CEOP show Maddie is missing on 30th April 2007

Hongkong Phooey wrote:
Thanks for your patience!
Has rustyjames just demonstrated that because there are later files (than 30/04) then the original crawl is corrupt and it has added data when relaying the page or do you still think it is just a complete date error.

Logically, we can't trust in anything in that 30th April folder.  For example, there might have been a 'mccann' page that existed on 30th April and was put in the time-stamp folder at that time.  However, the 'mccann' page could also have been retrieved at a much later time and erroneously put in the time-stamp folder.  In other words, there is no evidence that it existed on 30th April, it could have been put there later along with all the articles that are dated after 30th April.  At the moment we don't have any evidence to say whether the 30th April folder was created at that time, or later in the year.

I believe that is a complete date error, that was the conclusion I came to when looking at the evidence originally.  I've heard many people talking about the enormous coincidence of this being a McCann page.  Well, that is only really a coincidence to us, very few people in the world really care about it.  What is an enormous coincidence is that we have a page archived 30th April 2007 that relates to the disappearance of Madeleine McCann several days before she was reported missing, and also there would be seem to have been some kind of error half a year later that archived many pages incorrectly into that very same folder. Why this folder in particular? That is an enormous coincidence.

WLBTS wrote:
I'm not sure this is an argument either of us are really interested in, is it?  If you'd like to move on I'd be more than happy to oblige.  Truce?

Of course. I wasn't even aware we were arguing. I thought it was just a discussion about what might have happened

Resistor wrote:So let's go with "crawls from October are time stamped as April" for the moment (I'm still not convinced but let's go with it for the moment)
That's the whole bottom fallen out of waybacks reputation, right there
They will be able to tell all the owners of the other sites affected,  won't they
They will be able to provide other examples
They will have to issue a major bug fix and update,  because they can't risk it happening again, can they
And they will have to make details of that bug fix public on their site so people know it's been fixed
Let's just wait and see :0

It could have been fixed years ago, there have been loads of updates. As for their reputation - well, I'm sure they're not particularly happy about it, but as I said earlier, they are just providing a useful service via a non-profit organisation. Which customers are they going to be losing with this damage to their reputation?

AndyB wrote:

WLBTS wrote:
I'm not sure this is an argument either of us are really interested in, is it?  If you'd like to move on I'd be more than happy to oblige.  Truce?

Of course. I wasn't even aware we were arguing. I thought it was just a discussion about what might have happened

Great

Perhaps its only the date that is significant...
Maybe we are being played with very cryptically. I doubt I will win the goldfish

WLBTS wrote:

Hongkong Phooey wrote:
Thanks for your patience!
Has rustyjames just demonstrated that because there are later files (than 30/04) then the original crawl is corrupt and it has added data when relaying the page or do you still think it is just a complete date error.

Logically, we can't trust in anything in that 30th April folder.  For example, there might have been a 'mccann' page that existed on 30th April and was put in the time-stamp folder at that time.  However, the 'mccann' page could also have been retrieved at a much later time and erroneously put in the time-stamp folder.  In other words, there is no evidence that it existed on 30th April, it could have been put there later along with all the articles that are dated after 30th April.

I believe that is a complete date error, that was the conclusion I came to when looking at the evidence originally.  I've heard many people talking about the enormous coincidence of this being a McCann page.  Well, that is only really a coincidence to us, very few people in the world really care about it.  What is an enormous coincidence is that we have a page archived 30th April 2007 that relates to the disappearance of Madeleine McCann several days before she was reported missing, and that there would be some kind of error half a year later that archived many pages incorrectly into that very same folder.

OK, why would there be a McCann page dated 30th (filename included time stamp) and others after that date (with a filename of that proper date I.e. 17th July time stamped then) all in a folder named 30/04. Surely all that indicates is the the folder has some wrong files in it, however it still indicates there was a file created on 30/04 which is a McCann file. Or am I barking up the wrong tree?

Hongkong Phooey wrote:
OK, why would there be a McCann page dated 30th (filename included time stamp) and others after that date (with a filename of that proper date I.e. 17th July time stamped then) all in a folder named 30/04. Surely all that indicates is the the folder has some wrong files in it, however it still indicates there was a file created on 30/04 which is a McCann file. Or am I barking up the wrong tree?

No, it doesn't indicate that.  There are article pages in that were archived in the same folder (20070430115803) that clearly must have come into existence later in the year and didn't exist on 30th April.  If the mccann page did not exist on 30th April, and was archived say in December, but incorrectly into the 30th April folder, then its filename would be exactly as you see it now, including the 20070430115803 folder.

Compare these possibilities:

1. On 30th April 2007, WBM archived the mccann page as it saw it then.  Much later in the year, maybe December, an error caused many files to be filed in that very same folder that is so controversial.  This is an extraordinary coincidence.

OR

2. In December, an error caused many files to be filed under the incorrect time-stamp of 30th April 2007.

My professional opinion is that (2) is the most feasible proposal.

WLBTS wrote:
Compare these possibilities:

1. On 30th April 2007, WBM archived the mccann page as it saw it then.  Much later in the year, maybe December, an error caused many files to be filed in that very same folder that is so controversial.  This is an extraordinary coincidence.

OR

2. In December, an error caused many files to be filed under the incorrect time-stamp of 30th April 2007.

My professional opinion is that (2) is the most feasible proposal.

OR

3. The files that post date 30/04/2007 were manually copied in at a later date.

The date's don't match up. There is a news article dated 02/12/2007 in the folder. If 2 is correct, the links to news in the CEOP home page would include the 02/12/2007 article but the most recent link in the page is 23/10/2007

I don't suppose there's any way to see when the files in 20070430115803 were created and last updated is there?

AndyB wrote:
The date's don't match up. There is a news article dated 02/12/2007 in the folder. If 2 is correct, the links to news in the CEOP home page would include the 02/12/2007 article but the most recent link in the page is 23/10/2007

Not necessarily.  The news headlines listed in the CEOP home page could have been pulled from a database table - I've implemented similar systems many times.  The article page could have been written at that time, but not yet entered into the database.  Alternatively, the CEOP home page could have been manually put together rather than dynamic, and didn't include a link to the article at that time.

ETA - there are a few other articles dated later than 23rd October. I don't know, maybe they weren't marked as 'news'. It's impossible for us to tell on the evidence we have.

Another dumb question maybe. If it had been noticed that there was a file existing on 30 Apr that shouldn't be there, is it possible someone has attempted to flag it up by deliberately putting in something that shouldn't be there in order to draw attention. I am thinking of it in terms of a not so techie person, more like a data enterer.  In other words to blow the whistle without being seen to.
Or someone adding in data at a later date has accidentally applied it to the wrong folder.
Again dismiss if rubbish.

WLBTS wrote:

Hongkong Phooey wrote:
OK, why would there be a McCann page dated 30th (filename included time stamp) and others after that date (with a filename of that proper date I.e. 17th July time stamped then) all in a folder named 30/04. Surely all that indicates is the the folder has some wrong files in it, however it still indicates there was a file created on 30/04 which is a McCann file. Or am I barking up the wrong tree?

No, it doesn't indicate that.  There are article pages in that were archived in the same folder (20070430115803) that clearly must have come into existence later in the year and didn't exist on 30th April.  If the mccann page did not exist on 30th April, and was archived say in December, but incorrectly into the 30th April folder, then its filename would be exactly as you see it now, including the 20070430115803 folder.

Compare these possibilities:

1. On 30th April 2007, WBM archived the mccann page as it saw it then.  Much later in the year, maybe December, an error caused many files to be filed in that very same folder that is so controversial.  This is an extraordinary coincidence.

OR

2. In December, an error caused many files to be filed under the incorrect time-stamp of 30th April 2007.

My professional opinion is that (2) is the most feasible proposal.

No 2. We've not seen may files with an incorrect stamp date, so far (maybe I'm wrong!) only one supposedly. The other files are just in the wrong folder. Should I just give up cause I'm not getting it!!

Hongkong Phooey wrote:
No 2. We've not seen may files with an incorrect stamp date, so far (maybe I'm wrong!) only one supposedly. The other files are just in the wrong folder. Should I just give up cause I'm not getting it!!

Do you mean that the other files are in the wrong folder, but the mccann page is in the right folder?

WLBTS wrote:

AndyB wrote:
The date's don't match up. There is a news article dated 02/12/2007 in the folder. If 2 is correct, the links to news in the CEOP home page would include the 02/12/2007 article but the most recent link in the page is 23/10/2007

Not necessarily.  The news headlines listed in the CEOP home page could have been pulled from a database table - I've implemented similar systems many times.  The article page could have been written at that time, but not yet entered into the database.  Alternatively, the CEOP home page could have been manually put together rather than dynamic, and didn't include a link to the article at that time.

ETA - there are a few other articles dated later than 23rd October.  I don't know, maybe they weren't marked as 'news'.  It's impossible for us to tell on the evidence we have.

It is impossible to tell for certain but I seriously don't believe that all three of the press releases between 23/10/2007 and 02/12/2007 were left off the website until post 02/12/2007. The 16/11/2007 one is there by 06/02/2008 (which is the next archive): http://web.archive.org/web/20080206004029/http://www.ceop.gov.uk/

The anomalous articles are
/news_items/article_20071105_ceop.htm
/news_items/article_20071112_ceop.htm
/news_items/article_20071116_ceop.htm

WLBTS wrote:

Hongkong Phooey wrote:
No 2. We've not seen may files with an incorrect stamp date, so far (maybe I'm wrong!) only one supposedly. The other files are just in the wrong folder. Should I just give up cause I'm not getting it!!

Do you mean that the other files are in the wrong folder, but the mccann page is in the right folder?

Possibly yes

At about 2:00 mins the founder of Waybackmachine says they respond to people wanting to take stuff off.

Hongkong Phooey wrote:

WLBTS wrote:

Hongkong Phooey wrote:
No 2. We've not seen may files with an incorrect stamp date, so far (maybe I'm wrong!) only one supposedly. The other files are just in the wrong folder. Should I just give up cause I'm not getting it!!

Do you mean that the other files are in the wrong folder, but the mccann page is in the right folder?

Possibly yes

Based on what?

AndyB wrote:It is impossible to tell for certain but I seriously don't believe that all three of the press releases between 23/10/2007 and 02/12/2007 were left off the website until post 02/12/2007. The 16/11/2007 one is there by 06/02/2008 (which is the next archive): http://web.archive.org/web/20080206004029/http://www.ceop.gov.uk/

The anomalous articles are
/news_items/article_20071105_ceop.htm
/news_items/article_20071112_ceop.htm
/news_items/article_20071116_ceop.htm

This is something there is no evidence for, so as you correctly state, this is a matter of belief and belief only.

Details of how it operated in September 2006,

http://www.enterprisestorageforum.com/technology/features/article.php/3633256/The-Wayback-Machine-From-Petabytes-to-PetaBoxes.htm

Mimi wrote:Details of how it operated in September 2006,

http://www.enterprisestorageforum.com/technology/features/article.php/3633256/The-Wayback-Machine-From-Petabytes-to-PetaBoxes.htm

I suppose its not possible to access these back-up archives and examine the original, unaltered data ?

WLBTS wrote:

Hongkong Phooey wrote:

WLBTS wrote:

Hongkong Phooey wrote:
No 2. We've not seen may files with an incorrect stamp date, so far (maybe I'm wrong!) only one supposedly. The other files are just in the wrong folder. Should I just give up cause I'm not getting it!!

Do you mean that the other files are in the wrong folder, but the mccann page is in the right folder?

Possibly yes

Based on what?

Based on the same as everyone on here's actual knowledge of DBM which is very little! However the McCann file has the timestamp embedded into the URL and saying somehow this was allocated wrongly at a later date is just guesswork as well

Mimi wrote:At about 2:00 mins the founder of Waybackmachine says they respond to people wanting to take stuff off.

There is a link in the FAQs which you can ask to have your pages removed IIRC.

Hongkong Phooey wrote:
Based on the same as everyone on here's actual knowledge of DBM which is very little! However the McCann file has the timestamp embedded into the URL and saying somehow this was allocated wrongly at a later date is just guesswork as well

The articles from the future also have that timestamp embedded into their URLs, and in their case the timestamp is completely wrong.

I'll just add that the claims that Richard D. Hall is making now - that the mccann page must have been archived on 30th April 2007 because that date is in the comment at the bottom of the file - demonstrate a total lack of understanding on this subject.  It should be quite clear to anybody with technical expertise that the comment at the bottom is most likely added at retrieval time, along with the Wayback Toolbar UI.  The retrieval date and time is also part of that comment!  It beggars belief that Mr Hall could possibly think this reflects the state of the archived page in the hard store.  Does the WBM system update the archived page with the new comment every time it is retrieved?  Why on earth would it do that?

If the 30th April archive hadn't have been removed, this would have been easy to demonstrate with those later articles, which I am certain would have had the 30th April archive date in the comment - something I can't prove at this time because of their removal.

ETA - to Mr Hall, if you are reading this, my apologies for being so abrasive - I had no idea that Tony Bennett would copy and paste this over into *his* forum within minutes.  Had I known that I was to be addressing you personally, I would have been more diplomatic

WLBTS wrote:

Hongkong Phooey wrote:
Based on the same as everyone on here's actual knowledge of DBM which is very little! However the McCann file has the timestamp embedded into the URL and saying somehow this was allocated wrongly at a later date is just guesswork as well

The articles from the future also have that timestamp embedded into their URLs, and in their case the timestamp is completely wrong.

Can you demonstrate this?

Hongkong Phooey wrote:

Mimi wrote:At about 2:00 mins the founder of Waybackmachine says they respond to people wanting to take stuff off.

There is a link in the FAQs which you can ask to have your pages removed IIRC.

Right HKP, thanks. Sorry to be so thick.