Re: Steve Marsden's WBM screenshot: The CEOP Home page for April 30, 2007 also refers to Missing Madeleine.

by HKP 29.06.15 22:58

Does anyone want to have a bash at interpreting Chris Butler's ‘subset‘ error that can only be explained to the police.

by HKP 29.06.15 23:07

@Tony Bennett. One question to be answered is:- was there an actual crawl on the 30/04/07 that included the Ceop site, if there was then what was captured, if there wasn't then what's gone wrong. The 30/04 date was also the start date for a crawl sequence on 30/04/06 & 30/04/08 both did not capture any Ceop data on these particular days.

by Nuala 29.06.15 23:19

@ Tony Bennett

Many thanks, BUT, if I was asked the wrong question, and the answer was:

"Thousands of URLs got given the wrong date"...

...then I would have supplied the correct date.

As a non-tecchie, I would now throw it out to those who say this was a genuine 'capture' on 30 April to fully explain how so many URLs can be given the 'wrong' date.

If 'a faulty sub-set' is the answer for the above, i.e. a faulty sub-set keeps on referring later URL searches back to 30 April all the time, I can accept that as a reasonable answer.

But I would still want to know if this faulty sub-set had affected other data on Wayback - by the sound of it, thousands of alleged Wayback 'captures' are all in error and therefore can't be relied on. And the error may run into tens or hundreds of thousands

The problem with these questions is, you're expecting an answer from Wayback that Wayback has no obligation to give. And I don't blame them.

They have no obligation whatsoever to answer those questions. They don't care about answering those questions. They don't care if you think they SHOULD answer those questions.

They are not accountable to any of us. I simply don't understand why anyone would think they are.

by HKP 29.06.15 23:34

@Nuala. Was there an actual crawl conducted on 30/04/07? You seem to want to convince anyone who will listen that the whole 3015 URLs are wrong. At this point you don't have any better idea than I have because I don't know for sure. Without us actually knowing how the index appears to have items in it which don't belong there then you cannot categorically state mccann.html did or did not exist on this date. Do you agree?

by **Tony Bennett** 29.06.15 23:47

Nuala wrote:The problem with these questions is, you're expecting an answer from Wayback that Wayback has no obligation to give. And I don't blame them.

They have no obligation whatsoever to answer those questions. They don't care about answering those questions. They don't care if you think they SHOULD answer those questions.

They are not accountable to any of us. I simply don't understand why anyone would think they are.

But then we are back to the point you made earlier, when you said 'this isn't a game'.

The questions are not going to go away because there is at least prima facie evidence that a 'mccann.html' page was created on 30th April.

Now if that were to be proved, this really would be no game at all - and the most profound questions would have to be asked of Jim Gamble about the creation of that page. A similar point appears to have been made to Christopher Butler by Lizzy Taylor.

As this concerns what really happened to a missing child, the most famous missing child in the history of the universe, and because Wayback has an impressive track record of accuracy, then because of the exceptional nature of this alleged data 'capture', I do think that Wayback should and must provide a comprehensible and compelling explanation for what they have already publicly admitted is an error, 'glitch' or 'subset anomaly'.

I don't need all my questions answering. Just tell us, Wayback, why you said the data were accurate, and then changed your mind.

But maybe we can all put this matter to bed as it appears Jim Gamble has spoken. I understand he tweeted this 2 or 3 days ago:

its def some kind of error the 'deluded' will/have gone into conspiracy overdrive. Some suggesting we knew in advance #crazy

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

by Claire25 30.06.15 0:06

The Tony Bennett wrote:
XXXXXXXX wrote:"Lizzy Hideho Taylor
1 hr · Edited
I just spoke to Chris about the WBM issues to ask if there could be a further email about the reason the CEOP page appeared on April 30th. His response was that the email he sent to me initially was an acknowledgement of their error in the Timestamp (something to do with a 'subset') and that there really isn't anything else they can reply to.
He has become aware of the 'speculation' but basically cannot respond any further and suggested that if anyone has any queries about anything regarding the error and if they feel that there may be major implications they should contact the police and he will furnish them with any information necessary."
That's not an honest response.

After seeing that report from Lizzy Taylor, to me the balance of the argument has swung again in favour of those who assert there WAS a 'capture' of a 'mccann.html' file by Wayback Machine on the CEOP website at 11.58am on 30 April 2007.

"Something to do with a subset" is not an answer at all.

And if he has got the answer, how many minutes does it take for him to write out an explanation and give it to Lizzy Taylor or anyone else who has enquired about their alleged error?

A subset error that only affects the CEOP site on 30 April 2007?

What subset error and how many other timestamps are affected?

And as for: 'Go to the police', this says to me: "This is very sensitive and we're not telling you anything more - ever. Now leave us alone".

Spot on. This is exactly what I think.

I've been following and whilst I don't really understand the technical side and also can imagine it's easy to cling onto the hope that some concrete evidence is found, theres some twitchy behaviour going on from some people who seem desperate to convince everyone it's all an error just so we all don't look stupid.

I've very much swung to the view that the page existed on 30/04 now too. I don't understand the arguments, but more of the posters in that camp seem genuine.

by MRNOODLES 30.06.15 0:12

Just my opinion, but I think WBM have withdrawn themselves from full explanations, because they don't want to broadcast to the world their flawless system, is a complete lump of s***.

by Nuala 30.06.15 0:21

@ Tony Bennett

because Wayback has an impressive track record of accuracy

I'm not sure where you got that from? Certainly not from Wayback themselves. They make no assertions for that being the case.

I do think that Wayback should and must provide a comprehensible and compelling explanation for what they have already publicly admitted is an error, 'glitch' or 'subset anomaly'.

I don't know why you would think that? You might want it, but Wayback is not obliged to provide it.

I repeat, I simply don't understand why anyone would think Wayback is accountable to any of us.

It's not. Not in any way, shape or form.

To continue down this route of "Wayback must answer" is pointless and unrealistic. Wayback has no obligation to answer any questions we might have.

by sar 30.06.15 0:22

roy rovers wrote:I suspect Chris Butler isn't hiding anything. He just doesn't want to broadcast the fact that his Time Machine isn't all it's cracked up to be.

'Overwhelmed, he goes back to the machine and returns to Victorian time, arriving at his laboratory in Richmond (since he has travelled in time, not space) just three hours after he originally left. Interrupting dinner, he relates his adventures to his disbelieving visitors, producing as evidence the two strange white flowers Weena had put in his pocket.' HG Wells 'THE TIME MACHINE' (summary)

+1 RR!!!!

Thank you.

by **Richard D. Hall** 30.06.15 0:26

People keep asking for a non techie explanation, here it is ...

Imagine internet files are bars of chocolate.

Imagine when the files (chocolate bars) leave the production line before they go to the shop they are stamped with the current date, i.e. the date they were made. Every chocolate bar has got a date of manufacture clearly stamped on the wrapper. In the factory, every day the date stamper is changed without fail. Never before has anyone ever questioned that a date was wrong on the wrappers of chocolate bars.

Now imagine we have a new type of choclate bar. The Madeleine Bar. A brand spanking new type of chocolate. The chocolate company start making these bars like crazy and they set the production line in swing, with the date stamp machine working as normal, along with all the usual types of chocolate bar too, using the same date stamping machine.

Then one day 8 years later somebody picks a wrapper out of an old dustbin and realises the date on the wrapper says 30 April 2007. Somebody else then says to you,

"that date can't be right", "It is widely believed (although not proven) that the Madeleine Bar was not invented by the company until 3rd May 2007".

What would you thinK?

The date must be wrong, or the chocolate was made on 30 April 2007?

Bear in mind the date on no other chocolate bar has ever been proven to be wrong.

by **Tony Bennett** 30.06.15 0:33

Nuala wrote:@ Tony Bennett

because Wayback has an impressive track record of accuracy

I'm not sure where you got that from? Certainly not from Wayback themselves. They make no assertions for that being the case.

I do think that Wayback should and must provide a comprehensible and compelling explanation for what they have already publicly admitted is an error, 'glitch' or 'subset anomaly'.

I don't know why you would think that? You might want it, but Wayback is not obliged to provide it.

I repeat, I simply don't understand why anyone would think Wayback is accountable to any of us. It's not. Not in any way, shape or form.

@ Nuala

If it wasn't for the fact that Wayback is routinely used in court cases to prove what is true and is not true, and thus helps to determine the fate of dozens of plaintiffs and defendants in those court proceedings, I might have agreed with you

A capture of 'mccann.html'

As far as Steve Marsden could tell

Was at 11.58

30 April the date

'Twas a subset error - Oh well!

by Verdi 30.06.15 1:12

Don't know if it's already been covered but I've been poking about the CEOP website for some indication as to how this anomoly may have arisen. I don't pretend to understand precisely how Wayback operates but from what I've read I'm assuming that it's function is entirely electronic in terms of web crawling.

I took a random selection of pages from the CEOP website, going back to 2005, and pasted onto Wayback machine, every single one of which showed the first grab shots to be either dated 19th September 2010 or 6th October 2010 (including a press release concerning Madeleine McCanns disappearance from 2007) - coinciding nicely with the CEOPs merger with SOCA etc. Could be wrong but this indicates to me that the CEOP was not accessible to the web crawler prior to that time so where do the April 2007 + come from?

Also I entered the original Steve Marsden [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] into google and yahoo search which only produced links to the many sites debating the McCann case - NOT the CEOP.

Any explanation? I'm thinking maybe this is a mega hoax of some description, I don't claim to know how it's possible but I am aware that high-tech boffins are capable of all sorts of mischief, not necessarily for any reason but just because they can.

by Joss 30.06.15 4:02

Richard D. Hall wrote:People keep asking for a non techie explanation, here it is ...

Imagine internet files are bars of chocolate.

Imagine when the files (chocolate bars) leave the production line before they go to the shop they are stamped with the current date, i.e. the date they were made. Every chocolate bar has got a date of manufacture clearly stamped on the wrapper. In the factory, every day the date stamper is changed without fail. Never before has anyone ever questioned that a date was wrong on the wrappers of chocolate bars.

Now imagine we have a new type of choclate bar. The Madeleine Bar. A brand spanking new type of chocolate. The chocolate company start making these bars like crazy and they set the production line in swing, with the date stamp machine working as normal, along with all the usual types of chocolate bar too, using the same date stamping machine.

Then one day 8 years later somebody picks a wrapper out of an old dustbin and realises the date on the wrapper says 30 April 2007. Somebody else then says to you,

"that date can't be right", "It is widely believed (although not proven) that the Madeleine Bar was not invented by the company until 3rd May 2007".

What would you thinK?

The date must be wrong, or the chocolate was made on 30 April 2007?

Bear in mind the date on no other chocolate bar has ever been proven to be wrong.

Thanks Richard Hall for this very understandable explanation of how it works.

by Joss 30.06.15 4:08

Tony Bennett wrote:
Nuala wrote:@ Tony Bennett

because Wayback has an impressive track record of accuracy

I'm not sure where you got that from? Certainly not from Wayback themselves. They make no assertions for that being the case.

I do think that Wayback should and must provide a comprehensible and compelling explanation for what they have already publicly admitted is an error, 'glitch' or 'subset anomaly'.

I don't know why you would think that? You might want it, but Wayback is not obliged to provide it.

I repeat, I simply don't understand why anyone would think Wayback is accountable to any of us. It's not. Not in any way, shape or form.
@ Nuala

If it wasn't for the fact that Wayback is routinely used in court cases to prove what is true and is not true, and thus helps to determine the fate of dozens of plaintiffs and defendants in those court proceedings, I might have agreed with you

A capture of 'mccann.html'

As far as Steve Marsden could tell

Was at 11.58

30 April the date

'Twas a subset error - Oh well!

Will the Internet Archive take a position in my legal dispute?
The Internet Archive strives to be a disinterested third party in all disputes involving its collection items. If you are using Wayback Machine documents to make a case in your legal dispute, the Internet Archive will not take an idealogical or other position in said dispute.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

by Joss 30.06.15 4:15

This is WayBack's stance on their information. Note: They make no warranty or representation regarding Accuracy, Currency, Completeness, Reliability, or Usefulness of the content in the Collections.

The Archive does not endorse or sponsor any content in the Collections, nor does it guarantee or warrant that the content available in the Collections is accurate, complete, noninfringing, or legally accessible in your jurisdiction, and you agree that you are solely responsible for abiding by all laws and regulations that may be applicable to the viewing of the content. In addition, the Collections are provided to you on an as-is and as-available basis. You agree that your use of the Site and the Collections is at your sole risk. You understand and agree that the Archive makes no warranty or representation regarding the accuracy, currency, completeness, reliability, or usefulness of the content in the Collections, that the Site or the Collections will meet your requirements, that access to the Collections will be uninterrupted, timely, secure, or error free, or that defects, if any, will be corrected. We make no warranty of any kind, either express or implied.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

by Joss 30.06.15 4:24

And even if we have this Prima Facie evidence in our hands, where are we going to go with it to prove a point? For starters we need a Court case/Trial to bring the evidence forward in Court/Trial via an Attorney, and that would depend on if the judge allows it in as electronic evidence or not, and there is no such court case/trial here in the McCann case. Are we going to bring charges against the McC's or CEOP? I just don't see where this is all going for any evidence to be useful.

by HKP 30.06.15 8:19

Here’s an interesting bit of info. to get the juices flowing:- 30/04/07 from the 2495 urls captured (according to the Dr Martin search) there are a number of repetitions,
for example.

Madeleine ceopupload com appears 9 times
Get advice mobiles good html appears 27 times
News items/articles appears 22 times
Press releases 2007 appears 22 times
There are plenty others however………

Madeleine 01 jpeg APPEARS 1 TIME

[size=32]Madeleine 02 jpeg APPEARS 1 TIME[/size]

by Wahrheit 30.06.15 11:09

Joss wrote:This is WayBack's stance on their information. Note: They make no warranty or representation regarding Accuracy, Currency, Completeness, Reliability, or Usefulness of the content in the Collections.

The Archive does not endorse or sponsor any content in the Collections, nor does it guarantee or warrant that the content available in the Collections is accurate, complete, noninfringing, or legally accessible in your jurisdiction, and you agree that you are solely responsible for abiding by all laws and regulations that may be applicable to the viewing of the content. In addition, the Collections are provided to you on an as-is and as-available basis. You agree that your use of the Site and the Collections is at your sole risk. You understand and agree that the Archive makes no warranty or representation regarding the accuracy, currency, completeness, reliability, or usefulness of the content in the Collections, that the Site or the Collections will meet your requirements, that access to the Collections will be uninterrupted, timely, secure, or error free, or that defects, if any, will be corrected. We make no warranty of any kind, either express or implied.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

This is a standard "CYA" Disclaimer of Warranty Clause. It doesn't mean, necessarily that they have no confidence in their services. Any good attorney would insist on similar clauses being inserted especially in the US.

by Doug D 30.06.15 11:38

Verdi:

‘I took a random selection of pages from the CEOP website, going back to 2005, and pasted onto Wayback machine, every single one of which showed the first grab shots to be either dated 19th September 2010 or 6th October 2010 (including a press release concerning Madeleine McCanns disappearance from 2007) - coinciding nicely with the CEOPs merger with SOCA etc. Could be wrong but this indicates to me that the CEOP was not accessible to the web crawler prior to that time so where do the April 2007 + come from?’

Too little too late I believe. Many of the old CEOP pages have been whooshed and diverted to the ‘CEOP Command’ page.

Using:

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

you can however still go back to the very first CEOP Press Release captured on 24^th December 2005, announcing the launch of the new CEOP Centre in April 2006 and tab forward from there.

HKP:

‘was there an actual crawl on the 30/04/07 that included the Ceop site, if there was then what was captured, if there wasn't then what's gone wrong.’

If you look at the ‘Wayback captures bar’ at the top of this screen you can (just about) see the red bar which ties in with the 30^th April date showing. This is the first capture of the 11 quoted in the bar.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

From WBM’s second statement to HideHo the date of this capture was really 31^st July, which again makes little sense for a page which by then should have been nearly three months old. If indeed this capture date was 31/7, there should be at least one white gap between the black bars for June, which there is not.

Similarly from this screenshot of 13^th May, there is the ‘pop-up’ date showing for 30^th April and there is clearly a black bar to the left of the red 13^th May one, indicating an earlier capture:

(Sorry can't get 'Host an Image' to work for some reason, I took an actual photograph of the screen as 'screen grab' wouldn't capture the pop-up. Is an 8mb picture too big?)

Nuala will no doubt be back questioning why on earth should WBM respond to anyone, but as they have responded so far, they are going to have to do so again, because this is not just going to go away.

by HKP 30.06.15 12:22

[size=35]No real takers from my last post never mind here’s some more:- [/size]

[size=35]out of the 2495 urls captured on 30/04/07[/size] [size=35]104 of them have the exact same convention within the file name which is (S(beokrn453z22tm55hjfuox45)) the other 2391 do not have this exact piece in their url. So far so good, of the 104 with this unique name 102 of them are replicated on average 21 times (although their url is not the same as the bracketed marker their ‘page name’ is).[/size]

[size=35] That leaves us with just 2 urls madeleine 01 jpg & madeleine 02 jpg, both of which only occur once throughout 30/04/07. Does this give any credence for the madeleine pictures being misfiled or they were the true capture. [/size]

[size=35]It should be noted that mccann. html has a range of 30/04/07 to 04/09/09 and has not been included in the analysis for that purpose[/size]

by Liz Eagles 30.06.15 13:18

Richard D. Hall wrote:People keep asking for a non techie explanation, here it is ...

Imagine internet files are bars of chocolate.

Imagine when the files (chocolate bars) leave the production line before they go to the shop they are stamped with the current date, i.e. the date they were made. Every chocolate bar has got a date of manufacture clearly stamped on the wrapper. In the factory, every day the date stamper is changed without fail. Never before has anyone ever questioned that a date was wrong on the wrappers of chocolate bars.

Now imagine we have a new type of choclate bar. The Madeleine Bar. A brand spanking new type of chocolate. The chocolate company start making these bars like crazy and they set the production line in swing, with the date stamp machine working as normal, along with all the usual types of chocolate bar too, using the same date stamping machine.

Then one day 8 years later somebody picks a wrapper out of an old dustbin and realises the date on the wrapper says 30 April 2007. Somebody else then says to you,

"that date can't be right", "It is widely believed (although not proven) that the Madeleine Bar was not invented by the company until 3rd May 2007".

What would you thinK?

The date must be wrong, or the chocolate was made on 30 April 2007?

Bear in mind the date on no other chocolate bar has ever been proven to be wrong.

Thank you Richard, at last something I can understand and a really simple template for looking at this issue.

by Joss 30.06.15 13:21

Wahrheit wrote:
Joss wrote:This is WayBack's stance on their information. Note: They make no warranty or representation regarding Accuracy, Currency, Completeness, Reliability, or Usefulness of the content in the Collections.

The Archive does not endorse or sponsor any content in the Collections, nor does it guarantee or warrant that the content available in the Collections is accurate, complete, noninfringing, or legally accessible in your jurisdiction, and you agree that you are solely responsible for abiding by all laws and regulations that may be applicable to the viewing of the content. In addition, the Collections are provided to you on an as-is and as-available basis. You agree that your use of the Site and the Collections is at your sole risk. You understand and agree that the Archive makes no warranty or representation regarding the accuracy, currency, completeness, reliability, or usefulness of the content in the Collections, that the Site or the Collections will meet your requirements, that access to the Collections will be uninterrupted, timely, secure, or error free, or that defects, if any, will be corrected. We make no warranty of any kind, either express or implied.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

This is a standard "CYA" Disclaimer of Warranty Clause. It doesn't mean, necessarily that they have no confidence in their services. Any good attorney would insist on similar clauses being inserted especially in the US.

Thanks, i realize that. I was just posting it up from their site about their terms of use of WBM.

by HKP 30.06.15 13:22

@Doug D. The reason I ask if there was a crawl on 30/04/07 is that there are claims by some on here that it's all a big mistake. The very first question that needs answering is was the ceop site crawled on 30/04 the evidence points to yes however if there has been some sort of mis-filing then the answer could be no. I'm trying to get those who see it just as an error to tell us why Madeleine jpg was not picked up on 30/04, that can't at this point in time (other than claptrap from Chris Butler)

by Doug D 30.06.15 13:25

Well done HKP. Keep plugging away.

So is this making my ‘just supposing’ from yesterday:

‘How about invalidate the 30^th April date by ‘finding and replacing’ dozens of assorted dates with the 30^th April to show that Wayback clearly had a ‘glitch’ on that date? That must do the trick mustn’t it?’

a little more likely?

by Joss 30.06.15 13:36

HKP wrote:@Doug D. The reason I ask if there was a crawl on 30/04/07 is that there are claims by some on here that it's all a big mistake. The very first question that needs answering is was the ceop site crawled on 30/04 the evidence points to yes however if there has been some sort of mis-filing then the answer could be no. I'm trying to get those who see it just as an error to tell us why Madeleine jpg was not picked up on 30/04, that can't at this point in time (other than claptrap from Chris Butler)

Don't really know exactly what you're asking, but i certainly don't believe WBM have an agenda to cover up anything. Why would they? I also don't see any reason to denigrate Chris Butler. I don't think WBM want to keep being harrassed about it all either, seeing as they get lots of enquiries world wide. Sounds to me like they are getting a bit annoyed about it and probably why they said to take it up with the authorities. Why should they dedicate their time to this, when they already say they are working on it. Maybe CEOP could explain it instead, if it was their data from their website?

Steve Marsden's WBM screenshot: The CEOP Home page for April 30, 2007 also refers to Missing Madeleine.