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Urgent: Help needed regarding Caching question

Discussion in 'Bing' started by sujet, Nov 16, 2013.

  1. #1
    I'm with a couple freelance writers and we have been investigating an "event" for several months.

    I have a very important question regarding some collected evidence that is caching related. Bing cached a page of a website that had some information on it regarding a crime, one day prior of the crime occurring, apparently this entity could not have had any knowledge of it.

    this is what the cache read:

    You have reached the cached page for (snip). Below is a snapshot of the Web page as it appeared on -conflicting date- (the last time our crawler visited it). This is the version of the page that was used for ranking your search results. The page may have changed since we cached it. To see what might have changed (without the highlights) go to the current page.

    They then published this page the following day, the day the crime occured. For a short time, the cached page that showed the conflicting date was still available online, before it was removed.

    The server IP and location of that particular Bing server is in the same timezone as the city where the crime took place.

    We already received some answers from Bing, such as:

    "The server cache time is accurate since it is being updated once our crawler visits a certain page. For example, our crawler visits a page today (6/3/2013), the date that will reflect on its cache page will be 6/3/2013. The date will change after our crawler visits the page again."

    "To directly answer your question, the date setting which the web crawler shows on the cache page is accurate."

    Mind you it took Bing 6 Months to give us the above 2 answers. The entire email exchange contains 20 emails, but the above statements were the final answers regarding this issue.


    Is there a possibility that the date on that server/cache page might be wrong?

    This is a very important investigation, we are freelance writers and would like to present this evidence to the proper channels, but would like some further confirmation regarding this, or answers on how the date could be wrong.

    Thank you!


    Thank you!
     
    sujet, Nov 16, 2013 IP
  2. barutiwa

    barutiwa Greenhorn

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    #2
    Are you saying that a particular story you published about a crime displays a cache date that is one day prior to the crime? If that is so I can only think of the server time that your story was published on. For instance, I'm physically located in an eastern time zone but my server that I publish my stories on is located in the pacific time zone. When I upload my content my server shows an upload time that is 3 hours behind my time. Maybe the cache is showing a day before date because you may have published in early am hours of the next day according to eastern time. lf you publish Tuesday morning at 12:30 am Eastern time, then your server may be showing Monday night 9:30 pm.
     
    barutiwa, Nov 17, 2013 IP
  3. sujet

    sujet Member

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    #3

    We are investigating another site that published this information. Before we forward this information to the proper channels as technical evidence we want to be sure that this evidence can't be disputed. We don't know where the physical location of the publishers server is, I don't think that really matters as the cache date that is provided was the time Bing cached the page. The bing server is in the same timezone as where the crime occured.
     
    sujet, Nov 17, 2013 IP
  4. barutiwa

    barutiwa Greenhorn

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    #4
    Interesting but mind boggling. Are you only having this problem with Bing? What about Google, Yahoo and a few other popular search engines that could be crawling your site?
     
    barutiwa, Nov 18, 2013 IP
  5. sujet

    sujet Member

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    #5
    Again, it is not our site :) Bing was the only search engine who had a cache of that particular content. Google did not index it and we did not look at any others.
     
    sujet, Nov 18, 2013 IP
  6. sujet

    sujet Member

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    #6
    154 views and only one person responding :) Yup, that's what we have been through the last 6 months, awkward silence. If you are reading this and you know somebody or are working in the following fields:

    Server Tech Analyst

    Server engineer

    Search Engine Developer

    Senior Server Administrator

    Please reply to this thread. Thanks in advance!
     
    sujet, Nov 19, 2013 IP
  7. sarahk

    sarahk iTamer Staff

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    #7
    • Have you contacted Microsoft/Bing? (yeah, well, you have to try)
    • Have you identified any other pages where the cache date precedes the page's publish date?
      • were they on the same site?
    • Have you set up test pages to replicate the problem
    I'm guessing the "crime" in question is access to information/insider trading so if the site knew something in advance then they can be prosecuted.

    Have you looked at the same page on archive.org just incase, by some sheer fluke, they also indexed it on that date?
     
    sarahk, Nov 19, 2013 IP
  8. sujet

    sujet Member

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    #8

    Hi Sarah, thank you for responding!

    - As stated, we have had conversations with Microsoft for 6 Months. The final statement was posted above. The entire conversation consists of over 20 emails.
    - As far as we know, there were no other conflicting dates/pages.
    - I can't set up test pages as the site doesn't belong to us. The site is a local newspaper. We have several people who took screenshots, and we have saved the page. The site was not cached by google, only by bing.
    We had written an article about this, and 5 days later the bing cache was removed. They now have a complete new website (the prior one was very cheaply designed). Stripped from most of the old content.
    - Oh yes, I have been to the waybackmachine, but they only snapshot the mainpage I believe? there are no snapshots in that month, as well as the prior month for the website.

    This information could hold up in court, at least we hope so. We would like to present that information to proper channels, but really want to rule out everything. We have the exact server location from that bing server and the timezone etc.. The date stamp is from the bing server. The timezones match (crime state/bing server)

    It is almost too much to comprehend, as this crime was all over the news. We feel it is important that it gets out to the public. So anybody reading this who would be willing to help us, please reply to this thread or PM me.
     
    sujet, Nov 19, 2013 IP
  9. sarahk

    sarahk iTamer Staff

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    #9
    Test pages could be on any site. You are looking for pages loaded at known date/time and seeing if the cache is backdated.
    Are you accusing your local newspaper of illegal activity? That they reported something before it should have been public knowledge.

    As simple as ignoring an embargo on a media release or something really juicy?
     
    sarahk, Nov 20, 2013 IP
  10. barutiwa

    barutiwa Greenhorn

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    #10
    There's also the reasonable doubt theory. What kind of local newspaper was it? Were they a combination of professional and citizen journalism? If that article was written by a citizen journalists claiming first hand account from one on one interviews, then they could argue they had the right to go to press asap. Keep in mind when crimes happen the police officers are not the first ones on the scene. It is the people who are witnesses to the crime. Maybe somebody tipped off the newspaper in question. Who knows. Seems like you're dealing with a highly complicated mess. Good luck.
     
    barutiwa, Nov 20, 2013 IP
  11. sujet

    sujet Member

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    #11
    Yes, exactly. Illegal activity is putting it mildly. Well they published on the day it happened, made a big mistake in that story as well, and retracted that. This is how the cached page was noticed as a colleague of mine was looking for the original article where they had made the mistake and BAM. One day prior it was cached. It's like they had it sitting in draft, ready to be published in the morning. I doubt, (judging by their cheaply designed website one year ago) that they had a robot.txt and knew that the search engine crawler would be able to access the directory.

    Oh, the Bing server location is at Microsoft Headquarters in Washington. You'd think that their time is set correctly on their server, and well, it was confirmed by Tech support after 6 months of email exchanges. We are currently discussing what would be the best way to go about it.

    This local newspaper has been in business since the 1800's. Family owned business. The fact that they had made a mistake in the published article on day of the crime is one thing, but to have an article sitting in draft about a crime that didn't even happen yet is ..I have no words for it. The reason we was looking at that particular crime intensively was because it was " a questionable incident" from the beginning.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Nov 20, 2013
    sujet, Nov 20, 2013 IP
  12. barutiwa

    barutiwa Greenhorn

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    #12
    Are you suggesting that this newspaper orchestrated the crime?
     
    barutiwa, Nov 23, 2013 IP
  13. aidanriley629

    aidanriley629 Banned

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    #13
    I don't get it. What was the crime? Link? It already happened, why is this so hypothetical now?
     
    aidanriley629, Nov 23, 2013 IP
  14. sarahk

    sarahk iTamer Staff

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    #14
    because when you are going to accuse someone of being an accessory to a crime (or worse) you need to have all the legal stuff sorted out before you go shouting from the rooftops.
    Don't expect a link anytime soon.
     
    sarahk, Nov 23, 2013 IP
  15. aidanriley629

    aidanriley629 Banned

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    #15
    I don't disagree. I was/am unclear who is accusing whom of what crime at this point, but my comment was referring more to the fact that this should be dealt with by legal professionals in the proper setting (the other kind of public forum :p).
     
    aidanriley629, Nov 23, 2013 IP
  16. sujet

    sujet Member

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    #16

    +1 That's exactly the case. We finally have another contact who is willing to look at the case. We also have another page that was cached at the same date, with a matching publish date.

    Thanks for your replies!
     
    sujet, Nov 23, 2013 IP