I just received an e-mail from Huffington Post technology manager Andy Yaco-Mink. I assume the mail is from him until someone tells me it is a forgery.
In his mail he writes:
Dr. Rost,
Today I was alerted to the existence of rostpost.blogspot.com. Please know, I did not create this site and was not aware of its existence until earlier today.
Sincerely,
Andy Yaco-Mink
Meanwhile, the Rost Post blog that had used my name and image was taken down this afternoon. That would have been real speedy if Google did this, and perhaps more likely is that the person who created the Rost Post blog deleted it after learning what he'd gotten himself into.
I don't know what to think at this point.
This whole thing started out with a tongue-in-cheek blog about a heckler, calling himself yacomink, and whom he could possibly be. I thought it was kind of interesting and funny. It ended with me being right about who he was, me being fired from Huffington Post, Huffington Post admitting Andy Yaco-Mink was the person who had written nasty comments on my blog postings, and Huffington Post then issuing a new policy that employees could not comment on blog posts and removing the "Readers' favorite comment" section.
And now this.
Let me emphasize again, which I already did several times in my blog Identity Theft of "Peter Rost" Image and Name, the fact that the name "yacomink" was in the site meter does not prove that Andy Yaco-Mink was behind the blog.
It sure looks like it, to any independent observer, especially since the site meter was deleted, but that is not proof.
And, Andy denies this was the case.
If true, then someone is now impersonating Andy Yaco-Mink in a most sophisticated way, even taking a chance on deleting the trace that was put out there, since the blog was republished without the site meter.
If true that Yaco-Mink was not behind this, it means that Andy and the Huffington Post may want to contact Google/Blogger and Sitemeter, to find out who has abused Andy's name in order to steal my name and to literally frame Andy Yaco-Mink.
I don't know what the truth is.
I only know the facts I wrote about in my blog Identity Theft of "Peter Rost" Image and Name.
And this isn't funny anymore. Being kicked out of HuffPo, without having done anything wrong, actually having been completely right, which HuffPo's actions verified, and with Arianna spreading false info wasn't funny.
This is even less funny. But I'm happy the Rost Post blog is gone. Then again, I doubt this is the end of the story.
If my website suddenly "disappears" or something else weird happens, go to PharmaGossip. I'll let the Jack Friday, aka the Insider know if a denial-of-service attack puts this site out of commission.
I'd certainly expect anything at this point. The tech gods don't like me right now.
Tomorrow is 4th of July.
See you back here on July 5.
22 comments:
Doc, have a great 4th, barbecue a bunch of heartburn, douse it with a little brew, and let's get together on the 5th. planning THE GRAND PREMIER of the ROST-POST!!!
The creatively created "RostPost" blog may be down, but if you click on "Search all Blogs" and enter "RostPost" you (currently) get this in the search results -
"The TIme For Truth Is RIght Now
8 hours ago by Peter Rost
My Readers, You spoke out on the Internet, and then I responded: after speaking to several very interested investment bankers and journalists, I decided to start the Rost Post, the truth seeking and uncensored answer to the seriously ...
The Rost Post - http://rostpost.blogspot.com"
Just a little something extra for the proof dept.
"From Shooter's Shooter to Beeta's Twilight Zone" We proudly bring you "The Greatest Show on Earth".....Doctor Peter Rost's, **************THE ROST-POST!!!!*************
Think I'm gonna start my 4th. on the 3'd. Catchya later, and if not, have a wonderful holiday. It still is a great country and we aim to keep it that way.
This is getting funnier and funnier! Yaco-Mink is obviously keeping track of things.
Hi Andy! How's it going? Did you apoloigize to Jonah and take full responsiblity yet? Don't worry -- I am sure he is very understanding.
Hope you have a nice rooftop to access -- I hear this year's fireworks are going to be fab!
Dr. Rost, have a Happy 4th! I haven't been to huffpo for quite a while and feel much better for it.
Not to rain on the parade, but in the "paranoid" category about stealthy web stuff, you might want to take a look at this: http://cannonfire.blogspot.com/2006/06/am-i-being-watched-are-you.html
I'd be interested in what other visitors here find too. Good luck!
Well I hope the real deal comes along soon.
This is just getting too wierd. I emailed Olbermann again and IF he's paying any attention, maybe this might get out to a wider audience.
I can only hope.
BUT this is really wierd.
Have a great 4th all!
Doc...
Seek a higher power; one who can tell you for certain if your yakomink is at HuffPo!
Have a great 4th!
Have a great day, USA!!
Happy to help, Peter, if help is needed.
Cheers
"It is a stat counter which measures how many visitors come to the blog and also captures the IP addresses."
Is someone trying to create a data base of us, the loyal opposition to AH's crass act?!
Hope you all had a wonderful 4th of July. We had the flag out, went to the park with some friends and had a very nice time saluting those who founded this great country.
SOOO if I get a little incoherent, please be understanding. Since I have about 4 drinks a year I sort of made up for it today.
Well, what I was going to say is that Huffingpost seems to NEVER or almost never link to Media Matters For America.
I wonder about this for a few reasons, mostly because IF one is to assume Huffingpost is truly liberal then it would seem a perfect association with THP. But they never do and if they have I've missed it.
MMFA is a great debunker of Rightwing lies, myths, obsfucations, half truths and character assassination yet THP which as I said seems a perfect partner ignores them.
On purpose?
Perhaps MMFA is direct competition?
IT would appear to me that whatever it takes to bring down the reich of Bush* would be the ultimate goal irrespective of anything else.
Oh silly me, I forgot, money uber alles and THP is not going to take a chance on turning people onto a rival site if indeed that is how they view MMFA.
Just some thoughts this evening. I hope the good doctor is reading this and if the Rost Post does indeed become a reality, I certainly hope MMFA is somehow brought into this dialog.
Whoooeee that only took twenty minutes or so after typo corrections and stopping to hold my head.
Happy 4th to America. Long may she stay a democracy.
Thank you antichrist for your "Huffington Rost" effort, having joined in late it will allow me to catch up easily.
Being a brit, I am pleased that the Guardian Unlimited is writing about this subject. Brits value such things as people's right to say what they think, fairness and fair play, politeness and tolerance of other people and their ideas. So naturally if HuffPo allows employee Yaco-Mink to post comments on nine occasions designed intentionally to annoy and antagonize, and disrupt the flow of discussion, well this contravenes the brit rule about fair play as well as a number of the other brit rules.
What makes the situation worse is HuffPo's twisted response, not accepting resposibility, accepting no blame and writing a load of bullshit convoluted reasoning and platitudes to explain why Arianna is all elegance and fragrance, Andy Yaco-Mink is as smart as a whip, young and thoughtful and Dr. Peter Rost is a villain. Don't forget, Andy "found Rost's writing incredibly annoying".
Is Arianna a secret script writer for the Bush W.H. now? All this bears too close a resemblance to your typical Bush W.H. response to the latest accusation to be coincidence, right?
Above post by me, not anonymous, I don't know how anonymous got in on the act.
No offense, Doc, but even by the rather elastic standards of the Huffington Post, you really do come off as being completely, batshit insane.
Re: the above comment Encyclopedia Dramatica has a nice page on insanity including "The Sky is Falling!" type insanity, "I Own the Internets!" type insanity, and "Batshit Crazy" type insanity.
It is surprising where internet travels take you.
Dr. Rost,
With all due respect, having a sitemeter with the name "yacomink" on it is FAR from a "sophisticated way" to impersonate Mr. Yaco-Mink.
If you go to sitemeter.com and try the free sign-up you will see this part:
"Codename:
Enter only one word without any spaces or special characters. Your codename is what uniquely identifies your counter and you will use it to log in to your Site Meter account. It is not a password but it will be visible to other people if they move their mouse over the counter on your site."
This "codename" is the the source of the "yacomink" that you saw on the meter. It was not drawn from an account name or anything like that, and had to be intentionally chosen by the person who created the site itself. Now, a logical choice for this codename would be something like "rostpost". Putting "yacomink" in there instead was a pretty transparent attempt to bait you. The later removal of the meter (and the blog itself) may be for any number of reasons. It really doesn't serve to support the idea that Mr. Yaco-Mink was actually involved.
The "Rost Post" was nothing more than a prank. It got some attention, which was of course its goal. It no longer needs to exist.
The presence of the word "yacomink" really doesn't implicate Andy Yaco-Mink in any way. It's like assuming that Andy Yaco-Mink wrote this post because I'm going to use that for the name field on this comment.
Your original investigation on THP was valuable, and the fallout from it has been very telling. However, I fear you're being egged on by some awfully paranoid commenters. Polls and voting schemes are easy to manipulate for a knowledgable user, and the internet is virtually founded upon the idea of people pretending to be someone they're not. Don't read too much into it.
best regards,
matt
I agree with Matt, that there is no proof in finding the name in the site meter, just like no single clue proves any crime.
But several clues may eventually lead to the unraveling of a mystery. If a person has commonly used his own, very unusual, name all over the internet and that same name is later found in a site meter, which rapidly is deleted, it certainly raises the possibility that the person associated with the name tried to hide the name in the site meter when he discovered the mistake.
It would have been more probable that a different person was behind the site meter if the site meter had been left alone. You see it wasn't just that the site meter was deleted from the blog, the site meter account for the blog was also closed. And then the blog. Someone really didn't want that site meter out there.
And if the content of the blog site matches what the person may say, there is another clue. And it raises the question if the heckler just can't stop heckling.
But there is no proof. Just a question.
That's the reason I've been careful just stating the facts, including the possibility of an impostor. I was just as careful in my first troll post. The suspicions in that post were verified by HuffPo, after I was fired. This time we're getting a denial.
I have requested the information associated with both the blog and the site meter, including IP address. It may be tough to get, but worth a try.
Dang Doc,
If you had CIA connections you could be one scary guy. :-)
Keep up the investigations. They are fascinating.
Dr. Rost,
I am glad to know you're taking this all with a grain of salt. I agree that several clues may indeed help to unravel a mystery, but keep in mind that red herrings can also drag you further away from the truth.
Personally, I didn't perceive the "Rost Post" temporary site as being terribly critical of you. Tongue-in-cheek for certain, but not mean-spirited. If anything, THP looked bad. In my eyes it was a joke/spoof made by someone who probably supports you, not something to be concerned about. There are plenty of perfectly innocent reasons to remove a sitemeter, including second thoughts about possibly worsening the situation by "framing" yacomink.
You have every right to enquire further, of course, but I also sincerely hope that neither blogspot.com nor sitemeter will give away personal information (including IP addresses) of their users without a subpoena.
Also, FYI, Google has "The Rost Post" cached here.
best regards,
matt
You're completely insane. Putting up a parody website is what's called "fair use," not "identity theft." Registering a site meter in Yaco-mink's name is not "sophisticated." All it require is typing "yaco-mink."
Have you ever even heard of "fair use?" In fact, because you've made such a jackass out of yourself, it gives whoever wants to parody you much more room under fair use precedent. If you really think it's "identity theft," which is a legal term of art and illegal in every state and under federal law, why don't you try calling the FBI and telling them about your case of "identity theft." Depending on the jackass tolerance of whoever answers the phone, perhaps you'll get a lesson in what "identity theft" really is.
Meantime, if you have any friends (it's hard to imagine at this point -- you are, for instance, the classic nightmare person to be stuck with at a party), you should ask them to do an intervention.
Dear "Anonymous"
So good to hear from you.
You write, "You're completely insane."
Kind of reminds me of when yacomink wrote, "Are you insane?" By: yacomink on June 14, 2006 at 12:10pm
No one else ever used those words.
:)
you mean the guy named "yaco-mink" who you claimed wrote under the "pen name" of "yacomink?"
Your understanding of the word pen name is as half-witted as is your understanding of fair use, libel, and identity theft.
And I promise you, someone thinking you're insane is not proof that they're Andy Yaco-Mink.
Thanks Matt for the cached Rost Post fake. Here it is:
"My Readers,
You spoke out on the Internet, and then I responded: after speaking to several very interested investment bankers and journalists, I decided to start the Rost Post, the truth seeking and uncensored answer to the seriously corrupted and compromised Huffington Post. But this time, instead of naming the website after someone who is not me, this website is named after someone else...someone who cares more about the truth.
Me.
Dr. Peter Rost.
Here, we will talk not only remember to talk about the pharmeceutical industry and it's various misdeeds (including firing me), but also about other truths, both small and large. The Rost Post will be your sounding board and your online community chat room, free from the lurkings of "anonymous" negative commenters, or "trolls."
I am very excited about the opportunity to blog in a more controlled, private area, free from the controls Arianna's editorial hammer.
We all know that I have several lawsuits pending against this nation's largest corporations. We also know that I was then ruthlessly terminiated from the Huffington Post posting staff after I publicly exposed their completely rigged system of highlighting only a small number of comments to a slightly higher, slightly more visable position in the comments section directly below the main text of posts on the posts on the Huffington Post. This terminiation occured only after a suspiciously low-ish number of written warnings from Huffington "editors."
Huge embarrassment for "the" Post? Yes.
Coincidence? I don't think so.
Welcome truth community!
posted by Peter Rost at 9:07 PM 0 comments"
Anyone else notice how there is no mention of Yacomink? I think it could have been him, and that he thinks his astroturfing fake posts really work.
Seeing that they let trolls paid and unpaid dominate their comments pages, one might imagine different types of fakes in rampant fake dialogue. Rendon, spook types, netvocates, et al.
Go for Rost Post. Your mission is truth and democracy. Also Doc, feel free to ban the troll who just called you insane.
I hate Arianna for giving us the run around for the whole year with all the deceptive posting there and with trolls not being banned and with all that censorship with the blogposts.
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