Letters to the Editor
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Wow
Glenn,
This is one of the most interesting blogs I have ever read. The research you have done, the links you provide and the updates not only make this a compelling story, but prove once again why the internet gives voters the greatest wealth of up to date information in the history of the world.
On a related note. The link between this administration and the right wing media is continuous and well documented. This adds to the belief that it is also un American, and possibly treasonous.
Keep up the great work.
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Hume's Ghost
I don't claim to be an expert or anything, but if someone can send fake e-mails from the PR agent of a general in the United States military that look authentic isn't that a pretty big deal for some fairly obvious reasons?
Exactly. I don't get why that's not a bigger point.
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Public IP 214.13.200.111
According to the "DNSStuff" Web site, 214.13.200.111 resolves to the 02exbhizn02.iraq.centcom.mil server at Camp Pendleton, CA.
http://www.dnsstuff.com/tools/ptr.ch?ip=214.13.200.111
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hell
May as well forward the exchange to a Congressional oversight committee. THere's no way in my mind that if Boylan's email is compomised that is not a matter of national security.
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Differences in Time Zones
Don't know if this has been mentioned but any differences in the appearance of Time Zones could be caused by changes in the Daylight Saving Times. Europe changed back to "Winter Time" last night and Iraq last Friday. The US will change to Winter Time coming weekend.
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patanol. please.
I went to my drawer of my desk.
I was admitting, mixed up bad,
O, about what is ultimate reality?
A white letter from GWB, was
all stuffed with bribe bills?
Proof that it was not a dream!
It really happened. Read: Col. Boylan...YEA- He the Gen. Peterus', and a right hand man, a loyal spokeman. "honest"...
O, gads. kick me into the haystack, please.
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@Orlando
Well, even if it is macho posturing, it's absolutely, from a professional perspective, unacceptable for a Colonel to be engaging in such bravado.
He is representing his boss. To do so in such a manner should terminate his career.
Then again, considering the example set by the petulant three year old "Commander in Chief", you may have a point.
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pantanal @ good idea
Heck I don't know. I just don't know how the internet works. But all I can say is that if I was Col. Boylan, I would be getting kind of worried about all this email being sent out in his name. I mean, this guy speaks for a four-star general, one of the very best we have.
Come to think of it, seems like Gen. Petraeus should be informed about all this also. Is the internet over in Iraq secure? Isn't that important?
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Don't get "Rathered"
While the circumstances surrounding this email are curious, I'd recommend ignoring it and sticking to the original facts that supported your original post about military becoming just another GOP noise machine.
If this email is real, then Boylan is a fool for sending it.
If this email is fake, then its just another smoke screen designed to confuse the facts - the internet equivalent of throwing sand in your face.
Don't end up like Dan Rather and have your whole argument thrown out because one tenuous piece of "evidence" falls into doubt - stick to the facts and stick it to them! You have enough proof without having to waste your time on this piece of junk.
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this is Petraeus' PR guy?
You know, it would be embarrassing if he made these comments semi-anonymously on Free Republic and got found out. That this came directly from his email address -- spoofed or not -- is really unprofessional. In the private sector it would be cause for dismissal for someone, anyway -- probably cause for reassignment in the military (a la diapered astronaut). It will be interesting to see how this all shakes out. So far, I'm unimpressed with the Colonel's response.
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A couple observations from an email illiterate
1. Original email was signed "Steve." Boylan's reply was signed "Steven." Most resolve the short or long versions of their name by adulthood.
2. My question to Boylan would be whether he can confirm whether or not the email came from the same address as his prior emails, regardless of who actually sent it.
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I've Got It!!!
Either Boylan has been impersonated or his computer has been compromised or Salon's has.
Or maybe it's all just a dream that Glenn had. He dreamed up the original message and then woke up and e-mailed to authenticate. Leaving confusion in his wake.
Yeah, sure! That's the ticket!
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Mixed Signals Abound
Whether I agree with what the email says or not is not an issue I wish to discuss with you, as I decided after our last exchange that I would not take the time or efforts to engage with you.
Is there a reason why you posted this?
___________________________________________________________________
It's probably wiser to refrain from further comment on the content of the e-mails until the controversy surrounding its authorship and authenticity is clarified to the extent possible.
But since that might take a while, and because I can only skim through the technical issues raised by the knowledgable commenters here, I'll simply note the acute passive-aggressive character of the closing excerpt: after stating that he can't be bothered with you because he deems you a dishonest interlocutor who has neither legitimacy or standing to engage in professional correspondence with him, he leaves you with... a question.
Classic pathological, passive-aggressive, abusive control freak personality tactic-- slam the door in your face, then leave it open a crack to (further) throw the victim off-balance.
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assuming it was fake
I'm trying to piece through how this could have been done without hacking either salon, or the Army's email systems.
The Col's email is guessable, since it follows a fairly conventional first.last@domain.com format.
And the email headers might be spoofable if Salon's mail server doesn't do reverse DNS verification on incoming mail (seeing as it has some kind of antispam system running, I would guess that it does)
And assuming that, someone could figure out the Army's external mail gateway in the header. That's the 214.x.x.x address.
But what couldn't be spoofed or guessed is that 10.70.x.x IP address. That, as many point out is a necessarily internal IP address to the Military's private network, behind its firewall. There is no standard for where on a 10.x internal network an organization must locate its email servers, so that is not guessable with any kind of detailed general knowledge of networking or email.
So it would have to involve internal knowledge of the Army's mail, either through capturing the original emails Glenn was sent or maybe from some other email the Colonel sent.
Even then, this is so unlikely which is why Salon's IT can confirm (at least to Glenn) the security settings on Salon's email, which probably will rule out any kind of spoof.
Most likely answer is still that this is genuine and came from the Col's email account.