Friam

Meanwhile, back on the troll farms

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Roger Critchlow-2

Meanwhile, back on the troll farms

Looks like a concerted effort to discredit the ICL Covid simulation for lack of adequate unit testing, all in a github issue:

https://github.com/mrc-ide/covid-sim/issues/165

Oh, of course, retract all policies based on it, too. via https://news.ycombinator.com/

-- rec --

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Marcus G. Daniels

Re: Meanwhile, back on the troll farms

Sure, whatever. Where are these people when it comes to mechanized program verification?

From: Friam <[hidden email]> on behalf of Roger Critchlow <[hidden email]>
Reply-To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Date: Thursday, May 7, 2020 at 5:44 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: [FRIAM] Meanwhile, back on the troll farms

Looks like a concerted effort to discredit the ICL Covid simulation for lack of adequate unit testing, all in a github issue:

https://github.com/mrc-ide/covid-sim/issues/165

Oh, of course, retract all policies based on it, too. via https://news.ycombinator.com/

-- rec --

thompnickson2

Re: Meanwhile, back on the troll farms

In reply to this post by Roger Critchlow-2

Dear Wizards,

Could somebody take a moment to explain this revelation to the “citizens” on the list, all one of me, so I won’t be completely out of it tomorrow morning at the Zoom meeting? Which of the things I have had faith in is downstream of this corrupt code. I assume this is all open source? What exactly IS the policing mechanism in open source. Darwinian? Reputational? Does this HAVE to provoke a crisis of confidence in the general public? Or could it be seen as a heroic thrown-together first step that is now being improved? Inquiring “citizens” want to know.

God knows the general public HAS to know what science actually is. I am wondering, is primum non nocere a principle in science, as well as medicine? If not, then caveat emptor should be. But how do we “emptors” decide?

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

[hidden email]

https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Roger Critchlow
Sent: Thursday, May 7, 2020 6:44 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: [FRIAM] Meanwhile, back on the troll farms

Looks like a concerted effort to discredit the ICL Covid simulation for lack of adequate unit testing, all in a github issue:

https://github.com/mrc-ide/covid-sim/issues/165

Oh, of course, retract all policies based on it, too. via https://news.ycombinator.com/

-- rec --

jon zingale

Re: Meanwhile, back on the troll farms

In reply to this post by Roger Critchlow-2

Roger,

It seems to me that because this is open source software,

any individual who wishes to fork the repo and write unit

tests can. Doing so would be a kind of verification replicability.

That the trolls are attempting to toxify and politicize the very

space where the open source community establishes

work-to-be-done is concerning. If jMyles wishes to object

to the lack of unit testing in an albeit long-winded rant, fine.

That others, many of whom are suspicious actors in that

they have have little to no commit histories or repos to

speak of, are attempting to upvote this same idea by creating

new issues (in a GitHub sense) is in bad faith. GitHub issues

do not function the same way as YouTube comments, but

here the (dare I say) metaphor is being attempted.

Jonathan Zingale

Marcus G. Daniels

Re: Meanwhile, back on the troll farms

In reply to this post by thompnickson2

Nick writes:

< What exactly IS the policing mechanism in open source. Darwinian? Reputational? Does this HAVE to provoke a crisis of confidence in the general public? Or could it be seen as a heroic thrown-together first step that is now being improved? >

They are whining about simple or absent unit tests as a litmus test for whether the code is reliable. It’s like saying you don’t dare drive your car if you didn’t take out its alternator and test its voltage output last week. ‘cause someone might have changed the alternator! Eventually there will be consequences if the alternator fails, like stalling or the battery dying. Same thing in a big simulation. All of the parts and pieces of a simulation are there for a reason and global things will start to change in noticeable ways if something is broken. I would say getting mechanisms working correctly is less difficult that choosing what mechanisms are appropriate in the first place. Usually in use of a simulation one has instrumentation available on almost everything, and there is a constant checking and double- checking even if those checks are not embodied in automated tests. Automated tests can even give a false sense of security, because they may not deal with the parameter ranges that happen in with the coupled system. If you would rather have a bunch of unit tests, or to have modelers using and stressing the code every day, you have the wrong priorities.

My irritation is with the notion of unit tests as a prerequisite for code reliability. There are tighter ways to integrate assertions of code behavior with the code. The bandwagon obsession with unit tests is in some sense an obstacle even better practices. I wouldn’t even call them trolls, because a troll has intention to rile people up. These folks are more like pompous ditto heads who feel the need to posture about the right way to do software engineering. People that love unit tests love not understanding the problem they are solving, and prefer to work in pieces. This take a is a little harsh, but in this context (advising COVID-19 policy) I don’t find the behavior very helpful.

Marcus

thompnickson2

Re: Meanwhile, back on the troll farms

Marcus,

Thanks for taking my question seriously. I understood what I was talking about even less than I usually do.

Let’s say I was an evil genius and wanted to introduce evil code into a project on github. What would happen?

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

[hidden email]

https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Marcus Daniels
Sent: Thursday, May 7, 2020 11:05 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Meanwhile, back on the troll farms

Nick writes:

Marcus

Marcus G. Daniels

Re: Meanwhile, back on the troll farms

Nick writes:

< Let’s say I was an evil genius and wanted to introduce evil code into a project on github. What would happen? >

Typically the person maintaining the project will require modestly-sized patches that are described one at a time. They will “pull” these changes from the contributors branch into their branch.

They will want the code in a style they are comfortable with, and they’ll want to be able to understand it well enough that they could change it. It’s like giving an article to an editor.

If the contribution is large and complex, then it may basically need to be taken on faith, and rationalized over time by the maintainer. That would be the most direct way to get a malicious code into distribution. Make it too valuable to ignore, but too complex to understand in a short amount of time. Code that directly performed malicious things would be noticed, but more subtle would be, say, for a government to get someone hired at a large firm, and plan with/for them to leave exploitable holes in the form of non-obvious bugs.

To screw up models like this? Dunno. Advisory committees might discourage use of available and relevant data on grounds of expedience or turf. The remarkable effectiveness of just denying reality seems to work just fine for this administration, so I don’t see why to posit there are any evil geniuses at work. Also academics can be amazingly petty, caring more about their reputation/citations in their small circle of expert frenemies, than in doing anything that really makes an impact. It’s probably pretty easy for a biased administration to fan the flames of those conflicts via funding intermediaries to serve whatever political goals.

Marcus

Roger Critchlow-2

Re: Meanwhile, back on the troll farms

In reply to this post by thompnickson2

It's already happened more than once. People, acting as if they cared about the code have taken over existing projects when the current developer loses interest. Then they modify the code so it does something evil in addition to its original purpose, say stealing bitcoin wallet credentials. Others have submitted packages which were one letter typos for trusted packages, with the same sort of surprises hidden in them.

So, that's a routine sort of criminal evil, taking over some open source code to steal from the people who depend on it. You pretend to be one kind of person, and you're actually competent as the kind of person you pretend to be, but you're really in it for what you can steal.

But what's in play here, at least implicitly, is Trump's claim that he's being subverted by a cabal. In that case you would need to study to become a computational epidemiologist, earn an advanced degree, have an academic career, all so you would be ready when a pandemic threatened to put forward a model of the epidemic designed to make Trump look like an idiot, to cause the economies of the world to be destroyed by fear of a false danger. And you're doing this because you're evil and you want to make a mark on the world and you don't care who gets hurt?

Then there's this model, https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2020/05/05/university-of-washington-biostatistician-unhappy-with-ever-changing-university-of-washington-coronavirus-projections/, which is apparently just a big polynomial curve fit, so every time they drop in another couple of thousand data points, the predictions swing all over the place. That's a model, constructed according to well known methods of curve fitting, probably backed by lots of unit tests, but some would argue that it's a stupid model that only proves that you can make a polynomial go anywhere.

-- rec --

On Thu, May 7, 2020 at 2:42 PM <[hidden email]> wrote:

Marcus,

Thanks for taking my question seriously. I understood what I was talking about even less than I usually do.

Let’s say I was an evil genius and wanted to introduce evil code into a project on github. What would happen?

N

Nicholas Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
Clark University
[hidden email]
https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Marcus Daniels
Sent: Thursday, May 7, 2020 11:05 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Meanwhile, back on the troll farms

Nick writes:

< What exactly IS the policing mechanism in open source. Darwinian? Reputational? Does this HAVE to provoke a crisis of confidence in the general public? Or could it be seen as a heroic thrown-together first step that is now being improved? >

They are whining about simple or absent unit tests as a litmus test for whether the code is reliable. It’s like saying you don’t dare drive your car if you didn’t take out its alternator and test its voltage output last week. ‘cause someone might have changed the alternator! Eventually there will be consequences if the alternator fails, like stalling or the battery dying. Same thing in a big simulation. All of the parts and pieces of a simulation are there for a reason and global things will start to change in noticeable ways if something is broken. I would say getting mechanisms working correctly is less difficult that choosing what mechanisms are appropriate in the first place. Usually in use of a simulation one has instrumentation available on almost everything, and there is a constant checking and double- checking even if those checks are not embodied in automated tests. Automated tests can even give a false sense of security, because they may not deal with the parameter ranges that happen in with the coupled system. If you would rather have a bunch of unit tests, or to have modelers using and stressing the code every day, you have the wrong priorities.

My irritation is with the notion of unit tests as a prerequisite for code reliability. There are tighter ways to integrate assertions of code behavior with the code. The bandwagon obsession with unit tests is in some sense an obstacle even better practices. I wouldn’t even call them trolls, because a troll has intention to rile people up. These folks are more like pompous ditto heads who feel the need to posture about the right way to do software engineering. People that love unit tests love not understanding the problem they are solving, and prefer to work in pieces. This take a is a little harsh, but in this context (advising COVID-19 policy) I don’t find the behavior very helpful.

Marcus

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Steve Smith

Re: Meanwhile, back on the troll farms

In reply to this post by thompnickson2

Nick -

I doubt I can do justice to this for you, but will give a try.

The idea(l) behind open-source is two-fold:

develop a "commons" of re-useable resources to be shared by all. This concept really took off with the introduction of Linus Thorvald's Adaptation of BSD Unix to run on IBM PCs and an explosion of software built on top of and around that one thing. This movement began a lot earlier and the world of Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD) variant of ATT Unix was perhaps the strongest center for that... other efforts I was aware of include things like the Andrew File System (AFS) out of CMU (nod to Frank) and project Athena out of MIT.
crowdsource the troubleshooting, debugging, and validation of system's design. By making the source code available and free to use (with some restrictions), large numbers of system/software designers become motivated to look at, adopt, improve, build-upon that code-base and thereby improve and vet the code well. There are notable exceptions indicating that big holes/bugs can exist in spite of this scrutiny. I think there was a hoopla a few years ago around some (obvious?) security holes in the primary open-source router software used in most pro-sumer grade network routers, and maybe even commercial-class ones.

This GitHub thing Roger posted is (as Roger indicated in his subject/post) is clearly trolling on behalf of the anti-lockdown movement... trying to use the open-source community mechanism (open and free view of the software and the process of it's development, and the ability for anyone to pitch in, comment, criticize) against the ideas behind this particular model (and ANY? similar model).

I'm not sure this is a first, but from what I know, there haven't been "political" trolls haranguing GitHub mediated open-source efforts... there have probably been "religious" wars between differing schools of thought on the best way to solve a particular problem, but the preferred way to handle that is to FORK the project and let the alternative subset go pursue their alternative ideas.

To some extent, this is the way the world is responding to the pandemic at a policy level. Each country roughly has it's own unique/idiosyncratic response to the pandemic... some perhaps taking their lead from others. Within the USA (and I presume other "federated" governments) we have states/governors following the general guidelines (lame as they may be) of the federal government and modifying/elaborating them to match their regional context, and again each county/city/borough/neighborhood may well do the same. In principle these policies are open and transparent as are the data that are gathered at each level on the resources expended and the results obtained. This is the Open-Data aspect that Tom Johnson and others here promote.

The US Constitution (and our entire body of law) might be considered open-source and I suspect more than a few states and younger countries have borrowed parts of our constitution and legal system to build their own from (for better and worse)... just as our Foundling Fatheds apparently used some of the features exhibited by the (orally maintained) Iroquois Federation and the ideas of French political thinkers such as Montesquieu.

</ramble>

- Steve

Marcus,

Thanks for taking my question seriously. I understood what I was talking about even less than I usually do.

Let’s say I was an evil genius and wanted to introduce evil code into a project on github. What would happen?

N

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

[hidden email]

https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

From: Friam [hidden email] On Behalf Of Marcus Daniels
Sent: Thursday, May 7, 2020 11:05 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Meanwhile, back on the troll farms

Nick writes:

< What exactly IS the policing mechanism in open source. Darwinian? Reputational? Does this HAVE to provoke a crisis of confidence in the general public? Or could it be seen as a heroic thrown-together first step that is now being improved? >

They are whining about simple or absent unit tests as a litmus test for whether the code is reliable. It’s like saying you don’t dare drive your car if you didn’t take out its alternator and test its voltage output last week. ‘cause someone might have changed the alternator! Eventually there will be consequences if the alternator fails, like stalling or the battery dying. Same thing in a big simulation. All of the parts and pieces of a simulation are there for a reason and global things will start to change in noticeable ways if something is broken. I would say getting mechanisms working correctly is less difficult that choosing what mechanisms are appropriate in the first place. Usually in use of a simulation one has instrumentation available on almost everything, and there is a constant checking and double- checking even if those checks are not embodied in automated tests. Automated tests can even give a false sense of security, because they may not deal with the parameter ranges that happen in with the coupled system. If you would rather have a bunch of unit tests, or to have modelers using and stressing the code every day, you have the wrong priorities.

My irritation is with the notion of unit tests as a prerequisite for code reliability. There are tighter ways to integrate assertions of code behavior with the code. The bandwagon obsession with unit tests is in some sense an obstacle even better practices. I wouldn’t even call them trolls, because a troll has intention to rile people up. These folks are more like pompous ditto heads who feel the need to posture about the right way to do software engineering. People that love unit tests love not understanding the problem they are solving, and prefer to work in pieces. This take a is a little harsh, but in this context (advising COVID-19 policy) I don’t find the behavior very helpful.

Marcus
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Roger Critchlow-2

Re: Meanwhile, back on the troll farms

In reply to this post by jon zingale

Jon --

I agree, they could work to fix the software problem, but they're not interested in fixing the software problem.

I think their intention is to gamergate the corona virus, spreading FUD about expert opinion.

With due respect to Marcus, I do think they're trolls, they think that all of reality is one big con game, that the pandemic is a fraud, and that acting like simpletons who believe that unit testing is sacred is the con that they are called upon to play today.

And if github does anything about it, that just plays back into the Bill Gates conspiracy theory.

Meanwhile, we have https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/physicists-criticize-stephen-wolframs-theory-of-everything/ working the same angle:

So why did Wolfram announce his ideas this way? Why not go the traditional route? “I don't really believe in anonymous peer review,” he says. “I think it’s corrupt. It’s all a giant story of somewhat corrupt gaming, I would say. I think it’s sort of inevitable that happens with these very large systems. It’s a pity.”

Might take that as the conservative troll manifesto: corruption is inevitable, you may be all wrong in all the details but your heart will be in the right place.

-- rec --

On Thu, May 7, 2020 at 1:02 PM Jon Zingale <[hidden email]> wrote:

Roger,

It seems to me that because this is open source software,
any individual who wishes to fork the repo and write unit
tests can. Doing so would be a kind of verification replicability.
That the trolls are attempting to toxify and politicize the very
space where the open source community establishes
work-to-be-done is concerning. If jMyles wishes to object
to the lack of unit testing in an albeit long-winded rant, fine.
That others, many of whom are suspicious actors in that
they have have little to no commit histories or repos to
speak of, are attempting to upvote this same idea by creating
new issues (in a GitHub sense) is in bad faith. GitHub issues
do not function the same way as YouTube comments, but
here the (dare I say) metaphor is being attempted.

Jonathan Zingale
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Bob Ballance

Re: Meanwhile, back on the troll farms

In reply to this post by Steve Smith

The folks at SFI did a paper a couple of years ago about how snippets of constitutions have propagated into other constitutions around the world…

… Bob

On May 7, 2020, at 2:23 PM, Steven A Smith <[hidden email]> wrote:
Nick -

I doubt I can do justice to this for you, but will give a try.

The idea(l) behind open-source is two-fold:
develop a "commons" of re-useable resources to be shared by all.   This concept really took off with the introduction of Linus Thorvald's Adaptation of BSD Unix to run on IBM PCs and an explosion of software built on top of and around that one thing.   This movement began a lot earlier and the world of Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD) variant of ATT Unix was perhaps the strongest center for that... other efforts I was aware of include things like the Andrew File System (AFS) out of CMU (nod to Frank) and project Athena out of MIT.
crowdsource the troubleshooting, debugging, and validation of system's design.   By making the source code available and free to use (with some restrictions), large numbers of system/software designers become motivated to look at, adopt, improve, build-upon that code-base and thereby improve and vet the code well.   There are notable exceptions indicating that big holes/bugs can exist in spite of this scrutiny. I think there was a hoopla a few years ago around some (obvious?) security holes in the primary open-source router software used in most pro-sumer grade network routers, and maybe even commercial-class ones.
This GitHub thing Roger posted is (as Roger indicated in his subject/post) is clearly trolling on behalf of the anti-lockdown movement... trying to use the open-source community mechanism (open and free view of the software and the process of it's development, and the ability for anyone to pitch in, comment, criticize) against the ideas behind this particular model (and ANY? similar model).
I'm not sure this is a first, but from what I know, there haven't been "political" trolls haranguing GitHub mediated open-source efforts... there have probably been "religious" wars between differing schools of thought on the best way to solve a particular problem, but the preferred way to handle that is to FORK the project and let the alternative subset go pursue their alternative ideas.
To some extent, this is the way the world is responding to the pandemic at a policy level.    Each country roughly has it's own unique/idiosyncratic response to the pandemic... some perhaps taking their lead from others.   Within the USA (and I presume other "federated" governments) we have states/governors following the general guidelines (lame as they may be) of the federal government and modifying/elaborating them to match their regional context, and again each county/city/borough/neighborhood may well do the same.   In principle these policies are open and transparent as are the data that are gathered at each level on the resources expended and the results obtained.   This is the Open-Data aspect that Tom Johnson and others here promote.
The US Constitution (and our entire body of law) might be considered open-source and I suspect more than a few states and younger countries have borrowed parts of our constitution and legal system to build their own from (for better and worse)... just as our Foundling Fatheds apparently used some of the features exhibited by the (orally maintained) Iroquois Federation and the ideas of French political thinkers such as Montesquieu.
</ramble>
- Steve
Marcus,

Thanks for taking my question seriously. I understood what I was talking about even less than I usually do.

Let’s say I was an evil genius and wanted to introduce evil code into a project on github. What would happen?

N

Nicholas Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
Clark University
[hidden email]
https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

From: Friam [hidden email] On Behalf Of Marcus Daniels
Sent: Thursday, May 7, 2020 11:05 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Meanwhile, back on the troll farms

Nick writes:

< What exactly IS the policing mechanism in open source. Darwinian? Reputational? Does this HAVE to provoke a crisis of confidence in the general public? Or could it be seen as a heroic thrown-together first step that is now being improved? >

They are whining about simple or absent unit tests as a litmus test for whether the code is reliable. It’s like saying you don’t dare drive your car if you didn’t take out its alternator and test its voltage output last week. ‘cause someone might have changed the alternator! Eventually there will be consequences if the alternator fails, like stalling or the battery dying. Same thing in a big simulation. All of the parts and pieces of a simulation are there for a reason and global things will start to change in noticeable ways if something is broken. I would say getting mechanisms working correctly is less difficult that choosing what mechanisms are appropriate in the first place. Usually in use of a simulation one has instrumentation available on almost everything, and there is a constant checking and double- checking even if those checks are not embodied in automated tests. Automated tests can even give a false sense of security, because they may not deal with the parameter ranges that happen in with the coupled system. If you would rather have a bunch of unit tests, or to have modelers using and stressing the code every day, you have the wrong priorities.

My irritation is with the notion of unit tests as a prerequisite for code reliability. There are tighter ways to integrate assertions of code behavior with the code. The bandwagon obsession with unit tests is in some sense an obstacle even better practices. I wouldn’t even call them trolls, because a troll has intention to rile people up. These folks are more like pompous ditto heads who feel the need to posture about the right way to do software engineering. People that love unit tests love not understanding the problem they are solving, and prefer to work in pieces. This take a is a little harsh, but in this context (advising COVID-19 policy) I don’t find the behavior very helpful.

Marcus
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Steve Smith

Re: Meanwhile, back on the troll farms

The folks at SFI did a paper a couple of years ago about how snippets of constitutions have propagated into other constitutions around the world…

… Bob

And one wonders what is "beyond psyops" where "deep staters" (illuminati?) so deep they transcend states go about like retroviruses, inserting sequences into the genome (law/policy?) apparatus of nations? Wait, I think this very likely multinational corporations and industry-lobbies (fossil fuels, guns/arms, ??? ) and the wealthy families/individuals behind/entwined-with them are doing!

"I love/hate it when a metaphor comes together!" (visualize George Peppard muttering this around a fat stogie)

On May 7, 2020, at 2:23 PM, Steven A Smith <[hidden email]> wrote:
Nick -

I doubt I can do justice to this for you, but will give a try.

The idea(l) behind open-source is two-fold:

develop a "commons" of re-useable resources to be shared by all.   This concept really took off with the introduction of Linus Thorvald's Adaptation of BSD Unix to run on IBM PCs and an explosion of software built on top of and around that one thing.   This movement began a lot earlier and the world of Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD) variant of ATT Unix was perhaps the strongest center for that... other efforts I was aware of include things like the Andrew File System (AFS) out of CMU (nod to Frank) and project Athena out of MIT.

crowdsource the troubleshooting, debugging, and validation of system's design.   By making the source code available and free to use (with some restrictions), large numbers of system/software designers become motivated to look at, adopt, improve, build-upon that code-base and thereby improve and vet the code well.   There are notable exceptions indicating that big holes/bugs can exist in spite of this scrutiny. I think there was a hoopla a few years ago around some (obvious?) security holes in the primary open-source router software used in most pro-sumer grade network routers, and maybe even commercial-class ones.

This GitHub thing Roger posted is (as Roger indicated in his subject/post) is clearly trolling on behalf of the anti-lockdown movement... trying to use the open-source community mechanism (open and free view of the software and the process of it's development, and the ability for anyone to pitch in, comment, criticize) against the ideas behind this particular model (and ANY? similar model).

I'm not sure this is a first, but from what I know, there haven't been "political" trolls haranguing GitHub mediated open-source efforts... there have probably been "religious" wars between differing schools of thought on the best way to solve a particular problem, but the preferred way to handle that is to FORK the project and let the alternative subset go pursue their alternative ideas.

To some extent, this is the way the world is responding to the pandemic at a policy level.    Each country roughly has it's own unique/idiosyncratic response to the pandemic... some perhaps taking their lead from others.   Within the USA (and I presume other "federated" governments) we have states/governors following the general guidelines (lame as they may be) of the federal government and modifying/elaborating them to match their regional context, and again each county/city/borough/neighborhood may well do the same.   In principle these policies are open and transparent as are the data that are gathered at each level on the resources expended and the results obtained.   This is the Open-Data aspect that Tom Johnson and others here promote.

The US Constitution (and our entire body of law) might be considered open-source and I suspect more than a few states and younger countries have borrowed parts of our constitution and legal system to build their own from (for better and worse)... just as our Foundling Fatheds apparently used some of the features exhibited by the (orally maintained) Iroquois Federation and the ideas of French political thinkers such as Montesquieu.

</ramble>

- Steve
Marcus,

Thanks for taking my question seriously. I understood what I was talking about even less than I usually do.

Let’s say I was an evil genius and wanted to introduce evil code into a project on github. What would happen?

N

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

[hidden email]

https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

From: Friam [hidden email] On Behalf Of Marcus Daniels
Sent: Thursday, May 7, 2020 11:05 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Meanwhile, back on the troll farms

Nick writes:

< What exactly IS the policing mechanism in open source. Darwinian? Reputational? Does this HAVE to provoke a crisis of confidence in the general public? Or could it be seen as a heroic thrown-together first step that is now being improved? >

They are whining about simple or absent unit tests as a litmus test for whether the code is reliable. It’s like saying you don’t dare drive your car if you didn’t take out its alternator and test its voltage output last week. ‘cause someone might have changed the alternator! Eventually there will be consequences if the alternator fails, like stalling or the battery dying. Same thing in a big simulation. All of the parts and pieces of a simulation are there for a reason and global things will start to change in noticeable ways if something is broken. I would say getting mechanisms working correctly is less difficult that choosing what mechanisms are appropriate in the first place. Usually in use of a simulation one has instrumentation available on almost everything, and there is a constant checking and double- checking even if those checks are not embodied in automated tests. Automated tests can even give a false sense of security, because they may not deal with the parameter ranges that happen in with the coupled system. If you would rather have a bunch of unit tests, or to have modelers using and stressing the code every day, you have the wrong priorities.

My irritation is with the notion of unit tests as a prerequisite for code reliability. There are tighter ways to integrate assertions of code behavior with the code. The bandwagon obsession with unit tests is in some sense an obstacle even better practices. I wouldn’t even call them trolls, because a troll has intention to rile people up. These folks are more like pompous ditto heads who feel the need to posture about the right way to do software engineering. People that love unit tests love not understanding the problem they are solving, and prefer to work in pieces. This take a is a little harsh, but in this context (advising COVID-19 policy) I don’t find the behavior very helpful.

Marcus
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Marcus G. Daniels

Re: Meanwhile, back on the troll farms

In reply to this post by Roger Critchlow-2

Roger writes:

< With due respect to Marcus, I do think they're trolls, they think that all of reality is one big con game, that the pandemic is a fraud, and that acting like simpletons who believe that unit testing is sacred is the con that they are called upon to play today. >

One kind of simpleton or another. Someone please plug in the fly zapper. It is annoying.

Marcus

jon zingale

Re: Meanwhile, back on the troll farms

In reply to this post by Roger Critchlow-2

Marcus,

I object that, 'People that love unit tests love not understanding the problem

they are solving'. Some of us love unit tests and realize that the problem is

not solved by them.

Jon

Frank Wimberly-2

Re: Meanwhile, back on the troll farms

I was working on a large software project at CMU and when I implemented a new algorithm I would implement a couple of unit tests using the data I tested it with. This would take about half an hour. Then I forgot about them. I got compliments for how useful they were in testing new releases of the system.

---
Frank C. Wimberly
140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
Santa Fe, NM 87505

505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM

On Thu, May 7, 2020, 3:15 PM Jon Zingale <[hidden email]> wrote:

Marcus,

I object that, 'People that love unit tests love not understanding the problem
they are solving'. Some of us love unit tests and realize that the problem is
not solved by them.

Jon
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Marcus G. Daniels

Re: Meanwhile, back on the troll farms

Uh huh, this is what the troll people are after. Having one side of the conversation, their side, instead of a broader conversation about how to best ensure code is correct. It’s just a wedge they can use to claim authority on something while also scoping the terms of the debate.

From: Friam <[hidden email]> on behalf of Frank Wimberly <[hidden email]>
Reply-To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Date: Thursday, May 7, 2020 at 2:21 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Meanwhile, back on the troll farms

---
Frank C. Wimberly
140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
Santa Fe, NM 87505

505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM

On Thu, May 7, 2020, 3:15 PM Jon Zingale <[hidden email]> wrote:

Marcus,

I object that, 'People that love unit tests love not understanding the problem

they are solving'. Some of us love unit tests and realize that the problem is

not solved by them.

Jon

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jon zingale

Re: Meanwhile, back on the troll farms

In reply to this post by Roger Critchlow-2

Roger,

I am aware they these agents are not interested in fixing the problem.

As a high volume participant on Github, I wish to speak with some authority

that the actions these agent pursue betray a misunderstanding of git workflow.

The goal it seems is to project the facebook/youtube comments model onto

the github issues model. In addition, their criticism is invalid exactly because

one can fork the repo and perform verification themselves. Thus the objection,

if taking seriously, betrays a misunderstanding of git workflow. If you take the

time, as I had, to investigate the individuals on this post you will find that some

have as many as 93 repos and that they are ALL forked! For Nick, this means

that the repos were written by another party.

Further, you say, " the conservative troll manifesto: corruption is inevitable".

Perhaps then, I should be considered a troll. I very much expect to maintain code,

to build immunities to malevolent agents and measure the corruption embodied

in any social program. This much seems reasonable. I ask about other git-based

social media, like bitbucket, exactly because it would be good to know if this is

a failing of Microsoft (who purchased Github for 7.5 Billion dollars last year).

Jonathan Zingale

jon zingale

Re: Meanwhile, back on the troll farms

In reply to this post by Roger Critchlow-2

Roger,

You say, "It's already happened more than once. People, acting as if they cared about the code have taken over existing projects when the current developer loses interest. Then they modify the code so it does something evil in addition to its original purpose, say stealing bitcoin wallet credentials. Others have submitted packages which were one letter typos for trusted packages, with the same sort of surprises hidden in them."

Isn't this exactly why there is a git history? Version control exists, to some extent,

exactly so we can say who has done what and to what effect.

Jonathan Zingale

Roger Critchlow-2

Re: Meanwhile, back on the troll farms

In reply to this post by Steve Smith

Oh, goodness, looks like there are some real reasons to be dubious about the ICL corona virus simulation,

https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2020/05/08/so-the-real-scandal-is-why-did-anyone-ever-listen-to-this-guy/

-- rec --

On Thu, May 7, 2020 at 4:45 PM Steven A Smith <[hidden email]> wrote:

The folks at SFI did a paper a couple of years ago about how snippets of constitutions have propagated into other constitutions around the world…

… Bob

And one wonders what is "beyond psyops" where "deep staters" (illuminati?) so deep they transcend states go about like retroviruses, inserting sequences into the genome (law/policy?) apparatus of nations? Wait, I think this very likely multinational corporations and industry-lobbies (fossil fuels, guns/arms, ??? ) and the wealthy families/individuals behind/entwined-with them are doing!

"I love/hate it when a metaphor comes together!" (visualize George Peppard muttering this around a fat stogie)
On May 7, 2020, at 2:23 PM, Steven A Smith <[hidden email]> wrote:
Nick -

I doubt I can do justice to this for you, but will give a try.

The idea(l) behind open-source is two-fold:

develop a "commons" of re-useable resources to be shared by all.   This concept really took off with the introduction of Linus Thorvald's Adaptation of BSD Unix to run on IBM PCs and an explosion of software built on top of and around that one thing.   This movement began a lot earlier and the world of Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD) variant of ATT Unix was perhaps the strongest center for that... other efforts I was aware of include things like the Andrew File System (AFS) out of CMU (nod to Frank) and project Athena out of MIT.

crowdsource the troubleshooting, debugging, and validation of system's design.   By making the source code available and free to use (with some restrictions), large numbers of system/software designers become motivated to look at, adopt, improve, build-upon that code-base and thereby improve and vet the code well.   There are notable exceptions indicating that big holes/bugs can exist in spite of this scrutiny. I think there was a hoopla a few years ago around some (obvious?) security holes in the primary open-source router software used in most pro-sumer grade network routers, and maybe even commercial-class ones.

This GitHub thing Roger posted is (as Roger indicated in his subject/post) is clearly trolling on behalf of the anti-lockdown movement... trying to use the open-source community mechanism (open and free view of the software and the process of it's development, and the ability for anyone to pitch in, comment, criticize) against the ideas behind this particular model (and ANY? similar model).

I'm not sure this is a first, but from what I know, there haven't been "political" trolls haranguing GitHub mediated open-source efforts... there have probably been "religious" wars between differing schools of thought on the best way to solve a particular problem, but the preferred way to handle that is to FORK the project and let the alternative subset go pursue their alternative ideas.

To some extent, this is the way the world is responding to the pandemic at a policy level.    Each country roughly has it's own unique/idiosyncratic response to the pandemic... some perhaps taking their lead from others.   Within the USA (and I presume other "federated" governments) we have states/governors following the general guidelines (lame as they may be) of the federal government and modifying/elaborating them to match their regional context, and again each county/city/borough/neighborhood may well do the same.   In principle these policies are open and transparent as are the data that are gathered at each level on the resources expended and the results obtained.   This is the Open-Data aspect that Tom Johnson and others here promote.

The US Constitution (and our entire body of law) might be considered open-source and I suspect more than a few states and younger countries have borrowed parts of our constitution and legal system to build their own from (for better and worse)... just as our Foundling Fatheds apparently used some of the features exhibited by the (orally maintained) Iroquois Federation and the ideas of French political thinkers such as Montesquieu.

</ramble>

- Steve
Marcus,

Thanks for taking my question seriously. I understood what I was talking about even less than I usually do.

Let’s say I was an evil genius and wanted to introduce evil code into a project on github. What would happen?

N

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

[hidden email]

https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

From: Friam [hidden email] On Behalf Of Marcus Daniels
Sent: Thursday, May 7, 2020 11:05 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Meanwhile, back on the troll farms

Nick writes:

< What exactly IS the policing mechanism in open source. Darwinian? Reputational? Does this HAVE to provoke a crisis of confidence in the general public? Or could it be seen as a heroic thrown-together first step that is now being improved? >

They are whining about simple or absent unit tests as a litmus test for whether the code is reliable. It’s like saying you don’t dare drive your car if you didn’t take out its alternator and test its voltage output last week. ‘cause someone might have changed the alternator! Eventually there will be consequences if the alternator fails, like stalling or the battery dying. Same thing in a big simulation. All of the parts and pieces of a simulation are there for a reason and global things will start to change in noticeable ways if something is broken. I would say getting mechanisms working correctly is less difficult that choosing what mechanisms are appropriate in the first place. Usually in use of a simulation one has instrumentation available on almost everything, and there is a constant checking and double- checking even if those checks are not embodied in automated tests. Automated tests can even give a false sense of security, because they may not deal with the parameter ranges that happen in with the coupled system. If you would rather have a bunch of unit tests, or to have modelers using and stressing the code every day, you have the wrong priorities.

My irritation is with the notion of unit tests as a prerequisite for code reliability. There are tighter ways to integrate assertions of code behavior with the code. The bandwagon obsession with unit tests is in some sense an obstacle even better practices. I wouldn’t even call them trolls, because a troll has intention to rile people up. These folks are more like pompous ditto heads who feel the need to posture about the right way to do software engineering. People that love unit tests love not understanding the problem they are solving, and prefer to work in pieces. This take a is a little harsh, but in this context (advising COVID-19 policy) I don’t find the behavior very helpful.

Marcus
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