How can arbcom be so totally in outer space regarding the leaker. Their answer are pathetic

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_tal...ity_Speculation


Are they really as dumb and inadequate as they come across? Even the super techie ones? And these are the people deciding the fate of wikipedia and its editors?

Giano, my hero! Dear clear sighted one!

In this case Giano is pursuing what is probably the least likely explanation, and is ignoring several more plausible explanations. Security for the mailing list was just bad, and anyone who (a) understood computer security and (b) knew how the Mailman software worked would have known this. The problem is that the people who did know this (a couple of Arbs, possibly, and most of the developers) didn't bother to fix it until after the big breach. Which is pretty much human nature, unfortunately.

And it is entirely plausible that the devs were warned, and they just decided that bots and widgets and new tools for fixing capitalization errors were more important.

I don't buy it. There's at least one arb that acts very techie on other sites, is a checkuser and such, and they NEVER worried about email security of "personal, sensitive" info that arbs, those supposedly trustworthy beings, happily gossip about among themselves? Giano is on the right track. Tabloid material.

That was the most delightful reading of the past week. Thanks, Chrisoff!

They, like many IT professionals, fall into the trap of thinking 'security through obscurity' is...well, actually secure. It's not. The old setup was weak and horribly insecure, but they must have figured if no one could see how flimsy the setup was they wouldn't know where to poke holes in it.

Giano just has to see ArbCom as villians actively plotting against him. It's the only way he can explain all the poop which has been dumped on his head over the years without admitting some of it, any of it, might just possibly have been brought on by his own self. Maybe I'm naive, but I've always lived closer to the adage: "Never attribute to malice what can be explained by stupidity."

Frankly, certain members of ArbCom do plot against him, as can be seen in e.g. the leaked emails about the Arbcom wiki "hack," and his posting of the !! sockpuppetry evidence.

Put it this way - if they had brains, would they be wasting their time hiding behind pseudonyms on a make-believe Sanhedrin?

I don't think Giano is off-base in thinking it's an inside job versus hacking. It just doesn't matter. And they'd never tell even if they knew: the leaker would say they were hacked (in all honesty or just whipping out the victim card) and we know how that goes. Tune in next leak to find out.

The easiest way to do this would be to send a phishing email to each and every arb. Anyone with unpatched/not using email anti-virus gets their machine rooted. Search their drives for what you want. download the entire archive from the rooted machine.

Provide requested searches while letting arbcom thrash about wondering who the traitor is.

I have no idea how you'd do any of that. Maybe it's really simple. But it seems simpler to imagine someone with any of the numerous possible motivations (revenge/boredom/reform/Malice offered them a delicious sandwich) and sending it out. Something along the lines of what's happened three known times before and God knows how many other times. Again, it doesn't really matter since they can't stop either from happening again, just fun to speculate.

"The attached [Word document|PDF File|Link|whatever] contains incontrovertible proof that your fellow Arbitrator [X] has violated Wikipedia's trust." That'd get every one of 'em. Fuckin' post-apocalyptic warlord idiots.

Well, I've seen this now so I for one won't be opening it

Damn! Casliber will need a personalized message now. What if it were Compressed Unicorn PDF and promised a real live unicorn if you opened it?

I think if it were a current or farmer arb with a bad case of "FUCK YOU", they'd have a bunch of things they'd want to get out there. Things that bothered them personally.

This situation with the greatest hits parade is more like someone who has a secret and is enjoying trickling it out.

Now, Malice, where are my Merkey emails?

I'm of the believe that they are all the leaker, and that this whole thing was started because they all wanted to make the knowledge public while still having plausible deniability.



After all, have any of the leaks really had anything incriminating? There is no "lets find out a way to screw this person" type of conspiracy as found in the Easter European emails. Most of them are debates between different people and show very little "collusion" or anything that wasn't taking place in public.

Of course, a few people are seen as two-faced, or shown to hide how they really feel. But that isn't anything new or ground breaking.

A Orient Express-style conspiracy? I love it

Wow, that should have read "I'm of the believers that".

Anyway, yes. I was thinking more of the third ending of Clue because that is far more sillier with all the running around and such. A Horse with No Name would probably enjoy both references as pertinent, unless he is still morning the death of the real Horse with No Name.

With communism hacking just a red herring, I assume.

Hummmmm


Does show that Cas Liber acts as the psychiatric consultant for the group! Let's ask Cas and see what the "mechanism" is, whether the guy is really suicidal!

"The thing that strikes me about RH&E is the knee-jerk "I'm too ill/I'm suicidal" response whenever challenged. What's all that about, Cas? What's the mechanism? Just deflection?"

Cas: "Oh, the common theme in all his correspondence is /his/ hard work, /his/ health i.e. "I'm having a hard time and you don't care". There is not /any/ consideration of the other side at all, which is interesting. it illustrates a fairly profound lack of empathy of knowing or caring about his obligations (role of admin), or problem it puts us in (threat of suicide and letting him edit). Admittedly this gets worse when a person is stressed (even reasonable folks can lose empathy"


Cas give us a quickie mental check on the arbs. Could there possibly be a profound lack of empathy in all this casual gossip and speculation by the arbs in these leaked emails?


Draft Giano for arbcom!

I found Casliber's comment totally unconvincing in terms of being from a qualified psychiatrist. The more I read it the less convincing it is, in fact.

Asking Casliber this kind of question is ridiculous. They should have brought in (or even actually employ for these occasions) qualified people - including the police on occasions it could be argued - but instead they are querying their anonymous selves, and constantly bargaining with misfits to attempt to maintain the appearance of credibility.

What we are seeing is that arbcom are consistently what most normal people would call 'unprofessional'. I'm wondering if it's actually professionalism which these level of Wikipedians have a kind of fear or hatred of. There could even be a general contempt for it across Wikipedia.

I personally think people on WR are making a mistake in searching for Murdochian scandals in these leaks - they are not fully private emails, which of course must occur frequently enough - and are even alluded to on occasion. These kind of incidences could be as bad as it gets. Surely they are bad enough, despite what people here already know about arbcom - that they are simply the kind of venal, ambitious and self-interested people who climb upwards (to whatever degree) in the hazy world of Wikimedia Enterprises.

Are you sure about that? Really, Ottava? Really?

Kind of sad what an expensive literary education gets you these days...

I agree, but then, of course, I would, wouldn't I? CasLiber cites no psychological or psychiatric qualifications or expertise publicly, and is ostensibly interested in (to most) obscure flora, fauna, and fungi of Australia, given his most recent contributions.

I don't imagine for one second that he is qualified to judge a complex individual, such as myself, or indeed anyone, and he has failed to not only to take both sides of the debate, but also to reply to emails from myself. However, that's not unusual from my attempts to seek clarification from ArbCom, either collectively or individually, which to me shows that they are intransigent and in many ways, missing the point. They've hung me out to dry, and will defend that decision at all costs.

I have some sort of dialogue with Wales, who at least is treating me with some minimal courtesy, if not exactly accepting that ArbCom, and he, got it badly wrong. However, I look at WP these days and see nonsense on my watchlist, particularly BLP violations, not being managed professionally and in a timely manner. It only takes ONE person to sue in relation to ONE diff incompetently handled, for the whole "due diligence" thinking behind WP:BLP to crumble into dust.

This ArbCom don't get that, and they should go, with extreme prejudice.

Ends.

No shit, Sherlock.

I do wonder why anyone would expect the arbitrators to be "professional," and I've seen the same comment made about administrators.

None of them are paid. They are largely selected for popularity, not for any kind of "professional" competence.

Supermajority election of administrators ensures that the community is badly represented by the administrative core, and the same is true of arbitrators.

It's like clockwork.

Careful, now.

They are selected for popularity from amongst the largest collection of immature, maladjusted shut-ins on the face of the planet. As I wrote elsewhere, the group of the most active wikipedians make a group of rabid Star Trek fans look vanilla plain by comparison.

Arbcom is unaccountable and is thus incorrigible. The stratification of rank and obsession regarding relative status makes wikipedia a classic example of the Stanford Prison Experiment writ large.

Maybe if you tried a pegasus or manticore.....

Don't you fucking dare even suggest my disbelief of Casliber's qualifications means that I disagree with what is clear as can be to everyone - that you are completely full of shit. You yourself have pretended to be a "psychologist" (wasn't it?) on Wikipedia when trying to build up credibility with your post-RodHull&Emu sock account, as has your partner in slime (and conversation if I remember), Malleus.

Every walking abyss who pretends to be a psychiatrist/psychologist on Wikipedia should be rounded up chained into one of Poetlister's dungeons. It's nothing less than you manipulative bastards deserve.

Obviously, that goes for you too Casliber.

Can you save us your maladjusted 'join the trolls' 24-Step Psychology in a Day horseshit. You really are cringe-making, and a total fraud.

Easiest - and illegal.

Illegal is only a problem is the targets actually take steps to preserve forensics and report it to some authorities that would actually give a shit about the targets and their potential losses.

Going after bank CEOs, kind of dangerous. Going after the kangaroo court of a volunteer encyclopedia, not so much.

And, after Risker/Anne told everyone to do stupid, security theater shit to their computers, I think it unlikely that there's much to find or any interest from a security specialist who wasn't paid time and materials in looking into this situation.

Add in the use gmail, access through anonymizers and the spread out geographical locations of the target demographic and I think you can safely say, "There ain't no fucking chance in hell in getting caught..."

Technically naughty, but so is guessing passwords.
For all intents and purposes, impossible to get caught.

Things like this just seem to happen to these poor blokes on a regular basis, eh?

********

From: (Steve Dunlop)
Date: Sat, 27 Dec 2008 14:59:20 -0600
Subject: [Arbcom-l] Arbcom wiki showing in google

New arbs are cautioned that the MW developers, despite their
considerable skills in other areas, are very poor at keeping
confidential information leak-free. This sort of thing has happened
before and is likely to happen again.

Steve/UC

From: (David Gerard)
Date: Sat, 27 Dec 2008 21:04:31 +0000
Subject: [Arbcom-l] Arbcom wiki showing in google

2008/12/27 Steve Dunlop

> New arbs are cautioned that the MW developers, despite their
> considerable skills in other areas, are very poor at keeping
> confidential information leak-free. This sort of thing has happened
> before and is likely to happen again.


Yes. Basically, MediaWiki isn't the place to put anything you don't
want to tell the world, as that's its entire function.

There are ways to protect the entire wiki more than the usual private
wiki accessible via the Internet, but they aren't implemented on our
wiki farm (and they're a major PITA for all involved) - things like
.htaccess files as well.


- d.

From: (Steve Dunlop)
Date: Sat, 27 Dec 2008 16:59:49 -0600
Subject: [Arbcom-l] Arbcom wiki showing in google

<<<Does using the secure server help, or is that only for the "sniffing
passwords" bit?

Carcharoth>>>

No. What usually happens is that the developers take site maintenance
actions that affect all the 100+ wikis hosted by WMF and either don't
think through the implications for sensitive wikis or screw up the
implementation.

We had one episode where they included a private wiki in the public backup tarball.

We had one episode where they made a private wiki visible on the tool server.

We had one MediaWiki patch that was buggy and caused information compromise, at
least potentially. I can't remember where it was, but it was some new feature
that worked great but forgot to check, on a private wiki, whether there was a
user logged in.

And now this.

Steve/UC

Could've fooled the FAC people and the arbs too! He touts himself as a psychiatrist and touts his RL experiences as one regularly. (Eg. I had a bad day, a patient committed suicide.) Note how they solicit his "opinion"? Here is the illustrious Elen of the Roads asking for a little confirmation from Cas of her high-level psychoanalysing:

(copied from leaked email)

"Actually, this is the most reasonable statement I've seen in a while. It confirms that he has been using Wikipedia as a support mechanism (which we thought), and I think the 'unintended consequences' are actually to him, as he hints, while continuing to bluster about consequences to us."

"If Casliber is about, I'd be interested in his take/advice on responding."

.

So Casliber is a real shrink. In that case, it's too bad they didn't run Proofreader77 by him.

So he may be a shrink; but it's professionally inexcusable to offer an opinion, let alone a diagnosis, without a full and proper consultation with a subject, let alone a client, and without reference to any history and case notes. He should not have made those comments in those circumstances, and if he were acting in a professional manner, at minimum, a disclaimer in the above terms should have been issued. But thanks for the heads up, and I will certainly examine the complaints procedures for any professional bodies of which he is a member. Once he gets over his cold, he's going to need some help of his own, either legal or of the type that wasn't offered to me by ArbCom, and given that he was ideally placed to offer it, at least privately, and failed to do so, again indicates his lack of professionalism. In short, he's a charlatan.

And you're about as in contact with reality as Charlie Sheen right now, "Rod." Why don't you give it a rest?

Who the fuck are you? If you don't like me, ignore me. Otherwise, crawl back under whatever stone you came from.

Milton's not the only one. You come across as a seriously deranged fruitbat.

I'd call it at about 1472 milli-Ottavas
Just sayin'

Trite insults don't help. Not much helps right now. Maybe I'm not as well as I should be right now, and maybe I'm not getting the help I should be. So, who the fuck are you? If you don't like me, ignore me. Is that so difficult for someone purporting to be superior in some way? I don't t'ink so.

Thanks for that. I'll contact them and see what they have to say about it, as his comments strike me as being highly unprofessional. Is he someone who should be dealing with (presumably) vulnerable people? I specifically mean his real life clients, but if he's dishing out advice to an outfit like arbcom..

Looking at the net he's been paid by a pharmo to lecture on bipolar disorder, which immediately looks like a dodgy scenario to me - given the drugs they pump into people who get spuriously diagnosed with the disorder by shrinks (I've seen this happen).

But Wikipedia? Maybe the old cliche about these people is true.

"We believe its possibilities for use as a tool for worldwide health promotion are underestimated. We invite the medical community to join in editing Wikipedia, with the goal of providing people with free access to reliable, understandable, and up-to-date health information.... "

Perhaps he made an unspeakable oath?

This is why people on the Crazypedia don't take WR seriously. They cover up and hide their crazy.

Phil, you're about as hard to ignore as a dog who got hit by a car out front, who dragged itself up onto our lawn, snarling at everybody and bleeding. I don't think you came for euthanasia, did you?

Perhaps you could start by stopping all those activating drugs you're taking that tend to make people nasty, from legal to illegal, and get some rest?

Nevertheless, some people manage to ignore me- those with presumably something better to do with their time. However, I don't think you and I know each other IRL, so please do assume we are not on first-name terms. And it's a gross insult to assume that I'm taking any drugs whatsoever; I am not.

It's not a gross insult, it's just by far the best guess. But if you're not, good.

They're not trite and they're not insults. You are mad as a hatter. I get the heebie geebies everytime I read one of your posts.

Stop posting please.

You think we can just email a pegasus to Sydney?! My God, if you thought the rabbits played merry hell with the ecosystems what do you think would happen with those things?! And the more PC term is "personticore", which I'll be happy to send post-haste.

P.S.: Could you mail me some Bundy? It would be for psychiatric purposes only.

Let's get this quite clear: *I* am as "mad as a hatter", yet *you* "get the heebie geebies everytime you read one of my posts"? It's like the old joke- Man goes to a doctor & says "It hurts when I do this"; doctor says "Well, don't do that". Same thing. Stop reading my posts, if they cause you so much pain. The remedy lies in your own hands.

Seconded, Encyclopedist.

Is Casliber another Essejay? Just act like you are a psychiatrist and everyone believes it? Isn't there a rule about acting like a professional (whatever), and then using this professional "persona" to make pronouncements? Has Cas shown his real life credentials to arbcom? Or do they ask him to make professional psych pronouncements based on an Essejay-like faith?

Is arbcom really as stupid and naive as these emails make them seem?

And aren't there codes of ethics for psychiatrists that they don't make psychiatric opinions on people they don't know and haven't even seen? Especially on a site like wikipedia where no one is who they seem they are?

Why would that have those? The APA's code of ethics is intended to protect psychiatrists and the APA; it is not intended to protect patients or the public generally.