Slime Spillover

This will make interesting case-law for the 'I.T. Law (USA)' files. It is a pity Sam Sloan is involved though: he can mis-focus on an Olympian scale.
Polgar-Truong dismiss the case on the grounds that they had asked certain people to be dismissed from their work at/for the USCF, and that the methods used to gather the evidence were "100% illegal", oh, and that they didn't do it.
Webmasters are entitled to, encouraged to, examine how their websites are being used by users, and not just to detect abuse. They are probably not entitled to publish information about named users on the web. But the latter error does not negate any evidence there is.
I was not aware that Truong had a back-history of anonymous attacks on the web: perhaps there are sources for this.
The court could also ask Blogger HQ if Polgar-Truong have been contributing comments to their own blog at either the fake-cheerleader end or the fake-mad-opponent end.
Until the report of the independent expert comes out, and the case is heard ... let justice prevail.

Somehow recall this from an earlier thread...

http://www.chessninja.com/dailydirt/2006/01/women_troubles_2.htm

"I deleted the "Topamura" troll about my ancient USCF rating and Maliq's taking the bait. But I am disturbed that it came from the same IP address as Susan Polgar's posts that immediately preceded it. If it is what is seems it is unacceptable whether the target is me, Anna Hahn, or anyone else. I'm disappointed to see this is the response to an attempt at dialogue about an important issue.

Posted by: Mig at January 30, 2006 14:15"

Mig,

Your 100% correct to stay away from this nonsense. I looked briefly at the Polgar website and Sloans commments (maybe they were fake?)during the election and it was like watching my brothers kids having an argument.

If this is what the USCF spends its time doing - your screwed.

I am sort of an expert in the field of "spoofing". IP addresses don't lie: if Paul Truong's IP address was logged in the posts, then the posts had to come from his internet connection.

The only way for a malicious person to make it look like it came from Paul/Susan's IP address, is to install spyware on Paul/Susan's computer, turn it into a proxy, and then post using that proxy in their browser. Basically this is not feasible unless the person is a serious hacker and has absolutely no life whatsoever.

If it was an email address that was spoofed, I would have bought it. An IP address--No way in hell.

yeah, I didnt quite understand Mig's post. Exactly what was the alleged spoof? Is Truong alleged to have posted as Sloan, and do the IP records show that it was in fact the same IP as related to other posts from Truong? Where is the "IP" spoof? ID spoof certainly, but IP?

I might add that I am supremely unconcerned about the parties involved, the IP issue interests me on a technical level.

Just a small clarification. Mig refers to me in his post as a "disgruntled employee" of the USCF.
It is surprising to find a two-word phrase with two mistakes in it, but "disgruntled employee" is one. I'm not a USCF employee and I am not disgruntled, at least not with the USCF.

In fact, I am a volunteer who has been working practically full-time on the USCF web site, completely gratis, since mid-July -- in order to be of help to the USCF. I have not received a penny from the USCF, or anybody else, for my work on behalf of the USCF. I wouldn't do that if I was "disgruntled".

Mig may be justified in the rest of his cynicism on this issue, but this isn't a "disgrunted employee" story.

It's much easier to spoof an IP address _in a Usenet post_ than Braden suggests. If you have access to an NNTP server that allows you to specify the NNTP-Posting_Host header (and some commercial services allow this); or if run your own news server and have a peering arrangement (or simply know a server that allows you to inject posts).

Sppofing your IP in _email_ is hard--the Received line from your own mail server will always show the real IP address it got the mail from. Sppofing IP in posts to a web forum (like the USCF forum) is hard.

Anyone concerned with spoofing on Usenet should PGP-sign their posts (as many people suggested to Sloan).

Susan Polgar & Paul Truong will prove to be greater liabilities to the USCF than Sam Sloan himself!

In the meantime, Donna Alaire is filing legal papers to access the USCF financial records, in pursuit of her investigation of the federation's shady financial practices...

Ed, the Fake Sam Sloan posts were almost all injected using Google's news server which, as you know, provides a web-based interface. This does not let you specify the NNTP-Posting_Host. Google probably gets the posting host IP from the HTTP connection of the poster, which as you say is "hard" (I would have said virtually impossible) to spoof. So your IP spoofing strategies are not applicable in this case.

Besides the fact that nobody can explain how the Fake Sam Sloan could have spoofed IP addresses in his Usenet posts through the Google news server, it also hasn't been explained how the Fake Sam Sloan poster found out which IP addresses to spoof.

This problem of finding out what to spoof applies also to the User Agent strings, which also match. Those are pretty easy to spoof, unlike IP addresses, but as with the IP addresses you still have to know what user agent strings to spoof.

Indeed, the alleged "spoofer" had to be able to learn what IP addresses and user agent strings to spoof regularly and at will over the course of 18 months. And, when the person he was framing switched computers or internet connections, he had to know when to switch to different user agent strings and IP addresses, so that the ones he was spoofing would continue to match.

It's sad but true: Zsuzsa Polgar does this on her own website all of the time. She (or Paul Truong or whoever) posted a lot of anti-Polgar stuff on their site, to make themselves look oh so good for the elections...

Polgar also censors every post on her site that are only a little bit not according to her taste. She only accepts people that have the exact same view as herself, and censors everybody else.

I quit going to that blog of hers, and i even deleted the link to there from my chessclub's website.

People should grow up. Those kind of politics, it seems like little children...

I certainly do not know much of anything about spoofing and NNTP and servers, and whatnot. I'll believe what everyone has said here at face value.

But it seems to me that the real potential problem is that the logs could have been tampered with. Are they simply just text files? How can someone ensure that the IP addresses were copied and pasted in the log files?

Note that I am not making any accusations, but from what everyone is saying, changing the log files seems like an easier task than spoofing an IP.

Truong et al haven't had a consistent story on this. To the New York Times and on his forum site, chessdiscussion.com, Truong said that his IP addresses had been spoofed on the Usenet posts.

At the same time, both Polgar and Truong have tried to characterize me as someone on a vendetta against them, implying that I doctored the USCF database and logs to implicate Truong. This "log-doctoring" story works out well for them, because it makes the whole thing a "he-said,she-said" situation: my word that I didn't doctor the logs versus Paul's insinuations that I did. This enables people who would like to believe Paul and Susan to continue doing so.

But please note that these are really two completely different and inconsistent stories. The spoofing story admits that the IP addresses on the Usenet posts are Truong's IP addresses, but claims that they got onto the Usenet posts through spoofing. The log-doctoring story says that Truong actually had different IP addresses than appear on the Usenet posts, but that the IP addresses from those posts got planted in the USCF database to make it look like Truong had those same IP addresses.

I already addressed how the IP spoofing story doesn't fly. Let me now address the suggestion that I have doctored the USCF database and logs.

I started working for the USCF on July 11, 2007, and that is when I was given access to the forum database and the files for the web site. The evidence that Paul Truong and the Usenet imposter are one and the same rests mainly on IP addresses stored in the USCF forum database. It is quite true that I had the ability to doctor the USCF forum database after July 11.

But there are three significant problems with the claim.

1) There are backups of the USCF forum databases from before July 11, and these are stored in a place to which I have no access at all. I might have been able to doctor the live database, but I would not have been able to doctor the backups. Much of evidence is from before July 11. If the backups from before July 11 are compared to the actual database, my doctoring would be discovered.

2) Similarly, there are web logs being created by the Apache web server. These web logs must be consistent with the information in the USCF Forum database. I have never had any access to these Apache web logs, neither those from before July 11, or after. If those web logs do not corroborate the evidence I have presented, again, the jig is up for me.

3) The various ISP's in question also have a record of what Paul Truong's IP addresses were at various times. The data in the USCF forum databases must be consistent with the records of Paul Truong's ISP's over the last 18 months. If it is not, it shows that I doctored the logs, and the game is up for me.

Now, nobody can know what is in the records of ISP's unless those records are subpoenaed, and that has not happened. But the USCF can corroborate that I did not doctor the database or the logs.

So, if the "disgruntled employee doctored the logs" theory is true,you have to believe that I am very foolish person who is going to be exposed as a fraud rather quickly.

Thank you Brian, for explaining the log back up procedures, and IP storage issues.

I await the results of where this is going to go.

Mig -- did you write this article with Dylan (his article was published Oct 8), and you wrote yours Oct 7. Next - seeing the future...

David Ulevitch, founder and chief executive of OpenDNS, which provides Internet domain name services, said that impersonating someone on the Internet “happens a lot"... Asked about Mr. Truong’s contention that he could have been framed, Mr. Ulevitch said, “It has been known to happen that someone has impersonated someone else impersonating someone else.”

As a party in this lawsuit, I would like to state unequivocally that it is trivial to spoof an IP address, or hack someone else's account and log in as someone on the USCF website. There also is a seemingly morbid fascination with a few members to follow certain political candidates every move in order to harass them. If you are at home, and no children are around you, look at the site of the person that made the lawsuit. If you dig around for awhile, you will find out that no-one can create more harm to his candidacy that his own words and images on his own site. I have created a PG version of some of Mr. Sloans postings ((a) see link below). Even though it is watered down, it should not be read for the faint of heart. There have also been a pattern of serious privacy breaches by the primary investigator and he has admitted breaking into other members private messaging accounts (b). This investigation is a political witch-hunt and the accusations have no real evidence to back them up.

That this is a story at all frankly amazes me. The evidence is extraordinarily weak, and the volunteer instigator of this investigation has caused harm to people's reputations in the name of political attack. This is one more attempt to smear a political candidate that someone does not like. Unfortunately, the USCF Executive Director's tacit approval of this investigation has caused harm to other people as Mr. Sloan is using a shot-gun approach in his lawsuit. The real story should be that the USCF is spending resources, and a great deal of time to have it's system administrator, and potentially other paid experts to try to determine the browsing patterns of it's own membership using the personal data that they collect on their own members.

It should be noted that Brian Mottershead continues to violate his NDA signed with the USCF, and nothing has been done to stop him for the last two weeks by the Executive Directors. If someone erroneously thinks that this is evidence; we should just go ahead and investigate all of our members, every single one of us, using our IP addresses? Why single just one member out for smear and violate his right to privacy? Since this was taken public immediately instead of heard internally, and papers were informed, it is quite likely that this investigation is being allowed to be done in the name of a dirty political attack.

If we as members allow this, it will destroy the very fabric of trust that we have by our members. Whoever controls the USCF database in the future will be in a very good place to direct attacks against their opponents-- whereas the folks that don't control the database will not be able to respond in kind. Furthermore, there are many ways to spoof and make the data look real. The USCF is not an organization to ensure that it's members have good browsing habits. If we set this precedent; It is likely that our resources will be further squandered for political attack.

Sincerely,

Gregory Alexander
USCF College Chess Committee Associate Chair.

A watered down version of Sam Sloan's on posts on his own website (not for the faint of heart)
http://www.tatiana.net/forum/index.cfm?fPage=topic&topicID=198

Prior privacy abuses from the volunteer system administrator, Brian Mottershead
http://www.tatiana.net/forum/index.cfm?fPage=topic&topicID=353

Gregory,

It strikes me as Mr. Ulevich's comments are either being taken completely out of context, or someone asked him the wrong question.

Spoofing someone's IP is one thing.

Spoofing someone's IP in order to do some behavior, immediately after the person actually using that person's IP did the exact same behavior is pretty tricky to do.

Heck, such an incident happened here. I recall the Topamura troll.

Let's use Occam's Razor. Which is more likely:

Truong (or Polgar, or both) posts regularly on the newsgroups/blogs/etc. under their real names, then switches, from the same computer, to an "Anonymous" name, in order to make posts which are a bit more edgy

or...

Truong and Polgar have some piece of malware on their machine(s) which has been hijacked by a fellow newsgroup/blog poster, who watches when Polgar and Truong make posts, then makes anonymous posts from the same IP, which no one can see, to argue a point and get Truong/Polgar in trouble.

Uhhhh, in the latter case, if the person had such access, it raises a few questions:
1) Why wouldn't they just make the posts under Polgar/Truong's name? That would get them in even more trouble.
2) Why is no one (years later), publicizing this? In essence, no one has provided the proof to get them caught, which would ultimately be the point of this ruse.

I like Paul and Susan a lot, actually, but it's hard to believe, based on what I've read, that this hasn't been going on.

Of course, Sloan's name attached to it... aiiiiiii.

David Ulevitch's quote sounds like he was given a brief summary of a situation and was asked for a comment. Doesn't sound like he knew the particulars. Kind of like when some TV personality psychologist "diagnoses" some celebrity based on news coverage. (Kind of like some previous threads here...)

If IP spoofing is trivial, tell us how it's done? This from someone who apparently didn't realize that forum administrators can (from a technical perspective) read whatever content is in the database regardless of whether they have access to the user's passwords.

Normally, a denial of service attack has to be launched against the address being spoofed so it doesn't respond to packets sent to it. This is not something just anyone can do. Also, you have to know what to spoof, which, as explained by Mottershead, would be very hard in this case (especially since it changed several times). Spoofing in an individual instance may be relatively easy for someone with the right skills and resources, but spoofing in a consistent way over months of changing IP addresses and in different contexts without making a mistake... not so much.

I think allegations of misconduct by those just elected (and misconduct apparently used to help them get elected) is extremely relevant to the proper running of USCF. And yes, Sam Sloan is a morally reprehensible individual, but that doesn't invalidate the ethical and legal issues involved in Truong's alleged conduct.

Gregory Alexander, whether he has done anything wrong in this matter or not, seems to be arguing from a standpoint of distorted reality. Especially considering his assertion (in the linked to web page) that Brian Mottershead was violating his privacy merely by logging into his account to check into problems. I've had web hosting support people log into my account to verify that it was or wasn't working. As long as they don't actually read my email, it's not a privacy issue.

Of course, I don't know all the facts. I am a technical person, however, and I find the technical arguments compelling.

I love that the Daily Dirt has some actual dirt in it today...

My reading of events goes down the same path as Mig's, more or less.

***

On-topic blogwhoring: grist for the US District Court mill at http://www.direkickfeud.blogspot.com/

***

So has Mr. Mottershead noted those who were accused by Mr. Sloan, but exonerated (or at least not "incriminated") by his analysis?

And will the USCF Board allow Messrs. Mottershead & Bogner to violate the privacy of all USCF members, or only those violations that Mr. Goichberg finds convenient for his political purpose?

Assume, arguendo, that Mr. Truong impersonated Mr. Sloan repeatedly. That's wrong, and if the case is proven to be probable, Mr. Truong would do well to resign. The fake Sloan posts were as execrable as Sloan himself.

However, the abuse of trust in violating the privacy of a nonprofit organization's members is equally unethical, IMO.

I'm the "Ray Gordon" mentioned in the postings.

Lost in all this is that the "imposter" was also impersonating ME. I had nothing to do with the USCF board or USCF forum.

I also conducted my own investigation into this, and while I've had strong suspicions about this imposter business for quite some time, I'm reserving judgment until everyone else gets their stories told, which they can do...once. Then they can't change it.

Meanwhile, ICC gives you an EKG-like rating that tells you how you are doing from minute to minute, for only a few dollars more than it costs to join USCF.

-

Brian, did you come up with more links besides the posts from the 25th and 19th?

Q: Did I come up with more links? A: Yes. The case is actually considerably stronger now than what I posted on the 25th in the USCF Issues forum. Not that it wasn't already plenty strong when I first posted my conclusions.

Regarding Sam Sloan's suit, my opinion is that Sam should have stuck to the matter at hand and not dragged in so many other irrelevant issues. Some of the defendants, such as Bill Brock and the USCF Issues forum moderators, don't make any sense to me. I understand why Sam wanted to drag Texas Tech into it, but I think the pretext for his doing that was really thin. Some of the prayers for relief in the complaint, such as the reinstatement of Bobby Fischer's USCF membership seem bizarre, completely irrelevant, and utter non sequiturs.

I've told Sam that I think his suit is kitchen-sinkish, and all of the extraneous stuff weakens his chances considerably. I don't know how a federal judge is going to react to it. Since Sam is a pro se plaintiff, a judge might feel it is his duty to "help" Sam distill it down to the essence, but it is just as likely that he will be exasperated, throw up his hands, and dismiss the whole thing.

Also, I think there was a good chance that the USCF would have found its way to doing the right thing, but that Sam's suit made that somewhat less likely. Some of the Executive Board members who might have been outraged to find the Fake Sam Sloan in their midst, are now reacting instead to being sued by the real Sam Sloan.

I've never felt that this matter was mainly about Sam Sloan, or Ray Gordon, or any of the others being impersonated by "the Fake Sam Sloan/Fake Ray Gordon/etc", although that of course was part of it. A lot of people on hearing about this tend to think, "well who cares if somebody was attacking Sam Sloan or Ray Gordon". But the real issue here is that the impersonator used those identities not only to torment Sam Sloan, Ray Gordon, etc, but to post obscene, racist, misogynistic, libelous attacks on the USCF and almost everybody having anything to do with the management of the USCF. Unless you actually read through a significant number of the posts, it would be hard to believe how vile the posts actually were.

Mr. Mottershead, let's grant the vileness of the faux Sloan posts. (I was in the habit of skipping them, and I was under the perhaps mistaken impression that there were multiple fakers, but I remember enough of them to trust your opinion.)

Does the desirable end (exposing the person who was making posts contrary to USCF's interests outside of the USCF forum) justify the means (your invasion of certain members' privacy by comparing private records to public records)?

Did you invade the privacy of others only to find them "innocent," or did you specifically target Mr. Truong?

Were your actions authorized by the Executive Director or Board of the USCF?

If so, was this authorization in writing/email?

If so, who made this authorization?

Did you communicate directly or indirectly with Mr. Sloan during your "investigation"?

If so, what was the nature of the information you exchanged?

Do you currently have access to any USCF databases containing member information?

I believe that this is relevant to this discussion as it shows that the privacy of the USCF is not taken seriously by Brian. Also, this so called 'investigation' took place right after I took this issue in house and Susan and Paul were the only EB members that supported it. It is a long read, but it is accurate.

There is a pattern of confidentiality breaches within the USCF. The pattern starts from the top, and it is filtered down to at least two developers, who have both admitted to logging in as someone else and accessing our personal accounts. Two confidentiality issues occurred to me personally that affected the ability to perform as a volunteer, and Bill Hall constantly ignored them. Unfortunately, their are individuals within the USCF that do not like criticism, and once a whistle blower has made an internal complaint, lawsuits are threatened after the complaint. We should all be aware of how the USCF treats our privacy and how they resolve an internal complaint.

I am web-developer, and a frequent visitor to the USCF Forums. I also moderated this form for several months during a contentious election season, currently I am the USCF College Chess Associate Chair, and developed and maintain the college chess league site (http://www.collegechess.org). I have worked hard; and just received notification that I was nominated as the USCF Volunteer of the Month. However, in my extensive dealings with the USCF, I have witnessed confidentiality breeches and I have grave concerns on how they handle our confidentiality. Please read on and try to imagine the following.

In September, a new website was released. You look at it, and find a ton of bugs. You sit for a few days, look again, and decide to write a thread titled ‘I am not impressed with the site’. In this thread, you annotate many bugs, the Interim System Administrator does not like your negative comments, nor does the head website developer, and they start attacking your comments. You post anyway, and just posted that there may be a problem with the Private Messaging functionality, and start to write another long post. You hit the submit button, and noticed that you are suddenly logged out of the site. You ask your friends via email if they are still on, the answer is yes, and after several hours of not being able to log on, you complain using the site. Now, after the reporting the incident, imagine reading the following response:

"Gregory reported two problems in the forum regarding his account, and was making a big fuss. Squeaky wheel getting the grease. I did not ask Gregory for permission to log into his account... (but) sent him a PM to let him know that I was temporarily substituting my password for his on the account so that I could log in as him... This was a notice, not a request for permission, sent as a courtesy in order to avoid any more inconvenience to him than necessary... When working on the latter, I went to (Gregory's) PM section of the User Control Panel, but I did not open any of the PMs. I then logged out, and reset the password back to his original password, or at least I believed I had done so... Because the passwords are encrypted, one cannot simply look up the password in the database and log in with it. You have to go through the process of saving the user's encrypted password aside, replacing it with a known password, encrypted, and then logging in with the known password, later on restoring the original password. In this particular case, because it was about 2AM and I was tired, I made a mistake when restoring the password, so in the morning when Gregory tried to login, he could not. The password was not correct.... Anybody working on the forums, as I have, has access to the forums database, which contains personal messages and the content of hidden private forums... If I had wanted to read your PM's, I did not need to log into your account, or tell you that I was doing so. I have access to every PM in the entire database along with everything else. I could have read every PM you have at any time in the last two and a half months without telling you or anybody else. The same goes for every other PM of every other user in the forums. However, if there is any further public suggestion or implication that my conduct was in any way improper, unethical, or unprofessional, or there is any other aspersion cast on my professional reputation, then this will become a matter involving lawyers, and, potentially, courts.

Sincerely,

Brian Mottershead”

These are real quotes from the Interim System Administrator, taken from three letters. Are you a bit chilled regarding your privacy? Read on, it gets worse.

Some may say that I must not care about confidentiality as I am revealing the contents of emails; however, Brian is acting on behalf of the USCF as the Interim Systems Administrator. The email goes into detail how my account was accessed-- nothing in the emails is personal. Hypothetically speaking; If I write an email to Acme credit card services, and asked them why they charged me for not using the credit card for a year, and they respond, I have a right to take it public, right? This is the same hypothetical situation that happened at the USCF. However the email that you read from Brian is not hypothetical at all. It is real.

Before continuing; I would like to comment upon the Interim System Administrator’s points. First, in over 20 years in this business, I have never looked at anyone’s email, or private messages. The forums that we are using, Phpbb3 makes sure that the password is encrypted to prevent the developer from gaining access to a users account. This design choice is intentional to discourage developers from getting the users log-in credentials. I did not even think that Brian’s tactic to access my account was possible, in fact, I never thought of any way to access someone’s account at all. Even if I posses the keys to the database, I am not going to try to figure it out. IMO, it is not the right thing to do an ethical standpoint.

Even when I ask someone to volunteer to help on my own college chess site, I am very careful to give them a quick lecture on privacy. I clearly state that under no circumstance should you look at anyone’s messages unless given consent, and we must ensure that our customers have the right to privacy. I am uncomfortable lecturing someone that I trust, especially when I just asked them for help, however I state it very clearly before I give anyone access. Good development processes require that the senior developer take the time to review basic privacy policies, and will often use development techniques to limit database access. All developers that have full access should have been very well trained on what they can do, and what they can’t. Unless required to by law, no one has the right to read other persons private discussions without the person’s explicit consent.

Brain has stated in the past that he ‘just logged in to try to fix a problem’. However, there is no reason for him to access my private messages to find the problem. The private messages are created by a single common phpbb3 template. From a technical standpoint, the template processes the same exact logic regardless of whose account it is. The fact of the matter is that Brian and I were in heated exchanges in the forums when this took place, and then I was booted out and he looked into my private message folder. Yes, Brian discovered a clever way to circumvent the phpbb3 encryption system, but even so, he had no reason to log in as me even if he was trying to ‘just fix my account’.

This is really not about Brian per-say; it is about bad USCF policy, and having management and some senior programmers that that have a long track record of violating confidentiality. Also, the official USCF response (and lack of it) of this incident concerns me. I took this in-house and tried to settle it internally. Instead of being formally apologize to, I was harassed for reporting it. Finally, it was not I that broke confidentiality. That distinction belongs to the head developer of the USCF, Hal Bogner.

Here is letter dated 9/16/2007 from the Head Developer, Hal Bogner:
“Important Note: This is a confidential email, and is not to be shared outside of the recipients or other board members, with equal attention to confidentiality…”

Followed up with:

Gregory:

I demand that you immediately cease and desist from posting or sending by email or otherwise expressing any and all derogatory remarks concerning myself, my clients, my partners, my colleagues, my associates, and/or my fellow volunteers, except of course those that are true and that are clearly supported by publicly available facts. I likewise demand that you remove and/or retract all such postings and that you retract all such email statements.

Any further references to allegations you wish to make towards me will be answered by attorneys, and any harm to the reputations of myself, partners, colleagues, associates, and/or fellow volunteers may become the subject of a lawsuit…

Sinecerely,

Hal Bogner”

Even though Hal clearly stated that this matter was confidential, a few days later Hal posted this in the USCF Issues forum:

“On Saturday night, Gregory had a problem… the development team (and now, the USCF executive board) saw the rather paranoid message he sent us in the middle of the night... He wrote to the development team, with cc's to three people: the USCF president, the USCF executive director, and his boss at chessdiscussion.com. I've been wondering about why he chose that particular USCF executive board member to include, without also cc'ing the remaining five members, too.

I, for one, would really appreciate an apology from Gregory, both for his erroneous assertions in this matter, and for past misrepresentations regarding me, and also regarding my separate web site operation, Chess Magnet School, too.

Hal Bogner
hal@chessmagnet.com
http://www.ChessMagnetSchool.com”

It seems like Hal chose to forget that he expressed confidentiality.

There are serious concerns regarding Hal’s past regarding confidentiality. Ask anyone on the FOC or moderation teams how Hal compromised their confidentiality. Privately; I am sure that most will agree that on many occasions Hal violated our privacy (I was a moderator at the time). Bill Hall originally set up the moderators to be private. However, it is a well known fact that Hal accessed the private moderations lounges, and then revealed the moderators names publicly. According to a letter sent to the ED from David Quinn, Hal originally accessed the private lounge by using the log-in credentials of his friend in the FOC. When publicly questioned, Hal originally stated that he was authorized to access the lounge with Bill Hall’s approval, but later denied this, and reversed his tune again after the election.

Even worse, Hal Bogner accessed a private complaint from one of our members that we serve, and he then propagated it around to his friends. This nearly became a serious legal issue. You can’t ask a fellow member to complain to the USCF representatives when your complaint when you know that your complaint might go public and be spread all over the net. Hal’s continued access, and the lack of accountability by the ED caused a huge issue with the effectively of the FOC and moderation teams as we did not know who to trust. Ramifications to the effectiveness of the FOC and moderators are continuing to this day. I wish that we could limit this issue to Hal Bogner, but the Executive Director is involved in this too.

When discussing this issue with Bill Hall, I asked Bill bluntly about Hal Bogner’s prior access as it is a related confidentiality issue. I let him know that four of my friends and colleagues stated to me privately that they all called Bill and asked him if he gave Bogner access. Bill denied this. However, for approximately four months, a few of us asked Bill to state this publicly. Bill said nothing. When I talked to Bill last week, I pointed this out, and really put Bill on the spot—did you, or didn’t you, authorize Hal? Bill fumbled around a bit, and then stated that ‘Hal informed me that he had access to the FOC lounge by using another FOC members log-in, and asked if he should report anything that might be wrong, and I said yes… Hal framed the question in such a way to have plausible deniability.’

It is not my intent to cause long term harm to the USCF. I could sued for an invasion of privacy, or took this matter public immediately, but instead chose to try to solve the issue in-house. Unfortunately, other than two EB board members, this issue has been ignored. Therefore, it is my intent to release this information so the members can be for-warned regarding the right to the choice of privacy of their own discussions, and to highlight what the Executive Director thinks about our right to privacy. The USCF is primarily a democratic institution; however slowly, we the members have the ability to make change. We can petition the Executive Board members or the Delegates, and make sure that the organization cares about our privacy and their representatives to not threaten legal action against a member that is raising the issue internally. To conclude, it is my desire that the processes that allowed the confidentiality breeches to occur in the first place be changed, and training and awareness, along with accountability is assured to respect our right to confidentiality.

Thank-you for your time,

Gregory Alexander

I have no idea what's going on here, and little interest in reading all the background verbiage beyond this blog to find out -- but I am very surprised to find people being so candid and forthcoming in this forum about a matter that's the subject of legal action. While I can sympathize with the desire to clear one's name publicly, I would have thought that "no comment" would be the best course of action in the long run. Is this all normal -- or am I simply not used to the wacky world of lawsuits?

About anyone could sue you for any sort of thing, imagined or real, frivolous or not. Law suits happen because people cannot agree what is right (legal) or wrong (illegal), sometimes to harm another person, gain money, disrupt competing interests, or because plaintiff believes that his rights were harmed. Sam Sloan will need to prove each point, and that he gathered evidence by legal means. If he did not get the court order for private information and hired experienced computer investigators, his case could be dismissed, and counter-suit filed.

@ Theorist:

As a litigator, I can confirm that "No comment" is absolutely the best course of action for the principals involved.

Unfortunately, the Federation seems to collectively have a pathological obsession with "openness" that prompts people to yell and scream about every real or perceived slight ad nauseam. The airing of such inside baseball is not good for business--in any business.

None of the loudest yellers in this matter have been on base:

1) Gregory Alexander's assertion that members' privacy is being invaded does not hold water. When you post something on an organization's web site, that organization or its agents are within their rights to track you. Period. The remedy for those who don't like it is not to post.

2) Brian Mottershead could not have chosen a more inappropriate venue and manner in which to disclose his findings. Anyone with half a brain would have known that findings this sensitive should be tactfully disclosed to the organization's staff--not announced to the whole world.

3) Notwithstanding Brian's conduct, it is a certainty that Paul Truong was the Fake Sam Sloan. The fact that he even thought about faking such posts renders him unfit for board service.

4) Finally, why would anyone want to imitate Sam Sloan in order to make him look bad? He does a good enough job of that himself.

Sheesh.

> Does the desirable end (exposing the person who > was making posts contrary to USCF's interests
> outside of the USCF forum) justify the means
> (your invasion of certain members' privacy by
> comparing private records to public records)?

I didn't make any posts outside the restricted USCF forum. My post was copied by others to RGCP before it was deleted. An administrator using IP addresses in the logs and database to identify a source of abuse is normal, and is not an invasion of privacy. It is to facilitate such inquiries that IP addresses are logged in the first place.

> Did you invade the privacy of others only to
> find them "innocent," or did you specifically
> target Mr. Truong?

At the beginning, I knew that Sam Sloan had publicly stated his suspicion that the Fake Sam Sloan was Paul Truong, but I did not specifically target Truong. At the outset, I did not have IP address matches, only user agent strings that had appeared on Usenet. I did a search to find matching user agent strings and it narrowed down to two people who had accessed the forum with those user agent strings. I studied those two cases more carefully, looking at time/dates etc, and so forth. This narrowed it down to one, which was Truong. I then went looking for IP address matches, and initially didn't find any, but I hadn't systematically made a copy of all the Usenet posts, as I did later. I didn't go any further at this point, because user agent string matches by themselves weren't sufficiently convincing. That can happen by chance. While only one other person had exactly the same user agent string besides Truong, there were several others that were quite close, for example. However, on the 19th, the Fake Ray Gordon made 6 posts on Usenet and these all matched Truong's IP address. A couple of days later Troung went to Mexico City, and Fake Ray Gordon posted from a Mexico City IP address that matched Truong's. That convinced me that Truong was the Fake Sam Sloan. That was the state when I wrote my post in the USCF Issues forum.

> Were your actions authorized by the Executive
> Director or Board of the USCF?

After I came across the user agent string matches, I informed Bill Hall and Bill Goichberg, and they instructed me to produce a report, which they said I should submit to the Ethics Committee. I took this as authorization to gather information for a report.

> If so, was this authorization in writing/email?

It was verbal.

> If so, who made this authorization?

Answered.

> Did you communicate directly or indirectly with
> Mr. Sloan during your "investigation"?

Yes. At the point when all I had was user agent string matches, I had an idea about how to gather more information, which involved the cooperation of Sam Sloan. He agreed to cooperate, but the Fake Ray Gordon posts on September 19th which produced IP address matches made it unnecessary to pursue this idea.

> If so, what was the nature of the information
> you exchanged?

See above.

> Do you currently have access to any USCF
> databases containing member information?

I am still working as one of two Administrators of the USCF forums.

"When you post something on an organization's web site, that organization or its agents are within their rights to track you. Period."

And "tracking" includes anywhere on the Web?

And any unpaid volunteer's witch hunt is equivalent to the duly authorized acts of an agent for his or her principal?

Thank you for your responses.

Followup:

> Were your actions authorized by the Executive
> Director or Board of the USCF?

**After I came across the user agent string matches, I informed Bill Hall and Bill Goichberg, and they instructed me to produce a report, which they said I should submit to the Ethics Committee. I took this as authorization to gather information for a report.**

> When you informed Messrs. Hall and Goichberg,
> prior to receiving authorization for your
> formal report, did you also inform them of your
> *preliminary* findings? (E.g., "it may be
> Truong?" or "it may be a Board member"?)

"And 'tracking' includes anywhere on the Web?"

Within available means of discovery, yes.

"And any unpaid volunteer's witch hunt is equivalent to the duly authorized acts of an agent for his or her principal?"

If within the scope of said volunteer's duties, yes.

> And "tracking" includes anywhere on the Web?

No, but if you are administering a restricted forum and the abusive conduct is reposting items from that forum elsewhere on the Internet doctored so as to discredit the original poster, I think it is quite fair to correlate information between those two locations in an attempt to identify who is doing that. Would you not agree?

Brian, does this mean that Mig is to reveal identity (address) of any person which makes defamatory and harmful posts, which cannot be proven true, are obvious lies, or are simply unethical and nasty notes. I guess, all those are considered abusive.

"Brian, does this mean that Mig is to reveal identity (address) of any person which makes defamatory and harmful posts, which cannot be proven true, are obvious lies, or are simply unethical and nasty notes. I guess, all those are considered abusive."

If Mig chooses, yes.

Thanks for the insights, BTP. Fascinating!

Well now that most of us have agreed that the IP address wasn't "spoofed", the USCF should be looking to hire someone to examine these backup database files (I'm available if they need me!).

If it turns out that these logs haven't been tampered with, then Truong/Polgar are guilty as charged and should be removed from the board.. I hate to take Sam Sloan's side on this one, but you gotta go with the evidence.

On another note, how f***** pathetic is it to impersonate someone for 18 months on a usenet board??

In July 2007, USCF Board member Sloan used the private forum to spread lies about my character. My past & present clientele includes current & former USCF members.

How did I obtain this information, Mr. Mottershead? Better plug the security gap before I repeat other lies told about me on the forum.

QTN 1

in USCF Issues Forum post 58536 (7/8/2007), Sam Sloan wrote:

Now that I am satisfied that my evidence does not prove that Randy Bauer is the Fake Sam Sloan, I revert to my previous belief that either Paul Truong or Bill Brock is the Fake Sam Sloan

END QTN 1

QTN 2

in USCF Issues Forum post 58541 (7/9/2007), Sam Sloan wrote:

AndyApplebaum wrote:"Sam, I'm having a little trouble understanding your wording, but did you say that one of the fake-sloans posted under that IP address?

If that is the case, I think it would be unlikely that the fake is Brock as the IP address indicates a New York residence (with a 78% certainty according to the cite I used)."

Yes. However, that approach will not be productive, as the Fake Sam Sloan knows about IP addresses now and will not be caught again that way.

END QTN 2

My attorney told me to consider the source & the publisher ....

"If within the scope of said volunteer's duties, yes."

Isn't that what's at issue? Did Mottershead informally identify Truong to Goichberg and Hall prior to issuance of the report?

Branden,

If you state that the simple use of IP correlation proves that the poster was Paul Truong, then you are not an expert in your field. Using IP addresses can't prove a darned thing; any even nominally proficient computer technician knows this.

For the record, I have discussed this issue with a few forensic experts with scores of years of experience, and they back my views up. Nothing can be proved with IP addresses. I would encourage all non-technical readers to make a quick phone call to any forensic expert in this field and as them if anything can be determined while just using IP addresses and header information.

Unless it is someone that just started out in this field; they will all tell you the same, you can't use IP addresses as proof of anything. Nothing, nada, zippo.

"I would encourage all non-technical readers to make a quick phone call to any forensic expert in this field and as them if anything can be determined while just using IP addresses and header information. "

It is possible to change your IP address by scanning/finding open proxies on the internet and connecting through those before you post. This is what your "expert" was probably getting at.

For the non-technical person, "open proxies" are computers/servers connected to the internet that have a vunerability that allows someone else to make a connection to it. The person who finds these open proxies usually sends spam through these computers, or hides the IP address when doing various other activities online.

The point is, these proxies are "specific" computers on the internet. If my computer was turned into a proxy, and my internet connection had an IP address of 62.45.93.174, then any post/email someone sent using my proxy would look like its coming from 62.45.93.174. It's impossible for it to make it look like its coming from 64.45.93.179 unless my IP address changes to that.

So in order for Paul Troung/Polgar to be a victim of this, someone would have to load malciious software onto their computer, which turns it into an open proxy and then exploit that for 18 months or however long the Fake Sam Sloan has been around. That is very unlikely. It is much more likely the logs were tampered with, which is why the USCF needs to examine the backups before passing judgement.

Hello all, and before I begin, I would like to thank all posters for their opinions/feedback. First, a bit about me: I have followed this matter since Brian Mottershead's original USCF members' forum postings and I agree with BTP's earlier posting (below) with one reservation, and this reservation relies upon Brian's evidence actions/remarks (above) being verified pending independent scrutiny. Pending independent examination, I find it likely that USCF governing members became aware of Truong-Polgar's propensity to post the indicated attacks (above) against Usenet members, particularly one Sam Sloan and one Ray Gorden long before they hired Mr. Mottershead. When ir became likely that Truong/Polgar would win seats in the USCF governing board, it is then not too much of a stretch to understand their concern about Truong/Polgar's ethical fitness to dispense with USCF EB duties. Thus, they hired an independent party, Mr. Mottershead to investigate in the event that Truong/Polgar were elected. When Truong/Polgar were elected, the aforementioned USCF governing members likely felt that they were left with no choice but to turn Mr. Mottershead loose, and we see the result. A somewhat interesting side-point in all this is that the Truong/Polgar "court of public opinion" defense has basically "retained" Gregory Alexander and Randy Bauer in their defense instead of posting professional responses themselves. Perhaps the real damaging future lawsuit to Truong/Polgar comes from Ray Gorden.

> Theorist:
>
> As a litigator, I can confirm that "No comment" is absolutely the best course of action for the principals involved.
>
> Unfortunately, the Federation seems to collectively have a pathological obsession with "openness" that prompts people to yell and scream about every real or perceived slight ad nauseam. The airing of such inside baseball is not good for business--in any business.
>
> None of the loudest yellers in this matter have been on base:
>
> 1) Gregory Alexander's assertion that members' privacy is being invaded does not hold water. When you post something on an organization's web site, that organization or its agents are within their rights to track you. Period. The remedy for those who don't like it is not to post.
>
> 2) Brian Mottershead could not have chosen a more inappropriate venue and manner in which to disclose his findings. Anyone with half a brain would have known that findings this sensitive should be tactfully disclosed to the organization's staff--not announced to the whole world.
>
> 3) Notwithstanding Brian's conduct, it is a certainty that Paul Truong was the Fake Sam Sloan. The fact that he even thought about faking such posts renders him unfit for board service.
>
> 4) Finally, why would anyone want to imitate Sam Sloan in order to make him look bad? He does a good enough job of that himself.
>
> Sheesh.
> Posted by: BTP at October 8, 2007 18:42

You need a computer forensic expert in this case (http://www.computerforensicscompanies.com/companies.html ), no amateur board admin. An ISP can match the public IP to some user, and not the board admin. The board admin sees public IP address provided by the ISP. The ISP will need a court order to provide a user associated with this IP. There could be many computers using the same public IP address. There could be hundreds and thousands of computers (in a company, university…) which use private IP addresses (cannot be seen or recognized as public IPs) for inter-communications and the router translates them into a single public address.

Regarding the IP spoofing defense, it should be pointed out that this theory requires us to believe not only that the "real Fake Sam Sloan" (sheesh) either learned the IP addresses and user agent strings of, or actually took over, one computer that was owned by Paul Truong, but he had to take over several different such computers at different times, including laptops with which Paul apparently travelled.

Moreover, you have to believe that for 18 months while the "real Fake Sam Sloan" seemed to be targetting Sam Sloan, Ray Gordon, Jennifer Shahade, Beatriz Marinello, Joe Lux, Bill Hall, Bill Goichberg, and numerous others, he was actually executing a long-range plan to implicate Paul Truong as the impersonator. As the New York Times expert said, the IP spoofing theory means that the Fake Sam Sloan was not somebody impersonating Sam Sloan and Ray Gordon. It was actually somebody quietly and patiently impersonating Paul Truong impersonating Sam Sloan and Ray Gordon, hoping for 18 months that Paul would be accused of the impersonation. Though he hardly ever mentioned them and when he did it was positive (almost uniquely), for 18 months Truong and Polgar were his real targets.

As Braden says, this theory, though it is the one that Paul put up on chessdiscussion.com and told to the New York Times, and leaving aside the technical near-impossibility of pulling it off, makes no sense at all.

This is why Polgar and Truong are also putting around the notion that I tampered with the logs. That notion, though it completely contradicts the other theory, at least makes some sense. It isn't true, but it isn't ridiculous. Fortunately, that notion can be disproved.

By the way, in addition to the arguments I gave previously against the log-doctoring story, there is another one I should mention. That is that the evidence basically consists of two parts: the Usenet evidence, and the USCF forum database evidence. The Usenet evidence, without any support from any USCF forum evidence, shows that the Fake Sam Sloan posted from AOL, a few times from a RoadRunner cable IP address in New York, from a couple of Suddenlink cable IP addresses in Texas starting around the time Paul moved to Texas, and a Mexico City ISP during the World Championship starting around the time when Paul was there. Being from the Usenet posts themselves, none of that rests on anything from the USCF databases, and therefore is not anything that I could have falsified. Anybody can do as I did -- namely to download the Fake Sam Sloan Usenet posts from a news server that has them all and confirm this.

You have to pick the right news server, though. This is because during the night of September 25/26 after I published some of my conclusions, the Fake Sam Sloan apparently deleted a lot of his posts. And I couldn't have fabricated that either.

Yes Pr, in more ways than one, the exact IP match is the "glove-fit/non-fit issue" in the O.J. Simpson murder trial here, while noting that Sloan's/Gorden's future cases be civil, not criminal cases. That said, I suppose that here in the "court of public opinion" it is appropriate to say that if the IP match is made to Truong/Polgar, alike to the O.J. Simpson criminal case, the glove fits. If the IP match is not made, it then is appropriate to recall the words of the late Johnnie L. Cochrane in O.J. Simpson's defense: "If the glove doesn't fit, you've got to acquit."

> ...An ISP can match the public IP to some user, and not the board admin...
> Posted by: Pr at October 8, 2007 20:35

I'll start by repeating that, arguendo, if the proof offered is convincing enough--and the standard is well below reasonable doubt--then Truong should resign.

However, what rational person would want to serve on the Board of USCF, knowing that a significant percentage of the membership is waiting to undermine him or her?

***

The real agenda: there's a lot of money in chess. (!)

Yes, the pros starve. But there's $$ to be made teaching the scholastic kiddies, the absolute beginners between ELO 100 & 800.

This squabble is the fallout from a struggle to control the typical USCF self-dealing.

There are trustworthy Board members on both old & new slates. But this incident highlights USCF President Goichberg's ineffective leadership and his failure to foreground the fiduciary duty of each Board member.

Let me concur with another poster, it's been awhile since we had some real Dirt!

Is this for real?

For the last year I've sensed the stench of sleaze from the alleged real fake Sam Sloan and his wife, but never had the evidence to back it up. This makes my day!

This reminds me of criminals from yesteryear who are just now being busted because of DNA matching technology that didn't exist when they did their crime. Better than CSI! (Maybe this will make a CSI episode - I should forward it to them.)

Is it any wonder why top-flight chess is always in a state of flux from an organizational perspective when all the little pisants at the pathetic USCF act in this manner. If I were a CEO of any corporation, why in hell would I want to sponsor chess in this country when I can readily see that it's run by a bunch of losers at any particular time and date. People, it doesn't matter who's in office, or what they promise they can do if elected. There will always be office politics, back-biting, one-upmanship, brown-nosing, sword-rattling, underhandedness which always coincides with personal gain etc. etc. Someone once said that politics is nothing but a bunch of sh.. with just a little bit of sugar sprinkeled on top. The sad part is the sugar dissolves quickly and your just left with sh... Don't waste time with all the above pontifications; play chess, love the game for what it really is and what really means to you, and to hell with these people.

And now, in one last-ditch twinge of desperation, the defendant falls on their sword while screaming "Why hang me, everybody cheats!"...

>>>>> Is it any wonder why top-flight chess is always in a state of flux...

Mr. Brock, didn't you play a much-publicized "grudge chess match" with Sam Sloan over the Internet recently?

That in and of itself has to be one of the more egregious lapses of judgment by a USCF official.

With individuals like Mr. Sloan there can be only one policy: strict ostracism. If he is elected to a position, freeze him out to the extent allowed by law.

That you lost the match is neither here nor there, the match should never have been played in the first place.

"If it turns out that these logs haven't been tampered with, then Truong/Polgar are guilty as charged and should be removed from the board.. I hate to take Sam Sloan's side on this one, but you gotta go with the evidence."

I think that engaging in such behavior would warrant removal from the Executive Board. However, the entity "Truong/Polgar" is not part
of the Board. Rather, Paul Truong and Susan Polgar were elected, each in their own right. Likewise, if either or both are to be removed from the Board, it ought to be on the basis of what actions they, as individuals, did.

The least likely scenario (that would account for the fake posts) is that Truong and Polgar are both equally culpable. Rather, if the posts can be traced to their household, it would likely be the case that most or all of the posts were made by just one of them. It is possible that the other party might have been aware of the smear campaign, or approved of it, or bade that it was done. However, the exact extent of Truong's and Polgar's specific individual involvement needs to be demonstrated.

It would be wrong to resort to "Guilt by Association", even if that association is based on a marriage.

from the New York Times:
"Ms. Polgar said that she had no idea who the Web site impersonator was, and that she did not have the time to post the messages, given her hectic schedule."

Note that Polgar's statement is limited to denying that **She** is the one who posted the objectionable messages--she does not make any statement defending Truong from the accusations.

Moreover, she pleads ignorance as to who "the Web site impersonator" might be. So, even if it were to transpire that Polgar was to "discover" that Truong was indeed the miscreant, she could claim that she was unaware of Truong's activities prior to the scandal breaking.

This is just silly. Usenet? Didn't that die along side things like gopher? Who is dumb enough to even look at Usenet these days? What idiots even bothers with those useless feeds? That's a waste of bandwidth!

There are very, very, very few webmasters who really understand IP. This day and age, matching an IP to an individual is not really possible. Nearly every network in the World uses a form of dynamic addressing and proxies. Most large companies just present one IP address to the Internet for thousands of people at once. Its quite common and easy to do.

I really doubt that USCF would be able to afford to have an actual IP expert working on their website. (IP means Internet Protocol. Its the guts of how the Internet actuall works.)

Just a hunch from someone who really knows this stuff.

what i like about bill brock's last post is that it drives home a point about the downward trajectory of the uscf by explicitly mocking that most reviled of groups .... children.

I was briefly a member of one committee and never chaired any, so it's a stretch to call me a USCF official (the lawsuit ascribes to me positions that I never held).

Poor judgment? Yeah, probably. The Exchange sac in a totally winning position in game 2, though sound, was too showy, and I soon totally lost the thread of the game. I have not learned from experience: I tossed away two wins and a draw in the past two weeks with the VERY SAME MISTAKE. (Did salvage two draws: should have lost all three games.) Petrosian I am not.

And in game 3, after 1.g4 e5 2.Bg2 h5 3.d4, I was already embarrassingly out of preparation. (Even more embarrassing is to HAVE preparation against such randomness.) 3...hxg4 is natural, but I fetishized the center. Still got a winning position anyway...

I'm not a bad tactician for a middle-aged weakie, but I have a bad tendency to lose the thread in random positions. (Everyone does, but me more than most....) Sloan did not, and won deservedly.

My typical flippancy came off as condescension: my apologies, Elizabeth. Long day....

That there is $$ in the endeavor emphatically does not mean that it's not worth doing, or that those making the $$ are exploitative, or that the kiddies (meant to be cute, not a pejorative) aren't worth teaching unless they master the Lucena & Philidor positions.

Give or take 100 ELO, I was one of those guppies for the first four years of USCF membership....

I really truly believe--despite abundant evidence on this thread to the contrary :) -- that chess is great for children. They don't have to take it seriously: my son stopped playing at 8. (Mig gets a bit of the blame: "Com" and Grandpa on kasparovchess.com were the last straw, if I recall.) Kids with physical disabilities can get the adrenaline rush of competition, kids with learning disabilities can learn the joy of sitting quietly and thinking--these are wonderful things.

But please also realize that the teaching of this great game is sometimes a very very commercial operation--USCF is a long way from AYSO in fulfilling its goals. The commercial operations could play nice, cooperate on curricula, support each other as professionals.

...instead of these stupid pointless incessant turf wars.

And maybe for everyone 100,000 new kiddies, we'll get one big GM kiddie. So what's the conflict between scholastic/youth/adult chess? Done right, it's all good.

Were I still a USCF member, I would advise the Board to reach out to the absolute beginners & their parents. I think the Board members know this already....

***

Should the Board members have a financial interest in the direction of USCF? Several certainly have the appearance of same....

Has USCF ever had good nonprofit governance? It's been a while....

Well, if internet expediters' ISP cannot be matched then we have a lot of legal cases that will be overturned, as well as need to convince the NSA (National Security Agency) and Department of Homeland security of this. Also, I work for a Fortune 500 company and our computer systems support people routinely monitor and catch people surfing porn and match them to their unique computer via their ISP signature. Old, very old, technology.

CRZ said:

"This day and age, matching an IP to an individual is not really possible. Nearly every network in the World uses a form of dynamic addressing and proxies.

Just a hunch from someone who really knows this stuff."
Posted by: CRZ at October 8, 2007 23:56

Killing is against our policy.

Anyone who might have pulled the trigger, please leave the room.

Okay, has everybody washed their hands? Good.

Now, we must decide what to do about this smoking gun.

We are still forming a committee to advise policy with regard to material evidence of a possible crime.

Ultimately we will either dispose of the gun or turn it over to the authorities, but there's no need to decide right away.

In the mean time, nobody can talk about this. Got it? Good.

We'll meet again next week and postpone this decision again.

Oh, about those financial records.

They are still missing, right?

Great I can check that off my list again.

Okay meeting adjourned.

USCF makes $3.2 millions / year. What happened to financial records. $2 millions are missing? Is that possible or is it some fabrication?

Mr. Alexander,

You need to have a bit more knowledge in terms of Internet Protocol and mail headers. You're either habitually defending Truong or just not knowledgeable enough.

The reason this is so clear is because of the fact that as Mr. Truong does a great deal of business, he travels a ton, but does post from his other locales. This "Fake Poster" followed Mr. Truong's postings around the continent. This leaves 3 possibilities:

1) Someone very talented in these matters found a way to mimic Mr. Truong's exact IP and mail headers for posts over a couple of years

2) Someone infected Mr. Truong's machine with some type of rootkit or trojan program which allowed posts to be sent from Mr. Truong's computer.

3) Mr. Truong was the fake poster.

As to which it is, I don't know. :)

Saying you can't prove anything from IP addresses is fine, but you better ask the following question:

"If e-mail messages over a long period of time from persons A and B had the exact same headers and originating IPs, what would you conclude about the relationship between persons A and B?"

As someone from India (see our Coup of Koya), I find this absolutely utterly fascinating. Someone said that no one will sponsor chess because of these shenanigans. I say balderdash! This thread has all the excitement of a CSI show and I for one will be following this fascinating duel of wits.

To Guppy,

Sure your company checks the logs and can track down policy violators. That’s easy, its all internal and the system are set to catch porn and other policy violators. The systems are NOT set to see who went to a generic site X, on May 5th at 1437. That takes serious forensics –IF you have ALL the required data. It is much more than just a firewall or proxy log. The more slipshod the maintenance and security, the hard it is to track. Old logs are lost or there is no logging at all.

The NSA or other Gov’t agencies can go to an ISP or company and “ask” for its logs and records. Or they can use the installed hardware they have on a number of major networks directly. The can then begin to piece together the puzzle of where a message or a connection came from. They have to tack it backwards from network to network. And it isn’t easy. It ain’t cheap.

An weblog only records the return IP address. This is not always the IP address of the computer that connected to the webserver.

A company or university of thousands can have just one IP address visible to the public. Every web connection from every user in that school will show the same address even if they are connecting to the university network from home 50,000 miles away.

There are other ways to better track a person though the Internet. Tracking an IP address is just part of it.

What I find funny is that people expect a large network to keep gigantic log files around forever. Log files are for diagnostics. At most you only keep them a few days and then destroy them per company policy. If they are destroyed, they can’t be subpoenaed. Those log files are very sensitive to a company.

Actual IP spoofing on a web server isn’t as easy as it sounds. The IP address a web log gets is the address it is replying back to.

Spoofing an IP address in email or a Usenet posting. – Piece of cake –sort of. There are some things you can spoof and some things you can’t. Much depends on the systems involved.

That’s why all my emails are digitally signed and/or encrypted. (Not that there is any real security with commercial encryption but at least its something.)

A visit from the "Polgar Pixie" is long overdue.

I can hear her (him? it?) now:

"Why oh why does everyone pick on Susan, who has selflessly, humbly, and anonymously, done so much for chess? Why can't everyone just get along?"

I certainly hope the "Polgar Pixie's" upbeat, positive messages are not traced back to Paul!

In my view this IP address tracking is a small problem, when you compare it with alleged $2 million dollars missing. Money needs to tracked first, and after some IPs.

Are these the same people that not long ago and from a moral highground had the nerve to insinuate that Aronian was a slouching ape in a suit ? I am sure this (i.e. losing a lawsuit to Mr. Sloan) will do wonders in creating a squeaky clean and professional image of chess and attracting new sponsorship...

Well said, John.

BTW, IP Addresses are routinely used to track offenders. They are VERY reliable in most cases. In fact, the RIAA has used them in many of their cases against students illegally downloading music from the internet.

In the case of Mr. Truong, he has a history of pretending that his actions are not his. The most egregious example is when he created his own AOL site a few years ago, where he claimed that he had a Ph.D., and when confronted with the bogus claim, he said someone had hacked his page and he had no idea how it happened!

Equally farcical is his epic account of "survival" in the sea:

http://www.chesscafe.com/text/polgar14.pdf

It is pretty obvious that there is something wrong with the whole picture...

The funniest part:

"So I went to college. And during college, I did the same thing. I had 7 part-time jobs while taking over 21 credits per semester. I also took winter courses,summer courses. I needed to graduate as quickly as possible."

ROTFLMAO!

He certainly loves the number 7:

"I was going to high school full time (without even knowing the language) and I worked seven part-time jobs at night and weekends to raise money to send back to Vietnam to help my mother, my brother and over 60 other relatives."

Lucky 7!

The Truong Ph.D. Affair

http://christopherfalter.blogspot.com/2007/06/paul-truong-has-question-to-answer.html

Well, maybe when he changed his first name to Paul, he changed the last as well, so that his name is in fact "Paul Truong PhD." Didn't think of that, did you?! Oh, you are all so quick to judge this man (and wife) who have so selflessly given their all to chess.

Ya, you creeps lay off PT. From what I understand he is going to send all of his yearly earnings to the lowest rated players under 12 years old in Arizona for 20 years. What's more, he says that Susan's going to do it too.

Paul and I have a lot in common...Paul blames phantom web demons for his misfortune, and I keep telling the IRS every year, those weren't really my wages, they're really someone else's who impersonates me...

It's been a bad few days for politicians all over: http://tinyurl.com/ytkfww

from that Christopher Falter blog:

"Whoever did it took the pictures from Susan's old website which was created and maintained by her ex-husband."

and

'I have no reason to create any site to promote me. And if I do, I would not do something with such low quality."

Ouch!

I have lost all confidence in Susan and Paul, they should both resign.

Paul Truong is guilty. Period!

Am a newcomer to all this, so I kindly request someone to supply the background.

-> Why is Sam Sloan considered to have reached "new depths of loathsomeness"? I had a quick look at his site, but could not find anything majorly incriminating (there was even an interesting point on the Kashmir earthquake). Seems like an elderly crank.

-> Who is Jacob Schutzman?

I have lost all confidence in Susan and Paul, they should both resign.

Posted by: miles at October 9, 2007 13:40

Don't blame me I didn't vote for them. =8-)

Paul Truong is guilty. Period!

Posted by: Vanessa at October 9, 2007 13:49

Vanessa,

I couldn't agree with you more.

Mountain, meet molehill.

Can we all just ignore Sam Sloan please? This gadfly serves no relevant purpose and should not be given any more airtime than his allotted 15 minutes.

@ JaiDeepBlue 14:07

1) Sam's elderly crankiness does not preclude his loathesomeness. Just poke around his website. We'll charitably say he demonstrates an odd fascination with young women.

2) Jacob Shutzman is Susan Polgar's first husband.

At this moment it is unclear whether the USCF serves any useful
purpose, other than providing great entertainment if one likes stinky,
slimy display. It is an entity that has reached the zone of
organizational death IMO, beyond which it cannot be resuscitated. I've
seen a few organizations in such deep comatose state and dissolution seems
the only choice. I am afraid that USCF has to be disbanded and all
current members in executive roles banned from further participation.

Too bad about Susan -- I have always had a very high opinion of
her. I've no doubt that she's innocent and ignorant of the mechanics
of how her name might have been being dragged into this.

D.

Hi all, I've never posted here before and normally stay out of these sort of things. I would just say that I worked with Paul (and Susan to a much lesser extent) for quite some time as an admin on Chess Live several years ago, as well as having met them both in person on a couple of occasions. I've found them to be very nice, generous people, but at the same time I've seen Paul do more than a few things that were less than honest.

I can certainly confirm that Paul told me he was working on a Phd on a number of occasions, and then subsequently claimed to have actually received it. I've also seen other people refer to him as "Dr. Truong" when talking to him without him correcting them. I have no idea whether he really did get one or not, but to see him feigning ignorance on Christopher Falter's blog of ever claiming to have a Phd is somewhat surprising.

I know the above is somewhat off topic, but it's probably also worth bearing in mind that Paul also had a bad habit of creating multiple accounts on various chess servers, and using them to pretend to be different people. That doesn't suggest that he's in any way guilty of what he's currently being accused of, but it also means it wouldn't be entirely out of character.

@BTP thanks!

the way it seems, Paul Truong is the "Svengali" and Susan Polgar is probably unaware of the shenanigans perpetuated in her name. Isn't it odd that all these antics (dirty tricks, impersonation,censorship) originate from two "survivors" of ostensibly totalitarian regimes? (Hungary and Vietnam)

If the allegations are true as they seem to be based on Brian's excellent analysis, it is really a shame.

Polgar/troung, who ran their campaign on bringing professionalism, integrity and transparency to USCF seem to have outdone their previous disgraceful acts. They are completely intolerant of any criticism or difference of
opinion and thus have their own censored blog and discussion forum (where anything can be deleted whenever they want).

These allegations take the perversity to a new level. I had been critical of their behavior during election time and that they can't work as a team and my fears seem correct now. They have been trashing the USCF board almost from the day they were elected and have broken most of their promises. And they were also promising to bring millions to USCF!

Kapalik

It is interesting to notice the defence being adopted and how that has been evolving.

- First attack Sam. People mention Sam isn't the issue here.

- Use minions/sidekicks like Gregory (who hasn't disclosed that he works for their discussion site, such a shame!)to show that IP spoofing is kid's play. Brian and other experts rip that to shreds.

- In any case, the evidence was obtained in an unauthorized manner. This seems the latest excuse. Evidence obtained illegally is inadmissible, is the claim. However, it seems the NDA is inapplicable to unlawful acts.

- Yet another seems to be to scare USCF and its board with threats of lawsuit for violation of privacy so that they don't release the evidence. Will it work?

There could be another way to get out. Since there is no way to tell whether Susan or Paul did it, can any of them be convicted or kicked out of USCF board? I am curious what the law says? That could be their last resort but may not happen as Susan seems too keen to protect her own skin saying that she was too busy to post the fakes and not saying anything in
Troung's defense.

Kapalik

Irv's "I was attacked by a pirate ship" link above was fascinating reading. But to get the right effect, you have to read it while holding your tongue.

Geez Dimi, I actually agree with you regarding the USCF. It's demise has been long overdue and its continued stagnation can only be attributed to the majority (not all) "elected" who still see it as a opportunity for personal monetary gain by whatever means necessary.

I do disagree about Susan Polar and her complete "innocence" in this matter. The woman isn't stupid by any definition, a little self-centered and self-serving perhaps, but not stupid. As someone else indicated earlier, she does come from an environment where the end justifies the means.

Between Polgar and Truong, it is a close contest as to who has more fabrications in their resume/bio (4 WC, 1st woman to be GM, no of years at top, Phd, national titles in Vietnam, pirate attacks, top mgmt experience etc.) :)

Well, if it wasn't for Susan being involved this entire issue
would have been strictly funny (very much so!) and that's all. But now
it has a touch of sadness because people are dragged through the Court
of public opinion where bunch of bystanders pass judgment and shout
out sentences like medieval burgers at the square of the execution...
See, even I am doing the same. Bad, bad...

On the legal end -- I doubt that the Courts will take serious interest
in a weird case like that, particularly when nobody has been injured,
or has died, and particularly because millions are not up for
grabs... And someone like the plaintiff would certainly not come
across as particularly sympathetic.

Nevertheless, it is very disappointing because I actually do not doubt
the charges and if not quite at Tony Soprano's level, they're still
embarrassing enough. Particularly when so much noise about
cleanliness has been made. That's why I have a strict policy to
absolutely always post as myself and be rather strict about the nicks
I use. It just make me feel better. Otherwise the Internet is a mess.

D.

I'm not sure I agree that "nobody has been injured." Legally speaking, I believe that the loss of income and opportunity associated with a USCF directorship (it does pay, right?), as well as damage to reputation, would constitute an "injury."

I certainly agree that Sam would not come across as a sympathetic plaintiff. On the other hand, one benefit of espousing such unconventional views is that (we all know) he has no need to lie. He doesn't care what others think of him.

Sam has done us all at least one service by exposing rating manipulation (fake tournaments!) by yet another USCF board member, Robert Tanner.

This thread is more interesting than any that came out of the "World Championship" in Mexico. I agree with others who've said that "The Dirt" needs more of this, well, dirt. Sure it's distasteful in spots and undoubtedly childish in others, but overall it is undeniably ENTERTAINING AS HELL.

Best thing about it, as a passive observer, is that there are no people to root for in this drama, so the pain of accusations and lawsuits and ethical referendums that they suffer at each others' hands are ALL GOOD. It's like watching the mob turn on its own - the more bodies piled up on either side, the better.

My opinion so far: While spoofing IP one time is doable with some effort, doing so repeatedly and consistently from different locations almost instantaneously over 18 months is a parlay situation that makes the odds of it happening extremely low. Low enough, if corroborated by the independent checks mentioned above, to be well within non-reasonable doubt territory.

Given the other stuff I've read linked to on this thread, I'd give Paul Truong being innocent about 30-1 against. Past history, some pretty damning evidence that can only be explained away by the most unlikely of parlay events, the targets involved, and gut feel.

Susan having no knowledge of any of Paul's actions, if he did such things: 25-1 against.

Sam Sloan's lawsuit going forward in it's current rendition : 15-1 against - it's way to wide and unfocused, seemingly taking more delight in describing the defendants unflatteringly than being a serious statement of facts. But I've seen worse go through...

Susan remaining on the USCF Board 4-1 in favor - she should survive this, if by simply denying any knowledge of "other's" actions. She also has her name power to help support her standing.

Paul remaining on the USCF Board for the full term - 1-1. It's hard to judge whether he will be forced out, resign "for the good of the USCF and chess", or rely on the slow wheels of justice, both internally and externally, to keep his seat.

If "The Dirt" finds following this story distasteful, it's time to change the name of this blog. This is exactly the stuff it should be uncovering.

In all this turmoil, we have to focus on the key question: who was the fake Jack Peters that attacked me?

After such a good time enjoying real chess, such as we've had lately, I guess a little slime was statistically to be expected, and Mig has been handling it well, as usual.
I'm not qualified to comment on the internal problems of a foreign chess federation, and I don't really care, but am I the only one who sees some analogy between Zs. Polgar and Topalov? Both appear to be fundamentally good people and are wonderful chess players, yet their reputation has been ruined (for ever, I fear) by the dubious actions of their managers, who are incidentally also family members now, although perhaps not officially in Danailov's case.
They deserve to be remembered for their brilliant moves and not for the money others have made exploiting their names and skills.

I'm not sure it's accurate to portray Topalov and S. Polgar as victims in all this, mere pawns subject to the malign manipulations of their operators.

The lust for fame, money, and power is not mitigated simply because its implementation is utterly inept.

This just keeps getting better and better, now Truong is being linked to the Asian mob and the word is that the modern-day "Man Called Intrepid" is stepping in.

As long as the USCF exists, chess is dead in the United States of America.

Well, I wouldn't use hyperbole like "their reputation has been ruined
forever". That's not true, in fact it's a stupid statement even in the
most cleancut environment (and chess is far from that). If what the
Internet impersonator did is true then the best punishment is 5
slashes on his naked butt in front of the crowds. And then life goes
on. Chess hasn't been shockingly clean of all kinds of crap, now or
before. The plaintiff too hasn't been an angel to whom some satanic
deeds were wrongfully attributed to the disbelief of the audience...
On the contrary, it was just a case of bum being made to look even
more like himself -- the falsehood being questioned on technical
terms. Chess hasn't impressed me by being particularly cleaner than
the other walks of life -- rivalries, innuendo and dirty dealings all
around. Actually the only fault that I find with all this is its
nerdish aftertaste -- Internet impersonation -- oh my, what kind of
geekish crap is this? No smashed kneecaps, no barroom brawls, just an
Internet penpal abuse. Ouch, boring. No personalities, no corporate
sponsorship...

D.

Well...for one, Dimi how trivial and geeky would you think this issue is if someone spoofed/impersonated your "Dimi" account name and then made terrible accusations while threatening criminal attacks against other people. Suppose they posed as you, made sure that your address was available, and then offered illegal madame services...

Meanwhile, here are some interesting links in the matter of Internet usage-tracking:
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/columnist/andrewkantor/2004-06-17-kantor_x.htm
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/09/technology/09aol.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&pagewanted=all
http://www.ernietheattorney.net/ernie_the_attorney/2004/05/some_people_thi.html
http://www.panicware.com/resource_privacy.html
http://www.abika.com/Reports/verifyemail.htm

My fresh issue of _Chess Life_ quotes Paul Hoffman in _King's Gambit_: "The irony is that chess, which seems so pure in the abstract, is a magnet for deceptive people ... I moved away from the game not because I lost interest in what was happening on the board but because I could not tolerate the dishonesty and psychic aggression all around me in the tournament hall."

Prungo,

I disagree! They (Polgar and Topolov) are both ADULTS and are absolutely responsible for any action(s) taken by family members or managers representing them. If in any way they feel that what has been said or done is inflamatory or detrimental to their reputations, they have a voice, they can take action by firing, castigating or in Susan's case even divorcing the one who has wronged them in the public eye. To remain silent is to take on the roll of an accomplice.

That sneaky gook!

Wow. This thread really is another *new* low. No way is this going to stay contained to one day's post. I predict spillover into unrelated topic headers much like toiletgate.

Hello to all the chess chatters in here. I wish to comment on the interesting legal rantings I have just read in here. The court system has a little clause called Circumstantial Evidence.

Unless you have 100% proof, not 99.5 or 99.8 or 99.9%, but actually 100% proof, then saying things like: "it is a certainty that Paul Truong was the Fake Sam Sloan. The fact that he even thought about faking such posts renders him unfit for board service." is in itself slanderous and you have the stupidity of posting it on a public forum!

Circumstantial evidence refresher for you non-law-knowing-chess-playing-nerd-types(This includes you Ismail Sammy-boy):

Evidence of an indirect nature which implies the existence of the main fact in question but does not in itself prove it. That is, the existence of the main fact is deduced from the indirect or circumstantial evidence by a process of probable reasoning. The introduction of a defendant's fingerprints, DNA sample, or IP Addresses are examples of circumstantial evidence.

Some people believe that all evidence is circumstantial because -- some observers think (and some thoughtful judges agree) -- no evidence ever directly proves a fact. Thus explains why "Mad Mohammad" Sam Sloan lost all of his cases. ooooo... I'm ganna get sued! Oh no! Help! I need to take a dump and wipe my hairy infidel ass with a Quran! (Peace be upon my Dingle-berries)

It's no fun when you are wearing the "Shiite" (Islamic pun for you dummies out there) Sunni-boy (Another one for Sammy-boy)!

Ha! Ha! Ha!

You chess nerds like to posture to and defame names and personalities, but as a relative newcomer to the chess community, I feel sad and disgusted at your behavior. You all act like little angry children (While in reality I think I qualify as a youngster at age 25 freshly graduated from Law School) who need their diapers changed especially Sam Sloan and to some extent Brian Mottershead. And stupid me was thinking about joining the USCF. I am glad to know you all made the decision for me. Screw all of you and the USCF.

I can't believe "Mad Mohammad" Sam Sloan used a racial slur "gook" to describe a vietnamese-american. This is coming from an ex-board member of the USCF? Sam your day in court is coming in spades. You are finished. Literally... you are going to DIE of old age. God is giving you a death threat! Ha! Ha! You should sue God, Allah, the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny, the Great Turnip or what ever you think is your god for making you DIE of old age! Ha ! Ha! As for your 72 virgins, I think you will be surprised that all of them will be camels. I thought you would like that you depravo-freak.

Looking at your words make me feel physically sick and makes me hate American Chess more than anything. Thank goodness there are better things to do in life than play a stupid board game. Imagine the fact that all you idiots accomplished in life is the manipulation of little plastic pieces on a 64 square checker board and you all argue about who has the highest rating, score, or who is "beating their bishop" too much? Hell, I did that when I was 7 years old. I don't do that anymore because I learned real sportsmanship and decided to play something worthwhile called LIFE (and no I don't mean the Milton Bradley board game, smart-asses) (For the record, I still "beat the bishop"). Chess sucks. You all suck. You suck long time. Idiots.

Todays rant was brought to you by the First Amendment and the Number 3. Idiots.

Mig you can delete this if you wish... It would just prove that you care nothing about the game of chess, just the daily dirt. Hey now there's a new tag line for this page. "Screw Chess, it's just about the dirt."(tm)

Now all of you can guess who I am. (Hint, I'm probably Bobby Fischer's partially aborted son on his mother's side or I am just pissed off that I am someones elses kidnapped brat and my deat-beat dad never came back for me while I suffer at the hands of fundamentalist christians and being forced to watch re-runs of Veggie Tales).

Sincerely,

The Voice of Reason, JD
(Playing Halo 3 on my 80 inch Plasma screen, eating Pizza off of a Chess Board)(Hey, I found a use for chess: Pizza board! I feel my rating going up with each slice, yum!)

Take a look at the posting above:

That sneaky gook!
Posted by: Sam Sloan at October 10, 2007 00:58

That is not by me. That is by a Fake Sam Sloan. I hope that Mig can check the IP address of this newest fake and try to track it down.

The Real Sam Sloan

Old, comic low, please meet new, disturbing low. I think you'll all get along quite nicely.

Could Sam Sloan go molest third-world girls somewhere and disappear already? His "Im a dirty old man and proud routine" is getting old. I thought we were rid of him for good just a month ago.

The Fake Sam Sloan, too, needs to disappear and stop having children

Can any of the legal eagles confirm the following for me:

1. The standard of "proof" in a civil action is "on the balance of probability" a much lower standard than that required for a criminal conviction i.e. "beyond reasonable doubt"

2. Doesn't the success of such a suit depend on Sam Sloan having a reputation in the first place. I don't know Sam Sloan and he may be a total weirdo or a great guy but judging from the posts about him already existing on the net, the man doesn't have a reputation to defame. Righly or wrongly his reputation appears to be very slimey and can't be lowered any further that it is by anonymous posts or otherwise.

Don't know Paul Troung either but I have to admit I would piss myself laughing if this was all finally laid at his doorstep given the pious nature of the election campaign.

Voice of Reason is Stern in drag.

Audioq - Point 1 is true, point 2 is untrue.

The standard of proof in a civil action I think is "a preponderance of evidence" (whose meaning is equivalent to the phrase you quoted). The rule of thumb is, one side side prevails by convincing the judge or jury that their version is 51% (or 50 + epsilon percent) likely. Meanwhile, the "reasonable doubt" standard in criminal cases is often described as 95% proof of guilt. I don't know if the latter figure has any formal legal validity, it's just a rule of thumb one sometimes hears.

Point 2 is incorrect; any person has a basic legal right not to be defamed in public. So the plaintiff's prior reputation is not an issue in a libel suit (although evidence related to the prior reputation presumably could come up if the defendant tried to prove their statements were true). Off the cuff, it seems to me that being defamed is (legally) somewhat akin to being raped; these days no court outside the Middle East/Africa/Subcontinent would entertain an argument that she had no right to refuse/resist because she put out for other people, or even for you the last time you saw her.

But the above paragraph doesn't much matter in the Sloan vs. Polgar case. As in most lawsuits, the bulk of the impact comes from the filing itself, rather than the suit's ultimate outcome. I agree that Sloan's suit likely won't prevail in its present form. But the mere filing of the suit opens the door to all the publicity we are seeing now (and not only here -- no less than the NY Times covered this, remember), with all the bad (or good) implications for chess promotion that flow from that. (N.B. There is even a legal reason for that: Once a suit has been filed, the allegations stated in the legal documents can be reported by others, such as newspapers and TV, without risk that they themselves can be sued for libel for repeating those allegations.)

Mr. "Voice of Reason",

As someone who had been repeatedly attacked by whomever was also the fake Sloan, it kind of matters to me who did it. Can I be 100% certain? No, but such is life.

And yeah, Chess does suck. That doesn't mean some of us still genuinely like the game, even if I've left for the the issues so eloquently written by Paul Hoffman. It also doesn't mean stuff like this should go unpunished.

No, no, Voice of Reason: you are the new, disturbing low. Sorry for any confusion.

"Voice of Reason is Stern in drag."

Oh, a sign of an advanced chess mind. Name calling. I bet one of you geeks dress up as Pee Wee Herman and tell each other "I know you are but what am I?"

Next you are going to call me a dirty Jew and blame me for 9-11, venerial disease, cheating at ICC, and Celine Dion. Well, the Celine Dion plan was my idea... I have already taken over Las Vegas and parts of New Jersey with the Celine Dion clones...

Just shut yer yap and play with yer chess pieces already ya schicksa.

To John Fernandez,

Larry Niven once coined a phrase in his book "Ringworld": TANJ *There Ain't No Justice*
Just by looking at the threads in here and around the net about chess scandals I believe this to be a TANJ situation. I have discovered that there are no innocent parties here. People are still bastards whether they post using their real names or pseudonames like myself. I am protecting my identity because I don't want to be identified as a chess nerd. Not yet...I haven't come out of the closet yet to express my chessness to the world.

My parents will be devistated when they find out I play chess with multiple partners during all hours of the day. They think I am a sodoku player.

Voice of Reason

No offense Voice, but you know the old joke about Grape Nuts (not grape and not nuts). I don't hear any audible voice, and there's certainly not much reason here, just a lot of highly emotional ramblings on a dozen or so completely unrelated topics (one or two of them even pertinent to this discussion). Good luck with the Celine Dion clones, VD and 911. Maybe you could change your name to Voice of the Id.

There is a new article by Dylan McClain on the New York Times website at
http://gambit.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/10/10/interview-with-the-uscf-president-a-chess-sponsor-says-hes-had-enough/#more-115

Charles,

You don't know emotional ramblings until you have seen this: http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com

I am just trying to point out the obvious that all the sacred cows in chess circles have been made into hamburger and you all are having one hell of a BBQ. You all damn your heroes and stab each other in the back...*This is an impartial view from the outside looking in*

What is next, you guys gonna accuse Anand of being a cheater because he can dedicate more time to chess practice because of super-human powers gained from Yoga exercises that are not FIDE authorised exercises?

I am just trying to make myself feel better through poking fun at the obvious others here who can't or refuse to see the silliness of their actions. I really like chess, but the so called experts here do not impress me, nor do they move me to participate. Nothing I say or do can change the poor saps who think they are the vangaurd if this sad little, and quite frankly, dying sport.

Ignoring and denigrading what I say simply confirms the cause of the failure of chess in the US.

VOR

VOR,

I don't disagree. No one in their right mind (which might disqualify a lot of people) expect to be made whole by these actions.

I personally left chess 3 years ago, and you know what? I don't miss it. I just keep tabs on the game (most of my close friends are ex-chessplayers also), and certainly always get interested when the game pops back up, especially if it was something I'd been involved in.

These fake postings have been happening for years, back to when I was active on RGCP. At the time I (and many others) did a great deal of analysis and it seemed nearly 100% at the time that this poster seemed to be shadowing Mr. Truong. I always had cordial relationships with Paul, so I was quite a bit baffled that it was possible he was being very kind to me and then at some point slaying me anonymously. Personally, I wouldn't have had a problem with people publicly slaying me since I was quite a bit of a blowhard in those days.

Ultimately, I'm reminded about what a good friend of mine said about the intelligence of chess players: "You'd think chess players are smarter than the average person, but they're not. The real smart people are doing something more constructive with their lives."

Gosh, I really love chess. However, my love of chess is surpassed only for my utter hatred of so many chessplayers.

Dylan McClain's New York Times article is exactly the outcome of what I posted earlier on this thread in regards to the USCF and its continued mismanagement and political intrigues. The organization is and has been counterproductive for decades now and should cease and desist before even more harm is done to chess in the USA. Enough is enough.

John,

I agree with you. You seem to be more Voice of Reason than me...

I hope to use my mind to help good people who can't afford legal defense. Yes, there is such as thing as good defense lawyers.

I enjoy chess and really dislike the so called expert chess players... Perhaps in a decade or so these jokers will die off from old age and we can start a new Chess Federation based not only on ratings but on "cool points" where members must be held to a higher standard... sorta like the Miss America Contest but without the drunken orgies and nude pictures on the Internet. I can't imagine Bobby Fischer in the nude.... *ugh* *I think I just made myself impotent*

As for the fake postings here and everywhere on the Internet... It is a reality. I could say that I am actually George Carlin, but no one here would believe me because they believe he doen't play chess... Reality check, many Hollywood entertainers are avid chess players, but noone in USCF have leveraged a relationship with Hollywood. The NFL, the NBA, the NHL, and a slew of other three lettered sports are deeply intertwined with Hollywood and its money. What does chess have to show for its relationship with Hollywood? "Finding Bobby Fischer" "Rain Man" "My Left Foot" and "Napolean Dynamite". Impressive. If I ran the USCF, I would make sure it would receive millions of Hollywood dollars, but I don't want to run the USCF. It is damaged goods... I want to run the NACH (North American Chess Federation) or even better: SNATCH (Super North American Triumphant Chess Federation).

Now that's food for thought... See you in ten years. I'll vote for you if you vote for me....

VOR

Mig, this is really the dirt. Not sure why you were so late and apologetic about posting it. It seems you don't want want to cross paths with Susan and her hubby. These events have nothing to do with Sloan but sleazy behavior from the board members. Would FIDE have been spared in such a scenario?

Also, this thread is far more interesting and refershing than all the inane repetitive arguments regarding WC, tournament vs match etc.

I am also curious about the reference to Anna Hahn and others. Who else was hurt by the duo?

As insane or even inane as VOR's above posts are, the idea of a new creative federation making a serious bid to obtain the financial and backing of the NFL, NBA, NHL etc. and even, dare I say Hollywood, is an interesting and potentially fruitful idea. A rather large monetary revenue with an extremely large following in this country. NOTICE: I DID SAY NEW CREATIVE FEDERATION!

The real smart people are those that are doing things that they are passionate about. From being a rocket science engineer to being a chess player - it does not matter.

The word "constructive" seems to imply making money which is what many people do: living empty lives and making money in a 8-7 job that they pretend to like..

>>You'd think chess players are smarter than the average person, but they're not. The real smart people are doing something more constructive with their lives.">>

Voice of Reason, I myself have a job, the same one I had when you were a snot-nosed little brat (who grew up to be a smart-assed defense lawyer on his way to becoming a parasitical ambulance chaser - that's a prediction, there). I play chess for enjoyment, and quit playing tournaments a while back because they're more trouble than they're worth. But like I say, I enjoy the game, and I don't think playing chess is any worse a waste of time than sitting around watching the NFL or NASCAR 12 hours per weekend, or playing Halo 3 for 20 hours a stretch, or whatever the f*** it is that other people do. I also go out with my girl and play a little poker, too. And I got some news for you, mister armchair existentialist, we're all waiting for Godot (google is your friend, there) and we all get a little bored in the process and we need something(s) to do - get off your high horse, a**h***.

Gosh, I totally forgot about the Anna Hahn nonsense, aiiiiiiiiiii.

anon: "Voice of Reason is Stern in drag."

If you mean that VOR is the antithesis of me in real life, I agree. Otherwise, try as I might, I can't see any similarities, in substance or style. I definitely give VOR the entertainment edge, though.

Otherwise, I totally agree with everything else 'anon' posted. Sloan goes out of his way to make the lawsuit venomous instead of credible, because his goals are slanted towards revenge instead of justice. It's sad that anon thinks so poorly of me, since he seems like a person I find more similar to myself, thought-wise. Perhaps dress-wise as well, who knows? :)

John Fernandez: "Ultimately, I'm reminded about what a good friend of mine said about the intelligence of chess players: "You'd think chess players are smarter than the average person, but they're not. The real smart people are doing something more constructive with their lives."

Gosh, I really love chess. However, my love of chess is surpassed only for my utter hatred of so many chessplayers."

Careful, John. Unless you want guys like Jon Jacobs forever hounding you years into the future, trying to prove not only that you are wrong, but that you are an absolute disgusting human being for having such a view. It is not enough for him to disagree with you, he will have to prove you are a bad person too, so his insular world of chess nirvana can continue. I'm surprised JJ doesn't post as "fake Stern", as a tribute to the greatness of chess leadership and the handling of criticism displayed by the USCF so far.

This is still the thread that keeps on giving. Thanks to John Fernandez and google groups, I am now only discovering how long and persistent the "fake ______" poster has been so bitter, and to what extent. Truly fascinating - guy really has some mental problems. If any of the accusations turns out to be true, and the perpetrator of these posts rose all the way to a seat on the USCF board, it is very telling of the state of chess in the U.S. Then again, Sloan did it already, so the point is probably already proved.

It's all Mig's fault! He has endorsed Polgar for the USCF board and as a consequence hordes of naive DD readers have voted accordingly (jk). In the tradition of the popular remote diagnosis mehod of Dr. Ovidiu you could observe things going downhill by reading susanpolgar.blogspot.com:

- "psychopathic ex-husband": you wouldn't want to share this on the internet if it were true

- the unspeakable dragging of poor Tommy through scholastic chess and these ridiculous mother-son tandem simuls ("Tommy has won his first simul against 5'000 opponents"). I mean the guy HATES chess he prefers soccer WooaAMMM GOOOOAAAL!!!

- the painstakingly detailed accounts of repeated gang rapes were a tad bit odd in a chess blog

- the campaign was 100% negative and the comments of the kind "women are dump go home to your country" were so obviously fabricated against the background of heavy censoring of the comments section

- the Aronian "analyis" I already mentioned

Meanwhile Elvis - Dr. Moskow that is - has left the building (NYT link above). And his sponsorship was the only concrete asset the duo could bring to the table.

And I may be fake but I'm not Sam. Son of perhaps but not Sam. And I don't know exactly what it is, but can I too get my own "IP" now PLEASE ? By the way - were it not for the different geographic locations - instead of the "spoofing is so easy" route Mr. Truong could have considered the "Jeez! You know I'm blond and have accidentally left my Wireless LAN totally unprotected" method.

Speaking of Mig, has anyone else noticed how unusually QUIET!!! he's been during all of this. Hmmmmmm... the don't shoot me I'm just the messenger approach. Then again, the "no comment" clause can keep one's head above water.

nobody can say afterwoods he didn't know. It is very well known, that Susan Polgar likes dictatoric Methods. It's understandable, since she grew up in one.

In her blog the slightest comment which does not pleasure her, leads to a response of her: "Go away from this blog forever!" Her sensitiveness to critics is legendary.

Then there is her technique of pretending being objective where she constantly works as a spin doctor. We all could watch this on the topalov-kramnik game. I can give lots of later examples too.

Everybody who voted for her is guilty and cannot say he didn't know. We had this already too often in our world.

Few interesting comments from Susan's blog:

By Susan
>>
No, it is not our suspension. It is the suspension of the 2 contractors who illegally conducted the investigation and violating their NDAs.
>>

Isn't the above misleading and/or libelous? USCF release says that the admins agreed to stay away from work which may not be the same as slander. Shouldn't words like "illegally", "suspension" etc. be enough for libel lawsuit by Brian et al?

Some interesting comments from Polgar's blog. Surprised how they escaped the censors (hence posting before they are removed).

Post 1:
>>
Hi Susan,

In this thread everyone agrees with you, while on the same topic on Mig's site, most people tend to gravitate toward the other side. It seems awefully one-sided here on susanpolgar.blogspot. How do you explain that?

Thanks!
>>

Post 2:
>>
Sounds like there is a case to answer, though Mottershead should not have raised the issue in the way he did, and Sloan is a joke.

However, how do we know that some of the 'anonymous' posts here are not in fact from Susan or Paul? We don't. On the internet, no-one knows you're a dog, and no-one knows that you are Susan Polgar or Paul Truong either - or anyone else.
>>

Susan and Paul must resign from the USCF board!

To the people of the US: When do you wake up and kick them out? Do you want censorship and criminals running the USCF?

Stern wrote:
[anon: "Voice of Reason is Stern in drag."
If you mean that VOR is the antithesis of me in real life, I agree. Otherwise, try as I might, I can't see any similarities....,
It's sad that anon thinks so poorly of me, since he seems like a person I find more similar to myself, thought-wise. Perhaps dress-wise as well, who knows? :)
....I'm surprised JJ doesn't post as "fake Stern", as a tribute to the greatness of chess leadership and the handling of criticism displayed by the USCF so far.]

FYI, Stern, I am that anon who made the post you just quoted from.

So I ask: Why would anyone ever need to post as "fake Stern," when the real Stern does such an effective job of upending himself?

For many frantic weeks, my husband and I have been shopping for a certified information technology guru.

So far, we have found only ONE guru willing to testify that the Mottershead report is inconclusive.

Unfortunately, the President refuses to rely on this expert witness, unless we commit all our assets to the Continental Chess Association.

Under these dire circumstances, we feel that our life savings would be better spent retaining legal counsel.

sympathetic readers are encouraged to contribute to the Polgar Foundation.

niether_the_real_or_fake_Sam_Sloan,

Have I struck a bad cord with you? A snot-nose brat am I? I sense some job envy here and perhaps some class envy. Pity. My point is well proven and a discovered mate has arisen from the little pawn I left for you to take.

You have proven the true acidity of this community. You all can be incredibly intolerant to new ideas, new people, and dissenting views. No wonder the USCF is going to hell in a handbasket. Self serving people like yourself are the cause.

I doubt I will be chasing ambulances anytime soon my friend. My financial future is very secure. Believe me, very secure. A fulltime Defense Lawyer like myself makes about $490,000.00 a year.
The amount doubles when I become a full partner in about 5 years. I can afford to give free legal help to poor people.

Damn, I am starting to sound like the posters in this room...pompous and self serving. My apologies.

I predict the USCF will be no more in less than a year unless it changes its leadership now. Bad things are happening behind the scenes beyond the scope of this discussion and only a few see it coming.

As a result of zero morale support from the USCF, chess in the USA is being thrown back into the stone age, while China and India will be pumping new talent into the mix every year because they have integrated chess into their massive high-school systems and higher education institutions.

This is not the case for America. I understand that very few American GM's are supporting chess curriculums at any level of education save for GM Polgar, GM Wolff, GM Ashley and GM Schwartzman to name a few. Mr. Sam Sloan has written some chess instruction. Perhaps he should offer it to school systems to help out American chess instead of trying to destroy its institutional roots.

Get used to seeing Anand... he and his kin will be the face of chess for the next 100 years.

VOR

>Get used to seeing Anand... he and his kin will be the face of chess for the next 100 years.

VCR = Voice of the Ku-Klux-Klan ?????

poisoned pawn is the voice of stupidity. you didn't even give the guy a chance to make his point. maybe he is right.

Poison Pawn,

You use my words out of context. Anand and the rest of the asian world will run chess for a very long time. This isn't a racist remark as we clearly know that there are more asians in the world than there are white people. We are the minorites in the world!

The point I am making is that we will not have another Fischer anytime soon because of the sorry state of chess in the USA. It does no good to hunt down each other and defame each other for petty offenses. We are simply self-destructing, and like Cassandra from Greek mythology I can see the end of the US chess world but you poor saps don't.

Grow up!

VOR

@jh

hitting enter = making his point

>The point I am making is that we will not have another Fischer anytime soon because of the sorry state of chess in the USA.

Is this a joke ?????

Fischer did everything by himself.

Poison Pawn,

Fischer learned chess on his own just like all of us, but the Masters among us have had to get coaching from others. Bobby-boy had Carmine Nigro.
He was the closest thing Bobby had to a father and confidante.

Please don't insult this community with such glib tripe as "Fischer did everything himself". Next you are going to say that middle aged people can't learn chess and rise to the masters level. This is simply chess nerd elitist-tripe.
Bobby had a shi tty life, but he had help. He admits this in his first chess book.

Sheesh!

VOR

Why are my comments about: "It does no good to hunt down each other and defame each other for petty offenses" being ignored by this group?

Wow, you all are a really good piece of work.

A fitting crowd for these times. Wisdom weeps for its children.

VOR

I'm sorry, but referring to "Anand and his kin" (his genetic pool? his extended family? we all know Indians have large families) as "the face of chess" (a brown face is it?) is a comment that has undeniable racial overtones. It may not be "racist" in an overt sense, although it's certainly crass enough. But so what? In using language that calls attention to notions of face, family, and genes, etc., in the context of an Indian player, it's quite obviously a loaded statement. It's highly unlikely that one would make the same nexus of observations -- face, family -- about a white European player: substitute Kramnik for Anand, and see how much sense VOR's remark makes.

It's also surprisingly disingenuous of VOR to suggest otherwise: you seem to have no trouble being offensive in general. Is this a bridge too far? Why? Have the courage of your convictions (ravings), and at least take ownership of them.

Theorist,

Offensive posturing is a simple debating technique used in Law. I find it interesting how well it works on the Internet. It works simlar to typing in ALL CAPS, but with a more lasting effect. Congratulations for outing my Modus Operandi.

As for labeling me a racist... the Race Card is the last act of a desperate defense when you have nothing on your accusers. Excuses are for the guilty and the dishonest. Law 101.

I am simply pointing out the obvious and am attempting to lance the huge infected boil of ignorance growing on the ass of this community. Don't you know you are hurting not only yourselves, but chess players that haven't even been born?

Perhaps a book should be written about these times to expose all the guilty parties once and for all. Then everyone can have fun suing each other for libel. The book will be labeled as fiction so no one will see a red cent from litigation.

VOR

Mr. Empty Head (aka voice of reason) has a fat wallet! Too bad money doesn't buy brains.. It might though, who knows!
>>
My financial future is very secure. Believe me, very secure. A fulltime Defense Lawyer like myself makes about $490,000.00 a year.
The amount doubles when I become a full partner in about 5 years. I can afford to give free legal help to poor people.

>>

VOR: "Offensive posturing is a simple debating technique used in Law. I find it interesting how well it works on the Internet. It works simlar to typing in ALL CAPS, but with a more lasting effect. Congratulations for outing my Modus Operandi."

I know you think The Law has taught you everything you need to survive in life -- but you should know that "offensive posturing" is also the simple modus operandi of offensive people. It's been around probably for longer than there have been lawyers.

"As for labeling me a racist... the Race Card is the last act of a desperate defense when you have nothing on your accusers. Excuses are for the guilty and the dishonest. Law 101."

Appealing to something called a "Race Card" doesn't automatically absolve you of being racist. You really need that pointed out?

And excuse me while I recover from the notion of a defence lawyer explaining that "excuses are for the guilty and the dishonest": isn't that what you get paid your (unfeasibly) big bucks for?

Ha! Ha! Now I am talking to myself!

Thanks for reminding me of my salary. The taxes really suck. Hell I probably pay more in taxes than you make in two years...

Ha! Ha!

Keep em coming!

VOR

Theorist,

You really underestimate the legal profession, but hey, you are entitled to your opinion.

My salary is small potatoes compared to the senior partners in the firm. I forget I am talking to normal everyday people.

As for being offensive. I am doing so to mirror the sentiments flying around in here. If I were nice then I would be ignored. Kapiche, hermano?

It doesn't feel nice when others are lobbing animosities your collective way. I am glad you recognize my methods. It means I am getting through.

VOR

Interesting conjunction of Hell and the debts one racks up in life. I do hope you like it hot, VOR...

Damn you Theorist,

I knew one of you would bring God into this.

The Devil doesn't own all the lawyers! Just those who live in the East Bronx...and those who work for the Department of Homeland Defense.

Well, I can't debate God. His pants are way bigger than mine. And besides, I hear his Son is totally cool. So, I resign this round to you.

VOR

VOR-

Tanj! ..Anyone who uses this term has some kind of grasp on upside down reality.

Which means the USCF makes more sense to him than it does to you!

No further questions...

>>Is this a joke ?????

Fischer did everything by himself.
>>

Is THAT a joke????? Fischer could never have become World Champion if the USCF hadn't devoted all their budget and effortso toward making it happen, and practically dragged him kicking and screaming to the match.

Fischer did everything by himself (except getting born).

We give VOR too much credit. He's no more a defense attorney than I am a radiologist. Perhaps a paralegal but most likely another dilettante who likes to hear himself blather.

Well, in a way, you've gotta hand it to the USCF, Polgar, and Truong trolls -- The VOR and clones -- have completely hijacked this thread. It's now become a childish name-calling rhubarb between anonymous authors (all the same troll?).

As long as we are spewing testosterone around, I'll mention that Bill Gates, Paul Allen, and Steven Balmer all owe their fortunes in life to me. I advised Hussein where to hide and gave him up, too. I told the Taliban how to bring down the WTCs. I advise(d) Henry Kissinger, as well as 9/10 of the living world leaders. The other 1/10th wish that I had advised them. In today's world, I am The Man With No Name. As a matter of fact, I discovered how to map our ordinary three dimensional universe w/time into the true two-dimensional timeless, space-less continua, meaning that I exist only as a God, immortal to you. I know the answer to every paradox and every question you can, could, or ever will conceive.

guppy wrote:

"As a matter of fact, I discovered how to map our ordinary three dimensional universe w/time into the true two-dimensional timeless, space-less continua, meaning that I exist only as a God, immortal to you. I know the answer to every paradox and every question you can, could, or ever will conceive."

Any suggestions against the Marshall Attack?

Hey, Bill. Now we share being humiliated by Sloan at the board. My last rated game, back in June, was a loss to him. On the black side of a Grob ... (and to think, I laughed a year or two ago when I saw the same happen to you!)

And the next game I played after that, though not rated, was a loss to Susan Polgar in her July Central Park simul.

OMG! Gulp! :0))))
It's the guppy! Your excellency, I am your slave!

Take me now, please oh please take me!

Mig,

You should have turned moderator mode on ages ago.

The USCF should have done the same thing. None of this crazy Internet talk about Sam Sloan and Paul Truong would have happened with somone there to babysit the idiots.

VOR

I bet "Voice of Reason" is the guilty party, the FALSE SAM SLOAN trying obfuscate a thread disclosing his guilt.

for Jon Jacobs:

Maybe 1.g4 isn't that bad, but it certainly throws away the opening advantage.

1. g4 d5 2.Bg2?! (Basman plays 2. h3: maybe the following line explains?) 2... Bxg4! 3. c4 c6 4. cxd5 cxd5 5. Qb3 Nf6 6. Qxb7 Nbd7 (please don't play 6...e6??) 7. Nc3 e6 8. Nb5 Rc8 9. Qxa7 (9. Nxa7? Rb8! is great for Black (but not the cheapo 9... Rc7 10. Qa6 Qa8?? 11. Nb5! +-)) 9... Bc5 10. Qa4 O-O!? is logical (or 10... Nb6!? leads to more forcing play) and Black has more than enough for the pawn

SH,

And I bet you have a stale bologna sandwich for a brain. I mean no offence to any lunch meats in the audience...

My guilt is that I have wasted too much on you idiots telling you that this whole lawsuit thing is a lost cause. The final analysis will show that Paul Truong and Susan Polgar will be innocent on a technicality. One cannot cherry-pick guilty parties in a lawsuit. Texas Tech is innocent. Sam Sloan has given the dynamic duo a get out of jail free card thanks to the double jeopardy clause.

Now, legal experts in the peanut gallery. Tell me how you plan on suing them on the same defamation grounds after the case gets thrown out? You could get away with filing another claim with the same intent in Saudi Arabia, but it won't work here in the good ol' US of A. Paul and Susan will have their day in court and the egg will be on all of your faces. Put that in yer pipe and smoke it!

VOR

oops: I meant please don't play 5...e6?? because of the cheapo.

This whole thing is just laughable!

- TCG

VOR states:
"The final analysis will show that Paul Truong and Susan Polgar will be innocent on a technicality."

Meaning he knows of their *actual* guilt -- but will escape *legal* culpability.

Meaning VOR is one of them.

(Not very clever, VOR.)

"Tell me how you plan on suing them on the same defamation grounds after the case gets thrown out?"

Truong/Polgar must refute the evidence presented here (not necessarily on this website), or it's over. Their chess reputation will be an end, greater than any damage that could result from the Sloan lawsuit itself.

The fact that the case may be thrown out is irrelevant. The facts must be explained.

Truong/Polgar needs to write an article explaining these facts. (Probably the former, the latter likely being innocent.)

Otherwise, we must conclude that he/she is guilty.

"Tell me how you plan on suing them on the same defamation grounds after the case gets thrown out?"

Truong/Polgar must refute the evidence presented here (not necessarily on this website), or it's over. Their chess reputation will be an end, a loss exceeding any lawsuit damages.

The fact that the case may be thrown out is irrelevant. The facts must be explained.

Truong/Polgar needs to write an article explaining these facts. (Probably the former, the latter likely being innocent.)

This will be easy if he/she is innocent.

Absent such an explanation, we must conclude that he/she is guilty.

Actually,

What SH says is true. (Not about me being Paul or Sam or Mig). Did I say Mig? Forget that.

This case isn't about whether Susan or Paul are guilty. Sam Sloan's antics have guaranteed that they will walk away from this unscathed.

It is about the merit of the charges. The charges have no legal merit because of the multiple snafus Mr. Sloan added to the verbiage. Bozo the Clown wouldn't let the lawsuit fly and even the most conservative judge would simply throw away the lawsuit.

Now, how is this for a theory. Paul paid Sam Sloan to file a frivolous lawsuit because in reality both Paul and Susan were being black-mailed by Russian mafiosos through threats of defamation lawsuits through other past USCF EB officers on the Russian payrolls for decades. Check the bank records of the most vocal dissidents in this case and you may find some Rubles in their accounts if you know what I mean!
Follow the money!

The Sloan lawsuit creates a good block to the Russian mob's fork attack on Susan and Paul. Do you think the Russians have forgotten the loss they incurred at Susan's hands back then during the "Sack of Rome" chess event? Also, they are mad about Anand's win in Mexico City. Guess who has helped Anand become a powerful player? Yes, you guessed it.. the Polgar Sisters. Now that she is on top, the Russians want some payback and an opportunity to give American chess a black-eye. Mr. Sloan may end up being a hero after all. Thanks Sam. The check is in the mail.

VOR

SH said: "The fact that the case may be thrown out is irrelevant. The facts must be explained."

Wrong!

In this case there are no facts to tell, just conjecture, hearsay, and a bunch of upset chess nerds.

No one owes you diddly-squat!

If a standing Judge throws out the case, it is done. Finished. Finito! Nada! Zip!

You are delusional to think somone one owes you an explanation. What I want to know is how Tower 7 came down on 9-11 when no airplane hit it. You explain that and I'll mail you picures of me doing your wife.

VOR

I'm certain many chess players other than myself understand the forensic evidence's meaning exactly.

And the meaning is guilt. Of Truong/Polgar.

That is why they must explain the evidence. A dodge like VOR's means guilt.

What are you, Howard Cosell?

"That is why they must explain the evidence. A dodge like VOR's means guilt."

You sound like a commentator. Believe me, you are no Howard Cosell.

The evidence is irrelevant. It is like being pregnant. You can't be sort of pregnant...
You are or you aren't pregnant.
There is no hard evidence, just words in a rambling script of nonsense.

You sir are an idiot. I have dodged nothing, but it looks like your mom sucessfully dodged the condom machine. Too bad... Maybe she could apply for a late term abortion on you...

VOR

VOR is a troll or worse trying to hijack the thread and prevent meaningful discussion. Please ignore him and he will go away - I am skipping his posts but it is trobling to see so many falling for his bait. Better still to delete the irrelevant verbose crap posted by him.

"VOR is a troll or worse trying to hijack the thread and prevent meaningful discussion. Please ignore him and he will go away - I am skipping his posts but it is trobling to see so many falling for his bait. Better still to delete the irrelevant verbose crap posted by him."

Oh, because I don't spew the same vitriol as you makes me a troll, does it?

Well, what is yer take on this whole affair my friend?

Vy gavareeteh pa Ruski? Ya ploha gavaru pa Ruski! Skazheete pozhluista ?

VOR

Hard evidence? What have you been smoking, you moron, this is a civil case, not a criminal one!

Second, if you had even a nat's ass of intelligence and researching ability, you would know that Pauyl Truong and Susan Polgar are/were using PCs and PC tablets loaned to them by Texas Tech during the commission of the crimes, thus Texas Tech is responsible, read culpable, as well.

Now crawl back into your cage before I cut off your Alpo rations and take away your Teletubbies.

VOR is an Idiot

VOR is not any troll.

He insinuates himself as a party to the lawsuit on the side of Truong/Polgar, perhaps a principal.

I believe him.

It indicates guilt that he cannot defend Truong/Polgar despite initimate knowledge of their case.

He is merely making Truong/Polgar look worse and worse, because the audience suspects the identity of VOR quite clearly.

Now it has come down to flaming the Voice of Reason.

I am well aware that it is a civil case you dunce. The judge will throw it out and you all will still be wondering why it never went anywhere.

By the way, there is no way to prove that the laptops are from Texas Tech. It would be like me saying that you are at home jacking off in front of a Hewlett-Packard while flaming me.

Brian Moosehead is already in a big heap of trouble, so he has made himself the target of a very angry University with bottomless pockets.

You all have no idea what the stakes are here...

USCF may see its last days sooner than later after Tech sues it dry for letting Moosehead run wild with these fantastic stories of laptops and IP numbers.

idiot.

VOR

SH is a troll lover. He likes VOR!

Have any of you given any thought that the court will want to see these blogs? You all have blown your side of the case by your reactions to me here and in other blogs around the web.

You make it too easy.

VOR

Now it has come down to a matter if G/Voice of Ridiculousness can hijack this thread or not.

You are well aware that you are in deep, deep do-do. You lost a cool million yesterday. How much do you care to lose today?

By the way, if poop were brains, you wouldn't get a whiff. I advise you to return Russia ASAP.

Brian Moorsehead isn't in any trouble at all. Believe me, I know. G your bull IOP attack got shot down once on this thread, do I have to call Mir?

You have absolutely no idea where the real money is...

Texas Tech sue USCF over Brian's actions? G now you're simply infatuated with the sound of your own gas emissions.

These blogs? You dupe, now that the civil case is filed its all hearsay. What a dweebe. You're just flapping your lips and slinging mud at everyone hoping some will stick.

VOR is an Idiot

It is not difficult to see VOR = Fake Sam Sloan. No one else would flap up a dust cloud so so frantically. He wants to hide the evidence.

The Fake Sam Sloan, according to the evidence presented here, is Truong.

Good morning. What did I miss?

Too bad about Susan -- I have always had a very high opinion of her. I've no doubt that she's innocent and ignorant of the mechanics
of how her name might have been being dragged into this.

"Now it has come down to a matter if G/Voice of Ridiculousness can hijack this thread or not."

Actually, pushing your buttons are very easy and fun.

Have you ever considered that the real Voice of Reason went to bed several hours ago and I am actually one of your friends screwing with your head.

I hear the guy is a lawyer and a real arse hole.

VOR, really.... sorta.. maybe.. nah.

Susan Polgar reputation is dead

Mig,

Its no wonder you were somewhat reticent to post about the latest USCF scandal considering how the above has degenerated into farce (by design in order to drive people away) instead of meaningful discussion.

Fact is that the lawsuit is unlikely to succeed (have you read it? unbelievable! someone forgot to tell Sam Sloan about the "less than 1000 words" bit). But the real question is arre the acusations true? The case may be lost in court but won in the court of public opinion (if they are true) and frankly with regard to a elected Board member of a not for profit organisation that is all that matters.

Time to move on to more intersting issues.

VOR,

I am interested in your theory on the Russian threats. It is clear that Susan won the court case against FIDE for breaching her rights. She did help Anand. I read that her life was threatened at the Chess Olympiad in Spain by Eastern Europeans, when she brought a silver medal to the United States. Susan could easily run for FIDE elections after the USCF elections. But we see that Russian opposition like Turkey (modern Muslim nation) ends up working together in chess. Who do you think is on the Russian payroll on the USCF EB? Thanks in advance.

VOR, Any comment on Sam Sloan lawsuit Point 11: “In 1999, the LMA had $2 million mostly invested in mutual funds. The USCF lost $2 million from 1999 through 2003 mostly due to mismanagement but possibly due to fraud and theft while George DeFeis and Frank Niro were executive directors during that period. The USCF books and records are in such bad condition that nobody really knows where the money went. It is only known that it used to have $2 million and it does not have it any more.” Point 49:” Bill Goichberg had ordered the forum moderators to remove all the evidence from public view plus he had asked Polgar and Truong plus two other board members who have indicated that they want to resign amid this a scandal, Joel Channing and Jim Berry to stay on the board until he can find a satisfactory replacement to run against Sloan and Donna Alaria. (Donna Alarie is a USCF member who has been investigating the finances and has uncovered many financial irregularities.) Thus, what is going on right now is a Brezhnev-style Soviet Cover-Up led and directed by the USCF President Bill Goichberg.” Point 77: “Bill Hall, Executive Director, stated that he could not do that because virtually all USCF records from the former New Windsor office had been lost or destroyed during the move to Crossville.”

For hackers it is trivial to originate some IP address. They have broken in government records, banks, let alone playing with IPs.

http://archives.cnn.com/2001/TECH/internet/03/08/hacker.attacks/index.html
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/security/0,1000000189,39193999,00.htm
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2001-07-17-russian-hacker.htm
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/04/25/fbi_hacked_russian_hackers/
http://www.webappsec.org/projects/whid/list_id_2006-3.shtml
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,273294,00.html
http://www.viruslist.com/en/news?id=200599189

>>- the campaign was 100% negative and the comments of the kind "women are dumb go home to your country" were so obviously fabricated against the background of heavy censoring of the comments section
>>

Yeah, on a blog where even slight differences of opinion are frequently censored, the fact that those comments were always allowed to stand looks pretty bad.

Doesn't prove she engineered them herself, though. She might have been incredibly naive, believed they came from her enemies rather than her friends, and left up posts that she would normally have deleted, in order to show the world just what her enemies were really like. She's so strident, in her Us vs. Them thinking, that I can see her getting fooled that way.

Mig said something similar right here on June 10: "I have taken issue with their take-no-prisoners methods on several occasions. They too often seem to feel that anyone who disagrees with them is an enemy of the state worthy of the most vicious assaults, a philosophy not conducive to collaborative and transparent governance."

Of course even if Truong did exactly what they say he did, it doesn't follow that Sloan has a winning court case...

It is also easy for hackers to read any of our web-based email like hotmail, gmail, yahoo… Hackers getting into some server and messing up log files is quite possible. Who guarantees us that USCF is not framed because they did not support certain candidate in FIDE’s election. This is why the court needs 100% hard evidence, not because justice seeks perfection.

Bill Brock, I was already aware of the line you just quoted against the Grob, because I had seen it when I read your notes to your game with Sloan more than a year ago.

Worse yet, earlier in the same event that I ended up playing Sloan, I'd been seated next to him ... and watched him open 1.g4 against Adam Maltese and resign a piece down after 9 (!!) moves.

Maltese also responded with 1...d5. I however played 1...e5. Don't ask me why. By move 15 or so I thought to myself, "My God! He's gotten a good Closed Sicilian position out of this crap!"

My chagrin over losing to him was all the greater when I later read Sloan's comment that he had no idea during the game that it had morphed into a typical Closed Sicilian structure.

Correction, Sloan's going to lose this case whether Truong is guilty or not. Has anybody read any of this complaint of his?

>>Prior to the start of this dis-information campaign, Sam Sloan enjoyed a sterling reputation as an investigative reporter and was
held in the highest regard by the World Chess Community.
>>

Fuhgedabout it. That's so easily and so heavily refutable that the case will probably be thrown out. He even claims that Goichberg's anti-Sloan mailing was triggered by the activities of the fake Sloan rather than the activities of the real one. When the judge finds out that's a lie (and how big a lie it is), there goes the case right there.

I notice that when Sloan asked Mig to trace the fake Sloan's IP, he never commented at all on Mig's "...Sam Sloan, who has spent years reaching new depths of loathsomeness, triumphantly capped by a disgraceful and brief appearance on the USCF board until being voted off", tacitly conceding the point without appearing to. That make-your-claim-and-ignore-every-difficult-point approach may work well in an internet whizzing contest, but bombs horribly in court.

It is easy to look at phone and travel records of USCF employees / (former) board members to search for calls / travels to Russia. Bank accounts could be audited as well. This would at least clear many people accused by VOR. But would it clear Mig? Huh.

We only wanted to hurt Polgar because she beat Russia with her inferior woman brain the size of walnut.

Also, we want Moose and Squirrel.

Vladimir

As mentioned before, I don't follow US chess politics, which has spared me the need to be informed about Mr. Sloan's behaviour.
But just one piece of news I remember about the man is more than enough: he is the one who went public on the Internet with the news of Peter Leko's death in a car accident, without bothering to check that the guy was peacefully sleeping in his bed. No further comment is required.
Of course, this does not justify Truong's actions (or whoever else the "faker" was).

There is speculation that the death-threats Polgar reported receiving in Calvia -- supposedly from Hungarians who demanded that she not play for the USA against her former home country -- were fabricated by her.

During the recent USCF election campaign, she publicly accused unnamed "Goichberg supporters" of threatening her children and engaging in various other Mob-like deeds. Sounds rather far-fetched.

OK, I'm letting the cat out of the bag. Mig has not been "reticent" at all. You've all been punked, he is the infamous VOICE OF REASON!

Pr believes that Russian hackers could have spoofed Truong's IP address, and provides several news articles as proof. However, the news articles prove nothing of the sort. They describe distributed denial-of-service attacks, a DRM compromise of Adobe's eBook Reader, and the compromising of unpatched web servers. None of these involved IP spoofs.

It is basically impossible that someone could have spoofed Paul's IP. The only way short of a compromise of Paul's actual computers (plural--3 different ones were involved in Mottershead's analysis) would have been a dnsspoof man-in-the-middle attack against Paul's connections to USCF servers, followed by fake postings to USENET from the MITM host at the appropriate moments. This would have involved serious compromises on the internal networks of at least 2 different ISPs over long periods of time in order to install/use dnsspoof. Basically impossible, like I said.

It is of course not impossible that Paul's notebook and home desktop have been compromised. However, such compromises are generally the result of visiting malicious web pages that exploit vulnerabilities to install malware. Hackers then use the compromised machines to spam or launch DOS attacks across the internet. It is unheard of for a hacker to use a compromised machine to post to Usenet groups under a fake identity, with the expectation that a zealous sys admin will hunt down the owner of the compromised computer and accuse him of spoofery. The scenario is so implausible that there is no need to consider it any further.

Another reason to reject the hacker hypothesis is that anyone who would go to extreme and time-consuming lengths to impersonate Paul over a period of several months would be motivated to embarrass Paul at a more suitable moment. If a hacker were motivated to embarrass Paul, you would think s/he would point the accusing finger prior to an election, when it could do some real damage to Paul's election chances. Believing the hacker hypothesis entails a belief that the hacker spent dozens of hours over many months with the express purpose of embarrassing Paul, but never lifted a finger to publicize the embarrassing situation. This is not a credible hypothesis.

I will be posting more on my blog shortly, God willing.

If Sam Sloan lawsuit turns out to be frivolous as some of you posted here (dismissed by court), I would analyze tactics used by abusers: spread false rumors, manipulate with information, falsely accuse, have history of launching frivolous lawsuits, aggressively claim rights that they do not have, deny any other person rights, attack subtly by persistent nitpicking criticism, isolation, undermining, discrediting, setting up to fail, etc. Bullies operate a divide and rule regime and work hard to isolate, exclude and disempower their target who they then falsely accuse of "not being a team player". Bullies rely on naivety, inexperience, lack of emotional intelligence and behavioral maturity of people. The bully goes to great lengths to undermine their target and portray them as a threat to the organization. Every criticism and allegation that the bully makes about their target is actually an admission or revelation about themselves. For instance, when the allegations are about fraud, it is likely that the bully has committed these acts. Getting a private detective to look into who paid this bully (analyze who knows who), would be a good way to go about it. Who does not want the USCF to prosper? Line up suspects. If court does not dismiss this case, Sam Sloan concerns would be credible. It may take months before we see some answers…

This post from the USCF Issues Forum is priceless:

***
BEGIN
***

A Word of Caution

Post by Brian Lafferty on Wed Oct 10, 2007 9:06 pm #73104

A cautionary word if I may. I have forwarded to the US Attorney's Office materials which I believe evidence that I and others are the victims of crimes committed in violation of 47 USC §223(h) (1). Many people posting here and using email are communicating with potential witnesses. Everyone should take care that their actions are not violative of 18 U.S.C. § 1512.

***
END
***

18 U.S.C. § 1512 sets penalties for witness tampering, but is silent on the subject of windbag deflating.

Is Brian Lafferty behind Sam Sloan's lawsuit?

"For hackers it is trivial to originate some IP address. They have broken in government records, banks, let alone playing with IPs." writes PR.

Why should someone fake Truongs IP for years? If he did so purposely, he would have come up with this before the election

In susanpolgarblog I wrote in the "beware of fakes" section:

"should be no prob for you deleting fake items, since you have long experience in censoring"

it was censored in minutes....

I have one word for you silly people:

Ritalin.

VOR

Is Brian Lafferty behind Sam Sloan's lawsuit?
Posted by: on at October 11, 2007 14:58

No, I am not. Sam Sloan needs no one behind him for motivation.

I have made a complaint to the US Attorney's Office and conveyed the Motterhead Report with same. I want to thank Bill Brock for reposting my cautionary post here. There have been people making behind the scenes comments to potential trial witnesses that have been coming close, IMO, to intimidation. To coin a phrase, "Let's all try to be get along. " :-)

While the IP spoofing scandal is entertaining, it does call into question the judgment of Dylan Loeb McClain. I just don't see where this scandal is any worse than the other scandals that have occurred within the USCF in the past 25 or so years. Contentious candals have flared up on a regular basis, several times per year. Few of these have merited coverage in the New York Times.

It is important to note that Sam Sloan is no stranger to controversy, yet McClain made no mention of Sloan's reputation for litigiousness or previous provocative behaviors.

Apart from a few thousand folks who follow Chess politics, none of the readers of the New York Times article would have been aware of the context for the political infighting that evidently precipitated the spoofing campaign. Thus, while McClain's article was accurate, it is also likely to have been misleading to most readers.

It seems likely that at least some of the information was leaked to McClain. Did he not consider the possibility that the leaker(s) would have had their own parochial agenda, and that the leak of the information was made to help out a particular political bloc? If that was the case, then McClain simply let himself get used, by people who are out to get Polgar and/or Truong.

At any rate, the political gambit seems to have succeeded, and Susan Polgar is now in an untenable situation. Whether or not Polgar/Truong manage to get an expert to testify that it is possible that some other party was responsible, it is unlikely that many people's opinions will be swayed.

One gets the sense that the bulk of the chess community is willing to believe that it is Truong who bears the most of the cupability for the attacks on Sloan. Polgar will get the benefit of the doubt, but only if Truong were to admit that he was the guilty party, and that he egaged in his activities without Polgar's knowledge or approval.

However, it looks like Polgar is going to fight to the bitter end to salvage her reputation; yet, even if she prevails in the end, it will be a Pyrrhic Victory.

However, it looks like Polgar is going to fight to the bitter end to salvage her reputation; yet, even if she prevails in the end, it will be a Pyrrhic Victory...

Wow, now you guys are judge, jury, and executioner to gang up on a girl... You are brave heroic white males!

As you may wish to make yourself sound impartial, you are just another anti-Polgar luddite.

The fact is, with chess she can beat anyone man or woman in this room blind-folded. You all are bitter little ninnies that wish for the good old days of mediocre male dominated chess. Susan has taken this away from you forever. The fact remains that a woman is better than all of you! History is your judge and you all are guilty like some many white males who protest your domain has been taken away by women, minorites, or other white people...

You white males treated Jackie Robinson the same way you treat Susan when he entered and dominated professional Baseball... No love for a blackman or a woman chess champion.

Now that a woman is beating you and leading you and telling you what to do, using her poer at the USCF to protect herself and the sport, you all raise your collective arms to expose your bigotry and white-maleness that has so much dominated chess since its inception in the western world.

Now tell me who is in the untenable position?
Susan has nothing to prove. She is a Grand Master with the heart of a Champion! You guys are sore losers, especially Sam Sloan with his pathetic attempt to sully innocent people.

While you guys are bunch of sore pathetic losers.
Where is your World Championship medals?
Your Olympic Medals? A life to live? You have none! Pathetic!

You all suck and deserve everything karma will send your way for your evil deeds. Perhaps you will contract a disease from a public restroom.

You have no proof Susan or Paul did anything, just a bad case of prejudice.

Angry white males are the untenable ones.

Long live the success of Susan Polgar!

Oooooooookay then. At least we know what Paul's up to these days.

Does anyone know what the feminine form for yuri is?

As a white male I am offended by your characterization! I used to support Susan and the USCF, but don't bring racism into this!
Everybody blames white men for their power and success.

It is not our fault we are better!

" I would like to state unequivocally that it is trivial to spoof an IP address"

Do go on. I'd love to hear this.
I stopped reading when running across this statement, because I'd really love to learn more.

I am happy that I received some comment.
Yuri is female Japanese name. Japanese look down on your American bigotry. Like your guns and drugs, Japan can do without your bigotry.

Japan watches the US Chess Federation and frowns at the controversy. I attend University of Texas and came across news article on Internet today about this controversy.

Today I found hateful angry white males I only heard about back home. You remind me of Japanese Oni or "demons" but with blue eyes and angry frowns. You give me much disrespect by attacking Woman Chess Grandmaster Susan Polgar. I have been playing chess since I was 9 years old and only had Susan and her sisters as good example! You men are evil! I want to go back to Japan soon and be rid of you evil men.

Yuri, Administrative and bureaucratic types (like lawyers, accountants, paper-guys) are on the opposite spectrum of a creative exceptional talent (like world chess champion). They often end up in conflicts. Ganging up on a girl (woman) is one of the lowest forms of those conflicts, and unfortunately often includes prejudice. There is nothing more powerful than to be nice to people in order to improve your karma, starting with words, following with thoughts and actions. Evil people end up surrounding themselves with evil. DOug sees himself in “untenable situation”, and even if he prevails in the end, he feels it would be a Pyrrhic Victory. It is just a projection of his own life, which he expresses via some blog. Don’t take blogs seriously… Hope that you’ll enjoy your stay and meet some nice people in Texas.

Let's assume the impersonator knows the victims current IP (which seems to have stayed the same for a couple of days) and UA string from authentic postings to either USCF forums or usenet. To get hold of the replies (i.e. ISN) from the Google server to his packets with the forged source IP (and to prevent those replies from reaching the victims host who would reset the connection) he uses source routing. Firewalls would of course discard source routed packets but this is usenet... Would this work in practice? What are the script kiddies playing with these days?

>>yuri wrote:
Wow, now you guys are judge, jury, and executioner to gang up on a girl... You are brave heroic white males!>>

Isn't that a little patronizing, implying Polgar is less able to take care of herself because she's a "girl"?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20071011/lf_afp/lifestylegamechesshomeless_071011050233

The above linked story was a re-do of a much longer and far better story about the same guy, that appeared in the Washington Post less than two weeks ago. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/25/AR2007092501981.html

Jon,

A lot of hype and nonsense in those stories.

"he is one of the best blitz players in the country" - yeah, right, for a 2100 player

"finished 15th in the World Blitz Chess Championship" - the blitz event of the World Open, not the world blitz championship. He performed about 2170.

"in 2000, he won the Atlantic Open, a national tournament held in the District" - well, Shabalov won this event. Murphy did win the under-2200.

The prize for worst chess journalism is being hotly contested in recent weeks.

Charles,

I am a 19 year old girl. Yes, I am a woman but I am small and often afraid of big loud men. You do not understand the fears women have when men gang up and attack them. I do not like big angry loud men. On TV and the movies that is what I see as examples of American men.

It makes me afraid and angry when I see words of harm discussed about a person I like and often wonder why she is involved with a chess federation that hates her. If I were Susan, I would just go to a place where I can be happy, away from such nasty people. No one can take away her personal treasure, her heart and mind. She deserves happiness after all of the hate she endured for chess all her life.

It makes me cry!

それは私に叫びをする。

Bloody hell. Just when I thought things couldn't get any more bizarre. Is this the Polgar equivalent of "leave Britney alone"?...

Don't Taze Me Bro !

yuri is the non-Japanese equivalent of the Truong-Polgar disinformation movement.

yuri claims that Japanese aren't sexist. What a crock of sclitz-malted-moose-balls-licker-dicker-snicker-bull!!!!!!

The Japanese are the most male-dominated sex-discriminatory against women developed society/culture on the Earth !!!

Truong and Polgar, give it up! You're not only busted, now you are just plain childish!

It's over! Kaput! You were not cut out to be members of a Board of Directors! You are penty-ass-home-schooled chess fanatics!

Now crawl back into your respective caves!

If this was a strategy to push out some people from the board- it's a wrong one. Mark my words.

>>yuri said: You white males treated Jackie Robinson the same way you treat Susan when he entered and dominated professional Baseball... No love for a blackman or a woman chess champion.>>

Whoa, Simba. You yourself just patronized her pretty good yourself the other day, with that "helpless little girl" jazz, so as a chauvinist yourself, you're in no position to lecture others. Clean up your own act first and then worry about others.

After a little Googling it seems that Tom Murphy was 18th, not 15th, in the Blitz Championship at the 2005 World Open:
http://www.worldopen.com/WorldOpen2005/results/wob_open.htm

Okay, the laughter is dying down.
People need to stop with this talk of "IP spoofing" to use any kind of web interface for anything. You can't do that. It's impossible. Not difficult, not even insanely difficult, it's outright impossible. You can use "IP spoofing" to send one-directional stuff like a denial-of-service attack, where no traffic has to come back to the source, but that's it. Posting on a web interface will require a "conversation" between your computer and the web server, a conversation that can't happen if you're manipulating your outgoing packet headers to display a difference source address. One half of the conversation will go to the server, but the server talking back to deal with you will send its stuff to the IP address you're "spoofing", meaning that you aren't actually engaging in any manner that will let you do anything. In other words, nothing will happen at all. Even if someone is actively connected to the address your spoofing, their machine probably won't react in any way that the user would even notice.

Thanks, Joshua Lilly and Chris Falter.

Basically about the only way this could have happened is if someone had some specialized kind of hack script installed on Truong's computer over a couple of years, and heck, he probably posted from many different computers. I've probably posted here from at least 6-7 in that time frame.

To be fair to Susan and Paul, it's also impossible for them to prove it wasn't them, so I'm not sure what sort of evidence they can come forth. I can accuse Mig of being the Voice of Reason, but there's no way for him to prove it wasn't him short of proving he was dead when the posts took place.

So, in short, everyone is tainted, everyone loses, chess politicos once again ruin the name of chess and spend all their time and the USCF's money flinging poo at each other.

Joshua, that's well explained.

Unfortunately one of the things the Polgarites (or is it Polgaristas) are doing in every forum and blog discussing this topic is making a generic claim that IP spoofing is child's play. Even though people have repeatedly explained that we are talking about spoofing a *specific ip* over a *web interface*, it has been ignored. Their idea seems to be that since most people are non-technical, they won't go into the details and will only see that there are different opinions and conclude that the evidence is inconclusive. It is shameful that even people like Gregory, who should know better, are propagating this. I guess if is honest, he may risk losing his job at chessdiscussion site. It is important to almost all their named supporters are those who work with the duo or employed by them.

Another thing: All those pointing to Sam's character need to realize that Polgar and Truong's background isn't so spotless. They have been accused by many including Mig, John and many others of anonymous attacks in blogs and forums. All this fits into a nice pattern of repeat offenders for the judge. Then there is all those accusations of false claims and bios by the duo. In any case, if the charges are proven as seems to be the case, the background of the victim doesn't matter. A rape is a crime even if the victim is a woman of loose character or a prostitute.

A question for the legal eagles I had also posted earlier: Since it may not be possible to conclusively prove which of the duo (Polgar or Truong) did it, can they use it to get away unpunished in the court of law?

Kapalik

Taze は私Bro!

You can't do this, because the IP address is handled from the top down. Meaning, Arin would send all traffic for this address to UU.net, UU.net to RegionalISP, and RegionalISP sends it down to LocalISP, where Victim is supposedly located. LocalISP happens to be in Pennsylvania. Now, I'm Perpetrator, and I'm in Oregon. I want to "spoof" Victim and pretend to be him and make a false usenet posting, using Google's web interface, and appear to be coming from his IP address. Which I somehow magically know that he's currently using at this precise time.

1) Victim is, at this very moment, connected to 256.123.321.999. This is part of a pool of IP addresses that are randomly, dynamically assigned to LocalISP customers when they use their DSL connection. Next time he establishes a fresh connection, Victim will have a completely new, randomly assigned address that I will have to somehow uncover.

2) Let's just assume that I, Perpetrator in Oregon, manage to discover this information. And let's assume that that Victim will not disconnect before I'm done, blowing my cover when logs are checked to show Victim disconnected at 10:31PM, whereas my fake posting happened at 10:35PM when Victim wasn't even assigned that IP address.

3) All right, so I get my machine to send tweaked TCP headers claiming to be 256.123.321.999 on every packet.

4) I need to interact with the server to establish a session. Which means information needs to come back in my direction. I'm actually connected to 305.789.987, an address owned by my ISP OregonISP.

5) The Google server sends the proper response to let me use their stuff, and sends it to 256.123.321.999. First stop, EastCoastBackbone, who owns all of 256.123. Wait, I'm with OregonISP, which gets its bandwidth from WestCoastBackbone. I can't "reroute" anything, since the information won't even get anywhere near where I am.

>You can't do this, because the IP address is handled from the top down.

Yes you can, because the IP packet is handled according to the routing list the attacker has specified - doesn't matter if he sits in Oregon or north pole as long as there exists a path from the victim to the server through him. For details check RFC 791 page 18f.

>Next time he establishes a fresh connection, Victim will have a completely new, randomly assigned address[...]

If you read the Mottershead report you can see that the IP Mr. Truong used to log in to the USCF server was the same for several days - so plenty of time for the attacker.

>[...] that I will have to somehow uncover.

As I wrote previously the attacker could have got this information (as well as the UA string) from authentic posts from the victim.

I know this all hurts but objectivity must be the paramount maxim. Everything else is just a witch hunt.

I think Truong/Polger are guilty! From reading these posts in here they must be some very evil people! Guilty! Guilty! I vote that they are guilty!

I think Sam Sloan is a great guy! I think he should lead the United States Chess Federation!

Sam is honest and generous!

With his strong leadership and honesty we will have a new age of chess.

Too bad about Susan -- I have always had a very high opinion of her. I've no doubt that she's innocent and ignorant of the mechanics of how her name might have been being dragged into this.

Maybe she should hire an IT specialist to help protect her digital identity or just stick to her own blogs in the future.

"I think Truong/Polger are guilty! From reading these posts in here they must be some very evil people! Guilty! Guilty! I vote that they are guilty!

I think Sam Sloan is a great guy! I think he should lead the United States Chess Federation!

Sam is honest and generous!

With his strong leadership and honesty we will have a new age of chess."

The above post sounds strangely like the fake posts on Susan Polgar's website attacking her before the election.

Is this a room for chess discussion or mud slinging? People in here are really opinionated!

I am sort of an expert in the field of "spoofing". IP addresses don't lie: if Paul Truong's IP address was logged in the posts, then the posts had to come from his internet connection.

I know these things because I read Sam Sloan's lawsuit and he stated that is was Paul Truong who did it! Sam Sloan gave an oath at the end of his lawsuit, so everything he says in it is 100% true!
It has to be true!

Fernandez said: So, in short, everyone is tainted, everyone loses, chess politicos once again ruin the name of chess and spend all their time and the USCF's money flinging poo at each other.

So, let's start over! Lets have some new elections and then see who gets elected: Susan Polgar or Sam Sloan. The loser has to leave chess forever on threat of being labelled an enemy of chess.

Question: A question for the legal eagles I had also posted earlier: Since it may not be possible to conclusively prove which of the duo (Polgar or Truong) did it, can they use it to get away unpunished in the court of law?

Answer: They will get away scot-free because of the bad form of the lawsuit. Someone said in here that there is a 1000 word limit. If the case gets thrown out, then the Sloan lawsuit becomes evidence in a defamation counter-suit against Slaon and his cohorts. I hope for Sam Slaon's sake he enjoys living in a cardboard box.

Wow, trying to make AttackerPC part of the route between Victim and MessageBoard. I suppose you could try to jumble or capture things using this, but I can't imagine this working anywhere but when all three machines are on the same internal network. I could probably try it here on our network. But when I tried to force an artificial route to do with reaching some hosted content with an education quasi-internal network a few years ago, I was talking to Embarq and they told me their equipment would not pass that, but enforced routes of its own. I never really thought about it, but I really was trying to do a sort of "IP spoofing"; in any case, Embarq's equipment would not allow it to work that way. So I'm guessing, nobody using Embarq in this region would be able to perform this kind of spoofing that would have to have been done in the scenario with Usenet.

Anyway, in all that I'm reading, including the RFP, I don't get that from

"This procedure of replacing the source route with the recorded route (though it is in the reverse of the order it must be in to be used as a source route) means the option (and the IP header as a whole) remains a constant length as the datagram progresses through the internet."

but that's maybe because I really don't know what the hell that's supposed to mean.

Note: I mention Embarq in my message above, but at the time I think it was still SprintLink. Anyway, that's not the point.

From Sam Slaon's website:

http://www.samsloan.com/takeoffs.htm

While dashing through the streets in my rented taxi at 4 AM, I came across a lovely whore dressed as a schoolgirl in a crotchless nightie. I slammed on the brakes and jumped out. Before I could muster up my charm, she drew a machine gun, spraying bullets at me with an evil grin, revealing her true identity as an agent of Jerry Falwell and the Virginia Supreme Court. My Kidnapped daughter (who, despite being an adult by now) has been drugged and drafted into the Cuban Navy as a spy, and refuses to speak to me. However, in the end I will triumph, now that I have saved up enough money from taxi driving to pick up another Asian floozie (a big accomplishment for me, c'mon...gimme a break guys...I'm almost sixty!) and attempt to impregnate her with double doses of viagra at my side. Wish me luck.

I already told you people that Mig is/was the Voice of Reason. Since postiing that the first time, the loquacious Mr. VOR has left the building. I rest my case.

I didn't realize that there were already lots of posts on this topic as I tend to stay out of the chess politics. Having dealt with usenet kooks and been peripherally involved with usenet lawsuits I made a post after reading about the lawsuit on another chess forum.

One of the quickest ways to short circuit the legal stuff would be along with the motion to dismiss to file a motion to move the trial to the area where the litigant is alleging that the illegal behaviour took place which would be Texas. Alternatively this might mean Tennessee because of the USCF board issues. These types of motions are usually granted. If successful it would certainly cut down on the convenience factor for the individual launching the suit as he or his lawyer would have to be in court in Texas or Tennessee or both for every motion.

I wanted to make the point that IP addresses don't mean anything and it looks like that has already been noted by other posters including Susan's hubby.

Carry on and sorry if I helped pick at the scabs of old wounds.

Considering that Mr. Sloan is acting as his own attorney, that could prove interesting. That also might be enough to cause the judge to deny the request, though.

VOR

Instead of finding new ideas and resources to make chess stronger and better, we have people arguing about nonsense and insulting each other everyday. And this is exactly why so many other chess organizations find ways to make chess work when others go out of their ways to stop good things from happening to the USCF and chess in general. This is like teaching an amateur how to improve in chess and he keeps thinking the same blunder is the best move possible.

Randy should have also noted that Brian's report did not provide evidence of 2000+ posts. His evidence pertained to posts from 2 days unless there is another report. Since his evidence was based on the joomla logs, he couldn't have had evidence going back more than a couple of months, which also wouldn't cover the posts that had been made over a period of years. Nor did Brian's report implicate Texas Tech in any way. The ip address given for Texas has no connection to Texas Tech subnet.

I find this so depressing, as much about the decline of journalistic standards at the New York Times as anything else. Brittany Spears custody dispute. Lindsay Lohan's rehab. And this is the chess equivalent. I seriously doubt that McClain's esteemed predecessor GM Robert Byrne would have run with this one. Or, at the very least, he would have done a little more probing to present the facts in context. I agree with Randy Bauer's letter. For McClain to have quoted Sam Sloan whining that no one would hire him because "there are thousands of obscene messages supposedly from me on the Internet," and not at the very least gone to Sloan's website to see that Sloan's own words on his own website are 1000 times more loathsome is irresponsible journalism. (McClain's more responsible colleague Nicholas Kristof might be interested in reading the pages where Sloan's brags about his sexual conquests of young Asian women.) Similarly, the idea that internet postings on rgcp (a site that seems to be followed by 10 to 20 bottom dwellers of the chess world) inpersonating Sloan could have cost him an election where he finished 9th out of 10 candidates has to call into question what, exactly, were the damages here. (Clearly not Sloan's repuation.) As Bauer notes, McClain's depiction of Sloan's litigation history is completely misleading as well. At the very least, he should have mentioned that this was not the first time he sued the USCF and its board members and that he has a history as a serial pro se litigant. As disturbing is McClain's wholesale reliance on Brian Lafferty as a source both in the Times article as well as in McClain's chess blog without doing the basic research that would have identified Lafferty as an outspoken and overwhelmingly hostile critic of Polgar and Truong almost from the moment that he joined the USCF less than a year ago. McClain is a USCF member. He could have and should have gone to the archives of the USCF issues forum where he could have seen ample evidence of Lafferty's overt hostility (though if I recall, some of his more offensive postings like "Susan Polgar should shut her pie hole" were removed). I'm shocked that McClain wrote that Lafferty "believed Mr. Truong and Ms. Polgar were responsible for the false posts" when, as Randy Bauer pointed out, there is no allegation from Mottershead that Polgar was involved. Maybe someone should bring this to the attention of McClain's editor or The Public Editor at the Times.

Kramnik,

So, do you think they will sue the New York Times?

VOR

Probably not. Susan has class. Most likely she will legally destroy Sloan and his buddies then move forward with rebuilding the USCF. Remember she is the queen of the Pawn-King endgame. People think she is out and then scratch their heads when she ends up beating them. Life is a game of chess!
Thanks for asking!

Kramnik

Brian Mottershead is a very impartial witness in this case. In fact here is a post admonising him for bashing Paul and Susan on the USCF chat forum:

Re: The new USCF website
by gregory on Wed Sep 19, 2007 4:50 pm

Brian,

Ask your question, but I will not let the sound of the grinding of axes be a common sound here. We have another forum for that

See rule #7:

7. Repetitious harassment, excessive questions regarding the same issue in an accusatory tone (axe-grinding) will not be allowed. This is not the place to seek out vendetta upon a particular issue or someone that you do not like.
You will note that this applies both ways. I have not used this particular forum to make excessive criticism the USCF site, but just made a simple point and let it go. I don't want a few type 'A' forum personalities dominate this particular forum in constant attempts to 'axe-grind'. I recognize that I also can be a type 'A' forum type myself, but this forum is designed for a different purpose and role and we are encouraging a very broad group of people to contribute without re-hashing the same political issues over and over again.

Thank-you for your understanding,

Gregory

Re: The new USCF website
by robmtchl on Mon Oct 08, 2007 8:02 pm

Brian Mottershead wrote:
PaulTruong wrote:
I am quite experienced in this area. I do not write the codes but I work with programmers, developers and designers to create a strong web presence for various major marketing and promotional campaigns. Unfortunately, I had no say in this matter. The same goes with promoting the USCF website and forums.

Can you give the URL's of some of the web sites where you have been involved in developing a "strong web presence" for a client? I'd be very interested in looking at them in order to get an idea of what you consider to be adequately professional for an 85,000 member organization.
Brian,
If you have an axe to grind, do it in private, please.
Rob

I'll Sue Ya
by Al Yankovic

Lyrics:

I sued Taco Bell
'Cause I ate half-a-million Chalupas and I got fat
I sued Panasonic
They never said I shouldn't use their microwave to dry off my cat, huh

I sued Earthlink
'Cause I called 'em up and they had the nerve to put me on hold
I sued Starbucks
'Cause I spilled a frappucino in my lap and brr, it was cold

I sued Toys 'R Us
Cause I swallowed a Nerf ball and nearly choked to death, huh
I sued PetCo
'Cause I ate a bag of kitty litter and now I got bad breath

I sued Coca-Cola, yo
'Cause I put my finger down in a bottle and it got stuck
I sued Delta Airlines
'Cause they sold me a ticket to New Jersey - I went there, and it sucked

Yeah
If you stand me up on a date
If you deliver my pizza thirty seconds late

I'm gonna sue, sue, yes, I'm gonna sue
Sue, sue, yeah, that's what I'm gonna do
I'm gonna sue, sue, yes, I'm gonna sue
Sue, sue, yeah, I might even sue you
Ughh

I sued Duracell
They never told me not to shove that double-A right up my nose
I sued Home Depot
'Cause they sold me a hammer which they knew I might drop on my toes

I sued Dell Compueters
'Cause I took a bath with my laptop, now it doesn't work
I sued Fruit Of The Loom
'Cause when I wear my tighty-whities on my head I look like a jerk

I sued Verizon
'Cause I get all depressed every time my cell phone is roaming
I sued Colorado
'Cause you know, I think it looks a little bit too much like Wyoming

I sued Neiman Marcus
'Cause they put up their Christmas decorations way out of season
I sued Ben Affleck
Aww, do I even need a reason?

Uhh
If I sprain my ankle while I'm robbin' your place
If I hurt my knuckles while I punch you in the face

I'm gonna sue, sue, yes, I'm gonna sue
Sue, sue, yeah, that's what I'm gonna do
I'm gonna sue, sue, yes, I'm gonna sue
Sue, sue, that's right, I'm gonna sue you
Ughh, ughh, ughh

I'll sue ya, I'll take all your money
I'll sue ya if you even look at me funny
I'll sue ya, I'll take all your money
I'll sue ya if you even look at me funny
I'll sue ya, I'll take all your money
I'll sue ya if you even look at me funny
I'll sue ya, I'll take all your money
I'll sue ya if you even look at me funny

I'll sue ya, ha-ha ha ha-ha
I'll sue ya, whatchy'all think of that?
I'll sue ya, ha-ha ha ha-ha
Booya
I'll sue ya
Ughh

I think Susan should sue the New York Rag, er, Times and VOR as well.

I think I'll sue kitty for saying that.

The European Chess Union is sued on October 3rd in Lausanne by Ali Nihat Yazici of Turkish Chess Federation. He is asking President Boris Kutin to resign. http://www.tsf.org.tr/ Mig -- you are late with reporting. FIDE cut their support to ECU Individual prize fund. Now we have two lawsuits - of the USCF and another one the ECU (and both of them had in common not supporting the Russian candidate at FIDE's election).

Didn't Mig, erm, Voice of Reason point out a Russian connection to these problems.

Follow the bank records of all accusers, FIDE officials, and USCF officials and you will find Russian rubles!

The Voice of Reason should be call the Seeker of Truth.

The crafty Russians visiting this page are nervous and hope the dumb Yankee Cowboys don't catch on to their plan to take chess back through infiltration.

They already have done this with the US Democratic Party, why not the the USCF?

Right Comrade Sloan and comrade Mottershead?

To protect myself here, I never said that there is 100% certainty that Paul Truong was Bob Bennett, it just so happened that the IPs and mail headers matched several attacks perfectly. In my mind, it's pretty safe for me to presume it was him, but I'm but perfectly willing to be convinced that this is one of the most elaborate and long-term hacks in history designed by the enemies of Paul and Susan.

Similarly, Mig simply pointed out that the IP (he only has access to that) for Truong and Topamura matched.

If Paul actually hates my guts, that's fine. He can tell me to my face. It doesn't bother me. :)

I find this so depressing, as much about the decline of journalistic standards at the New York Times as anything else. Brittany Spears custody dispute. Lindsay Lohan's rehab. And this is the chess equivalent. I seriously doubt that McClain's esteemed predecessor GM Robert Byrne would have run with this one. Or, at the very least, he would have done a little more probing to present the facts in context. I agree with Randy Bauer's letter. For McClain to have quoted Sam Sloan whining that no one would hire him because "there are thousands of obscene messages supposedly from me on the Internet," and not at the very least gone to Sloan's website to see that Sloan's own words on his own website are 1000 times more loathsome is irresponsible journalism. (McClain's more responsible colleague Nicholas Kristof might be interested in reading the pages where Sloan's brags about his sexual conquests of young Asian women.) Similarly, the idea that internet postings on rgcp (a site that seems to be followed by 10 to 20 bottom dwellers of the chess world) inpersonating Sloan could have cost him an election where he finished 9th out of 10 candidates has to call into question what, exactly, were the damages here. (Clearly not Sloan's repuation.) As Bauer notes, McClain's depiction of Sloan's litigation history is completely misleading as well. At the very least, he should have mentioned that this was not the first time he sued the USCF and its board members and that he has a history as a serial pro se litigant. As disturbing is McClain's wholesale reliance on Brian Lafferty as a source both in the Times article as well as in McClain's chess blog without doing the basic research that would have identified Lafferty as an outspoken and overwhelmingly hostile critic of Polgar and Truong almost from the moment that he joined the USCF less than a year ago. McClain is a USCF member. He could have and should have gone to the archives of the USCF issues forum where he could have seen ample evidence of Lafferty's overt hostility (though if I recall, some of his more offensive postings like "Susan Polgar should shut her pie hole" were removed). I'm shocked that McClain wrote that Lafferty "believed Mr. Truong and Ms. Polgar were responsible for the false posts" when, as Randy Bauer pointed out, there is no allegation from Mottershead that Polgar was involved. Maybe someone should bring this to the attention of McClain's editor or The Public Editor at the Times.
Posted by: Kramnik at October 12, 2007 14:01

Now Ellen, these issues have been answered elsewhere. Most people found his article quite evenhanded. Stick to the fact of the FSS being discovered. At least it's not your buddy Susan, yet. I can't help but wonder just how much Susan knew about her hubby's antics. If she wasn't involved and has half a brain, she'll cut Truong loose and let him hang in the wind to save her career, such as it is. Texas Tech can't be happy with this kind of publicity and having to refer the matter to the Texas Attorney General's office to defend. Doe they know that Dr. M. has pulled the funding plug. That'll make them real happy with Paul Pufferfish.

Hey, hey Mr. Lafferty, as a lawyer you aware that suing Texas university, without a real evidence, only for the purposes of employee harassment and negative publicity can carry serious consequences. Giving out motives publicly on some blog???

I've been busy, as you might have noticed from the lack of items. The epic stupidity it requires to say, let alone believe, I would post things in my own blog under another name requires no further comment. Moving on.

Everyone is entitled to privacy, even anonymity, even if tends to cause some people to let their most vicious and stupid natures out. But when it comes to identity theft and/or manipulation via posting with multiple ID's in the same thread I will occasionally out them. Such behavior violates basic terms of service for a community site by posting under multiple ID's. One of the reasons the Usenet / Google Groups became such a cesspool was the lack of moderation was eventually overwhelmed the common sense minority that was there to actually talk about chess. Sloan, the real one, was a huge part of that downfall.

The person posting here as "Memory" also posted in this same thread as "Voice of Reason", "Kramnik", "sh", "Crash", "Chronic Pain", "Doody", "kitty", "Grange" and many others. So, the usual process of filing an abuse report with his ISP has begun. Unsurprisingly, all these posts are of a theme, one I'm sure you can guess.

Sad.

Standardizing all the posts from the same person to "Voice of Reason" (for irony purposes only) has the amusing effect of watching him try to shape the debate by agreeing with himself constantly and "ganging up" on those who disagree. Yep, seen this done before. Same topic, too. So lame. Has no one learned from Nixon? It's not the crime that gets you, it's the cover-up.

Mig,

Did you really think I was serious? Wow, shame on you.

I think Mig is right.

>>I think Mig is right.>>

So do I. (Oops! I forgot to change my name for this post. Guess I just flunked Trolling 101).

Well then I apologize. As often happens here I try to add a little levity to certain situations from time to time. I'm sorry that it was misunderstood, it was my bad and I hope that any legal wrangling can be avoided...oops, there I go again.

Hey, hey Mr. Lafferty, as a lawyer you aware that suing Texas university, without a real evidence, only for the purposes of employee harassment and negative publicity can carry serious consequences. Giving out motives publicly on some blog???
Posted by: really at October 12, 2007 16:50
-------------------------------------------

In Federal court if an attorney joins a party knowing that he can't in good faith justify joinder, the attorney can be sanctioned by the court under Rule 11. To my knowledge, Mr. Sloan has not had an attorney represent him in drafting or commencing his action. IMO, Mr. Sloan's complaint is less than artfully written but is still better written than many pro se complaints.
Sanctioning a pro se defendant is more problematic simply because most pro se defendants aren't attorneys.

How can Susan bear a person like Truong? Susan must know all is true.

I hate politics in general so it is difficult for me to take all this (what I consider crap) seriously. When one has followed chess for a certain length of time, all this in-fighting seems as continued foolishness. It's the same old song, only with different singers this time, and next year, and the year after the lyrics will once again be the same, only with different performers. Politics will never change.

I had indicated earlier in jest that Mig was VOR. It was a silly remark and was meant to be. When no one "bit" on it, I ASSUMED (we all no what that means) that everyone knew it was. I thought that Mig who I believe has a good sense of humor would realize it as well, my mistake. I've already apologized to him and I would like to apologize to anyone else who may have misinterpreted my true intent. I am sincere even if I am beginning to feel like Ann Coulter must at present. Nah, it's not that bad yet.

All very surreal...

To: Brian Lafferty. For the record, I am not Kramnik. Whoever is assuming that nom de guerre lifted something that I posted on another forum and posted it here. I have never used my "real" name on line. I believe that you are using it here and on the USCF issues forum as a form of harassment and intimidation. Please stop it. I am a soon-to-be former chess mom. Despite your insinuations, I don't have a dog in this fight. I find the whole thing and most of the players pathetic.

Sigh. It's really quite annoying to have to educate stupid people one at a time that thanks to corporate America finally waking up, identity theft is about the only thing ISP's really respond to. Posting as me, or even as a known poster here, is not a joke. Not only will I spend considerable time and go to personal expense to prosecute these cases, I will be quick to spread the names involved and the results far and wide. So before you think using a proxy or "hidden IP" browser, or something else neato you just looked up on Google, consider the risk/reward ratio very carefully. You may get a few days' worth of jollies but the consequences can be high. Even anonymizer services are quick to hand over the goods these days when a court case looms. (Violating their terms of service costs you their privacy protection.)

And in case you think you are posting anonymously here, you aren't. Surfing is one thing, posting is quite another. I never go to the trouble, but this system won't even allow you to post without taking in far more data than anyone would ever need to identify the source. The scripts I use to prevent bot and spamming can capture anything from the contents of your clipboard to your screen resolution to, doh, the contents of a cookie with a unique ID string. Or perhaps the person doing it is just too poor a businessman to figure out things like risk and reward?

As I said above, I'm all for anonymity, even as stupid as it makes some people. But when it comes to people coming here and crapping all over the place, no. Crawl back to the Usenet or we will see what your Suddenlink provider has to say about identity theft and providing server logs, which can trivially reconstruct your connection times, dns connection records, and packet transmission down to the millisecond, making IP superfluous. Unless you are ready to claim that your computer was taken over by a hacker posting *from your machine*, of course at the same time you were on it doing other (traceable) things like looking at documents and sending email, you'd just be digging yourself a deeper, more embarrassing hole.

Stop blaming the world for your own immature actions and grow up. Be man, if not a mensch. Move on, do your job. Or get one. And if it's too late and you have to live with the consequences of your actions, let's hope you'll accept responsibility, at least to yourself if not in public. Lastly, are you serious?! Look at yourself! Posting 40 times, mostly in conversation with yourself, about something this incredibly stupid?! To wage a war defending against similar accusations elsewhere?! If there isn't a 12-step program for internet rage and anonymous posting there's needs to be one. Yikes.

chesstraveler, if you haven't figured it out by now I'm not the one who posted in answer to your "you know I was joking" question. That said, when there is obviously someone about posting as other people my patience for that sort of thing is going to be thin. And THAT said, I haven't read most of the above posts and never will. If someone has actual information relevant to the case they can send it to me -- not anonymously!

Mig,

I hear you loud and clear. I'm gone.

Spasky

Lastly, I hope, I'm sure I'm not the only one struck by the irony of people sinking so low that someone with a blog called "The Daily Dirt" is allowed to sound self-righteous! Truly sad, as BBrock said above. As John Henderson and I have said to each other for years, you just can't make this stuff up. As was once said about university politics, it's so vicious because the stakes are so small.

As a last plea to decency, stop thinking of ways to get around getting caught and instead think about what you are doing. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to have an intelligent discussion under your own name for once? Hey, maybe some people who aren't also you would agree with you sometimes.

Mig please please please post the user-agent of the VOR.

In combination with the Suddenlink reference, that would be the absolute best nail in the coffin.

I filed an abuse report with his ISP, which may or may not trickle down to him but at least creates a paper trail for any future offenses. Here I fired a warning shot to piss a little on the edge of my territory, nothing more. I don't post people's IP numbers or anything else in public, and have no desire to put any nails into any coffins. I also know that nothing legally conclusive is possible without server-side access (ie to a server other than mine). And I'm not interested in playing the reasonable doubt game about something so pathetic. And with nothing conclusive, and no interest in listening to the principles throw stones, there's not much to write about.

If there is an actual legal element taking place and it results in something and/or there are significant actions within the USCF I may get back to it. Other than that, as long as they stay off of my lawn I'm not interested. I posted this item because of the NY Times piece. I made brief mention of Sloan being loathsome and Truong having a history and that's it. It's not as if I want to take any side in this absurdity. To what gain? Certainly not the truth, which as I said above, is currently unattainable for useful purposes to the general public.

Nor am I interested in a long list of "if xxx is true then blah blah blah" statements.

Thanks, Mig, for finally intervening in the thread when things were going insane. The intent of VOR and other IDs of the culprit was not only to defend Truong/Polgar but also to increase the noise level in the thread so that interest in it wanes and the thread dies. That is because this thread is being quoted almost everywhere in the net where this scandal is being discussed and a source of incriminating information on the Polgar/Troung duo. All these spurious posts are meant to drown that with noise.

Most people posting here are professionals and would want to keep their professional identify distinct from their personal passion and hobbies. But posting with multiple identities and/or impersonating someone is disgusting. Since you have concluded that VOR and all others are one person, I suggest all those posts should be deleted from the thread and the relevant details revealed (Suddenlink and Texas are good enough hints for a start) as offenders deserve no privacy. As I said earlier, that thread is and will be the definitive reference point on the scandal and should be kept honest and relatively clean and noise-free (within the constraints of internet blogs).

It seems the culprits had all along assumed that when the IP match would surface they could get get away with the defence of "IP spoofing is child's play" and the matter would die there. With all the other details captured here and with the cooperation of the ISPs various other details will show up. It seems that those who have ignored their previous actions have only encouraged their behavior. Hopefully, Sam's lawsuit would put an end to it.

Mig, I think we all know who you are referring to without naming for legal reason.

If I were Sam, I would keep Mig in good humor as he can be a powerful expert and material witness in the trial (if it ever comes to that) :)

Another thought: If someone is posting around 40 posts, some of them very long, all through the day, wouldn't his/her spouse be aware of that?

Mig,

I believe you completely; however, they are no-where near Texas right now. They are in a completely different part of the country. I also have IP addresses, and talked to them today.

Yes, something is extremly fishy. Either I am getting the wool put over my eyes big time, or their is someone, or something else involved.

This whole issue is a bit chilling.

Sincerely,

Gregory Alexander, who is tired of this.

OK, here's my 2 cents;

I don't believe Susan Polgar will put all her reputation and credibility at stake by 'cheating'.

The questions IMO still are:
Has her 'biased' view on Mr. Sloan cause of his character tricked her?

Can her husband without her knowledge have been too helpful?

Hope neither of the above is true..

Is here missing a post from Mig? I remember after the "I think Mig is right" item from charles. In my memory the was an item from Mig

"Uh oh I took it seriuosly"

Gregory,

It seems you are again trying to mislead. The question is not whether they were in Texas today or now but where they were when those posts from multiple ids were made.

Kapalik,

The evidence might appear damning, that I agree. However, I am not misleading that they are not anywhere near Texas-- that I know.

If I am wrong on my over-all views, I will apologize and hope that justice is carried out. I would not accept this in a leader either.

Gregory

I've been dipping into this thread most often very late at night, when (as now) insomnia strikes. It's been a surreal experience. A few observations, for what they're worth.

First, it's stunningly obvious -- if it wasn't clear before -- how much we owe to Mig for the general tone and sanity of this blog. The work he puts into this is truly phenomenal, and I would like to express my gratitude for it.

The level of bizarre and distasteful verbiage spilled over the last week in Mig's absence has been thoroughly depressing. I suppose, seeing the average chatter on ICC, I shouldn't be surprised (don't get me started on the turn the conversation takes whenever Judit Polgar's playing...). The notion that it's mostly the work of one person is, honestly, mind-boggling.

Really, the implications of what Mig's offered us by way of response in his last few posts in this thread are honestly beyond my ability to grasp. These people are *in charge* of chess in the US? They've been *elected*? I can only surmise that serious mental problems are in play here (and at work -- which is precisely the problem). In any case, I can't imagine that the person or people involved should ever be considered fit to run any sort of organization whatever. They should resign their positions.

Kapalik's recent post suggested that, for most of us here, chess is a passion and hobby, and one that we keep distinct from our professional lives. As such, it's an outlet -- one that, to be sure, can descend into something less healthy if we're not careful; but one that, at its best, offers us relaxation, challenge, surprise, cameraderie, and release, in varying degrees.

We should be grateful to Mig for providing a written forum that allows us to express these aspects. Long may it continue.

Clarification: "However, I am not misleading that they are not anywhere near Texas-- that I know."

That is what I was told today, and I can verify this with an IP. The real evidence should come from Paul, or Susan that I believe are in an completely different state on the east coast.

This issue is a bit chilling whatever the case.

Thanks for the kind words. One of the main reasons I started this site was because the chess Usenet, where I had participated for many years and indeed is what helped me luck into writing about chess on a semi-pro basis, had become a total sewer. The mods in the Ninja message boards take similar pride in providing a place to actually talk about chess with people who are at least pretending to be sane.

Yes, Ellrond, I deleted a post that was made under my name that was not from me.

By the way, the "IP, useful or not" cuts both ways. As it cannot provide conclusive proof of identity, nor can it exculpate on matters of location or anything else. You can pile up circumstantial evidence or lack thereof all day, but unless things get legal it's going to be a "reasonable doubt" matter and that's going to come down to opinion.

There's no upside for me to use names. Let's say I'm 99% sure, beyond that reasonable doubt. But that 1% would mean a hateful and hurtful experience for me and for people I know. That's a major consequence against... what? I'm not here to play the (un)masked avenger. Like everyone I would like to know the truth. But barring confession or ISP access (not without legal action), we aren't going to know the 100% truth, probably ever. So everyone will decide for themselves where they stand.

Whoever it is needs help, and by help I mean lots of therapy. Preferably electro-shock

Good work, great attitude, Mig. Take a bow. You're right, the 1% matters.

***

Anon, you've got great capabilities, and your enormous contribution to a certain blog ("anon" comments aside--subtlety is not your forté) is one of several things in which you can take justifiable pride.

But you've got to stop this sh*t. Now. You are hurting yourself, your spouse, your family, and the organization to whom you owe (for the time being) a fiduciary duty.

You are making the perverted racist felon look good by comparison: this is not a good thing. I speak from experience :-)

Chess is a zero-sum game. But the chess community should not be like that.

Do not waste the opportunity you have.

Thank you Mig for your openness in posting what you have discovered. The down side for you is that this probably will bring you into the legal fray. I doubt that will bother you overly--you seem to value truth more than fiction. I appreciate than very much.
BL

"Thank you Mig for your openness in posting what you have discovered. The down side for you is that this probably will bring you into the legal fray. I doubt that will bother you overly [...]"

*rolls eyes*

Human nature being what it is, it's much easier to be a cynic....

Be careful, everybody. Shouldn't Mig's signature be linked to his profile? This could be as it appears to be, which would add to the evidence against the Fake Sam Sloan. However, with all of these fake id's, we should not assume that things are as they appear.

It is possible that these Mig posts are FSS impersonating Mig repelling FSS, so that when the real Mig comes in and denies these posts are his, the Truong defenders can then trumpet to the skies: "See how Truong's enemies are trying to frame him". Slow down a little, and wait for some evidence that it is the real Mig speaking.

This may be sheer paranoia, but at this point I don't think we should assume anything is as it appears to be.

[This should confirm that I'm me. Those posts were mine, of course. While I don't often have the time to read all the comments, I'm usually pretty quick on identity theft. There aren't any profiles here to link to, btw. I'm just too lazy to type in my URL every time since the new templates and my anti-spam scripts broke the "save your information" feature. -- Mig, 13/10/07, 14:22]

Brian, I think you are being paranoid. The last few posts are indeed by Mig going by the content and the writing style.

I think his approach of giving some information but not naming names is the right and prudent one. It keeps the miscreants off his turf and doesn't get him into legal hassles. Right now, there is enough probable or reasonable cause but to convert that to something conclusive requires legal action and access to ISP servers. There is no reason why Mig should go through the trouble but if anybody else does then Mig could cooperate (or would be bound to) - in that sense the recent posts could be seen as hints to the interested folks.

I am getting a feeling that the endgame is near and expect to see a resignation soon - one indication of that is a number of supporters and followers jumping ship (pardon the mixed metaphors).

Amen,
Kapalik

Mig, it's your blog, but just in case you haven't read everything: You might want to delete the racial slur and the links to the KKK.

"Thank God I'm only watching the game, controlling it! I don't see you guys rating, the kind of mate I'm contemplating! I'd let you watch, I would invite you, but the queens we use would not excite you." -- Tim Rice's "Chess"

Folks,

Notice that it was when *I* was impersonated that seems to be the key ingredient here.

*I* have nothing to do with USCF governance or politics, but I did file an EEOC complaint against them last year in which they were more than put on notice of this problem.

I have other evidence which will come to light if and when I get involved. Sloan's allegations are minor compared to what USCF is about to be facing, and it won't be from just me.

Ironically, this all unravaled because I long ago called a certain female titled player the c-word.

My thanks to the wonderful job done by whistleblowers Sloan, Mottershead, Lafferty, Roberts, Parr, and the others for the evidentiary silver platter they have accumulated. It is the combined efforts of these several activists which have brought this situation to light in a credible manner. One of the more impressive exposes ever done in some ways.

It seems to have eluded a few of the guilty that the "collateral damage" may not sit and do nothing about being incidentally harmed by a shot fired at their opponent. I'm not some random chess politician who is internet illterate, but an internet publisher who has been dealing with this crap for ten years in one form or another, to the point where I have subpoena contact paralegals from every major ISP on my rolodex, since I've had to discover and serve just about all of them at one time or another.

Whomever that imposter is, I will prove it conclusively. It's the why rather than the who which will prove the real story, however.

Ray, Why someone would post messages under your and Sam Sloan name? What they gain? Millions? What, I do not understand motives.

"Ray, Why someone would post messages under your and Sam Sloan name? What they gain? Millions? What, I do not understand motives."

People severely underestimate the power of internet discussion boards. They control the flow of free speech on the only available channel, one that is often censored unnecessarily. The recent USCF scandal only shows the true power of USENET, because without it, nothing like this would ever have come out.

Ten years ago, in 1998, Dominique Moceanu ran away from home after I had been posting to a gymnastics group that she had been abused by her dad with the full knowledge of her coach. I revealed something about the father-coach relationship along with the father's abuse, and was flamed horribly for it, as well as being attacked as they do Sloan. This all worked fine for them until Moceanu ran away and confirmed my story, which was fine with me because I was then done with it, and the public knew to believe her since she wasn't the first one to tell them what was going on (her dad had denied it). Whatever I did there, I wasn't dealt a royal flush with what I was told, and just figured child abusers hate publicity so I'd give them all they could handle and then some. It worked. Dominique and her dad even reconciled and he gave her away at her wedding.

To this day, a "fake Ray Gordon posting" from 1998 that portrays me in a criminal and sexually predatory light towards gymnasts makes the rounds and is reposted by others, often anonymously. This has led to other groups flaming me, to the point where a newbie might believe that "everyone" is saying the same thing. In reality, the "everyone" is a few dozen loudmouths, some paid by my business rivals, to damage my name.

So when I got to the chess group, it was because I'm training again (sorta) and publishing a book or two on the game soon. When I found out about the web editor job, I filed an EEOC complaint because no men were interviewed (that doesn't prove discrimination but it doesn't refute it). I was also being defamed by others, and was told in an e-mail by someone connected to USCF that "my" words (i.e., the imposter's) were not viewed well by USCF. I told them about the imposter and they were unsympathetic. As you can see, no one investigated this even when the evidence was in their possession all along.

I did notice that publicly, USCF took more of the high road with me this year, probably out of common sense since you can't go bashing a Title VII litigant so easily. The imposter, however, remained. The deadline for suing USCF for retaliation over the first complaint for me was September 14, 2007. I might be able to still sue in state court but that's not an issue now.

On September 19, 2007, a "fake Ray Gordon" claimed to be a pedophile. I saw the post, and this time, instead of it originating from the AOL proxy that has to be unwound through three levels of discovery, I noticed a TEXAS IP address on the post, from a broadband provider. That's like leaving a fingerprint at the scene of a crime; one who does that might as well be signing their postings. It is virtually impossible to fake a post in that fashion. As I don't know who owns the Texas account (yet), I'll reserve judgment.

I find it interesting that none of the people involved on either side have contacted me or returned my contacts yet. I offered USCF a sweetheart deal to avoid the last lawsuit (before I chose not to file it), but they didn't even bother declining it. I didn't even seek a dime in money, just a few policy changes that would prevent this.

Watching these baby whistleblowers urinate in the wind is getting frustrated. They seem to be a bit over their heads as activists here, as things are about to get extremely serious.

"Ray, Why someone would post messages under your and Sam Sloan name? What they gain? Millions? What, I do not understand motives."

One more thing: remember that scene in First Contact where Picard orders everyone to fire on a part of the Borg Cube that Data insists is insignificant, but which winds up destroying the cube?

It takes a troll to catch a troll. Something like that SNL skit where the copy guy (Rob Schneider) kept trying to one-up his new co-worker who had a similar personality glitch.

So, Moceanu dad and coach have motives to be "fake Ray", as you dislosed their wrongdoing to public. Also, you say your business rivals would like to impact your reputation. Do you have some valuable asset that they would like to have?

I never said Moceanu was behind it. She just had to keep quiet about it. It was people in the sport who didn't want the secret to get out.

People try to control speech a lot on line, because a lot of money is at stake commercially. Just because most people dismiss the internet as somehow irrelevant, that doesn't make the money vanish. It's out there.

Do you have some valuable asset that your business rivals (as you call them) would like to have? They could post nasty and false things about you, calling it "free speech." It happened many times...

I edited a note into Brian's post above to verify I'm alive and well.

I don't think trolling and other such things are about money most of the time, and certainly not in chess. It's about ego (attention) and vindictive stupidity, just like it seems. Occam's Razor wins again! As I quoted above, the fighting is so vicious because the stakes are so small. People get freaky about perceived slights and just can't control themselves. Happens to us all to a degree; it all comes down to how well we deal with those dark urges.

Anonymity lowers the bar on immediate blowback. It's the old test, would you shoplift if you knew you would not be caught? This old ethicist's question was answered by the invention of file-sharing networks. Turns out millions of people who wouldn't go into a store to steal a CD will happily pirate them from the comfort of home. And no, they aren't all ignorant that it's illegal or "information should be free" fanatics. They are just normal people who, when the consequences are perceived as negligible, do illegal things. But not everyone does it.

Internet posting follows similar behavioral patterns. People say things, anonymously or not, they would never say face to face, and not just because they would be beaten to a pulp if they did. Slandering perceived enemies on the internet is fun and easy and that's why people do it. It's as sad and as simple as that.

Mig,

I had figured it out, but the apology was still the right thing to do. I acted impulsively hoping for, as I stated earlier, a little levity. I was wondering why you hadn't replied to all his b.s. not knowing at that time the full story and not even thinking that you were busy with Garry. Anyway, it was silly on my part and it came back and bit me on the butt.

On the other side of the coin, if you start a free blog ala billboard called "The Daily Dirt" and then individual(s) post some verifiable fact that you don't like, you can always delete it and claim higher morals; or as a last resort, threaten them physically. If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.

"You can't handle the truth!"

Lasker, if you can't handle someone deleting your racist idiocy, take your filthy little personal agenda elsewhere. I delete hijacks, off-topic stupidity, and weak-brained attempts at racist trolling and you hit the trifecta.

Mir,

There was not one iota of racism in any of the links I posted.
Nothing, nada, zilch. They dealt with Fischer, Polgar, her two husbands, and the Jewish faith (factual link only). To suggest they somehow inferred racism only illustrates the fact that you either (1) did not check them out or (2) are pandering the parties I cited.

Mig,

Further, to somehow insinuate that I mentioned, linked to, cited, or otherwise proposed infer/promote racism just because some troll hinted at that they do, without checking the links that I cited for yourself is, well, silly.

I never brought up racism, anywhere, anytime.

Mig -- so you say there are no real motives for posting nasty on-line messages (like money), but people having fun. They hurt others and risk lawsuits to have fun? $3M USCF budget control, business revals (like Ray Gordon said) who want your position / assets, competing interests could be motives... For businesses it is even more complex, when bribery is used to discredit companies / executives and target propriatery information: http://www.fbi.gov/hq/ci/economic.htm

Mig,

Please restore the offending message post I made that linked to factual/vetted/non-judgment el/non-racist web sites in support of the points I made, and show us how/which any of the link(s) are racist/libelous/false/criminal/inappropriate in nature, fact, or essence.

Mig,

I agree with Pr, it is time yo take the kid-gloves off and bring the FBI into this matter. Please contact them immediately.

Lasker, I read the comments you made late last night. They were appalling. Your message was, as you state, "offending" in many ways.

This thread, the evidence I have seen, and the fact that nothing good in chess is going to happen until this thing is behind us, has convinced me that it is time to get involved and resolve this once and for all, myself.

I am the reason the imposter was outed, I was the only "innocent" victim in that I don't belong to USCF, haven't played a tournament game since 1991, and only took issue with their hiring practices in an EEOC complaint that stemmed in part from a board member's statements about the imposter.

I have evidence I have not revealed yet, and a new procedure to begin. This isn't an "activist" lawsuit where I'm going up against what I consider flawed internet rulings, but a "real lawsuit" where there's clear conduct and clear injury. Totally different ballgame than what compiled my inaccurately stated record (the "0-18" is really like 4-7 with a lot of refilings and appeals, with a few settlements thrown in).

While Sloan will do what Sloan will do, my paperwork will barely resemble his, I assure you.

If Mottershead could send me a copy of his report, that would be extremely useful.

If the Complete Mottershead Report were made public, any USCF member could proceed with legal action,
including charges against the executive board for conspiracy to obstruct justice.

The members weren't directly harmed in the way the targets were. I can do a lot more than sue, and intend to. These were highly criminal offenses in some cases, and someone other than me uncovered the evidence for reasons which had little to do with me.

I've reviewed the evidence.

It's checkmate in three against the USCF.

They should resign.

Give me two weeks, maybe three.

They should have stuck to picking on the baby whistleblowers. I can't believe anyone could possibly be this dumb.

"People say things, anonymously or not, they would never say face to face, and not just because they would be beaten to a pulp if they did. Slandering perceived enemies on the internet is fun and easy and that's why people do it. It's as sad and as simple as that."

Amen, Mig.

Three cheers and please continue running a tight ship.

Spillover ?

FLOODING !!!

Mig, just to clarify,

The links I thought were worth deleting were posted in this thread October 11, 2007 19:56 and October 11, 2007 20:22.

If such links are tolerated, I would hesitate to recommend your otherwise excellent blog.

Odds are Mig didn't notice those links since they are associated with the handle for the post, and not in the post body.

The executive board has always attacked whistle blowers, usually in order to hide profitable self-dealings, but recently to cover up internet fraud as well.

They don't understand that hiding evidence of, and restraining witnesses to, a crime is tantamount to assisting or even participating in the same crime?

Is Sam Sloan's real name Mohammad Ismail Sloan? What is his origin? Some web references suggest Muslim - Pakistan.

I believe Sam's origin is NY. He traveled to that region of the world in the late 70s / early 80s and probably took on that name at that time.

Sam provides plenty of biographical information.

http://www.samsloan.com/lived.htm

http://www.samsloan.com/countrys.htm

Here is some MOHAMMAD ISMAIL SLOAN lawsuit against people from Virginia. He claims that SHAMEMA HONZAGOOL SLOAN (Afghan race from Pakistan) was kidnapped by Christian religious organizations for the purpose of converting her to Christianity. He also said that he was in Dillwyn Correctional Center, a Virginia State prison. http://www.ishipress.com/spagnolo.htm Anyone knows about results of this lawsuit?

"The executive board has always attacked whistle blowers, usually in order to hide profitable self-dealings, but recently to cover up internet fraud as well. They don't understand that hiding evidence of, and restraining witnesses to, a crime is tantamount to assisting or even participating in the same crime?"

My guess is they will gleefully cop to negligence the way Kobe copped to adultery.

Negligence is still actionable.

How can Susan bear a person like Truong? Susan must know all is true.

Posted by: Ellrond at October 12, 2007 18:19

Once one becomes invested in a relationship, it is easy start filtering disquieting actions taken by the partner, to make excuses and rationalizations, to be blind to inconvenient truths, to be generous to a fault, to adopt a willing naivete...You'd be surprised what some people are willing to bear.

Susan's first marriage was, by many accounts rather difficult, yet she stuck with it for quite a few years before getting divorced. Even if she draws the same conclusions about Truong that many who have posted here apparently have, it will be tough for Susan (or for most women in her situation) to come to grips with that reality, especially, since she so recently became married to Truong.

Even hard-nosed investors find it difficult to make the decision to sell a stock that is declining in value, if that means taking a loss. And being rational about cutting one's losses, when it comes to intimate relationships, is a lot tougher than that.

Few readers of The Daily Dirt will be surprised if Polgar ultimately seeks a divorce. But for Susan, with all that she has at stake, it will not be the easy decision that it would be for disinterested observers.

Mig,
I would like to thank you very much for your comments on the current Fake Sam Sloan (FSS), and especially your time. Had the public not discovered the source of these FSS posts, Paul would have done more damage attacking his enemies than anyone cares to imagine.
What scares me the most is that the day I spent August 1, 2007 in Cherry Hill, NJ at the US Open. I actually sat right by Paul and Susan. While there were many seats vacant in the room, Susan and Paul sat right by me. I asked questions to Paul and he answered, while and armed security guard watched me. I could sense put hatred coming from Troug, and I couldn’t understand the reason I was feeling so much evil. Only now, do I see that Troung has passed into the criminally insane.
I feel safer and safer every day, as the facts emerge.

Thank You

Marcus Roberts

Don't go there, girlfriend. Public people are entitled to have private lives.

Anyway, let's talk about the private lives of *male* grandmasters for a change of pace. Is it true that Leonid Stein died happily? And is everything that Fischer claims about size 13 shoes true? Ladies, dontcha think that Capa must have been great in the sack and Alekhine pathetic? What use did Tal make of his....

(here I must stop before entering "Better Know Moldova" land...)

Hitler Nazi fascist blah blah blah...

*blows whistle*

Back to real chess!

Old habits die hard?

http://chessmind.powerblogs.com/posts/1126731029.shtml

Sounds just like what happened here. Strange

Mig, this is coming a bit late because I was out of action yesterday, but thank you for verifying that it was indeed you posting above.

I'm not sure what people are reading into, but I haven't said anything about "FSS" or provided anything in the way of information one way or another in the entire sordid affair. I cleaned up a batch of posts that were made here in the past few days, but have nothing to add to the claims of Motterhead, let alone Sloan and his lawsuit. Stick with the facts, and make sure those facts are verifiable, or 1) you sound silly now and 2) can end up looking very silly.

Mig, thanks for clearing it up.

I read a few things at Mohammad Ismail Sloan’s website. No other material is needed to determine that Sloan was in prison, that he has a history of frivolous lawsuits dismissed by courts. Slaon claims that his brother (who is working for some top secret government agency) is setting him up to fail since his childhood. http://www.ishipress.com/blackshe.htm It appears that Sam calls himself Muslim (did he covert in Pakistan and changed his name?). There are some inappropriate images for younger audience. It is obvious that Sam made many enemies, and his “imposter” could be someone from his past. The same is for Ray Gordon, who has numerous personal enemies from his past, and his on-line attacks date a long time ago. I have seen no evidence that this has anything to do with the USCF. On the other hand, VOR said that Russian connections in bank accounts should be tracked. Why not Muslim connections, when it is obvious from Slaon’s website that he spent several years in the UAE. It is interesting this VOR claim about double jeopardy. Sloan accused the USCF of financial mismanagement, if not fraud. Since he sued already the USCF, someone else cannot do the same thing. If the lawsuit was presented by Brian Lafferty requesting USCF audits, this would be taken seriously, and he would not drag imposters, Fisher into this case… By the way, I am not a lawyer, nor investigator, just summarizing my observation as a curious reader (maybe irrelavant as I do not have expertise in this area)… The case has been assigned to Judge Denny Chin: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denny_Chin

What happened to the postings by Yuri? Is seems that the Japanese language postings have been deleted. My wife is Japanese and I asked her to read them. She says that the one posting that remains on your blog is fake as no Japanese person would have written it. It uses the wrong version of the word "to cry". Here it is:

It makes me cry!

それは私に叫びをする。
Posted by: yuri at October 12, 2007 00:21

Can you recover the rest of the Japanese language postings?

Sam Sloan

Chess boxing? This headline made me do a double-take (but I guess if I followed boxing I wouldn't have): Holyfield Loses to Ibragimov in Moscow

"It is obvious that Sam made many enemies, and his “imposter” could be someone from his past. The same is for Ray Gordon, who has numerous personal enemies from his past, and his on-line attacks date a long time ago."

Wrong. The September 19th post, was not even last month. Even then, Mottershead compiled evidence dating back years and he's an expert in these matters at least where I'm concerned (since I'm not with USCf, no conflict).

Oh, and did Paul ever connect to ICC or other chess servers that might be able to trace his IP history? Did the hacker he's blaming have a playing style that is different if they logged in?

I know who the trolls who attack me are. None of them EVER impersonated me because they knew I could blow that out of the water with simple discovery of any static IP address that would be stupid enough to try it. When I saw the Texas IP go up it was only one posting, and Texas as a homestead state is not easy to sue people in.

When Mottershead's report came out, five days after my right to sue over the last EEOC complaint expired, I was shocked, first at what he compiled, and then at the fact that a real whistleblower other than me was out there. What Mottershead did can't be overstated here, and it's especially sweet since he wasn't a "known whistleblower" which makes him even more potent.

Those who point to Sloan's record in court, or my *alleged* record (actually about one in four or five wins and several settlements), don't realize that can be used as evidence that the defendants felt empowered that no one would take the targets seriously.

There was a season in college basketball a while back when North Carolina lost at home to Hampton, then lost to SUNY-Binghmaton, and lost twenty games that year. It seemed that the players felt that all they had to do was put on the jerseys and they would win, because their "past record" was so great. People have done things to Sloan and to me because they think the courts will turn a deaf ear.

What I want to know is what the women who were targeted by the imposter intend to do, because it sounds like a sexual harassment lawsuit waiting to happen. Some very nasty stuff was written, and regardless of the intent, innocent women were targeted by the imposter's postings.

I myself consider USCF to be extremely negligent at best, and that's based on their own version of the story.

I know most of you aren't involved so you'll have difficulty following this even if the baby whistleblowers were doing it better. Right now it's very chaotic, and Sloan's lawsuit didn't exactly clear the fog, as it seemed to read more like his USENET postings. My work experience includes tours of duty at almost every top Philadelphia law firm over the years, and in small law offices in two states where I was the only support staff. I've drafted pleadings and prepared entire cases for attorneys and never had a problem with my paperwork. As a pro se, the courts haven't been as kind, but some say there is a bias. I have had many favorable rulings.

The reason UPenn is difficult to beat is that they have unlimited resources to defend, and can make me go through every last procedure without worrying about the cost. Cases take years that way. The only reason I can sue someone like UPenn is that their resources don't impact me, because no matter how much paperwork they send me, my legal bills don't go up. USCF will not be able to paper me into submission or bankruptcy, and frankly, the facts seem to favor me.

Please also note that in my Google case I was going against lower court precedent on defamation (I say Google should be immune), and if anyone files in Illinois, there have been favorable rulings on 47 USC §230(d)(1) immunity, in Doe v. GTE and in Chicago Lawyers v. Craigslist. USCF could easily be liable for what appears on its fora if that ruling holds up. The reason I haven't filed yet in Illinois is that I've asked the Supreme Court to overturn the decision favoring Google in the third circuit. Either they will do that or the question will move to the Seventh, which happens to cover Illinois. As an internet publisher, I need to have these questions resolved by the courts so I can plan my future. Even if I "lose" the lawsuit, I help set the rules so everyone can plan accordingly. No one loses in a situation like that.

USCF is checkmated here. They are like a 1200 player who refuses to resign when a queen down and they are still hanging material. It's the saddest thing I've ever seen on the internet in over a dozen years. Do these people really think these tricks haven't been tried and refuted in other internet communities?

It is precisely my "internet enemies" who enabled me to uncover this scandal (notice who was targeted and how it came out), because the same tactics have been used on me before, by people far more adept at such things. Any "imposter" who is so stupid that s/he'd post from a static IP address is a fool.

When the imposter was posting from AOL, I could have done something, but I would have had to file a $350.00 lawsuit just to get the IP addresses, then a round of subpoenas (with process servers at $60.00 a pop), only to find a defendant who probably wouldn't be worth the resources, over conduct I had already addressed in my Google suit. Without Google, none of this would have been archived, and I wouldn't have cared. Because of them, however, people who search my name get these postings, and with Google getting immunity (so far), the courts are saying "sue the original poster." They're going to be sympathetic here, even to me, even to Sloan. One very useful purpose both Sloan and I serve is that those who would act out get it in their head we don't have rights when we do, and instead of attacking someone who can't fight back, they are drawn to attacking us as a moth is to a flame.

I sued EEOC last year because I really would have liked to apply for that web editor job that went to Shahade. She's very good at chess and college educated, so she's qualified, but so am I and many others who should have been given notice of the job.

A month ago, I told USCF I wouldn't sue them at all if they would just agree to hiring transparency, no censorship on their fora, and a statement that they have zero tolerance for retaliation against whistleblowers. They refused. Even then, I still didn't sue by September 14, 2007, the deadline for that case. Five days later, an imposter poses as me to try to make me look like a pedophile (that was done in 1996 as well). Two weeks after that, Mottershead channels Deep Throat, Sloan sues, and 99 percent of my work is done for me.

Now the gloves are off. If the imposter wanted my attention, s/he now has all of it.

I pity Susan Polgar through all of this, and hope she reads this forum because your spouse is not who you think he is. He has a history of cheating on internet chess servers by using multiple accounts, and making fake postings on many sites not to mention using fake names, fake emails to influence people and gain power. He is very good at remaining anonymous and pretending to be a nice person when really his real problem is his ego. Choosing the swindling way of life, he never gained the accolades or popularity of his chess peers and if he continues in this vain perhaps he never will.
I laughed at his attempt to confuse the situation with "I was spoofed". Nice try... perhaps you rubbed a certain Mr.Giannini the wrong way and this is his reply?
Change your ways because the truth will always get you. You probably don't know who I am but If you are ever nearby I will give you the beating of your life for messing with my life and my friends.

Physical threats that you just made publicly may come back to hunt you. It also confirms possibility that Susan received life threats earlier. Stick with the facts, as Mig said.

If anyone has any doubt as to why USENET is so valuable, this should put it to rest.

The rat doen't guard the cheese on USENET.

Had I been impersonated on the USCF Forum instead, I likely wouldn't have even bothered. USENET is a DMZ wher evidence is easy to obtain and impossible for any "loose cannon" types to tamper with. It is also archived permanently, and Google doesn't remove postings without being able to verify a lot of information about who is doing that as well.

This is not to say that people don't have valid reasons for not liking what I write. However, please keep in mind that even what I write myself has long been impacted by the false reputation others have attempted to impute upon me.

By not backing down to this stuff, the attackers will continue to escalate until they go so far over the line that it's obvious to everyone who the real villain is. That is not "trolling" or "provoking," but simply refusing to back down against someone who is too stupid to take a hint and keeps bullying anyway, not realizing they are overmatched.

USCF also was probably counting on Sloan's perceived legal incompetence. In my case they seemed to be counting on my apathy. I was apathetic when it was just me and a few flames, but the depths of this are such that it's in the best interest of chess for me to get involved and share what I know.

That Sloan and I are being portrayed as victims here or a voice of reason should tell USCF that something is seriously amiss.

An impressive feat, Mr. Gordon: did you just type all that up without the aid of a TelePrompter?

You do understand, do you not, that you come across as creepy as Sloan, if not more so.

"An impressive feat, Mr. Gordon: did you just type all that up without the aid of a TelePrompter? You do understand, do you not, that you come across as creepy as Sloan, if not more so."

Anyone who speaks in such a bold tone of voice would certainly have no problem saying who they were. Just as you don't seem too concerned about what I think of you, the feeling is mutual.

Can you all take these increasingly freakish monologues back to the Usenet whence they came? It's been clear for several days now that no one has anything more to usefully contribute. We aired our thoughts and our dirty laundry and it's over. Nothing else is going to come of this unless subpoenas are used on computers and servers. Those will either condemn or vindicate (or be inconclusive) and nothing else will. The court of public opinion has decided we are all blowhards and fools of varying degree. Case closed pending new developments. Aka facts.

Susan (and Paul, since they and their activities have been inextricably linked for years) could spend their free time applying electric shocks to koala bears and chess, US chess in particular, would probably still be lucky to have them. Politics isn't a black and white world. I (and we) don't have to love or hate them or everything they say or do.

Sam Sloan, I want you to read this carefully because I don't often shout and I would hate for this effort to go unnoticed. Your posting here makes me feel like I just gargled with a cup of maggots. If you continue to try to involve my name in your sleaze campaign, whether on Wikipedia, here, or anywhere else, I will rain hell down on you until the rats kick you out of your box because they can't stand the heat. If you had the brains Darwin gave a titmouse you'd realize such obvious and slimy campaigning has a disastrous effect on any legal action. That is, other than what will doubtlessly be several cases against you for slander and worse. If you have any case at all, which I doubt, get on with it and shut up.

And on the off chance anyone doubts this is me, I'm closing comments on this for at least a day or two. If you have any actual information or salient opinion to add, email it to me. My final word on the subject is 23.Re6!!

[Event "Essent Crown Group"]
[Site "Hoogeveen NED"]
[Date "2007.10.14"]
[Round "1"]
[White "Ponomariov,R"]
[Black "Andriasian,Z"]
[Result "1-0"]
[WhiteElo "2705"]
[BlackElo "2546"]
[EventDate "2007.10.14"]
[ECO "D30"]

1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. e3 e6 5. b3 Nbd7 6. Bb2 Bd6 7. Bd3 O-O 8.
O-O b6 9. Nc3 Bb7 10. Rc1 Rc8 11. Qe2 c5 12. cxd5 Nxd5 13. Nxd5 Bxd5 14.
Ba6 Rc7 15. e4 Ba8 16. Rcd1 Qe8 17. a3 Be7 18. d5 exd5 19. exd5 Bd6 20. Qd3
Qd8 21. Rfe1 Bb7 22. Bc4 Bc8 23. Re6 Nf6 24. Rxd6 Qxd6 25. Be5 Qd8 26. Ng5
g6 27. Bxc7 Qxc7 28. d6 Qd7 29. Re1 b5 30. Bxb5 Qg4 31. Ne4 Nxe4 32. Rxe4
Qg5 33. f4 Qf6 34. d7 Bb7 35. Re8 Qa1+ 36. Kf2 1-0

http://www.essentchess.nl/info_eng.htm

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Okay, I THOUGHT that was the final word, but I changed my mind when something unusual showed up. Facts! Yes, facts. This is not directly related to the purported court case, but it is obviously related indirectly in a big way.

Susan Polgar and I went over the list of spammed comments here, since standardized to the single poster ("Voice of Reason"). She pointed out that she and Paul Truong were on a plane from Lubbock to NYC at the time many of these comments appeared on the morning of the October 10th. (AA flights 3652 and 720) Thanks to Susan taking the time to send me documents, this has been verified to my satisfaction. No, I don't have security camera video of them entering the plane. But confirmed reservations and purchase receipts are good enough for me. I refuse to believe she is going to fabricate evidence and lie to my face about this.

So, what does this new fact mean? As I said above, it doesn't directly relate to the Usenet postings that are the focus of what may or may not be an actual lawsuit initiated by Sloan. But it does show that the wave of posts above supporting Polgar/Truong and attacking their critics were not made by them. Which means there is an industrious lunatic with way too much time on his hands out there. This could be a deranged fan or, less likely, someone trying to frame them in a rather sophisticated way (the "impersonating an impersonator" theory). I still have no wish to beat this into the ground further, at least not until something legal happens. But I'm very happy to learn this and I'll put up a note with this info on the homepage. Thanks to Susan and Paul for their cooperation and I wish them luck. - Mig Oct 15, 07 01:16

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