<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=windows-1252"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;">Hi everyone - <div><br></div><div>I’m reposting below an email from Dave Farber's list - it's another interesting turn in this bizarre tale.</div><div><br></div><div>Andy</div><div><br></div><div><br><div><div>Begin forwarded message:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px;"><span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 1.0);"><b>From: </b></span><span style="font-family:'Helvetica';">"Dave Farber via ip" <<a href="mailto:ip@listbox.com">ip@listbox.com</a>><br></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px;"><span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 1.0);"><b>Subject: </b></span><span style="font-family:'Helvetica';"><b>[IP] Re HuffPo article on Ayyadurai</b><br></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px;"><span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 1.0);"><b>Date: </b></span><span style="font-family:'Helvetica';">September 8, 2014 at 11:25:26 AM EDT<br></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px;"><span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 1.0);"><b>To: </b></span><span style="font-family:'Helvetica';">"ip" <<a href="mailto:ip@listbox.com">ip@listbox.com</a>><br></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px;"><span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 1.0);"><b>Reply-To: </b></span><span style="font-family:'Helvetica';"><a href="mailto:dave@farber.net">dave@farber.net</a><br></span></div><br><div><div class="gmail_quote">---------- Forwarded message ----------<br>From: "Declan McCullagh" <<a href="mailto:declan@well.com">declan@well.com</a>><br>Date: Sep 8, 2014 1:49 AM<br>Subject: Re: [IP] HuffPo article on Ayyadurai<br>To: <<a href="mailto:jpgs@ittc.ku.edu">jpgs@ittc.ku.edu</a>>, <<a href="mailto:jpgs@comp.lancs.ac.uk">jpgs@comp.lancs.ac.uk</a>><br>Cc: <<a href="mailto:dave@farber.net">dave@farber.net</a>>, <<a href="mailto:dnight@mit.edu">dnight@mit.edu</a>>, <<a href="mailto:news@the-tech.mit.edu">news@the-tech.mit.edu</a>><br><br type="attribution">[Dave, for IP if you like]<br>
<br>
Prof. James P.G. Sterbenz wrote to MIT prof Deborah Nightingale:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
Do you plan to make a statement on your<br>
Web page to protect your reputation, or do we assume that you are<br>
(figuratively) in bed with Ayyadurai? If you do make such a statement<br>
I would like a pointer and will include in with the other materials I<br>
maintain on this case along with your original blog entry.<br>
</blockquote>
<br>
I just noticed something unusual about the now-deleted Huffington Post article published under the name of MIT professor Deborah Nightingale.<br>
<br>
What's unusual is that paragraphs of that now-deleted article defending "email inventor" Shiva Ayyadurai are word-for-word identical to a web page called <a href="http://InventorOfEmail.com">InventorOfEmail.com</a>. It looks like Mr. Ayyadurai created that page himself, though I haven't checked.<br>
<br>
You can see this unexpected bit of synchronicity for yourself. Prof Nightingale's article is archived here:<br>
<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20140905024145/http://www.huffingtonpost.com/deborah-j-nightingale/the-history-of-email-five-myths-about-email_b_5756340.html" target="_blank">https://web.archive.org/web/<u></u>20140905024145/http://www.<u></u>huffingtonpost.com/deborah-j-<u></u>nightingale/the-history-of-<u></u>email-five-myths-about-email_<u></u>b_5756340.html</a><br>
"Those who promoted MAIL as "email," when the term "email" did not even exist in 1965, were attempting to redefine "email" as a command-driven program that transferred BCD-encoded text files, written in an external editor, among timesharing system users, to be reviewed serially in a flat-file."<br>
"One would be hard-pressed to draw a historical straight line from MAIL to today’s email systems. MAIL was not "email", but a text messaging command line system, at best."<br>
<br>
The <a href="http://InventorOfEmail.com">InventorOfEmail.com</a> page, which <a href="http://Archive.org">Archive.org</a> says predates Prof. Nightingale's HuffPo blog, is here:<br>
<a href="http://www.inventorofemail.com/claims_about_email.asp" target="_blank">http://www.inventorofemail.<u></u>com/claims_about_email.asp</a><br>
"Those who promoted MAIL was "email" when the term "email" did not even exist in 1965 are attempting to redefine "email" to be a command-driven program that transferred BCD-encoded text files, written in an external editor, among timesharing system users, to be reviewed serially in a flat-file."<br>
"One would be hard-pressed to draw a historical straight line from MAIL to today’s email systems. MAIL was not "email", but a text messaging command line system, at best."<br>
<br>
Also it looks like about 10 paragraphs in Prof. Nightingale's now-deleted HuffPo blog, published September 2, appear in a Google+ comment posted under the name "Jason Rebule" a week earlier. That comment appeared in a KQED thread attacking critics of Ayyadurai. You can see the thread here:<br>
<a href="https://plus.google.com/+KQEDSCIENCE/posts/emYcPo9ZjVw" target="_blank">https://plus.google.com/+<u></u>KQEDSCIENCE/posts/emYcPo9ZjVw</a><br>
<br>
Similarly, another now-deleted HuffPo blog post in the series was published under the name of Rutgers technologist Robert Field. It uses this sentence:<br>
<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20140904233350/http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-field/history-of-email-first-email-system_b_5722000.html" target="_blank">https://web.archive.org/web/<u></u>20140904233350/http://www.<u></u>huffingtonpost.com/robert-<u></u>field/history-of-email-first-<u></u>email-system_b_5722000.html</a><br>
"Standard histories of the Internet are full of claims that certain individuals (and teams) in the ARPAnet environment in the 1970s and 1980s "invented email." "<br>
<br>
That sentence also, according to <a href="http://Archive.org">Archive.org</a>, had previously appeared on the <a href="http://InventorOfEmail.com">InventorOfEmail.com</a> site:<br>
<a href="http://www.inventorofemail.com/claims_about_email.asp" target="_blank">http://www.inventorofemail.<u></u>com/claims_about_email.asp</a><br>
<br>
I don't see either Prof. Nightingale or Robert Field credited on the <a href="http://InventorOfEmail.com">InventorOfEmail.com</a> site.<br>
<br>
I presume there's a good reason why a Huffington Post guest blog published under the name of a well-known MIT engineering professor would be assembled in such a manner, but I confess I haven't yet been able to think of one.<br>
<br>
-Declan<br>
<br>
PS: I recall a CNET article written by some enterprising journalist who revealed the provenance of an anti-Net-neutrality op-ed published under the name of an MIT adjunct professor. The op-ed was actually written in part or in whole by a "secretive lobbying organization in Washington, D.C. called the LawMedia Group" that counted Comcast as a client. I would not dare to suggest, of course, that such a thing could be happening here. <a href="http://www.cnet.com/news/wanted-writers-for-d-c-tech-lobby-group-secrecy-mandatory/" target="_blank">http://www.cnet.com/news/<u></u>wanted-writers-for-d-c-tech-<u></u>lobby-group-secrecy-mandatory/</a><br>
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