Author Archives: Michael Froomkin

Reputation Hacking

Posted on June 10, 2005 by Michael Froomkin

Clay Shirky discovers reputation hacking: Many-to-Many: Wikipedia, Authority, and Astroturf. In this case someone may have createed a wikipedia entry to make their project sound authoritative, then they or a friend pointed to it in a Slashdot post. But in fact the project is fairly obscure.

Yes, reputation hacking (false PR) is a real problem. No, it's not new. Shirky cites astroturfing as one antecedent; another he might have mentioned is “reputation farming” — a term surprisingly under represented in Google.

Reputation farming is the practice of creating identities (nyms) in a virtual community such as eBay, and then using the identities in a way that creates a positive reputation for them. In eBay, for example, that might consist of engaging in many small transactions, either real ones or sham ones among the nyms being farmed, in order to build up a good reputation.

One the nym has a high reputation score, it can be sold or used directly to perpetrate a fraud against third parties lulled by the high reputation score.

Posted in Internet | Comments Off on Reputation Hacking

Three Iraq-Related Posts From ‘First Draft’

Posted on June 9, 2005 by Michael Froomkin

First Draft is an excellent blog. Here are snippets of three posts in a row that are well worth reading.

U.S. Forces In Iraq Violate Geneva Convention (Reuters)

Thousands of people are detained in Iraq without due process in apparent violation of international law, the United Nations said on Wednesday, adding that 6,000 of the country's 10,000 prisoners were in the hands of the U.S. military.

In Iraq, “one of the major human rights challenges remains the detention of thousands of persons without due process,” Secretary-General Kofi Annan said in a report to the 15-nation U.N. Security Council.

Brits Cut and Run? (Glasgow Herald)

BRITISH forces may begin a withdrawal from Iraq “in three or four months”, a senior UK commander claimed yesterday.

Lieutenant-Colonel Andrew Williams leads a 1000-man battle-group based near the flashpoint town of al Amarah, about 100 miles north of Basra.

…

However, the Ministry of Defence played down the suggestion of any timetable for the removal of the 8500 UK troops in Iraq, saying that any cut in force levels was “contingent on the security situation and the availability of Iraqi forces to shoulder responsibility”.

Losing Control of the Mercenaries (The Guardian)

A group of American security guards in Iraq have alleged they were beaten, stripped and threatened with a snarling dog by US marines when they were detained after an alleged shooting incident outside Falluja last month.

“I never in my career have treated anybody so inhumane,” one of the contractors, Rick Blanchard, a former Florida state trooper, wrote in an email quoted in the Los Angeles Times. “They treated us like insurgents, roughed us up, took photos, hazed [bullied] us, called us names.”

…

According to Peter Singer, a Brookings Institute scholar and author of the book Corporate Warriors, private military contractors in Iraq are operating in a black hole as they do not fall within the military chain of command. “What appears to have happened here is tension between forces bubbling to the surface,” he told the Guardian.

But he said the incident also raised the question of what happens to contractors if they are caught doing something wrong, such as firing on civilians, as their legal status is not defined. “If the marines think [the contractors] did do something illegal there is no process they can go through. Who are they going to hand them over to?” Mr Singer said. “There have been more than 20,000 [contractors] on the ground in Iraq for more than two years and not one has been prosecuted for anything.”

Posted in Politics: International | Comments Off on Three Iraq-Related Posts From ‘First Draft’

1984: We’re Behind Schedule

Posted on June 9, 2005 by Michael Froomkin

The first time I skimmed an online article about this Soviet-style poster that is now found on DC area trains, I thought it was a parody:

this is for real

But it's real — or is it?

Posted in National Security | 1 Comment

Who Should Be Our New US Attorney?

Posted on June 9, 2005 by Michael Froomkin

My colleague Tony Alfieri had a nice column in the Miami Herald about what sort of person should replace the departing US Attorney for the Southern District of Florida. Marcos Jiménez, the incumbent, is due to resign tomorrow. Time for a woman in this job?:

… history teaches that since 1828 the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District has been led by a woman only once, in 1962, when Edith House served for eight months as acting U.S. attorney by court appointment.

A career prosecutor, House served as an assistant U.S. attorney for 34 years both in Jacksonville and Miami. …

By rough count then, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District has been led by men for 176 of the last 177 years, give or take eight months.

Meanwhile, however, the White House has let it be known that it plans to name Alexander Acosta, a Miamian who now heads the Civil Rights Division in main Justice, as the interim US Attorney. It's an odd appointment for two reasons: Jiménez, the incumbent, was lobbying for his deputy (with about 20 years of experience) to get it, and while Mr. Acosta has a sterling record any Federalist would be proud of, he's only 36 and has very little relevant experience.

The Herald reports that Acosta will likely be a candidate for the permanent appointment; I see this move as being a stepping stone to a local judgeship.

Posted in Miami | Comments Off on Who Should Be Our New US Attorney?

Three Headlines

Posted on June 9, 2005 by Michael Froomkin

Which gets it right?

1. Bush noncommittal on Guantanamo shutdown

2. Bush Open to Possibly Closing Gitmo Camp

3. Rumsfeld Says Guantánamo Isn't Being Considered for Closing

My money is on #3.

Posted in Guantanamo, The Media | 1 Comment

Life is Tough All Over

Posted on June 9, 2005 by Michael Froomkin

The NYT runs a moderately interesting story about a sort of whistle-blower at Pfizer, Dr. Peter Rost, a Vice-President for Marketing, who quite naturally is getting the cold shoulder from the company after saying it charges too much for drugs (some kind of marketing!). I say “sort of” because from what's in the article, At Pfizer, the Isolation Increases for a Whistle-Blower, Dr. Rost is more of a corporate critic of overcharging for drugs than an actual exposer of illegality, which is what I take whistle blowers usually to be.

Pfizer is afraid to fire him, either for fear of bad publicity, or for some murky legal reasons having to do with a Justice Department “investigation into its marketing of genotropin, the growth hormone Dr. Rost was responsible for selling at Pharmacia.” So meanwhile he gets put into corporate Siberia, what we used to call “the office with the dog”. This sort of thing happens; I recall one case in Treasury, long ago, where the politicals tried to get rid of a high civil servant they mistrusted for political reasons by assigning him to log all uses of the photocopier. Didn't work — he said they'd be gone in four years….

But back to the NYT story. The most interesting item is the amazing fact in the next to last paragraph. I would imagine that in these days of title inflation, VP's for Marketing must be quite numerous. I might have guessed that at a major subsidiary of a big drug company, a higher middle manager might pull down $150-200,000, perhaps with some bonus in good years. But no. The NYT reports that Pfizer is paying Dr. Rost $600,000 year — no wonder he's willing to stick it out and do nothing!

$600,000 per year for a Marketing VP. If they can afford that, doesn't it suggest that the drugs must be seriously overpriced?

Posted in Readings | 2 Comments