Re: Globe and Mail Article On Forged Posting

["L. McCarthy" <lmccarth@ducie.cs.umass.edu>]

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Mark Terka writes:
> Ok, here is the text of the story about the "Forged Bob Rae Posting" from
> the Toronto Globe and Mail. An examination of the story only indicates how
> far our journalists and politicians have to go in understanding the Internet!

Indeed. Let's examine some of the apparent misconceptions....

[quoted text from here to the end is from Rusk & Mittelstaedt of the Globe &
Mail]

>   A furious Mr. Rae criticized Mr. Harris outside the legislature,
> accusing him of leading to the "Americanization of Canadian
> politics" through the use of "dirty tricks.

(ouch :)

[...]
>   Ont.general is a computer bulletin board on which Internet users
> discuss life and public issues in the province, said Larry Sherman,
> president of Internet Seminars of Woodbridge.
>   A message can be removed from the board only by whoever posted it,

No, anyone with a moderately flexible newsreader and a little bit of 
knowledge about news control message syntax can cancel someone else's
article. Tying this in to the discussion about using a newsgroup as a
message pool, notice that news articles are far easier to wipe out than
mail messages. This is potentially a major vulnerability of any such
system, given current news software. Widespread unauthorized cancellations 
(other than for spam) are greatly frowned upon, though, so a concerted 
attack would probably set up a major clash of powers on the net. 

[...]
>   The source of the message was an account that provides a service
> that allows people anonymous access to the Internet, she said.

mail forwarding =/= net access

>   Mr. Sherman said it is very easy to post a false message on a
> bulletin board and to make it appear that it came from a computer
> different from the one that sent it.

True, but that's a claim about forgery, not remailing; this is a worrisome
confusion of terms reminiscent of the hacker/cracker problem.

>   By going through a California bulletin board, "obviously someone
> has gone way out of their way to send that in," Mr. Sherman
> added.

One hopes that Internet Seminars pres. Sherman isn't responsible for the 
absurd implication I infer from this: sending mail via a geographically
distant site requires going out of one's way. Is there some more sensible
interpretation ?  It seems obvious that someone posting an article purporting
to emanate from the Canadian PM would try to transmit it with some level of
indirection.

[...]
>   Last months, the Tories played pranks at an NDP convention
> sending in a camera crew that shot pictures ridiculing Mr. Rae,
> including a doctored video sequence that seemed to give the Premier
> a stutter. The picture were broadcast as dinner-time entertainment
> at a Conservative convention the same weekend.  

Who's learning slimy politics from whom ?

- - -L. Futplex McCarthy; PGP key by finger or server  "We've got computers, 
we're tapping phone lines; I know that that ain't allowed" --Talking Heads

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