Question:
Why did the IJDB shut down? It seems like it was a well loved site, so why did it stop?
Richard Loxley - - Parent #
One thing that was never (explicitly) stated in public, but was told to me off-line, was that they'd discovered various security flaws in the software, and it was a huge job to try to fix them.
Understandably they didn't want to shout about that in public on the internet. They wanted to migrate people off the platform and close it down before there was any major security breach.
Sad days, but the Edge is a pretty damn fine replacement for my usage.
Yes, it will probably happen to the Edge sometime in the future, but something else will no doubt emerge that suits the users of the day. Social evolution :-)
Little Paul - - Parent #
I think it has since been stated in public, but yes. That. The code that ran the IJDb was written for a much less hostile internet, and it had several security issues that were just too big to fix.
Unfortunately we didn't manage "before there was any major security breach" as we had evidence that someone had been using sql injection to systematically dump the entire database and had managed to decrypt a number of passwords.
They announced the hack publicly, although due to their timing I don't think many people believed it: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/rec.juggling/g8OHsBoFd4o/0umQP714PKgJ
I'm sure there was an announcement to IJDb users that they should change their passwords, not reuse password etc - but I can't find it in 30 seconds worth of googling.
So yeah. It had to go.
Little Paul - - Parent #
I was a sysadmin on the server at the time, and did enough forensics on it to verify the claims :(
That wasn't a hugely enjoyable task
My antivirus alerts a trojan on IJDb snapshot of "Video Database" of april 22 2012 and may 2 2012 for the "Pattern" (1158) (1162 [resp.]) -link. I sent them (wayback \ archive.org) eMail (with distinct links). nan
Little Paul - - Parent #
What?
Little Paul - - Parent #
I'm sorry, but I've read that post probably a dozen times and I still don't understand what you wrote.
I'm sure your intentions probably are on topic, but it's just word soup to me :(
Dude, he's saying there was a freaking a virus in the IJDB. And it's on topic bro! His anti-virus thing he installed on his computer alerts a trojan (worm?) in a part of the IJDB! A BREACH IN DA SYSTEM!!
What this means is that there was a broken part of IJDB! A security problem no doubt! And he knew about it! Which means there is actual proof of security problems and hacks and CRAP ON THE IJDB!!!! ;)
;)
yeyeh .. did you previously hide notes with all .. i mean a l l possible replies all over the ether to prove that?
'key .. maybe a bit `compact´ wording .. simply click the "Pattern"-link VIRUS-WARNING ! .. Don't click if unsure about ur puter's protection ! .. "Pattern"-link (alphabetically sorted under "browse by keywords .. ") on this "archive.org"-archived snapshot: .. oh, wait .. refetching the link, I just see, it seems to have been fixed so far. so nevermind. but there might be more.
Was that more clear now? lol
.. and it adds to the linked contents about hackers giving IJDb a hard time by these hackers not being content with having destroyed the platform, but stamping after it's at ground even still. The "Pattern" snapshot doesn't seem to anymore be available. (Maybe an earlier snapshot .. didn't check)
also it wasn't really a "direct reply" on what you, LP said, but rather "anywhere it fits in the thread" \ "contributing to the topic ``on that occasion´´" which might have confused you missing any obvious relation to what you posted .. and I described the link rather than posting it as it was a malign trap for those with like vulnerable mobiles or sth (sysadmins and programmers here would understand, I presumed)
Little Paul - - Parent #
Right, I understand now.
The problem is, your post was completely incomprehensible to me because it contained nothing in the way of sentence structure.
You were trying to be too brief and too clever.
I can usually follow your rambling style, but that post was just a step too far for me!
I can almost never understand him, or maybe it's just too much effort to even try.
lukeburrage - - Parent #
Same here. I invariably scroll right past 7b_wizard's posts. I scroll past some other users' posts be default too, most of the time, and only try to read it if someone else has already read it, decoded it, thought it was worth reading, and then replied.
whoah whoah whoah.....
The wiz knows all! You can't just scroll past the Wiz!!!!! The Wiz knows about every single topic known to man! RESPECT THE WIZ!
'key .. [replying to this side-thread about my way to speak and think in a ramified nonlinear complexity-allowing ;o]) way:] .. i admit, i speak and write somewhat brainstorm-like, partly nesting many aspects of every single thought and word into one single sentence (using brackets - and interjections - a lot) all the while continuing on a same sentence without full stop.
Guess you all had the impression of what Mark Twain squibbed about in his piece of writing where he has it about long german nested sentences ..
So, I will try to make just one sentence for every single thought. From now on. .. ( also the underlip of my smilies always interferes with the closing brackets :o) .. )
lukeburrage - - Parent #
Yeah no. Not even going to bother trying to read these direct replies to my comment. I'd place money on it not being worth the brain energy.
ooooooo!!!!! How rude.........
Have you ever thought of going by "Rude Burrage"?
"Thinks-he's-higher-up-then-everybody-else Burrage"?
"Thinks-he's-more-important-then-everybody-else Burrage"?
"Thinks-he's-the-biggest-name-in-juggling Burrage"?
"Thinks-everybody-loves-his-youtube-videos-because-he's-lukeburrage Burrage"?
"Thinks-his-name-is-worth-something Burrage"?
"Thinks-his-little-"I've juggled in..."-song is smart Burrage"?
"Thinks-only-HIS-comments-are-worth-reading Burrage"?
But I much prefer RUDE Burrage...
"You've-just-lost-a-youtube-subscriber Burrage"?
OH GUESS WHO HAS ONLY 3,209 SUBSCRIBERS NOW!!!! YOU CHEESE EATING SURRENDER MONKEY!!!!!!
you naff muppet...
[Edit: merged flood posting spree]
Little Paul - - Parent #
no wonder you're top of that list
Little Paul - - Parent #
oh the irony.
go on... be the first to make it double figures ;)
lukeburrage - - Parent #
Sweet. Just found the block feature. Very handy.
Ethan, what exactly makes you think that acting like this is acceptable? Who exactly do you think you are impressing? Thanks to this little performance of yours I'm suspending your account for a number of days equal to the number of people who have blocked your account.
I think he thinks he's being funny.
IMO he has the potential to be, if he calms down and grows up a bit. I have been very tempted to block him, but haven't quite yet.
So, Orin.... "Freedom Of Speech, Just Watch What You Say"?
Daniel Simu - - Parent #
Hmm, freedom of speech seems to me more like a freedom to express anything you wish to express, not so much a freedom to express it in any matter. If the chosen method is repeated crying on the internet I do not mind 'censorship'.
Took me a second to phrase my opinion, thanks for the challenge, Void :)
Good luck Ethan, at least you'll gain the insightful knowledge of how many people blocked you!
(kinda makes me curious & therefore envious... Orin, can you block me too, one day per person who blocked me?)
Daniel Simu - - Parent #
yes, I do. I am currently on a long international busride and can't think or write straight :p
if people are having an interesting and thoughtful discussion and somebody decides to post "I LIKE BISCUITS" fifty times all over it, and then somebody else deletes the biscuit posts....
Who's the one impeding freedom of speech exactly?
Also, biscuits are pretty tasty.
Well, the post-deleter. Except that didn't happen.
Most of them are, yes, but Rich Tea are damn bland. I used to encounter some jolly fine ginger and dark chocolate ones in Tesco, but I never find those these days. Come to think of it, they were always in te Sowerby Bridge branch. Maybe that's an excuse to go to Leeds convention. Pretty poor and inconvenient one though.
no that didn't happen. the point is, in the general case, I strongly feel that it's a _defense_ of freedom of speech to fend off people whose activity is standing in the way of whatever thoughtful discussion is going on.
It seems like a popular internet tactic (in general) to crap obliviously on other people's discussions and then invoke FREEDOM OF SPEECH if anyone politely suggests that discussion-crapping is a bad idea or (lord forbid) actually asks someone to turn it down, or asks someone to stop or makes them stop. What about the freedom of speech of the 99% of people trying to engage in good faith? What's more important, the speech of 99 thoughtful people or 1 discussion-crapping person?
again, this is a general point relating to the freedom of speech issue, I'm not specifically addressing the current todo.
At work occasionally we get these peanut biscuits that have peanuts stuck to the top; they are my current favourite kind of biscuit.
Did anyone ask Ethan to stop, or to at least tone it down? I must have missed that, if so.
Yes, I'm playing devil's advocate.
I like biscuits, and I like peanuts, but I'm not mad on the combination. Although I will defend to my.... point of boredom.... your right to indulge thusly.
I've no idea whether anyone did or didn't and I'm mystified as to the relevance of that to my post.
ALL THE MORE PEANUT BISCUITS FOR ME.
Little Paul - - Parent #
2oz butter
2oz peanut butter
2oz Demerara sugar
1oz caster sugar
4oz flour
Pinch of salt (or just use salted butter)
Cream everything apart from the flour together until loose and smooth, mix in the flour.
Roll into walnut size balls and place on a baking sheet, use a fork to slightly flatten the balls and make an attractive crisscross pattern in the top.
Back for 10-12mins at 150c fan, or until golden brown. Cool on the tray for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack.
Try really hard not to eat them all in one sitting.
Fail miserably.
(Quantities from memory, adjust amount of flour until you have a stiff dough)
I'm now up to the "eat in one sitting" step of this recipe.
Your flour measurement is about right (I had to add a little bit of water to bring it together) but your time/temp is off, it's probably more like 180c for 15 mins.
A+ would scoff in one sitting again.
Little Paul - - Parent #
I suspect my oven runs hotter than the dial says it does, so I'm not surprised the temp is off.
They do catch quite quickly though, and are unpleasantly bitter when you burn them :(
°Ouch° .. that hurts .. I'll count the days until Ethan will be back (unless he'll poker on that too and comes back later only to have that record too).
@ Ethan: Cheers & have a nice time!
mike.armstrong - - Parent #
Plonk
If I had the programming skills and be one of the creators or maintainers of former IJDb, I'd hunt for those guys infecting even an archived version of it. At least I'd care to no one get infected while browsing through it. That's all there was to me posting that infection I stumbled on.
Any comprehension problems are nonza my concern unless someone ask me what i meant by this or that.
Thanks for making the effort to write in sentences. Glad to know you're capable of it. I might read more of your posts if you keep it up...
It's the interjections in brackets that I find difficult. We're on a juggling forum so if I see brackets I expect a synch or multiplex siteswap.
pumpkineater23 - - Parent #
Ahh what a relief.. so it's not just me! I thought everyone else understood 7b_wizard's posts just fine and I'm just too much of a big thicky to understand.
I always think 7b_wizard's posts (although I never understand them) seem to be formed from good vibes though..
yeh, I know .. also italics (for emphasis or fixed expressions), apostrophees (for irony or queer wording), brackets (for side-thoughts or detailing \distinguishing), slashes (for disambiguation), quote-marks (to distinguish a common word as e.g. distinct name or fixed expression) .. all of which confuses content. .. No one complained though, .. but I'll word more reader-friendly, then, as also there's many non-native english speakers around.
Little Paul - - Parent #
Now that you've posted the decryption key it makes things a little easier, but thank you for aiming for "reader-friendly" too :)
Your more recent posts have been much easier to follow as a result.
Daniel Simu - - Parent #
I agree!
It's not `my´ self-made-up decryption-key .. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punctuation :-o
Daniel Simu - - Parent #
7bwiz, by chance I just read this article today, and it is slightly relevant :)
https://lesswrong.com/lw/jc/rationality_and_the_english_language/
°Ouffh° .. "Orwell; rationalism; muddy thinking in which evil cloaks itself [I preferred LP calling it ``rambling style´´] ; passive voice; experiences which words create; .. " .. that's heavy stuff, highly theoretical. Who says, I want to be a rationalist or write in a "Politics-and-the-English-Language"-style? Fzthe inglisch mouwst difikult juse wel, bahtt ihsi spihk bahdli, ju nouhw. ;o]p
Daniel Simu - - Parent #
I'd say that if you were to consider your writing, you would improve the impact of your posts :)
I think this was the relevant paragraph:
"A writer knows that readers will not stop for a minute to think. A fictional experience is a continuous stream of first impressions. A writer-rationalist pays attention to the experience words create. "
Yes. And no.
I never wanted to be a "writer-rationalist".
I'm not the only one here who doesn't write perfect unmisconceivable english and most of my posts were clear.
Juggling lingo also isn't ripe for clear writing. And it's frequently misused ("qualify a `trick´ after the trick by doing a cascade-qualify"?? .. leads to people thinking, you could qualify one run of a siteswap by doing two rounds of cascade after it) .
I'll account for better readability where possible, but I'm not taking unobjected that "all 7b-wizard's posts are unreadable"-`witchhunt´-rubbish. [<-- exaggeration-apostrophees] That was true only for some (\few) posts of mine.
Mike Moore - - Parent #
I think that'd make your posts much easier to read. If you're taking requests, I also have trouble with the storm of formatting and unconventional use of punctuation.
I usually try to read your posts, but often give up. If those three things were fixed, it would be much easier for me.
Stephen Meschke - - Parent #
We have had intermittent correspondence over the last few years. By the appropriateness of you responses, I gather that you understood my messages.
From an internet forum moderator's perspective, what are some good and bad strategies employed by juggling forum users?
Mike Moore - - Parent #
That sounds right...my post was in response to 7b_wizard. Your post reads fine to me.
Mike Moore - - Parent #
(and I am interested in what Orin has to say)
Disregarding content & only considering style I think a good, easy to understand post needs in order of importance:
If you can manage that you won't go far wrong.
I like a good interrobang as much as the next man but I often find readability decreases as the amount of punctuation increases. Try to use the smallest character set possible.
Don't join two ideas with 'and', write two separate sentences.
You can't beat a good combination of varying sentence lengths.
There are exceptions to every rule!
I should add that if you do more than the above you run the risk of your posts being less readable.
I'd also like to share this piece which neatly sums up writing on the web for me. Although it does use a little too much bold for my liking!
lukeburrage - - Parent #
Number 3 is by far the most important. Punctuation is used to separate one thought from the next. If I can't tell where one thought ends and the next begins, good spelling and capitalization is pointless.
My problems with 7b_wizards posts was all to do with this. The use of non standard punctuation and infinitely nested sub-clauses meant even correctly spelled words had no clear meaning, as no words had clear contexts.
Tell me if he ever improves and I'll unblock him.
'kay .. got that too .. that makes it like 6:3 for "unreadable" versus "understandable".
7. I skip your posts because I usually can't understand what you're trying to say.
Mike Moore - - Parent #
That one actually took me two reads, but it wasn't your fault:
"[...] it like 6:3 for "unreadable" "
(in my head, thinking "not readable". Good to far)
"versus understandable"
(in my head, thinking "not derstandable". What's derstandable? Oh. Oops.)
Daniel Simu - - Parent #
Same here. Never read a 7b_wizard post from start to finish..
That happens to match, seen that I mainly write my posts for people who read them, rather than for those who don't.
sentence structure:
My antivirus alerts a trojan on [wayback-machine's] IJDb snapshot of [the site appearance of] "Video Database" of april 22 2012 and may 2 2012 for the "Pattern"[..]-link. I sent them (wayback \ archive.org) [an] eMail [of same content] (with distinct links). nan [no answer needed]
Guess "alert a trojan on a snapshot of a site for a link" :o]) was a bit weirdly interlaced (\interleaved? \convoluted?).
yay! .. so there is people who can understand and follow my strain of (actually very well-connected, but not always - in brackets then) thoughts. yipi!
.. it's missing emphasis and mimics and undertones when writing compared to speaking, which needs different wording or open-minded reading .. and that also is, why smilies - in posting - are so important for persons that tend to convey contents by mimics and emphasizing differently ..
Hey! .. thks 4 using the words "clever" and "style" .. :o]) ° ° °creatural simple-minded pride° ° °
Richard Loxley - - Parent #
Ah, yes. I'd forgotten about that :-(
IJDB webmaster here - yes, that's pretty much how it happened. The site was hacked on a few occasions. While the first hacks were a threat to the site and the infrastructure, the ones that followed were a threat to the users.
Much as I loved the site (I can't being to imagine how many hours I spent on the code!), the responsible thing to do was turn it off. Which we did!
While I was a little unsure as to whether that was the right thing to do at the time, I am now certain that it was.
Not sure what all this gibberish about a trojan is though, I certainly wasn't aware of that. The attacks I recall were one that used a poorly configured file upload page to upload malicious scripts, and the final one, a SQL injection attack plus rainbow tables which allowed the attacker to obtain passwords.
- Colin E.
lukeburrage - - Parent #
All this kind of this is why I can't imagine ever bothering with membership accounts on FightNightCombat.com. The stress of dealing with passwords and user data will never be worth it for me!
Daniel Simu - - Parent #
The internet would be such a great place for interaction and collaboration... if only this part was easier!
Very true, keep it simple :-)
However, things are a little easier these days, you can happily delegate authentication and identity management to another (hopefully more secure and trusted) party.
loganstafman - - Parent #
This is why you should just use something like OpenID/Google/Facebook usernames so they can take care of this stuff for you.
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