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I don't know what his real motivation is. Who does? There are certainly powerful interests about that would love to see the internet, as a free information sour

I don't know what his real motivation is. Who does? There are certainly powerful interests about that would love to see the internet, as a free information source, discredited and destroyed. Is he explicitly connected with them? I don't know. His actions certainly don't look to me like coming from someone who means well. All I know is that he is requiring his students to produce fraudulent publications, specifically on the internet. Even if he means well, I believe that he is mistaken and so I reject your justification. So does society and courts who have always (rightly) condemned liars. Because lying is easy, dangerous and damaging. It does not strengthen its targets, it more likely destroys them. In this context, the target is the internet. Look, let me bring up a simple analogy. Suppose you concoct some lies on e-bay to get your 'marks' to send you money. Suppose you are eventually hauled up to court of law and you come up with: 'your honour, I was just teaching those shmucks not to believe everything they read (your words). It is just not going to wash, is it? OK, he might not be getting paid by those whom he fools but he is getting paid by his college for teaching wrong history on the internet. I hear what you are saying - there is a lot of rubbish out there on the internet and you should not believe it. However, most of it is produced in good faith by enthusiastic (and sometimes mistaken) individuals exercising their free speech. This guy is a professional setting up a university program of studies to generate lies professionally and deliberately. That is not the same thing.

andreigheorghe 14y ago
I disagree. He's not teaching "wrong history", he's teaching students to think outside the box and identify the weak points in the fabric of the internet knowledge base. What they choose to do with these skills is up to them - perhaps they will invent a more powerful citation system for fact checking, or even enhance the security of vulnerable financial processes. "most of it is produced in good faith by enthusiastic (and sometimes mistaken) individuals exercising their free speech" - citation needed. By definition, you will never know what the biggest lies out there are because they're never exposed, so your assumption that "all" lies are childish mistakes is wrong.
- SagelyGuru 14y ago
  What about those who consult (wikipedia, redit, and wherever prof. Kelly is going to strike next) casually? Do you always go back to see that the information you quickly looked up has not been deleted later by some professor playing games with your credulity? PS. I never said or assumed that 'all lies are childish mistakes'.
  - andreigheorghe 14y ago
    There will always be hackers, and there will always be security experts whose job is to keep the hackers out of the system. But you need to think like a hacker to do a good job.
nollidge 14y ago
> teaching wrong history on the internet That's not at all what he's doing though. The hoaxes are later revealed as such by him, if not sooner by a disbelieving audience. You seem to view this as though he's permanently altering history books, but I think that's completely erroneous.

andreigheorghe 14y ago

I disagree. He's not teaching "wrong history", he's teaching students to think outside the box and identify the weak points in the fabric of the internet knowledge base. What they choose to do with these skills is up to them - perhaps they will invent a more powerful citation system for fact checking, or even enhance the security of vulnerable financial processes. "most of it is produced in good faith by enthusiastic (and sometimes mistaken) individuals exercising their free speech" - citation needed. By definition, you will never know what the biggest lies out there are because they're never exposed, so your assumption that "all" lies are childish mistakes is wrong.

SagelyGuru 14y ago
What about those who consult (wikipedia, redit, and wherever prof. Kelly is going to strike next) casually? Do you always go back to see that the information you quickly looked up has not been deleted later by some professor playing games with your credulity? PS. I never said or assumed that 'all lies are childish mistakes'.
- andreigheorghe 14y ago
  There will always be hackers, and there will always be security experts whose job is to keep the hackers out of the system. But you need to think like a hacker to do a good job.

nollidge 14y ago

> teaching wrong history on the internet That's not at all what he's doing though. The hoaxes are later revealed as such by him, if not sooner by a disbelieving audience. You seem to view this as though he's permanently altering history books, but I think that's completely erroneous.