Hyperion: Tallest Redwood: Heard hide or hair? Scuttlebutt? (Berkeley, Montclair: income, friendly)

[jqmhelios]

LGV-Icarus, I do not know you, but know this- your behaviour does seem a little suspicious. You occured here when Montclarion has vanished, too afraid to face his shame. You are indeed slyly implying MD Vaden still created FR.
Therefore I ask- Identify yourself. If you do not, simply think- doesn't that look as suspicious. If you like, just your initials.
For example, let me start. Jake Mason, JKM (Q because it sounds better for me). Bristol, UK- Solnechnogorsk, Russia- Falmouth, Massachusetts, USA.
If you do not, and write something as a smokescreen, consider what that will mean for your reputation. I do not know you, and think you might be involved with FR. Please, prove me wrong.
Besides, your name could be seen as a slight mirror of my name which I use on another site (JQM-Helios, ents-bbs.org, but I am one and the same person)

[jqmhelios]

Just let's keep it straight- are you Wohl?

[LGV-Icarus]

Originally Posted by jqmhelios

You occured here when Montclarion has vanished, too afraid to face his shame.

Just let's keep it straight- are you Wohl?

No. You think he's vanished? What do you think happened? I thought he just hasn't posted in a few weeks. Should I be more concerned?

Originally Posted by OldManWinter

And I like how this new troll tries to slyly imply that Mr. Vaden is probably FR since only those two are the only ones who highlight the class 6 reiteration info.

No, to the contrary. I just don't buy the idea that the knowledge of this factoid is useful towards attributing FR one way or another.

It's only throwing shade if you think it's incriminating in the first place. I don't.

[LGV-Icarus]

Originally Posted by jqmhelios

And let's explain what we published here.
The reason we think Thomas Davidson is real and is the leader is because of the info Michael Taylor was sent as a result of FR stealing information from his site, landmarktrees.net. I have provided the proof of this countless times already.

So, I wanted to talk more about this.

There are several stories being discussed where someone has interacted with GoDaddy in a way that was intended to de-anonymize or provide information on the true owner of FR.

Several posts in this thread allege that as part of a claim of copyright infringement, Michael Taylor contacted Domains by Proxy, and requested to be put in touch with the owner of famousredwoods.com for the explicit and limited purpose of discussing this perceived infringement. Because the registrant didn't respond in time, their domain registration data was unmasked to the complainant.

That Thomas Davidson name comes from DNS registration whois data which isn't validated by anyone. Since the beginning of the internet, every domain name has published contact information in a directory, intended to be used by others in the case of legal or technical difficulties.

Because this information is public, a lot of the time it's garbage since people don't want their details public. If you want to have an anonymous website, you just shove junk in there since it doesn't matter. Another way to keep a name private is to use a proxy registration service, like Domains by Proxy. They act as an agent, and will forward communications onward.

Or you can do both.

At first, I didn't understand why anyone was taking the Thomas Davidson name seriously. But, it doesn't seem like anyone really is.

[LGV-Icarus]

That whole pyramid is a lot of people. Very impressive.. having several categories gives it a sense of order.

Is the Chimpanzees category open for nominations? Wondering if it's just for climbers, or if other permit scofflaws are welcome as well.

[OldManWinter]

JQM - It looks like the new troll has written up an elaborate account to try to convince you and everyone else that Emperor Thomas Davidson is not a real person. Hmm I wonder why it is so important for LGV-Troll to make sure to get the word out about Thomas Davidson? Maybe your investigation has touched a nerve somewhere with its accuracy? Seems like LGV-Troll is trying to cast doubt on your thoroughly researched pyramid tiers of FR. I think I'll stick with JQM's solid investigation over the conspiracy claims of someone who just showed up out of the blue a few days ago.

[LGV-Icarus]

Originally Posted by OldManWinter

... an elaborate account to try to convince you and everyone else that Emperor Thomas Davidson is not a real person.

The question is not whether or not Thomas Davidson is a real person, it's whether or not he's responsible for FR.

To me, it seems highly unlikely that someone would go to such great lengths to host an anonymous website, and then register it under his real name, even if that registration is masked.

Whoever created FR was very deliberate in how they constructed the site - it doesn't use any tracking services (eg, Google Analytics). It doesn't use any external services at all. It doesn't run any ads, I don't see any monetization. It doesn't even use any off-the-shelf components, and I can't find any signs of it borrowing from previous projects. There's barely any Javascript, even! Very clever way of going about it.

There's only one mistake I've found so far - the encoded config blob which their EasyPano software produces alongside the panoramic photos leaks some information about the author, and they probably didn't realize it because this information is deliberately hidden.

... a later post will dive more into some of the technical stuff. That's my whole motivation for showing up here - if you're trying to provide attribution for a website, you might want to focus on the website. There isn't a lot of discussion so far of the technical evidence.

All the "LEVEL 9 HACKER" crap put me over the edge - none of this stuff is really that difficult. So, here I am.

Originally Posted by OldManWinter

I think I'll stick with JQM's solid investigation

I don't think it's that solid. Here's Jake's list from just a couple months ago:

Originally Posted by jqmhelios

POSSIBLY RELATED TO FR: Montclarion, person who hired the hacker, the hacker himself, park ranger who started the GOT donation(If there was such a person), Yinghai, Max Forster, Ed Gilbert.
DEFINITELY FR: totallyawesometruthsayer, A.S.
What do you think?

TD isn't even on the list! C'mon...

Originally Posted by OldManWinter

... same goes for the Owner of FR. Word on the inside is that all signs are pointing to Ventura, California and the mystery being solved in short order.

So, Old Man - you've been hinting at TD being involved since 2015. Is there any other corroborating evidence tying him to FR? A motive at least?

[OldManWinter]

Originally Posted by LGV-Icarus

Whoever created FR was very deliberate in how they constructed the site - it doesn't use any tracking services (eg, Google Analytics). It doesn't use any external services at all. It doesn't run any ads, I don't see any monetization. It doesn't even use any off-the-shelf components, and I can't find any signs of it borrowing from previous projects. There's barely any Javascript, even! Very clever way of going about it.

There's only one mistake I've found so far - the encoded config blob which their EasyPano software produces alongside the panoramic photos leaks some information about the author, and they probably didn't realize it because this information is deliberately hidden.

... a later post will dive more into some of the technical stuff. That's my whole motivation for showing up here - if you're trying to provide attribution for a website, you might want to focus on the website. There isn't a lot of discussion so far of the technical evidence.

All the "LEVEL 9 HACKER" crap put me over the edge - none of this stuff is really that difficult. So, here I am.

It seems like you may have something useful to contribute after all. I thought you were just here to troll JQM's solid investigation, but it seems like you have done some expert analysis on the actual web site. Will be interested to read your post on the technical stuff once you put it together.

If you're wondering who hired the Blackhard Level 9 Hacker who framed Mr. Vaden, here is some accurate information about the person:

-It is a man who lives south of Oregon and east of California one or two states. Someone who likes to write. He has published articles. He claimed to have paid a skilled hacker, and the hacker returned findings that said Mr. Vaden was paying for the FR site with his personal credit card and he was connecting to the FR server from his house. So either the hacker framed him or perhaps the hacker was actually just a novice who counterfeited stats.

-Park rangers leaked tree locations and then lied about doing so when confronted by Mr. Vaden. They also tried to undermine his reputation and make it appear as if he was causing problems. The fake and corrupted info about Mr. Vaden running FR was deposited with the parks and then the false rumors may have been furthered by parks people or those gullible enough to consider it.

[LGV-Icarus]

Originally Posted by OldManWinter

If you're wondering who hired the Blackhard Level 9 Hacker who framed Mr. Vaden, here is some accurate information about the person:

-It is a man who lives south of Oregon and east of California one or two states. Someone who likes to write. He has published articles.

Whoever wrote this cracks me up... so dramatic. So, an "author".

I've heard this story. It's hard to discuss in any meaningful way because it has no provenance.

Some things in it smell about right; it makes sense that a contributing writer would be sniffing out a story, given the rumors about a long-form piece mopping up everything that's happened since the Wild Trees.

What I have a harder time believing is that an author would independently hire an ethically-challenged blackhat to crack a hosting account, or fraudulently socially engineer the release of information from their support staff. People do this kind of work, but it's with the permission of the company being attacked as a test. Doing it against accounts you don't own is simply illegal.

I can picture a rogue passionate individual doing this. But a writer with their hired gun? Not so much. And, if you believe this story, a writer with a work in progress induces felonies, and then blabs to the subjects of their yet-to-be-published piece about it? Pretty hard to believe.

Start with this fantastical world, THEN pivot to a world where the hacker frames MDV ... lol.

A lot of reading between the lines here, but this is the most sensical thing I can come up with given the details out there. It's fantastical, MAYBE willing to give it a bit of the benefit of the doubt due to the telephone grapevine. Do I have the story wrong?

Sounds like the author "South of Oregon and east of California" is known?

Old man, Are those quotes from MDV? You're really good at dropping in bits of stuff without really saying where they come from.

[LGV-Icarus]

Originally Posted by jqmhelios

For example, let me start. Jake Mason, JKM (Q because it sounds better for me). Bristol, UK- Solnechnogorsk, Russia- Falmouth, Massachusetts, USA.

I'm sorry, I don't understand. What's that list of cities?