The "OSM Standard tile layer" looks wrong (white lines, abusive comments etc.)

Happens to all of us :wink:

(but e.g. I see those white grid lines only on iOS Safari, but not at e.g. Firefox on desktop).

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Yeah, that happened to me too before I realised I was actually zoomed in.

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The language is (obscene) Russian, but with Cyrillic У sometimes replaced by Latin Y. The content is strongly and vulgarly anti-Putin and anti-Russian.

“OSM” is all of us. We need to decide what sort of project we want it to be - should it allow essentially anonymous contributions from anywhere or should more rules be put in place around account sign-up? Just saying “something must be done” might raise the profile but isn’t in itself helpful. How do you think the project should change** so that issues like this don’t happen - and what will be the impact on the 99.9999% of non-vandal OSMers?

Ultimately someone who is technically familiar with the website code will need to make changes to that, but before that as a project we need to be happy with the direction of the proposed changes and understand what the implications are.

** this is definitely best discussed in another thread

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By all means write a wiki page (or a wiki post here that can be pinned) that is a concise summary of the best advice above that someone posting here for the first time and just knows OSM as “a map they can edit” can follow.

The current wiki vandalism page covers all sorts of ground and is neither concise nor a good summary of this problem. There are lots of “This is the first time XYZ has posted — let’s welcome them to our community” in the 360 or so posts above. That’s entirely to be expected - we can’t expect people reporting an urgent issue to read 360 prior posts or sift through our delightful wiki before posting.

I tried to summarise here what is the suspected motivation of this vandal and here what someone should do when they see a problem, but I’m sure there’s more that the second of those in particular should say.

With regard to the Switch2osm guides, I did write a diary entry that among other things explains how to use the Switch2osm pages to keep an “occasionally updated” site - perhaps it’s worth another link below the three technical “Updating your database as people edit” how links to add a page that explains why you might want to do that only occasionally and what you’d check before pushing the update button. The code of the site is here.

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This one here: Wave of vandalism is a good and concise post about the problem that should be pinned (with an English title) (and also translated into other languages to be pinned in subforums for Russian|Italian|Spanish|etc. pp.)

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It’s pinned in the German forum, and the second half is in German, but it makes sense to pin just the English translation separately under General talk or Help and support. I can’t do that, probably only a mod can.

There’s the people who don’t know where to report vandalism, but there’s also people who want to make maps from OSM data and do not want to have vandalism in it. I can take a stab at putting a warning in the Wiki or the Switch2OSM guide, but I am not really the best qualified person to do that, so it would have to be reviewed by someone else (no pun intended).

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OK, done - @mods-support , all suggestions for edits to e.g. the content and the pin period length gratefully received!

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Is there an option to pin and close a topic? This would probably be the best as to not have any discussions on those that may only confuse.

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Good point - I should have thought about that. I’ve closed it now; mods can edit it (and unclose / unpin / extend pin / whatever) if needed.

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unrelated DDoS attack

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You’ve done a forensic examination to make this determination? Or you’re just guessing?

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… possibly, of OSM US Slack** a couple of days ago where one of the admins said exactly that. :slight_smile:

** and elsewhere I think; that was the first place I could quickly find it.

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who says it was them who added it? Nobody likes vandalism, by definition, so if you want to make someone look bad…

I’d say, then its high time to call the feds, errm, the cisa.

PS: They even offer a free service.

neither, as SomeoneElse mentioned admins were dealing with it - and as I understand it, this attacks are unrelated. And DDoS attacks of criminal variety with attempted extortion are repeatedly happening - and have different level of noticeability.

(and obviously, OSMF is never paying criminals - thanks to great work of our admins sooner or later they go away to attack a different target)

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RIght. Unless you’ve determined who is actually behind it (and if so, OSMF should be seeking appropriate legal redress if feasible), all you can say is “these attacks look different” or “these attacks are coming from separate IP addresses” and so forth. If you don’t know who’s behind it, then it’s irresponsible to say “these are not related”.

There are any number of actors that desire for the map to look a certain way. For some groups, having borders (in particular) be in a certain place, or not in a certain place, is not just a preference - it’s existential. Perception matters, and convincing the world of your version of reality, as represented on maps, is tied to public support and things like international aid and arms for war. In other words, for certain groups, what’s on the map is literally a matter of life or death.

If having the map look a certain way is existential, then having no map at all is better than having the “wrong” map. And so, there is plenty of motivation for groups that are on the wrong end of what’s on OSM to conclude that OSM’s very existence is an existential threat.

At any given time, we could be facing an attack ranging from a single disgruntled individual clicking around in iD all the way up to a nation’s intelligence service or armed forces depending on perceptions of national interest.

I do not think that a bunch of hobbyists are likely to prevail against a group that decides that OSM’s existence is an existential problem. It is too easy to harm OSM, and someone whose interests are existential are unlikely to get bored. And that is why I’ve repeatedly called for OSMF to seek the level of assistance and expertise that’s commensurate with the scale of the potential threat it faces.

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That is currently being worked on. Hats off to the people doing that. Right now.

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If we can identify the culprit we can either engage with law enforcement or, if their government is protecting them, protest so that goodwill to the country is damaged. This last doesnʼt work as well if the country doesnʼt need international goodwill and doesnʼt care about its reputation.

Those aren’t streets. The lines, combined with you finding it blurry, means your browser is likely zoomed in or out, or something elsewhere in your system is scaling the images. spiekerooger’s theories are incorrect.