tea.mathoverflow.net - Discussion Feed (Possible Troll) Sun, 04 Nov 2018 23:22:48 -0800 http://mathoverflow.tqft.net/ Lussumo Vanilla 1.1.9 & Feed Publisher Anton Geraschenko comments on "Possible Troll" (12268) http://mathoverflow.tqft.net/discussion/835/possible-troll/?Focus=12268#Comment_12268 http://mathoverflow.tqft.net/discussion/835/possible-troll/?Focus=12268#Comment_12268 Tue, 28 Dec 2010 09:42:54 -0800 Anton Geraschenko I deleted those two answers. I'm confused about this user. Some of his (now deleted) posts are blatant trolling, but some of them seem very reasonable (e.g. see his comment here ... I haven't read that question, but arex's response suggests that it's a meaningful comment)

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arex comments on "Possible Troll" (12265) http://mathoverflow.tqft.net/discussion/835/possible-troll/?Focus=12265#Comment_12265 http://mathoverflow.tqft.net/discussion/835/possible-troll/?Focus=12265#Comment_12265 Tue, 28 Dec 2010 09:20:53 -0800 arex The current user optima (who I assume is the same as the former user?) requests (in the comments to this answer) that this answer be deleted.

I think it would be great if a moderator could delete both answers, as one is being heavily downvoted due to apparent trolling and the other only exists because the first lowered the user's reputation below the commenting threshold. Thanks.

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Qiaochu Yuan comments on "Possible Troll" (12256) http://mathoverflow.tqft.net/discussion/835/possible-troll/?Focus=12256#Comment_12256 http://mathoverflow.tqft.net/discussion/835/possible-troll/?Focus=12256#Comment_12256 Tue, 28 Dec 2010 03:11:57 -0800 Qiaochu Yuan As far as I can tell, the troll is running a Sokal-style experiment to determine if people can distinguish mathematics from strings of words which look like mathematics.

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Anton Geraschenko comments on "Possible Troll" (12251) http://mathoverflow.tqft.net/discussion/835/possible-troll/?Focus=12251#Comment_12251 http://mathoverflow.tqft.net/discussion/835/possible-troll/?Focus=12251#Comment_12251 Mon, 27 Dec 2010 20:17:09 -0800 Anton Geraschenko

Has the mystery been solved yet? What's up with these weird posts?

It's just some troll mimicking one of Angelo's answers. Is there something more mysterious about it?

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José Figueroa comments on "Possible Troll" (12250) http://mathoverflow.tqft.net/discussion/835/possible-troll/?Focus=12250#Comment_12250 http://mathoverflow.tqft.net/discussion/835/possible-troll/?Focus=12250#Comment_12250 Mon, 27 Dec 2010 18:43:20 -0800 José Figueroa Comment deleted.

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Kevin Lin comments on "Possible Troll" (12249) http://mathoverflow.tqft.net/discussion/835/possible-troll/?Focus=12249#Comment_12249 http://mathoverflow.tqft.net/discussion/835/possible-troll/?Focus=12249#Comment_12249 Mon, 27 Dec 2010 17:51:43 -0800 Kevin Lin optima says:

Yes. The criterion for a symmetric monoidal functor I to be equivalent to the datum of such a fully dualized object is that it should have unramified diagonal (this is somewhere in Laumon Moret Bailly, I don't have it here). If I is from an n-cobordism to the n-category of n-families over a fixed symmetric n-category, the diagonal is a monomorphism, and a monomorphism is certainly unramified.

Has the mystery been solved yet? What's up with these weird posts?

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Harald Hanche-Olsen comments on "Possible Troll" (11903) http://mathoverflow.tqft.net/discussion/835/possible-troll/?Focus=11903#Comment_11903 http://mathoverflow.tqft.net/discussion/835/possible-troll/?Focus=11903#Comment_11903 Tue, 14 Dec 2010 14:23:23 -0800 Harald Hanche-Olsen +1 David. Baaaaaaahahaha!

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David Speyer comments on "Possible Troll" (11902) http://mathoverflow.tqft.net/discussion/835/possible-troll/?Focus=11902#Comment_11902 http://mathoverflow.tqft.net/discussion/835/possible-troll/?Focus=11902#Comment_11902 Tue, 14 Dec 2010 11:28:21 -0800 David Speyer I think Harald, at least, is talking about Firesheep. http://codebutler.github.com/firesheep/

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Andrew Stacey comments on "Possible Troll" (11900) http://mathoverflow.tqft.net/discussion/835/possible-troll/?Focus=11900#Comment_11900 http://mathoverflow.tqft.net/discussion/835/possible-troll/?Focus=11900#Comment_11900 Tue, 14 Dec 2010 11:14:34 -0800 Andrew Stacey Extremely minor pedantic point: I don't think that Harald and Peter mean FireBug. Unless, that is, there's some hidden functionality that I've not yet found (entirely possible, I use it mainly for debugging CSS). At least, if there are two programs with the same name then some clarification should be made so that those of use with FireBug installed don't get all antsy and uninstall it for fear of being branded a cracker instead of merely a hacker.

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WillieWong comments on "Possible Troll" (11899) http://mathoverflow.tqft.net/discussion/835/possible-troll/?Focus=11899#Comment_11899 http://mathoverflow.tqft.net/discussion/835/possible-troll/?Focus=11899#Comment_11899 Tue, 14 Dec 2010 05:18:20 -0800 WillieWong @Peter: Harald's description is the one I understand to be the case. The authentication process is not the problem. The problem is that then you are granted a cookie stating that you've logged in, and shouldn't be checked again for your identity.

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Harald Hanche-Olsen comments on "Possible Troll" (11893) http://mathoverflow.tqft.net/discussion/835/possible-troll/?Focus=11893#Comment_11893 http://mathoverflow.tqft.net/discussion/835/possible-troll/?Focus=11893#Comment_11893 Mon, 13 Dec 2010 23:05:14 -0800 Harald Hanche-Olsen Doesn't firebug work by stealing cookies? They are transmitted unencrypted, after all. And so long as you're logged in, someone else who got a copy of your MO cookies should be able to pose as you. It should be possible to thwart this attack by presenting the browser with a cookie that changes on each interaction with the site, though. Then the site could at least detect the fact that the login session is used by two computers and could terminate the session, forcing the legitimate user to login again while the impostor is left out in the cold. I don't know if this is actually done.

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peter.krautzberger comments on "Possible Troll" (11886) http://mathoverflow.tqft.net/discussion/835/possible-troll/?Focus=11886#Comment_11886 http://mathoverflow.tqft.net/discussion/835/possible-troll/?Focus=11886#Comment_11886 Mon, 13 Dec 2010 19:01:27 -0800 peter.krautzberger
Even though MO does not encrypt properly (forcing https gives me a warning since the certificate belongs to stackoverflow), it only redirects your account name to your openID provider where you then enter your password.

Most OpenID-providers use encryption via https to actually log you after that redirect. So unless the openID provider is really bad and is not using https to log you in, firebug should not work. ]]>
Noah Snyder comments on "Possible Troll" (11885) http://mathoverflow.tqft.net/discussion/835/possible-troll/?Focus=11885#Comment_11885 http://mathoverflow.tqft.net/discussion/835/possible-troll/?Focus=11885#Comment_11885 Mon, 13 Dec 2010 18:59:47 -0800 Noah Snyder Spiro Karigiannis comments on "Possible Troll" (11877) http://mathoverflow.tqft.net/discussion/835/possible-troll/?Focus=11877#Comment_11877 http://mathoverflow.tqft.net/discussion/835/possible-troll/?Focus=11877#Comment_11877 Mon, 13 Dec 2010 17:38:42 -0800 Spiro Karigiannis Noah Snyder comments on "Possible Troll" (11874) http://mathoverflow.tqft.net/discussion/835/possible-troll/?Focus=11874#Comment_11874 http://mathoverflow.tqft.net/discussion/835/possible-troll/?Focus=11874#Comment_11874 Mon, 13 Dec 2010 16:50:27 -0800 Noah Snyder Yemon Choi comments on "Possible Troll" (11871) http://mathoverflow.tqft.net/discussion/835/possible-troll/?Focus=11871#Comment_11871 http://mathoverflow.tqft.net/discussion/835/possible-troll/?Focus=11871#Comment_11871 Mon, 13 Dec 2010 14:44:20 -0800 Yemon Choi Quoting Todd

whoever votes up answers that they don't understand?

I'm convinced that the answer is "lots of people".

Amen. And I speak as someone whose fairly banal observation about expressing the trace of a matrix as a weighted average of its numerical range continues to get occasional upvotes ;-)

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Gerry Myerson comments on "Possible Troll" (11870) http://mathoverflow.tqft.net/discussion/835/possible-troll/?Focus=11870#Comment_11870 http://mathoverflow.tqft.net/discussion/835/possible-troll/?Focus=11870#Comment_11870 Mon, 13 Dec 2010 14:41:22 -0800 Gerry Myerson
Perhaps it is people like X who upvote answers if and only if they don't understand them. ]]>
Qiaochu Yuan comments on "Possible Troll" (11858) http://mathoverflow.tqft.net/discussion/835/possible-troll/?Focus=11858#Comment_11858 http://mathoverflow.tqft.net/discussion/835/possible-troll/?Focus=11858#Comment_11858 Mon, 13 Dec 2010 12:24:39 -0800 Qiaochu Yuan I vote up answers I don't understand when I have some other reason to believe that the answer is substantially correct (e.g. the answerer has given other correct answers in the past, the answer already has a high vote count) and when I think that the answer deserves more votes (e.g. clearly a lot of work has been put in but it is hard to check). Maybe this isn't a good idea.

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Todd Trimble comments on "Possible Troll" (11835) http://mathoverflow.tqft.net/discussion/835/possible-troll/?Focus=11835#Comment_11835 http://mathoverflow.tqft.net/discussion/835/possible-troll/?Focus=11835#Comment_11835 Mon, 13 Dec 2010 08:35:39 -0800 Todd Trimble
I'm convinced that the answer is "lots of people". ]]>
WillieWong comments on "Possible Troll" (11833) http://mathoverflow.tqft.net/discussion/835/possible-troll/?Focus=11833#Comment_11833 http://mathoverflow.tqft.net/discussion/835/possible-troll/?Focus=11833#Comment_11833 Mon, 13 Dec 2010 07:58:34 -0800 WillieWong @Spiro: now that's a thought. MO uses OpenID, which is, IIRC, susceptible to the FireSheep exploit of a month ago. So it is not completely inconceivable that someone was able to sniff log-in credentials over wireless and posting as random users. But I do find it slightly unlikely.

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Spiro Karigiannis comments on "Possible Troll" (11831) http://mathoverflow.tqft.net/discussion/835/possible-troll/?Focus=11831#Comment_11831 http://mathoverflow.tqft.net/discussion/835/possible-troll/?Focus=11831#Comment_11831 Mon, 13 Dec 2010 07:24:19 -0800 Spiro Karigiannis Zev Chonoles comments on "Possible Troll" (11830) http://mathoverflow.tqft.net/discussion/835/possible-troll/?Focus=11830#Comment_11830 http://mathoverflow.tqft.net/discussion/835/possible-troll/?Focus=11830#Comment_11830 Mon, 13 Dec 2010 07:12:40 -0800 Zev Chonoles I've flagged them as spam. However, given that this person has been posting these answers under multiple accounts, there exists the possibility that they voted themselves up, to lure more people into upvoting than otherwise would (I'm thinking along the lines of a panhandler putting some of their own coins in their cup).

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Harry Gindi comments on "Possible Troll" (11829) http://mathoverflow.tqft.net/discussion/835/possible-troll/?Focus=11829#Comment_11829 http://mathoverflow.tqft.net/discussion/835/possible-troll/?Focus=11829#Comment_11829 Mon, 13 Dec 2010 06:59:21 -0800 Harry Gindi Is somebody trying to Sokal us?

Anyway, it really annoys me that somebody voted up that completely nonsensical answer, when I had a correct answer already posted (that still has no votes). Come on, guys (by which I mean the people who voted up that garbage), at least give credit where credit is due, and all that.

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Alex Bartel comments on "Possible Troll" (11828) http://mathoverflow.tqft.net/discussion/835/possible-troll/?Focus=11828#Comment_11828 http://mathoverflow.tqft.net/discussion/835/possible-troll/?Focus=11828#Comment_11828 Mon, 13 Dec 2010 06:42:21 -0800 Alex Bartel The best explanation I can think of is that it's some student with some mathematical knowledge, who every now and then gets intrigued by people using so many words that he has never heard before. So he starts doubting whether these people are actually saying anything that makes sense to anyone but them and decides to conduct an experiment. He produces some Gibberish that is not immediately recognisable as such by people who are not familiar with the subject matter. Ironically, some of that Gibberish actually has - at the point of writing this - a positive vote count (whoever votes up answers that they don't understand?), so if my explanation is correct, then this student must be very content with the outcome of the experiment.

Edit: Something I in turn find curious is that now, that these examples have surfaced, nobody seems to be flagging them as spam. Anyway, I am going to.

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Harry Gindi comments on "Possible Troll" (11827) http://mathoverflow.tqft.net/discussion/835/possible-troll/?Focus=11827#Comment_11827 http://mathoverflow.tqft.net/discussion/835/possible-troll/?Focus=11827#Comment_11827 Mon, 13 Dec 2010 06:35:28 -0800 Harry Gindi Dammit, those two answers have more votes than a lot of correct answers I've given. Woe is me.

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Andrew Stacey comments on "Possible Troll" (11825) http://mathoverflow.tqft.net/discussion/835/possible-troll/?Focus=11825#Comment_11825 http://mathoverflow.tqft.net/discussion/835/possible-troll/?Focus=11825#Comment_11825 Mon, 13 Dec 2010 06:27:34 -0800 Andrew Stacey Interestingly, the accounts that left those remarks have other activity which does not appear to be trollish.

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Harry Gindi comments on "Possible Troll" (11822) http://mathoverflow.tqft.net/discussion/835/possible-troll/?Focus=11822#Comment_11822 http://mathoverflow.tqft.net/discussion/835/possible-troll/?Focus=11822#Comment_11822 Mon, 13 Dec 2010 06:21:27 -0800 Harry Gindi It seems kind of sophisticated to be a bot, but hey, maybe it is!

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Andrew Stacey comments on "Possible Troll" (11821) http://mathoverflow.tqft.net/discussion/835/possible-troll/?Focus=11821#Comment_11821 http://mathoverflow.tqft.net/discussion/835/possible-troll/?Focus=11821#Comment_11821 Mon, 13 Dec 2010 06:10:00 -0800 Andrew Stacey Zev, you're right. Here's the text:

Yes. The criterion for a vector bundle on a connected paracompact space to be invertible is that it should have unramified diagonal (this is somewhere in Laumon Moret Bailly, I don't have it here). If the vector bundle has a total Stiefel-Whitney class invertible in its cohomology ring, the diagonal is a monomorphism, and a monomorphism is certainly unramified.

In the comments, someone remarks that this is plagiarised. The original is here and the text is:

Yes. The criterion for an Artin stack to be Deligne-Mumford is that it should have unramified diagonal (this is somewhere in Laumon Moret Bailly, I don't have it here). If the stack is fibered in sets, the diagonal is a monomorphism, and a monomorphism is certainly unramified.

For comparison, there's the "answer" to Harry's question:

Yes. The criterion for f∧g to be in An is that it should have unramified diagonal (this is somewhere in Laumon Moret Bailly, I don't have it here). If An is a class of monomorphisms anodyne w.r.t. a separated segment on such a category of presheaves, the diagonal is a monomorphism, and a monomorphism is certainly unramified.

Two further occurrences of this remark:

  1. http://mathoverflow.net/questions/42109/semicosimplicial-totalization
  2. http://mathoverflow.net/questions/43537/property-t-and-subgroups-of-finite-index

(Apologies for cross-posting with Kevin - I got distracted by my hunt for further occurrences)

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Kevin Buzzard comments on "Possible Troll" (11820) http://mathoverflow.tqft.net/discussion/835/possible-troll/?Focus=11820#Comment_11820 http://mathoverflow.tqft.net/discussion/835/possible-troll/?Focus=11820#Comment_11820 Mon, 13 Dec 2010 05:54:38 -0800 Kevin Buzzard

answered Oct 18 at 13:03 by ohai: "Yes. The criterion for a vector bundle on a connected paracompact space to be invertible is that it should have unramified diagonal (this is somewhere in Laumon Moret Bailly, I don't have it here). If the vector bundle has a total Stiefel-Whitney class invertible in its cohomology ring, the diagonal is a monomorphism, and a monomorphism is certainly unramified."

locked by MathOverflow♦ 20 hours ago
deleted by MathOverflow♦ 20 hours ago ]]>
Zev Chonoles comments on "Possible Troll" (11818) http://mathoverflow.tqft.net/discussion/835/possible-troll/?Focus=11818#Comment_11818 http://mathoverflow.tqft.net/discussion/835/possible-troll/?Focus=11818#Comment_11818 Mon, 13 Dec 2010 05:44:28 -0800 Zev Chonoles I recognize the phrase "this is somewhere in Laumon Moret Bailly, I don't have it here" because Ben Webster recently noticed and commented "WTF?" on an answer (I can't find it at the moment, perhaps it was deleted as spam) that was essentially ripping off this answer, in a similarly nonsensical way. There is also this answer, another strange copy of the same text, but under the guise of a different user; however that user appears to have given two substantive answers as well.

EDIT: I believe the answer Ben commented on was on this question, though it was deleted one way or another (could a 10k user or moderator confirm?)

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Harry Gindi comments on "Possible Troll" (11816) http://mathoverflow.tqft.net/discussion/835/possible-troll/?Focus=11816#Comment_11816 http://mathoverflow.tqft.net/discussion/835/possible-troll/?Focus=11816#Comment_11816 Mon, 13 Dec 2010 05:10:12 -0800 Harry Gindi It's either a troll or a bot. It sucks though, because I was really impressed. I thought that Cisinski came up with the generalized theory for anodyne morphisms (in an arbitrary topos with respect to a fixed cylinder functor ) in his thesis or a closely related paper around 2001-2002, but here was this guy telling me that such things were well-known to Laumon and Moret-Bailly 20 years ago, whence comes my comment that the answer is "bizarre".

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Andrew Stacey comments on "Possible Troll" (11815) http://mathoverflow.tqft.net/discussion/835/possible-troll/?Focus=11815#Comment_11815 http://mathoverflow.tqft.net/discussion/835/possible-troll/?Focus=11815#Comment_11815 Mon, 13 Dec 2010 05:01:44 -0800 Andrew Stacey Yes, after posting this comment I noticed that that user had a non-trivial positive reputation so I went on a little trip and found those answers. I can't make head nor tail of them, though, so don't know how to classify them.

(The original answer that provoked this has now been deleted.)

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WillieWong comments on "Possible Troll" (11814) http://mathoverflow.tqft.net/discussion/835/possible-troll/?Focus=11814#Comment_11814 http://mathoverflow.tqft.net/discussion/835/possible-troll/?Focus=11814#Comment_11814 Mon, 13 Dec 2010 04:32:46 -0800 WillieWong Hum, it is a bit strange, that user's answer to this and this, to my inexpert eyes, look somewhat, possibly, reasonable. And then there is this one here

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Andrew Stacey comments on "Possible Troll" (11813) http://mathoverflow.tqft.net/discussion/835/possible-troll/?Focus=11813#Comment_11813 http://mathoverflow.tqft.net/discussion/835/possible-troll/?Focus=11813#Comment_11813 Mon, 13 Dec 2010 04:24:24 -0800 Andrew Stacey The extant "answer" to this question: http://mathoverflow.net/questions/49244/give-an-example-of-monoid-with-property-m2-m3 seems to have troll-like characteristics. I got as far as writing a comment in reply (along the lines of mistaking cause with effect) and then decided not to.

I've flagged the comment as spam, I urge others to do so.

(Note that the question itself is highly likely to be closed, but that is independent of troll-like behaviour)

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