It's a bit of a stretch to call this hacking. I'm no computer science major at all, and the technologies described are quite simple. The real story is rote incompetency on the part of Time, as the methods used to stuff online polls are well known, and Time still failed to stop them.
The impressive thing about the "hackers" is their level of organization.
Ugh, sadly I know. "The game" has simple rules. 1) You are always playing it. 2) You lose when you think about the game. 3) You can't win the game.
The 4chan folk like to add "also, the game" to the end of comments or posts which is usually followed by people complaining about "losing the game".
Marblecakes also seems to mean "hiding text inside a picture or other text, but I have a feeling that it originally meant something far more rated NC-17 at one point.
It's petty solopsism to make a conclusion about hacking in the Time poll based on whether you have heard of the person or not.
Moot's meme machine is pretty influential, and even if you have never heard of him or 4chan, chances are pretty good that the ideas generated/incubated there have touched your life somehow
None of this is proof that the time poll wasn't hacked, and I would disagree with the assertion that moot is the most influential person in the world, but Levitt should maybe use a different yardstick than who he happens to know of to measure influence.
Hacking is clearly part of the problem, but I think the problem is also the online delusion. It's similar to what happens within Social Media communities: Everybody gets so wrapped up in their own little universe that the top users on, say, Digg are treated as Gods, the most influential and respectable members of that little society. But in the "real world" does anybody seriously care that they sit there and submit webpages to some website? No. But how else would this happen?
-Lil Wayne is Number 12 -T-Pain is #34 -Jonas Brothers are #33
Meanwhile Barack Obama and Timothy Geithner don't show up in the top. It's ludicrous, really.
I AM a computer science major but I can tell you that the word 'hacking' doesn't necessarily or even originally refer to the use of programming skills.
I think of the word 'hack' as generally making something do something it either wasn't meant to do, or something very difficult to do. Hard to explain really, but as a fun example, have a look at this MIT hacks en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_hack
No offense, but this has been covered already by everyone who "needed" to cover it. Anyone this information is relevant to, probably already knew about it long ago.
Actually, it appears that Manny Pacquaio received the most votes with over 20 million, but has a much lower rating than moot--he comes in 22nd place overall. When ranked by order of votes received, marblecake is not mentioned.
@Aurelia - I'm pretty sure you didn't read the link. The Time poll was clearly manipulated by 4chan visitors after a laugh, and if you hadn't looked at the details you might initially put it down to the Internet's myopia. Not in this case - while the Internet jumps on bandwagons a lot, and 4chan is a massive part of that, normally you do see "deserving" people turn up fairly high in the list.
We have seen a surge in online voting / surveys / contests etc. in the recent past. These remain, however, highly susceptible to manipulations by hackers and spammers. Many of these such as voting fr the new 7 wonders of the world seem no more than a marketing gimmik.
The advice to the audience / readers is to always take it with maybe a bucketful of salt. Reputed magazines like Time should probably start emphasizing less on such online opinion polls.
i really wish the media would stop calling this hacking. this is cheating/vandalism at best. these guys really, desperately want to think that what they are doing is hacking, because in many circles being called a hacker is high praise. so if they cheat at some stupid online poll, and the world calls them hackers, then they've won and they are way more motivated to continue this nonsense.
i wish that one day they'd do something like this, and everyone in the media who chose to report on it would say "a bunch of people managed to rig some insecure online poll, and no one really cares", as that's actually the truth of the matter. does anyone really care that the poll's numbers were manipulated? does anyone trust an online poll were you don't have to register to vote? why egg these people on?
it was way cooler when these guys just focused on bringing down Scientology and annotating pictures of cats.
Well "Marblecake" apparently means something to alot of people on the net... and its not what you'd call "family friendly"
ResponderEliminarsee: urbandictionary
It's a bit of a stretch to call this hacking. I'm no computer science major at all, and the technologies described are quite simple. The real story is rote incompetency on the part of Time, as the methods used to stuff online polls are well known, and Time still failed to stop them.
ResponderEliminarThe impressive thing about the "hackers" is their level of organization.
Ugh, sadly I know. "The game" has simple rules. 1) You are always playing it. 2) You lose when you think about the game. 3) You can't win the game.
ResponderEliminarThe 4chan folk like to add "also, the game" to the end of comments or posts which is usually followed by people complaining about "losing the game".
Marblecakes also seems to mean "hiding text inside a picture or other text, but I have a feeling that it originally meant something far more rated NC-17 at one point.
explanation of 'The Game' in relation to 4chan:
ResponderEliminarencyclopediadramatica.com/The_game
Almost.
ResponderEliminarMarblecake is an IRC channel which was responsible for the
Phil is right that 'marblecake' has an X-rated meaning, but in this case, it most likely is in reference to the 'Message to Scientology' video.
ResponderEliminarAnd as for 'ALSO THE GAME', Phil is right that it refers to 'the game' of not thinking about 'the game'.
It's petty solopsism to make a conclusion about hacking in the Time poll based on whether you have heard of the person or not.
ResponderEliminarMoot's meme machine is pretty influential, and even if you have never heard of him or 4chan, chances are pretty good that the ideas generated/incubated there have touched your life somehow
None of this is proof that the time poll wasn't hacked, and I would disagree with the assertion that moot is the most influential person in the world, but Levitt should maybe use a different yardstick than who he happens to know of to measure influence.
Hacking is clearly part of the problem, but I think the problem is also the online delusion. It's similar to what happens within Social Media communities: Everybody gets so wrapped up in their own little universe that the top users on, say, Digg are treated as Gods, the most influential and respectable members of that little society. But in the "real world" does anybody seriously care that they sit there and submit webpages to some website? No. But how else would this happen?
ResponderEliminar-Lil Wayne is Number 12
-T-Pain is #34
-Jonas Brothers are #33
Meanwhile Barack Obama and Timothy Geithner don't show up in the top. It's ludicrous, really.
@Kyle
ResponderEliminarI AM a computer science major but I can tell you that the word 'hacking' doesn't necessarily or even originally refer to the use of programming skills.
I think of the word 'hack' as generally making something do something it either wasn't meant to do, or something very difficult to do. Hard to explain really, but as a fun example, have a look at this MIT hacks en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_hack
No offense, but this has been covered already by everyone who "needed" to cover it. Anyone this information is relevant to, probably already knew about it long ago.
ResponderEliminarActually, it appears that Manny Pacquaio received the most votes with over 20 million, but has a much lower rating than moot--he comes in 22nd place overall. When ranked by order of votes received, marblecake is not mentioned.
ResponderEliminar@Aurelia - I'm pretty sure you didn't read the link. The Time poll was clearly manipulated by 4chan visitors after a laugh, and if you hadn't looked at the details you might initially put it down to the Internet's myopia. Not in this case - while the Internet jumps on bandwagons a lot, and 4chan is a massive part of that, normally you do see "deserving" people turn up fairly high in the list.
ResponderEliminarWe have seen a surge in online voting / surveys / contests etc. in the recent past. These remain, however, highly susceptible to manipulations by hackers and spammers. Many of these such as voting fr the new 7 wonders of the world seem no more than a marketing gimmik.
ResponderEliminarThe advice to the audience / readers is to always take it with maybe a bucketful of salt. Reputed magazines like Time should probably start emphasizing less on such online opinion polls.
And sure -Kobe Bryant is in the top 10 (#9) of the world's most influential people in government, science, technology and the arts?
ResponderEliminarGreat survey there Time...
So this was something you worked on last weekend? Hmmm.... we missed you!
ResponderEliminarmoot...as in it's a moot point.
ResponderEliminarTime's question is moot.
i really wish the media would stop calling this hacking. this is cheating/vandalism at best. these guys really, desperately want to think that what they are doing is hacking, because in many circles being called a hacker is high praise. so if they cheat at some stupid online poll, and the world calls them hackers, then they've won and they are way more motivated to continue this nonsense.
ResponderEliminari wish that one day they'd do something like this, and everyone in the media who chose to report on it would say "a bunch of people managed to rig some insecure online poll, and no one really cares", as that's actually the truth of the matter. does anyone really care that the poll's numbers were manipulated? does anyone trust an online poll were you don't have to register to vote? why egg these people on?
it was way cooler when these guys just focused on bringing down Scientology and annotating pictures of cats.