Good Thing He Didn't Become John McTubgirl

March 27, 2007 9:53 PM

McPwnd.Person in charge of John McCain's MySpace presence decides to use Mike Davidson's MySpace/CSS hack, but fails to credit Mike, and directly hotlinks his images. Result: "Today I announce that I have reversed my position and come out in full support of gay marriage ... particularly between passionate females." Oops. Remember, folks: hotlinks are bad.
posted by brownpau (58 comments total)

He only supports gay marriage if both chick are hot.
posted by Steve_at_Linnwood at 9:55 PM on March 27, 2007

Like when the mechanic put a whoppee cushion in that rich guy's Mercedes LOL PWN3D!

Oh, better climb back into the grease pit, another car's comin'. . .
posted by four panels at 10:10 PM on March 27, 2007 [2 favorites]

^^ zing?
posted by oog at 10:11 PM on March 27, 2007

Or John McGoatse...

He got pretty lucky in the grand GEEK'S L33T REVENGE! scheme of things.

If there's one thing I've learned from the internet, it's not to mess with nerds.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 10:16 PM on March 27, 2007

Yeah, that was a prety light slap on the wrist. And I don't know if you rtfa, four panels, but the McCain site was stealing bandwidth.
posted by lekvar at 10:19 PM on March 27, 2007

Happened to someone on Daily Kos too. (warning NSFW)
posted by chlorus at 10:22 PM on March 27, 2007

he got off easy.
posted by nihlton at 10:24 PM on March 27, 2007

They should go after his Second Life presence next. Stick it to the man!

(As a web developer: theywere to tight to bother hosting their own images? Cheap.)
posted by Artw at 10:24 PM on March 27, 2007

I love this, because a) John McCain is a piece of dogshit b) people who are 'in charge of' anything web-related and don't understand the fundamentals of how the web works deserve humiliation and mockery c) I'm fully in favour of gay marriage and all that stuff and d) it's a metaphor for the level of actual connection to The People (peace, love, vegetable rights, man) these clueless old political fucknozzles have, much as they fake their way through it.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 10:25 PM on March 27, 2007 [2 favorites]

They were too tight to bother hosting their own images? Cheap.

I'm thinking more along the lines of stupid, actually.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 10:28 PM on March 27, 2007

Love the first comment after Mike's post:

I've worked with my fair share of political campaigns and can vouch for the fact that a large percentage of those involved are world class idiots.

This would certainly be exhibit A. It's not clear how long McCain's site was hotlinking, but the least they should do is offer to pay some of Mike's hosting bill.
posted by mediareport at 10:30 PM on March 27, 2007

So the Straight Talk Express is running on retreads. How is this shocking?
posted by Smart Dalek at 10:32 PM on March 27, 2007

I love this because it was a light girly slap. This guy could have done McCain thoroughly and permanently if he had wanted to, and McCain -- and whichever of his staffers was supposed to be on this -- knows it.

We who use the computers know that you who run the computers rule us. Just the gentle reminder is all we need.
posted by Methylviolet at 10:53 PM on March 27, 2007 [1 favorite]

Like when the mechanic put a whoppee cushion in that rich guy's Mercedes LOL PWN3D!

Oh, better climb back into the grease pit, another car's comin'

Wait. So McCain is the rich guy, and Mike is a mechanic? Talk about silent running.

(Hell, from Mike's own numbers he made 100 grand just in dreamhost referrals last couple of years. That may not be right-wing fucknozzle rich, but it's not bad. His billings had to easily exceed that, I would think.)
posted by maxwelton at 11:18 PM on March 27, 2007

Artw writes "As a web developer: theywere to tight to bother hosting their own images? Cheap."

Cheap? What about Photobucket?
posted by brundlefly at 11:26 PM on March 27, 2007

Artw writes "As a web developer: theywere to tight to bother hosting their own images? Cheap."

Cheap? What about Photobucket?
posted by brundlefly at 11:27 PM on March 27, 2007

Oops.
posted by brundlefly at 11:27 PM on March 27, 2007

John McCain, bandwidth thief.
Yet another in a series of clueless politicians who need to hire better web help.
posted by madamjujujive at 11:28 PM on March 27, 2007

McPwnd
posted by matteo at 11:46 PM on March 27, 2007

I suppose an e-mail isn't really sticking it to those naughty republicans enough. Or whatever he was after. I agree that it was probably more "stupid" than "cheap" or "devious" to be hot-linking to images. I mean, the guy isn't capable of maintaining a myspace site. Sending them an e-mail if you were irritated would be, you know, courteous.

But would the same sort of ... stunt (for lack of a better word) be pulled giving Nancy Pelosi a raging hard-on for the .50 BMG? I hardly believe that anyone on either side of the aisle is capable of figuring out the difference between a live and a local link.

Why is this funny and not asinine or childish?
posted by avriette at 11:55 PM on March 27, 2007

Why is this funny and not asinine or childish?

Not that I agree that it's either asinine or childish, but: why on Earth can't something be all three at the same time? Asinine, childish and funny!
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 12:02 AM on March 28, 2007 [2 favorites]

Why is this funny and not asinine or childish?

Mike Davidson, I served with Bruce Springsteen: I knew Bruce Springsteen; Bruce Springsteen was a friend of mine. Mike, you're no Bruce Springsteen.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 12:16 AM on March 28, 2007

Mike Davidson?
posted by avriette at 12:37 AM on March 28, 2007

Why is this funny and not asinine or childish?

It's funny because it's mild and the party who was harmed in this whole incident was Mike Davidson, not John McCain, and getting subtle revenge against a thief in a way that really tweaks the thief is amusing. It's Schaudenfreude.

The McCain campaign is unraveling and the man hasn't even formally announced his candidacy. I just wish Mike had chosen, rather than make a joke, to use his power to point out a major McCain shortcoming that should actually be getting traction, but sadly isn't.
posted by Dreama at 1:03 AM on March 28, 2007

Why is this funny and not asinine or childish?

We have to explain humour too now?
posted by markr at 1:37 AM on March 28, 2007

If Mike Davidson was a musician and his CSS layout or hosted images were mp3s of his band, most people on Metafilter would be cheering McCain on for liberating music that wants to be free.

Funny how it's actually intellectual property if it's web-based creative work. LOL.

That said, fuck McCain and I'm glad he got pwned.
posted by fourcheesemac at 1:52 AM on March 28, 2007

If Mike Davidson was a musician, and he offered mp3s of his band for free, only requesting that you credit him, and McCain used them the way he used the hot linked image and the CSS template, I don't think most people on Metafilter would be cheering McCain.

They would be cheering Davidson for liberating music that wants to be free.

I cheer Davidson for liberating CSS hacks that want to be free (the way I cheer Caio Chassot, CodeBitch, Owen's father, Tantek Çelik and others).
posted by Dataphage at 2:24 AM on March 28, 2007

Funny how it's actually intellectual property if it's web-based creative work. LOL.

Uh...it actually bandwidth that is the issue in the hotlinking. As for crediting creators I don't know about you but I don't change mp3 tags to my name when I download them.

Maybe I should though. I could mess with last.fm.
posted by srboisvert at 2:33 AM on March 28, 2007

Right, bandwidth for hotlinks, intellectual property for CSS.

But you're wrong, dataphage. Almost any thread on the intellectual property status of music on this website expresses a majority opinion that no one has a right to give a shit if you download their music for "free" somewhere. They'd object even if the only requirement for doing so was to "credit" the music's creators in your subsequent filesharing escapades. The usual argument is that music should be free because I want free music and besides the record companies are really evil and anyway it's good for the musicians to lose income.

I merely point out, as I often do in those threads, that if it was your work in question, you'd want to reserve the right to decide if it should be free for the taking or not. More power to you if you want to give it away. It's Davidson's -- and not McCain's IT staff -- who get to decide if it's free or not. Most people who ever weigh in on the topic on MeFi agree with this if it's a CSS template or a website design, but conveniently stop agreeing if it's a pop song.

OK, so here's where all the feeloading kiddies start abusing me for being a corporate shill rather than a musician. 1,2, 3 . . . .
posted by fourcheesemac at 2:48 AM on March 28, 2007

4cheese why are you so afraid of the kiddies that you must launch a preemptive strawman attack on them? Surely if the people who disagree with you are all grade schoolers you needn't be so defensive since you can easily defeat them with sophomoric mischaracterizations?
posted by srboisvert at 3:32 AM on March 28, 2007 [1 favorite]

This is not "Hacking John McCain" as he titles it. McCain's hired help didn't know what he was doing, pulled images from the other guys server, so the guy with the "world-renowned MySpace design template"(seriously?) changes the image on his web server, which exposes McCain's hired help as incompetent.

All it means is the McCain campaign's hiring practices bought them an incompetent MySpace designer(and who could have imagined those were out there?). Maybe next time they won't hire someone's nephew who supposedly "knows all about this stuff".

The McCain campaign will now have to fire the nephew, hire this guy if they're smart, and someone gets to have an uncomfortable family Thanksgiving with his sister and her worthless son who boned his career in "politics".

The clueless courting the distracted using the incompetent and getting schooled by the mundane. The whole incident is a singularity of the inane, from which no significance can escape.
posted by dglynn at 3:41 AM on March 28, 2007 [5 favorites]

Deserving, perhaps, of Meat.
posted by Joey Michaels at 3:53 AM on March 28, 2007 [2 favorites]

To give this all the proper partisan feel, I'd just like to point out here that Clinton did it too, and that both Michael Moore and Al Gore are fat.
posted by moonbiter at 4:11 AM on March 28, 2007 [1 favorite]

Nobody got finked
when Clinton hotlinked
posted by scottreynen at 5:02 AM on March 28, 2007 [1 favorite]

Funny how it's actually intellectual property if it's web-based creative work. LOL.

Right, bandwidth for hotlinks, intellectual property for CSS.

My impression, when I read about the "Myspace hack" a while ago was that he wanted people to use what he'd done, although I might be mistaken. I just thought it was lame that McCain hotlinked the images.
posted by delmoi at 6:40 AM on March 28, 2007

I prefer the term "bandwidth leeching." I hate the word "hotlink"; it has such a 1996 feel to it. That word also makes me think of sausages and/or porn.
posted by ken_zoan at 7:33 AM on March 28, 2007

Right, bandwidth for hotlinks, intellectual property for CSS.

Let me put this as gently as possible: you're an idiot who doesn't know what he's talking about.

Moral and legal issues aside, intellectual property law is fuzzy right now because it is possible to make a perfect copy of someone else's work without taking anything away from them. The only loss is the hypothetical gains they would have made IF you had given them money.

Bandwidth theft is not an abstract: it results in a large bill showing up in the victim's mail, and in some circumstances even results in their own web sites being shut down.

Mike specifically said that he didn't care about the intellectual property issues -- many people have copied his work on MySpace CSS. The McCain campaign had gone farther, and was actively costing him money in addition to demonstrating their cluelessness.
posted by verb at 7:49 AM on March 28, 2007 [4 favorites]

Your "major McCain shortcoming" is just one more kick in the shins after he didn't stand up to Bush & Co. and say, "I've been tortured. We should not do anything like that." That's where he lost my vote forever.
posted by pax digita at 8:03 AM on March 28, 2007 [2 favorites]

My impression, when I read about the "Myspace hack" a while ago was that he wanted people to use what he'd done, although I might be mistaken. I just thought it was lame that McCain hotlinked the images.

He wanted them to use it if they gave him credit. McCain did not.

Also, he didn't want anybody hotlinking images.
posted by Tacos Are Pretty Great at 8:03 AM on March 28, 2007

I don't know what the hack is exactly, but someone on MySpace was hotlinking one of my photos for some time, until I discovered it and just how much bandwidth they stole. I also quietly replaced the photo with a somewhat more "interesting" image. Though I could have been nastier about it. :)
There are ways to configure a server (or your account on it) to only allow approved hosts to hotlink your stuff.
posted by aletheia at 9:15 AM on March 28, 2007

McCain's hired help didn't know what he was doing, [...]

Wow, he really is a Republican.
posted by YoBananaBoy at 10:26 AM on March 28, 2007

"McCain's hired help didn't know what he was doing, [...]

Wow, he really is a Republican."

Yeah, definitely White House material. At the very least, Attorney General.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 10:48 AM on March 28, 2007

"OK, so here's where all the feeloading kiddies start abusing me for"
Keep trying, I'm sure someone will come along and persecute you for something or other.
posted by 2sheets at 11:08 AM on March 28, 2007

I nominate this for best post title of the week.
posted by googly at 11:16 AM on March 28, 2007

"OK, so here's where all the feeloading kiddies start abusing me for being a corporate shill rather than a musician. 1,2, 3 . . . ."

Um, are you a musician, with recorded music that makes you money, 4CM? It's not clear from your posts.

Knowing that would help as far as planning our persecution, y'know?
posted by zoogleplex at 2:56 PM on March 28, 2007

They'd object even if the only requirement for doing so was to "credit" the music's creators in your subsequent filesharing escapades. The usual argument is that music should be free because I want free music and besides the record companies are really evil and anyway it's good for the musicians to lose income.

And with the incantations of a phalanx of ur-magicians, the Straw Man lurched into half-life and began wreaking havok upon the countryside. "Rawlurgh" it said as it ate Farmer McCain's cows. "Graphaugh" it uttered as it trod upon any notion of jurisprudence. "I want free music, record companies are really evil, it's good for musicians to lose money" it spat as its wild handwaving knocked down the considered understanding of public licensing.
posted by Sparx at 3:16 PM on March 28, 2007 [3 favorites]

And with that, now back to the meat of the thread. The tasty, tasty meat. Mmmm. Good meat.

nice one sparx
posted by zoogleplex at 3:27 PM on March 28, 2007

“I dont know what part of Neverland Senator McCain is talking about…”
posted by homunculus at 4:14 PM on March 28, 2007

i'm not mccain fan, but the 'stealing bandwidth' charge is bullshit...there are ways to keep your stuff from getting hotlinked...and the internet is about linkage...if you don't want your shit linked to, don't put it up...
posted by troybob at 5:08 PM on March 28, 2007

Given that musicians seem to get worse as they make more money, maybe there's actually something to the whole "let's keep musicians from making money" idea -- obviously, they'll keep making music anyway (and it will be better), and I like good music... so it seems win-win for society.

Great idea 4cheesemac!
posted by illovich at 5:14 PM on March 28, 2007

i'm not mccain fan, but the 'stealing bandwidth' charge is bullshit...there are ways to keep your stuff from getting hotlinked...and the internet is about linkage...if you don't want your shit linked to, don't put it up...

I thought this was the topic of this post... the best way to keep people from hotlinking to your images.
posted by illovich at 5:15 PM on March 28, 2007

I use Mike's MySpace hack, and jeez, he couldn't be more clear in the instructions about how you need to host your own images and give him credit. You'd have to be a total idiot to just slap it in your profile and not change a damn thing.
posted by Biblio at 6:43 PM on March 28, 2007

troybob writes ".there are ways to keep your stuff from getting hotlinked...and the internet is about linkage...if you don't want your shit linked to, don't put it up..."

That's fine (well not really but I'll concede it to make a point), just don't complain when I serve your users goatse.cx instead of that cute kitten with a pistol under his chin image.
posted by Mitheral at 9:25 PM on March 28, 2007

Troybob: do you understand what hot linking is? We're not talking about a link from one page to another, like this. We're talking about embedding an image in your page that resides on somebody else's server, and an image that someone specifically asked you to host yourself (because as opposed to the first kind of link, this kind only takes your bandwidth - it doesn't really get your site any exposure). Big difference there.

For that matter, this is one of the ways to keep your stuff from being linked to, albeit a slightly less direct one.
posted by spaceman_spiff at 10:33 PM on March 28, 2007

I know what hotlinking is. I'm saying that (with regard to the bandwidth complaint, specifically) when you put up something that can be served anywhere, you should expect no less than it will be served anywhere. Doesn't mean it's right for somebody to do it, necessarily. But it's kinda like leaving your cash on the front porch and getting upset when you're robbed. Or keeping your wireless router unsecured and getting pissed when somebody uses it. Where reasonable means of prevention exists, look to yourself first before blaming someone else for taking advantage.
posted by troybob at 10:45 PM on March 28, 2007

Er, no, image leaching is kind of rude, varing from being a bit cheeky if it's a single image in a forum to being very rude indeed if it's a series of images on a high volume site and image leachers can expect to be treated with appropriate contempt and subjected to thsi kind of mockery.
posted by Artw at 11:16 AM on March 29, 2007

Michael Ware denies heckling McCain: “when I raised my hand to ask a question, the press conference abruptly ended.”
posted by homunculus at 8:38 PM on April 2, 2007

McCain’s Market Photo-op ends in disaster
posted by homunculus at 11:23 PM on April 4, 2007