Some people still labour under the illusion that the media are objective, rather than activist, in their reporting. That is a myth that, particularly in the UK, has no bearing on reality.
I can disclose today that the weekly magazine Times Higher Education has become guilty of at least two counts of criminal identity theft in its misguided attempt to give succour to an ongoing cyberstalking campaign against me.
Over the last weekend, subscribers to the political theology mailing list (listserv) I run received two e-mails purporting to be from me, that is, they were – apparently – sent from my e-mail address ("Erich Kofmel", e.kofmel@scis-calibrate.org).
As recipients may have guessed from the content (links to articles and websites accusing me of fraudulent activities as well as outright slander and defamation), these e-mails were not sent by me. Someone stole my e-mail address (somehow "masking" their own e-mail with my sender address, much as spammers would). That is identity theft and a criminal act. The same was done earlier with my Sussex university e-mail account.
Fortunately, and for the first time, the normally hidden parts of the e-mail "header" of these two e-mails allow me to pin down the original sender. Both e-mails were sent from the same IP address: 77.73.121.5.
The server from which these e-mails were sent identifies itself as "helo=tsleducation.com" – that is the domain of the mother company of the Times Higher Education.
Much has been written recently about the journalistic practices of UK papers like the News of the World. Although the Times Higher Education – formerly the Times Higher Education Supplement – does not belong to Rupert Murdoch anymore, its journalistic practices are still as degraded as those of other UK publications (where duplicity and deception is the order of the day).
The headers of the falsified e-mails sent this weekend prove that the Times Higher Education is not only compliant in its reporting with the anonymous cyberstalker who has been pursuing me for one and a half years now (using multiple assumed and stolen identities, including my own, and repeatedly attempting to hack my e-mail accounts), but actively complicit in his or her ongoing theft of identities, that is, the magazine actively perpetrated acts of crime punishable under UK law.
Entirely unproven allegations against me have been made first on the Internet (in fora, on public mailing list, etc.). Much of this has found its way, unfiltered, into newspaper articles. There is nothing "objective" or "true" or trustworthy about them. With its criminal actions this weekend, the Times Higher Education has outed itself as entirely partisan.
There's little I can do about someone stealing my identity and e-mail address and pretending to be me. The police have so far failed to investigate in that direction. I can only urge everyone to exercise caution with regard to any e-mails you may get from the sender e.kofmel@scis-calibrate.org (or any e-mail pretending to be from me or regarding me, for that matter).
11 August 2009
02 August 2009
Duncan Connors and the demise of the National Postgraduate Committee of the UK
Amongst the most pointless organizations I ever belonged to must certainly be counted the National Postgraduate Committee of the United Kingdom (NPC). An organization with a noble goal (the representation of postgraduate students and doctoral researchers), but without adequate funding or staffing, dwarfed by the financial prowess of the National Union of Students (which however did not represent postgraduates until just now).
Recently, one Duncan Connors (aka Duncan-Philip Connors) commented on a UK higher education messageboard about the affairs of the soon to be defunct NPC, which is apparently to be absorbed into a newly formed National Union of Students Postgraduate Committee or Conference (NUS-PC). In passing, he made some derogatory remarks about me, a former officer on the Management Sub-Committee (board) of the NPC.
Now, Duncan Connors is well known as a self-aggrandizing pompous git, if there ever was one. In fact, I don't need to insult him myself. I can just cite comments made about him on another blog two years ago: "Duncan Connors was asked to resign [as Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party in Islington] by a unanimous vote of the executive but refused to accept that his service, or lack thereof, were no longer required. He has tried to create the illusion of a huge scandal in the association by going to the press, sending unsolicited letters and blogging his heart away when in fact, all he wants is a soapbox for his bruised ego and to pursue his own political agenda at everyone else's expense.
"From what I understand he simply wasn't up to the job – [...] All mouth and no trousers.
"the association had no choice but to force him out.
"Duncan is a bit unstable and lives quite close to me I didn't want to become the focus of his obsessive behaviour. Who knows what he is capable of. [...] He is very odd. This is especially the case when he has some moon bat juice driven delusion that he is a 'Major Player' on the political stage. Have a look at the mixture of ego mania and victim syndrome in his ramblings and you will see how likely that is."
Since Duncan's remarks about me were based not on fact, but on what others had said or written about me earlier, I am sure he will agree that a reminder of what others have said publicly about him is in order.
Is there any truth to it, though? A year after I'd left NPC of my own free will (after Duncan and I and a third officer had all run unsuccessfully for Chairman), Duncan was elected General Secretary, the only (ill-)paid position in the organization. Now there are over a hundred universities in the UK and all of them have postgraduates. Usually some forty to fifty of those would affiliate to NPC each year (that is, the local students' union or postgraduate association would pay a few hundred pounds membership fees). In Duncan's year as General Secretary only thirty universities affiliated to NPC. Even worse, the next year only thirteen renewed their affiliation. That's one tenth of UK universities.
With his dismal record in office, Duncan as General Secretary prepared the ground for the imminent take over of the NPC by the NUS. Of course, true to form, he spent the past year trying to blame this on his successor in as many public places as possible.
Duncan becoming General Secretary of NPC was always going to lead to disaster. A man who in more than one e-mail to me (that I still have) boasted that only research council-funded doctoral candidates like himself were worth his attention. How could he ever represent taught postgraduates and self-funding research students (who make up the vast majority of the postgraduate student population in the UK)?
Does at least his academic record match his ego? While I published a book on "Anti-Democratic Thought" in a comparative, cross-cultural, global, and historical context, Duncan spent the last years writing an earth-shattering dissertation on (get this) "The Role of Political Decision Making in the Decline of the Shipbuilding Industries on the [river] Clyde in comparison to its international competitors, 1945-1977". Moreover, he actually got public funding to the tune of some forty or fifty thousand pounds to write such a trite that will be of no concern or interest to anyone but himself.
In his time as General Secretary, Duncan removed me from the NPC mailing list for former officers. (Although he claimed in an e-mail to me that this had not been due to him. Just another lie.) I was pleased indeed to learn that he was removed from that list by his successor in exactly the same fashion.
Ask me again why I am against democracy.
Recently, one Duncan Connors (aka Duncan-Philip Connors) commented on a UK higher education messageboard about the affairs of the soon to be defunct NPC, which is apparently to be absorbed into a newly formed National Union of Students Postgraduate Committee or Conference (NUS-PC). In passing, he made some derogatory remarks about me, a former officer on the Management Sub-Committee (board) of the NPC.
Now, Duncan Connors is well known as a self-aggrandizing pompous git, if there ever was one. In fact, I don't need to insult him myself. I can just cite comments made about him on another blog two years ago: "Duncan Connors was asked to resign [as Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party in Islington] by a unanimous vote of the executive but refused to accept that his service, or lack thereof, were no longer required. He has tried to create the illusion of a huge scandal in the association by going to the press, sending unsolicited letters and blogging his heart away when in fact, all he wants is a soapbox for his bruised ego and to pursue his own political agenda at everyone else's expense.
"From what I understand he simply wasn't up to the job – [...] All mouth and no trousers.
"the association had no choice but to force him out.
"Duncan is a bit unstable and lives quite close to me I didn't want to become the focus of his obsessive behaviour. Who knows what he is capable of. [...] He is very odd. This is especially the case when he has some moon bat juice driven delusion that he is a 'Major Player' on the political stage. Have a look at the mixture of ego mania and victim syndrome in his ramblings and you will see how likely that is."
Since Duncan's remarks about me were based not on fact, but on what others had said or written about me earlier, I am sure he will agree that a reminder of what others have said publicly about him is in order.
Is there any truth to it, though? A year after I'd left NPC of my own free will (after Duncan and I and a third officer had all run unsuccessfully for Chairman), Duncan was elected General Secretary, the only (ill-)paid position in the organization. Now there are over a hundred universities in the UK and all of them have postgraduates. Usually some forty to fifty of those would affiliate to NPC each year (that is, the local students' union or postgraduate association would pay a few hundred pounds membership fees). In Duncan's year as General Secretary only thirty universities affiliated to NPC. Even worse, the next year only thirteen renewed their affiliation. That's one tenth of UK universities.
With his dismal record in office, Duncan as General Secretary prepared the ground for the imminent take over of the NPC by the NUS. Of course, true to form, he spent the past year trying to blame this on his successor in as many public places as possible.
Duncan becoming General Secretary of NPC was always going to lead to disaster. A man who in more than one e-mail to me (that I still have) boasted that only research council-funded doctoral candidates like himself were worth his attention. How could he ever represent taught postgraduates and self-funding research students (who make up the vast majority of the postgraduate student population in the UK)?
Does at least his academic record match his ego? While I published a book on "Anti-Democratic Thought" in a comparative, cross-cultural, global, and historical context, Duncan spent the last years writing an earth-shattering dissertation on (get this) "The Role of Political Decision Making in the Decline of the Shipbuilding Industries on the [river] Clyde in comparison to its international competitors, 1945-1977". Moreover, he actually got public funding to the tune of some forty or fifty thousand pounds to write such a trite that will be of no concern or interest to anyone but himself.
In his time as General Secretary, Duncan removed me from the NPC mailing list for former officers. (Although he claimed in an e-mail to me that this had not been due to him. Just another lie.) I was pleased indeed to learn that he was removed from that list by his successor in exactly the same fashion.
Ask me again why I am against democracy.
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