❖ — § — ❖
You Shall Not Pass!
— Non Transibis —

A Most Humble, Penitent, and Duly Annotated Communiqué
Unto the Esteemed Visitor

Issued sub rosa1 from these Digital Precincts,
upon this the Present Day of Our Reckoning

Honoured Sir or Madam,

It is with a heart laden beneath the gravest burden of remorse — mea culpa, mea maxima culpa2 — and with a countenance suffused by the deepest crimson of mortification, that the present author finds himself compelled — nay, positively constrained by the dictates of common courtesy and the higher imperatives of digital civility — to address unto Your Good Personage this most lamentable communication, occasioned by the wholly unforeseen and thoroughly regrettable circumstance of your arrival upon this singularly unremarkable webpage.3

Should it transpire that Your Distinguished Self had, ante hoc infortunium4, entertained the entirely legitimate and altogether commendable expectation of beholding before your discerning gaze the venerable weblog residing at the address known and celebrated throughout the civilised reaches of the Internet as c0t0d0s0.org, it falls unto this humble scribe — with no small measure of personal anguish — to convey the disheartening intelligence that access unto said publication has been subjected, in respect of your particular network provenance, unto a measure bearing a not inconsiderable resemblance to that institution commonly and colloquially denominated a “blockade,” “embargo,” or — to borrow from the tongue of Cicero — an interdictum5.

This most vexatious state of affairs has been precipitated by no caprice, no whim, and no arbitrary exercise of authority — absit iniuria6 — but rather by the sober and methodical operations of our ever-vigilant apparatus of cybernetic sentinelship, the which has, through the exercise of its considerable faculties, detected (with a degree of confidence bordering upon mathematical certainty, quod erat demonstrandum7) that emanations consistent with the reconnaissance of well-catalogued and thoroughly documented patterns of exploitation have issued forth from the network address presently assigned unto your estimable connection.

I. Of That Which Shall Not Be Found Herein — De Rebus Absentibus

Permit me to dispel, sine mora8 and at the earliest practicable juncture, any lingering hope Your Excellency may yet harbour that further exploration of these premises shall yield matter of substance, diversion, or intellectual nourishment: nothing — nihil, nihil omnino9 — and I do mean nothing whatsoever, in the fullest and most emphatic sense that our shared tongue is capable of conveying, shall be uncovered within these digital precincts, save only for this very epistle which your patient eyes do presently traverse.

II. Of the Matter of Logging, Respectfully Disclosed — De Annalibus Nostris

Further, and in a spirit of the most scrupulous transparency — bona fide10 and without the slightest reservation — I deem it incumbent upon me to apprise Your Honour that your present access unto this humble document is being committed unto our records in a pseudonymised and discreet manner. Be it nevertheless known, however, that should further overtures of a pattern-probing character issue forth from your quarter, such subsequent solicitations shall be inscribed in our ledgers in toto11 — comprising, without abridgement or redaction, the whole and unexpurgated Internet Protocol address — and shall thereafter be submitted unto the impartial scrutiny of automated adjudication, sine ira et studio12.

III. Of the Possibility of Your Entire Innocence — De Innocentia Vestra Possibili

Lest despair or righteous indignation take undue root within your noble breast, permit me to acknowledge, with all the frankness at my disposal, that it remains eminently conceivable — indeed, in a considerable plurality of instances, positively probable — that Your Blameless Self stands before this admonition in a condition of the most pristine and unimpeachable innocence, tamquam agnus inter lupos13, having committed no act of reconnaissance, probing, or untoward inquisition whatsoever.

Such melancholy coincidences are, as a rule, to be attributed unto the unfortunate hydraulics of modern network architecture, whereby Your Irreproachable Person and some less scrupulous party have been rendered indistinguishable unto our sentinels per accidens14 by virtue of a shared Internet Protocol address. This unhappy confluence most commonly manifests itself in circumstances such as the following, which I here enumerate seriatim15 for Your Edification:

IV. In Conclusion — Ad Finem

It therefore only remains for me to tender, ex imo pectore19 and upon the very knee of contrition, my most profuse, heartfelt, and abject apologies for whatsoever measure of inconvenience, consternation, or wounded sentiment this most regrettable episode may have inflicted upon Your Patient Person; and further, to entreat Your Considerable Forbearance with the respectful petition that you might, cras mane20 — in the fullness of tomorrow’s dawn — do me the singular honour of essaying your visit anew.

I remain, usque ad finem21,
with sentiments of the most unfeigned regard and the profoundest respect,
— Your Most Humble and Obedient Servant
in All Matters Pertaining to This Unfortunate Affair.

Footnotes

  1. sub rosa — “under the rose”; in confidence, discreetly.
  2. mea culpa, mea maxima culpa — “through my fault, through my most grievous fault”; a formula of the deepest contrition.
  3. The unremarkableness of the page is here asserted not from false modesty but from sober factual appraisal.
  4. ante hoc infortunium — “before this misfortune.”
  5. interdictum — in Roman law, a praetorian order prohibiting or compelling a particular action; the learned reader will appreciate the aptness of the term.
  6. absit iniuria — “let offence be absent”; may no injury be taken from what follows.
  7. quod erat demonstrandum — “that which was to be demonstrated”; the conventional seal upon a concluded proof.
  8. sine mora — “without delay.”
  9. nihil, nihil omnino — “nothing, nothing at all”; the repetition is emphatic, not pleonastic.
  10. bona fide — “in good faith.”
  11. in toto — “in its entirety.”
  12. sine ira et studio — “without wrath and without partiality”; the celebrated formula of Tacitus, Annales I.1, governing the conduct of impartial judgement.
  13. tamquam agnus inter lupos — “as a lamb amongst wolves”; the image is Scriptural and here deployed with sympathetic intent.
  14. per accidens — “by accident”; in the scholastic sense, as opposed to per se, “by essence.”
  15. seriatim — “in due order, one after another.”
  16. multi sub uno — “many beneath one”; a phrase coined for the present occasion to capture the peculiar condition of the subscriber to Carrier-Grade NAT.
  17. vestigia priora manent — “the earlier traces remain”; adapted freely from the common reflection that footprints, once made, are not easily effaced.
  18. alienis peccatis obnoxius — “liable for the sins of another”; a condition as ancient as it is vexing.
  19. ex imo pectore — “from the depths of the breast”; with the utmost sincerity.
  20. cras mane — “tomorrow morning.”
  21. usque ad finem — “even unto the end.”