Black Unicorn exposed?

At 11:00 AM 11/9/1996, Robert Hettinga wrote:
> S. L. vonBernhardt, <mailto:unicorn@schloss.li>,...

Black Unicorn recently stated that had taken measures to shield
his identity so that people would be unable to cause harm to
his professional activities by making unsubstantiated claims
that could scare off prospective clients.

It appears now that this protection has evaporated.  It will not
be very hard in the future to put this information together with
other statements people may make about Mr. Unicorn.

We are hardly operating in a hostile environment.  Yet, somebody
who has apparently gone to some effort to have an anonymous
identity has been exposed.  The implications of this are worth
considering.

Peter Hendrickson
ph@netcom.com

At 9:45 AM -0800 11/9/96, Peter Hendrickson wrote:
>At 11:00 AM 11/9/1996, Robert Hettinga wrote:
>> S. L. vonBernhardt, <mailto:unicorn@schloss.li>,...
>
>Black Unicorn recently stated that had taken measures to shield
>his identity so that people would be unable to cause harm to
>his professional activities by making unsubstantiated claims
>that could scare off prospective clients.
>
>It appears now that this protection has evaporated.  It will not
>be very hard in the future to put this information together with
>other statements people may make about Mr. Unicorn.
>
>We are hardly operating in a hostile environment.  Yet, somebody
>who has apparently gone to some effort to have an anonymous
>identity has been exposed.  The implications of this are worth
>considering.


Careful about the passive construction "was exposed." I took the
announcement, presumably based on his summary to R. Hettinga, and
containing biographical information which he presumably supplied, to be an
active decision by him to "come out of the closet."

Exactly as you did, Peter, by breaking your silence of many months (based
on your fears of a pogrom, as you admitted) and suddenly posting a large
number of posts in one day. It would be misleading for us to say "Peter
Hendrickson was exposed." You exposed yourself. As did S, L. vonBernhardt.

Ditto for Lucky Green, who has revealed his True Name to various of us, and
whose True Name could probably be deduced by anyone by spending a few
minutes with Deja News or Alta Vista.

--Tim May (not his real name)

"The government announcement is disastrous," said Jim Bidzos,.."We warned IBM
that the National Security Agency would try to twist their technology."
[NYT, 1996-10-02]
We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, I know that that ain't allowed.
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
tcmay@got.net  408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
Higher Power: 2^1,257,787-1 | black markets, collapse of governments.
"National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

On Sat, 9 Nov 1996, Peter Hendrickson wrote:

> At 11:00 AM 11/9/1996, Robert Hettinga wrote:
> > S. L. vonBernhardt, <mailto:unicorn@schloss.li>,...
> 
> Black Unicorn recently stated that had taken measures to shield
> his identity so that people would be unable to cause harm to
> his professional activities by making unsubstantiated claims
> that could scare off prospective clients.
> 
> It appears now that this protection has evaporated.  It will not
> be very hard in the future to put this information together with
> other statements people may make about Mr. Unicorn.
> 
> We are hardly operating in a hostile environment.  Yet, somebody
> who has apparently gone to some effort to have an anonymous
> identity has been exposed.  The implications of this are worth
> considering.

Do you have any reason to believe that S. L. von Bernhardt is Uni's
real name?

Alan Bostick               | You know those chemicals women have in them,
                           | when they've got PMS? Well, men have those very
mailto:abostick@netcom.com | same chemicals in them *all the time*.
news:alt.grelb             |           Margaret Atwood, THE ROBBER BRIDE
http://www.alumni.caltech.edu/~abostick

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
                          SANDY SANDFORT
 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

C'punks,

On Sat, 9 Nov 1996, Peter Hendrickson wrote:

> At 11:00 AM 11/9/1996, Robert Hettinga wrote:
> > S. L. vonBernhardt, <mailto:unicorn@schloss.li>,...
> 
> Black Unicorn recently stated that had taken measures to shield
> his identity...
> 
> It appears now that this protection has evaporated...

Appearances can be deceptive.


 S a n d y

"Scholars have discovered that the /Illiad/ and the /Odyssey/ 
were not actually written by Homer, but by another ancient Greek 
who had the same name."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You are making several unspoken assumptions. One such assumption is that 
S.L. vonBernhardt is Uni's real name.

-- Lucky Green <mailto:shamrock@netcom.com> PGP encrypted mail preferred
   Member JPFO. "America's Aggressive Civil Rights Organization"

On Sat, 9 Nov 1996, Peter Hendrickson wrote:

> At 11:00 AM 11/9/1996, Robert Hettinga wrote:
> > S. L. vonBernhardt, <mailto:unicorn@schloss.li>,...
> 
> Black Unicorn recently stated that had taken measures to shield
> his identity so that people would be unable to cause harm to
> his professional activities by making unsubstantiated claims
> that could scare off prospective clients.
> 
> It appears now that this protection has evaporated.  It will not
> be very hard in the future to put this information together with
> other statements people may make about Mr. Unicorn.
> 
> We are hardly operating in a hostile environment.  Yet, somebody
> who has apparently gone to some effort to have an anonymous
> identity has been exposed.  The implications of this are worth
> considering.
> 
> Peter Hendrickson
> ph@netcom.com
> 
> 
>

On Sat, 9 Nov 1996, Lucky Green wrote:

> You are making several unspoken assumptions. One such assumption is that 
> S.L. vonBernhardt is Uni's real name.
> 

Yup. Could be an alias, could even be a client.

- Rabid Wombat
(not my real name)

Peter Hendrickson sez:
> 
> At 11:00 AM 11/9/1996, Robert Hettinga wrote:
> > S. L. vonBernhardt, <mailto:unicorn@schloss.li>,...
> 
> Black Unicorn recently stated that had taken measures to shield
> his identity so that people would be unable to cause harm to
> his professional activities by making unsubstantiated claims
> that could scare off prospective clients.
> 
> It appears now that this protection has evaporated.  

How do you know he does not have a THIRD name........?

-- 
A host is a host from coast to coast.................wb8foz@nrk.com
& no one will talk to a host that's close........[v].(301) 56-LINUX
Unless the host (that isn't close).........................pob 1433
is busy, hung or dead....................................20915-1433

"David Lesher / hated by RBOC's in 5 states" <wb8foz@wauug.erols.com> writes:
> Peter Hendrickson sez:
> >
> > At 11:00 AM 11/9/1996, Robert Hettinga wrote:
> > > S. L. vonBernhardt, <mailto:unicorn@schloss.li>,...
> >
> > Black Unicorn recently stated that had taken measures to shield
> > his identity so that people would be unable to cause harm to
> > his professional activities by making unsubstantiated claims
> > that could scare off prospective clients.
> >
> > It appears now that this protection has evaporated.
>
> How do you know he does not have a THIRD name........?

I did some (very perfunctory searching in some engines and it seems that
_von_ Bernhardt is an extremely unlikely name. I did find a guy named
Rudolf Bernhardt who writes in international law, and a lawyer named
Stephen Bernhardt in Hamburg (?I forgot I already :-). It sounds like
another pseudonym.

---

Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM
Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y.: +1-718-261-2013, 14.4Kbps

At 12:45 pm -0500 11/9/96, Peter Hendrickson wrote:
>We are hardly operating in a hostile environment.  Yet, somebody
>who has apparently gone to some effort to have an anonymous
>identity has been exposed.  The implications of this are worth
>considering.

Nope. Sorry, Pete. Hope you didn't throw out your sholder, swinging for the
fences like that. ;-).


The name "S. L. vonBernhardt" is just another pseudonym of Unicorn's, and
as such, is just another level of redirection, in a rather, hrm,
redirected, life, I would wager.

For what it's worth, the DCSB speaker process is as follows: The speaker
pings me and offers to speak. I say, "Cool. Send me a paragraph about
yourself and another one about your talk, and I'll bounce it off the
program committee." (The program committee is the first 6 or 7 people who
said they wanted to speak when we started DCSB last year. It was my way of
making them sing for their supper. They sing pretty well, given the caliber
of speakers we've had. ;-).)

So, Uni sends me his two paras, which I forward to the program committee,
who do backflips, 'cause Uni's about an 11 on a 10-point "kewl" scale. And
that's it.

When blurb time comes for the talk, I copy and paste said two paras into a
piece of boilerplate, tweak here and there, spam the planet, and voila!, a
DCSB announcement blurb is history. Except of course when the speaker has
been, er, loquacious, and his two paras require editing down, which, in
Uni's case, he wasn't, so I didn't. Except his aside to me that "S. L.
vonBernhardt" is Yet Another Pseudonym.

In short, I sent out what Unicorn sent me. No skulduggerous efforts at
outing him were attempted.


You do have a nice swing, though. Next time, I'll put one over the plate
where you can hit it. :-).

Cheers,
Bob Hettinga

-----------------
Robert Hettinga (rah@shipwright.com)
e$, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"The cost of anything is the foregone alternative" -- Walter Johnson
The e$ Home Page: http://www.vmeng.com/rah/

On Sat, 9 Nov 1996, Peter Hendrickson wrote:

> At 11:00 AM 11/9/1996, Robert Hettinga wrote:
> > S. L. vonBernhardt, <mailto:unicorn@schloss.li>,...
> 
> Black Unicorn recently stated that had taken measures to shield
> his identity so that people would be unable to cause harm to
> his professional activities by making unsubstantiated claims
> that could scare off prospective clients.
> 
> It appears now that this protection has evaporated.  It will not
> be very hard in the future to put this information together with
> other statements people may make about Mr. Unicorn.
> 
> We are hardly operating in a hostile environment.  Yet, somebody
> who has apparently gone to some effort to have an anonymous
> identity has been exposed.  The implications of this are worth
> considering.

I'm sorry to disappoint you.
Mr. Hettinga and I decided to put a more reasonable pseudonym in the
blurb for those who might not be familiar with my list reputation.

> 
> Peter Hendrickson
> ph@netcom.com
> 

--
Forward complaints to : European Association of Envelope Manufactures
Finger for Public Key   Gutenbergstrasse 21;Postfach;CH-3001;Bern
Vote Monarchist         Switzerland

> 
> At 11:00 AM 11/9/1996, Robert Hettinga wrote:
> > S. L. vonBernhardt, <mailto:unicorn@schloss.li>,...
> Black Unicorn recently stated that had taken measures to shield
> his identity so that people would be unable to cause harm to
> his professional activities by making unsubstantiated claims
> that could scare off prospective clients.
> It appears now that this protection has evaporated.  It will not
> be very hard in the future to put this information together with
> other statements people may make about Mr. Unicorn.
> We are hardly operating in a hostile environment.  Yet, somebody
> who has apparently gone to some effort to have an anonymous
> identity has been exposed.  The implications of this are worth
> considering.

     You, and others are assuming that S. L. von Bernhardt is his 
real name. Many many levels of deception are possible. 


Petro, Christopher C.
petro@suba.com <prefered for any non-list stuff>
snow@smoke.suba.com