CEOP show Maddie is missing on 30th April 2007

chirpyinsect wrote:

WLBTS wrote:

chirpyinsect wrote:
So if the crawl date says 5apr the latest news section cannot contain news from after that date? Do I understand correctly?

It's no more possible than if you went on to the BBC news page today and found news headlines from 2017.

So how is this possible? The black highlighted section at the top right says 5 Apr 07

Can I have the URL please?

ETA - don't worry CP, I've got it - https://web.archive.org/web/20070405024656/http://www.acpo.police.uk/news.asp

Bubblewrapped wrote:Does the WBM archive the WBM ?
Im a member of DENSA

I love that, what a good question.   As if we're not all already confused as it is.  

Perhaps I and any other members of DENSA can just discuss the weather amongst ourselves for the time being!

Don't Forget Madeleine wrote:

Bubblewrapped wrote:Does the WBM archive the WBM ?
Im a member of DENSA

I love that, what a good question.   As if we're not all already confused as it is.  

Im not confused in the slightest ( )
Im well up on my URLs etc etc !!


Things like this can only happen on a McCann page....They must be in bits

Freedom wrote:Perhaps I and any other members of DENSA can just discuss the weather amongst ourselves for the time being!

Its going to be a long hot summer according to the Way Forward Machine

chirpyinsect wrote:

WLBTS wrote:

chirpyinsect wrote:
So if the crawl date says 5apr the latest news section cannot contain news from after that date? Do I understand correctly?

It's no more possible than if you went on to the BBC news page today and found news headlines from 2017.

So how is this possible? The black highlighted section at the top right says 5 Apr 07

OK, I can explain that one - because it does look at first glance to be exactly what I am saying is impossible - well done for finding that, chirpy

If you click on the actual article 'ACPO RESPONSE TO THE AMCD REPORT' (via the 'Full story' link), the date on that article is actually April 2, 2007, not April 20, 2007.  Looks like somebody added a zero accidentally in the database.

Google 'ACPO RESPONSE TO THE ACMD REPORT' and the first link is dated April 2, 2007, not April 20, 2007.

Conclusion: simple human error when entering the date of the article.

I must say this. All jokes aside, Im amazed at the knowledge many of you have learnt over your lives in respect to techie knowledge. I applaud you because for me I wouldn't be able to remember just a simple megabytes worth of computer language...Whatever the truth is, its good to have a discussion that seeks only the truth. Good work.

Bubblewrapped wrote:

Freedom wrote:Perhaps I and any other members of DENSA can just discuss the weather amongst ourselves for the time being!

Its going to be a long hot summer according to the Way Forward Machine

You're on a roll today, Bubblewrapped.   Ever thought about going on BGT?



Thanks for making me laugh, you seem to have a natural talent.

Not taking away, of course, all the hard work done by many members on this thread regarding the Wayback machine, although it is nice to have a chuckle once in a while when things get too serious.

WLBTS wrote:

chirpyinsect wrote:

WLBTS wrote:

chirpyinsect wrote:
So if the crawl date says 5apr the latest news section cannot contain news from after that date? Do I understand correctly?

It's no more possible than if you went on to the BBC news page today and found news headlines from 2017.

So how is this possible? The black highlighted section at the top right says 5 Apr 07

OK, I can explain that one - because it does look at first glance to be exactly what I am saying is impossible - well done for finding that, chirpy

If you click on the actual article 'ACPO RESPONSE TO THE AMCD REPORT' (via the 'Full story' link), the date on that article is actually April 2, 2007, not April 20, 2007.  Looks like somebody added a zero accidentally in the database.

Google 'ACPO RESPONSE TO THE ACMD REPORT' and the first link is dated April 2, 2007, not April 20, 2007.

Conclusion: simple human error when entering the date of the article.

Thanks for clearing that up. Thought I had cracked it there lol

chirpyinsect wrote:
Thanks for clearing that up. Thought I had cracked it there lol

I did spend a second or two considering whether I've been wrong all along ;-)

AndyB wrote:
Looking at the source for the controversial mccann.html, I see that there is code that puts the Wayback navigation bar at the top of the page. Clearly that didn't exist in the original CEOP page so it must have been put there by Wayback software. This could have been done at the point of archiving but I think it far more likely that its done when a page is retrieved. That way, Wayback can change the style or content of the navigation bar whenever they want. If I'm right, it means that the whole page as delivered to my browser is dynamic in that it is created on request and isn't simply a regurgitation of the contents of the archive database.

From there it isn't too much of a leap to speculate that parts of the page, like the news section on the home page, might be created at retrieval time and put there as html by the same software that adds the code to create the navigation bar. This allows for the possibility that it is the news that is in error, not the date. The future dated news might be the retrieval software making its best attempt to reconstitute the page as it was from the data that it holds but getting it wrong because of corruption at archiving, maybe because the original news links were dynamic.

OK, if that is the case, that the news section is created at retrieval time, then why do no other versions of the page (different dates) provide future dated news.  Why is it only that page dated 30th April 2007, and no others? What was special about it that it has completely different behaviour to its behaviour at all other recorded points in time?

WLBTS wrote:

AndyB wrote:
Looking at the source for the controversial mccann.html, I see that there is code that puts the Wayback navigation bar at the top of the page. Clearly that didn't exist in the original CEOP page so it must have been put there by Wayback software. This could have been done at the point of archiving but I think it far more likely that its done when a page is retrieved. That way, Wayback can change the style or content of the navigation bar whenever they want. If I'm right, it means that the whole page as delivered to my browser is dynamic in that it is created on request and isn't simply a regurgitation of the contents of the archive database.

From there it isn't too much of a leap to speculate that parts of the page, like the news section on the home page, might be created at retrieval time and put there as html by the same software that adds the code to create the navigation bar. This allows for the possibility that it is the news that is in error, not the date. The future dated news might be the retrieval software making its best attempt to reconstitute the page as it was from the data that it holds but getting it wrong because of corruption at archiving, maybe because the original news links were dynamic.

OK, if that is the case, that the news section is created at retrieval time, then why do no other versions of the page (different dates) provide future dated news.  Why is it only that page dated 30th April 2007, and no others?  What was special about it that it has completely different behaviour to its behaviour at all other recorded points in time?

We already know that the home page is special/unique/different because it’s the only one that’s broken. We know its broken because there is news there that appears to be from the future.  Its your contention that the news links existed as we see them now when the page was archived and therefore the page must have been archived much later than it claims it was. You may well be right but none of us know for certain how the pages are archived. What I’m suggesting as a possibility is that different elements on the page are stored separately and the page is reconstituted (or replayed in WBM terminology) at retrieval time.

If so, and the thing that’s broken isn’t the date stamp, but the metadata that tells the retrieval software how to build the page, then its possible that it reconstructs it with the wrong set of news. Because the retrieval date is well after October 2007 no prescience is necessary – it could almost be random which news it goes for. Shortly after I posited this hypothesis, Resistor posted something that at least suggests that page elements are indeed stored separately and that its possible for an archived page to be presented to the retriever with elements from a date different to the archive date.

Resistor wrote:
What I did do last night, when I could not sleep, was trawl round a developers forum where the people who actually work on the open-source Java of the WBM hang out, and I found this.



My understanding of this is that the crawler archives pages on a certain date but then those pages can contain stuff that is crawled on a different date.  In other words, it is the content of the page that might be unreliable from a timing point of view, not the date the page was found and archived.

ETA For clarity, when I said "We already know that the home page is special/unique/different because it’s the only one that’s broken" I meant We already know that the home page dated 30/04/2007 is special/unique/different because it’s the only one that’s broken

I've asked Wayback Machine for access to their original source for the home page, dated 30th April 2007.  Hopefully they will recognise the seriousness of the accusations made against them in this thread and provide evidence to clear the matter up.

WLBTS wrote:I've asked Wayback Machine for access to their original source for the home page, dated 30th April 2007.  Hopefully they will recognise the seriousness of the accusations made against them in this thread and provide evidence to clear the matter up.  Hopefully they won't sue for libel either.

It will be interesting to see how they react to your request. What on earth do you think is libellous in this thread?

WLBTS wrote:I've asked Wayback Machine for access to their original source for the home page, dated 30th April 2007.  Hopefully they will recognise the seriousness of the accusations made against them in this thread and provide evidence to clear the matter up.  Hopefully they won't sue for libel either.

What accusations against WBM do you mean?

AndyB wrote:What on earth do you think is libellous in this thread?

<snipped>

Deleted that comment, I'm not qualified to comment on whether things are libellous or not.

WLBTS wrote:

AndyB wrote:What on earth do you think is libellous in this thread?

Resistor wrote:
That is correct, they have altered an audit trail, in my professional opinion that constitutes fraud.

I see. I thought you were referring to something I'd said. Sorry, I'm obviously getting a bit tetchy so I think it best if I went to the pub

So now the legal threats start appearing. I wondered how long it would take.

Resistor wrote:So now the legal threats start appearing.  I wondered how long it would take.

Who has threatened legal action against you Resistor?

Poster on cmomm has quoted this from the Wayback FAQs

How did I end up on the live version of a site? or I clicked on X date, but now I am on Y date, how is that possible?

Not every date for every site archived is 100% complete. When you are surfing an incomplete archived site the Wayback Machine will grab the closest available date to the one you are in for the links that are missing. In the event that we do not have the link archived at all, the Wayback Machine will look for the link on the live web and grab it if available. Pay attention to the date code embedded in the archived url. This is the list of numbers in the middle; it translates as yyyymmddhhmmss. For example in this url [link removed because this site will not allow guests to post external links. see FAQ for example link provided] the date the site was crawled was Feb 29, 2000 at 12:33 and 40 seconds.

So a page CAN contain things from another date. That also ties in with what the developer said in the screen shot on p 22. Not much use as an accurate archive then, is it. I wonder if all these people involved in legal cases know about this.

Resistor wrote:So a page CAN contain things from another date.   That also ties in with what the developer said in the screen shot on p 22.  Not much use as an accurate archive then,  is it.  I wonder if all these people involved in legal cases know about this.

According to their own FAQs yes, also interesting that it says pay attention to the date code in the url which is exactly what we have here.

Then that is 100% at odds with the reply they allegedly sent to Isabel McFadden when the office manager claimed the date was wrong.  Both version s cannot be right so which one is it?

Wayback are screwed if that date turn s out to be wrong. Gamble and the McCanns are screwed if it is not. Be interesting to see who gets thrown the wolves.

Resistor wrote:Then that is 100% at odds with the reply they allegedly sent to Isabel McFadden when the office manager claimed the date was wrong.  Both version s cannot be right so which one is it?

Wayback are screwed if that date turn s out to be wrong.  Gamble and the McCanns are screwed if it is not.  Be interesting to see who gets thrown the wolves.

I wish I was more of a techy person but I love that summary

I'm posting this because I'm genuinely curious.

The page which started out this discussion was:
http://www.ceop.gov.uk/mccann.html
in the WBM.

When the WBM tried to archive this page:
http://www.ceop.gov.uk/mccann.html
in 2008, it archived a "Page Not Found" page.
That happened twice in 2008.
It tried for the last time on September 4, 2009, with the same result.

Apologies if I'm missing something but... if the April 30 page didn't exist when the WBM archived it, why didn't it return a "Page Not Found" page?