Re: Political Dirty Tricks

On Mon, 22 Jan 2001, Alan Spector wrote:

> Let me publicly let Jose Orlando Castro Gomes and the entire list understand
> that I do not know anything about him and had no intention of slandering
> him. When I received the e-mail with his name, and his e-mail address as the
> sender, (which you can see below) I could only assume that it was sent by 
>him. I have no way of
> "checking" to see if it was authentic.

When there is anything out of the ordinary about any email message,
everyone should turn on full headers to see where the mail actually
started.  Every single piece of information that you can see in the
normal headers is easily forged.  You have to see the full headers to
tell that, and it still may not be completely obvious where it came
from.

Any email program allows you to see the "real" headers that are
generated by the computers that handle the email along the way.

Once you know more about the origin of the email, then you report it
to the abuse user at your Internet service provider and the
originating one if you can figure it out.

> 
> I also tried to make the political point that I was not personally concerned
> about receiving such an e-mail. My concern was that agents of some
> government or right-wing organization was trying to disrupt the list.  (In
> the USA, we call this "dirty tricks".) I am pleased that Jose Orlando Castro
> Gomes has come forward to explain that he did not send the e-mail in
> question. This only FURTHER CONFIRMS my suspicion that some government or
> right-wing organization has tried to disrupt the list. Perhaps it is someone
> who has stolen Jose Orlando Castro Gomes' password and is using his account.
> 
> In any case, it seems that Mr. Gomes was a victim of these political "dirty
> tricks" and not the cause. I will send him a copy of the e-mail I received
> and perhaps he can find out who is sending out e-mails from his address.
> But I stand by my original comment that
> on another list, someone sent out sexually explicit e-mails in an attempt to
> smear some list members, and that we who are critics of
> capitalism/imperialism should never be complacent because "the powers that
> be" are capable of attacking us, even those who believe they are protected
> by Ivy Towers.
> 
> Alan Spector
> 
> ======================================================================
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Jose Orlando Castro Gomes" <jose_orlando_gomes@hotmail.com>
> To: <wsn@csf.colorado.edu>
> Sent: Monday, January 22, 2001 7:12 PM
> Subject: notes on one-posting-day
> 
> 
> > Dear Colleagues,
> >
> > Like Mr. Bolles I'd like to manifest myself against this ridiculous rule
> of
> > the one-posting-a-day.
> 
> =================================
> Original message sent to Alan Spector
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Jose Orlando da Silva Castro Gomes" <jose_orlando_gomes@hotmail.com>
> To: <spectors@netnitco.net>
> Sent: Saturday, January 20, 2001 4:41 PM
> Subject: Re: Sabotage ??
> 
> 
> > Dear Colleague,
> >
> > Please forget the word sabotage. So hard for such a gentle man like 
>you...(rest of explicit message deleted; not necessary to include here...)
> 
> ===========================================================
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 

-- 
  R.Stewart(Stew) Ellis, Prof.of Appl.Socl. Informatics  Kettering University/
  Liberal Studies Dept.        ellis@kettering.edu  ()    ___________________
  Flint, MI 48504 810-762-9765 Free speech&software /\   /   _____  ______
  Sec/abuse Team; Webmaster emeritus: www.kettering.edu /________/ /  /  / /