Re: Claim by 'Stevo' - "CEOP show Maddie is missing on 30th April 2007"

by HKP 22.06.15 12:06

@Lord Guest. It's all over the place now that they are investigating and 'fixing' the supposed errors. They seem to have links pointing to all sorts of dates now

by Lance De Boils 22.06.15 12:21

Tony Bennett wrote:
Lance De Boils wrote:I got left behind about 40 pages ago.

Could somebody summarise, in a sentence or two, what the heck the situation is with this now?
1. The Wayback Machine/archive.org, interrogated recently (16 or 17 June), produced a 'capture' of a page on the CEOP website with a URL endng in madeleine.html

2. The page allegedly had an old photo of Madeleine on it, and a brief message in 4 languages

3. 'Stevo' (Steve Marsden), via Isabelle McFadden, asked Christopher Butler, Office Manager, if that was a wholly accurate capture, and he said: 'Yes, of course'

4. HideHo 'phoned him and said: 'Do you realise that this is a case of interntiomal importance and that Madeleine only went missing on 3 May and so your claimed 'capture' must be in error

5. Butler said: "Goodness, so it must be", and told HideHo and McFadden "We made a mistake"

6. Wayback are fixing their mistake

7. The tecchies are divided into two opposing camps. One camp says, "The date of capture is correct, and what they captured is correct". The other camp says, "It's an obvious mistake, because later news items are found on the 30 April page, and that's just not possible

8. Lots of very interesting technical arguments have been put forward by both sides but we don't have an agreed solution yet.

9, My summary may be wrong, and I invite correction if I am wrong

Thanks very much, Tony.

by Guest Lord (sounds better 22.06.15 12:36

I know i am new to posting here but been reading forum for a while so excuse the rudeness of my corrections, mainly terminology, to Tony's (waves) points in post above.

1 - 1. The Wayback Machine/archive.org, interrogated recently (16 or 17 June), produced a 'capture' of a page on CEOP's online servers with a URL ending in mccann.html

2. The page [remove - allegedly] had an old photo of Madeleine on it, a broken un-resolved 2nd image and a brief message in 4 languages

6. Wayback are fixing their mistake, badly. Links to the now-missing (but screengrabbed, unlike the fridge) April 30th Mccann.html file STILL exist, including some alt-tags

9, My summary may be wrong, and I invite correction if I am wrong - done 8.5/10 yes

PS - I am happy to upload MY April 30th screengrab which shows the full URL and broken second image however i cant see how to - insert link button doesnt seem to allow local upload and link to FB graphic not working for me either

by **Jill Havern** 22.06.15 12:40

Guest Lord (sounds better wrote:PS - I am happy to upload MY April 30th screengrab which shows the full URL and broken second image however i cant see how to - insert link button doesnt seem to allow local upload and link to FB graphic not working for me either

Probably because you're a guest. You'd need to register if you want full access to everything.

Or if you're on facebook you could send it to me there and I'll upload it for ya.

by **Tony Bennett** 22.06.15 12:41

Guest Lord (sounds better wrote:I know i am new to posting here but been reading forum for a while so excuse the rudeness of my corrections, mainly terminology, to Tony's (waves) points in post above.

1 - 1. The Wayback Machine/archive.org, interrogated recently (16 or 17 June), produced a 'capture' of a page on CEOP's online servers with a URL ending in mccann.html

2. The page [remove - allegedly] had an old photo of Madeleine on it, a broken un-resolved 2nd image and a brief message in 4 languages

6. Wayback are fixing their mistake, badly. Links to the now-missing (but screengrabbed, unlike the fridge) April 30th Mccann.html file STILL exist, including some alt-tags

9, My summary may be wrong, and I invite correction if I am wrong - done 8.5/10

PS - I am happy to upload MY April 30th screengrab which shows the full URL and broken second image however i cant see how to - insert link button doesnt seem to allow local upload and link to FB graphic not working for me either

@ Lord Guest

Many thanks for stopping by with the corrections.

Can you not save the screenshot as a picture - and then use the 'Host an Image' icon (17th from left)?

by **Jill Havern** 22.06.15 12:41

That doesn't work Tony, it tells the person to log in.

by Joss 22.06.15 12:42

Lord Guest wrote:A couple of questions, if i may, delete if u wish

1 - IF the the Apr30 mccann.html page now re-directs to the nearest mccann.html archive WHY is it NOW going to Apr27 ? That date has NO archive for the mccann.html page ?

2 - And why doesnt the date codes list July 27th in the original Apr30 mccann.html source code ?

3 - IF the mccann.html was archived on July 27th WHY is the second image (which was in place by May13th) broken ? Surely the MUCH later July archive would have the graphic in it and therefore it would have been resolved ?

Not buying it...delete the file, amend the database, claim incorrect, claim error, nothing to see here, move along please

Hi, by the way, been watching - keep it up

IMO, its because they have messed it up for some reason since they were alerted to it, and no further explanation yet. Which also IMO looks rather suspect.

by jeanmonroe 22.06.15 12:46

Latetothecase wrote:It would be very interesting to know about cases where people have been convicted based on evidence from the WBM, as their much boasted usefulness 'every week' in legal cases claims. The potential can of worms in terms of compensation towards miscarriages of justice could be huge if they bow to pressure to say it was a mistake if it isn't.

I asked about 'that' ('convictions') in what seems a 'lifetime' ago, on this 'topic'.

Just, er, 'one' ONE, 'error/mistake' and 'reputation/all credibility' GONE, in an instant!

Years and years to build a 'reputation', a SINGLE 'second' to destroy, a 'reputation'.

by **Jill Havern** 22.06.15 12:47

jeanmonroe wrote:
Latetothecase wrote:It would be very interesting to know about cases where people have been convicted based on evidence from the WBM, as their much boasted usefulness 'every week' in legal cases claims. The potential can of worms in terms of compensation towards miscarriages of justice could be huge if they bow to pressure to say it was a mistake if it isn't.

I asked about 'that' ('convictions') in what seems a 'lifetime' ago, on this 'topic'.

Just, er, 'one' ONE, 'error/mistake' and 'reputation/all credibility' GONE, in an instant!

Years and years to build a 'reputation', a SINGLE 'second' to destroy, a 'reputation'.

They can blame Stevo laughat

by Guest Lord 22.06.15 12:53

Ok. will do. who do i send it to - forum owner would be Jill, is that correct ?

Whilst replying i will add my theory as to what i think has happened.

The way i and other programmers (maybe Steve or Richard will confirm) designed websites was to build site locally then upload and check - IE check all links to graphics (that pesky broken un-resolved image, imo) worked and site was agreeable to customer, charge, get paid then make "live" (by changing say shalimar.html to index.html). I think, possibly, this was a work-in-progress (hence the un-resolved missing second image). I had never encountered or even thought about a crawler capturing my site for posterity, or legal challenges, as the wbm blurb says.

It was waiting to be properly linked to, ie given the green light. Maybe the sitemap link was enough for it to be crawled or maybe the crawler grabs all html and associated files but grabbed it was, apparently

Dont know how much further this can run without more detailed explanation from wbm

Am awaiting source code from Stevo

by **Jill Havern** 22.06.15 12:55

Guest Lord wrote:Ok. will do. who do i send it to - forum owner would be Jill, is that correct ?

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

by jeanmonroe 22.06.15 12:58

How do WBM propose to 'fix' er, 'wrongful convictions', if any, by courts who 'used' their WBM 'documents/archives' as 'indisputable evidence'?

by **Jill Havern** 22.06.15 13:04

Guest Lord wrote:Ok. will do. who do i send it to - forum owner would be Jill, is that correct ?

Whilst replying i will add my theory as to what i think has happened.

The way i and other programmers (maybe Steve or Richard will confirm) designed websites was to build site locally then upload and check - IE check all links to graphics (that pesky broken un-resolved image, imo) worked and site was agreeable to customer, charge, get paid then make "live" (by changing say shalimar.html to index.html). I think, possibly, this was a work-in-progress (hence the un-resolved missing second image). I had never encountered or even thought about a crawler capturing my site for posterity, or legal challenges, as the wbm blurb says.

It was waiting to be properly linked to, ie given the green light. Maybe the sitemap link was enough for it to be crawled or maybe the crawler grabs all html and associated files but grabbed it was, apparently

Dont know how much further this can run without more detailed explanation from wbm

Am awaiting source code from Stevo

Thank you for sending me this:

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by **Richard D. Hall** 22.06.15 13:08

Guest Lord wrote:Ok. will do. who do i send it to - forum owner would be Jill, is that correct ?

Whilst replying i will add my theory as to what i think has happened.

The way i and other programmers (maybe Steve or Richard will confirm) designed websites was to build site locally then upload and check - IE check all links to graphics (that pesky broken un-resolved image, imo) worked and site was agreeable to customer, charge, get paid then make "live" (by changing say shalimar.html to index.html). I think, possibly, this was a work-in-progress (hence the un-resolved missing second image). I had never encountered or even thought about a crawler capturing my site for posterity, or legal challenges, as the wbm blurb says.

It was waiting to be properly linked to, ie given the green light. Maybe the sitemap link was enough for it to be crawled or maybe the crawler grabs all html and associated files but grabbed it was, apparently

Dont know how much further this can run without more detailed explanation from wbm

Am awaiting source code from Stevo

This is the PDF file (screen dump of mccann.html) that Butler sent out originally

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by Guest Lord 22.06.15 13:09

I did send two, probably my impatience x

by Guest Lord 22.06.15 13:13

Richard - i get "

The link you are trying to access has expired."

by **Richard D. Hall** 22.06.15 13:15

Try again

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by **Jill Havern** 22.06.15 13:15

Guest Lord wrote:I did send two, probably my impatience x

I've added the other one now.

by Richard IV 22.06.15 13:25

Head honcho is a Brewster Kahle - if no joy with Chris Butler, maybe contact BK, he`s on twitter. Just a thought.

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by Joss 22.06.15 13:25

Here is an article from the American Bar about legal stuff & WBM.

Authentication Objections

Websites are generally not self-authenticating, and archived websites from WBM are no exception. A party seeking to admit a printout from WBM must produce extrinsic evidence “sufficient to support a finding that the [printout] is what the proponent claims it is.”[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] As is true for any piece of evidence, the context in which the evidence is going to be used determines the level of authentication required.
In most of the reported cases, the proponent of WBM evidence seeks to have a court consider the webpage in deciding a motion for summary judgment or the like. Unsurprisingly, declarations from witnesses or attorneys are insufficient to authenticate printouts from WBM if the witnesses do not have personal knowledge of the archive’s contents.[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] The majority of courts require instead that WBM webpages be authenticated by an affidavit from a WBM representative having personal knowledge of their contents and who can verify that they are true and accurate copies of WBM’s records.[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] WBM has cooperated with requests for such affidavits, and therefore the majority standard is not difficult to satisfy, as discussed below.
A minority of courts take a slightly more demanding approach. In an opinion affirmed by the Second Circuit, the Eastern District of New York rejected an affidavit made by the plaintiff and required instead that the affidavit be submitted by a representative of the employer hosting the original website that WBM’s archived webpages purported to represent.[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] The court reasoned that because “the information posted on the Wayback Machine is only as valid as the third-party donating the page decides to make it,” an affidavit from the original host was required to properly authenticate the evidence.[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] This approach has been followed by another court in the Second Circuit,[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] but recent cases have applied the standard inconsistently.[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] Therefore, the state of the law is uncertain. Nevertheless, when the original website is hosted by a party-opponent, a litigant can comply with this standard by authenticating the webpage at the party’s deposition or through requests for admission or stipulation.

Hearsay Objections

WBM-archived evidence may also provoke hearsay objections. For purposes of the hearsay analysis, there are two statements involved. The first is the original website’s disclosure. If the website describes a product or concept sufficiently so that the description anticipates or renders obvious the claimed invention, it is admissible without regard to its truth, and therefore the website disclosure does not constitute hearsay. Otherwise, the proponent of such evidence must invoke an exception or exclusion to the hearsay rule.
The second statement is WBM’s representation of what the original website showed on a particular date.[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] Generally, a WBM printout of a webpage offered solely to show that the information appeared on the archived website is offered for a nonhearsay purpose: to show that the statements were made.[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] But such a showing alone is insufficient to establish that the underlying website constitutes prior art. Instead, a challenger must show that the disclosure was available to the public as of the invention date or critical date. This showing necessarily requires that the challenger prove the truth of the matter asserted—namely, that the WBM archive accurately represents the original website’s disclosure on a given date. When used for that purpose, WBM’s representation in an affidavit that the website was captured on a specific date constitutes hearsay, and a proponent of such evidence will need to assert a hearsay exception or exclusion to admit the date of capture into evidence.[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] Of course, if the underlying webpage is posted by a party-opponent, traditional discovery tools such as a request for admission, interrogatory, or deposition can be used to establish the content of the website on a specific date.
It is important to remember that the authentication affidavit discussed above is itself an out-of-court statement offered to prove the truth of the matter asserted therein: that the underlying website was archived on a particular date. But those cases addressing the sufficiency of affidavits for purposes of authenticating WBM evidence do so primarily in the context of ruling on motions for summary judgment; in that context, a court may consider an affidavit to the extent it suggests that the WBM-captured webpage would be admissible. The affidavit serves only to demonstrate that the underlying facts would be admissible based on the affiant’s personal knowledge of those facts (or facts that make the underlying facts admissible despite the affiant’s lack of personal knowledge).
By contrast, at trial, authentication affidavits are not admissible absent a statute providing otherwise. Moreover, the Internet Archive will generally contest subpoenas requesting employees to testify at trial to the authenticity of WBM-archived webpages,[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] and at least one court has found that subpoenaing the Internet Archive would cause “considerable burden, expense and disruption to its operations.”[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] However, that does not mean that a proponent of WBM evidence should give up trying to admit such evidence. A simple request for admission, for example, will force the opponent to determine whether contesting the issue is worth the risk of paying for the cost of the proponent’s proof. Moreover, if the contents of the webpage reveal facts that are particularly important to the industry or the client, the proponent may be able to find someone to authenticate the webpage.
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by Guest 22.06.15 13:31

So, in normal language:

Stevo spotted a hole,
and suspected a rat;

He alerted us

We started ferreting out the hole and got hold of the rats' tail
The rat, though, is still in the hole

Then, the hole's owner came along
while we were (and are) still holding on to the tail

and he is now trying to get rid of the rat and of the hole
by jumping up and down on the hole

While our little hands are still holding the rat's tail
and we are crouching with our ears to the ground

And, in the end, the rat will still be there,
and so will our hands holding its tail,
and so will we

by Joss 22.06.15 13:35

Portia wrote:So, in normal language:

Stevo spotted a hole,
and suspected a rat;

He alerted us

We started ferreting out the hole and got hold of the rats' tail
The rat, though, is still in the hole

Then, the hole's owner came along
while we were (and are) still holding on to the tail

and he is now trying to get rid of the rat and of the hole
by jumping up and down on the hole

While our little hands are still holding the rat's tail
and we are crouching with our ears to the ground

And, in the end, the rat will still be there,
and so will our hands holding its tail,
and so will we

by whatsupdoc 22.06.15 13:44

When I first saw the url and the huge implication it had, I wondered if someone had put a file on the ceop index page using a ghosted redirect so people would assume it was a genuine ceop page whereas it might have originated from another site altogether. This is why I broke down the url.

You can put either the mccann.html or the http ://ceop.gov.uk ( remove spaces ) in the search box. You will see a huge difference in the crawler dates.Make sure you are looking at 2007.

The mccann.html only has crawler dates between 30th April and August whereas the ceop search has many more including Jan,Feb etc The mccann.html file could have been removed in September 2007 and nobody would be any the wiser. It is possible to affect the way crawlers work using code on a website ...see wiki.

The last couple of days have been worse to debug as the ducks are being taken down.

The second link below is the one from Roy Rovers on page 1 which is date / time stamped at midnight on 1st May 2007

I and several others have tried YouTube, CNN etc in the search box and they were all perfect on 30th April2007 around midday.

If somebody did set up a file, it must have been ready and waiting before the crawler came along to do the 30/04/2007 capture around midday.

The last link is the 20070430115803 file.

Putting a * after the 14 digit time stamp brings up the calendar page.

It is certainly strange that the mccann.html has caused all this trouble but other websites around the same time are showing up ok.... or maybe not.

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by Guest 22.06.15 14:00

whatsupdoc wrote:It is certainly strange that the mccann.html has caused all this trouble but other websites around the same time are showing up ok.... or maybe not.

Maybe not.

It depends what you mean by "showing up ok"... it's not enough just to show up.

It depends on spotting date/time content visble in the archived page itself (if any) or by pictures or descriptions being anachronistic.

We know mccann.html was wrong because of the significance of the date 3rd May 2007.

We know the CEOP home page was wrong because it had a news release for 2nd October.

Web sites like BBC, newspapers, blogs, forums have date and time visible in the web page itself against the item/article/post.

And for people not paying attention to my earlier posts and were asking questions about the value of WBM in court... it's THESE dates, not the WBM timestamp that would provide the evidence of time of posting.

by **Richard D. Hall** 22.06.15 14:06

Hang on, you said

"We know mccann.html was wrong because of the significance of the date 3rd May 2007."

This only comes from statements from the McCanns and their chums, who in my opinion are neither independent nor reliable (eg Tanner). There is a significant number of people who suspect Madeleine "disappeared" probably around 29th April, and that up until 3rd May they were dealing with whatever had happened. On the 3rd May there could have been a staged abduction (as stated by Portuguese police). So if this is true it is entirely possible that CEOP knew about Madeleine well before 3rd May.

So I would refute the statement ...

"We know mccann.html was wrong because of the significance of the date 3rd May 2007."

Anyway - l wait for a reply to my email from WBM.

by whatsupdoc 22.06.15 14:18

Agreed about seeing/verifying sites with time/date displayed. This is easy to check.

The BBC was crawled on 27th April 2007 snapshot @0042 and the BBC website came up with... Friday 27 April 2007, 00:42 GMT 01:42 UK.
I'm confident I could make a list including the 30th.

The mccann.html file is odd about many things ...having the pix on the index/home page and the Latest News referring to October.

I'm puzzled by looking at the source code and seeing previous and next dates either side of the "present" time which tie in with crawler dates.

by Guest 22.06.15 14:30

Richard D. Hall wrote:Hang on, you said

"We know mccann.html was wrong because of the significance of the date 3rd May 2007."

This only comes from statements from the McCanns and their chums, who in my opinion are neither independent nor reliable (eg Tanner). There is a significant number of people who suspect Madeleine "disappeared" probably around 29th April, and that up until 3rd May they were dealing with whatever had happened. On the 3rd May there could have been a staged abduction (as stated by Portuguese police). So if this is true it is entirely possible that CEOP knew about Madeleine well before 3rd May.

So I would refute the statement ...

"We know mccann.html was wrong because of the significance of the date 3rd May 2007."

Anyway - l wait for a reply to my email from WBM.

OK badly worded....

We know there is an inconsistency with the mccann.html file appearing before May 3rd 2007.

by **Richard D. Hall** 22.06.15 14:31

There's only an inconsistency if you believe the official story.

by Phyllis Tyne 22.06.15 14:34

Richard D Hall's post above gets to the core of it I feel - HiDeHo and others have unwittingly alerted Wayback to an “error” that would be of enormous consequence and they have subsequently made changes simply on the basis of “that can’t be right” rather than thinking “What if it is?”.

I think it should be CEOP's lawyers arguing the toss rather than a bunch of well-intentioned amateurs on a web forum.

by Guest 22.06.15 14:36

whatsupdoc wrote:Agreed about seeing/verifying sites with time/date displayed. This is easy to check.

The BBC was crawled on 27th April 2007 snapshot @0042 and the BBC website came up with... Friday 27 April 2007, 00:42 GMT 01:42 UK.
I'm confident I could make a list including the 30th.

I agree... I looked at loads of them for hours the other day. BBC... Sky... The Times (blocked! can't archive)... NY Times... Amazon.com (has dynamic date content perfectly archived)...

I never found one with a date and time that was inconsistent.

Doesn't mean that it can't happen (it obviously can, CEOP home page)... just that it's probably a rare occurrence like many of the most infuriating software bugs.