From: mxsst1+@pitt.edu (Michael   Stroucken)
Newsgroups: alt.personals
Subject: Re: 24-hour notice: anonymus@godiva going down
Date: 14 Nov 92 01:23:40 GMT
Organization: University of Pittsburgh

To: Karl_Kleinpaste@cs.cmu.edu
Subject: forgery
Newsgroups: alt.personals
Organization: University of Pittsburgh
Cc: 
Bcc: 

Today I received this letter:
BEGIN QUOTE
From: Karl_Kleinpaste@GODIVA.NECTAR.CS.CMU.EDU
Date: Fri, 13 Nov 92 17:16:58 EST
To: mxsst1+@pitt.edu, rjl@vms.cis.pitt.edu, postmaster@vms.cis.pitt.edu
Subject: Someone's playing mind games with your news system

I just posted the following.  You may want to do something about it.
Your system, your call.  Cf. Message-IDs.

--karl

Newsgroups: alt.personals
Subject: Re: 24-hour notice: anonymus@godiva going down

[...]
don't seem to get it quite right; this is no exception to that general
rule), and because the real mxsst1+@pitt.edu should have received
email from me quite a few hours ago;
END QUOTE
I did receive the letter
BEGIN QUOTE
[...]
The apparent-but-unreal mxsst1+@pitt.edu writes:
[...]
   So Karl is posting here, trying to blame Pitt because it is the
   easiest thing to do.  When the truth becomes known later this year
   at the trial, Karl will be spending a few years behind bars for
   sexual harassment.

Do tell.  When is this trial scheduled?
   It's a shame that some people will do anything to shift the blame
   from themselves and will use any dirty tactic to do so.  Allow me
   to recommend that you NEVER rely on Karl for anything as he will
   screw you over.  I thought it would be fun to participate in the
   bboard and, at Karl's urging took an anonymous e-mail account.  Now
   I know better.  Take a lesson from all of this.  Don't trust Karl.
END QUOTE
What a chunk of puke! Reading this guy's message should make it obvious that
that posting was a forgery of my name.
BEGIN QUOTE
Well, now that we've seen these two postings come through here from
Pitt, let's consider what's more likely to be the forgery.  Locally,
this note and its near-clone arrived as articles 38024 and 38025 on
cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu.  A diff(1) of the two shows:

4c4
< Message-ID: <9595@blue.cis.pitt.edu>
---
> Message-ID: <19595@blue.cis.pitt.edu>
9c9
< Lines: 26
---
> Lines: 25
36d35
<
END QUOTE
I am rather new at the Newsnet, and I don't understand above comment and
message ID, but I assume it is a kind of serial number of outgoing news
messages from pitt. The counter isn't above 10000 yet.

A truly bad joke.  Odd, that the Message-IDs differ in that way, by
just a single character.  Odd, that every other blue.cis.pitt.edu
Message-ID reference in the history file here shows
"blue.cis.pitt.edu.UUCP" due to an apparent minor mis-installation of
the news system there.  Odd, that every other posting by the real
Michael Stroucken has _3_ spaces between first and last names in the
From: line.  Odd, that postings by the real Michael Stroucken have
signature files, and these two lack any.  Odd, the variations in Path:
lines for previous posts by Michael Strouchen -vs- these two.  Odd,
that there are no References: headers when the real Mr Strouchen's
posts always contained them.

Good heavens.  Whoever you are, if you were looking to create a reason
to flame pitt.edu, perhaps you just succeeded.  If you're going to
forge, do a decent job.  You're manifestly an amateur.

END LETTER
The name that appears in the header when I post is always "Michael" then some
number of spaces and "Stroucken", because (I think) when my account was created
space was left for my non-existent middle initial. Also I always sign my
messages with MS before I exit vi, and my signature file is added after that.

I have some questions to the way that piece of cube cough got my name into the
header. Is it possible to cut out your real name out of the header somewhere?
How can I find out, who this idiot really is? Should I start worrying about
if my password is still secure?

Now that a case of forgery has hit me, the possibility that someone can write
a message with your name on it potentially damaging your credibility scares me.
How would you feel, if someone wrote out a binding contract and forged your
signature to it. That's how I feel now.
MS
-- 
Q: What's the difference between Dan Quayle, Bill Clinton and Jane Fonda?
A: Jane Fonda went to Vietnam.
Internet: mxsst1@pitt.edu, anonymus+1118@godiva.nectar.cs.cmu.edu             :)
Newsgroups: alt.personals