Let me add my own Al Gore pieces, both no longer easily accessible on line: "The Politician as the Patron," IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 22,4 (October-December 2000), 88-89. "But Al Gore Did Help Invent the Internet," History News Service, October 24, 2000 www.h-net.org/~hns/articles/2000/102400a.html Jonathan -----Original Message----- From: members-bounces@sigcis.org [mailto:members-bounces@sigcis.org] On Behalf Of Dave Walden Sent: Wednesday, September 03, 2014 1:26 PM To: Andrew Russell; sigcis Subject: Re: [SIGCIS-Members] Why is HuffPost publishing another "invention of email" series? Not so significant to the Al Gore story as he actually did have significant impact on the evolution of the Internet, unless your point is the nonsense the journalists published ridiculing Al Gore (who only deserved a little bit of laughter, not massive ridicule, for his overstatement): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Gore_and_information_technology At 10:57 AM 9/3/2014, Andrew Russell wrote:

At the risk of (or in hopes of) provoking Tom Haigh and others, I thought I would share the following:

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140901/07280928386/huffpo-publishes -bizarre-misleading-factually-incorrect-multi-part-series-pretending-gu y-invented-email-even-though-he-didnt.shtml

I'm sure many of you noticed the recent round of HuffPo stories, promoting the claims of the guy who claimed to invent email in 1978. Similar to the "Al Gore invented the Internet" story from several years ago, this particular "invention of email" story seems to be more compelling through a media studies lens (i.e., why do media outlets keep publishing nonsense?), and not at all a case of uncertainty or debate amongst serious historians or networking engineers.

Andy _______________________________________________ This email is relayed from members@sigcis.org, the email discussion list of SHOT SIGCIS. The list archives are at http://sigcis.org/pipermail/members/ and you can change your subscription options at http://sigcis.org/mailman/listinfo/members

-- home address: 12 Linden Rd., E. Sandwich, MA 02537 home ph=508-888-7655; cell ph = 503-757-3137 (often don't carry it) email address: dave@walden-family.com; website: <http://www.walden-family.com/bbn/>http://www.walden-family.com/ _______________________________________________ This email is relayed from members@sigcis.org, the email discussion list of SHOT SIGCIS. The list archives are at http://sigcis.org/pipermail/members/ and you can change your subscription options at http://sigcis.org/mailman/listinfo/members

I am showing my age, but I've lived through a few of these--too many. Some of you may remember the Atanasoff-ENIAC controversy, which overflowed into a fuss over the labels in the Smithsonian's "Information Age" exhibit. And the books written by Pulitzer Prize winner Jane Smiley, Alice and Arthur Burks, et al. I can supply unpleasant details, but perhaps best off-list. When I mentioned this to Mel Kranzberg, he said, "Hey, people are still fighting over whether Newton or Leibniz invented the calculus!" Paul E. Ceruzzi, Chairman Division of Space History, MRC 311 National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution PO Box 37012 Washington, DC 20013-7012 202-633-2414 http://airandspace.si.edu/staff/paul-ceruzzi -----Original Message----- From: members-bounces@sigcis.org [mailto:members-bounces@sigcis.org] On Behalf Of Andrew Russell Sent: Wednesday, September 03, 2014 6:54 PM To: Coopersmith, Jonathan Cc: sigcis Subject: Re: [SIGCIS-Members] Why is HuffPost publishing another "invention of email" series? Hi folks - To be clear, I agree with Jonathan (and others) who pointed out Gore's important role in networking history. I think we can also blame Gore a little bit for using a clumsy turn of phrase in his CNN interview, which gave an opportunity to his political opponents who wanted to portray Gore as a liar. I found one article that Jonathan mentioned - "But Al Gore Did Help" - at http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2000-10-26/news/0010250556_1_patron-new-tec.... In it, Jonathan gave us a clear, fair, high-level summary: "Gore's early initiatives helped shape the Internet into a more open and universal system with more access to federal and university databases than it would have otherwise." In addition to Jonathan's piece, anyone teaching about this topic should know about Seth Finkelstein's page of articles and resources: http://www.sethf.com/gore/ The point I was trying to make in my earlier note is that this "invention of email" controversy (if we can call it that) resembles the Gore/invention "controversy" in that the consensus opinion of subject experts is dismissed, or deemed part of a conspiracy! The facts and evidence are well-known; yet journalists and others with opaque or questionable motives ignore them, or twist them. I'm reminded of the way that climate skeptics and creationists "teach the controversy," which is a strategy to destabilize the overwhelming consensus of specialists and experts. That topic gives me the same irritated sensation I felt when I read the new HuffPost/email series, which is the same type of irritation I feel when I tell people that I write about Internet history and they say "you mean how Al Gore invented it? heh heh." I hope somebody writes a biography of poor Al Gore that explains how Gore did such earnest and productive work with his advocacy of networking and climate change research, but found himself at the butt of jokes and public ridicule. Cheers, Andy

Of course these claims are not peculiar to the history of Computing and Information but are a common misattribution in the larger history of technology of which this group is a part. I am thinking of my most recent experience with these claims, that "George Mitchell invented fracking." I have a student working on the topic and his committee member, a petroleum engineer, vociferously disagrees. Of course that engineer is indicating that *he* invented fracking! We know too that some people understand how to make such a claim, and make it stick, whether in the courts or the patent office or Wikipedia. It is fascinating to watch this process unfold in real time It might do us some good to consider why these stories take hold so much more easily than the history we research and write. + + + + + Dr. Barbara Hahn Associate Editor, Technology and Culture Associate Professor, History Department, Texas Tech University (on leave 2014-2016) Marie Curie International Incoming Fellow School of History, University of Leeds @behahn http://ttu.academia.edu/BarbaraHahn ________________________________________ From: members-bounces@sigcis.org [members-bounces@sigcis.org] on behalf of Thomas Haigh [thaigh@computer.org] Sent: Wednesday, September 03, 2014 11:37 AM To: 'Andrew Russell'; 'sigcis' Subject: Re: [SIGCIS-Members] Why is HuffPost publishing another "invention of email" series? Thanks Andy, The article series had been brought to my attention, but it's hard to summon up the enthusiasm to launch an fresh round of engagement. Every aspect of Ayyadurai's argument up to this point is summarized and evaluated at http://www.sigcis.org/ayyadurai. So if you come across anyone interested, please point them in that direction. It does seem that actual journalists are less frequently being fooled by his claims since the 2012 debunking, with a couple of exceptions: substantial coverage in India where his accusations of American racisms appear to be playing well, and a recent public radio segment on Marketplace where he was introduced as "one of the creators of email." However there is a vast world of content farms and bottom feeding syndication sites where any press release will be picked up and recycled. The Huffington Post is an interesting hybrid, as its forays into actual journalism give a spurious legitimacy to the rest of the site which is mostly unclothed celebrities and public relations hackwork. The epic series of Huffington Post articles just reuses material from Ayyadurai's book and website, circling again and again around handful of dubious talking points. The Techdirt piece Andy linked to hits the key points in response, particularly the concerted attempt Ayyadurai is making present copyright on a program code listing as if it was a patent on a technology. Techdirt misses a few things, for example accepting the new claims 1978 date for the system whereas Ayyadurai himself had previously dated the first implementation to 1980. The OED has a 1979 usage of the contraction "e-mail" whereas I have not seen a documented use by Ayyadurai prior to 1981. So even the claim that he was the first to contract "electronic mail" to "email" is so far unsupported. But overall the Techdirt response seems to do the job. The latest Huffington Post piece, which is credited to an MIT "Professor of Practice" although it is clearly adapted from material Ayyadurai previously published on a website and in his book, does mention "an Internet cabal of SIGCIS 'historians' with ties to Raytheon/BBN." http://www.huffingtonpost.com/deborah-j-nightingale/the-history-of-email-fiv e-myths-about-email_b_5756340.html Best wishes, Tom -----Original Message----- From: members-bounces@sigcis.org [mailto:members-bounces@sigcis.org] On Behalf Of Andrew Russell Sent: Wednesday, September 03, 2014 9:58 AM To: sigcis Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] Why is HuffPost publishing another "invention of email" series? At the risk of (or in hopes of) provoking Tom Haigh and others, I thought I would share the following: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140901/07280928386/huffpo-publishes-biza rre-misleading-factually-incorrect-multi-part-series-pretending-guy-invented -email-even-though-he-didnt.shtml I'm sure many of you noticed the recent round of HuffPo stories, promoting the claims of the guy who claimed to invent email in 1978. Similar to the "Al Gore invented the Internet" story from several years ago, this particular "invention of email" story seems to be more compelling through a media studies lens (i.e., why do media outlets keep publishing nonsense?), and not at all a case of uncertainty or debate amongst serious historians or networking engineers. Andy _______________________________________________ This email is relayed from members@sigcis.org, the email discussion list of SHOT SIGCIS. The list archives are at http://sigcis.org/pipermail/members/ and you can change your subscription options at http://sigcis.org/mailman/listinfo/members _______________________________________________ This email is relayed from members@sigcis.org, the email discussion list of SHOT SIGCIS. The list archives are at http://sigcis.org/pipermail/members/ and you can change your subscription options at http://sigcis.org/mailman/listinfo/members