Letter Regarding Name Submissions: Was It Read In Sacrament Today?

[Calm]

I have not read the entire thread yet so perhaps this has been discussed (if so please point me toward the post), am thinking that what the Church was talking about in regards to the deception was not the act of submission, but getting the names through to the point of having the work done for them. IIRC, they were responding not to just having the names submitting, but the fact that the baptisms were done.

I will have to go back and reread the Church's comment, but that is always what I thought they were referring to. Submission is just the first step in the process after all.

[Calm]

Here is the statement again:

“The Church keeps its word and is absolutely firm in its commitment to not accept the names of Holocaust victims for proxy baptism.

It takes a good deal of deception and manipulation to get an improper submission through the safeguards we have put in place.

While no system is foolproof in preventing the handful of individuals who are determined to falsify submissions, we are committed to taking action against individual abusers by suspending the submitter’s access privileges. We will also consider whether other Church disciplinary action should be taken.

It is distressing when an individual willfully violates the Church’s policy and something that should be understood to be an offering based on love and respect becomes a source of contention.”

Acceptance for submission does not mean acceptance for baptism or other ordinances. Until the work is recorded as being done, no judgment on how easy or hard the process of acceptance is should be made. Edited March 5, 2012 by calmoriah

[LDSToronto]

I have not read the entire thread yet so perhaps this has been discussed (if so please point me toward the post), am thinking that what the Church was talking about in regards to the deception was not the act of submission, but getting the names through to the point of having the work done for them. IIRC, they were responding not to just having the names submitting, but the fact that the baptisms were done.

I will have to go back and reread the Church's comment, but that is always what I thought they were referring to. Submission is just the first step in the process after all.

Sure, but the reality is, had I done this work at say, 8AM on Tuesday, I could have drive to the temple after work and done the work, provided I had a baptismal team.

H.

[Calm]

Not having gone through the process, how do you know this for sure?

[LDSToronto]

Not having gone through the process, how do you know this for sure?

You are making a good point, calmoriah. It's possible there is an additional check when the temple prints out the little cards. Since I don't have a temple recommend, and since I'm not willing to push the ethical boundaries of actually performing an ordinance for an individual who's family is not complicit, then we may never know.

However, I will point out that I have submitted work for my own relatives and there doesn't appear to be an additional check. Also, look at this wording:

"While no system is foolproof in preventing the handful of individuals who are determined to falsify submissions, we are committed to taking action against individual abusers by suspending the submitter’s access privileges."

This seems to imply that the deceptive submission is tied to familysearch.org. LDS do not refer to their temple recommends as "access privileges", nor do they refer to the temple as part of a "system".

Yes, there could be an additional check downstream of familysearch.org; at this time, I think it's unlikely.

H.

[Calm]

at this time, I think it's unlikely.

Why am I not surprised.

[MorningStar]

I am not offended. But I am not boasting about what I did. In fact, I did not post what I did until I was asked by Bob Crockett and divinenature. if anything, I was baited into publishing a link to my work and have received nothing but grief. No matter - I have thick skin and I stand behind what I did.

H.

It wasn't boasting because someone asked for it? But they only asked for it because you made a statement that you had it. Kind of sounded like boasting.

[divinenature]

I'm not sure why the pop up box that tells you to get permission doesn't add that if this person is a Holocaust victim or a famous person that you are unrelated to that submission is prohibited.

It's not that hard.

That, in addition to the techy stuff would go a long way in showing that the church is serious about keeping its promise to the Jewish community.

[divinenature]

Sure, but the reality is, had I done this work at say, 8AM on Tuesday, I could have drive to the temple after work and done the work, provided I had a baptismal team.

H.

Exactly. If there was a screening process for names at the temple these names would not have been done several times already. That is the whole reason this problem exists; it is very simple to submit and do the ordinances of anyone you want.

[T-Shirt]

Yes, that is my argument. I admit that in the article and I've admitted it here. And I think I showed that "a great deal of deception and manipulation" is not required.

H.

Given the fact that there are precisely two questions asked by the system to make sure you are following the rules, and given the fact that, in both cases, you knowingly and willingly, with premeditation, lied, in order to subvert the system, how can one say that this is not a "great deal" of deception? I don't think the term, "great deal" has anything to do with a quantitative value, but rather, the height of deception to which one is willing to go.

I am having a hard time understanding how one can claim the Church is dishonest in its brief discussion of its security policy, when it took, at least, two significant lies, in order to subvert the policy.

[TAO]

If you change the dates, then you aren't putting the person you intend to put into the system. That's one way to deal with that. The other way is to build a tolerance into the system. For birth/death locations, the church already has a pretty good name matching system in place - you can see what I mean by typing in, say, a misspelled Russian town.

Sometimes simple works, Tao. Just wondering, when you've written this type of commercial software, what did you do to solve some of these problems? You seem to be pretty good at saying what won't work, but you haven't given much in terms of what will work.

H.

According to the system, yes, but according to the person entering, that isn't really so. To that person, they are still entering in the person we are trying to keep out of the database. Could other people still yell at us for entries with errors like these? Definitely, imho.

I do see the town-name solution as feasable. However, I am guessing that you can still enter in a name of a town that isn't in their database. So that wouldn't really help would it?

Actually, to be quite honest, I've written very little commercial software, on this level. What I do write just doesn't need it yet - it's just single player indie games. On the other hand, as a game developer, I have to be able to picture these sort of things, because that is what multiplayer games encounter. Eventually, I hope to transfer over there, once I learn how to use the socket system (probably after my mission).

On the other hand, I did do a project that was slightly related to this... I was creating an application which allowed you to save and share 'tracks' of youtube and URL based music (which it mushed all together into a nice looping format). Obviously, not all of the tracks would be mp3 style data, so I couldn't just use their encoder to get the name, author, etc. So, instead, I just had users input information. I restricted their typing to a-z, and the number keys (except for the URL bar which I allowed a few other characters). For youtube URLs, I also made sure I only read the six required digits needed to grab a video. For the URL based music, I just read the whole things so it wasn't parsed.

I then considered the problem; what happens, if the user inputs incorrect information? How can I find a pattern in this information to block all the incorrect information? I came up, to the conclusion that I can't. The reason being, there is no list of all possible data for or against to check for, I have no database to store user input (like Captcha/Recaptcha does) to verify, and it would just be much easier to just flag them and let the site deal with the shared levels instead. (I didn't really care whether or not they had it right on their own saved version, I cared it was right on the shared levels).

Ultimately, I ended up removing two of the features (URL based streaming - because an update to the programming language made it impossible for me to do, and Level Sharing - because I didn't want to get in a mess with copyright, even if I was only copying strings of data). I still would have the problem with the remaining youtube music (it's futile to check the name of the author of the movies because sometimes people post music that isn't theirs). It didn't grown on to be a success or anything. But it did teach me alot about using user data, and creating a nice and fancy app GUI.

So, I guess what I did had somewhat of a relation to this. Ultimately, as an indie developer, I found it alot easier to just flag the bad levels for higher ups (until I removed the feature). I think, even as a large company... it would probably be easier to just go through things manually. There is just such a list of possibilities, so it's not really feasible to create a program to test it all. We don't want companies becoming like the government, and somewhat tracking you, do we, after all ;-). And ultimately, I would guess that the church already has a manual checker in place... it's just they miss a few. I can't guarantee it. But, it would be my guess. After all, they have had to deal with this many many times.

[David T]

Did anybody bother to notice that the letter doesn't SAY it is SUPPOSED to be read??? That it's supposed to be POSTED?

Cheesh people.

From the Newsroom:

SALT LAKE CITY —

The First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints issued a letter on 29 February reiterating policies concerning submission of names for proxy temple ordinances.

The letter will be read to all Church congregations worldwide.

Sheesh, people.

[Calm]

Given the fact that there are precisely two questions asked by the system to make sure you are following the rules, and given the fact that, in both cases, you knowingly and willingly, with premeditation, lied, in order to subvert the system, how can one say that this is not a "great deal" of deception? I don't think the term, "great deal" has anything to do with a quantitative value, but rather, the height of deception to which one is willing to go.

I am having a hard time understanding how one can claim the Church is dishonest in its brief discussion of its security policy, when it took, at least, two significant lies, in order to subvert the policy.

A correction of an error that I think I may have been the one to cause by a typo earlier. The Church did not say "a great deal of deception, etc"; it stated "It takes a good deal of deception and manipulation to get an improper submission through the safeguards we have put in place."

http://www.mormonnew...-baptism-policy

What "a good deal" amounts to is, of course, subjective. For those who make an effort not to lie, intentionally attempting to sabotage the process by knowingly submitting inappropriate names could be viewed as "a good deal". For those who casually lie whenever it seems appropriate to them, I can see why lying twice about one's intentions might not seem like a "good deal of deception".

PS: nope, it wasn't me, I quoted the actual newsroom article. Don't know where the "great deal" came from.

Edited March 5, 2012 by calmoriah

[wenglund]

That, in addition to the techy stuff would go a long way in showing that the church is serious about keeping its promise to the Jewish community.

I suspect that the same thing may have been suggested prior to the current "techy stuff" being put into place. The point being, there are some people that will be displeased and agitative regardless what-all the Church may do. That is why they have made several reasonable attempts to ameliorate the tempest-in-the-teapot, and may wisely not concern itself with whatever petty and exploitive belly-aching may follow.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[Pahoran]

I wrote the article to refute the Church's claim that a good deal of deception and manipulation is needed to bypass safeguards.

I guess that the expression "a good deal" is relative. To someone to whom deception and manipulation are as natural as breathing, your deception was minimal. To an honest person, you engaged in a good deal of deception and manipulation.

This is the point you're not getting, Toronto. You couldn't enter those bogus names by accident. You had to intentionally trick the system into accepting them.

Just like the lock on your front door will keep honest people from stumbling into your house when you're not home, but would not keep out a determined intruder, so the Church's safeguards -- and any other safeguards it might subsequently implement -- will really only serve to keep honest people honest.

So they'll never be sufficient to block intentionally malicious and deceitful submissions like yours.

Please remember also that the primary purpose of the system is to make it as easy as possible for people to make bona fide submissions. That has to take priority. Whatever additional hoops you make people jump through will simply make that process harder.

i believe the Church has access to sufficient financial and technical resources to build a system that can do a much better job at honouring it's commitment to the families of Holocaust victims. So, no, I'm not just paying lip service to the idea that the Church should do something. I'm suggesting the Church should do something more.

So do I.

Since it is an honesty-based system, reminding the submitters to be honest is something more.

Threatening the general membership is one way to implement safeguards. No member in good standing wants their membership on trial, so it makes sense to issue an ultimatum, right? Well, I don't think it's right at all. Disciplinary action is not meant to punish or coerce.

Its primary purpose is to help transgressors repent; but it has a secondary purpose, which is to protect the Church.

When wilfully, maliciously dishonest people intentionally abuse the submission system in order to sow discord (which, in case you don't know, is yet another of the sins mentioned in the Bible as an abomination) then that is fairly conclusive evidence that they not only have no business having access to the system, but it is at least prima facie evidence that they are not Latter-day Saints in any meaningful way. After all, they do not respect the sanctity of the Temple and its ordinances; they do not respect the integrity of the name submission system; and they do not respect the good name of the Church.

So I say, give them an opportunity to explain themselves, and in the absence of a reasonable explanation for their actions (and I would love to hear what that might be) give them their walking papers.

But I can see why you don't agree with an action that might jeopardise your ability to make trouble for the Church.

And ultimately, it is the Church that made the commitment, not the membership. Putting the onus on the membership to keep the church honest...

The Church is being honest. It has honoured its commitment right down the line.

And the FamilySearch submission system is an honesty-based system. The Church has a perfect right to ensure that it is being used honestly.

Which explains why...

No, I don't agree with that.

H.

Well of course you don't.

Regards,

Pahoran

[Calm]

And ultimately, it is the Church that made the commitment, not the membership. Putting the onus on the membership to keep the church honest...

The Church is the members. If you mean the Church leaders, well, members sustain them yearly. I would assume that part of that sustaining would including abiding by agreements made by the Church leaders on behalf of the members of the Church.

[Pahoran]

The Church is the members. If you mean the Church leaders, well, members sustain them yearly. I would assume that part of that sustaining would including abiding by agreements made by the Church leaders on behalf of the members of the Church.

And abiding by agreements the members make with the Church, such as the terms of use of Church-owned software systems, which we explicitly agree to every time we log in.

Regards,

Pahoran

[divinenature]

There are many good and faithful members of the church who routinely submit names that they should have gotten permission for or who alter a name so that they can resubmit them.Everyone who has ever worked extensively with FamilySearch or in a Family History Center knows this. This is not something that can be said to only be coming from the non-believers.

From the rumors I hear at the FHC the church knows that the system does not have enough safeguards in place. There are supposed to be changes coming that will help eliminate some of the issues. I have not heard of any new safeguards being put in place to keep Holocaust victims from being submitted for temple work.

[Calm]

There are many good and faithful members of the church who routinely submit names that they should have gotten permission for or who alter a name so that they can resubmit them.Everyone who has ever worked extensively with FamilySearch or in a Family History Center knows this. This is not something that can be said to only be coming from the non-believers.

Then the comment by the Church leadership saying this is not acceptable and may result in discipline should finally convince them that such is unacceptable. Why it would take such a threat to convince a "good and faithful member" to abide by church standards is beyond me though.

[Daniel Peterson]

I haven't read through this thread but, no, in answer to the question, the letter was not read in my sacrament meeting yesterday. I don't know why.

Incidentally, Elder L. Tom Perry, of the Twelve, was on the stand in my ward for sacrament meeting. He attends our ward from time to time, since he has family in it. They had a baby blessing yesterday, and he participated.

[mfbukowski]

LDSToronto really annoys me sometimes. But you people are just going way off the deep end in your criticism. In the thread he got banned from I made the claim that this wasn't as malicious as you all seem to believe. Some didn't like my sticking up for him. Tough.

What he has done here is effectively what is called a "grey hat" action in the computer biz. Black hats being true computer criminals, white hats being those who specifically work FOR a company to improve their security, and grey hats being those who fall somewhere in the middle:

If you discover a security vulnerability in a software program and contact the maker of the software privately to tell them about it, then you are a white hat. The software maker may then fix the vulnerability and we are all good. But if the software maker ignores the white hat, some of them will wait a period of time and then disclose the vulnerability publicly in order to force the maker to fix the problem. The white hat transitions over to grey hat. There is a long tradition of this. Microsoft has been grey-hatted by folks who tried to point out problems quietly but were ignored. So have other makers.

All LDSToronto has done is to bring a problem to emphasis that isn't being adequately addressed (he believes). I don't see this as some sort of nefarious evil act. If he were to discover the hole and then exploit it privately for nefarious purposes then this would be black hat and would be dispicable. He has not. What he has done is semi-responsible.

The rest of you people who are happy to exceed the speed limit by 5 miles per hour because you know the police aren't likely to pull you over for it have nothing whatsoever to complain about. The others of you who wouldn't dream of exceeding the speed limit by 1 mile per hour have done it anyway, if only inadvertantly.

So stop getting up on your high horses. You sound like a bunch of whiners.

Be that as it may, some of us have our own way to draw attention to an important issue. Pumping up a thread is one way.

[LeSellers]

I haven't read through this thread but, no, in answer to the question, the letter was not read in my sacrament meeting yesterday. I don't know why.

Nor did we hear it in our meetings yesterday, but I know why: it was Stake Conference. We may hear it read in a week.

As others have said, though, it is confusing to think that there would be anyone in Sacrament meeting who'd need this, given that faithful Saints already know what is and is not acceptable in regard to name submission. It's a bit like firearms: outlaw guns and only outlaws will have them. Honest people already obey the law. Honest people already submit only names of their own family, it's renegades, like "H" and Radkey, who flout the rules and create trouble where none would otherwise exist, lying to do so.

Lehi

[Mansquatch]

"One instance of deception was counted" - LDSToronto

I can count a few more than that. Baptism, "bear false witness", Oath and Covenant of the Priesthood, Temple recommend questions etc. Quite a bit of deception, one could even say "a great deal" of deception.

[divinenature]

Then the comment by the Church leadership saying this is not acceptable and may result in discipline should finally convince them that such is unacceptable. Why it would take such a threat to convince a "good and faithful member" to abide by church standards is beyond me though.

The people who do this truly believe they are helping to save people from spirit prison. Other people, that resubmit names, I think they must do it because they feel connected to the individual or they get some other satisfaction from it. For example, a friend of mine submits names and has the temple work done only to have her nephew turn around and resubmit the name (ever-so-slightly altered). He has been doing this for years. She has appealed to him to no avail. He has a temple recommend. He's not the only one doing things like this. Brigham Young keeps having his wives resealed to him for some odd reason. ? Who knows. But these aren't evil people trying to make the church look bad or trying to play a joke (not the cases I'm aware of, anyway).

Another thing to take into account is that everyone has a different level of understanding, knowledge and comprehension.

The fact is, I don't think that all members know about the promise not to submit Holocaust victims. Reading the letter in each ward once is still not going to cover it. Posting it on the FamilySearch website and on a pop-up warning would be an improvement.

I think the main safeguard the church put in place was making it so that only members can view ordinance information.

[KevinG]

If the intent was to help the church why not send a nice note pointing out the problem and potential solutions to the Family History web site?

...but for a mess of potage and 15 minutes of fame...

Edited March 5, 2012 by DaddyG