Another victory for the blogosphere over a professor who tried to resurrect the authenticity of the fake CBS memos.

But, hey, what's a little academic fraud? It's all in the service of the cause, right? The most important thing is to get rid of chimpie.

What frightens me is that the ability to create such fakery without getting caught (given a little intelligence, something in short supply so far on the part of the Bush haters) is improving every day. Authenticating documents (and records of events) is going to become a major societal issue in the future, and it's starting to become one already.

Someone at the University took his home page down. This is a guy with a lot of awards and credentials. It seems he just wasted them with this stunt.

WTF? The website you linked to has all the classic problems of blogs. For starters, no context and a stream-of-consciousness writing style that requires readers to click on all the links and read everything the blogger did in order to figure out what the hell he is writing about.

Why not a simple declarative paragraph at the beginning explaining what is going on and does not require the reader to click on a link and read something else before they can finish the first sentence in the blog?

I've got an idea. Why don't you go complain over there, where someone might see your complaint, instead of here. If you don't like blogs or blog style, don't read them.

Sheesh.

Your point is spot on. You nailed the issue again Rand. We can only hope the fact checkers remain diligent, but it may not be enough. We need to marginalize these jerks. One of the reasons people can catch on to forgeries so fast is because they have the perspective to implement the laugh test. Even a perfect forgery could be such a non-sequiter that it would be suspect. The real problem is the twits that can't think when presented with fraud.

....seems to me, that The Phantom Blogger is yet another voice from the left, convinced that blogs are a vast right wing conspriacy. The most democratic, accessable form of comment and dissent ever created and the liberals feel threatened by it. Why would the people who champion free speech think this?

Because they don't really want free speech they want to hear only ideas that agree with them.

TPB attacks the style of the blog, not what it says, nor does he/she say they disagree with what it says, attack the style. How artsy, how educated, HOW LIBERAL!!!

Well, this story developed by the hour, so it is no surprise that it has a "stream of consciousness" feel.

A synopsis: Wizbang pointed to a PDF that analyzed the CBS memos. It had a number of points, but one of the key items was comparison of text from a memo and text the professor created himself. At Wizbang they noted that the superscript "th" had obviously been photoshoped in, but the implication of the document was that this was done mechanically.

By the time I saw the PDF yesterday afternoon, there was a clear statement that the comparison text had been created on a computer ... which is silly, of course, but honestly silly. As it turns out, however, the good professor had added the disclaimer to the middle of the document yesterday. If it hadn't been for the fact that copies of the earlier PDF had already been downloaded, nobody could have proved this.

Note that the original didn't actually say "this example was created on such-and-so typewriter" but, again, what is the point of comparing the memo text with a word processor font? All this document boils down to is another opinion. And he didn't answer tricky questions like: faxed or not, how did the text manage to line up so precisely with something generated in Word?

Anyway, the way the Professor handled this was unethical at best.

By stock in encryption/signature techniques. Authentication of future docs are going to depend on them.

BTW, this particular leftie isn't threatened by blogs. I think they are the best thing since sliced bread. Maybe better. 8)

"seems to me, that The Phantom Blogger is yet another voice from the left, convinced that blogs are a vast right wing conspriacy."

Wow. Since when did a desire for understandability become a liberal issue?

I was pointing out that I went to the website and had a hard time figuring out what he was writing about because--get this--IT WAS HARD TO UNDERSTAND and--get this--required me to click on several other websites and read them IN ORDER TO FIGURE OUT A POINT THAT COULD HAVE BEEN STATED IN THE FIRST FEW SENTENCES OF THE BLOG. No politics at all. Just bad writing. Did you happen to see this part of my post?

"Why not a simple declarative paragraph at the beginning explaining what is going on and does not require the reader to click on a link and read something else before they can finish the first sentence in the blog? "

Steve also wrote:
"Because they don't really want free speech they want to hear only ideas that agree with them."

Er, no. I like good writing, hate bad writing. And presentation counts. If you scrawl your ideas on wallpaper in crayon with grammatical errors you're going to have a hard time reaching an audience, even if you're Shakespear.

"TPB attacks the style of the blog, not what it says, nor does he/she say they disagree with what it says, attack the style. How artsy, how educated, HOW LIBERAL!!!"

Egads. You need to lay off the caffeine. Oh, and it's the Phantom Commenter, not Phantom Blogger. I don't blog. I do wear a cape and a mask, however.

As for Rand wondering why I posted that comment here rather than there? Why not? Don't all of these comment sections drift?

As for Rand wondering why I posted that comment here rather than there? Why not? Don't all of these comment sections drift?

I have no idea what comments sections "drifting" means, but no. If you want to complain about a blog post, complain about it at that blog post, and don't expect the writer of that post to magically know about it as a result of whining about it here.

"If you want to complain about a blog post, complain about it at that blog post,"

Did that.

"and don't expect the writer of that post to magically know about it as a result of whining about it here."

I wasn't "whining," I was bitching.

The Phantom Commenter has a point. I found that post hard to follow and I'm used to posts of that sort. However; Rand has a better point, PC.
Bitch over at Wizbang.

Rand,

You may be interested in this (brief) query over on my site -
http://www.layman.blogspot.com/2004_10_03_layman_archive.html#109715843326250073

Is the recent rush of fake documents a new trend, or are there a shock of old fakes that were never uncovered?

With all the examples (inc docs involved in the Iraq war case, documents found there, etc) recently coming up, is it a new worry?