Comic for Monday, June 27th, 2022
Jun28
on June 28, 2022
at 5:52 am
Comic! Ended up having more panels and taking longer than expected. Sort of that thing where I took more than one page and stuffed it on half a page, because that’s what I tend to do.
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Does anyone know who the black suit in the last panel is? Does he have a name or is he one of the nameless cannon fodder goons? The side of his face and his collar are bloody so he may be one of the goons Naomi punched. Thanks for any replies in advance..
Hello?? Can anyone help with my question or are you all roasting marshmellows at the latest barn fire using pitchforks.
Both Arkady and Lisa seem to recognize the black suit guy. Lisa whispers “Arkady that’s-” and Arkady whispers back “I know-“
Roasting marshmallows on pitchforks….. now I need a dedicated marshmallow roasting pitchfork. I could probably do like an entire bag at once.
I don’t know. I don’t think he’s been named.
Speaking of names, I posted a really eloquent reply regarding Avi’s history in this documentary. Unfortunately it contained links, and got held for review. But trust me. It was eloquent. And awesome. Trust me, would I lie to you?
OMG, posting comments with links that point back to *this* site? You’re such a spammer. Sigh.
I really feel like forum anti-spam software should be able to recognize the forum’s own URLs.
I’m in complete agreement. However a couple of thoughts on that.
Past clearly has a dev background of some sort. However coding plug-ins to WordPress is its own specialty, and I suspect Past’s experience is not as a PHP dev, much less WordPress specifically. Thus our Great Archive is at the mercy of what plug-ins exist.
The arms race between spammer and content manager is such that it isn’t always a trivial to determine the end destination of a link as we’d like. Did they use the admittedly ancient syntax that packs a website user/pass into the url, but making the domain of the website the user? That looks a lot like a self referential link, but isn’t. Did someone find a redirect bug in WordPress so that a self referential link ends up being rejected off site? There’s lots of ways for that self referential check to fail badly.
So yeah, I agree. But there’s a lot of details in that soup.
Maybe I should just dial down the spamming!
I wouldn’t expect Past to have to do this functionality improvement. I feel like it should already be in some available anti-spam packages.
Checking for XSS attacks is certainly something that would also need to be done for any routine by someone who would simply trust the URL actually mapped back to the site. It would probably be easier to write a regex that validated the URL was something we expected could be a file rather than to exclude all of the separate ways to encode URLs in URLs. Apart from, of course, being a regex, and so therefore itself an illegible problem.
That said, the implementation I’d probably be inclined to do would be to get a cache of all of the actual links of the site and check if it’s one of those. Since part of the site includes a wiki, that would not play well with recently added wiki pages – but that’s a feature. Until we’ve verified they weren’t added by a spammer, those are suspect also.
Of course, generating that list of all the pages in the site isn’t necessarily a trivial task, since even in traditional websites, the mapping between files on the machine running the webserver and files actually made available on the web can be arbitrarily complicated. But it’s been decades since somebody added the concept of storing web pages in databases which might not even be on the same machine.
As such, a website admin would likely need to tell it how to make that determination unless the anti-spam software could get this from the webpage framework itself. I’m not familiar enough with WordPress to know if this would be the case with it or not. That said, I feel like I’m more familiar with WordPress than I want to be. I mean, it’s written in PHP, and as someone who writes codes professionally, I have opinions on that. Said opinions are more about whether I’d be willing to touch it with a pole regardless of pole length than they are about how other people do their business. But they’re also in general ‘no’ and ‘not again’.
It sounds a lot like we agree!
I’m not claiming to be a regex expert, but in my last 3 jobs at least, I was the defacto regex expert. I would not be willing to try to vet a url with a regex, though I bet there are some really good examples on Stack Exchange, et al.
I kind of like the “this is our list of urls” approach. It sounds a bit tedious, until you think that many sites have a site map for SEO purposes anyway. If you can build the site map….. that’s pretty much your white list, yes?
Still sounds like a lot of work to me. 😉
I, um, was actually required on multiple occasions to vet a URL with a regex. Ugh.
There was one that I felt was pretty secure, because it was a positive regex. You know, “the URL needs to be this string made up of only these exact characters.” The regex in question only allowed one punctuation character after the hostname was done, and that one character had to be four characters from the end. Also, it had to be that one specific character.
One of the other two definitely had issues, as it was early enough in my career that I hadn’t learned about all of the URL escaping characters I currently am aware of. At least it was an internal only site, and another bug in our code made the XSS code a bit tricky to do.
I don’t know about the third one. I didn’t support it for long enough to know if it also proved to have a security hole or not. It was the last website I officially supported, so I haven’t had a particular reason to keep up with XSS protection requirements.
While there are a lot of tricks you can play with URLs, mostly what they do is make it impossible to recognize known bad patterns, rather than spoofing known good patterns. A filter that blocked any URLs not starting with https://pastutopia.com/ might block some valid URLs, but it isn’t going to let in any that are invalid because they point to the wrong host (it might be doing some other sort of injection). I suspect the reason for the response being held for review is because the default filter just limits how many URLs can be in a single post and doesn’t bother with any further validation.
By the way, we still don’t know what Naomi’s sister is capable of.
I’m pretty sure we’ve already determined that at a minimum she possesses weapon grade cute.
You know, Ila DID tell everyone to avoid dying for a minute.
AARRGGH!!! You had to mention “Naomi’s little sister!” so I had to look it up. Her name, Avi, was mentioned in the Monday, November 29th, 2021 comic character’s list. I’ll probably forget her name again and need to do an Archive dive again. LOL
We don’t know what Arkady’s brother Artem can do either. Maybe Artem and Naomi’s little sister … whoops … Avi… will surprise us. They might join hands and shout “Shazzam!” to summon a red construct.
Avi want actually named until 2022-01-24.
https://pastutopia.com/comic/comic-for-monday-january-24th-2022/
On 2022-01-17 she was still being labeled as “Naomi’s little sister”, to the point where the character list on each comic lists her that way for that day. However her introduction on Nov 29 now lists her as Avi.
https://pastutopia.com/comic/comic-for-monday-january-17th-2022/
I suspect that mere red constructs are under powered for that duo. I’m thinking precise, selective editing of reality, possibly even of history. The sort of thing that makes “Infinity Stone Gauntlet” look like a common, crude tool.
It’s science.
“I’m betting that Illa comes back with the stuff in time to see things go bad and completely looses it. ”
She witnessed something from the air. I bet she aborts her trip to intervene, but she’s extra irritable because of the interruption.
Out of all the characters in the comic, sorry, historical archive, ILA is the probably the one that you don’t want to annoy. It also looks like Mium and Naomi will also soon be on the scene. Poor little black suits.
PS- I just noticed that the black suit talking to Arkady looks like he may be one of the ones that Naomi roughed up. Looks like his face is scraped or bloody and his collar also looks bloody.
At the very least an annoyed Ila is the most probable to make sure you are never a problem again.
Comic will be up sometime Tuesday (the 5th) probably. Sort of forgot it was a holiday and plans shifted around a bit.
aw that’s ok pal. you deserve a day off every now and then. and on behalf of everyone, I say we’ll use the torches to light fireworks, and use pitchforks for the BBQ in your honor.
That’s great! It starts with an earthquake
Birds and snakes, an aeroplane
and Lenny Bruce is not afraid
Eye of a hurricane, listen to yourself churn
World serves its own needs, don’t mis-serve your own needs
Speed it up a notch, speed, grunt, no strength
The ladder starts to clatter with fear of height, down height
Wire in a fire, representing seven games
In a government for hire and a combat site
Left of west and coming in a hurry
With the furies breathing down your neck
Team by team reporters baffled, trump, tethered crop
Look at that low plane! Fine, then
Uh oh, overflow, population, Common Food
But it’ll do. Save yourself, serve yourself
World serves its own needs, listen to your heart bleed
Tell me with the rapture and the reverent in the right, right
You vitriolic, patriotic, slam, fight, bright light
Feeling pretty psyched
It’s the end of the world as we know it
It’s the end of the world as we know it
It’s the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine
Six o’clock. TV hour
Don’t get caught in foreign tower
Slash and burn, return
Listen to yourself churn
Lock him in uniform and book burning, bloodletting
Every motive escalate. Automotive incinerate
Light a candle, light a votive
Step down, step down
Watch a heel crush, crush
Uh oh, this means no fear; cavalier
Renegade and steer clear!
A tournament, a tournament
A tournament of lies
Offer me solutions, offer me alternatives
And I decline
The other night I tripped a nice
Continental drift divide
Mountains sit in a line
Leonard Bernstein, Leonid Brezhnev
Lenny Bruce, and Lester Bangs
Birthday party, cheesecake, jelly beans, boom!
You symbiotic, patriotic, slam, but neck, right? (Right!)
It’s the end of the world as we know it
It’s the end of the world as we know it
It’s the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine
Hey Folks-
I don’t think I’ll be able to catch up this week, so it’ll roll over to next week. Need to make sure the pitchforks don’t get rusty and the torches expire.
Comic will be up as regular next week.
Thanks for letting us know.
It will give Ila more time to wipe out the snipers.
Also, While ILA is taking out snipers, Naomi will come back and punch a few black suited goons. If I remember correctly, Arkady is able to put up a strong shield but I don’t know if it would stop a sniper bullet. If the goons do manage to harm any Naomi-friends, Mium may explore some decision trees where very few/none of the goons survive. He then could let ILA know their chain of command and some rogue families would lose leadership. The black suited fools really have no idea of the shit storm looming over them.
I’m betting that Illa comes back with the stuff in time to see things go bad and completely looses it. Partly out of guilt, since she left them alone despite being told to keep them safe. Since Arkady knows who is making demands and what they want with his little brother, he isn’t likely to just go along with things. Hostages don’t tend to get out alive when the hostage takers have reason to be truly upset. And, considering what Arkady’s father did (murdering one of the rogue family heads), they have more than enough reason to hold some grudges.
It is probably going to depend on if the goons harm anyone. I wouldn’t consider any of the goons to be rational so who knows what they will do. In my opinion, what Ashvalt did was kill/execute a criminal and not murder. The green haired vile hag family head was the leader of the bod guys attempting to kidnap his son and many had died due to her plot. Ashvalt actually showed restraint by not killing a family heir in that battle. Personally, I’d have killed all the attackers if they attacked my family. Don’t give them another chance.
Noting that Saraine was engaged in activity that they would consider warranted the death penalty if it were their enemies doing it to them is generally not something feuding families take the time to do. If they would, we’d probably have fewer feuding families.
I feel like the fact that they lost such a heavy hitter will have more of a dampening effect on their actions than the recognition that she was perpetrating evil at the time she was ended. But even there – they’re running around like chickens with their heads cut off, rather than stopping and thinking about why their head got cut off. So we don’t really get any respite until after this flurry of activity is over. The rogues will therefore probably have bigger losses by the time it’s done.
Past nothing to fear from the mob. Mr Bean is supervising Larry, Mo and Curly to clean carmelized and burnt marshmellow off the tines of the pitchforks.
Seriously, take care of real life before catering to the wants of the ungrateful mob.
PS- Everyone should know who Mr Bean is. Larry, Mo and Curly refer to the Three Stooges (1922-1970). I would refer everyone to look these folks up on YouTube but then they might miss the next week’s comic during a binge watch. LOL
Oh, a wise guy, eh?
I guess I’m old. To me, it seems like everyone knows who Larry, Moe, Curly, Shemp, fake Shemp, and Curly Joe were. Of course, listing them out like that makes the name “The Three Stooges” seem a bit off, but there were only three at a time. Larry, Moe, and [ one of Shemp, Curly (aka Shemp’s replacement), Shemp (back because of Curly having medical problems – cancer or stroke maybe?), fake Shemp (because Shemp died), or Curly Joe ].
I will admit to knowing who Mr. Bean is, but I don’t actually understand why people think he’s funny. I will admit to having not watched any Mr. Bean or Black Adder on my own, though I have been subjected to an amount I felt was excessive, especially on the Black Adder front.
To be clear, I’m not that big of a fan of any of that. The Stooges may be a classic comedy act, but it’s also pain due to miscommunication and misunderstanding, and I feel like there’s too much of that which happens already to make any more. The Stooges make a lot of people laugh, but what’s sad is the state of the world today is we are over 7 billion stooges and we all seem to think everyone else is a wise guy.
They are SERIOUSLY doubling down in this situation?
When even the psychotic warzombie is going “welp, I’m out”?
David and his minions do not know the meaning of quit while you are alive. Odds are that they all use cocaine. Risky behavior, delusions, paranoia feelings of superiority, etc.
I don’t remember if ILA has destroyed a Kor’s world tank but I seem to remember her destroying one. Mium “disassembled” a Kor’s tank so even if daffy David is still around he will find out his armor is gone. Naomi ripped an arm off a Kor’s tank and punched one out. Any one of those three can quickly eliminate the bumbling morons. Naomi found Mium by himself so Aaron may have David in custody.
Unsure. I don’t think Ila has even seen a Kor’s world tank – we have only really seen them once at the school, and there, Naomi and Kally dealt out the damage.
Mym has dismantled a IDS walking tank before, leaving the operator intact, while operating Ila’s unit. How much of that info made it back to Mym’s core system is another question, given that instance of Mym is now fully autonomous and has no doubt sneaked offworld by now.
Ila definitely tag-teamed one Kor’s world soldier with the help of Fluffy, until she found out sniper rifles need reloading.
Didn’t realize it was an IDS tank and not from Kor’s world. My memory often needs refreshing. Thx.
To be fair, these family suits have probably no idea what went down between Rovak, David, Mium and Arron. That being said, their boss sent his minions as cannon fodder to distract Naomi, Arkady and who else would turn up to protect Artem, so they are either naïve, risk-loving or indeed suicidal.
I can come up with a theory D) Downsizing. As in getting rid of useless minions in order to free up the more useful ones to do stuff.
Maybe they also figure on saving a lot of money by not having to pay pensions.
I prefer to call the suits ignorant dumbasses but your descriptions also fit. The families have previously displayed a profound lack of knowledge about non-family people. In the first kidnapping attempt, Serine (sp? the green haired family head that Ashvalt chopped) referred to Kally as “that IDS girl” instead of Red Dragon Witch. Another rogue family member was unexpectedly punched through a wall by Naomi. Naomi also chomped green psychic swords and cracked a shield.
The mouseover text confused me until I looked a little more carefully…
I would not sell those goons life insurance.
I would sell them $1 million life insurance for $2 million! LOL
David and his IDS minions seem predisposed towards extreme dumbassedness. It might stem from their view of Malsans as “native wildlife.” Whether their latest kidnapping plot is successful or not, they have a world of hurt headed their way.
My old brain is confused and don’t understand the mouseover. Please explain. Thx.
I think this is a Malsan family black suit.
Even David thought that the kidnapping plan might be too risky:
https://pastutopia.com/comic/comic-for-monday-march-21st-2022/
David as a child stuck a metal strip in an electric socket and got shocked. He continued to do that throughout childhood expecting that one day he wouldn’t get shocked. He would also attempt to grab boiled eggs from boiling water. David was often scratched when teasing the family cat. I see a pattern here.
I got confused since David is IDS. Past could make this simpler for me if he dressed goons doomed in red like Star Trek original series. LOL
The mouseover text says “?! indeed”.
If you look closely at Panel 7, over the goon’s head, you can see Ila flying by with a little “?!” next to her, and she seems to be looking backwards (that part is hard to tell given it’s just a tiny blob, you can only be sure it’s Ila by the color scheme).
Feels like a video game reference where an NPC spots you and a “!” or “?” pops up. This suggests to me Ila has seen (or heard) the kidnappers acting shady, and that it probably isn’t going to end well for them.
When your overwatch gets overwatched.
Thank you. If you hadn’t explained this I would not have noticed. I jack the magnification up to 300% and then I can make out ILA. The ?! is difficult for me to see even at 300%.
A world of hurt is about to drop on the goon’s. I wonder if Mium will be providing targeting again. Even with all the friendly support, there is a chance that Arkady will get dinged again. Maybe he should wear a red shirt! LOL
Thinking that they are well into “they died not even knowing they died” territory here. Unless mym insists on non-lethal neutralization of the snipers of course (but even then, I am guessing they are never gonna make it to their assigned positions)
Thank you. I could have read this page a dozen times without catching that!
The foolish black suit minions must be related to David since they don’t know when to quit. They had best not injure anyone in their latest kidnap attempt. Everyone there probably meets Mium’s friends and family exception. Then there would be the spectre of enraged ILA and Naomi to deal with. The bad guys have no mage support. Mium’s targeting date might be head shots the next time. It might come down to if Arkady and Lisa can protect against snipers or not.
PS- It is Monday at 7:40pm on Midway Island so Past made it on Monday.
PPS- Sorry, Past, I forgot to wish you happy birthday!
PPPS- Last panel- Keep YOUR hands WHERE the snipers …
Thinking they were employing David as an ablative idiot, But when out of the rogue family idiot, the IDS idiot and the psychotic warmage idiot, the warmage is the closest to sane, well, that’s not a good look….
LOL! I was also thinking that Rovak was saner than David and the various black suits.
BTW, since you mentioned ablative that is what it looked like happened to the Kor’s world tank when Mium dematerialized it but the man inside appeared unharmed.
MYM is willing to put a little more effort into ensuring the humans are neutralized in a survivable manner. Of course, he then sends Ila in to correct that, but that’s just him working around his programmed restrictions…