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PoeticExplosion
Joined: 20 Apr 2007
Posts: 31
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 Posted: Sat Apr 21, 2007 1:18 am Post subject: All us new people... |
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Hello, Sentries!
You probably noticed your forum membership increased by about 500% today, so I figure we owe you an explanation.
We're a group that likes to solves mysteries and puzzles, and recently people around the country have been receiving odd packages in the mail from a lady named B.A. Saint Feline, who claims to be a psychic. (Her site is BSeeingU.com.) The packages contained all sorts of weird stuff, most of it having to do with cryptozoology, the occult, and H.P. Lovecraft, although pages from the magazine 2600 were also included. To make a long story short, there was a code written on some of the pages that, when decoded, spelled "sentryoutpost". So that's how we found your site.
If anyone can shed light on why we were sent to your site, that'd be great. However, either way, a lot of us are really interested in what you're doing, and would like to become good, upstanding Sentries, regardless of the odd way we were sent here. 
-Peter B.
EDIT: I know this sounds really weird. We don't understand it any more than you do. But we're glad we found your awesome site! |
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Themagician
Site Admin
Joined: 07 Jan 2007
Posts: 73
Location: Server room
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| Posted: Sat Apr 21, 2007 2:23 am Post subject: |
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Um....are you kidding me? 
You ARE kidding, right?
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$ PATH=pretending! /usr/ucb/which sense |
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PoeticExplosion
Joined: 20 Apr 2007
Posts: 31
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| Posted: Sat Apr 21, 2007 2:26 am Post subject: |
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| Themagician wrote: |
Um....are you kidding me?
You ARE kidding, right? |
Hahaha, I know. It's weird. But we can show you pictures of the packages and an explanation of the code if you really want us to. 
So obviously you don't have any better idea what it means than we do? Maybe just some nutjob who likes your site, or some really brilliant marketing by one of your members?
Anyway, we really do want to help out around here, regardless of the absolutely bizarre way we ended up here. You guys are doing good work.
-PeterBB
EDIT: Look, I think I'm coming off as a lunatic. We realize it's really weird. I just posted in case one of you knew what was going on, and so you didn't freak out about there being dozens of new users out of thin air. Now back to your regularly scheduled Sentry-ing.  |
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Themagician
Site Admin
Joined: 07 Jan 2007
Posts: 73
Location: Server room
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| Posted: Sat Apr 21, 2007 3:00 am Post subject: |
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Psychic eh? Well I hope you didn't give her your credit card number. Sounds like a nut job to me.
Perhaps someone is playing a cruel trick on you. Tell me, do you trust all your friends? Hm?
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$ PATH=pretending! /usr/ucb/which sense |
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PoeticExplosion
Joined: 20 Apr 2007
Posts: 31
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| Posted: Sat Apr 21, 2007 3:27 am Post subject: |
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| Themagician wrote: |
Psychic eh? Well I hope you didn't give her your credit card number. Sounds like a nut job to me.
Perhaps someone is playing a cruel trick on you. Tell me, do you trust all your friends? Hm? |
As far as I know, no one's given out their credit card number, so we're safe.  |
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DJSampson
Joined: 21 Apr 2007
Posts: 24
Location: Indiana
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| Posted: Sat Apr 21, 2007 3:41 am Post subject: |
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I did! But, it was to buy a stuffed Cthulhu.
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I take your reality and substitute it with my own! |
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Exarch
Joined: 20 Apr 2007
Posts: 3
Location: Johannesburg, South Africa
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| Posted: Sat Apr 21, 2007 4:59 am Post subject: |
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I love those Cthulhu plushies!
-Anyway, back to regularly scheduled IT-security talk - I'm sure I have an interesting point to make...lemme think....um...
One of the last banks in South Africa recently switched all its MS-powered terminals to Linux in favour of better security. Media reporting it as the largest Linux rollout evAr. Does that count? I was worried about polluting serious threads...  |
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Hiro Protagonist
Joined: 21 Apr 2007
Posts: 17
Location: Stockholm
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| Posted: Sat Apr 21, 2007 6:01 am Post subject: |
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Since this thread is about new people, I think I should introduce myself.
My current alias is Hiro Protagonist, but the people from UF might remember me as David Hayter (I used to hang out there a few years back). I think this "think-tank" is an interesting project, so I humbly offer my skills.
Personal Data:
Meatspace location: Stockholm, Sweden
Occupation: High school student
Age: 18
Computer-related skills:
Fairly fluent in Java
Some knowledge of C++
Able to use POSIX systems, like Linux
Have successfully built a (very,very basic) LFS distribution
Other skills of interest (perhaps):
Good at math and physics
Hobbies and stuff:
Reading comic books and graphic novels
Reading science fiction novels, especially by Neal Stephenson
Playing the piano
Watching horror movies
To sit and think
Well, that's about it. I'll try to assist whenever I can.
_________________
When I was a kid, my mother told me
never to stare into the sun.
So once when I was six, I did... |
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Taluria
Joined: 20 Apr 2007
Posts: 123
Location: Hiding under the bed, reading.
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| Posted: Sat Apr 21, 2007 7:05 am Post subject: |
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This is true, I mean, I don't normally believe in psychic-type stuff, but the packages were rather interesting. I personally did not recieve one, but what I've seen of their contents intrigued me. Don't worry, we're not as crazy as our story sounds.
But as Hiro Protagonist said, this site in and of itself is interesting. I'm not nearly as adept at the tech world as some of the people here, but I do tend to spot things others might miss. Be glad to help out whenever I can.
_________________
Her dreams are just too far away to see how steps she's making
Might be taking her to who she'll be
Last edited by Taluria on Sat Apr 21, 2007 8:04 am; edited 1 time in total |
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HPhack
Joined: 10 Jan 2007
Posts: 258
Location: Cambridge, MA
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| Posted: Sat Apr 21, 2007 8:00 am Post subject: |
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| Taluria wrote: |
| This is true, I mean, I don't normally believe in psychic-type stuff, but the packages were rather interesting. I personally did not recieve one, but what I've seen of thier contents intrigued me. Don't worry, we're not as crazy as our story sounds. |
Look, don't take this the wrong way, as I am caffeine crashing after an all-nighter and just spent the last hour looking at this. It just doesn't make much sense and that always brings out the paranoid in me. Friends will tell you I'm paranoid and morose on a good day.
If I cared more about the social graces, I'd turn my rambling notes into something that didn't potentially make people think I'm mental or start flamewars. Sorry. Nuke the post while I pretend to sleep if you must.
Rough notes thinking about your story:
Theory: they are as they claim
problem - requires accepting psychic powers or random chance
problem - probability curve breaker for coincidence
problem - they seem to not know what's happening either
problem -
confusor - assumptions of general behavior
confusor - some look like exactly the kind of new blood we need, requires believing in providence
confusor - people who act nice aren't necessarily so
confusor -
Theory: someone is trying to punk us (who? why? how?)
are "new users" all really unique?
small number makes fraud easy, all come in on one day really sloppy
stuff on other sites more difficult to pull off but not crazily so
automated? pseduo intelligence? forumsocialhackbotnet?
could I write a script that would Eliza posts like theirs? maybe
why? so they can say they punked small security community?
Theory: someone is trying to punk them using us (who? why? how?)
online psychic with "new project"
maybe betting sheet scam cum confidence game?
what role do we play? would our basic nature reinforce a scam?
hidden payload is hiding beneath the surface of reality? something truly vile?
THEORY!! someone else will be scammed by the combination (who? why? how?)
understatment and misdirection
saying what? my scam can survive your scrutiny?
psychic plus blackhat collaborator?
what is the misdirection hiding?
Theory: one of us is trying to punk the rest of us (who? why? how?)
Theory: one of us is trying to punk the rest of the world (who? why? how?)
Paranoid Theory: they are all lying
did one of us poke into something we shouldn't have and attracted "attention"?
could each of them be pulling their own scam but coordinating on a cover story?
double-paranoid theory: each of them are pulling their own scam under the direction of central string puller (UCAM-CL-TR-666?)
Confidence game theory - look for misdirection
8 77 ms 86 ms 94 ms ae-3.ebr2.LosAngeles1.Level3.net [4.69.132.77]
9 77 ms 77 ms 77 ms ae-21-52.car1.LosAngeles1.Level3.net [4.68.102.4
4]
10 79 ms 294 ms 79 ms ge1-L3.dreamhost.com [4.78.192.66]
11 78 ms 78 ms 79 ms apache2-dap.pellegrino.dreamhost.com [208.97.178
.106]
8 89 ms 90 ms 90 ms ae-3.ebr2.LosAngeles1.Level3.net [4.69.132.77]
9 79 ms 76 ms 78 ms ae-21-56.car1.LosAngeles1.Level3.net [4.68.102.1
72]
10 93 ms 80 ms 255 ms ge1-L3.dreamhost.com [4.78.192.66]
11 78 ms 77 ms 78 ms apache2-cabo.perrier.dreamhost.com [208.97.178.1
71]
Server network compromised?
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"Perhaps a longer stick is in order." - Unknown Quantity |
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Taluria
Joined: 20 Apr 2007
Posts: 123
Location: Hiding under the bed, reading.
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| Posted: Sat Apr 21, 2007 8:17 am Post subject: |
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HPhack, your paranoia is actually pretty understandable. I know I would be rather freaked out myself if someone said these things to me and I had not seen the evidence. As to believing in providence, well that leads to an odd coincidence of wording. I'll let one of the others explain that if they want, because to put it bluntly, I stink at explaining things. I can hardly give comprehensible directions to my house!
As to being a real person, well, I'm pretty sure no one in their right mind would choose Dothan as a home town unless they were telling the truth. I mean, gag me, this town is boring! Erm, sorry. I'm acting like a bratty teenager again.
_________________
Her dreams are just too far away to see how steps she's making
Might be taking her to who she'll be
Last edited by Taluria on Sat Apr 21, 2007 10:24 am; edited 1 time in total |
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DJSampson
Joined: 21 Apr 2007
Posts: 24
Location: Indiana
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| Posted: Sat Apr 21, 2007 10:00 am Post subject: |
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I assure you this is no prank. I am a highly skeptical person as well. We are just following the clues. Hopefully the right ones! Right now I don't know how our path has crossed yours and I certainly don't know why at this point. All I know is the clues we were given have lead us here.
I just hope we read the clues correctly, and didn't just fall upon your forum mistakenly. If so, so be it. If not then something is tied in to this BU thing and we need to figure out what that could be???
_________________
I take your reality and substitute it with my own! |
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Catherwood
Joined: 20 Apr 2007
Posts: 84
Location: Silicon Valley
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| Posted: Sat Apr 21, 2007 12:07 pm Post subject: |
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| HPhack wrote: |
| Friends will tell you I'm paranoid and morose on a good day. |
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you.
Theory: It could be bunnies!
I rarely post in an "introductions" thread, and rarely give out enough information for someone to track me down. That's not being paranoid, that's just realistic self-preservation in this cyberworld. Ironically, some of my closest friends are people i've only met online, spending years in one chat community building trust.
Part of my day job involves tracking down IP addresses and looking for anonymizers, proxies, and other ways that make their geographic location ambiguous. I didn't see a position in your Threat Taxonomy for these indicators of fraud, perhaps because merely hiding one's identity online is not in itself a threat.
(i can't think of a clever, light-hearted way to wrap up my first post. oh well. I'll be back.) |
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Crimson_Ghost
Joined: 20 Apr 2007
Posts: 4
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| Posted: Sat Apr 21, 2007 12:11 pm Post subject: |
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| Some say that Paranoia is the Mind Destroyer... |
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Carmenmiranda
Joined: 21 Apr 2007
Posts: 31
Location: Witham, United Kingdom
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| Posted: Sat Apr 21, 2007 1:09 pm Post subject: introduction! |
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Hi, all, I'm one of the crazies who has ended up here over curiosity about this alleged psychic person. However, in my real life I'm a full-time computer geek who would be interested in this sort of forum anyway, so here I go with the details, ala Hiro Protagonist:
Location: Essex, United Kingdom (kind of like Alabama with worse dental hygeine)
Occupation: Geek
Computer-related skills:
GUI development/OO design
web-related geekery
Other skills of interest:
can cross one eye at a time
can put feet behind head
can make a mean chocolate chip cookie
am more paranoid than you
Yeah, that's right. Paranoia is a skill!
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Microsoft will make something that doesn't suck when they start manufacturing vacuum cleaners. |
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