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Techdirt Asks Judge To Dismiss Another Lawsuit By That Guy Who Didn't Invent Email (arstechnica.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the talent-for-lawsuits dept.

Three months ago Shiva Ayyadurai won a $750,000 settlement from Gawker (after they'd already gone bankrupt). He'd argued Gawker defamed him by mocking Ayyadurai's claim he'd invented email, and now he's also suing Techdirt founder Michael Masnick -- who is not bankrupt, and is fighting back. Long-time Slashdot reader walterbyrd quotes Ars Technica: In his motion, Masnick claims that Ayyadurai "is seeking to use the muzzle of a defamation action to silence those who question his claim to historical fame." He continues, "The 14 articles and 84 allegedly defamatory statements catalogued in the complaint all say essentially the same thing: that Defendants believe that because the critical elements of electronic mail were developed long before Ayyadurai's 1978 computer program, his claim to be the 'inventor of e-mail' is false"...

The motion skims the history of e-mail and points out that the well-known fields of e-mail messages, like "to," "from," "cc," "subject," "message," and "bcc," were used in ARPANET e-mail messages for years before Ayyadurai made his "EMAIL" program. Ayyadurai focuses on statements calling him a "fake," a "liar," or a "fraud" putting forth "bogus" claims. Masnick counters that such phrases are "rhetorical hyperbole" meant to express opinions and reminds the court that "[t]he law provides no redress for harsh name-calling."
The motion calls the lawsuit "a misbegotten effort to stifle historical debate, silence criticism, and chill others from continuing to question Ayyadurai's grandiose claims." Ray Tomlinson has been dead for less than a year, but in this fascinating 1998 article recalled testing the early email protocols in 1971, remembering that "Most likely the first message was QWERTYIOP."

82 comments

  1. First! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Or should I say, "QWERTYIOP"

    1. Re:First! by Cederic · · Score: 2

      No. You should say QWERTYUIOP and ask why the first email was sent on a keyboard missing the U key.

    2. Re:First! by msauve · · Score: 1

      U can't invent email without U.

      --
      "National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
    3. Re:First! by aliquis · · Score: 1

      Oh.

      I read it as Internet over Protocol or something ;D

    4. Re: First! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Good point.

  2. testing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This article has been archived? Weird error...

  3. Prior art by Maury+Markowitz · · Score: 5, Informative

    As far as I am aware, "666BOX" by IPSharp had all the features he's claimed and was first written in 1974. That is, to, cc, bcc, reply etc.

    I'm sure others here can come up with other examples?

    1. Re:Prior art by c · · Score: 2

      I'm sure others here can come up with other examples?

      Probably, but it doesn't matter... there's already enough well-known prior art out there that this guy is well into "kook" territory. More evidence that he's a kook isn't going to change his opinion. A court slapdown might, although I suspect they'll drop the case before it gets to that point.

      --
      Log in or piss off.
    2. Re:Prior art by CanEHdian · · Score: 1

      Masnick/Techdirt need to countersue (extortion or whatever) and NOT drop/settle that. Crowdfund and see it through until the end.

      --
      When the copyright term is "forever minus a day", live every day like it's the last.
    3. Re:Prior art by MightyMartian · · Score: 5, Informative

      Ray Tomlinson invented email if you're going to pick any single person who developed the email system we know today. Ayyadurai developed some dead end email system years after the header formats were developed for Arpanet email. Ayyadurai can try to sue people all he wants but a series of RFCs beginning with RFC 561 in 1973 laid out the Arpanet email system that we still use today (though the transmission protocols have evolved since the mid-70s). That's the most frustrating part of this fruitcake's claims, since one can delve into the RFCs from the early 70s onward and see how the Internet email system evolved as new features and logic were added.

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    4. Re:Prior art by c · · Score: 1

      That's a legit option if you don't mind dragging things out. On the other hand, the sooner the lawsuit is dropped the more money they save and the sooner they can start writing about "the coward who didn't invent e-mail".

      --
      Log in or piss off.
    5. Re:Prior art by PolygamousRanchKid+ · · Score: 2

      I'm sure others here can come up with other examples?

      IBM was kicking around emails on their SNA based VNET system in the mid-70s.

      I dimly remember that if your "reader" (inbox) was too large, you needed to create a large temp disk, copy everything from your "A" disk to the temp disk, un-mount both, then mount the temp disk as your "A" disk, clean up your mail, then mount your "real" "A" disk as a temp disk, copy everything from the "temp" "A" disk to the "real" "A" disk, and then finally re-mount the "real" "A" disk ask the "A" disk, and then temp disk would be automatically deleted when you logged out.

      Or something like that.

      There will be a pop quiz about this later in the thread.

      For my next act, I will show you how to enter CP, increase your virtual storage for the session, and then re-enter CMS with "i cms" . . .

      --
      Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
    6. Re:Prior art by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you look up the actual history of the Arpanet, you will see that no one person "invented" email. Just like if you study the history of radio, no one person "invented" it. Many individuals contributed to what would eventually become known as email. Therefore, Shiva Ayyadurai's claims are false, and he is a liar! I have said this before, and I am still waiting to be sued! But I won't be, because I don't have any large amount of $$$$ that he could get by suing me! The stupid lying bastard is just trying to rewrite history to make a name for himself, while making a pile of $$$$ he doesn't deserve!
      Shiva Ayyadurai go FSCK yourself!

    7. Re:Prior art by MightyMartian · · Score: 1

      The reason to name Ray Tomlinson is because the set of header fields that we consider the core of an Arpanet/Internet email message originated with him. He, unlike Ayyadurai, was a humble man who freely admitted that there had been many people working on these concepts, and that his contribution by and large was to publish an RFC that laid out those developments at that point in time (1973-75) of what Arpanet email should be or was capable of. In reality, of course, messaging systems predate even the Internet by many years.

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
  4. Shiva Ayyadurai is a fraud. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    He is as bad as APK here in claiming they invented anything.

    1. Re:Shiva Ayyadurai is a fraud. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I don't think APK claimed to have invented hosts files, just that you can use them to cure cancer.

    2. Re: Shiva Ayyadurai is a fraud. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Al Gore never claimed he invented the internet.

    3. Re: Shiva Ayyadurai is a fraud. by Hognoxious · · Score: 4, Funny

      He invented computer science. Hence the word algoreithms.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    4. Re: Shiva Ayyadurai is a fraud. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Snopes is not a reliable source. Try again.

    5. Re: Shiva Ayyadurai is a fraud. by ravenshrike · · Score: 0

      True, he claimed he created the internet. But unless you think middle managers who pitch the value of a project to higher ups without being involved in the actual project create the thing, he didn't create jack shit.

    6. Re: Shiva Ayyadurai is a fraud. by Calydor · · Score: 2

      Snopes says that Snopes is reliable. Just the same way that the Bible is the word of God because the Bible says so.

      --
      -=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
    7. Re:Shiva Ayyadurai is a fraud. by hey! · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Well, it's possible that he's mildly delusional, as most of us are about beliefs about ourselves that we hold dear.

      It strikes me that Ayyadurai is in a legal catch-22 situation. Let's suppose for a moment he did "invent" email. That would make him a public figure, and the legal standard used to establish defamation is "actual malice. That's a difficult standard to meet.

      I assume Ayyadurai's complaint are claims that he is a "fake" or a "liar". Suppose some random shmoe is interviewing for a job, and you tell the interviewer that he's a "liar". That is defamation, unless you have actual reason to believe he is a liar. But if you say the same thing about a politician running for office, it's NOT defamation unless you have actual reason to believe he is NOT a liar. That's because the politician is a public figure.

      It seems to me nearly impossible to defame someone by calling him a liar in the context of his claiming to invent anything. His very demand to be recognized for his achievement makes him a public figure, whether that claim is true or not.

      --
      Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
    8. Re: Shiva Ayyadurai is a fraud. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Snopes is reliable unless you like alternative facts.

    9. Re: Shiva Ayyadurai is a fraud. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And Tim Berners-Lee or whatever his name is. That guy did not invent the internet, it existed long before his claimed invention of it.

    10. Re:Shiva Ayyadurai is a fraud. by MightyMartian · · Score: 4, Insightful

      His all argument is basically based on semantics. Basically, when he was a teenager, he wrote a program called "EMAIL", and that was the first messaging system called "EMAIL", except that it wasn't, previous systems had been referred to as "e-mail". At any rate, he then asserts that because his system was called "email" and he can't find anyone who called previous systems "email", that not only is he the first to develop a messaging system with that name, but apparently the first to develop a messaging system with those features. It's a semantic wordplay feeding into a conflation fallacy, because the features of his program already existed by 1975-76.

      He's a kind of IP troll save that he's bereft of any actual IP. At this point he really is a kook in the classic vein, trying to salvage a reputation he never really had.

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    11. Re: Shiva Ayyadurai is a fraud. by Lehk228 · · Score: 1

      but without those managers, upper management would never have funded it.

      --
      Snowden and Manning are heroes.
    12. Re: Shiva Ayyadurai is a fraud. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Done. Let's see... the only people saying Snopes is wrong are blatantly alt-right white nationalists or ultra-conservatives who dislike facts and rationality, preferring their own polemic screeds and ideologically bankrupt talking points.

      No thanks. I'll stick to the site I've been using for nearly twenty years over a bloviating echo chamber of orange-flavored shitposting.

    13. Re:Shiva Ayyadurai is a fraud. by hey! · · Score: 1

      He's a kind of IP troll save that he's bereft of any actual IP.

      Which means he's not an IP troll at all. What he is, is a glory hog. It's a bad thing to be, but not every bad thing to be is the same thing.

      --
      Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
    14. Re: Shiva Ayyadurai is a fraud. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If Walter Obrian can get a TV show with fake things that never happened (including his "197" IQ), so can this guy!

    15. Re:Shiva Ayyadurai is a fraud. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      >It seems to me nearly impossible to defame someone by calling him a liar in the context of his claiming to invent anything.

      Calling someone a liar requires knowledge that the person is intentionally attempting deception or knowingly stating false statements. Just proving them wrong is not enough because people can be mistaken without intending to deceive. However, the problem word here is "fraud". That's a term that has specific definitions in criminal and tort law. Accusing someone of fraud in publication is not something that you just can wave away as "rhetorical hyperbole".

    16. Re: Shiva Ayyadurai is a fraud. by interkin3tic · · Score: 1

      Yeah, it's not nearly as good as that other unbiased and always accurate source of information we all know about...

      Sarcasm aside, there's also the fact that he didn't suggest he created the internet. He had a slightly awkwardly phrased statement taken out of context.

    17. Re:Shiva Ayyadurai is a fraud. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Word on the street is, he's married to Fran "The Nanny" Drescher. That's right, he fucks the pussy you jack off to. If, by some miracle, you managed to eat her out, it would taste like his dick.

    18. Re: Shiva Ayyadurai is a fraud. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Next up, the guy who made a creepy binder of pictures of women sues Facebook for stealing "Facebook" idea from him.

    19. Re: Shiva Ayyadurai is a fraud. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      but without those managers, upper management would never have funded it.

      Exactly, many folks think that technical guys are the ones who build and the middle management is useless. What they are not able to comprehend is that without a good manager, a team cannot deliver jack! A great manager can deliver a great project with 10 mediocre team members but a team of 10 high caliber team members cannot deliver a project without a manager.

    20. Re: Shiva Ayyadurai is a fraud. by Coren22 · · Score: 1

      Let's see... the only people saying Snopes is wrong are blatantly alt-right white nationalists or ultra-conservatives who dislike facts and rationality

      What makes you say that? Were they at the same time making Nazi salutes and calling for the destruction of all Jews?

      --
      APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
    21. Re: Shiva Ayyadurai is a fraud. by Coren22 · · Score: 1

      I love pointing out the horrible technical errors they make in that show. For something that is supposed to be about a genius, it is amazing how much they get wrong.

      --
      APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
  5. indo-chimp by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    He should claim to have invented street-shitting. That'd be a lot more credible.

    1. Re: indo-chimp by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think the Chinese invented that, judging by the amount of them who come to Hong Kong and shit all over the streets. Or maybe they just copy another culture. They are specialized in copying of course.

    2. Re: indo-chimp by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh wow another Hong Kong er!

    3. Re: indo-chimp by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I bet this chimp's ass was wiped with indian money and servant's hair, back where he comes from. What his fucked up personality can't deal with is that you can't buy hacker status like a fucking degree. Ethnicity aside, this fuckbag is a chimp.

  6. Harsh Name-Calling by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

    Masnick counters that such phrases are "rhetorical hyperbole" meant to express opinions and reminds the court that "[t]he law provides no redress for harsh name-calling."

    Unless that name-calling happens to involve a racially-derogatory term. Then it's a hate-crime!

  7. Just like Steyn-Mann lawsuits by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Steyn called Mann a fraud, so Mann sued. Then Steyn countersued. Been in DC courts for years now.

    Then Steyn wrote a whole book on why Mann was a fraud based on other scientists quotes about Mann.

    Maybe someone should do that here?

    1. Re:Just like Steyn-Mann lawsuits by 0xdeadbeef · · Score: 1

      Steyn resembles Ayyadurai,though. He's an attention whore who makes shit up for attention.

    2. Re: Just like Steyn-Mann lawsuits by 0xdeaddead · · Score: 1

      Totally

    3. Re:Just like Steyn-Mann lawsuits by MightyMartian · · Score: 1

      Except Mann isn't a fraud, and no one in the scientific community actually thinks he is, and why Steyn is being sued is for comparing Mann to Jerry Sandusky. Steyn is a polemicist whose stock and trade is making outrageous statements for the hoards of like-minded who want to believe science is a lie and Muslims are all evil.

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    4. Re:Just like Steyn-Mann lawsuits by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Right, so I guess I'd been living under a rock, because I had to do some searching to find out what this was all about.

      BTW, it's "hordes".

    5. Re:Just like Steyn-Mann lawsuits by ChrisMaple · · Score: 1

      Unlike you, Steyn is literate. The word you failed to find is horde.

      --
      Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
  8. 1986 eMail.mil by OldHawk777 · · Score: 2

    My first eMail was in the 1980s prior to DNS. name1986@IPv4

    --
    Unaccountable leaders are masters, and unrepresented people are slaves. How do US and EU fare?
    1. Re: 1986 eMail.mil by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But when was your first shemale?

  9. Re:Another lying delusionial Mohammedan by johanw · · Score: 1, Offtopic

    He's from Bombay so he is probably a hindu, not a muslim. Either that or he has seen some reason and become an atheist.

  10. One thing for sure by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

    His parents invented "precious snowflakes".

  11. Actually... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I invented email and have a shirt to prove that I did.

    CAP === 'octopus'

  12. Just wondering by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Isn't this guy perchance associated with the kid who claimed to have invented a digital clock. Too bad Obama didn't invite this shithead to the white house for a pat on the back.

  13. A kook and snake oil vendor by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 4, Insightful
    One look at his website , it is clear this guy is a simple kook, hawking "ginger can cure cancer" or "yoga improves your SAT score" stuff. His claim to fame rests on the "inventor of email" and that claim is his meal ticket.

    He cleverly won against a bankrupt company, which probably did not show up in court. He does not really have to win against TechDirt or anyone. He has already acquired enough blind followers who would shut out contradictory information, who are in the alternative facts realm. So he is in a no lose proposition. Win, he gets money and more credence. Lose, he would go back to "how big companies in big bad USA had stolen his invention and used high power and money to shut out a poor Indian immigrant". Either way his meal ticket is safe.

    So he is going sue me now? For defaming his character?

    --
    sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
    1. Re:A kook and snake oil vendor by Major+Blud · · Score: 1

      Either way his meal ticket is safe

      I'm not so sure, Fran Dresher could divorce him at any time.

      --
      If you post as Anonymous Coward, don't expect a reply.
    2. Re: A kook and snake oil vendor by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah but, when he's dead, noone is going to care or remember.

    3. Re:A kook and snake oil vendor by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      They weren't actually married, but apparently she's dumped him. LOL.

      P.S. it's Drescher.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    4. Re:A kook and snake oil vendor by Major+Blud · · Score: 1

      Yeah my bad on the spelling....also didn't realize she dumped him this past September.

      The most disgusting thing about this is that he waited till Tomlinson was dead to say that he "died a liar"
      (https://twitter.com/va_shiva/status/706670699713335297) and that he was a murderer because he worked for Raytheon (but MIT is somehow immune to that, even though they can also be lumped into the military-industrial complex (http://www2.needham.k12.ma.us/nhs/cur/wwII/WWII-p1-04/brooke_p1_kss_4_1_04/home.html). Somebody really needs to send this guy home with a bag full of his teeth.

      --
      If you post as Anonymous Coward, don't expect a reply.
    5. Re:A kook and snake oil vendor by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I guess she doesn't like pencil dick.

  14. Yeah by Ryanrule · · Score: 1

    This guy is pretty much equal to trump.

    1. Re:Yeah by forty-2 · · Score: 2

      If you file a $15M lawsuit because someone hurt your feelings, you forfeit the right to be addressed as a civilized human being. Someone should hurt his feelings with a 3' section of schedule 40 black iron pipe.

      --
      never drink kool-aid from a big vat
    2. Re:Yeah by MightyMartian · · Score: 1

      Nothing so violent. A judge should hurt his feelings by declaring him a vexatious litigant. That's the appropriate route for those who use (and abuse) the court system for idiotic and abusive lawsuits.

      But I think Ayyadurai is in the "there's no such thing as bad publicity" department. Doubtless he's thrilled that his claims are being talked about again.

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
  15. I invented the iPhone by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I am not even kidding (link below is from 2005):

    https://hardware.slashdot.org/...

    I will be filing my lawsuit against gawker and then techdirt shortly.

  16. Easy solution by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Kill him, put his head on a pike. Can't sue anyone when you're dead, can you? Leave the head for anyone who feels like it to use it as urinal. Problem solved.

  17. Let me guess... by hackwrench · · Score: 1

    It reads "I invented e-mail, and all I got was this stupid T-Shirt!"

  18. Fucking Troll by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That P.O.S. is a fucking troll and needs to be slapped down, hard!

    How come nobody has set up url's with names like:

    shivaayyaduraiisafuckingliar.net, or shivaayyaduraididnotinventemail.net, etc.?

    If I had the money to do that I sure would.

  19. Re:Another lying delusionial Mohammedan by Grog6 · · Score: 1

    So is this this decades GNAA poster?

    Time will tell.

    Unless that's you, Donald.

    --
    Truth isn't Truth - Guliani
  20. Re: Snopes and reliability by hackwrench · · Score: 1

    Nothing is 100% reliable and if you want to find out something reliably the right way to go about it is to find better facts, not just merely claim because you happen to sometimes get them wrong any given fact is wrong.

  21. When *you* are famous by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You can use Big Names e.g. The Man Formerly Known As Prince (May he rest in peace), The Guy who Did Not invent Email The Cow that started the Chicago Fire, etc

  22. Re:Another lying delusionial Mohammedan by Zontar+The+Mindless · · Score: 1

    No, the original GNAA crew actually claimed to *be* GNs. There was that movie. And they were occasionally funny.

    --
    Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
  23. sounds like a douche bag by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    total douche bag
    vinegar n water, not even spring rain..

    1. Re:sounds like a douche bag by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      True story .... so I'm friends with Fran Drescher. We're not "friends friends" but when I see her at the grocery store or coffee shop we'll say hello. So, one day I asked her about this clown (they dated for a while) and she said:

      My vagina was stinky so I grabbed the biggest douchebag I could find. ehahehahahahahahahahahahahahahahhah

  24. Re:Another lying delusionial Mohammedan by slashdice · · Score: 1

    If two black men having anal sex makes you laugh, then, yes, GNAA is funny.

    --
    Copyright (c) 1990 - 2014 Dice. All rights reserved. Use of this comment is subject to certain Terms and Conditions.
  25. Re:Another lying delusionial Mohammedan by Zontar+The+Mindless · · Score: 1

    <<---[point]............[you]--->>

    --
    Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
  26. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 1

    Comment removed based on user account deletion