LinuxWorld Senior Editorial Staff Resigns 344
sachmet writes "In light of the interview with Fuat Kirccali, James Turner has announced on his blog the immediate resignation of the LinuxWorld senior editorial staff." From the post: "We regret that Sys-Con Media has
been unable to apply a standard of journalistic ethics that we can comfortably operate
under. We feel that recent articles published with the consent of Sys-Con Media fail to
meet minimum generally accepted journalistic codes, and because the management of
Sys-Con Media has failed to acknowledge that the articles are by all informed judgment
ethically unsupportable, we have decided we must find other avenues for our work."
Honesty (Score:5, Insightful)
It is sad that it took this mess for it to be shown.
I wonder if slashdot might be hiring or its parent company might have a home for these people. Even if it is just for PR purposes.
Re:Honesty (Score:5, Insightful)
Kudos to a group of people who made a difficult decision and did the right thing.
Re:Honesty (Score:3, Interesting)
It will certainly be a costly action on his part
It was an unpaid position, wasn't it?
Re:Honesty (Score:3, Funny)
Karma, he'll lose karma:)
Re:Honesty (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:huh? (Score:4, Insightful)
Basically, the guy is completely out of touch with journalism ethics and his own conscience, and even if they could ignore their ethical obligation to stand up to him (another journalist ethics thing), they can't be professionally associated with such a hack if they value their careers.
Re:Honesty - But what about Linus (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Honesty - Sys-con Advertisers list (Score:5, Informative)
First letter capitalised for easy sorting. Alphabetical order. Product advertised where mentioned. No links to avoid giving further adverts.
Please be polite and clear when contacting, not angry. Please only do so where you have a real existing or potential business relationship with the company which you are able to cut off or otherwise influence. Please remember that these companies may have already cut off contacts with sys-con and simply their adverts have not yet been removed.
Arkeia / Enterprise Backup Software
Barracuda Networks / Spam Firewalls
Chrystal reports (XI)
Embedded Systems / PDA Sync Software
Forum Systems / XML security of some kind
Fusion Ware / Integration Server
Google (ads by google)
IT program management / office best practices
Infitech / X5 NAS
Jboss (JEEE application server)
Microsoft
Netop remote control
Networld Interop / conference
Oracle
Oracle technology network
Parasoft automated software error prevention(tm)
Quadbase
Qualcomm / Qcamera (SymbianDJ)
Quest software / Jprobe suite
Sleepycat software / Berkley DB Java Edition
Sun / Java Studio Creator
Sybase
Tenable / Network Security
TruePosition / Location based services
Wily technology
XSL Maker / XSL IDE
Re:Honesty - But what about Linus (Score:2, Informative)
Linus has publicly stated that he doesn't mind the community use of the term. Magazines and journals (both dead-tree and on-line)
Re:Honesty - But what about Linus (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Honesty - But what about Linus (Score:5, Informative)
SCO wasn't the first company to make money at the expense of the Linux community.
Re:Honesty - But what about Linus (Score:2, Informative)
http://www.linuxmark.org/ [linuxmark.org]
Cost is between $300 and $600.
I don't know how many people bother with this however because the Linux trademark has never been actively enforced.
Re:Wouldn't matter much anyway (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Honesty (Score:2, Insightful)
I agree.
It's worth pointing out that even though you know it's wrong, it's fundamentally against human nature to stand up to authority figures like your boss.
Milgram's experiment [wikipedia.org] showed that 65% of people were willing to inflict considerable amounts of harm on somebody, even though they didn't want to, simply because an authority figure told them to.
I suspect a lot of people complaining about O'Gara's piece would not have resigned if they were in that position themselves.
Re:Honesty (Score:3, Informative)
Milgram's test stands as a low point in the application of Psychology, but a high point in the sensationalisim of its findings.
There is not control, so there is no provability. The population was self selecting. There were problems in reproducibility, lending only labs that were able to reproduce to be published. And today, the experiment is now considered unethical preventing the acceptance of any further research on the findings.
It's about as close to an experim
Re:Honesty (Score:2, Insightful)
Looking at it from a strictly business-wise point of view it's surprising for me to see how Fuat Kirccali acts.
It's quite clear (although it's only a hypothesis) for me that being a linux user must be somehow co-related with moral sensitivity. Ideas surrounding Open Source are filled with ethical meanings and most of linux users swim in open source world on a daily basis.
Why would a businessman who relies heavily on morally sensitive customers (yes, visitors, not advertisers, are his customers ("bring
Re:Honesty (Score:2, Insightful)
I've been using Linux since '93. I'm writting this post on Firefox running on Gentoo, with a NAT'd internet connection supplied by a Debian server. I think SCO is a sleazy company looking to steal money and momentum from the success of Linux. I am extremely grateful for what PJ has done. Her contributions to the Linux co
Re:Honesty (Score:5, Interesting)
But, public figure or not, publishing people's home addresses is outside the generally accepted practices of professional journalists. Sarcastic commentary and personally identifying information about about elderly relatives is outside the generally accepted practices of professional journalists. Mocking their religious choices and age is outside the generally accepted practices of professional journalists.
Doing so with obvious spite is calculated to increase people's disgust.
I doubt you'll find many highly visible examples of the home addresses, phone numbers, elderly relatives, and religious affliations of the SCOX attorneys being publicized and mocked. People are justified in being angry that PJ has been subjected to that -- just as SCO's attorneys would be justified in thgeir anger if it were done to them.
Re:Honesty (Score:3, Interesting)
Thats because her religion wasn't directly mocked, but instead was used to make false assumptions about PJ and imply worse things about her. For example:
Now, according to one of Pamela's neighbors and fellow Jehovah's Witness, being a Jehovah's Witness is pretty much a full-time job in and of itself.
I have friend's who are Jehovah's Witness, and this is a baldface lie. Sure they spend a go
Re:Honesty (Score:5, Interesting)
M'oG went to PJ's mother's home, harrassed her, and then published her address and photos of her home on the Internet. No one did anything like that to any SCOX board member, and if they had, the linux community's name would have been dragged through the mud in the media. There's only one possible reason for publishing PJ's mom's personal info, and that's "We know where you live" style intimidation, pure and simple.
Unfair comparison (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, you seem to be mixing tabloid and news journalism in your examples. Maureen claims to be an actual journalist, not a Papparazza. If she were to get a job with the National Enquirer and publish pictures of PJ next to Bigfoot, OK, fine. But the key is that most certainly isn't journalism.
But this was getting passed as real journalism along with material that actually is real journalism on LW. What Marueen did is NOT journalism. It was a personal attack. It wasn't professional. For instance, you won't see anything like that in the NYT or WSJ. For someone who claims to be a journalist, that was reprehensible.
The response to this piece by many zealots has been much more unethical than the publishing of the article. I realize that the response, in particular the DOS and threatening email, is attributal to only a small minority of OSS and Linux supporters, and that many of the leaders in the field have spoken out against them. But the denial of those actions has been almost perfunctory. We should be screaming about those who smear the Linux and OSS name with illegal and unethical attacks at least at the same volume we're screaming about O'Gara and Sys-Con.
That's not unethical, it's flat illegal. Not to split hairs, but I don't see it as unethical because the people doing it don't claim to have a code of ethics. To me, revenge in kind isn't necessarily unfair. I agree it's a bad idea because the OSS community is fighting an uphill PR battle anyway, and fighting it against someone with a media outlet isn't smart. But to continue my prior point, that ain't journalism either.
If you choose to put yourself in the spotlight, you can expect to have the press breathing down your neck. You don't have to like it but you might as well get used to it. It's a part of American life. It's the obverse side of the "freedom of the press" coin. Would you really prefer to live in a place where the press is constrained? There are those reading Slashdot who do, in fact, live in such a place. Ask them which is preferable.
Again, ethics vs. law. I don't think anyone's calling for overturning of the 1st Amendment. People are criticizing Maureen, not the law. What Maureen did wasn't illegal. It was certainly unethical as a journalist, though not as the hack Paparazza that she is.
I basically get what you're trying to say, but I think you can be objective and still be nauseated by what she did as someone who claims to be a journalist. Thankfully, she finally made it much easier to discredit her, which to me made that article a bonehead move on her part.
Re:Unfair comparison (Score:3, Funny)
You have your tabloids mixed up. The Enquirer no longer does Bigfoot photos. If we PJ put next to J Lo or even Wil Wheaton, they might publish the picture - but not Bigfoot. What you were searching for was the Weekly World News, still the home of the politician-endorsing space alien, Bat Boy, and other denizens of the amazing world in which we live.
I've seen others make this mistake, too. I hope it
Re:Unfair comparison (Score:3, Funny)
Wow. I hadn't even realized they were dating!
Maybe they'll make a movie together, and I can miss both at once!
hawk
Re:Honesty (Score:4, Insightful)
You argument is nonsense. The O'Gara story *was* a huge violation of Journalistic Ethics. Not just because of the publishing of PJ's info, but the stalking and publishing of her family's info. *That* was one of the major problems.
Re:Honesty (Score:5, Informative)
Public figures deal with this kind of poking and prying all the time. Celebrities deal with paparazi. Politicians deal with people digging into every nook and cranny of their life. Innocent, ordinary people who are thrust into the spotlight have all sorts of private details published and pored over.
As others before me have pointed out, there is a big difference between tabloids and reputable newspapers and magazines. I never read tabloids, I find them disgusting stupid garbage. Now, I believed Sys-con to be a company that dealt with serious journalism, but it seems I have been proven wrong. Therefore I have cancelled my subscription to Java Developer Journal.
and to claim her story was a gross violation of journalistic ethics is a biased response. (The Google cache of her story is still available. If you haven't read it, read it yourself.)
I HAVE read it, and it was a breach of journalistic ethics. If you think my opinion is biased, ask Fred Brown, co-chair of the Society of Professional Journalists Ethics Commitee:
http://turner.linuxworld.com/read/1277987.htm [linuxworld.com]
If Daryl McBride's personal information had been published (and it seems like at some point it was, although I can't find the story now), everyone would be cheering the public's "right to know."
Yes it was, I have seen it posted on Slashdot by ACs on serveral occasions. Guess what, it wasn't cheered as the public's right to know, it was modded down to -1 on all occasions I saw, and people who replied and said that this was wrong tended to be modded up.
If you choose to put yourself in the spotlight, you can expect to have the press breathing down your neck. You don't have to like it but you might as well get used to it. It's a part of American life. It's the obverse side of the "freedom of the press" coin. Would you really prefer to live in a place where the press is constrained?
I believe you are presenting a false dichotomy here. You essentially say: Either we are against freedom of the press and pro-censorship, or we should shut up about this case. I haven't seen one post here advocating censorship. We are expressing our own DISLIKE of these tactings, and say that we choose to not buy Sys-con products in the future. Big difference.
Apart from these things I agree with your article. Foul tactics should always be fought against. You must be careful that you don't become the thing what you hate.
I call troll. (Score:4, Insightful)
Furthermore, PJ has been quite forthright about who is paying her (nobody), and she's already defended herself against far more clever attacks than your silliness. The simple basis for her credibility is the fact that every commentary she posts is heavily footnoted from court documents, all of which are carefully documented and archived for posterity. If you don't agree with her commentary, you can argue from the facts, which are helpfully provided for you right on the site. There is a strong reason why Groklaw is heavily trafficked by both IBM and SCO attorneys -- and that is that it is an informational site of high value to both parties, as well as to interested observers, which you, apparently, are not.
Bottom line: PJ's identity is irrelevant, and so, my little snowflake, are you.
Re:Honesty (Score:3, Interesting)
PJ's articles stand on their own merits. It is TOTALLY irrelevant who she is (although if she is NOT a paralegal, her legal procedure comments would be much less persuasive.)
As for who is paying her, if anyone, that is totally irrelevant as well. It is NOT totally irrelevant for MoG given that she has revealed inside contacts with SCO, access to information she could not have had without such contacts, and a willingness to inflate the importance of that information for SCO's benefit. All of PJ's stuff is
Re:Honesty (Score:3, Interesting)
So you wording is wrong and disregards the lesser actions taken before drastic action was threatened and then acted upon. There was dialogue and the dialogue was mostly ignor
The entire senior staff resigns (Score:2, Informative)
Senior Editorial Staff of LinuxWorld Magazine Announce
Resignations
MONTVALE, New Jersey, May 14th, 2005 --- The entire senior editorial staff of
LinuxWorld Magazine has today announced that they will be leaving the magazine,
effective immediately.
The following statement was released by the group. "We regret that Sys-Con Media has
been unable to apply a standard of journalistic ethics that we can comfortably operate
under. We feel that recent articles published with the consent of Sys-Con
Grab your copy of the page while its there (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:We are all hypocrites (Score:2)
So what were they (the editors) supposed to do? Bend over, stay silent, and continue being "enablers?" I don't think so.
And more... (Score:5, Informative)
Dee-Ann Blanc [sys-con.com] has posted.
This letter has already been emailed to the people involved:
Dear Fuat and SYS-CON,
I am writing this letter to tender my resignation. I have worked hard on LinuxWorld Magazine since its inception, and really don't want to walk away from it as it continues to build up a good head of steam, but given recent events I just cannot continue to be associated with SYS-CON. The complete (and public) lack of understanding of why O'Gara's maelstrom article was wrong, among other things, suggests to me that my sense of ethics is simply too divergent from SYS-CONs and there will be further heated clashes in the future.
It goes on a bit, and of course the entry before it was interesting too. One thing - despite Turners announcement that the entire senior staff was going, it appears that he may have stepped out on a limb, as several of the other editors have not, at this time, announced their resignation. Just Turner and Blanc, so far. I'm hoping to see Walker, Winslow, and Taylor follow suit soon.
Re:And more... (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm not sure where he stands in the pecking order, but Steve Suehring [sys-con.com] has also announced his resignation [braingia.org], for the same reason.
uhhh.... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:uhhh.... (Score:5, Informative)
Editorial staff demanded article be withdrawn by the publishers other wise they would walk. Article was pulled as well as all other articles by original author.
Head of publishing company gives interview basically saying the only reason he pulled the articles was due to a threat of a DoS attack. Otherwise he sounds very much like he supports original author in her attack on Groklaws maintainer.
Senior Editors get pissed at latest example of publisher not getting concepts such as ethics or integrity and decide to show him what they mean.
Re:It's a case of female jealousy. (Score:3, Insightful)
Good to see some people have integrity (Score:4, Insightful)
I applaud the integrity of the LinuxWorld senior editorial staff and wish them the best. Hopefully they will be picked up by a publisher that does respect journalistic integrity and just plain human decency.
Re:Good to see some people have integrity (Score:2)
However, they should have never needed to quit. Editorial review is something that is normally done BEFORE an article is published. If Sys-con and its sister rags hadn't established channels allowing O'Gara to publish without editorial review, Sys-con wouldn't be in this situation.
Given that their jobs and their role in the company was made optional, I imagine that they were not having a good time whenever articles bypasse
Fundamental problem with OS advocates... (Score:5, Funny)
How do you expect companies to make obscene amounts of money with you holding on to your morals like this?
I'll (Score:2, Funny)
award winning linux workstation (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:award winning linux workstation (Score:2)
Re:award winning linux workstation (Score:5, Insightful)
Put up or shut up buddy (Score:3, Insightful)
Name some names.
Dee-Ann LeBlanc's resignation (Score:5, Informative)
We showed them (Score:3, Insightful)
Is NOT having someone with our point of view in that position going to cause more problems than those that caused their resignations?
However, I applaud the editors for their integrity.It means we can ignore syscon (Score:3, Interesting)
This is sufficient for me to get an account here. (Score:3, Interesting)
Toon Moene (physicist at large).
Ex Linuxworld editiorial staff (Score:5, Insightful)
If I owned a publishing house I would hire them immediately.
Re:Ex Linuxworld editiorial staff (Score:3, Insightful)
Probably that's why you don't own a publishing house.
The total is now 3 (Score:5, Informative)
It is with some sadness that I've had to resign from LinuxWorld Magazine. Over the past nearly two years I've worked with a group of people with whom I've developed a great rapport and friendship. We were unpaid editors but we devoted a lot of time and energy to it nonetheless. It was a great experience for me and I look forward to other opportunities as they arise.
I may edit this post in the future and add more details.
unpaid editors? (Score:2, Interesting)
Glad to see you guys will be finding a more suitable outlet for your work. For what it's worth, I'm proud of you and hope to follow in your footsteps soon.
(posting anonymously because I DO get food on my table indirectly from SysCon)
Ten Ethical Principles (Score:5, Interesting)
1. Define a set of values
2. Tell the truth
3. Respect human dignity
4. Recognize the complexity of human nature
5. Be distrustful of unchecked power.
6. Foster a diversity of views
7. Challenge "group think."
8. Take time to listen and to think.
9. Encourage criticism and self-examination
10. Correct mistakes
Have a look at a brief description [collegepubs.com] of each of them.
Re:Ten Ethical Principles (Score:2)
Always turn a story around: I want my reporters being willing to call bullshit on C
Re:Ten Ethical Principles (Score:5, Insightful)
I feel that there are far too many journalists in the media today. They all want to present every story in such a manner that in reenforces their personal, political and/or social world view. There always seems to be an agenda. This is true whether it's MSNBC, CNN or Fox News. We as a society have become so inured to listening to journalists, editorializing (journalizing?) that we don't even realize it any more unless we hear a journalist from "the other camp" and then we just assume that "our" journalists are just giving us the facts and that "their" journalists are heavily biased.
All-in-all, my sense is that PJ does a good job of presenting the facts (she provides publicly verifiable sources) and when she provides opinions, I can usually tell they are opinions. But then again, maybe it's just because she's a journalist in "my" camp...
You know, just give me a good old-fashioned reporter and let me figure out where I stand on an issue. I'm a big boy, I think I can handle it.
What the hell is LinuxWorld? (Score:4, Interesting)
But what the hell *is* LinuxWorld? All the folks who resigned were apparently unpaid?? Does anyone besides Fuat make any money for their work? Why would anyone give their time for free to such a tool? I've never really looked at the site prior to this flamefest so I don't have a good feeling for what the heck it is. Was it a useful interesting magazine? If so, why wouldn't they pay their people?
Re:What the hell is LinuxWorld? (Score:4, Informative)
The San Francisco-based group was merged by our parent company into a division called "ITworld," the main site for which still exists. But then came the dot-com crash and all the west coast sites were eliminated ('cept JavaWorld). LinuxWorld was taken over briefly by IDG.net, but eventually was sold to Sys-Con. Don't know much of what happened after that...
Re:What the hell is LinuxWorld? (Score:5, Informative)
I was the editor of LinuxWorld in the IDG.net era. IDG licensed the title and content of LinuxWorld to Sys-Con in the summer of 2003 for a period of five years.
Sys-Con's business model is interesting, or at least it was in 2003 when I spoke to the company about continuing with LinuxWorld. None of the editors for any of Sys-Con's publications or Web sites are paid. Neither are authors.
The business model of relying on volunteer editorial seems to work because a) it's cost effective if your objective is low CPM, and b) Sys-Con seems adept at finding people willing to work for exposure, c) advertisers and readers don't seem to mind that the editorial product is assembled in this manner.
I did not choose to stay with LinuxWorld when the transfer occurred.
Mark Cappel
Re:What the hell is LinuxWorld? (Score:3, Insightful)
Good the hear from you -- I think we've met in the flesh once or twice.
Anyway, I didn't know that about Sys-Con's model. I think this incident illustrates a big flaw in that volunteer-editorial model: you don't have that much leverage over your people if they choose to quit in a snit.
Also, it raises an interesting question: if Maureen O'G. wasn't being paid to stalk PJ by Sys-Con, why did she do it?
jf
Admiration... (Score:4, Insightful)
I want you to know that whatever publication snaps you up, I'm buying a subscription (or subscriptions)!
The Proper Way to Respond to such things (Score:5, Insightful)
The proper way to respond is to vote with your dollars.
1 - If you currently subscribe to a Sys-Con publication, cancel the subscription. Don't do this via email or a web form. Do it via a published toll-free number (this drives their telco costs)
2 - Check the advertisers list. If you've got a receipt for a purchase from a competitor laying around, send the advertising department of the Sys-con advertiser a POLITE and business-like letter. In that letter state that the broad facts of the case and that due to their continued support of Sys-con you've decided to make your purchases elsewhere.
Avoid the temptation to threaten fire brimstone, retribution, or DoS attacks. Such tactics are not in the best interests of anyone concerned. The LW senior editorial staff left via the moral high-road. Please ensure that any community reaction joins them there.
LInuxworld doesn't like Konqueror (Score:2, Informative)
A website called "linuxworld.com" is coded to
To bad LinuxWorld doesnt get it... (Score:2)
Instead of viewers going to see whats happening and declaring a
Do we care? (Score:2, Insightful)
There is a large amount of sites on the internet that do have integrity and where the persons involved have enough maturity to write about Linux, about open source and about technology without bothering with sys-con like stupidity.
I salute the Editorial Staff (Score:2, Insightful)
All I can say now is that I salute those who have resigned. There are some things more important than money, and one of them is being able to look yourself in the mirror each morning, squarely in the eye.
It is so refreshi
Just looking at there page... (Score:2)
Re:Just looking at there page... (Score:3, Informative)
It's targeted advertisement.
Re:Just looking at there page... (Score:2)
Men of principle.... (Score:2)
Hurrah for journalistic integrity (Score:4, Insightful)
I read that interview last night, and came away very disappointed. This guy is so in love with the word media that the meaning of the word journalism simply is not grokked in his vocabulary. I even added to the blog entries there indicating that I still felt he owed PJ a very public apology.
But I fear 2 other things now. first, that he will find other people to fill the vacancies, and two, they will not be so dedicated to the truth.
I was even picking it up from the newstand occasionally, when I hit one in my travels that carried it, but that will be no more.
--
Cheers, Gene
Maybe not really a DDoS attack (Score:2)
Down the rabbit hole... (Score:3, Insightful)
I think this whole situation has been brewing for quite some time because honestly why would MOG care at all about some blogger? I think this began when SCO sued IBM et. all in an attempt to stop the fall in their stock price and in an apparently vain attempt to get IBM to buy SCO's IP for a vastly inflated price. However the free software community in general and Groklaw specifically did something that has never been done before: They exposed the inconsistencies between SCO"s public statements, like the "I have the offending code in my Briefcase" comment the German VP came up with, They exposed the money trail (and hence motives) between Microsoft, Baystar and SCO. So the plan that the SCO upper management had (become Microsoft's Anti-Linux temporary shrill, while cashing out on an obviously failing stock) was essentially foiled. All the paid "journalists" in the world couldn't prevent the truth from keeping SCO's stock where it belonged, in the barrel. So all these folks that thought they'd cash out did not. No wonder Groklaw has garnered considerable animosity!
I'd like to see just where Sys-con gets their advertising dollars from. Because I have to believe there is a money trail straight from those who benefit from either an artificially high SCO stock price or uncertainty in the Linux marketplace to those 'journalists' who peddle this cheap FUD.
So in summary I think we owe all of these folks a little bit of our time and we should do what we do best. Contact advertisers and tell them what's going on, and why we tell dozens of people a day not to buy their products. To me contacting government officials has been demonstrated to be useless and unmitigated harassment of advertisers shows to yield the best results
Re:Down the rabbit hole... (Score:2)
Now is the critical time for /.ers support (Score:5, Interesting)
After all these folks who resigned are geeks of high knowledge and high moral fiber who are making the ultimate sacrifice for OUR community and on behalf of one our most important members. They are standing up for what's right. They are standing up for Groklaw. We need to stand up for them.
They gave up their jobs for reasons the right reasons. If there is a time to hit Sys-Con where it hurts it's now and financially.
It's not just about standing up for our own, it's also about letting these folks know that the
There's a special place in heaven for PJ and the LinuxWorld Senior Editorial Staff.
Am I imagining things? (Score:2)
Details on LinuxWorld DoS (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Details on LinuxWorld DoS (Score:4, Insightful)
Given that you say you only have access to five lines of the log data, your assesment of the situation is suspect. You need a lot more data to determine if wget is being used malevalently.
Oh, and wget retreiving the same page can be caused by a number of things besides being used as a DOS attack. Suppose, for example, there is a persistent network error (such as ICMP filtering breaking path MTU discovery). That will cause wget to retry the transfer many times. Or perhaps (based on the Konquerer problems reported earlier) wget was getting some sort of "Temporary Error: browser not recognized" from the server. An error in a script intended to perform some other function such as mirroring can degenerate into fetching the same page. Someone might have even written a script to download your home page at regular intervals with the intent of seeing exactly what changes were made exactly when. The wgets might have had the same IP address but not even come from the same machine if the IP address turns out to be a cache on a large network. The cache could even use wget as its retreival mechanism. Or, more likely, is used by a web to email gateway (of the old fashioned sort that allows email only users to retrieve web pages) or a cell phone gateway. Sometimes wget is also used to get messages into web logs after mail to webmaster bounces. while /bin/true; do
wget -O /dev/null http://www.example.com/your_site_is_handicapped_in accessable.html [example.com] ;
sleep 1;
done
Which has the amusing effect that when they look at the weekly/monthly web logs, the #1 ranked page on the site is a criticism. Waste of bandwidth, yes, but hardly a DoS attack - rather a retaliation to the webmaster's denial of service through incomptence.
Also, sometimes manual wget users load the same page more than once when testing commands such as "wget -O - http://www.example.com/ [example.com] | fgrep -i HREF | sed ..." while writing a script to extract urls from a site. Or, it could be that there were a grand total of five uses of wget and that your ignoramous publisher didn't know what wget was, googled on it and DoS and found that some crude DoS scripts use wget and was oblivious to its legitimate uses.
So, 5 lines in the log show a tool that is occasionally used for DoS attacks but usually used for other things and he concludes that is proof of an attack. Kitchen knives are occassionally used to commit murder, therefore existence of kitchen knives is proof of intent to murder.
I also find the eudora=autourl very odd. Looks like the web link was being distributed by email and got corrupted. Some SPAM filters may filter email by checking the spammyness of any linked-to web sites. wget could be used for the retrieval portion. In that case, the wgets would just indicate that people were bitching about your site by email.
Not to mention the fact that your publisher was a horses ass. After claiming there was a DoS attack (which he described as something like the most massive DoS attack against a publisher in history), he may have been to embarassed to admit otherwise and may have fabricated a few records as "evidence". If he had given you the complete web log five days earlier, I might be more inclined to believe it. But saying, in essence, "on the basis of five whole lines from a web log provided to me by someone who has just proved he is ethically impaired, I conclude that there is some truth to the claims" just doesn't wash. Not that it would take much to convince me that someone launched a trivial DoS attack.
Kudo's for resigning, though. Good luck finding a new gig. Maybe even one that pays.
Now I'm really confused. (Score:4, Interesting)
It sounds more like the
So it should be VERY easy to track down the machine using that IP address at that time and find out whether it was an "attack" or an attempt to cache their server.
Here's the first step: http://www.arin.net/whois/ [arin.net]
That should be able to tell you who owns that block.
And that's the problem. Yet in your "blog", you state:
Yet now you seem to be saying that the "distributed" portion was NOT the wget action you mentioned.
So, the "distributed" portion was nothing more or less than the
Which only leaves that single IP address with the wget command. And it should be easy to determine whether that was an "attack" or an attempt to cache their site.
not all the editors resigned (Score:2, Interesting)
Turner is to be applauded, but he's being disengenuous here: the "senior" editors were unpaid writers who used LinuxWorld as a venue to promote their consulting services. The _real_ staff -- the ones who draw a paycheck -- did not leave.
Turn the tables (Score:2, Insightful)
I suggest we turn the tables by sending PJ and PJ's relatives candies, flowers, thank you cards, and plush toys. The ones they don't want they can give to good will.
He spams, too (Score:3, Informative)
On friday, May 13, I got an unsolicited message at my work address, signed by the owner of sys-con telling me I was eligible for a free subscription to some magazine. It also told me I was currently subscribed to his mailing list as xxxx@blahxx.com
and "follow this link to unsubscribe". Yeah, right-
Make a Real Difference (Score:4, Informative)
Revelation Software
EV1 Servers (they don't need any more negative attention)
Software AG
Forum Systems
Skyway Software
Oracle
Altova
Sugarcrm
Mindreef
Re:In a Linux magazine you can't say... (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't always agree with Pamela's point of view, but I don't publish mom's address to invite harm to her.
Re:and others will fill their places (Score:5, Informative)
Re:and others will fill their places (Score:2)
Maybe that can be the topic of a slashdot poll? I mean, wtf, even the average troll on slashdot has more integrity than the jerk-off running SYS-CON.
I guess its true - life IS like a septic tank, and the big chunks float to the top ...
Re:and others will fill their places (Score:2, Insightful)
So who exactly is going to be reading a clearly unethical publication? Let them try and replace the staff which left. I for one will be viewing what the former Editorial staff has to say, because I respect them. I won't waste my time with SYS-CON's stuff any more. And I know I'm not alone.
In order to have greed, there has to be cash. And it seems like SYS-CON has managed to drive a lot of cash flow away.
Re:Free Software Terrorists... DoS attacks. (Score:2, Insightful)
I love this world it can be so funny if it wants.
Clueless IT rags just need to fade away.
Re:Free Software Terrorists... DoS attacks. (Score:2)
~X~
The parent is a troll (Score:4, Insightful)
2. "Stop it"? Where the heck do you get off patronising the readers of this site in this way?
If you wrote your comment seriously then you are both misled (there was no DDoS attack) and silly (using terms like "terrorist").
If you wrote your comment to astro-turf then you should be aware that the readers of this site, while often petty, react rather sharply to people who try to influence them.
And you just made my foe's list. Congratulations.
Re:The parent is a troll (Score:2)
I'd have expected to see either a brief technical explanation of what the "DDoS" was, rather than a vague accusation against unknown hooligans supposedly in cahoots with PJ, and secondly, this backed up by a formal complaint to the FBI.
Lacking either of these, the accusation is worthless and must be taken as
Re:stupid definition of DDoS (Score:2)
Re:Suering and Turner say there was a DDoS (Score:2)
I've seen real organised DDoS attacks and comparing this to one of those is just a sick joke.
Allow me to quote you some of the pertinent statements from Suering's page:
"it certainly doesn't appear that logic
Re:Free Software Terrorists... DoS attacks. (Score:2)
Re:Free Software Terrorists... DoS attacks. (Score:3, Insightful)
Then they're stereotyping. But you're writing as if you're one of them. Why stereotype people? One kid does a DoS attack and you call the whole free software community terrorists? Do you have any idea who you are talking about?
You say its the cyber equivelent of terrorists, burning down newspapers, and declaring war. First off cyber refers to cybernetics, not the internet. Second, terrorism, wars and arsen kill, injure and put pe
why 'they' are doing this: (Score:2)
that the lawyers try?
- If you can't attack the message.
- Then, attack the messenger!
This is what the other side is doing now. It is even to the point where the
parent corporation of the publication(s) in question seems to be anti-FOSS. You
can not run or hide from the truth. Actions speak louder than words. The
publication of this article was an action. I don't believe that even a
retraction will undo the damage.
T
Re:Speaking of journalistic standards (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, we can have a debate about that, but what's not debatable was that the offending MoG article was totally over the line. It included spurious details about this woman's aged mother, and her religion, and calling her an "elusive harridan". What possible relevance do those things have to the content of Groklaw?
Re:Relevance (Score:2, Insightful)
Are you pushing the Republican line at every slight opportunity, do you honestly not see the difference, or are you just trolling?
Here is the difference. (Score:4, Interesting)
With Gannon, it was shown that he had LOTS of special contacts and such with the White House.
The story wasn't about Gannon. The story was about how the White House had no problems giving special permissions to a gay hooker and allowing him to use a fake name to lob soft questions.
Now, IF MOG had turned up evidence that PJ was supported by IBM or IBM's lawyers and faked the "privacy" issue in an attempt to hide that connection, then THAT would have been the story.
But even THAT would NOT have been a reason to publish her Mom's address and pictures of her house.
Since MOG could NOT dig up the story she wanted to publish
If Gannon had NOT had any special priviledges from the White House and had NOT used a fake name, then publishing personal details about him would also be over the line.
Don't try to hide behind that bullshit.Digging into people's lives takes time and money.
There will ALWAYS be a discrepency between what the average person can spend (time and money) digging and what "the powerful" can spend.
So there will never be "a level playing field" like you believe.
That was a pitiful attempt at a troll. (Score:2)
Please explain to me why the aforementioned people have fewer rights than Pamela Jones.
Re:Journalistic Standards (Score:3, Insightful)
Tell me again, how does PJ's (para)-legal collection and analysis off documents relating to the SCO case ha