self-promotion [was: 198.32.64.12 -- Harmless mis-route or potential exploit?]

Wed Sep 3 02:08:41 UTC 2008

On Tue, 2 Sep 2008, Steven M. Bellovin wrote:
> On Tue, 2 Sep 2008 21:40:38 -0400
> "Patrick W. Gilmore" <patrick at ianai.net> wrote:
>
>> [SNIP]
>>
>> Just so that I am clear on your issue here: You believe it is "okay"
>> for you to put your linkedin URL in your .sig, but Gadi must not be
>> allowed to put it at the top of a post?
>
> Yes, I think that's exactly right.  It's a statement of what the sender
> perceives to be important about the email.  I read email for the

I agree, which is why this fluke in not deleting the last line with ctrk+k 
as PINE appends signature lines at the top of the post by default--was 
awkward. Good thing I don't much get deterred by awkward.

Still, I bet this is going to be a huge thread yet again. No one 
appends any URL at the footer--not even me! ;) But folks with no content 
to contribute would naturally jump at it like they would at even just a 
typo.

I suppose it is only natural when you become a celebrity of any sort--you 
draw all sorts of attention. At first my thick skin helped, nowadays I 
just find it amusing.

Folks flooded mailing lists spoofing my name (creating ASCII art of Beavis 
or a swastika) using the subject lines. They flooded yet again, with furry 
porn pictures attached. They launched fan blogs, created an Encyclopedia 
Dramatica entry...

I've had a comic strip made about me, a song written about me, a fake 
craigslist entry... all of course, serving as a boost to my ego--knowing 
"now I must have made it!" ;-)

There was a blackhat presentation which in part was about how someone 
faked a social network account being me, and how he almost got an 
informationweek interview as me out of it--I was on to him.

Most recently, someone created a comic-strip in ASCII about me (very 
funny, but R rated, so don't go if you find that type of thing offensive).
It's from the "now I know I've made it!" department:

http://fr.pastebin.ca/raw/1094119

To wrap this up, I don't often (at all) use signature lines, but I do have 
them and out of habit delete them with almost every new posting from the 
footer.

I had two VERY self-depricating (and very funny) quotes, before, which 
also were not often used, anyone remember?

1.
"beepbeep it, i leave work, stop reading sec lists and im still hearing 
gadi" - HD Moore to Gadi Evron on IM, on Gadi's interview on npr, March 
2007.

2. 
*FART*
     -- Avi Freedman to Gadi Evron in a Chinese restaurant, Boston 2007.

To even things out, my new barely ever used footer signature, is:

-----
"You don't need your firewalls! Gadi is Israel's firewall."
     -- Itzik (Isaac) Cohen, "Computers czar", Senior Deputy to the Accountant General,
        Israel's Ministry of Finance, at the government's CIO conference, 2005.

     (after two very funny self-deprication quotes, time to even things up!)

My profile and resume:
http://www.linkedin.com/in/gadievron
------

So, I missed one line and it stuck at the footer and no one noticed it 
except the trolls. Now that the awkward moment is over and I made the 
unnecessary yet required explanation... can we move on?

I really should use the man page and see how I move the signature from the 
footer in PINE.

Thanks for the free advertisement of my resume, trolls! Appreciated.

 	Gadi.

> content; having the URL at the top is an assertion by the poster that
> he thinks his resume is more important than what he says.  (Yes, I know
> some of you are about to hit reply to say "maybe it is from Gadi".
> Don't bother -- what he says is often quite valuable.)
>
>
> 		--Steve Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb
>