FC: Slate 'fesses up: Diary of "automotive CEO" was a hoax

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

It's never -- at last for me -- easy to criticize journalists when
they screw up. We almost never have all the information we would
like. Deadlines mean we can't delay as long as we'd prefer. The demands
of the craft, the attention span of our readers, and the limits of
available space can conspire against us.

So instead of criticizing Slate, it seems more useful to look at this
as an example of the risks of relying on email From: lines as an
authentication mechanism. It is of course trivial to change your From:
line -- most modern email clients let you, and before that pranksters
would telnet to port 25 and forge email the old-fashioned way.

Far better to verify an alleged identity through out-of-band
verification, digital signatures, or at least clicking "reply."

-Declan

---

http://slate.msn.com/?id=2062867&device=

   Slate Gets Duped
   This week's Diary by an "automotive CEO" proves to be a hoax.
   By Jack Shafer
   Posted Tuesday, March 5, 2002, at 4:45 PM PT
   
   On Monday and Tuesday of this week, Slate published Diary dispatches
   by "Robert Klingler," who purported in his bio note to be "the North
   American head of a European auto manufacturer." When Slate readers
   pointed out to the editors that neither Google.com nor Nexis searches
   produced any hits for a "Robert Klingler and the automobile industry,"
   we assumed the worst and took the entries down from the site. A phone
   call to the European auto company in question confirmed that no
   "Robert Klingler" works for them.

   How did Slate, and by extension its readers, get duped?
   
   "Klingler" first identified himself as an automotive CEO in
   correspondence with the editor of Slate's "Fray" discussion area,
   where he had posted messages. In subsequent e-mails to another Slate
   editor, he agreed to write the Diary. One of "Klingler's" many e-mails
   appeared to originate from the auto manufacturer he claimed to head.
   In it, he asked Slate to correspond with him through his AOL e-mail
   account because he wanted to keep his personal and business
   correspondence separate. Also, so that he could write with more
   candor, he asked that we ID him as "the North American head of a
   European auto manufacturer." We agreed on both counts.
   
   We shouldn't have agreed to either of his terms. Any correspondence
   with "Klingler" through his auto company e-mail address would have
   immediately revealed the hoax. (From our Hindsight is Golden
   Department, we can report that repeated e-mails sent today to
   "Klingler's" business e-mail address bounced back as "undeliverable.")
   Had we not given "Klingler" the benefit of partial anonymity, he
   probably would have withdrawn his offer to write. Or he would have
   been unmasked as a fake by the car company within hours of his first
   Diary posting.

   [...]



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