Xref: utzoo alt.flame:1619 soc.women:9292 soc.singles:13543
Path: utzoo!hoptoad!ptsfa!ames!hc!oddjob!pooh
From: pooh@oddjob.UChicago.EDU (for you to know and me to find out)
Newsgroups: alt.flame,soc.women,soc.singles
Subject: Re: the solution to the forgery problem
Message-ID: <14322@oddjob.UChicago.EDU>
Date: 9 Feb 88 15:12:47 GMT
References: <14316@oddjob.UChicago.EDU> <7086@ihlpa.ATT.COM> <32330COK@PSUVMA>
Reply-To: pooh@oddjob.uchicago.edu.UUCP (for you to know and me to find out)
Organization: Breakfast Antiphonies
Lines: 30


Actually, it would work either way, by keeping ANYONE from posting
with that name for a while. . .which would quiet things down some.

But seriously, folks--how big a threat IS this forgery stuff, anyway?
You don't see forgeries popping up of Valerie, for instance, or
Hilda, or Kenn, or. . . the list goes on.  Know why?

Because a successful forgery of these erstwhile posters would be
BORING.  They'd be reasonable, informative, entertaining, enlightening. . .
We'd only have a surplus of intelligence and maturity, which would only
do the net good.  Who the hell gets his/her jollies by posting yet another
thoughtful and original posting?

The only *real* fun-to-mimic posters are the ones who are regularly
both off-the-wall and inflammatory, to the point where you could write
almost ANYTHING.  As long as it was rude and controversial, people
would at least have to think a while before figuring out the difference.
Moreover, they get even MORE het up at attempts to forge them, which
adds positive feedback.  If you had a posting ostensibly from Marcia
with the words "Nazi pig-fucking Commie libertarian woman-basher"
in it, would anyone stop laughing long enough even to SUSPECT it
of being genuine?

The REAL solution is left as an exercise to the reader.

Pooh
      pooh@oddjob.uchicago.edu

Keywords: faux, pseudo, surrogate, imitation, artificial. . .