Pleasant as it is to be acknowledged for our poll-smashing abilities, we really are a brutish, blunt instrument. The true masters of the poll hack are the denizens of 4chan (a name I mention with hesitation; it's like invoking Hassan-i Sabbah, and you really don't want to encourage these people to even look at you), who are able to shift even the biggest online polls at will. It shows how meaningless these polls really are when your position in them may be dictated by the happenstance of the first letter of your first name.
- Log in to post comments
More like this
The Days When Democracy In America Was Bogus
First, three stories. One comes from other sources, not verified, but everyone at the time (it is said) knew it to be true. Political operatives in the Boston area used to visit the train yards during the days and hours before a local mayoral election…
A couple weeks ago, Fox News released a new poll asking about evolution and creationism. It didn't strike me as especially noteworthy, though it does show a statistically significant rise in acceptance of evolution (21% think "the theory of evolution as outlined by Darwin and other scientist" is "…
Last Friday I made some remarks about polling and evolution and atheism that got some knickers in twists. To summarize: Kevin Padian was asked to comment on a stupid stunt by Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron, who are passing out copies of the Origin of Species along with a foreword that alleges Darwin…
There are two contradictory headlines today on Google News, both regarding someone I couldn't care less about. However, they nicely illustrate one of my key concerns about the internet: the pervasive illusion that the "wisdom of crowds" is in fact wisdom, or in fact fact.
Both stories involve the…
I helped get moot to #1, but I was unaware of the MARBLECAKE, ALSO, THE GAME hack. Pretty clever.
They've hacked much more important polls than Time.com:
http://www.cwtv.com/thecw/americas-next-top-model-cycle12-poll
Guess who their favorite is...
There's something so satisfying about crashing polls from your site. Every day I check in, I hope for another stupid poll to help crash. It's the little things in life that add up to happiness... :)
Oh shit.
Everyone duck
PZ! Some things are best unmentioned.
PZ, please remember rules #1 and #2, kthxbai
Always happy and willing to bolster polls that denigrate religion and cause it's humiliation, if not it's demise.
I hate to shamefully plug my own blog but since it is soooo on topic - you've left me no other choice.
Which poll crasher is more efficient - PZ or Colbert?
I'm always stunned at how much time some people have to kill...
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/6mb592
I'm with the Rev. We're probably in for some shit.
Oh wow. PZ just mentioned 4chan. My internets are all colliding.
Re: comment #9
Ow! My irony meter just broke!
I, also, get great pleasure at the power of the atheist, scientist intervention in silly religious polls. Sometimes I have to look around a bit to find the place to vote, but I love it when I find it. I imagine that the folks who run the polls always spend lots of time trying to figure out "What went wrong?" Now, unfortunately, they will imagine that some clever, computer program was unleashed on them rather than honest unbelievers.
I'd be worried that /b will be showing it's true power by making every PZ crashed poll go for "we need to burn any unbelievers at the stake" 99%
You must always remember the most important rule of 4chan attacks... eBaumsworld did it.
Its not all of 4chan,its the /b mob....
I was recently convinced of their might,even on here.
They're never gonna give you up.
Never gonna let you down.
Well, it does hone their skills as hackers. This is pretty much a small-scale example of how DRM systems work. When there's little DRM, hackers don't care too much and let it drift by. As soon as some "powerful" form of DRM that's intended to remain unbreakable for ten years is implemented...it gets cracked in a few months. Same case here; as soon as they tried to stop the hackers, the hackers organized and mobilized just for the 'lulz' of breaking the protection.
Dang it, PZ, I lost the game. It was worth it, though.
Jim @ 17: Thanks. Thanks a lot. Now I'll have 80's trash in my head for the rest of my work day.
Shit, PZ, you made me lose the game.
#2: I should have known they'd find a way to get creepy-chan top billing.
why did you have to say it...?!
*duck and cover*
On which thought, another evolution poll to poke at....
Ugh those questions suck. Though the 3rd answer is pretty funny.
Answers not questions....
Carpworld #6. Rules 1 and 2 only apply during raids, as I understand it.
You just have to avoid Anonymous. Just don't think about them, don't invoke them, don't acknowledge them. They are perfectly amoral. Except for Kittens, of which they are unusually protective.
I would think that /b/ would be cool with something like pharyngula....most of them seem to be pretty much non-religous.
Now I'm gonna have to take a look at /b/, and see if this gets mentioned.......
National security teams would be well to stay on the good side of /b/, as their collective power likely surpasses by an order of magnitude that of any network security experts.
Or they could just get dog curtains.
I cannot for the life of me remember where I got the link yesterday, but apparently I was taken in by a hack on Amazon, too.
Someone with a chip on their shoulder managed to get lots of stuff on homosexuality delisted and everyone - including me - got their knickers in a knot and blamed Amazon.
I feel stupid.
and if it weren't bad enough that Anonymous rules the internet, they're starting to leech out into the real world. There are LOLcat T-Shirts at Hot Topic now...
Well, I lost the game, but I don't mind since it happened in the midst of such win.
You invoked us?
Perhaps you could cast a banishing spell by saying our name three times like BeetleJuice, Candyman or Candlja
I don't think you have much to worry about, PZ. It is pretty well known that "/b/ is not your personal army" (well, pretty well known among Anonymous, anyway). They (we?) are like the sewer dwellers in "Escape from New York"...don't mess with them, and they won't mess with you. But if you DO mess with them...
We are legion.
This just goes to show that crashing polls, while entertaining, falls a distant third to masturbating, which falls a cosmically distant second to having someone (anyone) join you in the act.
I was a /b/tard for a while. I wouldn't worry too much because you aren't a scientologist. ;)
Anonymous you say?
Link
Makes you wonder what these guys could do if they turned their attention hacking genes?
Cephalopod neurology needs just a wee bit of enhancing...
@JeffS
Richard C. Mongler? I sure hope you don't think that's his real name. I bet he has a big, stupid grin on his face right now as well.
Rule 34 on PZ!
@39
the crude pseudonym did not evade me.
A friend of mine who goes to college with me is an atheist and also an Anonymous hacker. Here's her blog for epic lulz: http://www.evolvedrational.com
So I heard PZ likes mudkipz?