data.maryland.gov
Consider something like
145.239.62.142 - - [22/Dec/2017:12:43:36 -0500] "GET /2011/motte-and-bailey/ HTTP/1.1" 200 45014 "http://data.maryland.gov/browse?sortBy=alpha&tags=environment" "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; WOW64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/50.0.2661.102 Safari/537.36"
For the sake of argument, suppose you've never before seen that referrer. In that case you may be excused to assume that hey, .gov, whatever, not the first timei, so you make a casual remark which turns out to be wrong.
At which point it occurs to you that AppleWebKit aside, what the fuck are the odds that some public employee in a tiny negligible state is reading up on the very tip of cultural conversation today ? Motte and bailey, seriously ?
So let's dig into this.
$ cat 22dec17trilema.com | grep -c "data.maryland.gov"
77
Really, in half of one day, after nine years of strict silence ?
$ cat 22dec17trilema.com | grep "data.maryland.gov" | awk '{print $1}' | sort -u
145.239.62.117, 145.239.62.123, 145.239.62.125, 145.239.62.127, 145.239.62.130, 145.239.62.132, 145.239.62.133, 145.239.62.137, 145.239.62.138, 145.239.62.141, 145.239.62.142, 145.239.62.145164.132.188.193, 164.132.188.194, 164.132.188.199, 164.132.188.225, 164.132.188.226, 164.132.188.227, 164.132.188.228, 164.132.188.230, 164.132.210.76, 164.132.210.79, 164.132.210.80
178.33.200.185, 178.33.200.186, 178.33.200.187
188.165.164.179, 188.165.164.214
37.187.181.156
79.137.116.213, 79.137.116.214, 79.137.116.217, 79.137.116.219, 79.137.116.224, 79.137.116.226
92.222.81.228
94.23.150.254
Really, 57 different IPs from 8 A blocks ? Of which the first is allocated to France, the 2nd is a well known source of crap traffic (also known as OVH in its native French) and so following ? All these local Marylandians suddenly got an itch to check out Trilema one fine morning late December ?
$ cat 22dec17trilema.com | grep "data.maryland.gov" | awk '{print $7}' | sort -u
/2009/progresam-maria-ta/
/2009/social-media-si-anti-social-media/
/2009/vaccinurile-oamenii-si-moartea/
/2010/atitudinea-altor-popoare/
/2010/care-i-diferenta/
/2010/fata-virgina-si-charlie-chaplin/
/2010/femeia-sarpe/
/2010/intiiul-troll/
/2010/o-blonda-proasta-dar-dispusa/
/2010/o-suta-de-cuvinte-ii/
/2011/cine-conduce-lumea/
/2011/dementa-cromatica/
/2011/de-peezda-metii/
/2011/educatia-tinerei-z-xli/
/2011/experimentul-emag/
/2011/i-need-moar-dakka/
/2011/motte-and-bailey/
/2011/nefericirea-lui-superman/
/2011/oamenii-iubesc-sa-se-laude/
/2011/portrete-robot-dorelul/
/2011/precizia-prospectiva/
/2011/romania-altfel/
/2011/veniti-sa-luati-canoane-partea-aiii-a/
/2012/adevarata-istorie-a-crailor-de-curtea-veche-duelul/
/2012/chestii-care-nu-functioneaza/
/2012/cum-se-face-cea-mai-ieftina-sera-din-lume/
/2012/deci-ca-sa-va-incepeti-noul-an-intr-un-mod-adecvat/
/2012/in-care-fetele-se-da-la-mine-respectiv-undernet-e-o-felie-de-realitate/
/2012/martipan/
/2012/noaptea-pe-fain/
/2012/o-mina-priceputa-acum-cu-ilustratii/
/2013/its-called-eulora/
/2013/mpex-one-year-of-dividends/
/2013/smg-september-2013-statement/
/2013/the-lolz-of-gruntworld/
/2014/i-hope-they-serve-beer-in-hell/
/2014/lifes-lemons-a-list-of-steps/
/2014/minigame-smg-august-2014-statement/
/2014/smg-june-2014-statement/
/2014/the-instrumentation-of-humanity/
/2014/your-cookies-are-borkt-seriously/
/2015/narcissistic-personality-inventory/
/2015/no-such-labs-snsa-january-2015-statement/
/2015/qntra-sqntr-august-2015-statement/
/2015/the-very-very-jealous-with-envy-thing-part-deux/
/2016/millennial-problems/
/2016/mpex-smpoe-february-2016-statement/
/2016/the-color-of-money/
/2017/englezu-e-cel-mai-prost-dintre-oi/
/2017/minigame-smg-april-2017-statement/
/2017/minigame-smg-june-2017-statement/
/2017/re-reading-is-the-most-powerful-tool/
/2017/walks-among-the-congenitally-weird/
/category/sqntr%3ES.QNTR%3C/a%3E%3C/span%3E %7C %3Cspan
/chestii-care-nu-functioneaza
/deci-ca-sa-va-incepeti-noul-an-intr-un-mod-adecvat
/dementa-cromatica
/englezu-e-cel-mai-prost-dintre-oi
/experimentul-emag
/fata-virgina-si-charlie-chaplin
/femeia-sarpe
/i-hope-they-serve-beer-in-hell
/intiiul-troll
/lifes-lemons-a-list-of-steps
/motte-and-bailey
/mpex-smpoe-february-2016-statement
/oamenii-iubesc-sa-se-laude
/o-blonda-proasta-dar-dispusa
/o-suta-de-cuvinte-ii
/portrete-robot-dorelul
/smg-june-2014-statement
/smg-september-2013-statement
/the-instrumentation-of-humanity
/the-lolz-of-gruntworld
/the-very-very-jealous-with-envy-thing-part-deux
/veniti-sa-luati-canoane-partea-aiii-a
/walks-among-the-congenitally-weird
Really, 77 different articles, to match the 77 total instances ? Because these good Marylandians didn't like all get excited about one article and passed the link around, instead read a bunch of Romanian text ? Cuz why, it comes easy to them as Romanian is close to French ?
But where did these fine fellows click to end up on Trilema anyway ?
$ cat 22dec17trilema.com | grep "data.maryland.gov" | awk '{print $11}' | sort -u
"http://data.maryland.gov/browse?category=Demographic&tags=population"
"http://data.maryland.gov/browse?category=Demographic&tags=spending"
"http://data.maryland.gov/browse?category=Elevation&federation_filter=100"
"http://data.maryland.gov/browse?federation_filter=100&page=7"
"http://data.maryland.gov/browse?limitTo=datasets&sortBy=alpha"
"http://data.maryland.gov/browse?sortBy=alpha&tags=environment"
"http://data.maryland.gov/browse?sortBy=most_accessed&tags=recreational+shore+fishing"
"http://data.maryland.gov/browse?sortBy=most_accessed&tags=scubasnorkelingdiving"
"http://data.maryland.gov/browse?sortBy=newest&tags=md"
"http://data.maryland.gov/browse?sortBy=relevance&tags=economy"
"http://data.maryland.gov/browse?sortBy=relevance&tags=maryland+department+of+planning"
"http://data.maryland.gov/browse?sortBy=relevance&tags=surface+water+sports"
"data.maryland.gov/browse?category=Budget&tags=dynamic"
"data.maryland.gov/browse?category=Business+and+Economy&tags=department+of+general+services"
"data.maryland.gov/browse?category=Demographic&tags=biota"
"data.maryland.gov/browse?category=Demographic&tags=chesapeake+bay"
"data.maryland.gov/browse?category=Education&tags=public+safety"
"data.maryland.gov/browse?category=Energy+and+Environment&tags=nonconsumptive+use"
"data.maryland.gov/browse?category=Geoscientific&tags=motorized+boating"
"data.maryland.gov/browse?category=Government&tags=county"
"data.maryland.gov/browse?category=Health+and+Human+Services&tags=dgs"
"data.maryland.gov/browse?category=Housing&tags=bay+uses"
"data.maryland.gov/browse?category=Housing&tags=electricity"
"data.maryland.gov/browse?category=Location&tags=chesapeake+bay"
"data.maryland.gov/browse?category=Military&tags=recreational+shellfish+harvesting"
"data.maryland.gov/browse?category=Planning&tags=hydr"
"data.maryland.gov/browse?category=Public+Safety&tags=mde"
"data.maryland.gov/browse?category=Public+Safety&tags=motorized+boating"
"data.maryland.gov/browse?category=Society&limitTo=blob"
"data.maryland.gov/browse?category=Society&tags=dhcd"
"data.maryland.gov/browse?category=Society&tags=spending"
"data.maryland.gov/browse?category=Structure&tags=planning"
"data.maryland.gov/browse?category=Transportation&tags=recreational+shore+fishing"
"data.maryland.gov/browse?category=Utility&limitTo=forms"
"data.maryland.gov/browse?category=Weather&tags=jail"
"data.maryland.gov/browse?limitTo=calendars&tags=transportation"
"data.maryland.gov/browse?limitTo=charts&tags=sports"
"data.maryland.gov/browse?limitTo=filters&sortBy=newest"
"data.maryland.gov/browse?limitTo=forms&tags=budget"
"data.maryland.gov/browse?limitTo=href&tags=doc"
"data.maryland.gov/browse?limitTo=maps&tags=recreational+use"
"data.maryland.gov/browse?sortBy=newest&tags=traffic"
"data.maryland.gov/browse?sortBy=relevance&tags=sewer+overflow"
"data.maryland.gov/browse?tags=assault"
"data.maryland.gov/browse?tags=department+of+public+safety+and+correctional+services"
"data.maryland.gov/browse?tags=envl"
"data.maryland.gov/browse?tags=train"
"data.maryland.gov/d/cdet-mmji"
"data.maryland.gov/d/hqrc-v7mi"
"data.maryland.gov/Energy-and-Environment/Department-of-Public-Safety-and-Correctional-Servi/hq97-s7me"
"data.maryland.gov/Location/MD-iMAP-Maryland-US-National-Grid-Zone-18S-US-Nati/g67f-xgn5"
"data.maryland.gov/Public-Safety/DPSCS-Western-Correctional-Institution-WCI-Average/vdm6-i6z5"
"data.maryland.gov/Society/MD-iMAP-Maryland-Sport-Venues-Swimming/pkcq-ikiv"
"data.maryland.gov/Utility/MD-iMAP-Maryland-Offshore-Wind-Energy-Planning-Mar/w7zv-u5zh"
Can you believe that far from not actually including a link to Trilema, none of those pages actually resolve ?! How about this gem then
$ cat 22dec17trilema.com | grep "data.maryland.gov" | grep -c "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; WOW64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/50.0.2661.102 Safari/537.36"
77
So what's the idea here, the state of Maryland hired some expert to make it look like it matters and the results were in the usual vein of lulz ? Or what do you make of it ?
———- Speaking of which, am I the only one to find it somewhat odd that both Romania's NSA ("Serviciul de Telecomunicatii Speciale", STS) and whoever made maryland.gov have the same problem ? Because the cert for maryland.gov includes www.egov.maryland.gov , stage.egov.maryland.gov , auth.maryland.gov , www.maryland.gov , egov.maryland.gov but remarkably not maryland.gov itself.
It wouldn't be the case that both of these are made by the same "contractor", would you say ? Romania has its own... like... stuff, right ? It's a country and everything, not a stinking province of an overlarge empire, am I right ? [↩]
