Is Big Brother Watching Us?

[OwenKL]

Having just come back to the forum after a long absence, I may have missed noticing it having been around for a while. But now that I have noticed it, it's creeping me out! I'm referring, here, to the eyes watching from the top of the postings. The ones that indicate a person is online. Or the text line saying Bro. Hiram Abif Bro. Hiram Abif is offline Have I just not noticed these before? Didn't there used to be just a simple red or green dot to indicate this? And how come some of the edit icons aren't present or working? And an obscene picture in place of one of our smilies?? Have we been hacked?

[Bro. Greg Starr]

Bro Owen....I'm not seeing anything odd...esp. the smilie thing you mentioned, but I'll cruise around and see.

[Bro. JC Walker]

I still see green and red dots... and nothing different in the smilies.

[Bro. James Kinslow]

I too only have the green and red indicators . . and no obscene icons. I'll keep looking. thanks for sharing, we need these types of possible issues to be made public so all can be aware. I would PM a couple of administrators if I were you.

[Bruce Rux]

Where is the "Brother Hiram" thing? I've never seen it.

[Bro. Bryan Caldwell]

I don't see anything like that, just the dots like everyone else. You been in the 'shrooms, Bro.?

[Bro. Greg Starr]

I get green dots next to folks online, and gray dots next folks off line. No other weirdness...but I am on a Mac running Firefox. Maybe it's a IE thing?

[Bro. Bryan Caldwell]

Maybe, I'm running Safari.

[OwenKL]

none of the edit icons above work. The lower left smilie was a photo of an explicit carving, a la the Kama Sutra, but it was labeled "rofl". Now "Stick Out Tongue is in that position. The [More] button on the smilies doesn't work. Nor do any of the smilies. The attachment section below doesn't have any entry box, so I can't attach the screen shots I've taken. I'll upload them to http://owenkl.com/tssSceenShot.jpg and http://owenkl.com/tssSceenShotEdit.jpg. The properties box on the forum screen shot is for the tiny skull icon underneath Bro.Caldwell's Rep Power. Preview works, but paragraphing is ignored. Do I maybe have some weird virus on my machine?

[Bruce Rux]

I was just thinking you might have some weird virus on your machine, too. Nothin' happenin' here.

[Bruce Rux]

Or a perverse hacker.

[OwenKL]

See the thread at http://www.thesanctumsanctorum.com/board/showthread.php?t=5234 that I'm not the only one with problems. The second posting is just unicode aliases. I'm running Firefox on a PC. The eyes image is at http://www.thesanctumsanctorum.com/board/images/statusicon/user_online.gif (note it's square, but the bottom 2/3rds are transparent).

[Bro. Kendall Jewell]

I don't see anything like that, just the dots like everyone else. You been in the 'shrooms, Bro.?
:confused:maybe cause all i see are the dots. no offense to the original brother.:eek:

[Dean Kennedy]

I honestly think you were hacked and the browser is somehow set to show other pictures instead of the default. Try going to a comletely different machine and see what happens.

[Bruce Rux]

Not a clue. All I get on the second link is the "user online" button, on a broad empty white page. On the first link, I don't see anything odd at all, except the lines of code where a post should be.

There's something in your browser software.

[Bro. JC Walker]

RJ's "sleeping dog codex" in that other thread is an issue from input, not from troubles on the site.
Owen, Brother, I think these problems are yours and yours alone.

[OwenKL]

I honestly think you were hacked and the browser is somehow set to show other pictures instead of the default. Try going to a completely different machine and see what happens.
Didn't even have to do that. I fired up my Internet Explorer instead of Firefox, and it's showing the forum looking as normal. But when I go back to Firefox, there's those creepy eyes again. But how come this is the only website that's affected? I've even checked out other Masonic Forums running on vBulletin with Firefox, and no sign of any problems; no creepy eyes, just little colored dots.

[Bro. JC Walker]

So, who's eyes are they, and how did they get there? I can't find them in any of the active avatars, though they do look familiar.

[Coach N]

See the thread at http://www.thesanctumsanctorum.com/board/showthread.php?t=5234 that I'm not the only one with problems. The second posting is just unicode aliases. I'm running Firefox on a PC. The eyes image is at http://www.thesanctumsanctorum.com/board/images/statusicon/user_online.gif (note it's square, but the bottom 2/3rds are transparent).
I'm running firefox. The 2nd post in the thread in question looks like a field of about 3000 question marks - each inside its own black diamond.

As far as the Big Brother issue, I get those words until the thread is loaded fully. Then a green or gray button appears.

Fraternally,

Bro. Coach N.

[Bro. Jim Hinkley]

Either the browser, a virus or the version that you are running is causing this...as all is as it was here.

[OwenKL]

Well, the wirdness has stopped for me (at least for the moment). I tried to reinstall Firefox, and got a troubleshooting screen with this
Clear cookies and cache

Many problems with loading web pages can be resolved by clearing Firefox's cookies and cache:


Click on the Tools menu and select Clear Recent History... to bring up the Clear Recent History window
In the Time range to clear drop-down menu, select Everything
Click the arrow next to Details to display the list of items to clear, then select the following items:

Cache
Cookies


Click Clear Now.

For more information, see Clear Recent History (http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Clear+Recent+History?style_mode=inproduct).
It seems to have worked. All edit options are working, creepy-eyes have gone back to green & grey dots. But I'd still like to know where it was all coming from.:mad:

[Bro. Greg Starr]

See the thread at http://www.thesanctumsanctorum.com/board/showthread.php?t=5234 that I'm not the only one with problems. The second posting is just unicode aliases. I'm running Firefox on a PC. The eyes image is at http://www.thesanctumsanctorum.com/board/images/statusicon/user_online.gif (note it's square, but the bottom 2/3rds are transparent).
Brother, I do see the ? in the diamond in the referenced post. To me, it looks like a font encoding error, much the same as when i sen an email in Ctrillic to someone who does not have the same encoding turned on in their browser or email system. Hoever, I can't imagine the site software would allow a user to post data in an alternative encoding. I have seen it elswhere in threads, but just presumed it was an encoding issue. You would see similar oddness if you went ot a site encoded for Asian or Cyrillic langauges and your browser was not set to auto-encode or they were using an obscure encoding. Still, I can't see how that would affect TSS. As for the spooky eyes, never got those - just the normal images.

(Feel free to hum the "Twilight Zone" theme here.....)

[John Dodge Miles]

They've been talking to me too

[Bro. Ben Williams]

Well, the wirdness has stopped for me (at least for the moment). I tried to reinstall Firefox, and got a troubleshooting screen with this
It seems to have worked. All edit options are working, creepy-eyes have gone back to green & grey dots. But I'd still like to know where it was all coming from.:mad:

Yep, sounds like a cookie-type thing that your browser picked up. Glad that sorted it out. Kinda' a spy-ware virus thingy.... Interesting, and weird, indeed....

[OwenKL]

Just a quick update. A portion of the problem reappeared. :choked: No creepy eyes, but all edit functions on replies went dead. I discovered, though, that while the icons and BBCode ceased to work, that HTML now would. Weird. Anyway, I had to look up this thread to see what I'd done last time, and repeated it, except clearing just the cache and not the cookies. That seems to have taken care of it. :cb:
Oh, and this time it happened on two forums, both this one and the Scottish Rite 33º forum.

[Bro. Jason Lloyd]

okay, now there is a black helicopter that keeps circling around my house...

[Bro. Bryan Caldwell]

Get a Mac...

[psunavy03]

okay, now there is a black helicopter that keeps circling around my house...
Creepy helo pilots trying to eavesdrop . . . us jet guys at least have the common decency to just blow you up or jam your cell phone. :D

[Bro. JC Walker]

Helicopters don't fly, they beat the air into submission.

[Bro. Jason Lloyd]

Helicopters don't fly, they beat the air into submission.


the Chuck Norris of aviation

[Bro. James Rafferty]

okay, now there is a black helicopter that keeps circling around my house...

Just because You are not Paranoid does not mean they are"nt out to get you:cz: