SRIA: Facts from Colorado
M. Saggaf
some information that I'm sure everybody would like know. Yesterday I
corresponded with the administrator of the colorado.edu domain
(COLORADO-DOM) to enlist his assistance in shedding some light into
this most unfortunate incident. Today, I received the following from
the systems manager there. Here it is:
>>>Begin quote>>>
Here's what we know about the situation:
Someone, claiming to be Anthony Lest, talked our validations people into
giving him a personal account on ucsu (lest) as well as two other accounts
for purposes of vote counting. This was a mistake by those people, who now
understand they must see proof of university affiliation before creating
accounts.
When we became aware of the controversy surrounding the voting, we
contacted the groups administrator at uunet.uu.net. We removed all three
of the questionable accounts on ucsu and asked that the voting be done
again.
We have no way of knowing whether rana and lest are the same person. We
are diligent about making sure that cases of computing abuse by students go
to the Student Conduct Office here at the university. In this situation,
with no proof, there's little we can do. On a positive note, we have used
this incident to make sure our procedures for setting up accounts are well
defined and understood.
We apologize for all the inconvenience and trouble this has caused to so
many people.
Linda Drake, Large systems manager
<<<End quote<<<
Draw your own conclusion. But please, could we tone it down a bit?
It's getting ridiculous. Thanks.
/M. M. Saggaf
alsa...@athena.mit.edu
Steve McMahon
>I don't want to be drawn into this flame-infested subject, but here is
>some information that I'm sure everybody would like know. Yesterday I
>corresponded with the administrator of the colorado.edu domain
Thank you. We have now firmly established the following:
o No one by the name of Anthony Lest exits, at least not in the
context of of the SRIA vote.
o That character was invented before the vote solely for the
purpose of being the vote taker. He never existed before that,
and no longer exists now.
o The vote is invalid.
The above are undeniably hard facts based of the letter of the
colorado.edu administrator. What remains is subject to speculation.
Who invented the Lest character? Since the person who created that
account cannot be pinned down by the colorado.edu sys admins, we may
never know for sure. However, enough last(1) evidence is presented to
make it compelling to believe that Rana had access to or operated
that account. I don't think he'd be stupid enough to request the
creation of the account himself, I believe it was created for a friend
of his to be operated by Rana. This is my speculation, of course,
everyone is entitled to his own.
Were the votes manipulated? I believe they were not. After
all, there is no need to. I think Rana/Lest simply adjusted the vote
criteria (e.g. by adding the highly unusual spelling requirement) to
give him the desired vote outcome.
What should be done now? That's up to tale of course. However, the
group will in all likelihood fail if the spelling criteria is lifted
(and I can't image Chip not doing that), so it hardly matters which
action is taken.
What I suggest is a six month cooling-off period, after which another
RFD/CFV is issued. Or better yet, why doesn't somebody issue an RFD
for something like soc.religion.ahmadiyya, such a group would be
supported by both sides, I believe, and we can all forget about this
mess instead of facing it every six months.
-Steve
#include <stpd/disclaimer>
Ron Asbestos Dippold
>I don't want to be drawn into this flame-infested subject, but here is
>some information that I'm sure everybody would like know. Yesterday I
>corresponded with the administrator of the colorado.edu domain
>(COLORADO-DOM) to enlist his assistance in shedding some light into
>this most unfortunate incident. Today, I received the following from
>the systems manager there. Here it is:
Yeesh, it's beginning to look like maybe Lest really doesn't exist (up
till now I'd been considering the he-exists-and-was-in-cohorts
theory). Thanks for the information.
--
There will be big changes for you but you will be happy.
Suhail Farooqui
(M. Saggaf) wrote:
- deleted
Now there are people who might doubt these statements
attributed to Linda Drake, Large systems manager at UC. Before
someone calls Mr. Saggaf a liar and all those improper labels,
I suggest they try and get in touch with Ms. Drake herself.
Actually, I did just that. I spoke with her over the phone,
read her all of Mr. Saggaf's mail message and asked her if everything
attributed to her was correct. She reponded affirmatively.
So I asked her to brace herself for a lot of calls because,
I told her, I was going to post her telephone number on
news.groups .. actually I was just threatening here ... trying
to get her to *directly* post something to news.groups
It worked! She has agreed to post herself on this issue.
Yesterday Mr. Nasir A. Jamil said things that to me implied he
was talking about taking Susanne Hupfer and some others to
court. There were attempts to educate him stating that
USENET provided only guidelines and that even if he succeeded
in establishing that someone had violated these guidelines he
could not take them to court for it.
But Mr. Jamil was merely one more irresponsible and lame,
- very lame, I must say - defense for Mr. Anthony Lest.
There were yet others who said that they knew Lest personally.
Why am I saying all this?
Well, because all of Mr. Jamil's talk about taking people
to court now makes me wonder if U.Col. should take "Anthony
Lest" to court. They may never find Lest himself, but heck,
some people who claimed they knew him could be called
to identify him. Besides, Rana is sure to know him.
Enough said already!
Over to Linda Drake ....
-Suhail
Syed Ashraf
%Thank you. We have now firmly established the following:
% o No one by the name of Anthony Lest exits, at least not in the
% context of of the SRIA vote.
% o That character was invented before the vote solely for the
% purpose of being the vote taker. He never existed before that,
% and no longer exists now.
% o The vote is invalid.
%The above are undeniably hard facts based of the letter of the
%colorado.edu administrator. What remains is subject to speculation.
....
%Were the votes manipulated? I believe they were not. After
%all, there is no need to. I think Rana/Lest simply adjusted the vote
%criteria (e.g. by adding the highly unusual spelling requirement) to
%give him the desired vote outcome.
Now that I saw campaign message form Mr. Rana on the net, I think this
'criteria' (read: strategy) was written down even before the voting
started. Mr. Rana never mentioned any of the full names for the group,
when asking for Yes votes. The part of CFV he copied in his mails had
only the abbreviations SRIA.
And yes as Mr. Nawaz has been chanting, the group opponents campaigned
with a mail message having the complete name of the news group; that
too with a bad spelling..
beep+beep=beeeep
%-Steve
%#include <stpd/disclaimer>
p.s. I don't get paid for this..
Nasir A. Jamil <najamil>
>In article <223tc6$q...@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU>, alsa...@athena.mit.edu
>(M. Saggaf) wrote:
>
>- deleted
>
>> >>>Begin quote>>>
>>
>
[urelated stuff deleted]
>Yesterday Mr. Nasir A. Jamil said things that to me implied he
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>was talking about taking Susanne Hupfer and some others to
>court. There were attempts to educate him stating that
>USENET provided only guidelines and that even if he succeeded
>in establishing that someone had violated these guidelines he
>could not take them to court for it.
>
>But Mr. Jamil was merely one more irresponsible and lame,
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>- very lame, I must say - defense for Mr. Anthony Lest.
>There were yet others who said that they knew Lest personally.
>
>Why am I saying all this?
>Well, because all of Mr. Jamil's talk about taking people
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>to court now makes me wonder if U.Col. should take "Anthony
>Lest" to court. They may never find Lest himself, but heck,
>some people who claimed they knew him could be called
>to identify him. Besides, Rana is sure to know him.
>
Mr. Suhail: Please get your fact straight.
I, NASIR A. JAMIL, NEVER EVER TALKED ABOUT TAKING ANY BODY TO COURT.
Everything above attributed to me is FALSE.
>
>Enough said already!
>
>Over to Linda Drake ....
>
>-Suhail
--
Nasir A. Jamil
Computer Scientist
USACBDCOM APG MD
<naj...@cbda.apgea.army.mil>
Linda Drake
spot.colorado.edu. Because of some upstream news system problems, it may not
have been distributed, so I am reposting from another system where I have an
account (sponsored by Colorado SuperNet - CSN). Some additional information
I can add is that we have an official policy on granting accounts to
people not affiliated with the unversity (e.g. not faculty, staff, or
registered students). They must be sponsored by a faculty/staff person who
has been approved by my department's director. We also will be sending
information on the situation to our university office of student conduct and
will ask them to investigate and take action if it is warranted.
I am the manager of the Large Systems Group at Computing and Network Services
here at the University of Colorado in Boulder. I have received numerous
email messages and phone calls asking me to confirm that I corresponded with
M. M. Saggaf, alsa...@athena.mit.edu. The message he posted (without my
permission) was in fact sent by me to him earlier today.
I have no further information on the situation. As I said to M. M. Saggaf,
I am sorry our systems were misused and caused so much consternation. Please,
please, please, do not send me more email or call me. We have done all we
can. If you do decide to vote again, please find someone outside the
Colorado.EDU domain to do the vote counting.
Suhail Farooqui
Okay, so I made a big fool of myself. Is called slipping,
and I apologize. It wasn't Mr. Jamil. It was Mr. Nawaz.
I sincerely apologize and am very embarrassed at
having made this mistake. But that's what it was -
a mistake. Not an attempt at fraud, or even defaming anyone.
I attribute this to carelessness on my part and not to
any bigoted attempt at anything. Honest.
I am producing Mr. Nawaz's piece here for people's reference.
All that needs to be done is replace Mr. Jamil's name by
Mr. Nawaz's in my posting to which Mr. Jamil has
responded. My comments about being a lame defense for
Lest are as applicable to Mr. Nawaz as they are still applicable
to Mr. Jamil (see my other posting where I pointed out that
like Mr. Nawaz, Mr. Jamil tends to bring out unrelated issues and
thinks he is making a point).
---------------------------------------------------------
> In article <220b7a...@MATHIS.SYSTEMSY.CS.YALE.EDU>,
> hupfer-...@cs.yale.edu (Susanne Hupfer) wrote:
> >
> >
> > In article <nahmed-13...@mac58.ed.nwu.edu>, nah...@merle.acns.nwu.edu (NAWAZ AHMED) writes:
> >Hmmm... looking closely at the data I posted shows that, out of a
> >total of 72 logins by Lest from May 30 to June 18 (a portion of which
> > fell during the vote counting period), about 38 of those sessions show
> > him overlapping with sessions of the Rana account at the same Internet
> > number.
> >
> > We already know from a Colorado user that those numbers "128.138.177.*"
> > are public access Macs. So, I suppose Rana and Lest could have engaged
> > in 38 cordial post-vote, friendship-building, game-playing episodes or
> > IRC sessions, but are you suggesting one sat in the other's lap?
> This is a plin lies and bundle of twisting fact which are not contained in
> data. Are you telling me that IP address 128.138.177 which an other user
> at colorado domain mentioned was used 38 times. This is outrage
> misstatement. Go look you data again lady! Moreover, wher is the evidence
> that proves that same terminals and same IP addresses are present over 38
> times.
>
> As I have stated that to prove any misdoing you have to come up with the
> proof that voting data was actually changed as well. Were any votes changed
> from YES to NO or No to Yes etc. Did every one who voted found their votes
> as they voted and those who did not see their votes were told about the
> invalidation of their vote by Lest in indivisual messages to all of them. I
> have not seen a single person claiming that their vote was not accounted
> for.
> Lady! give me some proof , not fingure pointing. You may have to defend
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> your "strong evidence" some where else too. Give me the prrof that voting
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> data was changed. Give me the proof that Rana run the voting. Give me the
> proof that Lest account was opened for Rana. Bring the application filled
> and ID showed for getting the Lest account opened. You are just into blame
> war with out proofs.
> > - Susanne Hupfer
> > (hup...@cs.yale.edu)
> Nawaz
--------------------------------------------------
Suhail Farooqui
M. Saggaf
...
>here at the University of Colorado in Boulder. I have received numerous
>email messages and phone calls asking me to confirm that I corresponded with
>M. M. Saggaf, alsa...@athena.mit.edu. The message he posted (without my
>permission) was in fact sent by me to him earlier today.
>
Um, in my defense, I did inform Linda that I'd convey her message to
the net readers, and I waited for any possible objection to that
before posting my article. Whether her not replying can be considered
an implicit permission or not can be argued both ways. I did
underestimate the net zealous to confirm the article though, and I
possibly wouldn't have posted her name had I known she would bothered
by that many people. Then again, without that, many people would
probably have questioned the article's authenticity.
At any rate, a small appeal to everyone to calm down and cease from
continuing this futile discussion. There is nothing to prove or
disprove anymore, just wait for the official word from tale. While I
realize it would be difficult for many net.junkies to part with such
an amusing brawl, the rest of us need not be their entertainment.
Regards.
/M. M. Saggaf
alsa...@athena.mit.edu
Mercenary Programmer
# and I apologize. It wasn't Mr. Jamil. It was Mr. Nawaz.
# I sincerely apologize and am very embarrassed at
# having made this mistake. But that's what it was -
# a mistake. Not an attempt at fraud, or even defaming anyone.
# I attribute this to carelessness on my part and not to
# any bigoted attempt at anything. Honest.
Are you so sure that they are not the same person? For all you know,
they might be Nabeel Rana. :-)
Basalat Ali Raja.
Linda Drake
email messages and phone calls asking me to confirm that I corresponded with
M. M. Saggaf, alsa...@athena.mit.edu. The message he posted (without my
permission) was in fact sent by me to him earlier today.
I have no further information on the situation. As I said to M. M. Saggaf,
Lawrence C Smith
>Yeesh, it's beginning to look like maybe Lest really doesn't exist
Gee, I'd wish I'd thought of that. Just imagine, making up your very
own vote-taker...
The amount of chutzpah implied here deserves _some_ kind of award...
Maybe we could start a new .sig virus or something in his honor. :)
Larry Smith (sm...@ctron.com) No, I don't speak for Cabletron. Need you ask?
-
Liberty is not the freedom to do whatever we want,
it is the freedom to do whatever we are able.
nelson ralph a
>What I suggest is a six month cooling-off period, after which another
>RFD/CFV is issued. Or better yet, why doesn't somebody issue an RFD
>for something like soc.religion.ahmadiyya, such a group would be
>supported by both sides, I believe, and we can all forget about this
>mess instead of facing it every six months.
If an RFD for soc.religion.ahmadiyya (unmoderated) were issued now, would it
be considered a different group than soc.religion.islam.ahmadiyya (moderated)
and so not subject to the six-month waiting period? Just asking.
_____
Faruq abd ul-Rafi (R. A. Nelson)
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Department of Philosophy
105 Gregory Hall, 810 S. Wright St., Urbana, IL 61801
Phone: 217/244-2650 (office), 328-6947 (home), 244-8355 (fax)
E-mail: fa...@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu
Ron Asbestos Dippold
>If an RFD for soc.religion.ahmadiyya (unmoderated) were issued now, would it
>be considered a different group than soc.religion.islam.ahmadiyya (moderated)
>and so not subject to the six-month waiting period? Just asking.
That's different enough that no waiting period would be needed, IMO.
It's another proposal (especially the unmoderated part).
However, at the moment it's not clear if there is a six month period
mandated on SRIA - if the vote is invalidated due to fraud, a new CFV
can happen immediately (though it doesn't have to). It's only if the
vote is ruled acceptable and the group fails that you have the six
month period. So if Chip's recount indicates the group fails and this
is accepted, then there's waiting.
--
Charm is a way of getting a "yes" without having asked any clear question.
Dave Ratcliffe
[ info from CSU Admin essentially stating that they have no idea if Tony
Lest really was Tony Lest deleted ]
- Draw your own conclusion. But please, could we tone it down a bit?
- It's getting ridiculous. Thanks.
It passed ridiculous about 3 squares back and is now approaching
hysterically ludicrous.
If this all means there will be yet ANOTHER vote I think I'll sell
tickets to the 3 ring circus that will surely follow. Might be able to
afford that Cray I've been wanting all these years.
--
vogon1!frackit!da...@psuvax1.psu.edu | Dave Ratcliffe |
- or - ..uunet!wa3wbu!frackit!dave | Sys. <*> Admin. |
- or - dave.ra...@p777.f211.n270.z1.fidonet.org | Harrisburg, Pa. |
Matthew P Wiener
>If an RFD for soc.religion.ahmadiyya (unmoderated) were issued now,
>would it be considered a different group than soc.religion.islam.ahmadiyya
>(moderated) and so not subject to the six-month waiting period? Just asking.
How about soc.religion.islam.ahmadiya (moderated)?
--
-Matthew P Wiener (wee...@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu)
Basalat Ali Raja
Sean P. Ryan, Hardcore Alaskan <fs...@acad3.alaska.edu> wrote:
>That whole issue merely underscores what's wrong with the newsgroup
>creation process. We had a vote (s.r.i.a) with discrepancies, all
>after-the-fact and (IMO) manufactured, and the decision is pawned off
>to "administrative review," with a speed that is rivalled only by the
>American judicial system.
Sean, you are being an utter twit. You're basically an intelligent
fellow, but you do have this unfortunate tendency to fly off the
handle at times. The following details what happened.
When the SRIA vote came up, David Lawrence asked Nabeel Rana, the
chief proponent and proposed moderator of SRIA, to select a neutral
third party to take the votes. Nabeel Rana came up with a fellow by
the name of Anthony Lest. David Lawrence apparently expressed
satisfaction with this choice, because the vote-taking went ahead.
When the vote results were announced it came to light that several
hundred no votes were missing (even I do not know how many exactly).
After a few days of massive flaming over this, pro and con, Anthony
Lest came forward to declare that the reason so many votes had not
been counted was that they had mispelled "ahmadiyya" - in many cases,
a missing "y" or an extra "d" was sufficent to disqualify the vote.
This provoked more bickering for another couple of weeks, after which
point Chip Rosenthal stepped forward and offered to recount the votes.
So for the most part, the flaming stopped, and people waited for his
results.
After a little while, Susanne Hupfer collated information given by the
command "last lest" and "last rana" and found out that over the five
weeks or so for which last information was avaible, both Rana and Lest
had logged in at almost exactly the same moments or sequentially, or
something like that. In all cases, Lest always logged in only when
Rana was also present. This gives reasonable suspicion that Lest is a
satellite personality of Rana. Susanne Hupfer presented this
information on news.groups, and the smouldering embers burst into
flames once more.
A little while after this, M. M. Saggaf wrote to the system
adminstrators of Anthony Lest, asking for more information about this
mysterious personality. He received a response from Linda Drake
informing him that the account allegedly belonging to Anthony Lest
could not, in actuality, be attributed to any real life person. This
offered the final death blow to the already tottering vote-count. A
copy of the article posted by Linda Drake is attached below.
I have stated the story above with all well-known public facts. Which
one of these would you say is a "manufactured discrepancy?" Any
results that Chip Rosenthal would come up with are meaningless. The
data that he was given was meaningless, so it doesn't seem possible
that he can magically produce reliable information out of votes that
have most likely been tampered with.
A number of people are trying to claim that the reason SRIA was not
created is that David Lawrence does not like it. To attempt to lay
the blame at his door is moronic. Just like anyone else, he has the
right to a single vote and no more. He exercised that right.
______________________________________________________________________
Article: 30357 of news.groups
Newsgroups: news.groups
Path: ai-lab!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!usc!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!news.kei.com!\
ub!csn!teal.csn.org!drake
From: dr...@teal.csn.org (Linda Drake)
Subject: Re: SRIA: Facts from Colorado
Message-ID: <CA9LA...@csn.org>
Sender: ne...@csn.org (The Daily Planet)
Nntp-Posting-Host: teal.csn.org
Organization: Colorado SuperNet, Inc.
Date: Fri, 16 Jul 1993 15:49:13 GMT
Lines: 22
Status: O