IPs rule, you lefty, limbic-dominated homo.
(1) was me; I thought my email address would be linked. Oops.
Christ, this is humiliating. All three comments from me.
The Master has returned, and his kung-fu remains strong.
Huh. I believe I 'know' Ace -- assuming it's the same person, a couple years back I used to post on a forum where he hung out, and I had some very long, dull arguments with him in the run-up to the war. Very tense guy.
Labs, quit spoofing your web handle.
Someday, my children, I will tell you about Unfogged's one instance of "sock puppetry" from someone who took use of one's real name very seriously. But not today.
Unfogged's one instance of "sock puppetry" from someone who took use of one's real name very seriously
I presume that this is opposed to sock-puppetry from people who don't take use of one's real name seriously, like me.
Yeah, whatever. Everyone knows I live in Greenland. Good luck with the jurisdictional issues.
Don't understimate the long jurisprudential reach of my cock, Bitch.
Glenn may not realize how strong the accusations of sock-puppetry are, but unless those three bloggers are lying, the accusation is not weak.
The IP address they give is for a large South American internet service that has both residential and business service. (Greenwald spends time in Brazil, so that's expected.) Whois doesn't have more specific info than that.
11: Slap me with your frivolous lawsuits, they'll come back to bite you.
Wait...people are really up in arms about the sock puppetry thing?
Glenn may not realize how strong the accusations of sock-puppetry are, but unless those three bloggers are lying, the accusation is not weak.
Seriously? This is important?
Reading Glenn's comments on that post is depressing.
12: Did you read Greenwald's response? Why isn't that satisfactory?
12: He seems to be acknowledging that the comments were made by someone in his household:
IP addresses signify the Internet account one uses, not any one individual. Those in the same household have the same IP address. In response to the personal attacks that have been oozing forth these last couple of weeks, others have left comments responding to them and correcting the factual inaccuracies, as have I. In each case when I did, I have used my own name.
The formatting on the kitten page is kind of messed up.
after reading all those posts, I feel like I've been doused with ressentiment and need a shower to wash away the smell. I mean is there any reason to doubt that the guy practiced at Wachtell? Do these people realize that 99% of the associates at that kind of law firm are democrats?
At least Greenwald has an explanation for why Goldstein et al. are so freaking obsessed with the whole outing/IP addy thing.
Although I think part of it is also just that stupid adolescent glee in thinking you're so much smarter than the grownups because you know how to program the VCR and you think they don't.
It would be so much cooler if the title of this post were "IP, Freely".
Do these people realize that 99% of the associates at that kind of law firm are democrats?
maybe, maybe not. even if true, don't underestimate the other 1%.
http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/01/national-reviews-new-blog-vile-case.html
17: It must be some kind of spoofing or DOS attack or something from teh right wing! I blame Goldstein! Everyone knows he hates kittens.
15: A straight-up denial in face of evidence like this isn't satisfactory, especially when he doesn't give a clear indication that he understands the technology thoroughly. (I'm not familiar with how IP savvy he is.)
16: That's a possible interpretation, but he doesn't seem to be committing to the possibility. When I read it I interpreted "others" to mean other people on the internet, not other people using the same IP. If he were more explicit in saying that were the case, I would be satisfied. This would also explain why the content of the various messages was similar--if the people commenting were all in the same room or something, you would expect those patterns.
20: Maybe you should get your own blog, smarty.
22: Although the kitten looks just fine to me.
Maybe you should get your own blog, smarty.
Sniping from cover is a pretty sweet gig, though.
Here's the thing. Let's say his partner were pissed about the attacks on all those blogs, and went and posted a few comments under a few different names. (a) Who fucking cares? And (b) How is Glenn responsible for that? And (c) Since Glenn has denied posting the comments himself, what business is it of the blogosphere who it was? And let's not forget (d) Why would Glenn leave pseudonymous comments on other blogs arguing with people when he's clearly very comfortable posting arguments under his own name on his own blog, which is a hell of a lot more effective anyway?
21: I agree. What's with that url address?
26b: Obviously, because he's gay. If he were straight, his partner would be a woman, and she'd be subject to his orders.
26c: Even if he *did* sock-puppet, who the hell cares?
It certainly looks - if the screenshots are real, etc., etc. - like a legit case of sock-puppetry to me. I don't think it makes him evil, but it sure makes him silly. The IP address in question looks like it's probably assigned to a residential customer of that ISP.
Sock-puppetry may not seem like a big deal, but I remind you that earlier this summer there was talk of banning a Certain Disappeared Commenter when someone posted inflammatory remarks from the same IP. In the case of GG's IP, maybe it's his partner, maybe it's a friend who comes over and uses the computer to read blogs about their political bud, maybe it's a workstation in an internet cafe where a friend tries to defend GG on teh w3bz when his back is turned, maybe their ISPs actually do assign new IPs to clients more frequently and it just happens that a few times someone with fluent English and an interest in discussions of GG and sympathetic to him happened to have the IP he had at other times, I dunno, it can be stretched a million ways to make room for increasingly unlikely explanations.
But if the screenshots aren't fake, and it really is sock-puppetry, it's tremendously lame and I really don't read GG's response as being a denial. I read it as a very carefully worded way of saying that someone else in his home may have done this but it wasn't him. No offense to the lawyers here, but it sounds to this bumpkin like an awfully lawyery way of leaving it open to interpretation without actually saying one way or the other.
I'm up for the 'who cares' argument, but certainly people do things like that because they want to make it look as if they have support -- John Lott was out there talking on his own behalf, but still wanted sock-puppets. With the flat denial and the 'household' comment, though, I'd assume the comments were left by his partner.
I agree that sock-puppetry is at least somewhat serious, as it lets people do exactly what idiotic critics of the use of pseudonyms in general think pseudonyms do: not own their words. It also, of course, creates the appearance of allies which don't exist. But, this doesn't read as very lawyerly:I have never left a single comment at any other blog using any name other than my own, at least not since I began blogging. Is he accused of using sock-puppets in his own comments?
and [if] it really is sock-puppetry, it's tremendously lame
Agree with that. That's why I kind of don't believe that he did it (or I believe his denial, or his non-denial denial, or whatever)--I don't read his blog, and I will happily believe he's self-important, but I don't know anything about him that suggests he's that lame.
It's also possible (even plausible) that Glenn is a pretty sociable fellow, and has friends over that also enjoy posting the occasional comment.
I should note that, personally, I agree that sock-puppetry is, at worst, merely lame. My guess is that the righty bloggers who spotted it are smart enough to know it wasn't him (if they can compare the styles of the comments sufficiently to build a case they were written by the same person, they can also figure out they weren't written by him) and this simply gives them a chance to giggle and whisper in each other's ears that the person who's sock-puppeting to defend him is his gay-cooties boyfriend LOL OMG teh g4y!
So, lame is - as always - a two-way street.
What w/d said. I accept the implication in Pants' comment that lawyers are somewhat more weaselly than the average person -- that's probably true. I would say, though, that lawyers are somewhat more likely to be literally truthful than the average; working in an environment where you can get in real big trouble for lying tends to make one more adept at being evasive or misleading while not actually stating any untruths. When a lawyer says something like what w/d quotes, I tend to believe him.
Assuming the screenshots, etc. are accurate, though, someone's being kind of lame. Even if it's not Greenwald, I don't believe that more than one person left all of those comments -- they do have a similar style. So it looks as if some one at Greenwald's household is defending him under multiple names. Which is lame.
I think, from the posts of his which I have read, that Greenwald is pretty much a blowhard and a not particularly clear thinker. However, that does not mean that it is OK to make up nasty stuff about him. Further, while I am not up on Internet manners, and I guess I see the point about sock puppets, I mostly agree with who cares.
Question: is it lamer to sock-puppet, or lamer to reveal the IP addresses of people who post at your blog to others?
36: The larger lesson may be that it's easy to turn lame as you gain more fame.
>"In each case when I did, I have used my own name."
That seems like a denial to me.
I think it was the partner too. The comments under the different names seem to have a simmilar style, but not Greenburg's style. This comment misspells "internet" as "interent".
I mostly agree with who cares.
Indeed, though there's a large contingency of bloggers who seem to live solely for the blinding joy of typing "bwahahahahaha". I got an email from an old friend who I hadn't heard from in several years recently. In catching up, I mentioned my blog and this one, and he replied, "I don't know anything about blogs. What should I know?"
My answer: "It's mostly just monkeys with fancy typewriters and greatly inflated senses of self-importance."
And yours misspells "Greenwald" as "Greenburg"!
interent
The Tree Network
I agree that this sock-puppet thing is ridiculous. I mean, WTF? Too, I think it is way of not talking about issues of substance, which in the case of GG are substantial. It's ad hominem instead of ad rem.
Aww, where's your sense of romance, LB? Maybe his partner wandered on to one of those sites, and, not realizing what a pointless and futile thing he was doing, started standing by his man. Sometimes doing stupid things for love isn't all bad.
to 44-- who cares what you think, Mark, you kiwi fruit! There are grave issues of character here!! One knows the man by how he does what he does. It’s the little things that count! And cut it out with the Latin!
Yes, what Labs says in 45. And if that's the case, good for Glenn for not coming out and shifting the blame to his partner. Sticking with the "none of your business, dickheads" is so much classier.
PS what a darling kitten!
And double Post Scriptum:
Mark is still kiwi fruit!
45: Oh, sweet, if that's what the story was, and less lame in someone who doesn't hang out on line and have a sense of the norms against sock-puppeting. But if that's the story, I'll bet Greenwald's reaction was along the lines of "You've been doing what?!"
is it lamer
A flamer who flame-warred on Plame
Flamed with names that just weren't the same.
Said Plame to the flamer
"Is it lamer to flame-war
Or to play games with flamers' real names?"
"Flamer" is intended to mean "one who flames," not to have any gay connotations.
On preview, somewhat pwned by 39.
I simply read his thing about IP addresses often being the same for everyone within a household, and his stating that every time he commented he did it under his own name, as a way of saying his partner did it without actually having to say that his partner did it, in part to try to stay above the absurd fray of 'I can take screenshots of my admin interface, I have the mad investigative skillz' and in part to avoid the extremely unpartnerly (whee! I'm making up words!) act of pointing at his partner and going, "It's him! It's him! Not me! Him!" I should have been a lot more clear about what I meant.
38: IMO, it's definitely the revelation of the IP address.
Bunch of monkeys. No one who believes the crap written about Greenwald (he was fired from a gay law firm!!!11!) is going to believe his denials. No one who supports Greenwald is going to believe the sock puppetry allegations. No one who isn't interested in Greenwald before this is going to care about allegations one way or the other. No blog of the quality of those listed above ever changed someone's mind, it's all just so people can nod and feel like they're right. It's monkeys throwing feces and missing.
This has been your daily dose of Kantian nihilism.
And, if it is his partner just standing up for his man, and he simply uses a different pseudonym from one site to another - rather than using multiple pseudonyms to post multiple instances of the same defense in the same place - that's not really what I'd consider sock-puppeting and not at all lame. He's just choosing to have more than one online identity. Big frickin' deal.
Truly the interaction between warring bog factions generates a lot more choking smoke than illumination, but I will note that it is my considered opinion that GG is reality-based and his opponents tend not to be to the same extent or like Ins/tap/und/it to be shockingly uncritical about what they link to. I underscore here that the discussion again departs from issues. Does this mean that I have been assimilated to the liberalgodlessBORG?
I can't really understand why anyone would care in public, but I have had to send some emails to people who thought they were being enormously clever in posting to my blog under different names. It was more of a 'dude, you're really not being very clever about all this' than anything else. But posting about it to all and sundry is more childish than the original offense.
Unless it was done for love, as in my own case of long-delayed but still extremely satisfying revenge! That will teach people to get me sent to prison so that they can steal my girlfriend!
Whoa! Stop the frickin presses. Like tell us something new!!!! We have known of your assimilation for some time!
Sock-puppetry is really lame, mostly because it is a dishonest argumentative tactic (unlike simple pseudonymity.) In more serious contexts, sock-puppetry becomes a more serious offense. Ward Churchill was fired in part for the academic journal equivalent of sock-puppetry. He cited things that he himself had written under a pseudonym, without acknowlegding that he was the real author, to give the impression that he had more support than he really did.
55-- yo, Count. Tell it.
Which is worse: sock puppetry, or cock puppetry?
We have known of your assimilation for some time!
54- I agree, if you pulled someone off the street who thinks "what is this blogg of which you speak" and asked who had the more logical and fact-based arguments, GG would win the argument. My point is that if you already regularly read GG or his detractors, nothing either side says is going to change your mind. Ace's readers just aren't going to accepts GG's explanations, and we're just going to keep mocking Patterico. Not that mockery isn't a reasonable end in itself.
Occasionally political bloggers change their minds based on external events (John Cole, Andrew Sullivan, Greg Djwhatsitsis), but I've never seen a cross blog argument or even an argument within comments change someone's mind- all that ever happens in the reinforcement of preconceptions.
PS- I don't see kittens any more when I post. I want my kitten!
pwned, this time I saw the kitten when I posted 61.
But not when I posted 62- what causes the random appearance of the kitten?
w3 @ t3h calab0t ins7i7ut3 are t0tally agin s0ckpupp3tz.
cock puppetry is the best! Hooray for that!! .... The fall of Churchill from what I know of it is interesting. I was working at Hamilton College (which extended the fateful invitation to him) at the time when everything blew up. Every day brought on a tension headache for a couple of months (the media glare, the upsetting conversations, the wimpy dean). Apropos this, I am a liberal guy but I have been concerned about the worship of authenticity over intellectual rigor that so often characterized the choice of speakers at Hamilton and other institutions. We are supposed to be teaching critical thinking but then too often we show that what we value most of all is identity. I wonder if I am exaggerting this? It's a problem--- and the pampered children of the elite do need some waking up--- but still.
I don't get it.
Great, start 'em young.
re 60 --- thank you Mr. Apostropher. That is what I meant to say about Kiwiprofboy.
If someone threatened Mary Rosh, would that be like threatening all of Lott's kids at once?
Cock puppetry is cute, as long as it's not being performed in the subway in the hopes of getting some money.
It should really be more of a command performance.
It would be like raping all of Lott's kids in the face with Dan Rather's cock.
3. vagenda
A vagina with an agenda.
No, no. Imagine my chagrin when I found out it was an angry vagina. A vagina with an agenda. You know what that show (The Vagina Monologues) was in one word? Thats right, a vagenda.
I only saw the kitten once.
It is very sad. Kittens should -not- be command performances.
"A little unseemly to get so excited about it, I think, but our friends on the right seem to have developed an Ahab-rivalling obsession with Greenwald."
He tasks them. And they will have him.
Greenwald strikes me as pretty sharp. I think that he's hated so much is because he's feared, because he doesn't come from a sterotypical liberal point of view and opften makes the kinds of constitutional / procdural arguments conservatives used to make, before Dubya made that impossible for them.
His blog can be unfun because he diligently and methodically makes his points, giving lots of detail, without losing his temper but also without pulling any punches -- whereas most of us wil just say "What a bunch of moron jerks".
Score Greenwald 101, Emerson 0 in the argumentation championship game.
I think 53 gets it right. If he had posted similar comments on the same blog under different names, that's sock puppetry. Using different pseudonyms on different blogs isn't. (And as far as I can tell by reading as far as I care to through the links, the second is the case). But still, who cares?
Also, is this post another example of Fontana trawling for trolls? Does he subconsciously want those moron investigators to track down his identity and reveal that he's actually straight and a Literature Professor??
"I don't know anything about blogs. What should I know?"
Tell them it's like Usenet with a slightly higher barrier to entry.
I am prepared to go old-school and argue that nn, rn and trn - any of them - pose a higher barrier to entry than merely operating a web browser. But that's mainly so I can say how excited I was when we got to start using trn on the server I used my freshman year of college.
Together, they - nn, rn and trn - formed a Voltron of suck.
"Using different pseudonyms on different blogs isn't."
It is if you refer to yourself in the third person.
79: I was assuming the posts are by GG's partner, not GG. If they were by GG, then of course you're correct.