Bill Woodcock had it right when he wrote: "_this thread really needs to end_."

[Gordon Cook <cook () cookreport com>]

There have been requests to stop this thread.  I would be happy to 
comply but the snipping keeps coming and when I  let some of the more 
inane remarks go by without answering others step in and continue to 
pile it on. To wit from Paul Ferguson:

	Business practices, on the other hand (which is what people 
are building
	around the Internet these days), and confidentiality, are not 
[mutually exclusive].

        Let's be clear about what we are talking about here.

	- paul   (who promised himself he wouldn't add to this 
discussion, but lied)

Now Barry Shein, who has been around rather longer than I, answered 
Paul's question last night.  Perhaps Paul didn't see Barry's answer:

        On Tue, Apr 04, 2000 at 05:45:46PM -0400, Barry Shein wrote:
        >
        > Unless Gordon is an Exodus customer I'll assume he was sent the
        > communique' by an Exodus customer. There's probably some truck with
        > that customer, but if Gordon is only acting in his role as a reporter
        > then, well, short of creating an imminent threat to someone's life
        > (like revealing the whereabouts of someone in a witness protection
        > program) or libel or a few other similar kinds of problems generally
        > reporters report if they think something is newsworthy.
        >
        > Put another way, just about half of everything one generally finds
	> interesting, from the white house's handling of certain 
emails to what
        > the tobacco companies tried to do to thwart suits against them was
        > once marked confidential. Almost everything interesting gets marked
        > confidential.
        >
        > Put yet another way; If one's only plan is to mark a letter sent out
        > to every customer (what? hundreds?) as marked "customer confidential"
        > and hope that oughta stop it from getting out and that everyone who
        > receives it agrees that it's in their best interest, or ethics, to go
        > along with that confidentiality, then I think they need another plan.

Paul, as you know I am not a customer of Exodus and have therefore no 
business relationship with it.  Barry's has shown that there is no 
logic in  Exodus which has an embarrassing customer service problem 
(it can't give them the service for which they have paid) thinking 
that by marking  its admission of the problem "confidential" it can 
get its short-changed customers to conspire with it to keep the news 
that they have been short changed from leaking

Other's here commented that having the data I provided was useful to 
them in doing customer support work of their own.

Then Valdis Kleinieks commented:

        I think it's safe to conclude that at least
        a good fraction of Gordon's listed sources were giving him information
        fully aware of where it was going to end up.

To make the point that **all of them are fully aware** I wrote:" 
Further more I have always had a rule that a formal interviewee will 
have no surprises.  I tape the interview and assure the person 
interviewed that he or she will get a draft asciii copy of what i 
propose to publish and have seven days to read that copy an return it 
to me with any mistakes or technical errors corrected and ***within 
reason*** things rephrased if the interviewee feels that he or she 
can say them better. "

The whole point of a technical interview is to let a technical matter 
subject expert provide information - yes content-  describing how new 
technology or business works and why it is significant.


Now Henry Linneweh after I ignored his earlier remarks had the 
following additional shot at twisting my words.

        It is kind of neat actually that someone actually cares enough
        to let the content provider edit their article so that real news
        content is provided.

The implication being that the interviewee has full control of the 
article which, as my interviewees well know, is not correct.  The 
purpose is to get technical experts to explain their expertise so 
that the internet literate reader can understand that expertise with 
the greatest accuracy and greatest clarity possible.  The purpose is 
NOT to trap and embarrass the interviewee by hanging around his or 
her neck in perpetuity every clumsily uttered phrase that he or she 
wishes to fix.

I would suggest to those on this list who dislike me that they have 
the simple honesty to say so rather than to get in their digs by 
twisted and out-of-context commentary.  Let me close by saying that 
if some of you wish to continue to waste your colleague's time with 
continued smears, it's up to you.  Paul has given me a worthy 
challenge to see if I can maintain the silence that he promised and 
then did not deliver.

Two days ago I offered this mail list a piece of information about 
the operational state of the internet - information unknown to most 
readers here and finally  reported in the trade press only today.  In 
two days we have had about 90 responses roughly 10 per cent of which 
contained technical follow up and 90% of which were opinions about 
the messenger rather than the message.   The thread could have 
achieved a useful purpose in less than 10 posts.

Bill Woodcock had it right when he wrote:

        Confidentiality exists whenever it is stipulated in a contract.

	A contract, to be valid and enforceable, must define a 
reciprocal exchange
        of value.

	Exodus has conveyed no value to Gordon in reciprocity for 
expectation of
        his secrecy.

	Exodus has conveyed no value to the recipients of their 
unsolicited mass
        mailing in reciprocity for the expectation of their secrecy.

	Attaching a label which reads "confidential" to something 
which you then
	distribute via unsolicited mass mailing does not make it 
confidential.  In
        fact, the opposite is true.  This is, arguably, interesting.

        Gordon is a journalist.

        Gordon is an editor.

        Gordon is a publisher.

        Godon's job in each of these roles is to gather and sell interesting
        information to his customers, and perhaps to promote the state of
        customerhood by occasionally releasing small pieces of interesting
        information to prospective customers.

	If Exodus had _not_ labelled their unsolicited mass mailing 
"confidential"
        in an attempt to create propaganda, it would be _less_ newsworthy.

        A tactic of both advertisers and propagandists is to attempt to harness
        the media by making their propaganda appear to be news.

        Saying something does not make it so.

        This is only obvious to those who have two neurons to rub together,
        however.

	Information wants to be free, however _this thread really 
needs to end_.



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