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Over what time period?

Probably 100 years or so, but of course it's been a continuous upward trend over the last 20, and particularly accelerated in the last 10. Over the last 5, it's been slower, but steadily trending up. It kind of doesn't matter what time period you pick - it's lookin' pretty good.

Over 20 years? Well sure. 20 years ago this wasn't even a thing

Incorrect. You just happened not to be involved.

- or not one that I'd ever heard anything about.

Look, I don't mean this to sound too mean, but what you do or don't hear about is not really that significant. If it makes you feel any better, I don't know much about football, and the offside offence is something I can't even make a coherent joke about. If I worked the way you do, I could extrapolate and say that since I know jack about it, football is not "even a thing". But the truth is much simpler - what you and I see is rarely a good litmus test.

I just wondered what recent change prompted this thread.

My guess would be TikTok. It's the current mainstay of FE proliferation among younger people, and people are doing great there - probably similar in success to what this place has been 10 years ago.

I mean, look, we're nowhere near the majority viewpoint, that much is obvious. But if it pushes us from the current extremely-well-documented 10-20% of the population (depending on which countries you inspect) to 12-22%, that's a good, steady pace.

Quote from: AATW on April 02, 2025, 08:28:02 PM

I have looked for data and struggled to find anything which backs up the "exponential growth" you have talked about.

But you don't need to look - I've done the looking for you. I have, time and time again, shown you studies which clearly indicate it. And it's the fact that you've not responded to that at all that makes me thoroughly unwilling to engage with you in any discussion of verifiable facts. You don't respond to verifiable facts. You just repeat your claim.

I dunno... would it help if I sent you the same list of links again? Intuitively, I don't think it would, because you never respond to the data within. You just keep saying you haven't seen it, but you truly obviously have - I made sure of that. I don't know how to fix your problem of not reading the studies that have been readily presented to you, or of not internalising the information that's presented to you. I can't fix your zealotry. I can't fix the attitude of you just pretending you're amnesiac about any information that confronts your preferred worldview.

Which brings me back to my usual conundrum - I don't think you're a drooling, mouthbreathing moron. I think you've seen the studies I gave you earlier, and I think you've read them - so your claim of not knowing about them falls apart. But that only leaves the possibility of you being malicious - and I don't want to make that accusation lightly.

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Flat Earth Popularity stronger than ever!

« on: April 03, 2025, 07:49:38 AM »

Is it? If it’s evident then there should be some evidence. Is there?

Yeah. It's fairly easy to observe the shift in public conversation around the subject. Shall we fast-forward past the conversation where you proudly declare yourself not to want to look, demand that I look for you, and I refuse and call you lazy?

Quote from: markjo on April 02, 2025, 07:46:38 PM

Oh? Then why did several prominent FE’ers like Jeranism renounce FE after the Final Experiment?

Oh no, not Jeran. Whatever will actual FE'ers do now that he's not here to shit everything up?

But, to answer your question of "why": he probably decided you lot are easier to scam these days, so he switched target audiences. I don't know enough about social media marketing to tell you if that's good business.

Science & Alternative Science / Re: Blue Ghost

« on: March 21, 2025, 11:27:31 PM »

Quote from: AATW on March 21, 2025, 02:12:55 PM

OK, so you've seen it. Great, so you acknowledge it's there. Why are you still a flat earther then?

I have convinced you of my ability to cook. Great, you acknowledge I can cook. Why are you still a round earther then? This is a profound deliberation, worthy of only the most sophisticated RE minds.

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: March 19, 2025, 01:32:10 PM »

A80, please tone it down a little. Try to respond to people's arguments, rather than just calling them ridiculous or putting words in their mouths. If you feel they don't deserve a more thoughtful response, you can always choose not to give them one

Flat Earth Community / Re: Your data is at risk if you use this app

« on: March 11, 2025, 10:46:19 PM »

Oh, it looks like you can also change anyone's password/email by just asking nicely. Yeah, this thing is not good.

Flat Earth Community / Re: Your data is at risk if you use this app

« on: March 11, 2025, 09:01:36 PM »

Okay. I've done some (minimal) work reviewing the app (Android version, since that tends to be easier) and the supposed findings. My results, at this stage, are mixed, but I largely agree that the app shouldn't be used.

Some of the supposed vulnerabilities have been fixed according to the original report, and the profiles section is currently down as the developers are seemingly working on fixes. For all the scaremongering about how unwilling the devs are to fix stuff, it seems like they're doing it just fine. I wonder if it might have something to do with how the "globesec" guys approached the subject (I suspect they were not pleasant about it).

Some of the findings are evidently valid - it's true that the application doesn't seem to enforce any meaningful authorisation (the concept of an "account" doesn't really exist here, and the username/password auth seems to be purely for decoration - everything seems to be tied to a device ID, which on Android is just this), and you can fetch those IDs from a bunch of places in the API. While I haven't explored this fully, I'm completely convinced that you would be able to retrieve a fair amount of data that users would consider to be private. "Cheating" the referral system is also very easy, as suggested. Woohoo, free premium.

Other findings seem unverifiable - plaintext passwords I can believe, but I see no indication of it in the app's current state (and digging deeper to find out would be breaking professional and ethical boundaries). That said, the login function is meaningless, so hey ho.

That said, the majority of what "globesec" are saying is complete gobbledygook. It's pretty clear they didn't find the findings themselves, nor do they understand them. The recommendation of HTTP Basic Authentication is complete nonsense, and wouldn't be usable in this context. The Bearer token generation script they came up with is utterly useless, too. You can request a Bearer token by making a single curl request, no need for the elaborate song and dance they've described - and since the app has virtually no authorisation, it doesn't matter what Bearer token you use.

For example, you can fetch a random Bearer with the following POST request:

Code: [Select]

POST /public/api/addtoken HTTP/2
Host: php83.flatsmacker.com
Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded
Content-Length: 47
Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate, br
User-Agent: Pete is so Handsome

device_id=pete&device_token=pete&device_type=69

This gives you a Bearer token for a nonsensical device with an ID of "pete". Doesn't matter, we just need a token.

With this token, you can, for example, rename an arbitrary user's account by making a simple request - you just need their e-mail address as the identifier. I won't be showing you how to do that.

The "Moderate" finding around how API details are distributed is also nonsense - it relies on someone successfully intercepting TLS traffic and modifying it - if you can do that, you can just as well intercept and modify communications with the API itself. (Okay, fine, the app uses certificate pinning on its main API and not Firebase, so intercepting Firebase would be easier - but still!). And, again, inexplicable mentions of a Bearer token in the middle of a vuln writeup of something that has nothing to do with authentication or authorisation.

In summary: the app's current state is pretty shambolic. However, the people disclosing these issues have no idea what they're talking about, likely received the information from someone else, and are clearly misusing it to prop themselves up. It's scammers all the way down, and I don't like that.

I leave you with a picture of BigManPete dominating the referral leaderboard for the app. I was hoping to stop at 69 referrals, but counting is hard.

Science & Alternative Science / Re: Blue Ghost

« on: March 11, 2025, 11:11:51 AM »

Quote from: William87 on March 11, 2025, 02:29:30 AM

I don't know what to tell you.

What he's telling you is that you made an error when pasting the image in this post, which resulted in your entire message appearing as a malformed URL. You can see this if you go back and edit your post and preview the BBCode - there's a random [url] tag chilling there for no reason.

What you could tell him is "Oh, thanks, didn't notice that. Fixed." (After you've fixed it, or asked someone to help you, of course.)

Quote from: William87 on March 11, 2025, 02:22:32 AM

The phenonemn happens whether someone uses it as evidence or not.

Irrelevant. Please focus on the subject at hand. You can't just move from "they're selectively using this evidence, how intellectually dishonest" to "it doesn't matter if they're using this as evidence". It absolutely does matter, it's the core of your argument. If you lack the intellectual honesty to appreciate that, then I'd suggest caution the next time you make these sort of accusations against people.

Quote from: William87 on March 11, 2025, 02:22:32 AM

Anyone who accepts that the ice caps are melting [...]

Epic. And how much sugar am I allowed to put on my porridge, again?

Science & Alternative Science / Re: Blue Ghost

« on: March 09, 2025, 08:59:45 AM »

Quote from: William87 on March 09, 2025, 01:16:44 AM

What the Zetetic considers "overwhelming evidence" is pretty selective. My point isn't about what they believe or don't believe, its about consistency, also known as having intellecutal honesty.

Ok. Now, read what I said immediately above the part you're responding to.

Quote from: William87 on March 09, 2025, 01:16:44 AM

Part of the overwhelming evidence for global warming is that the gravitational field of the earth shifts as the ice caps are melting.

How have you concluded that the author was referring to this phenomenon as their evidence?

Science & Alternative Science / Re: Blue Ghost

« on: March 08, 2025, 10:40:02 AM »

Well, no-one. But I accept the claim.

That's fair, I suppose. I think this might be a cultural difference between you and me. For me, it's genuinely hard to comprehend that you keep coming here and telling others what they should be interested in, or what they should be doing based on your understanding of their interests. It's so far removed from my cognition that even putting this description together took some effort.

Fair point about Zeteticism, but you must have some strategy for coming to beliefs about stuff you can't directly experience.

Sure. I can also cook - I'm far from an expert, but I'm good enough to entertain guests and earn some compliments, maybe even teach some basic knife skills. But I don't post about cooking here, and you don't have an insatiable need to probe my cooking skills.

Mine is to evaluate the evidence. What other option is there?

The problem is that "evaluating the evidence" is extremely vague. You're openly dismissive of people who seem to form their opinions based on YouTube videos, for example, but that absolutely falls under "evaluating evidence". To a more cynical eye, your "evaluation of evidence" is just reading unverifiable claims made by people in positions of power and vibe-checking whether you feel like trusting them.

To be clear - that's FINE. Most people form beliefs without demanding direct proof, and it would be impossible to get by in the world by meticulously investigating every small thing. You probably took my word for it when I said I can cook, unless you chose to fervently question it for comedic value. That's just part of the human condition.

But: why would you go online and try to force others to follow your unevidenced belief? It's the fervour and zealotry I don't understand.

Quote from: William87 on March 08, 2025, 06:40:59 AM

Most FE people seem to just put it all in one big box marked "FAKE" and leave it at that.

Right, you really like saying that, but that's just not what's happening. And, tbh, you know that. It's just easier for you to hand-wave things away, because you're lazy.

It’s the intellectual dishonesty that bothers me. The Zeteticism seems to be selective.

No fucking shit. I hope you're not claiming to apply the scientific method to every single aspect of your life, at all times, with no exceptions. It would be very funny if you did.

Quote from: William87 on March 08, 2025, 06:40:59 AM

Global warming is a perfect example.

Since it's such a good example, could you recall a few of the statements this society made about climate change, and explain why they led you to this conclusion?

Flat Earth Investigations / Re: Does light naturally travel in curved paths?

« on: March 05, 2025, 01:33:39 PM »

Quote from: AATW on March 05, 2025, 10:45:15 AM

OK. I just asked how the bending is accounted for in the experiments.

I would expect that it isn't - those are typically the stuff of more classical FE'ers, and you're asking about EA models.

Quote from: AATW on March 05, 2025, 10:45:15 AM

I mean, cards on the table - I'm pretty certain the Bishop Experiment never happened. I don't believe the results he claims are possible on a flat earth let alone a globe.

I mean, it's a fairly easy one to do if you live near a body of water. I've had decent success looking at the coast of Normandy from Alderney. Now, it was more like 18.5 kilometres rather than 23 miles, so it's an expected drop of "only" 27 metres - but that's still 27 metres of height that my sight line somehow overtook. For someone who really likes accusing others of being lazy, you're really unwilling to do anything.

Quote from: AATW on March 05, 2025, 10:45:15 AM

I'm not clear why you have an issue with that when you seem content with EA

I don't have an issue with refraction as a concept, but that doesn't make your flippant use of it any less an ad-hoc explanation. You take a variable phenomenon, declare without evidence that the variables must have just magically aligned for different conditions every time someone has replicated an experiment, and you consider the matter closed. I'm just not happy with such lazy shallow-mindedness.

Science & Alternative Science / Re: Blue Ghost

« on: March 05, 2025, 11:53:37 AM »

It's not a new claim, but it's a new company, a new set of people who have to be "in on it"

I'm sure the people at NASA have changed quite significantly over the last few decades, too. I really struggle to see the novelty.

a new opportunity to inspect the claim.

Inspect away! Who's stopping you?

Quote
Remember when Elon Musk was the RE sweetheart?
Not really.

Eh. No surprises there.