The Real McCoy

Note: This article first appeared over at our affiliate's site Alphaque.com. The original article can be viewed here

By: Dinesh Nair

On the internet, no one knows if you're a dog. No one also knows if you are who you say you are. This has brought about a set of new problems and has given fuel for critics to say that the internet is not really trustable. Forgeries and fraudulent postings abound, and what happened on January 2, 2002 is another such example.

On this day, a number of Malaysian mailing lists were inundated with a 4-part email message purportedly from one Dr Patricia Martinez entitled 'Why Malaysia is already a Christian State'. As you can clearly tell, this was rather inflammatory and proceeded to offend the sensibilities of a large number of Malaysians. Some hours after these emails were circulated, the real Patricia Martinez sends an email denying authorship of those messages and stating that someone had fraudulently sent it out with an intention of causing conflict and eroding her standing within the space she was working in. What makes it onerous is that Patricia is the only non-Muslim with a PhD in Islam in Malaysia.

Patricia's denial email exhorted list managers and her acquaintances to circulate her denial to the lists in which the forgeries were sent out. This was quickly done and served to limit considerably the damage which had been done.

Then, the self-correcting nature of the Internet kicked in. I posted an analysis of the forged emails, tracing it down to a TimeNet node, while other listadmins including Michael Fong of alt2004 chimes in with his set of headers for analysis. Michael goes one step further and sends an email with a Return-Receipt header to the forged email address and receives a reply indicating that this email was read from the Bukit Raja, Klang node of TMNet.

All of these serve as additonal information and evidence which when crosschecked could point to the PC and phone line used to send the forged message. This would greatly assist law enforcement in the investigations should Patricia lodge a police report. She had stated that she intends to do so. As the list manager for bungaraya, one of the lists which the forgeries were sent to, I have preserved the logs of the incident which become important when taken in tandem with logs other list managers will provide.

What this clearly indicates is that while the internet will face mischief and damage from irresponsible parties, the self-correcting nature of the medium will ensure that this is corrected post haste. Additionaly, the forger's underestimation of the response of the list managers and members is going to rebound on him. Chances are he would have sent out the forgeries from a cybercafe, which may still mean that he'd never be identified, but the cybercafe used would be identified, and there's an off chance that the operator of the cybercafe may remember which patron of his was responsible.

Forgery on the internet is not new, and has been practiced ever since the ability to do so was put in the hands of irresponsible people. However, while these forgeries may fool the average user, it doesnt fool the technologically competent who will make it their duty to expose these forgers for what they are. Let this be a warning to forger wannabes, especially those who seek to tear apart the fabric of our society by attempting to cause conflict in sensitive topics, that the tech community will band together and will expose your misdeeds.

You have been warned.

© 2001, Dinesh Nair

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