Who is bobbie cookie?

[Joe Dorn]

Was it located near a shower? I thought funnel clouds were possible with showers? I also heard from a friend that she once saw a funnel cloud on a clear day. I have no idea if a cloud formation could become a funnel cloud with no storm associated with it but I have seen reports before where conditions were favorable for weak funnel clouds associated with any shower that popped up. Sorry for going off-topic I just need some more clarification.

I guess you did not look at the screen captures in an earlier post... He reported 4.5 inch hail and other such 'not possible's' with little or nothing in the location... I would expect that hail that size would require tops around 50,000 feet. A little hard to hide that from three radars within a hundred miles. (FTS, GRK and SHV)



a funnel cloud on a clear day? probably a dust devil, perhaps over water.

We have had tornadoes out of low level clouds, one near Troy, Texas early last year. I have video (from a cell phone) of it... It was an f0 and certainly did not produce even pea sized hail.

Edit:

My error...

The screen shoots in the earlier posts did not show the first 'cookie' tornado.... There were no radar returns in the area of the first cookienado post...

 

[Eric Whitehill]

Here lies some of the problems with SN. No matter how much Tyler or Al try, this is something that will continue to happen. Just about everyone has a computer. Just about anyone can register for SN as a false person. There is NOTHING Tyler can do to stop this. What's the worst thing Tyler can do? Close their account. It does nothing from stopping someone from going through a proxy, registering as a new user, and doing this all over again. Sure the process can be made manual, but that still doesn't stop someone from finding a person in the US running TOROnion and setting up a new account.

What this is doing is just continually justifying why SN is a bad idea. On one hand, it's great! Anyone can do this. It makes it so simple. We can track our spotters in the field, and chasers can report sightings and everything else! It's the greatest thing since sliced bread! (Which I have to say is true - SN has revolutionized weather reporting)

What people are forgetting is this - how hard (or easy) is it to make a false report. In the last week, we have seen three instances of either poor or false reporting. How much longer until someone really gets hurt? How much longer before NWS tells a large city to blow the sirens and nothing happens? And then it is realized that NWS is relying on some outside person who has taken no formal training, using some piece of software that the gov't has no hand in, and that NWS has fallen for false reports on multiple occasions? What happens then?

Yes, in this case someone 'claimed' they had good intentions. I am doubting that. Again, this also demonstrates how easy it is to make a false report.

In my opinion, NWS should not rely upon SN reports in the least - not until these glaring issues get resolved. SN reports should be placed as a lowest priority amongst anything. How many times have we seen bad reporting? More times than I would care to count. As far as I am concerned, I have seen more poor reporting out of SN than I have heard out of the worst SKYWARN nets in the plains. Heck, I think even Benton County, MN has better reporting out of it than SN. The question is - how many more security holes are in this software or in the reporting?

Perhaps SN should get rid of everyone and start again from scratch. Only allow in people who have been vetted by either NWS staff or other chasers. Allow a person to 'vet' up to 5 people a year. That way only known chasers and spotters are gaining access to the system and it can be more easily tracked. That way we also have a clear path as to how people are gaining access to SN.

ex: Al invites Chris, John, Karen, Jeff, and Chuck, then each of them can invite up to 5 people a year, etc, you get the idea.

 

[Tyler Allison]

Wow! I was trying to keep this low key, but I see it back fired. Responses below.

I am with Steve on that. Someone pulls obvious BS like that, they should immediately be banned from the system in all ways possible.

I never said it wasn't BS. I simply said _HE_ said he was trying to be helpful. I can make no judgement as to his motives, I'm not him. Also, his account has been locked and was locked immediately after the bogus reports were brought to my attention.

Here lies some of the problems with SN. No matter how much Tyler or Al try, this is something that will continue to happen. Just about everyone has a computer. Just about anyone can register for SN as a false person. There is NOTHING Tyler can do to stop this. What's the worst thing Tyler can do? Close their account. It does nothing from stopping someone from going through a proxy, registering as a new user, and doing this all over again. Sure the process can be made manual, but that still doesn't stop someone from finding a person in the US running TOROnion and setting up a new account.

True. But it will be slightly more difficult than just generating a new email address and signing up again in the near future.

What this is doing is just continually justifying why SN is a bad idea.

SN is no different than using a phone, email, website, espotter, ham radio, whatever to send in messages to the NWS. All of them are a non-authenticated method. It comes with the territory of asking the general public for help.

On one hand, it's great! Anyone can do this. It makes it so simple. We can track our spotters in the field, and chasers can report sightings and everything else! It's the greatest thing since sliced bread! (Which I have to say is true - SN has revolutionized weather reporting)

Why, thank you

What people are forgetting is this - how hard (or easy) is it to make a false report. In the last week, we have seen three instances of either poor or false reporting. How much longer until someone really gets hurt? How much longer before NWS tells a large city to blow the sirens and nothing happens? And then it is realized that NWS is relying on some outside person who has taken no formal training, using some piece of software that the gov't has no hand in, and that NWS has fallen for false reports on multiple occasions? What happens then?

True. What you are forgetting is that SN is simply a conduit. You could argue that the phone service should be disbanded because you can call 911 and submit a false report. Only thing is we are actually trying to fix the problem of bad reports within the power we have.

In my opinion, NWS should not rely upon SN reports in the least - not until these glaring issues get resolved.

Propose a workable solution to each issue. I'd _love_ to hear them!

SN reports should be placed as a lowest priority amongst anything. How many times have we seen bad reporting? More times than I would care to count.

Wild generalizations going on here. NWS staff from Goodland have done an extensive review of the past history of SN reports and a quality and a presentation/paper has been written and being prepared for presentation. You are taking highly publicised incidents and making assumptions that simply do not hold up to analysis. We've had a total of _4_...yes FOUR cases of reported, verifiable, bogus reports. That's out of thousands and thousands of reports. Now you can argue about quality, which we are trying to address for 2009, but they were not blatantly bogus.

The question is - how many more security holes are in this software or in the reporting?

What has that got to do with report quality?

Perhaps SN should get rid of everyone and start again from scratch. Only allow in people who have been vetted by either NWS staff or other chasers. Allow a person to 'vet' up to 5 people a year. That way only known chasers and spotters are gaining access to the system and it can be more easily tracked. That way we also have a clear path as to how people are gaining access to SN.

This was the original plan but was thrown out because the NWS has no vetting process and using a "vetting" process of people nominating others only lasts for the first year or two. Then you end up with what you have today. It only slows the adoption and improvements and does not address the real issues.

Although, I do have to say after reading all of this and doing some thinking, I think SN might make for a good topic and presentation at DEFCON or HOPE.

For what? DEFCON and HOPE don't discuss report quality. None of the issues you bring up have anything to do with security.

If you or anyone else would like to try and blackbox the website I'd be more than happy to work with you to do so. I don't claim no vulnerabilities, just best effort with the time I have as a volunteer.

 

[Tyler Allison]

I'm no legal expert - but he didn't make those false reports to the NWS like the guy last year did... He made them to SpotterNetwork, and since that's not a government agency I'm not sure the same legal ramifications would apply?

And actually....if the data did flow to the NWS (in this case there was no direct link to eSpotter for the location of the reports) we have more logged information about the report than they do through their methods. They have a better chance of "catching" the person doing it if they do it through the SN than without.

 

[Lanny Dean]

We got a response from "cookie". needless to say he doesn't know what he is doing and was trying to be helpful.

I hope to announce some major improvements with the SN in the next 60 days that will hopefully greatly reduce these kinds of occurrences in the 2009 storm season.

Okay, maybe we should get back to the original topic....Who is bobbie cookie?
I would personally like to know, so that if in the future other reports from this person come under question, I will be certain to disregard them because of the above quote.
With all the "lingo" used and position in relation to the storm in question, I would say this guy probably has more knowledge than given credit for at this point.
If that is the case, then the assumtion that he was "trying to be helpful" should be in question due to the severity of the situation.
Either way, these are the kind of issues that go along with using and being a part of something like SN...it's not a good thing, nor a bad thing, it just goes along with using and trying to adapt to the "latest greatest".

As mentioned before, Shane A. has a really nice post on his blog regarding this very type of issue.

As far as the "Vet" thing...too many questions and issues come to mind.....what constitute a vet? Should it be how many years they have chased, how many tornadoes that have bagged, how many miles they have driven, if they are a member here on ST, how many times per month they post or better yet, I vote for the always good "who they know vet" Come on give me a break!

This question of making sure they are a veteran chaser has to be the most ridculous thing I have heard over and over regarding many situations in the last 18 years.
I saw my first tornado on April 26, 1991 and did not see another tornado until 1993, despite having chased over 15,000 miles from TX to Nebraska those two years, but that did not make me a "Vet"
The idea of making sure he/she is a veteran before taking anything seriously whether by actions, words, posting or even giving reports is just stupid....I wonder how many on this very thread were not allowed to give reports or communicate as such because they were a newbie?

 

[Rob Wadsworth]

I'm not so sure that this guy should get kicked out; I think he has learned more than he has bargained for - if he was honest about his claims.
His heart is in the right place if he is a volunteer and wants to help; I can't grudge him for that.
However, his actions made clear that there is a breach in the system that only Tyler might/might not be able to fix. I can't wait to see what he comes up with.

"Bobbie Cookie" needs to learn all that he can and needs to be conservative with his reports - only to report what he knows he has seen. Maybe he should be invited to STORMTRACK? Learning from the members here in a direct dialog and get some tutoring in time for next year and what's left of this year.
I would rather he learned from his mistakes and get some coaching - rather than to go on his present course and repeat them/someone be harmed by it...

Like I said, he volunteered his booty into a dangerous endeavor. Don't give him breaks - give him valuable lessons instead. All that he needs to learn is at his fingertips, his computer, and his willingness to learn more.
This has been my first year of chasing, and I also am an eSpotter.
I didn't put out any bad or wrong reports, and only wrote a half a dozen to the NWS - and NONE on the SN.
Buena Vista County IA needed my help and asked me for it. I agreed to do my very best. I haven't heard any complaints - but thanks instead.

 

[Tim Vasquez]

The system probably needs reliability level codes... for example 0 is someone not verified at all, 1 is someone authenticated only through email (even claiming to be a spotter), 2 is someone authenticated by snail mail or automated phone verification, 3 is someone verified manually.... all the way up to 7 being a spotter verified on a network, 8 being spotters verified on a network and verified for current training, 9 is a NWS employee. It's a scalable system as ways to validate reports are developed, and they can be made part of the report and can be color coded in GrLevel3, etc.

Even systems like Rentacoder regularly do automated phone verification, and I'd imagine it's a matter of time before an e-spotter system manages to do confirmations like that (or by some other method besides verifying a throwaway email address).

Tim

 

[Tyler Allison]

Interesting idea Tim!

 

[Laura Hedien]

Great idea Tim.
And Tyler... this isn't your "bust". Thank you for all you do! Ban the "oops" boy and be done with it; wipe your shoes on the mat and we'll move on.
Laura

PS- you going to Doswell's talk at COD Thursday?

 

[Heidi Farrar]

I think some things need to be re-stated, in case anyone really thinks "bobbie" was actually chasing or spotting yesterday. First, assuming that "bobbie" and "fffefefefe" are one in the same, there really is no way that this person was actually reporting from the field; the reports were too close together (~30 minutes or even less) from distances too far apart for it to be possible for him to have actually been there and observed what he claimed. Since I was not watching GR3 when the first reports popped up, and it was too late to use the archiver to see what was there at the time, the weird times on the reports were my clue that someone was abusing the system. My suspicion is that this is an at least somewhat crazed armchair chaser who was probably not even in Texas... at the very least, someone who used some extremely bad judgement (obviously).

 

[David Drummond]

I never said it wasn't BS. I simply said _HE_ said he was trying to be helpful. I can make no judgment as to his motives, I'm not him. Also, his account has been locked and was locked immediately after the bogus reports were brought to my attention.

You misunderstand Tyler. I never said you said it as BS. I personally say it's bull****. I saw the reports going on out here in west Texas the other day were obviously bull****. Some were just minutes apart but a county or two away. Never mind the screen name was obviously BS. It was clear someone was manually setting their GPS position (and not doing a very good job at it) and making false reports.

The possible exception might be is someone on the system was testing, but if that were too, one would think they would use something indicating it was a test.

 

[Danny Neal]

I think some things need to be re-stated, in case anyone really thinks "bobbie" was actually chasing or spotting yesterday. First, assuming that "bobbie" and "fffefefefe" are one in the same, there really is no way that this person was actually reporting from the field; the reports were too close together (~30 minutes or even less) from distances too far apart for it to be possible for him to have actually been there and observed what he claimed. Since I was not watching GR3 when the first reports popped up, and it was too late to use the archiver to see what was there at the time, the weird times on the reports were my clue that someone was abusing the system. My suspicion is that this is an at least somewhat crazed armchair chaser who was probably not even in Texas... at the very least, someone who used some extremely bad judgement (obviously).

My guess is that it was some wannabe(young or old) sitting there listening to his ham or the local TV/radio station and sending in erroneous reports. I have a sneaking suspicion that this dude just wanted to see HIS report broadcast through EAS/NWS/local TV. "1/2 mile wide tornado in a very HP supercell almost rapped in rain" That's something you'd hear off a live phone in from Joe Homemaker into WFAA or something. Something tells me this dude was getting bits and pieces off the media and piecing them together where they were reporting the strongest cells.

Same type of thing happened in my town only it was related to our department. Some guy kept calling in "garage fire" or "house fire" in the matter of 4 hours this summer on people grilling. Dude was driving around, saw smoke, and called the FD. reporting a fully envolved fire. Of course we are going to respond and of course the cavalry arrives only to find 2 family picnics, an old man, and a bonfire. This cry-wolf is way past getting old. Wanna get some attention? Do it the right way.

Do what you need to do to make SN a more reputable tool to the NWS. Whatever it takes to eliminate the "posers" I support 100%. Tim's idea making the most sense to me.

 

[Tyler Allison]

"bobbie" was not anywhere near Texas. According to our information he was in New York and I suspect he wanted to see what happened when you submitted reports. Unfortunately he didn't understand that the SN actually works and no...we don't need people running tests...thank you very much.

 

[Danny Neal]

Shane wasn't far off!

"........give a person like Cookie Monster the "pass" stamp of approval in the real world?" ~ Passion Twisted

COOOOOOKIE!

 

[Aaron Dooley]

NWS & SN

I have to agree with everyone. I think "cookie" should be banned from using the system as well. Unfortunately, unless it can be done on an IP level, "cookie" may show up as "doughboy" or "pie" or whatever other user name and it's back into the thick of things. Also, it is unfortunate that there are people out there who would rather cause a panic and cry wolf rather than say "oops, I made a mistake" then dont let it happen again. My brother in law is an attorney and i asked him what could be done. He simply said "ban the guy from the system. Nothing the government can do since it is not a recognized government affiliate. If the NWS uses info from the SN site to issue warnings, the fault falls on them." Now I did not agree with him 100%but he has a good point. That is why there are redundancies in place. It's just a sad state of affairs..

The NWS in this instance did not issue a tornado warning based on Cookie, they issued it based on radar data and my reports at the onset. I have never known them to base warnings simply on SN reports. I was on with them on the 147.140 as well as the phone before they did anything.

-Dooley