It happens to many of us, but just pointing out that there have been multiple impersonations of me lately on several threads (no jokes from the peanut gallery, please). Lately, a post towards the bottom of the "In Defense of Mr. Decker" thread. That one was "good" because it was almost plausible (I do apologize when it seems appropriate, but not on that thread). Such is life on the Net with the trolls. They're real brave, aren't they?

No need to comment below. I'll try to catch them as I can and follow up with an authentic post.

-- BigDog (BigDog@duffer.com), May 11, 1999

Answers

Yep Big Dog, you are famous... Some of the less "observant" of the forum mistake my posts for yours on occasion, but you have really received "canine envy" here lately. See, you don't even need to turn on your computer to post... :}

Subliminal brainwaves... yeah that's it.

Us dogs are a special group, if the master likes us he feeds us.

stalkin' the cat...

The Dog (desert dog, that is)

-- Dog (desert dog @-sand.com), May 11, 1999.

BigDog,

It's happened to many of us!

Desert Dog, watch it with the cat comments! Mine are spitting at the screen just now.

Diane

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), May 11, 1999.

Diane, sounds like you need a dog...

The Dog

-- Dog (desert dog @-sand.com), May 11, 1999.

Big Dog,

Just for the record, that's one of the problems with chat rooms and forums on the Internet; there's no way to verify identities.

I liked the way the NCSA forum on Compuserve used to do it when I was hanging out there -- if you posted under a handle, they'd give you one warning; if you did it repeatedly, you were "elf'd" -- locked out of the forum.

I don't think any of my fellow Biffy or Debunkie-types have faked a post in your name (I know I haven't). If I found out that one of them did, I'll out them here myself.

-- Stephen M. Poole, cET (smpoole7@bellsouth.net), May 11, 1999.

Yep. Time for all us feral type creatures to form a pack...I mean pax. Even a cat can be useful..burp.

-- Lobo (athelair@yahoo.com), May 12, 1999.

BigDog. You can "blame" it on anyone. But that does not mean who you have chosen is the person who did it.

This site of any has the ability to know who posts what. Ask Sysman if he can find out who was doing the posting in your name.

See

http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=000Vy7

Clearly, Mr. Greenspun knows his chops. That doesnt make him evil, and this forum would not exist without his expertise and generousity. But it is important to remember whats going on behind the scenes as one wanders the web.

Chapter 9: User Tracking from Phil and Alexs Guide to Web Publishing

Case Studies Conclusions

snip

Web users have no privacy and haven't had any ever since late 1994 when the Netscape Magic Cookie protocol came out.

Vital information for most Web publishers, such as number of click-throughs, is unobtainable from standard server logs and traditional linking practices.

With a little bit of RDBMS programming or a visit to http://photo.net/philg/services.html, you're on your way to collecting the information that you need.

endsnip

-- Cherri (sams@brigadoon.com), May 13, 1999.