Anyone else interested in a poll? I really think the "ban" vote will heavily outweigh the "stay" vote.

Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it.

None of this matters unless we can find a new home for the BBS, by the way...

he's already got two strikes against him

Don't you get three strikes before you're locked up forever for spitting on the sidewalk?

Rob

unless your a priest, than it's multiple tykes and your out

unless your a priest, than it's multiple tykes and your out
Dude...that was wrong (but funny)...hope we don't have any catholic folk here that will be offended.

I wonder if it would be possible to make any account from that IP range read-only. That way, we never have to listen to his crap, and we don't have to feel guilty about banning him from the wealth of information around here.

If Catholics are going to be mad at anybody, it had better be the corrupt beurocracy, not the people that point it out.

Well, maybe he'll drop in here and have something to say in his defense, seeing as how he's just registered under a new username. Seems that address range block wasn't enough.

Could you block by MAC address? I realize this isn't ideal, but I am curious if this is even possible.

Stu

Could you block by MAC address?

I doubt it.

Or perhaps permanently set his BBS "title" to "novice", regardless of post count.

-ml

Not usually -- the MAC address is rarely (never?) propogated beyond the local network -- it's only needed for the IP -> Ethernet mapping.

Correct. A MAC address is never passed through a gateway.

Or perhaps permanently set his BBS "title" to "novice", regardless of post count.

Even his script wouldn't have increased his post count, it was under another user name.

I should say, the MAC of the gateway is passed on instead of the MAC of the NIC. Although I wonder if Tunneling would still pass the original MAC. Hmmmm... gonna have to go try that.

I didn't make the empegbot to try piss anyone off or spam the forums. I only made 5 posts with the empegbot. And now look there is a thread about it with 65 posts in one day. That's more than 10 times the posts I made with the empegbot.
I didn't make empegbot to try to 'exploit' the BBS or 'do evil' as tony puts it. I thought the random sentences it would make were funny and thought people would laugh at it and think it was funny rather than use it as an excuse to express their hatred. I didn't mean any harm with it and I didn't think 5 posts hurt anyone, but obviously it is unwanted, so I won't use it.
The program isn't a monster that will run loose, join up with Frankenstein and wreck havoc on the BBS and delete your files and plant spider eggs under the skin of your face. It was just a program I made that would make random funny sentences and then post them on the BBS. "chicks run around dolphins. whales press next to tahoes." See I just did that with empegbot. I thought it was pretty harmless, and maybe someone might even laugh at it, and the BBS would become a more humorous and enjoyable place. I wasn't trying to 'f*ck' with Tony Fabris or anyone else. And I believe anyone with a little common sense would be able to see that. I appreciate the support, peter, pgrzelac, thinfourth and anyone else.

I don't see making 5 posts intended to be humorous as crapping on someone's frontyard or pulling up their flowerbed. I see it as like telling someone a joke. I would think telling someone how much you hate them and calling them names like _yn0t has done would be more akin to crapping on someone's yard or pulling up their flowers. I truly feel sorry for you yn0t that you feel the need to hate someone, especially since I never did anything against you except disagree with you in politics. Anyways, I don't hate you, and eventhough you may be older in years than me, I think you really need to grow up.
If empegbot was really bothering anyone, I would have stopped voluntarily. Like I said, my goal was not to try to piss anyone off. And making 3,000 posts never crossed my mind, althooouuuuugh....I would have a cool title.....no, I'm not interested in destroying this BBS and its wealth of information.
I think many of the posters in this thread cannot see empegbot for it was, maybe you just misjudged my intentions, but I think the reaction is ridiculous, a waste of time, and just plain foolish. I am not interested in being around people concentrated on hating and name calling. The BBS is a great place to share information and there are a lot of good people on here.
I apologize for any evil atrocities committed by empegbot, and I hope you all will be able to recover from the horrid destruction this beast has caused.

I only made 5 posts with the empegbot.

And it was coded, according to its user profile, do do this once per day. That alone is a problem. A simple change of a single variable in the script, and it could have brought down the BBS with spam traffic.

This is not a joke, and it is not white-hat-hacking. You just don't do stuff like that.

Currently, it's up to you and PaulH to work out terms of an account restoration. I'll leave it up to him.

In addition to Tony's objections to the bot, you have to realize that it's just posting random sentences in threads with real discussions going on. Some people (like me) read everything in flat mode, and all of a sudden here's a completely random post about whales and tahoes, and maybe that leads off on a completely unrelated topic and totally interrupts the thread that people are trying to read for content. Sure, threads go off subject, but usually it's gradual and people get back on track. I could just post to a thread with random sentences and it would be the same thing, whether it's a bot or not.

Plus, it's kinda dumb.

"A simple change of a single variable in the script, and it could have brought down the BBS with spam traffic"

So you were afraid I might trip, land on the keyboard which would accidently open up the empegbot source and accidently change that varible to 3,000 and then accidently run it just by chance? I'll admit it could happen. If I wanted to spam the BBS then I could have done it and still can, and I'm sure anyone else on here that knows javascript could do it, too. In fact, some one could do it by hand if they wanted to. President Bush could nuke the whole world if he wanted to, but I don't think he will.

So you were afraid I might trip, land on the keyboard which would accidently open up the empegbot source and accidently change that varible to 3,000 and then accidently run it just by chance?

No, I'm afraid that you might decide to do it deliberately.

Script kiddies tend to do that sort of thing when they're bored.

No, he didn't. If he had been using it "against" the BBS, he would have set the post count to 3,000 from day one. He held the power to destroy this board in his hand, and declined to use it. That makes him a "white hat". Indeed, as the BBS software at no point behaved other than as designed, it arguably doesn't even count as an exploit.

I disagree with you. He did cause damage (i.e. annoyance) to the community, and as such, it is an exploit. You might call him a "grey hat" at best, because he didn't try to pull the BBS down (DOS attack).

But anyway, he got a warning when he used the BBS to host a page (even though that was more a proof of concept type thing). Now he did abuse the BBS again, even though he was warned previously. Therefore a ban is certainly OK.
We could remove the ban again after a few days or weeks, but certainly not too early.

cu,
sven

Mmm.. I read the entire (large) text posted, and I still didn't see the magic words.. well.. ?

I didn't make the empegbot to try piss anyone off or spam the forums. I only made 5 posts with the empegbot. And now look there is a thread about it with 65 posts in one day. That's more than 10 times the posts I made with the empegbot.

And with this kind of response, you don't feel like you did anything wrong? A lot of people that post here take it very seriously, maybe too much sometimes, but nonetheless, this reminds me of vandalism. Not very harmful, but very annoying.

Whoa. Almost makes me feel bad for pointing him out. Even though you would have figured out who it was anyway...

Almost makes me feel bad for pointing him out. Even though you would have figured out who it was anyway...

I didn't go on anyone else's information, I looked up the addresses myself. You had nothing to do with it.

No, I didn't do anything wrong.

No, I didn't do anything wrong.

Your incorrect perception that you haven't done anything wrong is precisely the root of the problem, and precisely why I don't believe you should be granted continued access to this BBS.

Actually, yes, you did. You see, the fact that empegbot didn't make very many posts and therefore was not harmful is irrelevant. What's relevant is that it could easily have been set to spam the board and bring it down - i.e. it was potentially harmful.

You have no remorse about doing it because you actually didn't do any damage. But that doesn't make it any less wrong. Now my opinion was that perhaps a warning would have been in order, but were I in Tony's position at the time, I would not have given a warning. I would have done exactly what he did. I formed that opinion without knowing anything of your history on this board.

Now having been informed of your history on this board, my opinion has changed to that of complete agreement with Tony's decision.

Don't we all wish we were teenagers again, so we could know everything and be right all the time?

What's relevant is that it could easily have been set to spam the board and bring it down - i.e. it was potentially harmful.

And actually, if you think about it, five randomly-generated posts per day, even though not damaging from a DoS point of view, is stil harmful.

If you are looking for an apology, read the last sentence of that post.

"No, I'm afraid that you might decide to do it deliberately.
Script kiddies tend to do that sort of thing when they're bored. "


OK, so based on your speculation that I might decide to deliberately attack the BBS out of boredom, you've concluded that I was "f*cking" with you", "doing evil", and it was cause to be banned.

Say you see a guy with a gun in a holster. Sure there exists the possibility that he might get bored and just decide to deliberately shoot you, but it isn't that likely and it won't make your position any better to go punch him in the face. Sure, you may knock him out with one punch, but you probably won't and now the chances of him shooting you are a lot more likely than if you would have just left him alone and minded your own business. I'm not saying I will spam the BBS, cause I won't. I just want to point out your lack of thinking the situation through. You are on a witch hunt, and to be honest with you, I think it is stupid. And you don't have to try to ban me. I don't want to be a part of this community any more.