiracy-minded folks here would jump all over it, to say the least. Nobody needs that kind of aggravation!

[Hell Freezes Over]

That whole "tracking pixels = spyware" thing was one of the main reasons I, personally, took Wordbomb's side in the first place. (Well, that and Martin Luther (T-H-L-K-D)...!)

To be honest, when he first joined WR, Wordbomb wasn't quite as "well-behaved" as he is now, and there was a period of about a month there when we actually considered banning him. Remember, he tried to do that stuff here too, which caused us all sorts of trouble - because even then, there were enough Wikipedia-types here who bought into the "OMG it's spyware" nonsense that we had to do something, which meant we had to disable embedded images for everybody here until I was able to get the image-host whitelist feature working, which was about a year later because I'm such a lazy sod. (Not to mention the fact that I had to clean out all the "naughty" posts... though that only took a few minutes.) Of course, Wordbomb couldn't necessarily trust us WR admins either, given that we were all acting anonymously too.

Anyhoo, the overreaction to the tracking pixels tended to indicate to me and most of the other admins/mods that "they" were trying to demonize him beyond what should have been considered reasonable.

I think the Big Difference, all along, was that I (and to some extent, "we") felt that you couldn't blame him for trying, given that people's livelihoods were involved - and by that I mean the employees of Overstock.com and their families, who IMO were being set up as potential innocent victims in a rather dirty short-selling campaign. Sadly, that sort of thing never really occurs to Wall Street financier-types, or Wikipedia admins either, as it would seem.

Lastly, the crucial question for SlimVirgin in this case has always been, did she know Mantanmoreland was Weiss all along? But asking it remains rather pointless, IMO - even if she did know, she has to keep saying "no," or it contradicts all sorts of statements made earlier on. Not to mention the fact that the more conspiracy-minded folks here would jump all over it, to say the least. Nobody needs that kind of aggravation!

I didn't know MM might be GW. I first saw evidence at the end of 2006 that MM was connected in some way to GW (evidence independent of Judd's). That's when I wrote to MM asking him to withdraw from editing any of the naked short selling BLPs (GW, Byrne, etc), which was copied to a few other admins and arbitrators.

As for the spyware/tracking distinction, I'm still not entirely clear what the difference is or why it matters. I know that others have claimed there were applications that were downloading, which I take it is what's meant by spyware proper. Whether that's true or not, the intent was to track people by fooling them into clicking on links they wouldn't have clicked on otherwise. When that's your first encounter with a person, it doesn't exactly create a good foundation for a relationship. It wasn't a question of demonizing. It was just "what on earth is going on here?" and a desire not to be involved.

[Somey]

As for the spyware/tracking distinction, I'm still not entirely clear what the difference is...

Still? That seems rather hard to believe after all this time, but the difference is that a tracking pixel is totally passive, and spyware is not. To be considered "spyware," there has to be actual program code running on the user/victim's machine (the code can run via a web browser, but it still has to be running locally - even if you encounter a web page that tries to get you to download spyware, the page/site itself isn't spyware, it's still just a "distribution scheme" at that point).

A tracking pixel doesn't actually do anything - you have to host it on a web server whose raw access logs you can read, and then you download the logs and search them for the image file name. Each access-log entry tells you what IP address accessed (i.e., viewed) the image, and at what time. I'm not saying it isn't sneaky, because it is, but other than determining the viewer's IP address, a tracking pixel is completely harmless.

Of course, if a person swaps out their tracking pixel with a goatse image, then that's a different story.

...or why it matters.

That should be even more obvious - distributing spyware is illegal in some countries, and distributing it without the knowledge or consent of the victim is illegal in most countries.

Tracking pixels are widely used for marketing purposes and are perfectly legal in all countries, pretty much without exception. (Governments probably couldn't enforce laws against tracking pixels even if they had them, but that too is another story.)

[Random832]

WordBomb: Wasn't it a dirty trick to put links in your e-mails that purport to go to Wikipedia user pages but actually go to pages in your own site or blog?

No, it was not a dirty trick, in my opinion. To understand why I did it, it might help to understand the prevailing circumstances: I knew with certainty that email sent to SlimVirgin was opened by Gary Weiss. I was fairly certain I knew what that meant -- SlimVirgin forwarded it to Weiss. But Occam's Razor, which I referenced earlier, would suggest that the simplest solution was that SlimVirgin was Gary Weiss. In fact, that seemed to explain a lot of things in those earliest days, particularly the way SlimVirgin appeared out of nowhere to ban me, and the way she said over and over that all the evidence I'd amassed and sent to her proving what's now completely obvious "didn't amount to much" (or something like that). The disguised link was my way of ruling out the possibility that SV was actually Gary Weiss. I didn't give a fig for Slim's IP address...as long as it wasn't 151.202.102.139.

Hold it.

On WikBack, you said that you didn't care about her IP address at all, did not suspect she was Weiss, and only included the link to see if she read the documents at all (vs discarding them unopened).

Not being able to get your story straight doesn't help your credibility.

[Somey]

On WikBack, you said that you didn't care about her IP address at all, did not suspect she was Weiss, and only included the link to see if she read the documents at all (vs discarding them unopened).

Unfortunately we can't refer to the actual Wikback post directly, but as I recall, he was trying to say that he didn't care about SV's IP address at the time he sent the e-mail.

Obviously he cared about it a great deal afterwards, i.e., after he had been banned from WP, etc.

[Jon Awbrey]

Governments probably couldn't enforce laws against tracking pixels even if they had them, but that too is another story.

The only way they could e-force laws against tracking pixels would be to plant tracking pixels on anyone who uses any computer anywhere — okay, they already do that, but you don't think they're going to fess up to doing that, do you?

Jon

[Hell Freezes Over]

On WikBack, you said that you didn't care about her IP address at all, did not suspect she was Weiss, and only included the link to see if she read the documents at all (vs discarding them unopened).

Unfortunately we can't refer to the actual Wikback post directly, but as I recall, he was trying to say that he didn't care about SV's IP address at the time he sent the e-mail.

Obviously he cared about it a great deal afterwards, i.e., after he had been banned from WP, etc.

He sent the e-mail after he'd been blocked.

[Random832]

As for the spyware/tracking distinction, I'm still not entirely clear what the difference is or why it matters. I know that others have claimed there were applications that were downloading, which I take it is what's meant by spyware proper.

I think I have a missing piece. When I was reading up on this during the arbcom case, I came across a blog post - I think Weiss's, but I honestly can't say for sure - which said that Bagley was using spyware that (by unspecified means) "opens the directory structure of your computer" or something like that.

I was also reading ASM and saw a post there describing what appeared to have been the same incident (not 100% clear, but in so far as it was also about directory structure) - he corroborated his belief about someone's identity by looking at a local pathname which had been included in a document that person had posted online (i.e. someone wrote a html file, it included something like an image reference to C:\Documents and Settings\<name>\Desktop\foo.jpg - amateurish HTML authoring mistake, really, we've all probably done it - and posted that online, and WB just viewed the source and that happened to confirm what he already suspected).

I didn't say anything at the time since nothing more seemed to have come of it, but this looks like it might have been something that fueled your suspicions.

Unfortunately we can't refer to the actual Wikback post directly

I may have a copy of that thread saved and/or webcited.

This post has been edited by Random832: Wed 4th March 2009, 8:01pm

[Hell Freezes Over]

To be considered "spyware," there has to be actual program code running on the user/victim's machine (the code can run via a web browser, but it still has to be running locally - even if you encounter a web page that tries to get you to download spyware, the page/site itself isn't spyware, it's still just a "distribution scheme" at that point).

He did send me several attachments that I was meant to open/download, but I never did. I kept asking him to stick to Wikipedia links. It was at that point that he sent me the link to a blog he had access to, disguised as a Wikipedia link.

If someone who knows about these things wants to check the attachments, let me know.

[WordBomb]

On WikBack, you said that you didn't care about her IP address at all, did not suspect she was Weiss, and only included the link to see if she read the documents at all (vs discarding them unopened).

Not being able to get your story straight doesn't help your credibility.

You're confusing two events: the pixel and the link.
The pixel (embedded in a document hosted on a file sharing site, which was linked to via email) was sent after it became apparent that SV wasn't reading what I was sending her. I wanted to know whether or not that was true. All I wanted to see was a ping verifying that it was opened. I got my ping, but from an IP address I happened to know, without a doubt, belonged to Gary Weiss.

At that point, before I could draw conclusions about what the results of the first test meant, I had to rule out the possibility that SlimVirgin was Gary Weiss. The challenge was figuring out how to do that given her apparent unwillingness to read attachments I sent her.

About that same time, she asked me to identify any other accounts I'd used. Of course, there were none, but this presented me with an opportunity. So I sent what appeared to be a link to a Wikipedia userpage, but was actually a link to a site with server logs I could access. By the way, that kind of link spoofing is not easy in Gmail.

At that point, all I wanted to know was whether the click came from Weiss's IP or another.

[GlassBeadGame]

That's the point, folks. Identity matters. If you want to be taken seriously, you're going to have to lay your cards on the table and come out of your wiki-closets. You're going to stalked a hell of a lot less if you just stop playing this game with mirrors and masks and just say who you are.

As far as I'm concerned, Judd has something to beef about. A pseudonym has no rights at all.

Stop over-reaching to make your point. Obviously if you are going to defame people, edit BLP's or hold positions of authority on a top ten website you should act under your real name. But of course for every bat shit crazy and reckless pseudonym on Wikipedia there is a corresponding bat shit crazy person using their real name. For every thoughtful critic using real names there is a thoughtful pseudonym critic.

The bat shit flies everywhere. In this environment why would anyone who has no authority and leaves BLP's alone want to reveal information, especially if they are critical of the bat shit and don't want put up with needless aggravation? Your over-reaching only chills dissent.

If you are going to harp on everyone to reveal information you are not entitled to you are going to undermine your better arguments.

[the fieryangel]

That's the point, folks. Identity matters. If you want to be taken seriously, you're going to have to lay your cards on the table and come out of your wiki-closets. You're going to stalked a hell of a lot less if you just stop playing this game with mirrors and masks and just say who you are.

As far as I'm concerned, Judd has something to beef about. A pseudonym has no rights at all.

Stop over-reaching to make your point. Obviously if you are going to defame people, edit BLP's or hold positions of authority on a top ten website you should act under your real name. But of course for every bat shit crazy and reckless pseudonym on Wikipedia there is a corresponding bat shit crazy person using their real name. For every thoughtful critic using real names there is a thoughtful pseudonym critic.

The bat shit flies everywhere. In this environment why would anyone who has no authority and leaves BLP's alone want to reveal information, especially if they are critical of the bat shit and don't want put up with needless aggravation? Your over-reaching only chills dissent.

If you are going to harp on everyone to reveal information you are not entitled to you are going to undermine your better arguments.

We have a named individual who is having to justify his actions to a pseudonym. Why is it over-reaching to say that this is not fair because the named person's real life is in the balance and the pseudonym's real life is not? And why should anyone listen to a pseudonym when a named person has given out pretty much everything that can be known about him except whether he carries to the right or to the left?

The whole reason that this entire discussion is taking place is because people are being paranoid because they're hiding behind pseudos. That's the whole problem right there. The named individual is, by nature of what that entails, immediately more believable. That's just how that game works, my friend.

Just to calm this recurring discussion down once again (how many times have we had this already? five times? ten times? I've lost count): whatever I know about anybody is going to remain a secret. I'm not going to out anyone, ever. All that I'm saying is that once you're "out", a lot of problems go away.

I will continue to say this because it's a fact. Like it or not.

[GlassBeadGame]

That's the point, folks. Identity matters. If you want to be taken seriously, you're going to have to lay your cards on the table and come out of your wiki-closets. You're going to stalked a hell of a lot less if you just stop playing this game with mirrors and masks and just say who you are.

As far as I'm concerned, Judd has something to beef about. A pseudonym has no rights at all.

Stop over-reaching to make your point. Obviously if you are going to defame people, edit BLP's or hold positions of authority on a top ten website you should act under your real name. But of course for every bat shit crazy and reckless pseudonym on Wikipedia there is a corresponding bat shit crazy person using their real name. For every thoughtful critic using real names there is a thoughtful pseudonym critic.

The bat shit flies everywhere. In this environment why would anyone who has no authority and leaves BLP's alone want to reveal information, especially if they are critical of the bat shit and don't want put up with needless aggravation? Your over-reaching only chills dissent.

If you are going to harp on everyone to reveal information you are not entitled to you are going to undermine your better arguments.

We have a named individual who is having to justify his actions to a pseudonym. Why is it over-reaching to say that this is not fair because the named person's real life is in the balance and the pseudonym's real life is not? And why should anyone listen to a pseudonym when a named person has given out pretty much everything that can be known about him except whether he carries to the right or to the left?

The whole reason that this entire discussion is taking place is because people are being paranoid because they're hiding behind pseudos. That's the whole problem right there. The named individual is, by nature of what that entails, immediately more believable. That's just how that game works, my friend.

Just to calm this recurring discussion down once again (how many times have we had this already? five times? ten times? I've lost count): whatever I know about anybody is going to remain a secret. I'm not going to out anyone, ever. All that I'm saying is that once you're "out", a lot of problems go away.

I will continue to say this because it's a fact. Like it or not.

Don't broaden this point further needed or you will find yourself isolated, again. We repeat this discussion over and over again because of your failure to understand a nuanced and reasoned position. Of course Judd has nothing to answer to SlimVirgin, an abusive admin of extraordinary authority and influence who has completely abused her use of a pseudonym. You are "known," like Proab, only because you failed to manage your own doxs. Then you both bitch and moan about it. Followed by complaining about people who have done a better job and do in no way abuse their own pseudonyms. This is hardly any great virtue. Knock the "like it or not" nonsense off. You make yourself look like an intrusive busybody.

[Hell Freezes Over]

On WikBack, you said that you didn't care about her IP address at all, did not suspect she was Weiss, and only included the link to see if she read the documents at all (vs discarding them unopened).

Not being able to get your story straight doesn't help your credibility.

You're confusing two events: the pixel and the link.
The pixel (embedded in a document hosted on a file sharing site, which was linked to via email) was sent after it became apparent that SV wasn't reading what I was sending her. I wanted to know whether or not that was true. All I wanted to see was a ping verifying that it was opened. I got my ping, but from an IP address I happened to know, without a doubt, belonged to Gary Weiss.

I'm not sure that makes much sense. I think I told you at the time that I wasn't reading your attachments, and that I didn't want to go to offwiki sites to see your evidence, so what made you think you'd get a ping from me by embedding something in a document on another website?

[Moulton]

There appears to be two competing schools of thought regarding the practice of exercising political power over others whilst hiding behind a mask of anonymity.

Those who are wearing a mask very likely live with some fear of exposure. Those who are not wearing a mask may have complementary fears about being stalked or having their professional lives otherwise disrupted.

I reckon that Alison and NYBrad could write memoirs on the subject.

My own observation is that those who enter the political arena without wearing a hood over their head are more effective in the long run.

[Proabivouac]

You are "known," like Proab, only because you failed to manage your own doxs. Then you both bitch and moan about it.

Ludicrous, GBG. My name became known because it was already known - I contributed under it for three years. I had never before had occasion to use a pseudonym, and hope to never have to again. When asked who I was, I told the truth, unlike certain cowardly liars who run this forum.

The main one bitching and moaning around here is you, Mr. Game, as your lies and misdeeds of your Wikipals are exposed. Last I heard, you were telling us that it’s perfectly acceptable for high-level Wikipedia administrators to use fake names, fake genders and fake credentials. Say, don’t you have an account over there? I hope you’re not impersonating a young woman like your colleagues - it would explain a lot, though, if you were.

Followed by complaining about people who have done a better job and do in no way abuse their own pseudonyms.

How would you know? Do you know who runs this site, for example? The last time a staff member here was identified, it didn’t look so good. Your watch, your fail. And you’re still failing away, because you’re too lazy to do any actual work, and lack the will and probably also the integrity to clean up your own house. What’s changed?

What Greg, Paul, Judd and Anthony are doing isn’t novel: it’s called setting an example. You’re setting one, too, come to think of it, and your rationalization about why it’s honorable for all of you, but not others, to hide behind pseuds is just a trivial component of that example.