Worst damage control ever?
Guest essay by Brandon Schollenberger
Despite my joking comments about having mad haxor skillz being a source of amusement for many people, it appears some people actually believe I hacked the Skeptical Science forum’s website. Rob Honeycutt, a key team member at Skeptical Science, has referred to my actions, saying things like:
“Back door” was used by me as a metaphor. Hack = “To break into comp sys with malicious intent.” An easy hack is still a hack.
when did theft become legal?
When Shub Niggurath expressed his disbelief at my actions being called hacking, Honeycutt explicitly said it was hacking:
Yes, accessing involved effort and some determination to filter thru 1000’s of images 2 locate 1s that cld be taken out context.
Clearly, Rob Honeycutt claims my “effort” to find this directory was hacking. The problem for Honeycutt is Google used the exact same process.
It crawled and saved a cached version of that directory.
That means, according to Rob Honeycutt, Google hacked Skeptical Science!
And according to Honeycutt, that makes Google dumb:
![dumb_zps70081796[2]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/dumb_zps700817962.png?quality=75)
Personally, I disagree. I think the only person who was “dumb enough to publicly expose private files” was John Cook for configuring his server to have “private files” displayed in a public directory. It seems to me Honeycutt is damning his own team with his comments. And he really nails them in the follow-up exchange:
![Priceless_zps4d11ebf1[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/priceless_zps4d11ebf11.png?quality=75)
If you look at this Skeptical Science post. That post currently links directly to six stolen documents. Those documents were illicitly obtained by Peter Gleick, and Skeptical Science happily promotes their dissemination. According to Rob Honeycutt, that is dumb and unethical.
Google hacked Skeptical Science. Skeptical Science was unethical in disseminating files Peter Gleick illicitly obtained. John Cook was “dumb enough to publicly expose private files.” That’s what Rob Honeycutt has basically said. And that’s pretty much all anyone at Skeptical Science is saying about their Nazi images.
Related articles
- LOL! ‘Mad Haxor Skillz’ Godwinize ‘Skeptical Science’ (wattsupwiththat.com)
- Skeptical Science takes ‘creepy’ to a whole new level (wattsupwiththat.com)
UPDATE: Lucia has an interesting discussion of the issue here: http://rankexploits.com/musings/2013/the-sks-nazi-images-thoughts-on-fair-use/
I think normally you assign a default web page to every directory in a public web server to prevent a directory from being seen as a list of files that could then be accessed individually, without using any links from pages in the website. That is, if you don’t want to present the list of files, or you know anything about how the web works.
No hacking here, I think, just surfing.
Anthony Watts,
A miracle has happened. Some images don’t show and some do. Enjoy!
Example images.
http://web.archive.org/web/20130806173535/http://www.sksforum.org/images/a11g0n3/herrscooterboy2.jpg
http://web.archive.org/web/20130806173547/http://www.sksforum.org/images/a11g0n3/herrtankboy.jpg
http://web.archive.org/web/20130806173526/http://www.sksforum.org/images/a11g0n3/herrscooterboy.jpg
Index of images
http://web.archive.org/web/20130806172838/http://www.sksforum.org/images/a11g0n3/
It must be because I was on vacation last week and missed it, because I have no clue what you guys are talking about. Somebody catch me up…
Or should that be Herr John Kook? LOL.
Wasn’t John Cook supposed to be a web genius with clients?
DirkH:
I never said it was a good analogy. I was trying to fathom Honeycutt’s thinking.
If it was obvious that something was intended to be private but had inadvertently been made public, I might support Honeycut’s objections. But how could one possibly know that about material on a web site?
In 2011 Rob Honeycutt made some confident statements on NoTricksZone about climate forcing and continued warmth. Dana was there too with gusto.
http://notrickszone.com/2011/01/06/know-your-opponent-climate-bet-warmist-believes-in-the-hockey-stick/
In 2013 he was nowhere to be seen. Will he lose the climate bet? It’s not looking good. Even the Met Office is shrinking away. Ha.
http://notrickszone.com/2013/06/08/honeycutt-nuccitelli-climate-bet-progress-report-so-far-new-decade-is-cooler-than-the-last-ready-to-concede/
Cook et al just failed to follow the Precautionary Principle.
I’m getting really tired of these sanctimonious, self righteous, do-gooding idiots like Honeycutt et Alia. Go save some other planet.
Are they stupid? It’s like they’ve been sunbathing nude on the front lawn and hoped the neighbours wouldn’t look, after breaking into the neighbours and stealing their safe!!
The URL path shows a directory with a name. One may attempt to browse the directory directly. Just because there is not an explicit link to it anywhere doesn’t mean it is wrong to browse the directory. If you don’t want people to browse the directory whose existence is published publicly, then protect it. You can’t prevent people driving on your street just because you remove the street sign, though that might reduce traffic a bit. The fact that the street is there and is accessible by the general public and is published in your house address does not mean people can’t take walk or a drive up that street and look at all of the other addresses. If you don’t want traffic, install a gate.
David, UK says:
August 13, 2013 at 1:11 pm
They’re peed off because their likely scam (to fabricate a supposed ad hom attack from sceptics by use of the pics) was foiled. I can’t think of any other reason for them making the pics in the first place.
—————————————
Maybe, since they behave like him, Joseph Goebbels is their hero, and they like to play at being his soldiers.
The word “chilling” is used too often in the media IMO, but I think it is appropriate for a reading of the Wikipedia entry for Goebbels. Here’s how it ends:
” Joachim Fest writes: “What he seemed to fear more than anything else was a death devoid of dramatic effects. To the end he was what he had always been: the propagandist for himself. Whatever he thought or did was always based on this one agonizing wish for self-exaltation, and this same object was served by the murder of his children … They were the last victims of an egomania extending beyond the grave. However, this deed, too, failed to make him the figure of tragic destiny he had hoped to become; it merely gave his end a touch of repulsive irony.” “
Brandon didn’t get in through a back door, he went in through the front door and the SkS troop held the door open for us.
Honeycutt said 1000’s of images? Perhaps he’s counting a some we don’t know about. Maybe they’re in a private directory. Hey Ron, please show us a couple we didn’t see.
Anthony Watts:
Yup. I told him there weren’t thousands of images, several times. He refused to address the issue. I have no idea where he got that number from, but it’s funny Google cache proves him wrong. It’s bad when you can’t get even the simplest things right.
By the way, isn’t it libel to falsely and baselessly accuse someone of criminal activities like he has? It’d obviously wouldn’t be worth the trouble of pursuing, but it would be interesting.
I don’t care about Robbie H getting his knickers in a twist.
What I want to see is the gang at SkS explaining exactly why these images were made. We should push them on this (perhaps a post at WUWT publicly inviting them to explain?).
I personally believe they were made as part of a false-flag operation to discredit sceptics. If we could find evidence of this (maybe discussed somewhere on SkS forum?) it would demonstrate exactly what kind of imbeciles Cartoonist Cookie, Nuttyjelly, Honeynut, et al really are.
Just because there is not an explicit link to it anywhere doesn’t mean it is wrong to browse the directory. If you don’t want people to browse the directory whose existence is published publicly, then protect it. Y
My point is that even when you use words like “browse the directory”, you are actually using HTTP GET to request that the server provide you with the contents of the directory. And then you similarly GET the files That’s why most of the analogies of walking into a house, an empty store are lame. It’s much more the case of the house/shop owner being present and giving you what you are asking for.
rabbit writes “I guess the theory is that you don’t have the right to enter a stranger’s house even if he leaves the front door unlocked.”
Because SkS is a public website, I think the analogy would be being invited into the house and encouraged to look around but not behind that door over there. That one is out of bounds even though there is no sign or indication it should not be opened
So, SkS, supports Peter Gleick’s confessed ID theft and data theft to the point of promoting it. And that is OK with SkS. And now SkS is mad as all get out because their own public files were used by a member of the public, and broadcast to the public.
Thanks for the laughs,
Honeycutt libeled you when he claimed you obtained these images illicitly.
Last I checked, using Google to search the internet is not illegal, and his images were no more private than images published on the web by anyone else.
You should have a lawyer send him a letter demanding a published apology.
You couldn’t write this as fiction. The lies they tell at Sks are legion. As are the muscles in the rippling abs of Anthony Watts, Lord Monckton, and James Delingpole. 😉
Not sure if the problem is on your end or mine, but twice when I tried to open the home WUWT home page on my iPad, the iPad went to the iPad app app. Was able to work around by quickly linking to a story. Wondering if someone is counter-a-hacking.
I could help here but I won’t.
Sean:
I’m pretty sure the cost of getting a lawyer to do anything would be far greater than any possible return. A couple posts from an unimportant person on Twitter are not worth the trouble. Maybe it’d be worth the trouble if this had been in a post on Skeptical Science.
Sean says:
August 13, 2013 at 6:01 pm
You should have a lawyer send him a letter demanding a published apology.
__________________
… and if he writes back saying “f – you” What next ?
Rob Honeycutt,
Perhaps you are suffering from the disadvantage of associating with uncritical media and sympathic minions at Cook’s Skeptical[-less] Science site.
The unsurpassed ability of your associates at Cook’s Skeptical[-less] Science site to make secrets assessable to the general public does not exempt you from Edgar Allen Poe’s dictum,
Climate science confessionals are available on a Mann approved credit payment plan.
John