Your moderately scary link of the day

[hirez]

http://ha.ckers.org/deathby1000cutts/

(Precis: how to do stalking properly. Contains techniques thankfully beyond the wit of amateurs.)

Oh. And:

Dear webloggers. Please stop reimplementing the mistakes of Usenet. It's rather tiresome(Precis: No, you don't have the right to act

Comments

[dr_atheist]

That is really quite unnerving :S

[nalsa]

I'm amazed that this story was going to be given time on Newsnight, and then she pulled out. Funny watching Jezza string out the newspaper stories ("I snorted my Dad" &c) for an extra couple of minutes.

[hirez]

Quite.

A mainstream-media-led Moral Panic is not what's required. Especially since the alleged socialists over at the Manchester Guardian have singularly failed to get to grips with the problem themselves. Whoever designed their 'Comment is free' functionality must have been near the net for no longer than a week.

[oryctolagus]

[1] This seems to parse out on LJ as 'I tell the truth and if you don't like that, etc.', which I believe is an anagram of 'I have no personal boundaries'....

Or indeed a combination of the two - 'I tell my personal truth and if you don't like it etc...'

'Personal truth', a miserable 21st century concept that takes no account of facts and re-invents the world to suit those with the loudest voices.

[steer]

The 1000 Cutts thing bothers me, not because it could be done -- I suspected pretty much that it could be done in that way to all but the most tinfoil hatted amongst us. What bothers me is the smug way it targets on a particular individual (who is, it seems, behaving reasonably and doing no harm) for no better reason than that he's high profile without ever asking if that should be done.

[hirez]

There is that. It's going to be vanishingly rare that anyone would have an objectively 'good' reason for such behaviour. Although of course once you're mired in that mindset, everything from grovelling through your subject's dustbins to acting as a C&P fairy can be rationalised as a subjective good thing. This explains, rather than excuses: http://ha.ckers.org/blog/20070403/hacking-matt-cutts-death-by-1000-cutts-case-study/

[steer]

Of course I am now slightly paranoid about looking at that site at all.

Seems like all that explanation says is "We don't like him and wanted to see if it could be done."

[hirez]

Er, yes. That would seem to be a correct interpretation.

[quercus]

Locke had a Twunt Number of 1 even before all this kicked off, but if Whiner is starting to defend him, then it's really time to light up the flaming pitchforks.

(I'm only jealous 'cos I still haven't made it onto Winer's publically-postable nemesis list. Must Work Harder.)

[hirez]

Well, quite.

I think all you'd have to do is go on at some length about XML being a product of the right-wing patriarchy that enforces cultural and gender stereotypes.

[quercus]

I feel slightly ashamed for having spent any of '99 being even slightly enthusiastic about Cluetrain

PS: http://www.hypebeast.com/2007/04/new-balance-joy-division/

[hirez]

Some of it sounded like there were good ideas in there somewhere.

On the other hand, free email? Where's the value proposition in that? Or sportswear for geeks? Cuh.

(Bastard. They should be black.)