Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2015 November 13

= November 13 =

Table headers in datasheet
I am currently loking at this datasheet from Atmel. There are a couple of tables describing the contents of the device's EEPROM (tables E-1 and F-1) whose column headers' contents look like 0h / 8h. The byte address for each row is a range of eight bytes. I can understand using 0h through 7h to divide the row, but why is each number paired with a second hexadecimal digit that is 8 greater than itself? — Melab±1 &#9742; 03:10, 13 November 2015 (UTC)


 * My guess is the / means "or", meaning, for example, the byte values at addresses F000h and F008h are always the same. However, this doesn't seem to be explained in the document, so I'm not sure. I notice there are other tables in Appendix E (tables E-6, E-8, and E-10) that only label the columns as 0h to 7h. Maybe this suggests you only need to use addresses ending in 0h to 7h to access the data values in table E-1 (and table F-1?). --Bavi H (talk) 04:52, 13 November 2015 (UTC)


 * Oops. I originally thought the row headers were ranges of 16 bytes (F000h - F00Fh). Now I see the row headers are only ranges of 8 bytes each (F000h - F007h). I'm more confident the / means "or": For the first row labeled F000h - F007h, the columns represent addresses ending 0h to 7h. For the second row labeled F008h - F00Fh, the columns represent addresses ending in 8h to Fh, and so on. --Bavi H (talk) 05:20, 13 November 2015 (UTC)

Spam that involves short sentences and one misspelling?
A spam bot has cropped up at GlyphWiki with bizarre edit summaries and weirder edit contents (this is a wiki that hosts designs of Chinese characters). Searching "Way to use the internet to help people solve prblsemo!" (one of the "messages" left behind) in Google shows that GlyphWiki is not alone. What purpose does such a bizarre attack have? What's the single misspelling in the message for? Do the cryptic edit summaries mean anything? —suzukaze (t・c) 05:27, 13 November 2015 (UTC)


 * About the misspelling, it could randomly swap some letters in a sentence it sends out to millions, in an attempt to evade automatic blocking software looking for a particular sentence. StuRat (talk) 06:43, 13 November 2015 (UTC)


 * The thing to remember is that computers are stupid. Most spambots aren't very complex. They just look for any HTML form and submit spam. They're going for quantity over quality. Especially looking at this page, I think this particular bot is more oriented towards comment sections. These kinds of bots often stick spam links in the name or title fields of comments. Since Mediawiki isn't a blog platform with comments, it might be sticking spam links in the submit data for these nonexistent fields, so the links never get posted. --71.119.131.184 (talk) 08:33, 13 November 2015 (UTC)


 * I looked at a site once by a guy who hated Wikipedia. He developed tools to bypass the CAPTCHA so you could create and use multiple accounts automatically. I also saw an auto-editor on his site that copies previous edit summaries and slightly misspells them so they won't look, to the computer, like duplicates. When I looked at it, he had a few other tools, but was mainly working on one where you give it some copyrighted text and a Wikipedia article. It would then alter one sentence at a time, each time with a different account, over a long period of time. It would turn the Wikipedia article into the copyrighted article. That appeared to be his purpose - making articles on Wikipedia copyright infringement. I assume that someone else could develop similar tools to put spam in pages or, perhaps, use his editor tool but instead of making article copyrighted, they add spam. I've been Googling, but I keep coming back to a user here on Wikipedia who doesn't have a user page anymore. I haven't found his website. 209.149.114.132 (talk) 13:39, 13 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Diff 563404424 is still in the Wikipedia history, even if Google can't find it. One may hope that our old friend has since recanted - at least the parts pertaining to intentional, automated vandalism.  Nimur (talk) 16:33, 13 November 2015 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't call that an "old friend." 162.211.46.242 (talk) 20:32, 16 November 2015 (UTC)
 * I believe you're looking at XRumer with its distinctive edit summaries. These are designed to provide any value for input fields. The misspellings usually come from a highly developed list of alternatives, designed to avoid filters and spam detectors. The general conversation it adds is used to supply some SEO context. You can expect these edits to be followed up with some real spam. -- zzuuzz (talk) 14:08, 13 November 2015 (UTC)

Is there some sort of problem with GMail?
Lately I have been sending pictures of people I have taken photographs of to their own respective e-mail addresses. Pretty much everyone has had a GMail address. So far, I have extremely seldom received a reply. All this makes me worried whether the mails are getting there in the first place, especially as e-mail is a connectionless protocol. The mails have been in the order of 20 to 30 MB each. I have received mailer-daemon replies from GMail if I send too large mails, or mails to addresses which don't exist, but I extremely seldom get a reply from anyone I send a mail to. Is there some sort of problem with GMail, or do people simply have too little time or energy to reply to my mails? J I P &#124; Talk 21:02, 13 November 2015 (UTC)


 * Why not email them and ask if they got the photo? Or ask if they have too little time or energy to reply to your mails? GangofOne (talk) 21:45, 13 November 2015 (UTC)


 * That's what I've been thinking about too, but in case they have received my mails and just haven't replied, I fear I might come across as pushy or nosy. J I P  &#124; Talk 23:47, 14 November 2015 (UTC)


 * How about - "I've accidentally deleted the photo I sent you - could you send me a copy?" If they didn't get it, you can tell them it's not important - and if they don't reply, your question is answered. Tevildo (talk) 01:04, 15 November 2015 (UTC)


 * Check out Sidekick, I use it and it tracks when an email is opened and by whom if sent to multiple people, and lets you know. Integrates with Chrome and Gmail seamlessly. RegistryKey(RegEdit) 22:00, 15 November 2015 (UTC)


 * It's also possible you send so much stuff to everyone they just tuned you out. I have a relative who sends me a dozen forwarded emails a day, and I no longer bother opening them.  I haven't actually blocked them, and do look at the titles, but others might choose to block them. StuRat (talk) 17:48, 16 November 2015 (UTC)


 * If someone sends me an email and doesn't specifically ask for a reply, and I have no other reason to reply, I don't reply. Certainly I never bother replying just to say "thanks I got your email". If you WANT to know if people are getting the photos you are sending, you should just ask, please reply if you got this picture. Vespine (talk) 22:57, 17 November 2015 (UTC)