[Imc-finance] [en] [pt] Epitaph Charities Project

Mon Sep 22 12:53:29 PDT 2003

I think we should call them and talk to them. I sent them an email very 
nicely asking if we could link to and promote their charity on 
www.indymedia.org. Saying that i was concerned that we might give them 
too much traffic. I sent it to all the relevant emails on their 
website. They never got back to me.

We didn't run a feature asking people to stuff the ballots although 
OTHER groups did ask people to go vote for them. (I believe it was 
Human Rights Watch or the Center for Reproductive Rights, but i'm not 
sure which.)

I think that we need to have somebody first contact them by phone. One 
thing i'm sure we need to mention to them is that indymedia gets 
millions of page views every day. That is perhaps why it looked like 
somebody was stuffing ballots. And somebody may have done it, but it 
was never with the support or endorsement of the indymedia network.

We should fight this because that money could keep imc-finance going 
for quite a while.

I will try and track down the email i wrote them over 6 months ago and 
forward it to this list.

-evan

El Sunday, 21 September, 2003, a las 11:40  PM, Sebastian Hacher 
escribió:

>
> :(
>
> our high tech skills  becomed against us
>
> just like in viet nam
>
> i think that we had a mistake doing a "campaigne" to get more votes
> sending emails to our entire network.
>
> saludos
>
>
> seb
>
>
>
> On Sun, 21 Sep 2003, Luis wrote:
>
>> --------------------------------------------
>>
>> [en]
>>
>> Sheri wrote:
>> | i think we should contact them and find out exactly what was the 
>> nature
>> | of the unethical misuse of the voting system.
>>
>> I think I know what it was. When this poll started months ago, what 
>> defined
>> if you had voted in the last 24hours was a "cookie", that their 
>> website sent
>> to your computer once you voted. This cookie lasted for 24hours, so 
>> only
>> when it expired you could vote again. But, if you blocked cookies 
>> coming
>> from epitaph[dot]com, you could vote as many times as you wanted, just
>> clicking on "Back" and voting again and again.
>>
>> I remember reading about it on IRC.
>>
>> But soon after that, they established that you had to enter your email
>> address to vote and that only emails subscribed to their announcements
>> mailing list could vote. At the same time, they started recording who 
>> had
>> voted in the last 24hours at their end, so you really could only vote 
>> once
>> every 24hours. And it has been working like this for months.
>>
>> So, I'm guessing the misuse did not occur by now, but months ago. Even
>> though lately you could vote using three or four different email 
>> addresses,
>> for example, I don't think it would affect the poll so badly that 
>> they would
>> think about removing Indymedia from it.
>>
>> Not sure what we can do about it, though. Should we try to argue that
>> Indymedia should not be held responsible for individual unethical 
>> misuse of
>> their voting system? That instead they could ban the IPs and emails 
>> they
>> felt like to?
>>
>> --------------------------------------------
>>
>> [pt]
>>
>> Sheri escreveu:
>> | creio que deveríamos contatá-los e descobrir qual exatamente foi 
>> este
>> | uso antiético do sistema de votação.
>>
>> Eu acho que sei qual foi. Quando esta votação começou meses atrás, o 
>> que
>> definia se você tinha votado nas últimas 24horas era um "cookie", que 
>> o site
>> deles enviava para o seu computador quando você votava. Esse cookie 
>> durava
>> 24horas e só quando ele expirasse você poderia votar novamente. Mas 
>> se você
>> bloqueasse cookies vindo de epitaph[ponto]com, você podia votar 
>> quantas
>> vezes quisesse, apenas clicando em "Voltar" e votando novamente.
>>
>> Eu lembro de ter lido a respeito no IRC.
>>
>> Mas logo depois disso, a Epitaph estabeleceu que você tinha que 
>> entrar com
>> seu endereço de email para votar. E apenas emails inscritos na lista 
>> de
>> anúncios dela poderiam votar. Ao mesmo tempo, eles começaram a gravar 
>> quem
>> havia votado nas últimas 24horas e não mais gravavam esta informação 
>> por
>> cookies no seu computador. Então, você realmente só conseguia votar 
>> uma
>> única vez a cada 24 horas. E a votação estava funcionado assim há 
>> meses já.
>>
>> Então, eu estou supondo que esse uso antiético não ocorreu por agora, 
>> mas
>> meses atrás. Mesmo que ultimamente você pudesse votar mais de uma vez 
>> usando
>> três ou quatro endereços de email diferentes, por exemplo, eu não 
>> creio que
>> isso afetaria a votação de tal forma que eles considerariam nos 
>> remover da
>> mesma.
>>
>> Porém, não sei o que podemos fazer. Deveríamos tentar argumentar que a
>> Indymedia não deveria ser tida como responsável pelo uso antiético do
>> sistema de votação deles? Que ao invés disso eles poderiam banir os 
>> IPs e os
>> emails que achassem que deveriam?
>>
>> --------------------------------------------
>>
>> Luis,
>> CMI Brasil.
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Sheri Herndon"
>> To: "Luis"
>> Cc: "IMC-finance"
>> Sent: Sunday, September 21, 2003 1:25 PM
>> Subject: Re: [Imc-finance] indymedia removed from the Epitaph
>> CharitiesProject
>>
>>
>> | hi luis,
>> |
>> | thanks.  i've just searched through the site for more information.  
>> there
>> isn't any.  i think we should contact them and find out exactly what 
>> was the
>> nature of the unethical misuse of the voting system.  i've asked some 
>> imc la
>> folks in la who have contacts with music industry to see if they have 
>> any
>> contacts with epitaph.  other ideas or thoughts?
>> |
>> | sheri
>> | seattle imc
>> |
>> | >The note bellow can be found at charity.epitaph.com.
>> | >
>> | >Luis,
>> | >CMI Brasil.
>> | >
>> | >----------------------------------------
>> | >
>> | >* The Independent Media Center has been removed from the Epitaph
>> | >Charities
>> | >list due to an unethical misuse of the voting system that caused an
>> | >inaccurate number of votes in their favor. We apologize for this 
>> late
>> | >change
>> | >and have since adjusted the voting process to validate each 
>> individual
>> | >vote
>> | >that is cast.
>> | >
>> | >_______________________________________________
>> | >Imc-finance mailing list
>> | >Imc-finance at lists.indymedia.org
>> | >http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/listinfo
>> | >Summary Page: 
>> http://docs.indymedia.org/twiki/bin/view/Global/ImcFinance
>> | >
>> | _______________________________________________
>> | Imc-finance mailing list
>> | Imc-finance at lists.indymedia.org
>> | http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/listinfo
>> | Summary Page: 
>> http://docs.indymedia.org/twiki/bin/view/Global/ImcFinance
>>
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>
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