Authentication

Here's a nice discussion of authentication, an information technology concept I mention in "How They Scored," and its implications for online identity.

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Uncovering a mysterious blogger

This article on Streetsblog , a progressive pro-bicycle and transit website, is fascinating. The lengthy piece, worth reading in its entirety, explains how Streetsblog staff uncovered the identity of a hyperactive negative commenter with his own website, Commuter Outrage. Evidently the man behind Commuter Outrage, a twenty-something conservative who works in a civilian job at the Pentagon, was digging up material for his screeds during work hours using his employer's (and the government's) resources, and Streetsblog's questions about these practices quickly led the secretive fellow to disappear the entire Commuter Outrage website. Instructive were the easy-to-understand steps taken by Streetsblog staff to uncover the man's identity, along with evidence that suggested he was blogging on his employer's time. Also interesting was the fact that the attacks by Commuter Outrage and its putative staff (really just this one fellow, apparently) were not some right-wing consp...
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I keep making notes on this chapter but I'm clearly having trouble with it. The main problems are that it's an interstitial chapter -- it's between the road trip and the arrival at the cabin -- and that it has to bear a lot of burden of exposition. In the past I would have simply tried to write through it, painstakingly leading the reader through moment after moment more as a way to discover for myself what happens than to actually say anything interesting. But I don't have time to do that, nor would it be interesting. Get to the point! -- except that I'm not sure what the point is. Q: What are the points? A: First, introduce three characters. Second, Shaun's antipathy toward Seth. Third, the setting. Fourth, Hap's dilemma. Q: What else? A: Each time a new character is introduced, must reveal -- through language -- Hap's attitude toward him. Q: But what is important about that? A: Because of the male readership this book is supposed to ...
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I'm thinking that I should try doing something a little different for Bart's story of how he got laid the first time. I can have a little more dialogue and give-and-take between Hap and Bart, and I can also stage it in an interesting place -- M.'s parties, I'm thinking. That will allow me to relate backstory as well as create this Bay Area atmosphere. Keep in mind that M.'s parties were a pre-dotcom phenomenon. They were more related to the RDBMS- and aerospace-heavy high tech industry of the early and mid-90s than they are to the dotcom era. Make that clear. So let's see... Who should I use (from my own history) for Bart's first? Has to be somebody young and impressionable... J., or that noisy little Berkeley girl with the jewfro. Yeah, that's it. Bart can tell this story to Hap at the party and they can have a big laugh over it. Then I can immediately transition to them standing at the dock the next morning ready to board the ferry. This means there wi...
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