Phantom Flusher Identity

[F1r3f0x]

OK, here goes nothing:
For a while now I have been suspecting someone quite near to me of being The Phantom Flusher y'all are so worried about. If I'm right about him being our guy, there's no need to worry, because he's just being funny in his own weird perfectionist sysadmaniacal way and it's no trojan.

Reasons for me to suspect him:

It started exactly 2 days (!) after me pointing him to all this RC5 stuff, me pointing him to THIS forum *and* asking him to check it out and join the Dutch Power Cows. In fact, I mailed him 2 URLs, that of dpc.tweakers.net and that of this here forum. He was not aware of dnet's existence until that day. So: A coincidence? I think not, especially since your calculations in the long thread about PhF are about right for the amount of power I know he can get his hands on. He replied very enthusiastically about both URLs, by the way.

The next day I also handed him a floppy (he still uses them), one of my ini-files and the latest win32 dnetc.exe were on it, I asked him to put that on his machines and leave the emailaddress alone ;-) but to no avail. When I saw him again later that week he told me he had been "real busy with it all" but didn't use my emailaddress.
He said he'd put all machines he's got control over "on it, cracking the key", as he called it. There are just about as many 700Mc dual-processor servers among them as it would take for this to happen.
I then asked him if he'd joined DPC, like I told him to, and he said:
"No I don't like that, I'm more of a loner so I decided to have some fun with them." I asked him what the hell he meant by that, and he just smiled to me and said: "If I told you, it would spoil all the fun." (all in dutch of course) and he refused to give me any more info

The fact that it seems to be my 'fault' he's doing this
kind of forced me to tell you about it. Ever since I knew he's been flushing I had also been looking for his name at distributed.net, but it still isn't there! I think I know all online names he uses, so I asked myself where all those blocks would go.. See what I mean?

I also know where he works (where the machines are) but for now I'll protect his identity until he comes forward about it himself. His attitude seems to tell me he has that planned anyway..

I will not contact dnet about him, since they will see the IP-addresses he uses and hopefully by now will have figured out that it's just a fun guy with no bad intentions for both our teams...

All I can say is: Happy to have been of service?
http://people.a2000.nl/jthijsse/angryservice.mp3
and knowing him a little I can tell you it fits his personality
to not want to have any fame or credit for it. He gets paid
extremely well and doesn't need the money

 

[Lord Demios]

With this info, I feel quite a bit better on having a guy like PhF on our team.

Welcome and THANKS!!! PhF!!

LD

 

[BoberFett]

Whew, I hope you're right. If so that's a load off everyone's mind.

And I'm sure everyone here, curious though they may be, will respect his right to privacy if that's the way he wants it. Tell your friend he's a good man.

 

[bphantom]

Please tell your friend, or better yet, thanks Phantom Flusher(!) for hooking me up with an extra ~6K daily dose of blocks! I thank you, my stats thank you, and Team AnandTech (well at least a few of us so far) thank you!

Brad..

 

[KingHam]

Wow! What a cool guy.

KingHam

 

[Scorpion]

Yeah thanks PhF, and I hope you do eventually come forward.
This really does sound like it could be this guy. I feel about 10 times better now that there's more evidence to support it being an actual person and not a trojan.

I'm kind of glad he didn't join the DPC though... Things would get nasty if that happened. They might actually start to "threaten" our position.

 

[chrixvh]

hmmm
something is fishy here.

I am pretty sure i'm catching on to something but if i'm correct i'm keeping it under raps for now to...well....lets just see.


/me sniffs firefox a bit
Yep...either you've been getting a lot of trout smacks or something is definitley fishy here...

 

[Beefcake]

Hmmmm... I believe nothing anymore, the worlds a matrix!

Its all a conspiracy by DPC I tell ya

 

[MrCyber]

Don't worry. it ain't DPC.

 

[Onno]

I hope you're not right, F1r3f0x... :|

 

[chrixvh]

/me has the downlow
...


/me has been doing some spying....

..


/me loves those altavista language translators....

..........

 

[Fandu]

Hell yes! Just to keep the fun, we might as well quit digging and leave this guy his anonynomity and keep the fun.

BTW - You'd might suggest that "aoliver@techplus.com" could use a few million more blocks over the summer.

Thanks for letting us know that he's legit.

 

[Russ]

I'm sorry guys, maybe it's my age, but I'm more than a bit cynical about this post. Do we really believe an unknown who joined this BBS TODAY? I'll have to see a lot more evidence than this before I'm comfortable with the idea that we are not getting sandbagged by a less than scrupulous individual.

And, F1r3f0x, if it turns out that you ARE legit, you have my apologies in advance. Until then, though, I will remain skeptical.

Russ, NCNE

 

[F1r3f0x]

> I'm sorry guys, maybe it's my age, but I'm more than a bit cynical
> about this post.

You have every right to be, I simply started feeling guilty
about it all, had to get it off my chest.
No more no less, really.

> Do we really believe an unknown who joined this
> BBS TODAY?

I've joined before, but with another nick.
Have not been posting for a long damn time with it,
think I've lost the login data for it too, so there..
I'm also kind of pissed about finding out that some young
dude at tweakers.net has stolen my nick (firefox), a nick
I've been using since the early fidonet days (I'm age 34).
Today I simply thought I'd finally join your forum
and tell you guys about my suspicions. I have not much
to share with you otherwise, but I lurk a lot.

> I'll have to see a lot more evidence than this before
> I'm comfortable with the idea that we are not getting sandbagged
> by a less than scrupulous individual.

Ask DNet, how long does it take for them to get at least
one IP out of it? They'll probably know by now, I don't know
these people, I'm not affiliated with DPC, but I'm a member
nonetheless.
As I've clearly written; I'm suspecting him, I have no proof yet,
since I have not been able to check into any machines he's using.
And yes, it's partly government partly online banking
where they are. (Kind of a funny thought to add to it all.)

If he is our guy, he's reading along and laughing his ass off about it all.
But I will hear from him soon enough, I hope.

 

[Beefcake]

I'll believe it when I see the proof, until then I still think there is something very Dutch going on here!

 

[Thom]

Lol there goes all the mystery. Now it's just a whodunnit...

 

[F1r3f0x]

The scary thought for you at AT is that he's dutch,
and that he's got no real reason (as far as I know)
to pick you to benefit from his 'work'.
My guess is he's just picking out some people
he likes to see confused by it, and you're all
making his day as far as giving him attention goes,
I mean, now he's in the news, he's a Phantom !

It might very well be that he's trying to
get the DPC to feel they need to work harder
so they'll end up beating AT. He likes to see
you all fight over it.
He really fits the personality of someone capable
of such acts perfectly, and if I ask him
to shift the flushing to DPC members only
he will most likely laugh at me again and say:
"haha, I will decide what to do with my blocks
without anybody telling me what or when to do it,
those DPC and AT guys want to win so badly
this is a great game to watch"

We'll see.

 

[chrixvh]

Russ you're thinking like I am...
junior member, never seen 'em before, trying very hard to explain themselves out of every thing we accuse them of....

but as russ said, if you are legit, my apologys now and hi how ya doing :]

 

[Dantoo]

I've set my aunt to work knitting him an "Andorra" jacket.

You've gotta admit, Firefox has a pretty plausible story here. It is the only theory that fits all the facts so far. If he's (PhF) having fun, then great, I enjoy a joke too (Did somebody say the Dutch beat the Italians?)

In fact I'd say it's been great so far. We've really got to know the DPC's (nice guys) and we're SMACKIN' the Macs!

 

[DSmarty]

Firefox, I really think you talk nonsense.
Why would someone spent so much time on changing Email adresses etc.? And if he's Dutch, why does he flush over 90% of his total for AT?
when he really is the wu-donating-guy, why didn't he give his blocks to some smaller team? (that's what I would do)
If you want to, you can explain all this in #DPC on irc.sorcery.net

DSmarty, DPC-Crew

BTW: Why are some words forbidden? *S H I T* (A censored forum? Must be American... stupid!)

 

[KifArU]

Finally, another dutch guy flushing for TA. I was getting lonely here ;-)

Thijs

 

[DSmarty]

KiFaRu: Why do you flush for AT, you know their forum is censored? That is really against all Dutch principals: Censorship must be forbidden!

Why does it take Dnet this long to just find out the IP-adresses the PhF uses? Maybe it's an intelligent trojan. (some kind of script)

 

[Compuguru]

I wouldnt mind if he flushed to my address

 

[F1r3f0x]

> Why would someone spent so much time on changing Email adresses

Because this someone is not in for personal gain, he's just having fun with you. Another reason to suspect him is that he hates soccer and he can't stand the dutch for making such a big orange thing out of it. (He must be having fun today though, since they lost from the italians..)
Now that the dutch are out, with the soccer thing, he might shift blocks to DPC, I really can't tell.

> And if he's Dutch, why does he flush over 90% of his total for AT?

That is something I still have to confront him with. You must understand that this is one unpredictable individual, as far as I know him. He's the kind that lives in computer-rooms, has no wife or girlfriend and always wears sneakers at work.
Before I personally accuse him there's something I want to know;
What does DNet think? Have they been sleeping over this?
Where are their representatives in this discussion?
How can it be so hard for them to come up with one IP?
They can at least mention the first digits of it
so that I know I'm right... dammit!

 

[Engine]

>A censored forum? Must be American... stupid!)

Now, now.... be nice.