The story does have some things correct (ie. about video rentals, music etc.), but does seem to leave some room for wondering about the energy source used for the computer, and the type of computer, and the connection speed to just go and download movies and druel over Apples Web site, and the frequency of e-mails received from the Afghan geek to the Slashdot editor.
I think the way everyone on the board could know is if the Afghan geek posted a message on one of his favorite sites (Slashdot), and then we could trace the domain by looking at e-mail information back to Afghanistan. Of course, this isn't to say that this couldn't be replicated, but not without some research.
Slashdot Mirror
The story does have some things correct (ie. about video rentals, music etc.), but does seem to leave some room for wondering about the energy source used for the computer, and the type of computer, and the connection speed to just go and download movies and druel over Apples Web site, and the frequency of e-mails received from the Afghan geek to the Slashdot editor. I think the way everyone on the board could know is if the Afghan geek posted a message on one of his favorite sites (Slashdot), and then we could trace the domain by looking at e-mail information back to Afghanistan. Of course, this isn't to say that this couldn't be replicated, but not without some research.