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Post by The Tortoise & The Hare on Jan 19, 2021 14:20:48 GMT
They banned spamming hundreds of threads, so we just need to make the most out of each post now.
It was unreasonable.
There are two main attack vectors to defend against:
1. Someone looking at the page (Easy)
2. Someone looking at the source code of the page (Hard)
To block attack vector 1, I think the most effective method is to not use spoilers (since they only take one click to open, and provide no defence against attack vector 2), but rather to use 10000% min-width images at the beginning and end of each post. They don't take up a lot of characters, and render the entire webpage unreasonable to read. The mods knew we were doing this and didn't ban it in their rules update, and for anyone reasonably technical it is very easy to get around. Even without looking at the page source, you can right click on giant image with your adblocker (Which you should be using), and click block element. Now you will never see that image again.
To block attack vector 2, the only way to get around this is to have a ton of imgur links in every post. Imgur already banned my account for trying to upload my collection of 600 anime girl avatars I scraped from the internet, so unless anyone else wants to collect more (valid) imgur links, we're stuck with the LoL avatars and whatever anime girls uploaded.
It is still possible to create a difficult challenge that follows the new rules of the mods, in the following way:
[10000x10000 image] slightly under 2000 characters of randomly generated imgur links in normal size image tags,
mixed in with some valid images from our collection in normal size image tags
[10000x10000 image]
This is unwinnable for a non-technical user, as it is prohibitively expensive to scroll down to find the normal images in between the giant images. This is dificult but not impossible for a technical user, since every randomly generated imgur link must be checked.
The best way to beat this strategy (imo) would be to scrape all the imgur links from the source code, pad them in image tags, and reply to the thread (or create a new thread in the tribe forum) in which you paste all the image tags and see if any of them turn into the real image. All the dead links will just die, the real links will turn into small avatars, and the real real link will appear as normal. So it would still be winnable for a technical user, but they would have to be very clever about it.
I don't think this completely breaks the challenge, but I'm posting it here in case the mods think it's breaking. It's difficult to operate on an honour system for this challenge, since it is directly adversarial. If we don't use randomly generated imgur links, the other tribe could, and we would be out of luck. That being said, I think this is still a defeatable strategy if the other tribe knows how to use forum posts to mass-check imgur links.
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Post by C-3PO & R2-D2 on Jan 19, 2021 14:48:44 GMT
There is a new rule saying that a nontechnical person needs to be able to compete. -R2
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Post by C-3PO & R2-D2 on Jan 19, 2021 14:50:32 GMT
I will be doing some testing today, but I *think* I only need a few minutes to parse their posts and find their image.
-R2
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Post by The Tortoise & The Hare on Jan 19, 2021 14:54:18 GMT
Yep, just made that post to force the mods to put in a new rule.
This challenge should be very easy for us if we can make a good script between our technical people to automatically find images.
In order to let non-technical people play, all we need to do is remove the 10000x10000 images.
I think we can set up a format like:
2000 characters of [spoiler] random image or dead link, normal size [/spoiler] repeated
so non-tehcnical people can waste their lives away clicking on spoilers, and technical people will be able to scrape links and mass-check them in forum posts.
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Post by The Tortoise & The Hare on Jan 19, 2021 14:54:44 GMT
I will be doing some testing today, but I *think* I only need a few minutes to parse their posts and find their image. -R2 And better yet, you can use our forum as a training ground.
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Post by C-3PO & R2-D2 on Jan 19, 2021 14:59:33 GMT
I plan on it! I'm gunna see how long it takes on the particularly evil one.
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Post by The Tortoise & The Hare on Jan 19, 2021 15:00:34 GMT
Hello! We're going to add a new rule very fast. The placed image should be findable without any technical knowhow - that is to say, I shouldn't need to inspect a page or create code to go searching through threads to find it, as an example. If an image is too hard to find with nothing but searching, we will ask you to re hide it.
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Post by The Tortoise & The Hare on Jan 19, 2021 15:14:51 GMT
Also, If we only post valid links ,we could be vulnerable to an attack where they filter out duplicate links.
That also is something we can keep in mind
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Post by C-3PO & R2-D2 on Jan 19, 2021 15:17:13 GMT
Yeah I am thinking about that as well, I will certainly be doing that. The problem is I don't feel comfortable generating random valid imgur links because who knows what would actually show up, probably a lot of stuff that would not be ok. So I generate random seemingly valid but actually invalid links so that you at least have to know regex to find the real ones.
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Post by The Tortoise & The Hare on Jan 19, 2021 15:41:57 GMT
Understandable, when i was trying to find a dump of imgur links online, i found fire emblem fanfiction from 4chan. It's important for us to have standards
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Post by Grogu on Jan 19, 2021 16:05:57 GMT
Will each team have a separate/different image to hide? Or will they both be the same? Because if they're the same then don't we already have the answer to post as soon as the challenge starts...
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Post by C-3PO & R2-D2 on Jan 19, 2021 16:10:35 GMT
My understanding is that it's the same with a different link, and we need a screenshot explicitly showing where we found it on their board.
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Bard
Jury
eating guac like a boss
Posts: 1,344
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Post by Bard on Jan 19, 2021 16:18:25 GMT
im phone bound until about 530est
if yall want a test subject to see how hard things are to find with this strat i could definitely not look until then and give feedback on how difficult it was and look for any weaknesses in the strat
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Post by Grogu on Jan 19, 2021 17:14:41 GMT
Yep, just made that post to force the mods to put in a new rule. This challenge should be very easy for us if we can make a good script between our technical people to automatically find images. In order to let non-technical people play, all we need to do is remove the 10000x10000 images. I think we can set up a format like: 2000 characters of [spoiler] random image or dead link, normal size [/spoiler] repeated
so non-tehcnical people can waste their lives away clicking on spoilers, and technical people will be able to scrape links and mass-check them in forum posts. Isn't it 2000 words, not characters? I'm not sure how to measure words though if we're just using a bunch of URLs.
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Post by Grogu on Jan 19, 2021 17:19:05 GMT
Okay I am trying to make spoiler tags work on my computer but whenever I put the spoiler code in the image just ignores it and shows up anyway...
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