FurAffinity: Six Years of Mediocrity

[Freehaven]

You know, at this rate, Inkbunny and SoFurry are actually starting to look like viable alternatives when compared to the taped-together house of cards that is FurAffinity.

[Pi]

My prediction is that if they respond to this at all, it will be with something along the lines of "no you misinterpreted what we said". Yak tried that during the conversation, in regard to other aspects of what we were saying. The problem is that there is no other interpretation that remotely makes sense. You cannot look at this and see anything other than "cream of bullshit".

[UncreativeUsername]

I don't quite understand why people here are offering to help Yak and Dragoneer. I don't feel they, especially Dragoneer, deserve any help. Is FA the best art site for porn the fandom has, or are you guys doing this to challenge yourselves?

[Pi]

I don't quite understand why people here are offering to help Yak and Dragoneer. I don't feel they, especially Dragoneer, deserve any help. Is FA the best art site for porn the fandom has, or are you guys doing this to challenge yourselves?

I can only speak for myself, but it's a combination of things.

FA is pretty popular, and it's also unsafe to use. This kind of thing causes injury to my profession. If only for the safety of the users, someone should care about the security, and none of the people in charge appear to actually give a shit (they would rather just say they do). Plus, I'm an intellectual masochist who enjoys screaming at idiots for catharsis. That kind of rage fuels me to become better. It's self-improvement!

[threadshitter]

I'm an intellectual masochist who enjoys screaming at idiots for catharsis. That kind of rage fuels me to become better. It's self-improvement!

Whats the one where you enjoy watching people be idiots in general until they hang themselves with a rope of their own making?

Because I would be that one.

[Jim Demintia]

While I haven't and never will offer my skills to Dragoneer for a fee below ten thousand dollars a minute, I have to say the code and architecture horror-stories that get posted are quite entertaining.

The "teststring" md5sum thing made my day. I mean, I challenge you to find a better example of proverbial lizard-brained cut-and-paste coding. Seriously. If you find it I'll be impressed.

[Pi]

While I haven't and never will offer my skills to Dragoneer for a fee below ten thousand dollars a minute, I have to say the code and architecture horror-stories that get posted are quite entertaining.

The "teststring" md5sum thing made my day. I mean, I challenge you to find a better example of proverbial lizard-brained cut-and-paste coding. Seriously. If you find it I'll be impressed.

You will absolutely fucking regret saying this to me, I swear it:

Code: [Select]

source/functions.sys
782:        return addslashes(stripslashes(stripslashes($value)));


[Eaglebird]

Is it a bad thing that I've grown jaded enough to the point of giving up caring about this whole mess?

Not really. I'm interested in it more for the volley between the people who know what should be done or is a Good Idea™, but a part of me is also rooting for some sort of marked change in FA, staff or code. I regret having little to nothing to actually contribute to these sorts of things but the conversations I see are oddly stimulating.


Also, when I registered to reply to this thread, my Captcha was "Issues: whoops"

I can't wait to see what new vulnerabilities they create by trying to hobble together a patchwork clusterfuck of code. I'm constantly blown away by how laissez-faire they are about the work they want to do; it's that classic avoidance of responsibility or doing actual work that seems to dog lazy people. They can't understand why everything is so jacked up despite only putting in half-ass efforts and ignoring genuinely helpful advice....

Hey, me either! I'm only aware of a few people that have done anything towards the site to -expose- problems, but not aware of who actually does/did debilitating attacks. My guess is that if (when) they revamp with patchwork, the 'good guys' will find the problems, but if the FA staff treat them as they do now, the 'bad guys' will exploit them long before anything gets done, and 'neer will be left shrugging his shoulders and trying to front an apology in the aftermath.

Presently I'm more or less waiting for an alternative to FA with people behind it that I can trust. I'm not especially aware of the people behind IB and SF, and I don't really care to be, no offense intended towards them (I'm stubborn and don't really want to switch right now). I may end up switching anyway, depending on the events between now and some future date/time.

[Jim Demintia]

You will absolutely fucking regret saying this to me, I swear it:

Yes, but that's just random stupidity. I can't even figure out exactly what the intent is there (ex. why do you need to call stripslashes() twice?). Something about the idea that whoever wrote that md5 thing (Yak? Alkora?) *didn't even know how to generate a random hash-string* is far more entertaining to me.

I'm pretty sure I could do that when I was using Linux on my dad's murder-weapon-sized laptop when I was in middle school 11 years ago.

[verix]

so, I'm really tired of trying to help Dragoneer out. he has pretty much objectively exposed himself to me as a smarmy weasel, and now I'm completely done with any desire to help him or the rest of his site. this means the contents of the hashes-- as well as some logs-- get posted early. I don't do this to mock him, I do this to laud him as a shitheel weasel administrator who objectively has no interest in improving the site and actively has every interest in appearances.

contents: http://pastebin.com/hhuH6F2d

Code: [Select]

[verix@pihost ~]$ sha1sum 20100119
f76298b2e48408aa6875f5019abf09fff1ea476d  20100119
the best way to verify this is to copy the text from the pastebin into a flatfile as-is, write it, then sha1sum it. it should give you the same sha1 sum if you did it right-- this is a direct upload of the contents. (note that I fucked up the dates in the file like a retard-- it should be 01/19/11 and 01/20/2011, not 18 and 19. I wrote this out last night.)

under normal circumstances I wouldn't post these logs (for example: if Dragoneer hadn't lied to my face about having read what I wrote). but these logs, in tandem with my history of working with this site to help fix it, show both a) just how angry and impatient I've grown with trying to help them out, offering them a final chance to let me just fix all their problems and b) just how much Dragoneer (and Yak, and most likely everyone on the site) actually don't care about fixing the site and care more about being the sole owners of the problems they sit over. they just don't want help. Dragoneer even explicitly said he trusted me, and still won't accept my help. this is amusing, considering at one point he said I was "venting" and then now that I'm using similar language when "venting" it's no longer acceptable. whatever, dude. fuck you.

initial log: http://pastebin.com/6wLrBUyf
log that set me right the fuck off: http://pastebin.com/f8JLCzrU

I hope now that you have competition, Dragoneer, you'll suddenly start caring about this site. apparently the only thing that gets you going is when people "make you look bad." of course, being such an egotist you don't realize that you're the one making yourself look bad, but hey, keep on truckin', fuckface. I'm done helping you.

[Conan]

log that set me right the fuck off: http://pastebin.com/f8JLCzrU

I like that, despite being the site owner, he absolutely refuses to tell his staff to do anything and refuses to try to sway their opinions.

I now feel stupider after reading those logs. Thanks.

[Eaglebird]

You may have withdrawn your offers to help but I can bet you'll still have some reaction to this stuff when it surfaces time and again, having been attached to it at any point. More power to you to leave it in the dust and make good use of your talent and work.

[Xenofur]

I don't quite understand why people here are offering to help Yak and Dragoneer. I don't feel they, especially Dragoneer, deserve any help. Is FA the best art site for porn the fandom has, or are you guys doing this to challenge yourselves?

This started on IRC, a person came in and asked why we hate Dragoneer. The following is the result stream of consciousness of my thinking on the matter and thinking back to all that happened over the past years. Pi suggested i post it here, so here i go:

Nobody despises him. The term is pity.

We pity him for continually and ceaselessly worsening the state of the resource he has on his hands and for having a mind that allows him to willingly hurt all of its users by laziness, omission and sheer ignorance. Out of this pity and self interest as a part of the community we try to push him and the people around him towards doing the right thing. But he has proven entirely resistent to anything to the point that we're literally just throwing the dice and trying to come up with random new ways to compel him.

And the worst part: With his resistance he even incapacitaties those who could do something, like yak. Yak might not agree, but from his behavior it is clear that he is afraid of what neer might do, not to yak, but in general. And yak has this fear despite being superior to him in literally every way.

<here the person insinuated us making him distrust us by being not nice detracted to our cause>

Neer doesn't need to trust us.
Neer does well to distrust us.
I wouldn't trust us either
But distrusting is not the same as ignoring.

The information we provide has always been independently verifiable and objectively true. But you want to know the reason why he ignores it? Acting on it would mean admitting he did something wrong and he cannot even admit that to himself.

So the only thing that is left to us, is to literally break him publically. Force him to admit being wrong to other people so he can start admitting it to himself.

----

Edit: The important thing here is, as Eevee put it:

We are not Anti-FA, we are not Anti-Neer, we are, at worst, Anti-Bad and Pro-Good.

[loki]

18:04 <Dragoneer> December was a fucking embarassing lesson in humiliation and I want to move past that. No more of this circular motion we've been aiming towards.

"We can't let you fix the security issues until we fix the security issues!"

10:53<Preyfar> Just following up - the answer is no. We appreciate the offer, but we need coders for the new version of FA. It makes no sense to waste that many manhours to patch the current system when most of it will be replaced in May/June.

I don't see why he will not take any help from competent people; is his ego/pride so big that he can't admit defeat even once?

[Eaglebird]

10:53<Preyfar> Just following up - the answer is no. We appreciate the offer, but we need coders for the new version of FA. It makes no sense to waste that many manhours to patch the current system when most of it will be replaced in May/June.

I don't see why he will not take any help from competent people; is his ego/pride so big that he can't admit defeat even once?

Yes, combined with his mistrust of anyone looking to help. Obviously, anyone finding security holes original intention was to exploit them.

[Pi]

I don't see why he will not take any help from competent people; is his ego/pride so big that he can't admit defeat even once?

It all boils down to this:

<Preyfar> If it weren't for the fact every single thing that is spoken to you, Pi or otherwise gets filtered out, reposted and mocked.... we have no reason to believe that same wouldn't be done with the coding. Just reposted, redistributed, given out. Our private conversations do, and the same issues get rehash, redistributed at a whim. Sorry, but "fucking professionals" don't do that.

He thinks that we are making him look bad, and not his (in)actions. And he's only concerned with appearances. He can't accept our help because it might appear that he needs help, and anything else he says is just some defense constructed as an excuse. And it's not like he's the paragon of professionalism here.

[Jim Demintia]

<Preyfar> If it weren't for the fact every single thing that is spoken to you, Pi or otherwise gets filtered out, reposted and mocked.... we have no reason to believe that same wouldn't be done with the coding. Just reposted, redistributed, given out. Our private conversations do, and the same issues get rehash, redistributed at a whim. Sorry, but "fucking professionals" don't do that.

Professionals share war stories, sure. It might be argued that you don't say who it is out of courtesy or whatever, but that's not really feasible given the public nature of the situation. And if I've learned anything in this profession...it's that just because you don't personally like someone doesn't mean they write bad code or produce bad results. Assholes often produce the best software. Because really: I don't think he even has the qualifications to judge anyone by their coding skills.

He just doesn't like you. And that is ultimately how Sean Piche operates.

[loki]

Seeing as how people are offering to help him FOR FREE, the least he can do it put up with being criticized. Good luck getting "professionals" to give you free service and not give you shit for doing stupid things. Hell, even if it's for money professionals will give each other shit if it wastes people's time. :I

[verix]

You may have withdrawn your offers to help but I can bet you'll still have some reaction to this stuff when it surfaces time and again, having been attached to it at any point. More power to you to leave it in the dust and make good use of your talent and work.

the reason I stopped actively helping between 2009 and now is because I completely lost interest with caring. dodongo-rolling FA is probably one of my most fun hacks ever-- I wrote a sweet little python script to spam out the submissions with ease, it was pretty awesome. it was also kind of my last hurrah with helping FA. throughout the #hackerfurs history bugs have been exposed in the channel, and yak kind of grumbled and fixed them up with a sort of "you meddling kids!" sort of humor. I just kind of rolled my eyes in that 50's sitcom fashion as just "that's our FurAffinity!"

the only reason I started caring again and kind of came out of my hermit-shell is because Dragoneer had to come out and put pressure on a potential rape victim for fear of popular backlash. it's one thing to not "get" security-- I can understand that. some people see hackers as angry motherfuckers who are trying to keep things way too safe, sort of like how we perceive people who aren't legitimate police officers as "rent-a-cops." it's another thing to be lazy-- I'm a fuckin' pro at being lazy, and I understand this standpoint entirely. but the most recent series of events starting from December just completely fucking cemented Dragoneer's rather manipulative character in my head, and I feel completely betrayed for having fallen for it.

so, yeah, I've *had* a reaction to all of this. at first it was apathy because all these bugs just kept piling up. then it turned to anger. and now that the two staff members who would let me work on board lied directly to my fucking face about why I can't work with them for the sixth fucking time, I'm furious.

I'm posting this many words because I'm venting. I was apparently so naive to think that I was helping out the community, when really I was helping to feed the egos of the staff and prevent them from looking bad. fuck that.

[MazelTovCocktail]

<yak[away]> verix: and at the same time you, or anyone else given the opportunity to help might end up exploiting what they find and without proper damage control tools and data to recover from, it might spell the end of the project. Many people tried to achieve that for the longest time,  and I'm not going to make it trivial for them with the careless move until FA's setup is ready.

Yeah, they're having real trouble doing that right now.

I have to wonder if Yak has a secret desire to see FA get totally compromised.