Jamie, my former colleague, you may be most sincere, but there
is a logical flaw in your argument. To wit: I doubt there is
anyone who would ever post:
"I do mod comments, but I'm unfair about it.
I abuse my position as an editor to slam down comments critical of me, or
which I hate. I mark those comments as trolls, but really I'm doing it
because the power corrupted me, and I enjoy my journalistic ability to
marginalize opponents.
This is the classic "Who watches the watchers?" question. In one's own
mind, almost certainly, everything one does is fair. This is not to
criticize you personally. However, I think you miss the fact that your
statement doesn't establish anything objectively.
I can say this with some certainty because, like all moderations, ours
get metamoderated -- so if we start unfairly modding people up or
down, we get email a couple of days later letting us know we screwed up!
Again, the logical flaw is that, suppose you didn't care what those
e-mails said? Supposed you believed you were RIGHT, and any email simply
failed to recognize your obvious correctness?
I can't speak for the other Slashdot editors, but as for me...
"For Brutus is an honourable man; So are they all, all honourable men,"
(Marcus Antonius meant that sarcastically, the idea being that even if
Jamie, err, Brutus, was an honorable man, it didn't necessarily mean
that the other editors, err, Romans, were honorable men).
Suppose a skeptical person doubted your philosopher-king status? For example,
we know that Michael Sims had a very different view of the "fairness" of
his actions with regard to slamming down comments about his destruction
of
the censorware.org website. He would undoubtably argue that
all his actions where justified, that every comment he slammed as a troll
was a troll, and so on. This is the essence of the conflict of interest.
I know some of the anti-spam activist have doubts about comments of theirs
criticizing your coverage, which got marked down. Can you blame them for
their doubts? (even if you are in fact an honorable man).
Y'know, you may not realize it, but Slashdot looks a lot different from
"down here". Especially when one thinks an editor is abusive about an issue
which affects one personally.
I have
suggested that editorial moderations be clearly marked. And I agree
with other (anonymous) writers here that the fact that editors have
infinite moderation points (of course only use them morally, justly,
and with great wisdom...), deserves mention in the FAQ. These changes
would alleviate some understandable distrust.
Well, I've rambled, perhaps way too much here. Too many topic which
stirred a chord in me. and perhaps not worth the effort. But definitely,
I suggest again making clear where editorial moderations have been done.
declaratory judgment
n. a judgment of a court which determines the rights of parties
without ordering anything be done or awarding damages. While this
borders on the prohibited "advisory opinion," it is allowed to nip
controversies in the bud. Examples: a party to a contract may seek
the legal interpretation of a contract to determine the parties'
rights, or a corporation may ask a court to decide whether a new tax
is truly applicable to that business before it pays it.
See also: declaratory relief
declaratory relief
n. a judge's determination (called a "declaratory judgment") of the
parties' rights under a contract or a statute often requested (prayed
for) in a lawsuit over a contract. The theory is that an early
resolution of legal rights will resolve some or all of the other
issues in the matter.
See also: declaratory judgment
EFF is filing a Declaratory Judgment suit, meaning it is asking a
federal court to make a declaration of law. Since we represent the
plaintiffs, (the scientists and USENIX), we are asking the court to
declare that it is NOT a violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright
Act (DMCA) and is protected by the First Amendment for Professor
Edward Felten and his team to publish their scientific paper, "Reading
Between the Lines: Lessons from the SDMI Challenge", or discuss their
findings publicly at a USENIX Security Symposium in August.
Wanted: Loveable hero for copyright battle (excerpt)
Although free speech is supposed to protect expression made by
society's fringe elements as well as by the mainstream, public opinion
and even judges can be swayed by tales of mischievous crackers poised
to attack your computer.
"As soon as the judge says 'hacker,' you know you've lost," University
of Minnesota law Professor Dan Burk said. "There is an attempt to
paint defendants as unsympathetic, low-priority, on the fringe--to
make it seem like nobody respectable is going to be harmed except for
weird hacker types."
I discuss a similar theme, but from the perspective of having
been on the Internet for since the early 1980's (that's 1980's),
and having done quite a bit against censorware.
There's an interesting contrast from my programmer/activist writing,
and Katz's journalistic style.
Our site was blocked in the Criminal
Skills category for quite some time, and we still don't know why.
It's very likely because your site deals with security
alerts. SmartFilter tends to stupidly consider that as "hacking" and
thus criminal. Take a look at all the security groups which are also
blacklisted as "Criminal Skills", in my report
I actually have more material on this topic which I haven't put together,
because the politics are publicizing it were daunting. The key is
to understand that computers have no intelligence, and are making
determinations based on simple keyword matching.
The basics of a censorware program are not complex.
To oversimplify a bit, the core of censorware is
just looking up a string (the URL) on the censorware's
blacklist. That's not hard, from a programming point of
view.
You should ignore the PR hype about magic "porn filters"
and similar snake-oil. What the censorware companies
sell is the (claimed) million-item blacklist, and
the work that goes into putting sites on their blacklist.
I will note, however, that the most popular platform
for censorware servers seems to be Microsoft ISA server...
SmartFilterWhere(TM) for SmartFilter(TM) V301
confirms that the URL(s) you have entered are currently listed in the
SmartFilter V301 Control List Categories shown below.
...
http://slashdot.org Entertainment,Gen. News
Probably not evil enough in general. Though you never know when
someone will make an exception.
Maybe I just skimmed their site too quickly, but what
exactly do they do that couldn't be implemented via open source software?
The important point here is that Secure Computing is
the company which makes the censorware product
SmartFilter.
I've actually done the most work examining "SmartFilter", and in fact
my anticensorware investigations
resulted in two stories in Slashdot a while back:
Seth, let me make absolutely sure I understand you here. Are you
trying to say that these people are categorizing the worth of a web
site by the content posted on a different virtual host?
Yes, in effect. What's happening behind-the-scenes is
that some sites are on the blacklist by their domain name, and some
sites are on the blacklist by their IP address. When a site is on the
blacklist by IP address, and it's a virtually hosted site, then
all the virtually hosted sites on that IP address share the
same fate in the censorware.
Regarding the topic of "banning entire IP subnets", MAPS and other
spam blacklists don't do that as an implementation effect. They do it
as a deliberate tactic. I don't want to get into that topic too much
here, but it's a social issue, not a technological one.
Many people will undoubtably ask wide and far-reaching
questions about civil-liberties, activism, and running
cryptome.org. In contrast, I would like to ask a question perhaps
trivial in comparison, but also in the hearts of so very
many of your fans.
If this is really ask whatever we'd like...
How in the world do you generate that unique hash
of free-association, bafflegab, verbing,
just-this-side-of-understandable wording
(not sure which side), "Younglish" writing, for which
you are reknowned?
Are consciousness-altering substances ever involved? Where they ever
involved? Is it effortless, or do you work at it?
This is nowhere in the same league as DMCA, terrorism, and whatnot.
Well, maybe it's safe for me to post this to Slashdot...
[Originally sent to a mailing-list]
In honor of the censorware material just released by ACLU,
I thought I'd try a little experiment in distributed verification.
I took one example from Edelman's report:
16. Southern Alberta Fly Fishing Outfitters #6809 http://www.albertaflyfish.com
Blocked by: N2H2 (Pornography - Sep 11, Oct 7), Websense (Sex - Jul 5,
Aug 18, Sep 11)
Yahoo:/Regional/Countries/Canada/Business and Economy/Shopping and
Services/Outdoors/Fishing/Fly Fishing/Lodges/
Google:/Regional/North America/Canada/Alberta/Recreation and
Sports/Fishing
Fly fishing in Alberta Canada on the world famous Bow River.
Now, what does censorware have against this site? Maybe
it doesn't like too many 'Fly' references in one place? No, it
turns out that this site has the misfortune to be virtually
hosted and share an internet address with:
There's a bunch of other completely innocuous sites suffering
the same collective guilt of the censorware blacklist. I'd like people
to go to N2H2's lookup, at
http://database.n2h2.com/cgi-perl/catrpt.pl
and *verify* this for themselves by testing the following sites:
The Site: [all sites above]
is categorized by N2H2 as:
Pornography
If there's some error-message text in a red font, that means
the N2H2 program itself wasn't working, try again.
Now, since I've publicized this, I expect it'll be changed
very rapidly for this one item. I have a saying: "Alacrity varies
directly with publicity". But this is just one example in a HUGE
blacklist. What else is lurking in there?
That was a fine conjecture. But in fact,
the
issue doesn't have anything to do with
virtual hosting.
It has to do with spammish sites in that netblock.
Important info - spammers in safesurf netblock
on
Pot Calls Kettle Censor
·
· Score: 4, Informative
Without getting into the whole spam issue, here's some relevant info:
safesurf.com is IP address 63.107.146.25
There were a bunch of spammish sites at OTHER places
in the 63.107.146.* netblock. And MAPS will blacklist
every single address within a netblock when it
"escalates" their dispute.
Was this site really used for his family's business? When I checked it
out, it was for sale, and I didn't see any google references to the old site.
Search
Google Groups
for "binladen.+com" (the plus sign is needed to make sure the
search picks up the.com). There's a bunch of
references
A particularly interesting posting claiming just how much Infocom is
tied into various terrorist groups is by
Abdul-Khinzeer Kalb'ullah
This material is not a "secret". It's been in the Dallas Morning News,
for example.
The point is that there's abundant and extremely strong evidence
to investigate InfoCom. It's not a case of "innocent (Moslem) bystanders"
at all. Too much of the discussion has been people just doing the
standard ranting and flaming, that the government is going after an
ISP which "upset" it, that this is bigotry, and so on. Not this
time. Not here.
The topic of credit cards and age-verification has been
much argued in the court rulings. It is particularly
noteworthy in the following passage in the
District Court decision on the CDA:
Perversely, commercial pornographers would remain relatively
unaffected by the Act, since we learned that most of them already use
credit card or adult verification anyway. Commercial pornographers
normally provide a few free pictures to entice a user into proceeding
further into the Web site. To proceed beyond these teasers, users
must provide a credit card number or adult verification number. The
CDA will force these businesses to remove the teasers (or cover the
most salacious content with cgi scripts), but the core, commercial
product of these businesses will remain in place.
I'm going to be releasing much more anticensorware work in the
near future, but it's not clear if it'll be accepted for consideration
on Slashdot. This is in part due to the still-active issue of
What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org), and
the acrimony between myself and Slashdot editor Michael Sims. I'm
trying to see if there is a way to work around that editorial abuse,
but frankly I'm a programmer, not a diplomat.
Suggestion: Mark editorial moderations clearly
on
Welcome to Slashdot 2.2
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
The link [hostname] indicator is a nice, clever idea. I have
a suggestion along the same lines. Please consider doing the
same with editorial moderations. Many people don't even
know that Slashcode
editors have unlimited moderation points
So, when an editor uses those unlimited moderation privileges,
it should appear as e.g. -1 Troll [editor's name]. This
would avoid the current problem that when comments critical of
Slashdot, or a particular editor, are down-modded, there's
no way to tell whether the mod is "honest", or an editor
abusing his position. This leads to much suspicion, as
dishonest editors can say "You can't prove it was me",
while honest editors have a cloud over their integrity.
Now, let me say up-front, of course I have an interest here.
The
acrimony between one Slashot editor and myself is
no secret. I don't deny my experiences inform this suggestion.
Nonetheless, the idea should stand or fall on its own merits.
I call the above view expresed in the article,
the "toxic material" theory.
Take a look what American Family Association has to
say, similiar to the "online heroin" rhetoric above.
CAUTION: This is not to say we want you to go looking for
trouble. Pornography is dangerous, and viewing it (even for a moment)
can set off a terrible chain of events.
[later]
Again, please do not go looking for trouble. Pornography is dangerous,
and viewing it (even for a moment) can set off a terrible chain of
events.
Slashdot Mirror
Jamie, my former colleague, you may be most sincere, but there is a logical flaw in your argument. To wit: I doubt there is anyone who would ever post:
This is the classic "Who watches the watchers?" question. In one's own mind, almost certainly, everything one does is fair. This is not to criticize you personally. However, I think you miss the fact that your statement doesn't establish anything objectively.Again, the logical flaw is that, suppose you didn't care what those e-mails said? Supposed you believed you were RIGHT, and any email simply failed to recognize your obvious correctness?
"For Brutus is an honourable man; So are they all, all honourable men,"(Marcus Antonius meant that sarcastically, the idea being that even if Jamie, err, Brutus, was an honorable man, it didn't necessarily mean that the other editors, err, Romans, were honorable men).
Suppose a skeptical person doubted your philosopher-king status? For example, we know that Michael Sims had a very different view of the "fairness" of his actions with regard to slamming down comments about his destruction of the censorware.org website. He would undoubtably argue that all his actions where justified, that every comment he slammed as a troll was a troll, and so on. This is the essence of the conflict of interest. I know some of the anti-spam activist have doubts about comments of theirs criticizing your coverage, which got marked down. Can you blame them for their doubts? (even if you are in fact an honorable man).
Y'know, you may not realize it, but Slashdot looks a lot different from "down here". Especially when one thinks an editor is abusive about an issue which affects one personally.
I have suggested that editorial moderations be clearly marked. And I agree with other (anonymous) writers here that the fact that editors have infinite moderation points (of course only use them morally, justly, and with great wisdom ...), deserves mention in the FAQ. These changes
would alleviate some understandable distrust.
Well, I've rambled, perhaps way too much here. Too many topic which stirred a chord in me. and perhaps not worth the effort. But definitely, I suggest again making clear where editorial moderations have been done.
Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org)
Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org)
Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org)
Frequently Asked Questions about Felten & USENIX v. RIAA Legal Case
Particularly notable:
Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org)
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,5082 221,00.html
Wanted: Loveable hero for copyright battle (excerpt)
Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org)
http://www.cryptome.org/mpaa-v-2600-cad.htm
Mirrored at EFF:
http://www.eff.org/Cases/MPAA_DVD_cases/20011128_n y_appeal_decision.html
Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org)
Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org)
Thoughts On Winning An EFF Pioneer Award
I discuss a similar theme, but from the perspective of having been on the Internet for since the early 1980's (that's 1980's), and having done quite a bit against censorware.
There's an interesting contrast from my programmer/activist writing, and Katz's journalistic style.
Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org)
SmartFilter - I've Got A Little List
I actually have more material on this topic which I haven't put together, because the politics are publicizing it were daunting. The key is to understand that computers have no intelligence, and are making determinations based on simple keyword matching.
Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org)
The basics of a censorware program are not complex. To oversimplify a bit, the core of censorware is just looking up a string (the URL) on the censorware's blacklist. That's not hard, from a programming point of view.
You should ignore the PR hype about magic "porn filters" and similar snake-oil. What the censorware companies sell is the (claimed) million-item blacklist, and the work that goes into putting sites on their blacklist.
I will note, however, that the most popular platform for censorware servers seems to be Microsoft ISA server ...
Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org)
checking slashdot on SmartFilter's blacklist gives: Probably not evil enough in general. Though you never know when someone will make an exception.
Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org)
SmartFilter: Way Too Extreme
SmartFilter's Greatest Evils
(sigh, due to politics, I may never get an article in Slashdot again - but in the spirit of the holiday, I'll give thanks for what I had)
Anyway, the major work is not in the censorware program itself, but in compiling the HUGE blacklist.
Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org)
Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org)
The story that Al Gore claimed to have invented the Internet has been thoroughly debunked by Phil Agre in http://commons.somewhere.com/rre/2000/RRE.Al.Gore. and.the.Inte.html
and
rebutted further later
That meme was a creation of Declan McCullagh, a "reporter" for Wired News who is politically a dogmatic Libertarian so extreme that he managed to get a book chapter using him as a poster-boy for Libertarian ideologues, and a different book chapter using him as Libertarian joke-fodder.
If you think this is flame-bait, the aspect of his fabricated story being a Liberatarian hit-piece on Al Gore was extensively discussed in a debunking by Salon
After Declan McCullagh was repeatedly taken to task for his hatchet-job, over more than year, by everyone who was there, from Dave Farberto Robert Kahn and Vinton Cerf, Declan finally grudgingly retracted the "story"
But people still repeat it, because urban legends never die.
Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org)
For another example discussed, see
http://sethf.com/anticensorware/cyberpatrol/247for 1.php
Regarding the topic of "banning entire IP subnets", MAPS and other spam blacklists don't do that as an implementation effect. They do it as a deliberate tactic. I don't want to get into that topic too much here, but it's a social issue, not a technological one.
Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org)
Many people will undoubtably ask wide and far-reaching questions about civil-liberties, activism, and running cryptome.org. In contrast, I would like to ask a question perhaps trivial in comparison, but also in the hearts of so very many of your fans.
If this is really ask whatever we'd like ...
How in the world do you generate that unique hash of free-association, bafflegab, verbing, just-this-side-of-understandable wording (not sure which side), "Younglish" writing, for which you are reknowned?
Are consciousness-altering substances ever involved? Where they ever involved? Is it effortless, or do you work at it?
This is nowhere in the same league as DMCA, terrorism, and whatnot.
But believe me, inquiring minds want to know.
Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org)
[Originally sent to a mailing-list]
In honor of the censorware material just released by ACLU, I thought I'd try a little experiment in distributed verification.
I took one example from Edelman's report:
16. Southern Alberta Fly Fishing Outfitters #6809 /Regional/Countries/Canada/Business and Economy/Shopping and /Regional/North America/Canada/Alberta/Recreation and
http://www.albertaflyfish.com
Blocked by: N2H2 (Pornography - Sep 11, Oct 7), Websense (Sex - Jul 5,
Aug 18, Sep 11)
Yahoo:
Services/Outdoors/Fishing/Fly Fishing/Lodges/
Google:
Sports/Fishing
Fly fishing in Alberta Canada on the world famous Bow River.
Now, what does censorware have against this site? Maybe it doesn't like too many 'Fly' references in one place? No, it turns out that this site has the misfortune to be virtually hosted and share an internet address with:
http://clubexoticx.com - Club Exoticx
There's a bunch of other completely innocuous sites suffering the same collective guilt of the censorware blacklist. I'd like people to go to N2H2's lookup, at http://database.n2h2.com/cgi-perl/catrpt.pl and *verify* this for themselves by testing the following sites:
http://albertaflyfish.com - Southern Alberta Fly Fishing Outfitters
http://alistairbrown.com - Alistair Brown Folksinger
http://eclothing.com - 'The Game Is On Sportswear Company Ltd.'
http://effectivemanagementsolutions.com - Effective Solutions
http://eligh.com - Springboard Consulting
http://eyepowered.com - E Y E P O W E R E D - 360 Degree Panoramas
http://friendlyfacesonline.com - Create personalized family cartoon
http://gear4pickups.com - Gear4Trucks: HitchHoist Portable Truck Crane,
http://informationonhold.com - Information On-Hold
http://letsmakewine.com - Let's Make Wine
http://planetregister.com - Planet Registe
http://ppt-slides.com - 35mm Slides from your computer file
http://proteach.net - Pro Teach Main Page - Baseball instruction
http://rosiedonovan.com - Rosie Donovan Photography
http://springboardtoinnovation.com - Springboard Consulting
Here, I'll make this easy. Just click these URLs:
http://database.n2h2.com/cgi-perl/catrpt.pl?req_UR L=http://albertaflyfish.com R L=http://alistairbrown.com R L=http://eclothing.com R L=http://effectivemanagementsolutions.com R L=http://eligh.com R L=http://eyepowered.com R L=http://friendlyfacesonline.com R L=http://gear4pickups.com R L=http://informationonhold.com R L=http://letsmakewine.com R L=http://planetregister.com R L=http://ppt-slides.com R L=http://proteach.net R L=http://rosiedonovan.com R L=http://springboardtoinnovation.com
http://database.n2h2.com/cgi-perl/catrpt.pl?req_U
http://database.n2h2.com/cgi-perl/catrpt.pl?req_U
http://database.n2h2.com/cgi-perl/catrpt.pl?req_U
http://database.n2h2.com/cgi-perl/catrpt.pl?req_U
http://database.n2h2.com/cgi-perl/catrpt.pl?req_U
http://database.n2h2.com/cgi-perl/catrpt.pl?req_U
http://database.n2h2.com/cgi-perl/catrpt.pl?req_U
http://database.n2h2.com/cgi-perl/catrpt.pl?req_U
http://database.n2h2.com/cgi-perl/catrpt.pl?req_U
http://database.n2h2.com/cgi-perl/catrpt.pl?req_U
http://database.n2h2.com/cgi-perl/catrpt.pl?req_U
http://database.n2h2.com/cgi-perl/catrpt.pl?req_U
http://database.n2h2.com/cgi-perl/catrpt.pl?req_U
http://database.n2h2.com/cgi-perl/catrpt.pl?req_U
You should get
The Site: [all sites above]
is categorized by N2H2 as:
Pornography
If there's some error-message text in a red font, that means the N2H2 program itself wasn't working, try again.
Now, since I've publicized this, I expect it'll be changed very rapidly for this one item. I have a saying: "Alacrity varies directly with publicity". But this is just one example in a HUGE blacklist. What else is lurking in there?
Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org)
Read this whole thread about the spammish sites at safesurf.com's ISP
Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org)
safesurf.com is IP address 63.107.146.25 There were a bunch of spammish sites at OTHER places in the 63.107.146.* netblock. And MAPS will blacklist every single address within a netblock when it "escalates" their dispute.
See this long list of spammish sites once in the 63.107.146.* netblock (June 22 2001)
Note many if not all of these sites have changed address by now.
Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org)
A particularly interesting posting claiming just how much Infocom is tied into various terrorist groups is by Abdul-Khinzeer Kalb'ullah
This material is not a "secret". It's been in the Dallas Morning News, for example.
The point is that there's abundant and extremely strong evidence to investigate InfoCom. It's not a case of "innocent (Moslem) bystanders" at all. Too much of the discussion has been people just doing the standard ranting and flaming, that the government is going after an ISP which "upset" it, that this is bigotry, and so on. Not this time. Not here.
Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org) - Updated
whois binladen.com
Registrant:
Binladen (BINLADEN2-DOM) 630 International Pkwy
Suite 100
Richardson, TX 75081
US
Domain Name: BINLADEN.COM
Administrative Contact, Technical Contact, Billing Contact:
Elashi, Bayan (BE159) bayane@INFOCOMCORP.COM
InfoCom Corp
630 International Pkwy, #100
Richardson, TX 75081
(972) 644-5363 (FAX) (972) 644-8609
binladen.com was Osama's family business, not him. But still, there a lot of reason for the FBI's interest.
Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org) - Updated
Readers may be interested in my anticensorware reports on the above topic, particularly
-
http://sethf.com/anticensorware/bess/loophole.php -
BESS's Secret LOOPHOLE (censorware vs. privacy & anonymity)
-
http://sethf.com/anticensorware/smartfilter/great
e stevils.php -
SmartFilter's Greatest Evils - censorware & privacy/anonymity
Censorware MUST ban privacy, anonymity, even language-translation sites, because these represent a possible escape from the control of censorware.See also, by Peacefire, http://peacefire.org/babelfish/ - BabelFish blocked by censorware
I'm going to be releasing much more anticensorware work in the near future, but it's not clear if it'll be accepted for consideration on Slashdot. This is in part due to the still-active issue of What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org), and the acrimony between myself and Slashdot editor Michael Sims. I'm trying to see if there is a way to work around that editorial abuse, but frankly I'm a programmer, not a diplomat.
-- Seth Finkelstein
So, when an editor uses those unlimited moderation privileges, it should appear as e.g. -1 Troll [editor's name]. This would avoid the current problem that when comments critical of Slashdot, or a particular editor, are down-modded, there's no way to tell whether the mod is "honest", or an editor abusing his position. This leads to much suspicion, as dishonest editors can say "You can't prove it was me", while honest editors have a cloud over their integrity.
Now, let me say up-front, of course I have an interest here. The acrimony between one Slashot editor and myself is no secret. I don't deny my experiences inform this suggestion. Nonetheless, the idea should stand or fall on its own merits.
-- Seth Finkelstein