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/
So…
Backdoor = Hack.
Trick = A good thing to do.
Always check the Treehut…
2012-02-15-Denialgate_ Heartland Institute Exposed_ .html
On a scale of things though, does it really matter any more ?
Less and less of these frauds telling more and more lower quality lies more loudly. Do they think people can’t figure it out.
Nobody showing up for a rally because it’s raining, waaaaah. We’ll save the planet when the sun’s shining though …. maybe.
cynical_scientist,
“Maybe they just have a bit of a strange nazi fetish.”
Their preferred solutions would require a global socialist government to truly implement. What is strange about totalitarian global stateists having a NAZI fetish?
@M Courtney
“Why did John Cook allow himself to be portrayed in Nuremburg Rally style?”
Bingo.
Warmists playing as Nazis…the extent they try to control our lives it is not far off.
The skulk that exists over at SkS. Dumb like a fox springs to mind.
The Git periodically suffers from depression. For some odd reason it has just evaporated and he can’t seem to stop laughing.
Maybe you can send SkS a copy of Google for Dummies or the Internet for Dummies…
These guys truly are the “Gang that couldn’t shoot straight”!
At the end of the day, this is deeply embarrassing for Cook. There is no excuse for this, none at all. While I don’t believe Cook is in anyway a nazi, the difference now is that anyone is free to call him one. There is no defense on this issue. I also do not believe Mike Mann is a nazi, but the difference now is that anyone is free to propose that he could be, because it’s possible Cook is, since they are both seen in photos and seem like friends. Will Real Climate remove sKs from its blog roll? I mean, is it possible Real Climate are also nazi sympathizers? The possibilities are endless…
It’s a crazy world.
If that’s all it takes to be considered a pro hacker, is jumping in a pool of rainwater all it takes to be considered a climatologist?
Anthony, I agree with Andy W. Openly invite them, on WUWT, to come over and explain why they have these photo shopped images, and in what context were they meant to be used.
What was done to access those images was not a hack. I’ve been running websites in one form or another for the best of 20 years (there in the early days) and this ain’t no hack; not by a country mile. A rather badly set up web server by someone with little ‘practical’ security awareness – probably. A hack – nope! I just hope whoever set up the web server does not manage anything really important..
James Smyth says:
August 13, 2013 at 5:37 pm
“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.”
On the HTTP level you’re right; on the HTML level not (HTML is a higher level; it doesn’t care for the technicalities of GET and POST).
Just like a biologist classifying species doesn’t obsess about nuclear physics.
Jimbo says:
August 13, 2013 at 3:58 pm
“In 2011 Rob Honeycutt made some confident statements on NoTricksZone about climate forcing and continued warmth. Dana was there too with gusto.”
That was when the Sks boys tried to gang up on skeptic blogs in the style of the Spanish Inquisition. It is documented in their first secret forum leak where they dream of becoming the biggest guerilla army of the world. Unfortunately, they had no scientific argument to bring to the table.
“When did theft become legal?”
They should speak with Peter Gleick. He could help them this this one.
All goes to show just how necessary it is to put the ‘k’ in ‘SkS’, eh? 😉
The key question is why did Cook and his leadership group at his Skeptical[-less] Science site portray themselves as German fascists in their weird images?
It is a different question than asking what was their purpose in making the weird images.
Is the reason why they chose to portray themselves as German fascists that they thought it was the most funny of all possible themes? If it is the reason then the ‘consensus’ climate science community has a situation. Namely, how to disenfranchise Cook and his leadership group at his Skeptical[-less] Science site?
John
“Yes, accessing involved effort and some determination to filter thru 1000′s of images 2 locate 1s that cld be taken out context.”
I bet Nixon would have loved to be able to use this “taken out of context” Defenses. It’s so versatile.
“Do as I say, not as I do = meaning “don’t imitate my behavior but obey my instructions.” I guess his mother never said this and he would go “But mooooom…..”
Have Fox News done anything on this ?
Obama’s 97% guy is a Nazi – on his own website ? I can’t believe they’re missing this one, if not.
A folder that allows for user uploads is almost always going to be publicly accessible, otherwise, how would users be able to upload their files to it? The mistake the forum made was that they didn’t turn off listing the contents of the directory. If they had, accessing that directory would give a big FORBIDDEN message. It’s “Running a Web Server 101”.
“Yeah, if you could not hack into our publicly accessible directory you found from a public link that lists all of the publicly accessible files that would be great.”
SKS has been hacked before. One hacker sent me the reasons for my comments being suppressed by various “Moderators”. The SKS moderators don’t tolerate anything that does not conform to the SKS creed. They behave like religious bigots rather than scientists:
http://www.gallopingcamel.info/Docs/DeletedCamel.doc