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Message 1.Â
Posted by Leaping Badger (U3587940) on Friday, 16th October 2009
Keri, there is a site which monitors traffic on message boards, among other things, and as part of that it quotes posts made on this board. I thought Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú boards were supposed to be proof against the kind of data-gathering by Google and other companies, so this seems to be gathering data in a way that shouldn't be possible.
Here is the link:
It seems only to collate posts containing an emoticon of one sort or another.
Would be grateful if you'd let us know whether or not this is supposed to be possible under the DNA system. If this site is collating data, others could be as well.
'Ö' -
Message 2
Posted by Leaping Badger (U3587940) on Friday, 16th October 2009
Ah. Peet has contacted the h2g2 bods, so you might wish to talk to them: F2693943?thread=7001259&skip=0&show=50#p87121995
'Ö' -
Message 3
Posted by LJG1410 (U10452997) on Friday, 16th October 2009
I thought anything on the Net is "out there anyway".
Imagine trawling through all this stuff to find anything you really want to know about anyone. -
Message 4
Posted by chicken_hot_pot (U8480346) on Friday, 16th October 2009
Hi LJ,
I didn't give them my permission for them to put information about what I write here on their site. Which is why it matters.
c_h_p. -
Message 5
Posted by Mad.Curious.Cat (U12816826) on Friday, 16th October 2009
First time in ages that I visit ML, and I find out that some weird Big Brother site has been watching us. Not good.
I don't much care about posts in DTA, TB, N&Q, but there is lots of private stuff in TVH, and it is rather creepy to think that those have been put together, even if the posters have cleared their posting histories.
In the thread in TB, they seem to think that only "emoticoned" posts are being watched. Maybe it's time I should stop using them. -
Message 6
Posted by Septic (U3282615) on Friday, 16th October 2009
I didn't give them my permission for them to put information about what I write here on their site. Which is why it matters.Â
If you don't want people to see what you write, don't put it on publicly accessible forums.
Tin foil hats all round..... -
Message 7
Posted by Sea Nymph (U1474682) on Friday, 16th October 2009
Which anyone with an internet connection can see at any time.If it's something you'd feel 'funny' about yelling through a megaphone on the busiest corner you know, then don't put it up at all -
Message 8
Posted by Mad.Curious.Cat (U12816826) on Friday, 16th October 2009
Sea Nymph, I don't think I've written anything on this board which is REALLY private. I've spent much more time in TB and DTA threads.
(Once, in TB, I wrote something about a family member, regretted it, and catpeed myself, explaining to the mods why I was requesting them to remove the post. They did remove it, which was good of them.)
But even if some of us are cautious on message boards, other members of ML are not, and I've come to realise that this board can serve as a surrogate family / circle of friends / therapist for some people. Hard to tell those people not to share things if they feel that this is the only method of real communication that they have with the outside world.
But of course you are right: being in TVH seems to create a false sense of security, and we tend to forget that our "private" space is actually a room with those two-sided mirrors that they have in police stations. -
Message 9
Posted by Septic (U3282615) on Friday, 16th October 2009
If it's something you'd feel 'funny' about yelling through a megaphone on the busiest corner you know, then don't put it up at allÂ
And while we're on this subject....
Emails - when sending, treat them as a message written in pencil on a postcard. -
Message 10
Posted by LJG1410 (U10452997) on Friday, 16th October 2009
Yes, it's weird, isn't it? the way people post things on the Net that they wouldn't tell their spouse/mother/doctor/Old Uncle Tom Cobbley etc. and think that it's secret.
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Message 11
Posted by chicken_hot_pot (U8480346) on Friday, 16th October 2009
Hi Septic,
If you don't want people to see what you write, don't put it on publicly accessible forums.Â
I have no complaint about people reading what I've put on the Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú Boards and am aware that half the world and its dog could be reading it at any given time.
My complaint is that I didn't expect for the other half of the world and _its_ dog to be able to read it on another site.
Cheers,
c_h_p.
Sorry it's taken me rather a long time to reply, but I was working. -
Message 12
Posted by Septic (U3282615) on Friday, 16th October 2009
My complaint is that I didn't expect for the other half of the world and _its_ dog to be able to read it on another site.Â
What difference does it make?
It's only the same as having a passage from an article or letter in a newspaper being quoted in another publication. -
Message 13
Posted by Spartacus (U38364) on Friday, 16th October 2009
Fri, 16 Oct 2009 23:29 GMT, in reply to Septic in message 12
What difference does it make?Â
The difference is when the other site enables data mining, enhanced searches etc. - the "Internet Moods" site is using a toolkit called "Boardtracker" that allows you to scan message boards and then list posts by keywords. They just happened to use things like "
" as the keywords they were searching for. The toolkit they used also allows people to be tracked across multiple sites if they have the same user name on each of them.
-
Message 14
Posted by Septic (U3282615) on Friday, 16th October 2009
Peet, your point is???
As previously said If it's something you'd feel 'funny' about yelling through a megaphone on the busiest corner you know, then don't put it up at all -
Message 15
Posted by Spartacus (U38364) on Friday, 16th October 2009
Fri, 16 Oct 2009 23:42 GMT, in reply to Septic in message 14
My point is that you might be happy shouting one thing on one particular street corner, and a different thing on another street corner, but having someone film it so they could play them back-to-back (think Jon Stewart...) might make you uncomfortable. -
Message 16
Posted by Septic (U3282615) on Saturday, 17th October 2009
My point is that you might be happy shouting one thing on one particular street corner, and a different thing on another street corner, but having someone film it so they could play them back-to-back (think Jon Stewart...) might make you uncomfortable.Â
But when you're shouting from one street corner, someone in the crowd walks away and goes to meet his mates in the pub and tells them what he heard you shouting. Someone else joins in the conversation and says that he heard you shouting something completly different on the other corner.
Once you've shouted it, it's in the public domain and there's no way you can get it back. Same for posting on open forums. -
Message 17
Posted by Dusty Substances (U1474929) on Saturday, 17th October 2009
Well ... just to show how easily stuff happens - I just googled Dusty Substances, and the first thing that came up was my list of discussions. It comes up on the 'strictly come dancing' version which is slightly different, despite my only having posted on there once I think.
So yes. You put it out there, it stays out there, and everyone can see it.
Dx -
Message 18
Posted by Spartacus (U38364) on Saturday, 17th October 2009
Sat, 17 Oct 2009 13:50 GMT, in reply to Dusty Substances in message 17
Dusty, I just Googled your name, and there was only one result that was actually a message board posting. The others were mentions of you on "Personal spaces", which /are/ allowed to be indexed by Google. I think the one message board mention, from the iPlayer board, was probably a mistake on the Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú's part. -
Message 19
Posted by Dusty Substances (U1474929) on Saturday, 17th October 2009
This is the first item that comes up when I google 'dusty substances'
Dx -
Message 20
Posted by Dusty Substances (U1474929) on Saturday, 17th October 2009
PS - I've just squizzed through the first 10 pages of my google results and no references to the boards whatsoever. Mainly focusses on my high volatility as a substance that is dusty.
I'm rather intrigued to discover that I am mentioned so frequently on your result.
Dx -
Message 21
Posted by Dusty Substances (U1474929) on Saturday, 17th October 2009
And iPlayer board????? I didn't even know there was one - have I really posted on it?
The thick plottens.
Dx -
Message 22
Posted by Spartacus (U38364) on Saturday, 17th October 2009
Sat, 17 Oct 2009 14:03 GMT, in reply to Dusty Substances in message 19
This is the first item that comes up when I google 'dusty substances'Â
Yup, Dusters, but that's your "MP-page" on the "Strictly" board - all that data is on the Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú site. What we're complaining about is an Israeli site that's gathering the data and trawling through it for their own ends. -
Message 23
Posted by Dusty Substances (U1474929) on Saturday, 17th October 2009
Yes, I appreciate that.
The point that I was making is that you have to assume that once you've posted something on a board like this, it is 'out there' and will stay out there.
I'm now totally side-tracked by the fact that your google search finds more about me than mine does!!!! How does that happen then?
And I've just sorted out the iPlodder thing. I must have followed a link. Dx -
Message 24
Posted by Leaping Badger (U3587940) on Saturday, 17th October 2009
Dusters, the first result I get from googling your name is the same list of your discussions from the SCD board, that you link to in post 19. Might be worth telling the tech bods behind the DNA system that this has happened, because the Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú boards are are not supposed to be able to be catalogued/indexed in this way. Anyone know how to contact the main bods in charge of running the DNA boards?
(If you're concerned about it you could change your name to just 'Dusty' again, which should hopefully mean that any references to you will be lost among millions of other web pages once Google reindexes that page.
'Ö' -
Message 25
Posted by Spartacus (U38364) on Saturday, 17th October 2009
Sat, 17 Oct 2009 14:07 GMT, in reply to Dusty Substances in message 21
And iPlayer board????? I didn't even know there was one - have I really posted on it?Â
Yup. You were moaning that the Afternoon Play was unavailable or somesuch. Sorry, too lazy to Google again. -
Message 26
Posted by Spartacus (U38364) on Saturday, 17th October 2009
Sat, 17 Oct 2009 14:10 GMT, in reply to Dusty Substances in message 23
your google search finds more about me than mine does!!!! How does that happen then?Â
I clicked the "More results from this site" link below the last bbc.co.uk result. -
Message 27
Posted by Dusty Substances (U1474929) on Saturday, 17th October 2009
Not worried in the slightest Leapers, it was just a public service announcement to people really.
I am intrigued as to why Peet has more luck googling me than I do, but that is another matter.
Dx -
Message 28
Posted by Leaping Badger (U3587940) on Saturday, 17th October 2009
I just googled Numbnuts the Internet Hardman. Doesn't get a mention.
'Ö' -
Message 29
Posted by Dusty Substances (U1474929) on Saturday, 17th October 2009
Oh no! He's not been out for ages. I'll have to wait for another pitch invasion. Dx
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Message 30
Posted by petal jam (U1466691) on Saturday, 17th October 2009
Sat, 17 Oct 2009 14:45 GMT, in reply to L37) in message 24
Actually Badge we have known for some time that the Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú boards could be picked up by search engines - it was one of the complaints we had about security when the MBs moved to the DNA system and we discovered that googling brought up h2g2 threads. [For all I know, all Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú boards may have been searchable from the beginning, but since posts were not retained after a few weeks that was immaterial.] Anything reproduced from the boards [and archived] by a Host on the webpages is easily found if you know what you are looking for.
I read somewhere that the Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú plan to introduce their own version of this as an adjunct to Blog comments, twitter feeds etc. That is that (selected) relevant comments on Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú output from sites outside the Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú may be filtered and included amongst comments posted direct to the Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú. Unfortunately I can't remember exactly where I saw this, whether the use was intended to be site-wide, or whether it referred more precisely to an increased use of links to other social media in the same way as news stories are linked to other reports.
If it just means a permanent link to Nancy Banks-Smith's Month in Ambridge that's OK. However if it means that comments from Archers' Addicts, Facebook, Digispy and Any Old Blogger are given equal prominence to the Squire's Daily Discharge [Blunderbuss Enterprises inc.] I might not feel so sanguine about it.
Apols Keri for not posting this in the form of a Query. Think a Tentative Note (?) would cover it. Not C#, obviously. -
Message 31
Posted by _ShropshireLad_ (U10844552) on Saturday, 17th October 2009
Sat, 17 Oct 2009 20:21 GMT, in reply to Peet (the Pedantic Punctuation Policeman, Muse of Lateral Programming Ideas, Eggcup-and-Spoonwinner, Cheese Namer & Zaphodista) in message 15
one thing on one particular street corner, and a different thing on another street cornerÂ
Yes I think that is probably right, because of course you can change your name on the net. As I pointed out to you the other day elsewhere, Harry
I have tried to point out to some posters how easily identifiable they are, not because Google indexes sites like this, but because people leave ID traces in all sorts of places where Google does. If you cross reference posts here with Google searches, you can find people pretty easily. And hey I'm not GCHQ or the NSA, so imagine what theyt can do. -
Message 32
Posted by Septic (U3282615) on Saturday, 17th October 2009
And it doesn't matter if the messages on this board are deleted after a while.....
Once it's posted - it stays posted. -
Message 33
Posted by Spartacus (U38364) on Saturday, 17th October 2009
Sat, 17 Oct 2009 17:39 GMT, in reply to petal jam in message 30
it was one of the complaints we had about security when the MBs moved to the DNA system and we discovered that googling brought up h2g2 threads.Â
I wish. Googling only finds h2g2 /articles/ - there are a number of "gems" lost in the threads that I would love to find again, once the Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú gets round to fixing the broken (for around seven years) Search function. A small cluster of threads "escaped into the wild" after one update back around 2004/2005, when the Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú forgot to tell Google etc. /not/ to index them, but it was tiny (a couple of hundred at most) and they should all have expired from the Google index long ago. -
Message 34
Posted by Spartacus (U38364) on Saturday, 17th October 2009
Sat, 17 Oct 2009 17:49 GMT, in reply to Septic in message 32
And it doesn't matter if the messages on this board are deleted after a while.....
web.archive.org/web/...
Once it's posted - it stays posted.Â
To a small degree. If you follow the links within that link, it takes you to several "snapshots" of the Mayo, where you can see the order the threads were in on a particular date, who started them, how many replies there were and the first ten words or so of each. If you click on any of the threads, however, you're told they haven't been indexed and are sent back to the Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú to look at them instead.
And even if the threads /were/ cached in full, it's no different to them being on the Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú as the "Wayback Machine" has no search function. It's places that cache the data and allow you to "mine" it you need to be worried about. -
Message 35
Posted by _ShropshireLad_ (U10844552) on Saturday, 17th October 2009
Sun, 18 Oct 2009 01:06 GMT, in reply to Peet (the Pedantic Punctuation Policeman, Muse of Lateral Programming Ideas, Eggcup-and-Spoonwinner, Cheese Namer & Zaphodista) in message 33
Peet, surely Google wouldn't be able to index ML even if they wanted to, because you have to log in? -
Message 36
Posted by Spartacus (U38364) on Saturday, 17th October 2009
Sat, 17 Oct 2009 20:11 GMT, in reply to ShropshireLad (not) back in the USSR in message 35
Peet, surely Google wouldn't be able to index ML even if they wanted to, because you have to log in?Â
No, you only need to log in to /post/ - anybody can lurk. -
Message 37
Posted by _ShropshireLad_ (U10844552) on Saturday, 17th October 2009
Sun, 18 Oct 2009 01:11 GMT, in reply to Peet (the Pedantic Punctuation Policeman, Muse of Lateral Programming Ideas, Eggcup-and-Spoonwinner, Cheese Namer & Zaphodista) in message 36
Hm. Good point. -
Message 38
Posted by petal jam (U1466691) on Saturday, 17th October 2009
Sat, 17 Oct 2009 20:26 GMT, in reply to P125)
Not true. As a test I goggled on one of the screen names of a RL friend of yours, in inverted commas. Top of the list is the hootoo journal of another resident of N.E Scotland on which first name is a friend.
Not bored enough to try it with others at the mo. Thankfully my monicker brings up half a million recipes. -
Message 39
Posted by Spartacus (U38364) on Saturday, 17th October 2009
Sat, 17 Oct 2009 21:45 GMT, in reply to petal jam in message 38
Top of the list is the hootoo journal of another resident of N.E Scotland on which first name is a friend.Â
Is the result pointing at the Journal itself or the Personal Space on which it features? DNA treats Personal Spaces like dynamic articles, so they get indexed, but Journals as threads, which aren't.
Thus you /can/ read the first entry on each of five Journal threads as they are repeated on the Personal Space, but only the five that were most recent at the time of indexing and only the first post on the thread. It's not ideal, but that's how it is. -
Message 40
Posted by petal jam (U1466691) on Saturday, 17th October 2009
Sat, 17 Oct 2009 23:11 GMT, in reply to P125)
Peet I think that's quibbling. If google picks up your personal space then it automatically picks up your journal and your friends list. Just tried it with the *ie* search engine and the personal space is top of the list there. It's the reason why I didn't hootoo along with Martine, Katy and others when we first knew that the Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú was going to stop developing cgi-perl and rushed off to play with the facilities upstairs.
Sorry if this is about to turn into a discussion. Just wanted to iterate that googlable spaces and track-and-troll were things we complained about at the /*hub*/ four years ago to no avail. [See also loss of tree-threading, text emphasis, time order etc.] -
Message 41
Posted by Spartacus (U38364) on Sunday, 18th October 2009
Sun, 18 Oct 2009 08:23 GMT, in reply to petal jam in message 40
If google picks up your personal space then it automatically picks up your journal and your friends list.Â
It automatically picks up the first posting on the most recent five Journals at the time of spidering. It doesn't show the threads replying to the Journal.
As for the "Friends list", yup, it shows whose Journals you were following at the time of spidering. -
Message 42
Posted by My Mum is turning in her grave (U13137565) on Wednesday, 28th October 2009
Just bumping this in the hope it will catch Kerri's eye.
-
Message 43
Posted by careen (U1935190) on Sunday, 1st November 2009
so - the spider I presumed we were safe from is crawling around our boards?
Either - can it be got rid of, or, can we have a new and permanent reminder of the accesibility of everything we write -
Message 44
Posted by Leaping Badger (U3587940) on Sunday, 21st February 2010
Tayler, I've just noticed that a site called boardtracker seems to have been monitoring and recording posts on this board over the past couple of weeks. I've seen posts from 7 Feb 2010 onwards recorded on that site.
I don't want to post a link here because that would bring up a particular person's record, but if you put Archers and a poster's name (one that isn't a common phrase) into a search engine it will probably bring up some examples.
I'd be grateful if you'd check this out and pass the info on to central communities, as I believe posts to Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú boards are not supposed to be archived by outside sources.
Many thanks.
'Ö' -
Message 45
Posted by _ShropshireLad_ (U10844552) on Sunday, 21st February 2010
Sun, 21 Feb 2010 12:56 GMT, in reply to Leaping Badger in message 44
Hard to stop them, though, Leaps.
If you don't need any password to read it, it's gonna happen. -
Message 46
Posted by Leaping Badger (U3587940) on Sunday, 21st February 2010
There are supposedly clever things in the code of this board which prevent web crawlers from indexing its contents. If a site manages to index it, the people who code the DNA software might be able to tweak it to prevent this in future. (Apologies if this is garbled; I don't really understand it, but knowledgeable people eg Peet have explained it before.)
'Ö' -
Message 47
Posted by _ShropshireLad_ (U10844552) on Sunday, 21st February 2010
Sun, 21 Feb 2010 13:04 GMT, in reply to Leaping Badger in message 46
I'll ask Peet about this. As far as I'm concerned if I can read it, a crawler can.
Ta. -
Message 48
Posted by Leaping Badger (U3587940) on Sunday, 21st February 2010
See Peet's posts earlier on this thread, and especially the one I linked to in message 2, which might help explain it a bit. The gist of it as far as I can pick up is that other sites shouldn't be able to index DNA boards, and Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú can block them if it finds out that they are doing so.
'Ö' -
Message 49
Posted by Septic (U3282615) on Sunday, 21st February 2010
Tayler, I've just noticed that a site called boardtracker seems to have been monitoring and recording posts on this board over the past couple of weeks. I've seen posts from 7 Feb 2010 onwards recorded on that site.Â
Sorry - don't see what the problem is... -
Message 50
Posted by Spartacus (U38364) on Sunday, 21st February 2010
Sun, 21 Feb 2010 14:40 GMT, in reply to Leaping Badger in message 46
There are supposedly clever things in the code of this board which prevent web crawlers from indexing its contents.Â
They don't "prevent", they politely request that a well-behaved crawler doesn't index the content. The web is basically run on an honour system.
If a crawler ignores these requests, /then/ the Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú can use technical means to block it.
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