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MethLabs Shuts out PeerGuardian 186

Lost&Confused writes to tell us Slyck News is reporting that most of Methlabs.org administration and development staff have been forced out of their own website. For the time being PeerGuardian is being hosted on sourceforge. However, users are advised to stop using the Methlabs.org and Blocklist.org hosted blocklists in favor of the Bluetack list until they can sort things out.
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MethLabs Shuts out PeerGuardian

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  • Do they get forced out of their server? Couldn't they just fire the guy if he worked for them?
    • Re:How.... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by FrYGuY101 ( 770432 ) on Saturday September 17, 2005 @01:08PM (#13585340) Journal
      It's not a business.

      Basically, the guys who were in charge of administering the money and servers slowly took over. Now they're claiming ownership of everything.
      • Basically, the guys who were in charge of administering the money and servers slowly took over. Now they're claiming ownership of everything.

        And without hearing from both sides, who's to say that they aren't correct?

        • News To Me (Score:4, Insightful)

          by Doc Ruby ( 173196 ) on Saturday September 17, 2005 @02:11PM (#13585710) Homepage Journal
          FTFA:
          "UPDATE: William Erwin, now confirmed as the hijacker, has posted news on Methlabs.org, claiming the hijacking news is false and stems from a revolt by former team members.

          However, after speaking to the Methlabs team and various connected members of the community, P2Pnet, SuprNova and Slyck can all confirm that the original story that the domain has been hijacked is genuine.
          "

          The reporter has "heard from both sides", and said that the Methlabs team is correct. That's what real reporters do: they find all the sides of a story, decide which version is the most correct, and tell the story. They don't just report "he said / she said", which reduces the reporter and the publication to puny PR outlets for anyone with a version of the story, no matter how self-serving.

          That's not to say the reporter's version is the most correct, or even correct at all. But that's what separates good reporters from bad ones: their skill at finding the most accurate story version. And then telling it so readers get the most accurate version of the story in our heads. Good journalists back up their judgements with representative quotes and descriptions of evidence to bolster the reader's confidence in their version. Really good journalists make good judgements and back it up, earning the ongoing confidence of their readers.

          We still all need to take any story from where it comes. Which is why it helps to read some reporters for a long time, to understand their track record, their blind spots, biases, vested interests, and insights. We've watched "journalism" turn into a farce precisely because we no longer expect the journalist to use good judgement in reporting, highlighting what they find to be true. We expect journalists to be "objective" to the extent that the journalist disappears, acting only as a stenographer for whoever gets access to them as a channel for that interested party. Which is worse than useless.

          This reporter, on this little story, in a little tech backwater, is exercising exactly the professionalism that most of the people in their industry wouldn't recognize if it faced them across an interview desk.
          • Re:News To Me (Score:2, Insightful)

            by Dot.Com.CEO ( 624226 )
            You are, albeit semantically, wrong. Reporters report. It is journalist who actually "tell a story". This is extreme nitpicking but I thought it important enough to correct you.
            • If anything, you've got your quibble backwards.

              Definitions of reporter [google.com] on the Web:

              Definitions of journalist [google.com] on the Web:

    • Re:How.... (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Because Apparently the rogue admin, had all the passwords. Now my guess is either he was the only one with them or he changed them and didn't tell anyone else what they were.

      As for fire the guy...they aren't a business or anything. Maybe you should read up a little more on the situation.
    • Possession is nine-tenths of the law. I presume he's already been "fired", as it were, but he still has control of the domain.

      Hard to get good help these days, I guess.
    • Hey, the cops came and forced me out of my meth lab once.
    • Re:How.... (Score:2, Interesting)

      After poking around the comments on the other site, I came across this one from eremini, one of the PG devs. I've included it verbatim below. This is the most believeable version of the story I've heard.

      (Background: cerberius, a.k.a. William Erwin, is the one who they claim "hijacked" methlabs.org. Cerberius, eremini, fox, and Gambit2011 were claimed to be on one side, with the rest of the devs, and the "owner", on the other. Gambit2011 posted to take himself off that list.)

      (reference URL: http:// [slyck.com]
      • Here is the front page of methlabs...not so much data, just a few hints all is not kosher...
        I really like the first sentence, saying some member revolted against the whole P2P community...

        Either the poster is really trying to cover his back, or he is rally in the middle of something...

        "Methlabs Update
        September 16th, 2005 by Administrator

        Dear Methlabs and P2P Community,

        Recently, we had several former staff members revolt against the entire P2P community as a whole. They tried to sabatoge Methlabs and attempt
  • by Anonymous Coward
    What a guy^h^h^h gal!
  • by suitepotato ( 863945 ) on Saturday September 17, 2005 @01:10PM (#13585358)
    ...they don't tend to be very big on the business accumen. Any enterprise where stuff like this can happen, needs to have contracts in force that head them off. The big business closed source world lives and dies by contracts and legally binding agreements. The licenses on the code produced should not be where the thoughts of legalities end. Internal legal matters are perhaps far more important.
    • by PhrostyMcByte ( 589271 ) <phrosty@gmail.com> on Saturday September 17, 2005 @01:22PM (#13585423) Homepage
      Indeed. We (Methlabs) had an admittedly stupid setup and were working to change it. Obviously, we worked too slow. It's a shame that small groups of friends even have to think of legalities but I guess that's reality.

      Anyone have advice on keeping this from happening again, to us or other OSS groups?
      • Form an LLC (couple hundred dollars).
        Give all assets that you want to protect to the LLC.
        Distribute ownership of the LLC among ALL memebers, and require license changes/ownership changes/policy changes/domain changes, etc, either unanimous consent or a 2/3 (maybe 3/4) vote.

        Fundamentally, the purpose of a business 'shell', in any small organization, is to put your assets in one place so that no one can legally mismanage them.

        If, for example, methlabs.org had been the property of methlabs, LLC, and the administrator tried to boot you off, you could send an e-mail to your registrar from the 'director' of the LLC, indicating that the administrator was not acting in the interest of the LLC. You send them the *signed* (can be signed electronically, using the US gov't standard, which is a bit silly \ \ ) LLC articles of incorporation, showing either that the administrator member had no right to do that, OR that he wasn't a member of the LLC.

        Then they hand you the 'keys' to the castle, so to speak.
      • Also, 2 more points ;-)

        1. Form the LLC anyways. Use the name, MethLabs LLC

        File a cybersquatting request. Even if you loose, its not a bad way to go. If you can show you started the project, you'll be in *really* good shape, I think. As far as I know, if you have a business name, you are virtually guaranteed the domain name. What's good for the goose is good for the gander.

        Emphasize that its a *security* site. ICANN generally frowns on people trying to subvert security software.

        2. Trademark the term "Peerguardian". This costs about ~$400. You may have to take a collection for this. Then, you can pretty reliably prevent him from using that term on methlabs.org.

        A trademark will help you achieve number 1, above, and virtually guarantees number 3, below.

        3. Sue in small claims court. Make sure to sue in *his* state, but not necessarily his jurisdiction. Even if you don't get the domain back, claim the maximum (usually $3000) in damage. The loss of your projects domain name is easily worth much, much more, but $3000 should be fairly easy to start up again with (pays Domain fees hosting fees LLC fees, etc. . .), and its a fun way to stick it to him.

        Small claims court usually only takes a day of work, and the filing fees are pretty small, too. Even if he doesn't pay, you can enter a judgement against him, have the pleasure of actually employing a creditor FOR you (not against ;-) ) and use this as additional proof (even though small claims doesn't set a precedent) for your cybersquatting claim.

        Plus, small claims judges are big on practical issues. They don't like to see people get screwed, and generally side with the abused party.
  • What an asshole! (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Elite Xizer ( 915457 )
    What possible reason would Mr. Erwin want with methlabs.org? I can't believe he would pull this shit. He needs a good ass kicking for stepping out of line.
    • Perhaps he wants to set up a directory of local methamphetamine labs, a la Google Local Search?

      "Need a fix? Come to Methlabs.org and search out your local lab! We even offer a subscriber service to alert you when your preferred meth labs have been raided by the police!"
      • Perhaps he wants to set up a directory of local methamphetamine labs, a la Google Local Search?

        "Need a fix? Come to Methlabs.org and search out your local lab! We even offer a subscriber service to alert you when your preferred meth labs have been raided by the police!"

        Dude, methlabs.google.com [slashdot.org] is so last week.

    • by no_mayl ( 659427 )
      The human factor is often the weakest link: he got bought by somebody who does not want privacy.
      (just being paranoid)
    • Re:What an asshole! (Score:5, Interesting)

      by mikael ( 484 ) on Saturday September 17, 2005 @01:36PM (#13585515)
      He thought that methlabs.org had established such a good reputation that they could start charge customers money for the service?

      But didn't he realize that the developers would have backup copies of the site and just set up a new site elsewhere?

      I've seen this thing happen with small companies. They recruit a couple of software architects to get the core software written. Once they get the software developed they give the architects the boot, and hire cheap graduates to do any customisation.
  • Hijacked! (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Take this web site to....hmmmm....wait....
  • Hmm (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Saiyaman ( 859809 ) on Saturday September 17, 2005 @01:13PM (#13585377)
    I have gotton various things, at methlabs.org it says to ignore e-mails I get from anyone about PG unless it is from @methlabs.org. In an e-mail I got from someone else saying to go to the Sourceforge site. So for the time being, I probabaly will not download anything from either place since I don't know who to believe.
  • Dupe! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Bogtha ( 906264 ) on Saturday September 17, 2005 @01:15PM (#13585384)

    Not really. But it sounds almost exactly the same as what Michael Sims, the Slashdot editor, did to the Censorware Project [sethf.com].

    Expecting a bitchslap in 5... 4... 3...

  • by bigtallmofo ( 695287 ) on Saturday September 17, 2005 @01:15PM (#13585387)
    This kind of thing happens all the time in real methamphetamine labs across the country.

    A group of like-minded people pool their resources within an abandoned house to create something and inevitably one of them puts a padlock on the formerly abandoned house to keep it all for himself.

  • For the uninformed among us (myself included), what is PeerGuardian?
    • by ravenspear ( 756059 ) on Saturday September 17, 2005 @01:23PM (#13585430)
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PeerGuardian [wikipedia.org]

      PeerGuardian and PeerGuardian 2 are free and open source software firewalls capable of blocking incoming and outgoing IP addresses. The application uses a blocklist of IP addresses to filter the computers of several organisations, including the RIAA and MPAA while using filesharing networks such as FastTrack and BitTorrent. The system is also capable of blocking advertising, spyware, government and educational ranges, depending upon user preferences.
  • Does it really cut down the number of connections by listed IP addresses? I heard it doesn't stop them.
    • by PhrostyMcByte ( 589271 ) <phrosty@gmail.com> on Saturday September 17, 2005 @01:25PM (#13585448) Homepage
      We keep track of various organizations as best we can. I don't have a link on hand but I do remember a study folks at MIT did (couple years ago) that showed PeerGuardian caused a 75% reduction in fake/corrupt files on Kazaa.
      • Indeed, I loaded the safepeer plugin for azureus a few days ago (correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe it uses the peerguardian list) and the console is just FULL of blocked connections. I was a little shocked at the number.

        However, looking through the logs, I wonder if it's being overly aggressive. It seems like it's blocking, for instance, all government addresses, and lots of 'private customer' addresses at major ISPs. Perhaps I'm just misunderstanding the classification categories?

        I don't actually

        • by PhrostyMcByte ( 589271 ) <phrosty@gmail.com> on Saturday September 17, 2005 @03:59PM (#13586207) Homepage
          The lists got a bit inaccurate over time. We had just got Blocklist.org setup so we could review all the blocked ranges, but then a month later this happens :(

          Oh well. We'll recover.
  • A question... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by darkitecture ( 627408 ) on Saturday September 17, 2005 @01:25PM (#13585449)

    I'm reluctant to update my lists using either source at the moment until it's cleared up. The plan for me is to keep the status quo until told otherwise from a reputable source.

    I have a problem though; I have two main computers I use regularly and one of them was last updated on the 11th of September, the other on the 14th of September. The $64,000 question is:

    Which of my computers, if any, are using reputable blocklists?

    I don't know when this coup was started and thus I don't know at what stage we were supposed to stop trusting the auto-updating. I've already turned off my auto-updating for PG2 on both computers but I'd like some info on whether my current lists have been 'tainted.' By the sounds of it, this was a bit of a 'slow mutiny' so I'm somewhat paranoid that the lists may have been compromised far earlier than say, a week ago and thus this is all null and void. Needless to say, we just don't know at the moment.

    Any info from some reputable PG2 personnel (I've seen you guys post here before, PS - love your work! I donate!) would go a very, very long way.
  • by Rac3r5 ( 804639 ) on Saturday September 17, 2005 @01:28PM (#13585460)
    I visited the Methlabs.org site and I found this. Seems like the complete opposite of what I read on the other site, like some conspiracy.

    http://www.slyck.com/news.php?story=913 [slyck.com]

    Methlabs Update

    September 16th, 2005 by Administrator

    "Dear Methlabs and P2P Community,

    Recently, we had several former staff members revolt against the entire P2P community as a whole. They tried to sabatoge Methlabs and attempted to wipe the Methlabs server of all its data.

    Unfortunately, they gained access to site backups. In doing so, your passwords may have been compromised, although they are MD5 encrypted. We would like to you login to the Methlabs forums (http://methlabs.org/forums/ [methlabs.org]) and change your password. We sincerely apologize for this issue. As of right now, the Methlabs site is back online, although forum posts from the past month have been lost.

    Since all the data was stolen by former staff members, YOU MAY RECIEVE FAKE EMAILS that look like they are from Methlabs. If they do not come from the Methlabs.org domain and from our email servers, DO NOT BELIEVE THEM.

    We assure you that Methlabs development will continue, and ALL OFFICIAL PROGRAMS MUST be downloaded directly from Methlabs.org . Assume that all other sites contain spyware or malicious code which may not be directly trusted.

    To update everyone on the current situation, there has been some news going around the Internet of a revolt which happened in Methlabs. This is hearsay. The current real news is that PeerGuardian development and Blocklist development is on schedule, and Blocklist should be out of Beta within the next week or so.

    Please spread the word that Methlabs.org is ALIVE and DO NOT believe or TRUST any emails that do not come directly from Methlabs.org and our mail servers. These emails are from disgruntled staff members trying to hurt the P2P community as a whole.

    We apoligize for the current situation. Please visit http://methlabs.org/ [methlabs.org] for OFFICIAL updates, and help us spread the word!

    - The Methlabs Team"

    • by Henry V .009 ( 518000 ) on Saturday September 17, 2005 @01:38PM (#13585526) Journal
      "we had several former staff members revolt against the entire P2P community as a whole"

      Yeah, that's a really believable line. The site has obviously been hijacked.
    • by Johnny Doughnuts ( 767951 ) on Saturday September 17, 2005 @01:48PM (#13585586)
      I know Ken (d3f) personally, and most of the ml.org staff. Ken would shoot someone for putting up a message like that.
    • by gbjbaanb ( 229885 ) on Saturday September 17, 2005 @02:00PM (#13585641)
      YOU MAY RECIEVE FAKE EMAILS that look like they are from Methlabs

      Really? Hey guys, I think I got one, but I'm not sure this one isn't for real:

      Dear Sir:

                      I have been requested by the Methlabs and P2P Company to contact you for assistance in resolving a matter. The Methlabs and P2P Company has recently concluded a revolution where several high ranking members of the Company attempted to wipe the company servers of data and abscond with funds totalling $400 gazillion dollars. It is of uptmost concern to us that these funds not find their way into the hands of revolutionaries and so we ask your assistance.

                      You assistance is requested as a non-Methlabs member to assist the Methlabs and P2P Company, and also the Peerguardian Community, in moving these funds out of Methlabs. If the funds can be transferred to your name, in your United States account, then you can forward the funds as directed by the Methlabs and P2P Company. In exchange for your accomodating services, the Methlabs and P2P Company would agree to allow you to retain 10%, or US$4 million of this amount.

                      However, to be a legitimate transferee of these moneys according to ICANN law, you must presently be a depositor of at least US$100,000 in a Nigerian bank which is regulated by the Central Bank of Nigeria.

                      If it will be possible for you to assist us, we would be most grateful. We suggest that you meet with us in person on the forums, and that during your visit I introduce you to the representatives of the Methlabs and P2P Company, as well as with certain officials of the PeerGuardian community.

                      Please call me at your earliest convenience at [Phone Number]. Time is of the essence in this matter; very quickly the revolutionaries will realize that the server backup was intact and will attempt to transfer it to another domain.

      Yours truly, etc.
    • by basil montreal ( 714771 ) on Saturday September 17, 2005 @02:08PM (#13585683) Homepage
      "Dear Member,

      The majority of the Methlabs.org administration and development team have been forced out of their website following a series of threats and incidents. The member of the group that had been trusted to handle the finances and servers slowly managed to take over each individual part of the web site's assets, eventually claiming control over the entire group and locking out the majority of staff.

      The organisation's founders, Tim Leonard and Ken McKelland, as well as the majority of the organisation's staff and developers (including the main developer of the PeerGuardian2 application, Cory Nelson and the staff members responsible for auditing the PeerGuardian Blocklists) have all been forcibly removed from the servers that were funded from donations given to the organisation by happy users, and from text advertising placed on the websites forum and project pages.

      The money, which was to have been used to help fund the development and hosting costs of the group is now unavailable, stolen by the one who was trusted to keep it.

      Development of PeerGuardian will resume, and the website will temporarily move to http://peerguardian.sourceforge.net/ [sourceforge.net] until a new domain is registered and a new server found. The intention of the group is to register a non-profit organisation to handle the development of Methlabs applications and to promote open source projects that aid both security, privacy and peer-to-peer technologies, in order to prevent a repeat of this incident.

      The team wish all their users the best through this difficult time, but promise that development will continue. Please visit http://peerguardian.sf.net/ [sf.net] for news as we make progress. All other sites, including http://methlabs.org/ [methlabs.org] and http://blocklist.org/ [blocklist.org] are under control of the rogue member and should not be trusted for safe updates to our applications or lists.

      A new build of PeerGuardian will be released soon to reflect these changes. Until then we ask you to continue using Beta 6a but with caution as the update servers are no longer under our control.

      All staff are available in irc.freenode.net, channel #methlabs if you wish to chat.

      Thanks, The Methlabs Staff (looking for a new home) -----

      Adam Hoier, Cory Nelson, Eric Mayuk, Fox Lowe, James Shanelec, Joseph Farthing, Ken McKelland, Steffen Tuzar, Tim Leonard

      aka

      braindancer, D3F, fox, FuRiOuS1, JFM, KuKIE, method, phrosty, r00ted"

    • "Recently, we had several former staff members revolt against the entire P2P community as a whole. They tried to sabatoge Methlabs and attempted to wipe the Methlabs server of all its data."

      "To update everyone on the current situation, there has been some news going around the Internet of a revolt which happened in Methlabs. This is hearsay."

      Say what? Was there a revolt or wasn't there? The other side's story isn't self-contradictory.

      "We assure you that Methlabs development will continue, and ALL OFFICIAL P
      • Say what? Was there a revolt or wasn't there? The other side's story isn't self-contradictory.

        Nor is this. It's not very well written, I'll grant you, but I think it's clear enough that what it's saying is basically "some of them left and then revolted against the rest of us. You have probably heard that I revolted against everyone else, and I deny that."
  • by Anonymous Coward
    Slyck.com, Zeropaid.com, UniteTheCows.com, p2pnet.net, p2pconsortium.com and many others are saying the same thing... even the person who started the whole thing and who the domain name is named after has been locked out.

    Officially, according to the founders of the community, their lead article writer, almost all senior administrators and the software developer of PeerGuardian 2... methlabs.org was hijacked.

    peerguardian.sourceforge.net IS trustworthy.

    (it's where the developers, founders, etc. are saying to
  • Without knowing any details, it's hard to know which party in this situation is the malicious one (possibly both). But this message on the methlabs.org blog [methlabs.org] is causing the Lost-In-Space-Robot in my head to wave its arms madly [wikipedia.org]:

    Unfortunately, they gained access to site backups. In doing so, your passwords may have been compromised, although they are MD5 encrypted. We would like to you login to the Methlabs forums ([url redacted]) and change your password. We sincerely apologize for this issue.

    If the webmaster is telling the truth, this is an innocuous request. [Of course, sufficiently strong passwords will survive precomputed hash attacks [passcracking.com], and it's still pretty hard to brute-force MD5 hashes (even given recent weaknesses).] However, if the webmaster is malicious, this is no different than a PayPal phishing scam: "Come visit our website (the legitimacy of which is, at best, in doubt) and enter your old password on a Web form. Go ahead, enter a new one, too. Thanks."

    The right thing to do in this case, where you have multiple parties which may all be malicious and some of which may have your passwords, in plaintext or hashed format, is probably to stop using those passwords immediately. If you use that forum password elsewhere, change it elsewhere. As for methlabs.org, the safest course of action is probably to wait and see who the good guys are before typing any passwords in, old or new.

  • by hackwrench ( 573697 ) <hackwrench@hotmail.com> on Saturday September 17, 2005 @01:31PM (#13585475) Homepage Journal
    We are the PeerGuardian Robots
    We are here to protect you
    We are here to protect you from the terrible secret of PeerGuardian
    Do not trust the Methlabs Robot. He is malfunctioning
    Do not trust the Sourceforge robot. He is inferior.
  • Sheesh, maybe, just maybe, Scuttlemonkey, there is more to the story than the one side's view of events? Why are you assuming there is a "hijack" going on here?
    • Because there is a hijack going on here. Why do you instantly assume that the author of the story has only heard one side?
      • Because the author of the summary was Scuttlemonkey, who I highly doubt is that clued in to the thing. And even if he was, he doesn't give us enough evidence in the summary, nor does the story give us enough evidence (i.e., a back history of who the players actually are) to make an informed judgment about whether a hijack was really going on. All the reader knows is that there are two competing stories, yet we are only told that one is true and one is not without any evidence.
        • It's an article summary, not a novel. There isn't enough space to detail all sides of the story, analyze them, and give a final (hopefully unbiased) synopsis. That's what the links are for.
  • I noticed this just last week. The forums went offline and there hasn't been hardly any moderator updates made to correct the mistakes in the IP DB.

    Many of the mistakes can be put down to them assuming whois.sc IP location is current, when in fact much of it's historical.

    I was getting frustrated trying to get a couple of updates done, but there are 100's of mislabelled/ named IP ranges yet to be addressed. It's now obvious why nothing was being done.

    If the blocklist isn't going to be updated regularly and w
  • ...is that we really don't know who to believe, especially since nobody has bothered to the things journalists do. Like go out and interview people, corroborate stories, and so on.

    We get:

    "However, after speaking to the Methlabs team and various connected members of the community, P2Pnet, SuprNova and Slyck can all confirm that the original story that the domain has been hijacked is genuine"

    So "Slyck News" is claiming they've done so- but they haven't given any names, quotes, or details as to how the

  • Sue (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Nom du Keyboard ( 633989 ) on Saturday September 17, 2005 @02:21PM (#13585760)
    Anyone who contributed money to PG support should be suing the person who forced the rest of the team out for fraud and theft. I would expect them to have standing in court to pursue such a claim, and could make life very difficult for this apparent criminal.
  • MPAA/RIAA (Score:3, Interesting)

    by kd5ujz ( 640580 ) <william@@@ram-gear...com> on Saturday September 17, 2005 @02:55PM (#13585895)
    Could the admin have been influenced (via loads of cash) to cause this confusion. Remove or modigy all MPAA/RIAA ip addresses, and make sure they do not go anywhere else for updates? If I was one of the above orginizations, that is what I would do.
  • context plz (Score:3, Insightful)

    by taybin ( 622573 ) <[moc.nibyat] [ta] [nibyat]> on Saturday September 17, 2005 @03:30PM (#13586070) Homepage
    Could someone tell me who the hell methlabs.org and PeerGuardian are? I've never heard of them before.
  • Now that they're divided, I wouldn't be surprised at all to see the ??AA swoop in and compromise at least one of the two (or more) sides. Sounds like this is over money, which the ??AA has in abundance. How long before the blocklist has just a tiny little hole in it waiting to be exploited?
  • I guess this means that Peer Guardian is not so secure after all, if you can't trust the folks who make and host it. But then, I would have thought that hosting it on a site called "methlabs" in the first place would have clued people in.

BLISS is ignorance.

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