More information has come to light about the identity of the writer for The Register who wrote a column in which Electronic Frontier Foundation was falsely accused of losing several cases (most of the "cases" mentioned as EFF's losses were either EFF wins, not cases, or not EFF's cases). The piece was published under the by-line "Bonhomie Snoutintroff." Like many people, I assumed that the piece had been written by Andrew Orlowski, a reporter at The Register with a track-record of leveling accusations at EFF.
However, I was wrong. On February 3, I ran a retraction after an insider at The Register tipped me off that "Bonhomie" was a pseudonym for another long-time Register contributor.
Now the FFWD blog has made a compelling case that Bonhomie Snoutintroff is the pen-name of Thomas C Greene, a long-standing Register contributor who used several near-identical passages in a 2001 article in The Reg.
I wrote to Greene to ask him if he was Snoutintroff. Here's part of our exchange:
CD: Did you write the Bonhomie column about EFF? If not, did the writer who did so use your lines with or without your permission?
TG: I don't like to be cagey, but if i am bonhomie, then i should prefer to leave it unconfirmed so that the nom de guerre isn't a total giveaway, whereas if a contributor to the Reg had, say, flattered me by imitating a phrase of mine here and there, then i would handle that directly, and not embarrass the fellow in public.
So it's a bit of a no-win item, as you can see.
I find it puzzling that there is such interest in learning the author's identity, since the piece is obviously not straight news. Bonhomie's byline should make that abundantly clear.
Now, if it were straight news, and it became controversial, we would certainly handle it in a more formal and forthcoming manner. But questioning the EFF item strikes me as very much like questioning this one: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/04/01/bush_twins_volunteer/ .
I would add that many writers and journos use pseudonyms occasionally, and enjoy it for what it is: a chance to write in a voice not one's own. It can be useful creatively sometimes, or it can simply be a welcome break from the routine. Sometimes, journos contribute to competing publications, and often prefer to do so pseudonymously. At the Reg we've had several pseudonymous submissions from known tech journos who would prefer not to advertise where they work. I've published articles elsewhere myself, sometimes under my name, and sometimes under a nom de guerre.
There's really nothing sinister to it; it's a common practice, actually.
If Greene and Snoutintroff are indeed one and the same, it's a pretty ironic circumstance. Greene is the author of "Computer Security for the Home and Small Office," which contains chapters on the correct use of crypto to defend your network. The irony is that the strong crypto that Greene's book recommends was only legalized when EFF won the Bernstein case, which menas that Greene owes part of his living to the victories of an organization that the Snoutintroff article characterizes as a perennial loser (the other irony is that the article predicts that EFF will lose its class-action suit against Sony for distributing malicious software on its music CDs, a case that EFF went on to win).
(Thanks, Jason!)
