AED & Google

Discussion in 'General Distance Learning Discussions' started by Bill Hurd, Feb 12, 2001.

Loading...
  1. Bill Hurd

    Bill Hurd New Member

    Much to my surprise [maybe everyone knew this but me] deja.com and its A.E.D. forum has been purchased by Google.

    Go to deja.com to see the new look.

    Does that clip the wings of factwatcher?

    Bill H
     
  2. John Bear

    John Bear Senior Member

    Perhaps even more importantly, in the longer run: will they continue to make the archives available (it's a wonderful research tool), and will they again make available the archives older than 18 months? These may be things to communicate with Google about.
     
  3. bgossett

    bgossett New Member

    That is their stated intent, John. The recent archives are now searchable through Google in a much faster format, and the older ones (back to 1995) are promised.

    To search the archived posts made since August 2000, go to http://groups.google.com/




    ------------------
    Bill Gossett
     
  4. Deja.com does not own alt.education.distance -- it just provides a relatively user-friendly interface to it and an archive.

    alt.education.distance is an unmoderated Usenet newsgroup -- no one owns it or controls it.
     
  5. BillDayson

    BillDayson New Member

    It might. Except I think that they said that they are keeping existing deja.com accounts alive, just not adding any new ones during the changeover.

    I did see a group of new factwatcher spam dated the 12th. But there may be a time-zone difference. It will be interesting to see if he continues (probably blaming Dr. Bear for the switchover...)

    It may also explain why deja.com's abuse people were so inactive. If deja had laid off most of their staff and were selling the company, they may just have been operating with a skeleton crew. Perhaps redirecting complaints about factwatcher and his clones to google might get more of a response.

    I still have not tried to figure out the new google system. But it seems a lot less user-friendly than deja. Is it possible to organize the newsgroups by threads? Or to organize the threads in time-order?

    If factwatcher reads AED through deja, all he might be seeing now is an incomprehensible jumble. If that's true, it's really kinda fitting....
     
  6. bgossett

    bgossett New Member

    Originally posted by Bill Dayson:
    Pendleton posts from GMT. The posts on my news server indicate that he sqeezed in a few before the service was shut off.

    Bill, I don't believe this is how the interface is ultimately going to appear. It seems to be a search utility only.

    As to whether Pendleton (factwatcher) will continue, I guess it depends on how much time he's willing to waste finding alternate means of anonymous Usenet posting. Additionally, the denial of service effect he obtained in deja will not be apparent to those filtering him out in a newsreader, and he's bound to know that the audience that's actually reading his posts does so only to attempt unmasking him.


    ------------------
    Bill Gossett
     
  7. BillDayson

    BillDayson New Member

    Who is "Pendleton"? What has "Pendleton" got to do with 'factwatcher'? What do the two (one?) of them have to do with "Kristiaan"?

    I realize that I'm not cleared for G-6 intel, but if you guys are going to break security and drop little gems like that, please realize that many of us that read this group don't have a clue what you are talking about.
     
  8. bgossett

    bgossett New Member

    factwatcher's first posts were defensive of Earlscroft University, a diploma mill that was topical at the time. Research off of aed quickly revealed Richard Pendleton (probably an alias) to be associated with Earlscroft. In time he eventually was posting under so many names, on so many bulletin boards, that he clearly posted as Pendleton or Earlscroft using the IPs of factwatcher and jb_s. Kristiaan is believed to have done the original programming on Earlscroft's site. The defensive post by martin_t_jeffries regarding Capitol University was very reminiscent of Kristiaan's previous forays onto the ng. Whether there is still a connection between Earlscroft and Capitol is open to speculation, but there's no question about what's behind factwatcher.



    ------------------
    Bill Gossett
     
  9. Bill Huffman

    Bill Huffman Well-Known Member

    Was Earlscroft the degree mill where factwatcher said Dr. Bear stated a certain date for the start up of the degree mill and factwatcher claiming he had much older magazines that advertised the degree mill?

    Did factwatcher ever cough up the exact magazine issues that had those advertisements?
     
  10. bgossett

    bgossett New Member

    Yes.

    The names of the publications, yes, but not specific issues.



    ------------------
    Bill Gossett
     
  11. Bill Huffman

    Bill Huffman Well-Known Member

    He knew because he remembered when he first advertised not because he had the magazine issue there and was looking at it. he-he I think it's hilarious when liars get so indignant when someone innocently gets something incorrect.

    Good catch Bill, I bet you got the right fraud behind the factwatcher persona.
     
  12. jmcmurry

    jmcmurry New Member

    Right after deja shut down there were a couple of posts by:

    [email protected]

    But with the same kind of garbage. These posts actually were routed through:

    newsone.net

    I sent the [email protected] an email explaining the crap that has been going on, and they (actually he) replied very quickly with:
    *************
    Date: Wed, 14 Feb 2001 01:38:34 -0500 (EST)
    Subject: Re: your mail
    From: "NewsOne.Net Admin" <[email protected]>


    On Thu, 8 Feb 2001 [email protected] wrote:

    > .....now he is using your service to spam again.

    Respectfully, there's nothing presented in your email alone that
    would warrant action. I'd need something to back it up. For all
    I know, this guy could be telling the truth and you could just be
    out to stop HIM.

    Have pity on me. I run this site all by myself and I don't have the
    resources to do the digging on these matters, as often as they occur.

    So if you'd like to see this guy stopped, please do come back to me
    with a complete, concise case. Include sample posts he's made
    elsewhere, replies, whatever, that I can easily crosscheck and verify.
    Do the digging for me, and action will be as swift as a guillotine. >;-)

    I have ZERO tolerance for spammers and trolls here, but at the same
    time, I have to be reasonable. I can't go canning people's accounts
    just on someone's word.

    So please get back to me with more.

    Thanks,
    Cengiz
    *********************

    I sent him back an email outlining the posts from my-deja.com and why he probably switched to newsone. I also sent this link to him:
    http://groups.google.com/groups?q=author%[email protected]&hl=en&lr=&safe=off

    and now - we havent seen any more posts from this account.

    Just thought I would let everyone know

    jim
     
  13. jmcmurry

    jmcmurry New Member

    So

    He has posted again to the newsgroup using newsone, but under a different alias. (See below)

    i have already forwarded he posting toNewsone guy and he has replied he will look into blocking by IP address...

    ************

    Path: sn-us!sn-xit-03!supernews.com!news-out.usenetserver.com!news-out.usenetserver.com!europa.netcrusader.net!204.71.34.3!newsfeed.cwix.com!newsone.net!newsone.net!not-for-mail
    From: [email protected]
    Newsgroups: alt.education.distance
    Subject: NEW READERS BEWARE!
    Followup-To: alt.education.distance
    Date: 15 Feb 2001 05:19:51 GMT
    Organization: NewsOne.Net - Free Usenet News via the Web - http://newsone.net/
    Lines: 25
    Message-ID: <[email protected]>
    NNTP-Posting-Host: news.netmar.com
    X-Trace: news.netmar.com 982214391 11724 205.139.138.14 (15 Feb 2001 05:19:51 GMT)
    X-Complaints-To: [email protected]
    NNTP-Posting-Date: 15 Feb 2001 05:19:51 GMT
    X-PNG: alt.education.distance
    X-NewsOnePostHost: anon.xg.nu
    X-NewsOnePostAddr: 207.136.42.147
    Xref: sn-us alt.education.distance:89174

    <text deleted at request of poster>

    ----- Posted via NewsOne.Net: Free (anonymous) Usenet News via the Web -----
    http://newsone.net/ -- Free reading and anonymous posting to 60,000+ groups
    NewsOne.Net prohibits users from posting spam. If this or other posts
    made through NewsOne.Net violate posting guidelines, email [email protected]

    **********************************


    [Note: This message has been edited by tcnixon]
     
  14. John Bear

    John Bear Senior Member

    I am really disappointed to have the "factwatcher" libelous statements repeated here, even if, I assume, inadvertantly as part of a comment on that situation. Now I feel the need to respond to the charges here, so as to set the record straight here, as I have done at the alt.education.distance site.

    Claim:
    New participants beware of a "Dr John Bear" and his accomplices "Chip",
    "Thomas Nixon", "Kevin Stewart", "Bill" and lots of other aliases allegedly
    defending John Bear; most of them reincarnations of the same person.

    Reply:
    I have never used an alias in posting to any news group. The other folks named all have a clear and traceable independent existence.

    Claim:
    "Dr John Bear" holds a fake purchased Harvard doctorate.

    Reply:
    And I've been writing about it for 15 years, to show how easy it was to buy one from a counterfeiting service. My earned Ph.D. is from Michigan State University, 1966.

    Claim:
    "Dr John Bear" is the admitted founder and-or advisor of at least three blatant diploma mills; some illegal and some barely legal; labeled legitimate schools in his publications

    Reply:
    For more than 20 years, I have written clearly about my brief involvements with Columbia Pacific (1977-1980), Fairfax (1986) and Greenwich (1990-1991), which I have never identified as accredited, since they are not.

    Claim:
    "Dr John Bear" floods the scene when his legitimacy is questioned by several
    duped students in this very newsgroup. He starts his own "moderated board" at
    degreeinfo.com and filters all duped students' criticism away. Bear and his
    aliases use the forum as a promotional tool for Bears diploma mills and books

    Reply:
    I have no connection with any school whatsoever. None. And if I were in the business of censoring a forum, I surely would have removed this very annoying message from Mr. McMurry's post.

    Claim:
    "Dr John Bear" only allows people in his modereated forum agreeing with him and continues to denigrate competing schools that refuse to bribe him.

    Reply:
    I have not made any decisions about who can post or who cannot. I have never accepted a penny for a listing in Bears' Guide. And, once again, I have no ownership or involvement with any school whatsoever.

    Claim:
    This scam has been going on for over two decades. BEWARE!

    Reply:
    It was in 1979 that I became an official consultant to the FBI on degree mills and fake schools -- something I'm still doing for them. Guess they never checked me out or anything.

    John Bear
    Box 7070, Berkeley, CA 94707
     
  15. jmcmurry

    jmcmurry New Member

    Oh Crap

    i should have thought about posting this whole thing...I apologize for my stupid actions Mr Bear

    I DID NOT do this to do any harm, or cause any grief, I should have not posted te whole message, just the headers.

    Again I am sorry, excuse me while I go sulk awhile

    Jim McMurry
    (My father is Mr McMurry)
     
  16. jmcmurry

    jmcmurry New Member

    Can the moderator please remove the part of the posting I did that is not the Headers...that is really all i wanted to post anyway to show that it was the same person all over again posting, and what action I was trying to block his posting

    Jim McMurry
    (who is now sulking in the corner like a 2 year old who had his Barney doll taken away)
     
  17. Gerstl

    Gerstl New Member


    Oh no, not the MR. thing again [​IMG]

    Where's Steve? [​IMG]

    -me
     
  18. tcnixon

    tcnixon Active Member

    I have honored your request above and have deleted the text of your message. For anyone who doubts that we can't run a lightly moderated board, I should note that John Bear could have just as easily deleted Mr. McMurry's post.

    Tom Nixon
     
  19. Dan Snelson

    Dan Snelson New Member

    He tried to start over with [email protected]

    and you can be the response below!
    I guess they now KNOW who John Bear is [​IMG]
    On Wed, 14 Feb 2001, Dan Snelson wrote:

    &gt; This sure should be against your user agreement. This person has been
    &gt;defaming Dr Bear for about three weeks. You
    &gt; should nuke his account.

    We did.

    Thanks,
    Cengiz
     

Share This Page