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

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".

Snipped from above:

 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."

What will they "furnish them with"? That it was an "glitch" or is it something bigger?

@Tony Bennett, I've waited a long time to agree with TB 

@Sallypelt, it's a Basil Fawlty timestamp officer, all done thank you I've fixed the 3015 URLs all of them were wrong not ONE was correct especially the mccann. html that was definitely wrong.

If Chris Butler is "aware of the speculation" why would he just say it's all hogwash because 'x' happened or due to 'y'. To say you need to get the police to ask us what is right or wrong is highly suspect.

Meant to be 'Just not say' in my last post (can't edit)

Crawl - follow links - time stamp and archive. Simple as !

@ Tony Bennett

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?

I still don't understand why anyone here thinks they have any right to expect anything from Wayback. Their website makes it perfectly clear they are non-profit with few and stretched resources. The minutes you refer to become hours then days then weeks etc etc if they're receiving enquiries from all over the world.

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".

It says to me they have given exactly the answer they should give.

If the disappearance of Madeleine McCann was preplanned, which frankly is ridiculous, but if it was, who else should be investigating except the police?

Why on earth anyone thinks Wayback should be discussing anything with us, people I expect they regard as a bunch of amateur sleuths I've no idea. If anyone thinks there is valid evidence that Madeleine McCann's disappearance was replanned and CEOP was involved, and honestly even typing that makes me doubt my own sanity, then they need to give that evidence to Op Grange, with whom Wayback will be happy to co-operate.

That's as it should be.

@ HKP

To say you need to get the police to ask us what is right or wrong is highly suspect.

There is nothing suspect about it, it's absolutely the right thing for him to say.

We're talking about a crime here, this isn't a game.

Crimes are investigated by the police.

Richard Henshaw: wrote:Crawl - follow links - time stamp and archive. Simple as !


HKP wrote:
@Tony Bennett, I've waited a long time to agree with TB 

I am a non-tecchie.

I can understand what you say up to a point.

But...

1. Can the time stamp be wrong? (which is I think what some of those who say it's all an error are saying)

2. If the time stamp is RIGHT, could it be wrong in picking up the 'mccann.html' page?

3. If the time stamp is RIGHT, could the 'archiving' be wrong somewhere along the line?

You say you have relevant expertise and I believe you.

Please if you would explain in more detail what you've written above.

Also, please comment on the acceptability of Wayback's explanation: "It was some sort of problem with a sub-set".

TIA   

++++++++++++++++++++++

@ HKP   So we are agreed that there may have been a CEOP page with the URL ending 'mccann.html' on 30 April 2007?

If we are correct, then some of the things I have been so sternly criticised for - (a) insisting that the Last Photo could have been a genuine photo taken on 29 April, (b) that Smithman is a fabrication based on Wojcek Krokowski, and (c) that there is a big mystery about why Robert Murat hurried out to Praia da Luz early on 1 May, then lied about what he did when he got there, then translated for half of the Tapas 9 whilst at the same time trying to look at police documents on the quiet - wouldn't look that far out...

...would they?

@Nuala. a crime, what crime are WBM involved in? In reality there is a missing person you'd think they would want to help. Besides it is easy for him to tell anybody that investigations revealed x or y was wrong. It's not difficult for him to stop speculation.

Nuala wrote:@ HKP

To say you need to get the police to ask us what is right or wrong is highly suspect.

There is nothing suspect about it, it's absolutely the right thing for him to say.

We're talking about a crime here, this isn't a game.

With respect, no, we are not talking about a crime.

We are simply talking about whether a dated capture of a CEOP page was correct, or a 'glitch'.

The answer: "It was something to do with a subset" is wholly unconvincing.

I doubt if even Lizzy Taylor, whose careful analyses of so many contradictions in the case have been viewed by millions, really accepts that as the final word on this subject.

@ HKP

a crime, what crime are WBM involved in?

I didn't say Wayback is involved in a crime.

You're accusing CEOP of being involved in a crime.

That's for the police to investigate, that's why Wayback said to contact the police.

This is a 'response' written on air with an air pencil. It is utterly meaningless.

The disappearance of a child is a matter of public interest. Any piece of evidence touching on the case, no matter from what source, is also a matter of public concern. The questions that were put to WBM reps by members of the public 1. deserve a serious, considered, and honest response and 2. is concerning information that does not require a subpoena or police intervention. It isn't a state secret or an infringement on privacy laws, domestic or international, and it does not impinge upon anyone's civil rights.

@Nuala. I have accused nobody of being involved in a crime (not on this thread anyway  ) please get your facts right.

@ Tony Bennett

We are simply talking about whether a dated capture of a CEOP page was correct, or a 'glitch'.

We've already established that the 3,000 URLs for ONE SINGLE DAY the 30th Apr 2007 shows that date is screwed. Some of those URLs are for news items that hadn't even been published by CEOP by that date.

Wayback has confirmed that the date for mccann.html is wrong, and the evidence from the URL list backs that up. Big time in fact.

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)

@Nuala--"We've already established that the 3,000 URLs for ONE SINGLE DAY the 30th Apr 2007 shows that date is screwed"

Nobody has established anything. YOU have made some unconvincing arguments based on Dr. Roberts' findings without once considering his further comments.

it can be established easily by anyone if they look through the index

Still sitting on the fence awaiting some believable evidence either way. Having facts that aren’t shouted at me and being asked to use common sense doesn’t answer the questions.
 
Chris Butler being prepared to speak to Lizzie HideHo, but being unwilling to explain any more unless he is contacted by the police just deepens the hole.
 
Nuala asks ‘why should he say anything?’ I quite agree, why should he. But he does, it just doesn’t make much sense what he comes out with.
 
Just supposing CEOP started knocking up a web-page on 30^th April, not an ‘orphan’ page for some reason so the WBM was able to capture it, (although even whether WBM can capture orphan pages is still up for debate).
 
Stevo chanced upon this captured page, together with the index page, again dated 30^th April, but which, for some reason that has not been explained to my satisfaction also managed to retrieve and show some later dated stories thereby making the page an anomaly.
 
The two photos of MM also managed to attract 30^th April timestamps.
 
Upon being questioned initially, Chris Butler comes up with the ‘we are wonderful and don’t make mistakes’ type response, which we are now trying to be told is their standard answer, yet within a few hours for some, as yet unknown reason, completely changed his mind and comes up with an archive date for the ‘missing’ page of 31^st July, which again makes little sense for a page which by then should have been nearly three months old and which going by the bar chart for captures at the top of the page should have been ‘caught’ quite a few times in May, a couple in June and once in July (but about 20^th not the 31^st)
 
The ‘index’ page which we are told should have been 7^th October, also makes no more sense as there is an article pulled into the page with a 23^rd October date, so this retrieval is doing exactly the same, pulling in future events, which we are being told (although not by WBM) can’t possibly happen.
 
Oh dear, people aren’t believing what we are saying still!
 
So what to do next?
 
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?
 
Errr, no!
 
Of all the dates in all of time, WBM just happened to have a glitch with their systems on one of the most significant dates in the history of the MM story.
 
Never mind, just pull all of the pages and replace them with the ‘CEOP Command’ page. The other pages never existed, see.
 
It’s ok, they are all just conspiracy theory nuts, nobody will believe them.
 
Just random thoughts, not helped by Chris Butler’s latest missive.
 
I wonder if Stevo captured the index page a couple of weeks ago with the two photos showing and whether it had quite so many 30^th April dates on it?

Dr. Roberts has asked RDH to run a test of the indexing of his own large blog. I've just done the same with my own deleted blog and I can see a very great number of certain single dates applied to the index.

I urge each and every one of you to run your own test with a blog or page you are familiar with, either current or deleted. It's easy--just add an asterisk* after the url in the WBM search box and the index will pop up stating how many times the blog has been captured. You'll soon see that updates--comments, edits, the whole shebang-- to any given page are logged. These can really add up!

Nuala wrote:We've already established that the 3,000 URLs for ONE SINGLE DAY the 30th Apr 2007 shows that date is screwed. Some of those URLs are for news items that hadn't even been published by CEOP by that date.

Wayback has confirmed that the date for mccann.html is wrong, and the evidence from the URL list backs that up. Big time in fact.

Can I ask please if this is a correct summary of your argument:

"The 'glitch' in the system is that somehow thousands of URLs which should point to other (later) days, actually all point to 11.58am on 30 April 2007, which is an obvious error".

If I have got that correct, why doesn't Christopher Butler say so?

@ Siobhan

it can be established easily by anyone if they look through the index

Absolutely.

@Nuala. You keep chucking out the whole lot of URLs are wrong mantra however you have no idea how many of the 2945 URLs that are recorded for that day are right, wrong or indifferent. So banging on about it's easy to see from the index is just jumping to conclusions that may be totally wrong or could very well be right, you don't know.

@ Tony Bennett

Can I ask please if this is a correct summary of your argument:
"The 'glitch' in the system is that somehow thousands of URLs which should point to other (later) days, actually all point to 11.58am on 30 April 2007, which is an obvious error".

Yes that is a correct summary, not of my argument, but of the evidence. Just to clarify though, I haven't seen the time for the URLs, only the date.

If I have got that correct, why doesn't Christopher Butler say so?

I imagine because he was asked "what went wrong" and with technology that's too complicated to answer easily.

Had he been asked "did thousands of URLs get given the wrong date" he might have said " yes".

The answer one gets depends on the question one asks.

Nuala wrote:@ Tony Bennett

Can I ask please if this is a correct summary of your argument:
"The 'glitch' in the system is that somehow thousands of URLs which should point to other (later) days, actually all point to 11.58am on 30 April 2007, which is an obvious error".

Yes that is a correct summary, not of my argument, but of the evidence. Just to clarify though, I haven't seen the time for the URLs, only the date.

If I have got that correct, why doesn't Christopher Butler say so?

I imagine because he was asked "what went wrong" and with technology that's too complicated to answer easily.

Had he been asked "did thousands of URLs get given the wrong date" he might have said " yes".

The answer one gets depends on the question one asks.

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