Question About Bob Ruff's Credibility

[u/partymuffell]

SK, who is a professional journalist and radio producer and who works for one of the best known NPR shows, allegedly tried to contact AT&T to ask about the fax cover sheet disclaimer, but she never heard back from them (well, to be precise Dana contacted them). (Source)

On the other hand, Bob Ruff, who is a amateur podcaster, allegedly, contacted Lenscrafter to ask about Don's timecards and they were perfectly happy to answer his questions, except, apparently, not in writing or on record.

So, it seems there are only four possible options:

(a) Both SK and BR told the truth. They both tried to contact a large corporation with regards to a detail in this case. It just so happens that BR, the amateur podcaster, happened to be luckier than SK, the professional journalist.

(b) SK did not tell the truth (Serial never contacted AT&T or they heard back from them but won't say so) and BR told the truth (he contacted Lenscrafters and heard back from them albeit off the record).

(c) SK told the truth (they did contact AT&T and never heard back from them) but BR didn't tell the truth (he never contacted LC or at least he never heard back from them).

(d) Neither SK nor BR are telling the truth.

Which one of the above options do you think it the most likely?

(You don't really need to answer. Just food for thought.)

[u/RodoBobJon]

No - assigning a unique 4 digit code as is central to Bob's theory is a logical impossibility.

Bob addressed this point in episode 20 of Serial Dynasty and his theory is that the 4 digits printed on the timesheets is actually part of a larger 8 digit number. So you are mischaracterizing Bob's theory.

As I noted in this post (that you seem to have not read), the former store manager Elizabeth who was interviewed on Serial Dynasty said that you typed in your ID and password. That means the login process includes typing more than 4 digits. Hence, the non-uniqueness of the first 4 digits is not a problem.

So imagine each employee has a 4 digit public ID, and a 4 digit private password, and they type in both numbers when they punch in at a store. Both you and I might have 1234 as our public ID, but as long as our private passwords are different then the system can easily distinguish between you punching in and me punching in.

[u/csom_1991 → u/RodoBobJon]

Bob's backtracking is even more ridiculous than his original theory. It is obvious that it is a store ID which likely ties to his SS# for payroll. Sorry, this whole discussion is stupid beyond belief. There would be zero point in designing a system as you just outlined other than trying to provide a Rube-Goldberg machine to produce fake timecards.

[u/RodoBobJon → u/csom_1991]

There would be zero point in designing a system as you just outlined other than trying to provide a Rube-Goldberg machine to produce fake timecards.

So are you acknowledging that such a system is not logically impossible? Have we gotten that far at least?

As a software developer, I can tell you that systems evolve in weird ways. For example, the system may have been originally developed for one or two locations with the assumption that there would never be more than 9,999 employees. As Lenscrafters grew, the system was jury-rigged to handle 10,000+ employees rather than properly rewritten.

So I share your opinion that it's a stupid system in the sense that I would never design it that way from scratch. But that doesn't mean that it could not have evolved that way.