Mestiv's signature

[Mestiv he/him]

This is a topic about my signature, and because said signature is not so artsy, but still a creation, I put the topic in this forum

 

A couple of users expressed curiosity about my signature and asked about how it works etc. So, to avoid repeating myself I decided to explain everything in one place and also tell you what else I'm planing to do with it.

 

So, what's do special about this signature?

As you may have noticed, my signature changes depending on the topic you're viewing it in. It contains the title of said topic and page number. It also contains a more or less accurate approximation of where the user seeing it physically is. In the future it may contain even more fun stuff. As a result, every user sees a different text in my signature.

 

How is that possible?

Images are frequently included in signatures here on 17th Shard. Most of them are just static files, available at some address on the Internet. They are stored on some server and sent to everyone wishing to display them. The Polandball in my description is like that, it's just a small PNG file on a server.

 

The part of my signature that has text in it is different. It too is an image, because that's the only way our forum allows me to include something that I control in the signature. However, this image is not stored anywhere. It is created from scratch every time you wish to see it. Your browser asks my server about a file called "sig.png" and instead of just sending a file from it's disk, my server creates it using information it gathers while your browser waits for response.

 

How does it know what topic you're viewing?

When your browser asks my server about the image it tell's it on what webpage this image will be displayed. Having the address of the topic you're viewing, my server takes a peek on that page and looks for the title and page number. Then it quickly writes what it found out on the returned picture.

 

How does it know where you live?

It doesn't know where you live When you ask my server about a picture, you establish a connection. For a connection to work, both sides have to know the address of the other side. This means IP address. This part get's a bit complicated, so I'll spare you technical details, but what you need to know is that in most cases you are hidden by your internet service provider. My server receives some IP address, that is frequently shared by a lot of other clients of your ISP. That's why location provided by my signature is often incorrect.

 

How does IP address translate to physical location? That's simple, there are free, open databases that provide such information. I use GeoLite2. Those free databases aren't too accurate and because your ISP can have a huge inner network, the location can be wrong. Often, location is not even available and I have only a country. You can also hide your location using VPN.

 

Remember! Just because I can't pinpoint your location, doesn't mean that FBI can't

 

Can I track your movements on 17S?

Currently my software can distinguish two different 17S users asking for my signature, but it doesn't know who is who. I plan to change it however, and code a way for it to learn your usernames.

 

Lets say that I can identify who is asking for the signature. Then it would be possible to log information about part of your movements on the Shard. HOWEVER! This would only include pages of threads that I've posted in. If you view a page where my signature is not present I have no idea about it. I believe that you can disable my signature to prevent any communication with my server. Also, I'm not interested in spying on you. 

 

 

What else do I plan to do?

Well, I want to do two things next.

First, I'll try to teach my software to recognize users using information from this page. That will allow me to address you by usernames in my signature

Second, I'm gonna create something that everyone can use I will make a picture displaying what I've listened recently, based on what's visible on my Last.fm profile. I'll make it so everyone else will be able to display data from their profiles too

 

 

Sooo, any questions? Comments?

[Oversleep]

Which language did you use?

[Mestiv he/him]

Which language did you use?

Python with Django.

[A Joe in the Bush]

I actually re-enabled signatures just so I could look at this. It's pretty cool.

[Mestiv he/him]

I actually re-enabled signatures just so I could look at this. It's pretty cool.

Did it get your location correctly?

[Ookla the Absent]

OK... that's actually pretty creepy... but it's off by like 70 miles, so I'm safe

Edited April 23, 2016 by Gargoyle

[A Joe in the Bush]

Did it get your location correctly?

It got the next town over, but that's still pretty close.

 

It's funny seeing it in this thread, since it says it sees me viewing your signature. 

Edited April 23, 2016 by The Only Joe

[The Invested Beard]

Got me at the town I live in.

[Kestrel she/her]

This is pretty neat. owo

I would be interested in learning how to do this.

[Oversleep]

A question: you're parsing the URL to get the topic and page, right?

But how do you made it recognize capitalized letters and apostrophe? In URL it's just "...mestivs-signature". How does it recognize that there is an apostrophe in "mestivs"?

[Eki]

A question: you're parsing the URL to get the topic and page, right?

But how do you made it recognize capitalized letters and apostrophe? In URL it's just "...mestivs-signature". How does it recognize that there is an apostrophe in "mestivs"?

I think it's the actual page the url points to that's being parsed, not the url itself. The topic is the title, so it should be easy to find. (It might break in topics/subforums with dashes in the name though...)

Edited April 24, 2016 by Eki

[Mestiv he/him]

This is pretty neat. owo

I would be interested in learning how to do this.

Take a programming class It's not for everyone, but it's worth a try. If you'll find it fun and interesting, you can have a nice career as a programmer

 

A question: you're parsing the URL to get the topic and page, right?

But how do you made it recognize capitalized letters and apostrophe? In URL it's just "...mestivs-signature". How does it recognize that there is an apostrophe in "mestivs"?

I think it's the actual page the url points to that's being parsed, not the url itself. The topic is the title, so it should be easy to find. (It might break in topics/subforums with dashes in the name though...)

 

Eki is right, I read the page that the URL leads to. That's why my signature doesn't work in private conversations and locked subforums, that are not accessible to anonymous user. I'll have to work on that

[Mestiv he/him]

My signature has started to slowly learn your names Currently, most of you will be just "fellow Sharders", but give it time and I hope you'll see my Polandball greet you by your username

 

And expect mistakes, as we all know, names are hard to learn

[A Joe in the Bush]

It no longer knows anything about me. It just has a link to this thread that says sig.png

Hahaha! You can't track me!

[Mailliw73 he/him]

My signature has started to slowly learn your names Currently, most of you will be just "fellow Sharders", but give it time and I hope you'll see my Polandball greet you by your username

 

And expect mistakes, as we all know, names are hard to learn

How does it learn my name? Will posting more speed it up?

[Mestiv he/him]

It no longer knows anything about me. It just has a link to this thread that says sig.png

Hahaha! You can't track me!

Does it still not work at all for you? I have one error logged on my server, so that must be your case.

 

How does it learn my name? Will posting more speed it up?

 

It uses this page to see who's viewing threads that have my signature in them. Posting more doesn't change anything, viewing my posts does

[Mailliw73 he/him]

Does it still not work at all for you? I have one error logged on my server, so that must be your case.

 

 

It uses this page to see who's viewing threads that have my signature in them. Posting more doesn't change anything, viewing my posts does

So if I reload this over and over, it will?

[A Joe in the Bush]

Mestiv, it says fellow Sharder now. It's working again.

[Mestiv he/him]

So if I reload this over and over, it will?

Yes, reloading over and over should make it learn faster. From what I see, my signature should be already displaying your name to you, at least on one of the devices you use to browse the forum. Changing the device or clearing cookies from your browser makes it forget a user.

[Mailliw73 he/him]

Yes, reloading over and over should make it learn faster. From what I see, my signature should be already displaying your name to you, at least on one of the devices you use to browse the forum. Changing the device or clearing cookies from your browser makes it forget a user.

Oh. Even if I'm on mobile, will it clear it?

[Mestiv he/him]

Oh. Even if I'm on mobile, will it clear it?

 

I wasn't clear I think, sorry. When you're on you mobile, you most likely view the forum in it's mobile version. That version doesn't display signatures, so my software won't even know you're reading my posts. If you switch to "full version" of the 17th Shard, your mobile will be treated like any other computer.

 

When you use a full browser to view the site in it's normal version, my software will know that someone is displaying my signature.

 

Now, here's how this all works, for anyone interested

When you display my signature for the first time, you ask my server for it. The server returns the signature and assigns you a cookie (no spikes, I promise!). What are cookies? From now on, every time you request my signature, your browser sends back the cookie while requesting the signature image. This way my program can recognize different browsers asking for signature.

 

Now, when your browser asks for my signature, it also tells my server in which thread you want to display it in. So my software quickly checks who's the last person to view given thread, using the page I liked to in my previous post. This method is not 100% reliable, so it takes several iterations to make sure the username guessed for this particular browser is correct.

 

When you log into 17th Shard on a different browser/machine you don't have the cookie that my server assigned to your previous browser (unless you use some shared sessions by logging in to chrome etc.). That's why the signature software has to start the guessing process all over again. Luckily, it doesn't forget about your previous browser, so when you use it again, it will be recognized.

 

I hope that explains it a bit... I'm not too confident in my explanation skills

[Mailliw73 he/him]

Huh, interesting. And it just got my name!

[Mestiv he/him]

Congratulations! You are in the elite club of users recognized by my software Other members currently are: me, TwiLyght and Edgedancer But the club will grow, it's inevitable 

[The Invested Beard]

It knows my name now! I for one welcome our new AI overlords.

[Mestiv he/him]

So now that it seem to work I run out of ideas what else to do with my signature. Any ideas/requests? I'm able to make a poll in someones signature if anyone is interested I'm open for commision