Sordid (well, not really) tales of Brian Harring, aka ferringb

If you're using portage cvs head (not stable, using cvs head directly), please take note of an earlier warning/request. The short version is that the processor class that was mangled from portage.doebuild is being replaced, and ebuild*.sh will be broke in the process.

Aside from being reworked (this time around got a better grasp on how to implement it), majority of portage hardcoded paths in ebuild*.sh are being removed, and handed down the ebd pipes. Until it's finished (which will be a good chunk of time), cvs head will be broke, so if you're using cvs head kindly let the portage devs know so that we have an idea of how many people are affected, and snapshot what ever you're running, since once this starts won't be reverting till it's finished. Note this isn't a statement that you cannot use cvs head, just that so far it's been fairly stable, and that is going to change, the developmental branch will be broke while work is being done to correct long standing flaws.

Keep in mind that cvs head *is* a developmental branch- so far nobody has had to break it, although it was expected to occur (beyond me making a dumb typo and short term breaking something :). So kindly give a yell, either ask on the ml or irc, and be wary about cvsups.

So... what are restrictions, and why is this under the portage category? Restriction implies a yay/nay evaluation of a chunk of data, which if you look at most portage package interactions, they're application of restrictions to data. Bad description, but should make sense as I continue.

An atom, say =dev-util/diffball-0.6.2 is viewed in stable as a string, which is split up and various tests done to it to determine if a cpv (category/package-version, the atom above is cpv dev-util/diffball-0.6.2) matches. The idea has been kicked around for a bit, but essentially an atom is 3 restrictions; a category restriction, a package restriction, and a version restriction.

Where it gets useful is that if you treat an atom as a set of restrictions (specifically portage.restriction.restrictionSets.AndRestrictionSet, and yes, the namespace needs massive shortening), you can tag in other restrictions to it. Since you've broken it down into individual checks and used a general class to abstract the boolean matches of it, slipping in a use restriction or a slot restriction really isn't that complex.

Nice little world view there, except I'm simplifying it a bit; you need to establish an api/protocol for the restrictions to work against, eg the actual data it checks. To make that a sane, you need an api for package instances, which is underway.

Note that there is a lot more work involved then just slipping in a set of restrictions, this is just a design abstraction that allows for it to be easily tagged in (mainly due to Jason's work, I just broke his original Atom class down into restrictions). The resolver still needs to have a way to deal with merging of cpv's that have compatible use/slot restrictions, but that functionality probably can be pushed into the base restrictionSet, interaction/union functionality. Useful functionality anyways for restrictionSet and derivatives.

Beyond atom mangling, searchDesc queries, contents queries (which cpv(s) claim file/dir/link/dev/fifo xyz) all are essentially restrictions. You want to merge strictly built packages already? Could implement it as a repository restriction. The fun part is going to be keeping it quick, and doing optimizations/collapsing of restrictions, but so far it's seeming to work rather nicely.

If you're bored and feel like poking into it, look into gentoo-src/portage/portage; only disclaimer I'd offer is that it doesn't do cache regeneration at the moment, mainly because we haven't decided if we're going to break cvs head by importing the changed ebuild-daemon.{sh,lib}. If you're interested in docs, look at intro and layout.txt in rewrite-misc. layout.txt is background info (no longer accurate, good for background knowledge though), and intro should be pretty accurate.

Aside from that, if you're interested, pop into the channel and ask.

Wow, ain't that fun. Follow up to the earlier mayhem of my name showing up elsewhere, another Brian Harring aparently wrote those articles and I've got vague threats of a lawsuit in my mbox. Rather odd, stating that the material was in fact stolen from DoD systems, stating I aparently 'hack' websites-

Brian: This could be considered adverse interference with a contract. At this point in time, I suggest you consult an attorney. I would like to point out that your recent emails to me indicate clearly that you know us, have sent us material before, hack websites and do not like the government. Things like this are better left unsaid but in your case, discretion is not the better part of valor and I will send your emails, and my responses to them, to, among other people, my publisher.

Copy of the email is here. Basically, somehow I'm being viewed as interfering in a contract that thus far has been represented as me signing off on with the publisher emailing me (somewhat on the attack I might add)... it's bloody insane.

Fun part is that the publisher sent an email questioning whether "did you or did you not hack into the DoD to get this report?". Email copy available here.

For anyone unable to read between the lines, no, I've not done anything of the sort, continuing, I have no affiliation with tbrnews aside from knowing Pete (author) and Aaron Johnson (his roommate). I'd expect Aaron has little to do with this at this point, although Pete sure as hell isn't exempted out of it. Fun fun.

Aside from that, aparently there is now a brianharring yahoo email address- wonder what the creation date was for that account...

So in short, either I can continue to regale people with tales of this insanity, or just hand the whole stupid mess off to authorities/legal parties and let them deal with it. Rather insane, but only course that exists that, so guess that's the route to go.

Final comment, people kind of suck.

Clarification, made a few updates to this posting, mainly since it seems like this has become a bit of a character attack. Ain't it fun kiddies, going by publisher's statement, aparently I'm a DoD cracker, or a wannabe going by tbrnews. Mildly insane? Story isn't even the same.
Sigh. Any good lawyers in the Milwaukee WI area would be quite nice to know (not surprising, but factual bits of the attack are wrong), if they're pro bono even better ;)

Hola. Been busy, both with work on an embryonic portage rewrite (more info to come, look here if you're bored/adventurous), and dealing with some very annoying base identity problems the internet allows for (not saying I want it locked down, just saying there is a method of abuse).

Also... delta-webrsync horked slightly, server reboot seems to have caused some issues with the 07/06/2005 snapshot. Should be fixed now though. If you hit issues, email me; I update every few days, so I may not catch breakage till a day or two after

AUTHORS Note: rather then provide google juice, have shifted the referenced articles into a tarball available here. All links replaced pointing at said tarball. Plus side, the articles are snapshotted so people can't change them.

Recently I started receiving emails thanking me for exposing the 'truth' about the number of dead soldiers in this lovely little Iraq war. Found it a bit odd since I don't recall writing any such expose, but figured there was a collision in namespace, some author popped up with the name "Brian Harring". Thus far I've effectively owned the search results for my name, since no one else with my name seemed to be active in the realm of the internet. Collision I expected to happen at some point with over 6 billion people in the world. So I checked into this other Brian Harring, and was more then a bit pissed off to find out that this author I knew rather well (and no, this isn't "A Scanner Darkly").

Background info, growing up in WI I met a rather eccentric fellow living in Monroe WI during my senior year of High School, named Peter Stahl (Pete for short), pen names of Walter Storch, Gregory Douglas (his son's name), and a dozen others I'm sure. Figure of ill respute, bit off the mark, but interesting to discuss stuff with. After a while, a friend of mine from Juda WI and Pete moved down to Auroroa IL, and I visited on occasion. They were friends- may not have agreed with the crap Pete publishes, but that's his thing. His efforts involved in publishing/writing/whatever are typically pretty much way off the beaten path, but as a general rule of thumb I kept my nose out of it. Commenting on it now, it's mainly sensionalist stories, and that's what I'll leave it at; I have no interest in getting sucked down into questions of veracity of his material, since he's the only one who truly would know, and frankly I'm not sure he cares if others believe it or not.

I take people as they come, judge them by their actions towards me (a moral code pete shared). So a rather odd form of friendship existed, I'd forward moveon.org type material his direction, discuss swords, etc, and wound up meeting a collection of people he works with, some palatable, some not. Interesting folk at least. Time progressed, still talked occasionally, but I wound up bailing on talking to them (and half the people I knew) when I made the move to California in Sept. of '04. Pretty much was intendant on doing something with my life and moving on, seeing what was out there rather then biding my time looking outwards from a dieing WI town. Never held interest in Pete's literary attempts, but by that time that was pretty much his entire life, and my friend (his roommate) had moved on with his life, busy with real world work. Nice way of saying I kind of wrote him off, but neh, it is what it is.

Pete has been running a website named tbrnews.org for around 2 to 3 years now (presumably still)- originally spawned from a group out of California calling themselves the Barnes Review (rather infamous going by googling), although control of the actual dns record was in Pete's hands, not Elizabeth and Willis Carto, so pete went off in his own direction, publishing whatever suited. Looks of things as of late, the site is mainly with an anti-govn. stance (mainly 'King George'/Bush as the target). His recent stories written by one Brian Harring have been drawing attention/readers via claims that the administration is lieing about the actual count of dead soldiers in Iraq, supported by a supposed pdf in the author's possession.

Funny thing, my name suddenly popped up on his site publishing this war crap, and a rather pathetic computer articles. Seriously- computer codes? It is called code, program instructions, scripts, libraries, etc. The scary thing actually is doing a sitewide google search for my name.

Why was my name used by a supposed friend? I have a web presence (google juice), and unlike all of Pete's other pseudonym's, I actually have at least the appearance of a credible reputation- extra distance can be extracted from my pre-existing reputation rather then having to build up credibility/reputation via another pseudonym. Quite usable name to ride on the coat tails of when you're attempting to avoid the loons who like to debate stuff. Longer you can coast without people screaming, the more you can stretch things to try and pull in new readers, or potentially publishers (in truth, the whole thing likely comes down to the latter). That's a cynical view, more likely then not it just got away from him, and now this daft assumption that I somehow don't care because I was not responding to emails (in reality I had a killfile in place, never saw the emails- lack of response does not equate to consent though). Either way, read the emails.

So I went digging and finally found one of his active email addresses. Nice little discussion ensued, with me requesting not a redaction of the articles but to cease and desist usage of my name since it was my name, not random collision. Yanking the articles down Pete would never go for (apparently it is drawing readers), further the articles along with my name had already spread through the web. No single point to yank existing offenses, so it's a moot point. Real problem is preventing further use. Getting pist off and demanding something that won't happen serves no purpose, taking the long view was my approach- it was agreed that the name would be dropped from that point on. Bit surprising, but Pete's aparently decided afterwards to do otherwise, leading to this entry. The thread of emails are available here, should anyone doubt the truths above. Sorry for the mbox format, but it's the easiest way to bundle it out, and dump the relevant emails (quite frankly I don't care to spend any more time on this then I've been forced to).

Posing a rather interesting question for readers- how much is your name worth? Name the dollar amount that is enough for you to keep your mouth shut, and not stand up and scream "This is bullshit, that's my name!". Pete offered the somewhat princely sum of 45% of sales to not shake the boat. Pete has stated/claimed he has signed a deal with a European book publisher for sizable chunk of change (claimed million over the contract), so assuming he's not completely full of it, tempting. It's very fricking tempting, at first glance money for nothing until you realize that you're stuck with the name as Pete's son Gregory Douglas likely could comment on (not that it matters much living in Freeport, and working in a realm that isn't intricately tied to the web). Perhaps it's just an offer to share the wealth, the karma, although one must question why. Regardless, emails are available, you decide, this is merely my disclaimer.

Bit lopsided deal, with me as the loser from where I'm sitting. That and straight to the point, it's my damn name and reputation, I make the decision if I want to trash my name, not offered a consolation prize cause it's already occuring. I view the situation as a bit akin to if I ripped off someones car, wouldn't give it back, but was willing to give the person some cash for the vehicle. Problem here is it still is that person's name. Course the exception to this is you can't trademark a birthname, which is why you see a collection of porn stars with names of actual actors. The mainstream actors have no legal recourse to block it, unless the name they've popularized was a stage name, which can be trademarked, as can be pen names. Short version, there are legal recourses, but from what I've gathered the likely outcome of it would be a disclaimer from the publisher that I'm in fact not the actual author they're contracted with.

Ironic in a way that by opening my mouth, I'm binding the supposedly seperate Brian Harring's together, and getting sullied a bit via the questions of veracity Pete has already raised in using my name. That's not counting the annoyance of being forced to involve myself in cruft and potential loons (think people debating conspiracy theories without logic, strictly rhetoric). Whole thing is whacked but hey, you choose the company you keep, and there can be consequences of those you choose as friends (namely, they might slip a shiv in your back when you don't expect it).

This whole scenario does make me wonder what's it like for someone where a random pen name happens to match up to an actual person. Plus side, such a situation doesn't have overtones of loss of power (real or otherwise) to another you know. Legal games can be played, but frankly it's fighting from a point of weakness. Internet is vast, you stomp out abuse it's possible for the abuser to shift to a new location, and start anew. Should you doubt that, consider how spammers used to work before zombie nets proved themselves as a more efficient distribution system.

Pretty much from my viewpoint you're left continually on the defensive, which means you'll lose. The defender is stationary, the attacker is mobile, so you're pretty much boned. About the best you can do is stick out a disclaimer with a bit of ruckus, and move on. There's no point in spending time trying to police other's actions on the web, take your stand, and let chips lie where they may fall.

Final Summation: considering the fact that I've known Pete for several years, the unlikely chance of my name somehow winding up publishing news on his site, and the supplied emails, two things I can state my opion on regarding this insepid mess someone stupidly forced me to involve myself in-

1. Peter Stahl, aka Gregory Douglas, aka Walter Storch wrote those articles, not anyone named Brian Harring. See supplied emails confirming this. I've never written for Pete/tbrnews. What I do write, is in my blog, my gentoo devspace (which holds my blog), and portage related docs. This is discounting email to mailing lists, but public mailing lists I typically sign my email, so question of what I have and have not wrote isn't hard to answer (if it's signed, it's me, if not, it's technically up in the air).
2. With that established, one must question why this is occuring- why hide behind the name? Why try to offer me money If there were actual proof, one wouldn't stretch this out for maximal new readers pulled in, they would scoop the story, then seed the actual proof. If you're attempting to bring truth to light, it's the best way to achieve it. If you're attempting to stir up contraversy but don't care to show your hand (bluffing or weak hand), the current method of dangling supposed proof is the most efficient method. This of course is my opinion, but that gained from knowing Pete for 5+ years. Besides, aparently I'm the author, so one might think I might be somewhat authorative on the matter ;)

Everything related (offending articles, and related email) I've jammed away in a directory should people suddenly decide not all publicity is good publicity. I won't be appending further articles since I have no intention of getting locked into stupid games of tracking what Pete is attempting further. It's just a waste of my time.

Frankly, must say I'm a bit pissed off regarding this whole thing. My general view of others actions is that as long as it's not affecting me (whether long term or short term), it's their choice. If someone want to spend their days stoned out of their gourd, I really don't care, although I may not agree with it. If you want to live as a luddite, kudos to you, just don't force your choices/consequences on me (I ain't giving up my computer dang it).

People can pretty much stick up whatever they want on a website- aside from legal concerns, readers decide if they believe it or not based upon what they want to believe, and occasionaly via critical thinking (crazy I know, but it happens sometimes). That said and done, my name turning up as an author on tbrnews is a bit much and forces me to step in and call bullshit. All in all, pretty damned idiotic, but neh, further fodder for people to argue without facts I spose (something y'all can kindly leave me the hell out of). In short, I didn't write the articles, see supplied emails for confirmation of this.

Update: Aparently there is another Brian Harring who is the real author- amazing the crap you have to go through to clear up a point- must admit the clarification from their end was pretty much a middle finger, but neh, so it goes.