Occupational Hazard

As some folks may know (or have bothered reading my bio (on the sidebar), I've been doing the Internet thing since 1989. In that time, I've mostly used one or two psuedonyms (having to switch because other people were using the same name. I've been using the current name, lawhawk, since starting law school way back in my Albany days.

I haven't run into a problem where someone has spoofed comments on a board claiming to be me (thank goodness!), but others have - and the results have the potential to get quite nasty.

Most recently, it appears that Markos Zuninga of Daily Kos was spoofed by someone posting on the William Arkin threads at the Washington Post. Confederate Yankee and Curt at Flopping Aces noted that the language used was suspicious and reminiscent of the language he used to describe four Blackwater security guards who were killed - the infamous Screw Them comment.

Since most folks are running around the Internet anonymously, there's no way to know for sure whose comments are real and whose may be spoofed. Some services are set up to reduce the likelyhood of spoofing someone else's identity, but if someone wants to set up an account and post comments in the name of someone else, it can be done.

Kos wrote to Glenn Reynolds to confirm that he did not write the posting and that he sent email to the Washington Post to have them remove the posting, but to no avail thus far.

So, here's a warning to all you crazy kids out there - be careful of what you read online. It might be too good to be true.