🚀 go-pugleaf

[followups directed out of Telebit's newsgroup]

Well, I have proof of at least one allegation against John Palmer:

  He _has_ sold censored newsfeeds to his customers.

And thus, I also have proof of a second allegation:

  He lied when he publicly claimed, several times, that he had not
  sold a censored newsfeed.

Background: Some time ago, Palmer posted a bit of code which, were it
installed in C News, would drop all articles originating at zorch
(then-home of Kent Paul Dolan).  The method used to drop these
articles would cause them to be lost forever, not only to DDMI/MNS,
but also to all their customers.

Later, Palmer claimed that he had never installed this patch; that (to
paraphrase) it was just a bluff.  However, I now have a message from
David Conrad, a DDMI employee, proving that JP _did_ apply that patch:

+--------------------------------------------------------------------------
|From: tygra!dave
|Message-Id: <9203061804.AA12661@sharkey.cc.umich.edu>
|To: chip@tct.com
|Subject: John Palmer, Michigan Network Systems
|Date: Fri Mar  6 06:58:42 1992
|
|A few details that may or may not be of interest: the code to drop
|articles from zorch was implemented.  He removed it last fall at my
|request after our site missed the sf-lovers reorg CFV.
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------

For the curious, I got permission from David to post his comments:

+--------------------------------------------------------------------------
|From: tygra!dave
|Message-Id: <9206061513.AA29900@sharkey.cc.umich.edu>
|To: chip@tct.com
|Subject: Re: John Palmer, Michigan Network Systems
|Date: Sat Jun  6 03:36:09 1992
|
|If it still matters, you have my permission to quote me by name on the
|condition that you also mention the fact that the code to drop articles
|from zorch has since been un-implemented.  This happened around the time
|of the great rec.arts.startrek reorg, due to requests from users who
|wanted to see the CFV, which was being posted from zorch.
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Those who wish to verify the accuracy of the above quotations may
contact David Conrad at <David_Conrad@mts.cc.wayne.edu>; he seldom
checks mail at his tygra address, which is why the second message is
dated so much later than the first.
-- 
Chip Salzenberg at Teltronics/TCT  <chip@tct.com>, <73717.366@compuserve.com>
   "Do Rush place weird subliminal backmasked messages in their songs to
  compel unwilling geeks to commit evil .sig atrocities?" -- Dean Engelhardt