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

HKP wrote:

Syn wrote:

HKP wrote:

Nuala wrote:@ HKP via Rufus T

Given the above statement of ‘if this file doesn't exist web robots assume the web owner wishes to provide no specific instructions, and crawls the entire site’ is this what happened and the entire site was crawled picking up mccann.html & madeleine 01 & 02 jpgs???

This is the robots.txt file for the CEOP website as archived on 29th April at 14:15:59:

User-agent: *
Disallow: /images/
Disallow: /pdfs/
Disallow: /role_profiles/

Nothing about excluding mccann.html there.

Also, just because the robots.txt wasn't crawled on 30 Apr 2007 doesn't mean it wasn't there. It would have been there on 30 Apr 2007, just not crawled on that date.

Note also:

1) robots.txt exclusion requests are just that, only requests. A robots.txt doesn't actually stop a crawler from crawling certain things, it just a request that they don't, so anyone wanting to hide anything wouldn't upload it and use a robots.txt to exclude it from crawlers.

2) robots.txt files are public, anyone can see them, all they have to do is enter the URL [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] to view the file. So a robots.txt would not be used to " hide" mccann.html because it wouldn't actually hide it.

I've registered so I can post on this thread,.
Can you show us all the robot.txt for 30/04 rather than the 29/04

What part of they have taken all the erroneous 30/04/2007 urls out of the WB archive whilst they try and resolve this issue do you not understand? Ergo Nuala nor anyone else cannot provide what you ask but safe to say it will be EXACTLY the same as it was for 29/04/2007

Woops there goes that assumption again, nothing is safe to say it will be EXACTLY the same because in reality then you don't know. Since you're playing an assuming card let's assume that it didn't pick up a robots.txt and carried out a more rigorous sweep picking up all sorts maybe even mccann. html

What is safe to say is that the records show 28/04 was nothing like 30/04

Nuala wrote:Quoting @ Syn

safe to say it will be EXACTLY the same as it was for 29/04/2007

Of course it will. And the idea that someone uploaded mccann.html on 30 Apr, and also uploaded a new robots.txt to exclude that page is ridiculous.

If they wanted to keep mccann.html secret they just wouldn't have uploaded it.

You don't upload a page you want to keep secret and then try and keep it secret with a robots.txt that is public (anyone can view it) and the exclusion request might be ignored by any crawler anyway.

Crazy idea.

Nuala wrote:@ Syn

You are straw clutching to the extreme because you really want this to be some big setup by CEOP but it isn't. I concur that there is more to the the McCann case than meets the eye and but you are in tinfoil hat territory with your surmises. You are struggling to understand basic concepts re robots.txt. You do Madeleine no favours whatsoever in clutching onto such way out and non-provable theories. If you want justice for her, you will have to think a lot more rationally and logically than you are currently doing

Well said. I agree with all of that.

Nuala wrote:@ HKP

I suggested that for some reason the robots.txt file was not present

I understood that. You must have missed me saying:

so the robots.txt not existing on 30 Apr would have made no difference.

Nuala wrote:@ HKP

I suggested that for some reason the robots.txt file was not present

I understood that. You must have missed me saying:

so the robots.txt not existing on 30 Apr would have made no difference.

HKP wrote:

Nuala wrote:@ HKP

I suggested that for some reason the robots.txt file was not present

I understood that. You must have missed me saying:

so the robots.txt not existing on 30 Apr would have made no difference.

You seem to be missing something, 30/04 was like no other, something happened (do you even agree with that?) and an extraordinary amount of repetition and captures was conducted. Can you categorically state that a robots txt file from any previous crawl or current available (on that day) was 'read' and utilised? You are jumping to conclusions when stating that the robots txt on 30/04 makes no difference when you are struggling to understand (like us all) what was captured and what was not. I pointed something out and asked the question, your answer does not satisfactorily answer it

ETA and neither does your mate's

Syn wrote:

HKP wrote:

Nuala wrote:@ HKP

I suggested that for some reason the robots.txt file was not present

I understood that. You must have missed me saying:

so the robots.txt not existing on 30 Apr would have made no difference.

You seem to be missing something, 30/04 was like no other, something happened (do you even agree with that?) and an extraordinary amount of repetition and captures was conducted. Can you categorically state that a robots txt file from any previous crawl or current available (on that day) was 'read' and utilised? You are jumping to conclusions when stating that the robots txt on 30/04 makes no difference when you are struggling to understand (like us all) what was captured and what was not. I pointed something out and asked the question, your answer does not satisfactorily answer it

ETA and neither does your mate's

Sorry to be pedantic, and normally it does not bother me as I subscribe to the James Joyce ideology that lack of grammar and punctuation matter not  but you not knowing when to use was and were is irking some what :)  That is aside from your bullish assertion that a 30/04 capture really actually even existed. Twice now I and others have shown you that 30/04/2007 entries  in the WB Source Directory do not correlate with the captured entries on the Wayback calendar  but you have yet to counter what is fact.  Why is that?

By the way, I have no idea who Nuala is, our only encounter has been on here re this subject, on which we agree.  You assume we are mates and according to Resistor on your mainly frequented  forum that we are some kind of tag team.  Again, incorrect.  I would, if given the opportunity welcome Nuala as a mate/friend :) We are two individuals who have very similar views re this 30/04/07 anomaly. I think Nuala makes a lot of sense and you really should read and digest her posts before you really make a fool of yourself.  I have friends who are pro McCann which irks some of my fellow  'anti's' but we can have a civilised debate and I like them as people. You and I disagree re this CEOP issue but I bet we agree a lot re many other aspects of the McCann case.  That's just the way the cookie crumbles. It would be very boring and unrealistic to be like the pros who all agree re absolutely everything :)

skyrocket wrote:Just checked the IA 10 mins ago and noticed that the 30 April 2007 calendar dates for all the ceop.gov.uk related pages have been officially wooosshed.

Tony Bennett wrote:

skyrocket wrote:Just checked the IA 10 mins ago and noticed that the 30 April 2007 calendar dates for all the ceop.gov.uk related pages have been officially wooosshed.

To use Al Gore's memorable turn of phrase in his film about climate change: 'An Inconvenient Truth'? - airbrushed, or deleted out of existence.

We need a qualified and experienced neutral to calmly assess the entire history of this - and give us an expert opinion (sorry to all the many professed experts on this thread)

skyrocket wrote:@HKP
The wooshing was done a while ago, not long after they realised (told) that there was an issue. We can't be sure that anything we are picking up is the true reflection unless a capture by Stevo  at the time was conducted and made available

Hi HKP - I realise that the 30 April pages were wooshed almost immediately but I wasn't aware that the actual 30 April calendar date (showing on each of the calendars as a blue circle) had been completely removed/erased until now, it was certainly still there a few days ago. Thought it was a new development (think it's only very recent). Doesn't really make much difference in the whole scheme of things other than to show the IA's conclusion.

HKP wrote:

skyrocket wrote:@HKP
The wooshing was done a while ago, not long after they realised (told) that there was an issue. We can't be sure that anything we are picking up is the true reflection unless a capture by Stevo  at the time was conducted and made available

Hi HKP - I realise that the 30 April pages were wooshed almost immediately but I wasn't aware that the actual 30 April calendar date (showing on each of the calendars as a blue circle) had been completely removed/erased until now, it was certainly still there a few days ago. Thought it was a new development (think it's only very recent). Doesn't really make much difference in the whole scheme of things other than to show the IA's conclusion.

Hi skyrocket,
The easiest thing for IA to do was to unlink from the calendar, remove 30/04 files from public view and tell people to contact the police if they think a crime has been committed. That's exactly what they've done, it explains nothing.

jeanmonroe wrote:

HKP wrote:

skyrocket wrote:@HKP
The wooshing was done a while ago, not long after they realised (told) that there was an issue. We can't be sure that anything we are picking up is the true reflection unless a capture by Stevo  at the time was conducted and made available

Hi HKP - I realise that the 30 April pages were wooshed almost immediately but I wasn't aware that the actual 30 April calendar date (showing on each of the calendars as a blue circle) had been completely removed/erased until now, it was certainly still there a few days ago. Thought it was a new development (think it's only very recent). Doesn't really make much difference in the whole scheme of things other than to show the IA's conclusion.

Hi skyrocket,
The easiest thing for IA to do was to unlink from the calendar, remove 30/04 files from public view and tell people to contact the police if they think a crime has been committed. That's exactly what they've done, it explains nothing.

All 'too late' though, HKP, don't you think?

The 30/40 'files' (removed?) HAVE been SEEN by the 'public'

'Saved' 'Screenshotted' for posterity, on hundreds/thousands of 'comps/disks'. (around the WORLD)

Surely, 'removing' er, 'contentious' files, only ADDS to 'conspiratorial theories'

"Out of the frying pan............." and all 'that'?

rustyjames wrote:I don't know who originally found the codexgeo.co.uk entries or how, but that had the same issue at the same time - i.e. an impossible 16033 entries all recorded at 30/4/07 11:58:03.

Those entries are now also gone.  As stated by other posters we don't have the information to make definitive statements, only those with access to the original source information might be able to, but there being at least one other site with the same problem leads me to leaning towards it being an error in the indexing.

Joss wrote:I think it is misleading to assert that WBM is unreliable in its use for electronic evidence in court cases as this is not what WBM was designed for and they stipulate as much:

The Internet archive Wayback Machine

The use of internet publications in legal affairs is surrounded by serious concerns as to their reliability, in particular about their date of availability.  Even if an earlier date may be retrieved for a particular internet page, it remains uncertain whether the retrieved page is faithful as to what was actually available at the older date.
Courts involved with intellectual property allow more and more that internet publications are used as part of the state of the art, but these courts usually apply very strict criteria with respect to the level of proof about the evidence provided.
The scarce Case Law so far, in which internet publications were introduced as evidence, clearly distinguishes sources having different reliabilities.
A problem arises when the publication is from a source of unknown reliability, and may not even mention a publication date.  Here further evidence to establish or confirm the publication date may be obtained, such as from an internet archiving service.  In this context, “The Wayback Machine” ([You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] is often mentioned as the most prominent internet archiving service available.
The Internet Archive Wayback Machine is a service that allows people to visit archived versions of Web sites.  Visitors to the Wayback Machine can type in a URL, select a date range, and then begin surfing on an archived version of the Web.
The Wayback Machine however was not designed for legal use.  Its target users are researchers, historians, and scholars, not lawyers and judges.  Its purpose is to provide “a memory” for society, as comprehensive as possible.  In its design, it is therefore more important to provide links between various pieces of related information rather than an authentic picture of the internet at a particular point in history.
The vast volume of available information, and the rate at which this is generated and modified, also imposes practical limits to the Internet Archive.
These factors affect what can and what cannot be asked from the Wayback Machine.  They are causing possible pitfalls for a erroneous interpretation of the search results, and for drawing the wrong conclusions.  An interesting article on this subject by B.Howell published in the Journal of Internet Law of February 2006.
The present series of articles, of which this is the introduction, discusses some of the recent observations and examples the authors found with respect to possible legal (ab)use of the Wayback Machine in legal proceedings in Belgium with respect to Intellectual Property, and in their preparation therefore.

HKP wrote:

Joss wrote:I think it is misleading to assert that WBM is unreliable in its use for electronic evidence in court cases as this is not what WBM was designed for and they stipulate as much:

The Internet archive Wayback Machine

The use of internet publications in legal affairs is surrounded by serious concerns as to their reliability, in particular about their date of availability.  Even if an earlier date may be retrieved for a particular internet page, it remains uncertain whether the retrieved page is faithful as to what was actually available at the older date.
Courts involved with intellectual property allow more and more that internet publications are used as part of the state of the art, but these courts usually apply very strict criteria with respect to the level of proof about the evidence provided.
The scarce Case Law so far, in which internet publications were introduced as evidence, clearly distinguishes sources having different reliabilities.
A problem arises when the publication is from a source of unknown reliability, and may not even mention a publication date.  Here further evidence to establish or confirm the publication date may be obtained, such as from an internet archiving service.  In this context, “The Wayback Machine” ([You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] is often mentioned as the most prominent internet archiving service available.
The Internet Archive Wayback Machine is a service that allows people to visit archived versions of Web sites.  Visitors to the Wayback Machine can type in a URL, select a date range, and then begin surfing on an archived version of the Web.
The Wayback Machine however was not designed for legal use.  Its target users are researchers, historians, and scholars, not lawyers and judges.  Its purpose is to provide “a memory” for society, as comprehensive as possible.  In its design, it is therefore more important to provide links between various pieces of related information rather than an authentic picture of the internet at a particular point in history.
The vast volume of available information, and the rate at which this is generated and modified, also imposes practical limits to the Internet Archive.
These factors affect what can and what cannot be asked from the Wayback Machine.  They are causing possible pitfalls for a erroneous interpretation of the search results, and for drawing the wrong conclusions.  An interesting article on this subject by B.Howell published in the Journal of Internet Law of February 2006.
The present series of articles, of which this is the introduction, discusses some of the recent observations and examples the authors found with respect to possible legal (ab)use of the Wayback Machine in legal proceedings in Belgium with respect to Intellectual Property, and in their preparation therefore.

I bet some of these people are interested onlookers.


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