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A scandal is whipping through the internet about a tech reporter/blogger called Randall C. Kennedy who “invented” an alter-ego as an “expert” source for info about a speciality area of computing. He even posed as his fake self when giving interviews to other reporters!
Sucker/innocent victim ComputerWorld writer Gregg Keizer reflects on lies and liars and ‘the slippery slope of deception’ …
One of the more interesting people I’ve talked with in the last two years is a figment of his own imagination.
“Craig Barth,” the chief technology officer of Florida-based Devil Mountain Software, a company that makes and markets Windows performance metrics software, is, I have discovered, nobody. He doesn’t exist.
Barth is, in fact, a nom de plume, which is a fancy, French way of saying “alias.” The real man behind the curtain is Randall C. Kennedy, a popular, sometimes outrageous blogger for and frequent contributor to InfoWorld, a publication that like Computerworld is part of IDG. Kennedy’s connection to InfoWorld was severed on Friday.
The two, Barth and Kennedy, are one and the same. The problem was that I didn’t know that. The problem was that Kennedy didn’t tell me he was Barth, that I didn’t figure out Barth was he, and that together, they were Devil Mountain.
It’s a piece worth reading in its entirety, and a few key points about lies are well made:
Here’s the bare-faced lie:
But on Friday, after I confronted Barth with evidence that linked him to Kennedy — I didn’t yet know they were one and the same — he assured me that although the two had worked together in the past, and in fact, now worked together at Devil Mountain, any allegations that he and Kennedy were the same person were ridiculous. Two hours later, I received an e-mail from Kennedy, who I’d e-mailed separately.
“Time to level with you,” Kennedy wrote. “The individual Craig Barth doesn’t exist. It’s a pseudonym I created a decade ago while writing news copy for Windows NT Magazine. … “What began as a simple e-mail exchange of benchmark data two years ago snowballed, as all such white lies tend to do, into the mess we have today,” he [Kennedy] added.
“Lie” it is, “white” it’s not. And “mess” doesn’t begin to describe the fall-out over Kennedy’s disguising his identity to InfoWorld, Computerworld, and other news organizations and blogs, including the Associated Press, WindowsITPro, and Gizmodo.
During every interview with Barth since late 2007, I came away convinced he knew what he was talking about. On Friday, Kennedy claimed that everything but his identity was legit … Obviously, that’s moot now. Readers who scoffed at the data he presented last week have all that much more reason to doubt. Even people who accepted the data as valid, like me, have to wonder where the slippery slope of deception ends.
Yes, it’s like that with liars. Sometimes even when cornered and confronted with the evidence of their wrongdoing or falsehoods they will deny it to your face. Holding them to the light (not in a religious sense) is your only weapon.
Behind their liar’s mask they are sometimes desperately, feverishly looking for a way out, an angle, a counter-attack, a perceived weakness of yours they think they can exploit.
Compulsive liars all get caught out, eventually. The charade ends. After a struggle, sometimes, they collapse. But if you’re near them, watch them carefully….
They will look for allies, people who are still under their spell, and mercilessly exploit their naivete. If they can, they will use these acolytes to shore up even more defence, just like a mineshaft in danger of collapse. If the liar can convince their supporters that the liar himself is the victim or suffering some “injustice”, thus whipping up a sense of outrage, all the better for the liar.
But in their decline, following the downward spiral, the liar will sometimes kick-and-scream in a last wild effort to avoid exposure (in their ‘death-throes‘, really). They may thrash about, expelling the bitter sputum of their life of lies — impugning the motives and character of their accusers, trying to smear their exposers: attack-as-the-best-form-of-defence.
The liar’s last howl of anguish can be an all-out attack on those who exposed him, those who burst his deceptive balloon. There can be a very nasty sting in the tail.
Just remember: Lying is what they’re good at. It’s their winning formula. They’ll keep doing it. Just not to you.
UPDATE: Just read this… from Paul Thurrott’s article “Insane Blogger Fools Reporter, Gets Fired”
But what makes this delicious is that the “source” for this information was egotistical evil maniac Randall Kennedy, and I want to be clear about this description here, because calling him this makes other egoists, evil people, and maniacs look bad by comparison. Put simply, Kennedy is one of the craziest guys I’ve ever met and I state that with no sense of humor at all; the guy is nuts. Like, actually crazy.
Hmmm.
Peter,
Because, Barth is Kennedy and that he/they produce data on a particular product which is then considered “expert data,” and then used in such a manner that is up for consideration by consumers then it is most likely a very bad thing. Even if the data produced was accurate the source itself is now tainted and damaged; it cannot be believed.
The natural problem with creating deceptions in business or to business partners is “trust.” Once trust is damaged then it is almost impossible to repair. Probably, this is true for marriage as well.
From a standpoint of pseudonyms I see no harm in them at all as long as there is transparency on the business side of things. For example, the very ordinary name of writer Eric Blair sounds real enough – and it is real – but so too does his pseudonym – George Orwell. Blair’s public was interested in the contents of his books – George Orwell was just the name on the cover; it was not meant to deceive the public but to identify his ideas and style from book to book. His publishers and agent knew his real name – and this is where his business was done – where the money changed hands; so, no harm done.
Why use a pseudonym? Probably, because some people just want to be left alone. In my own case I plan on using a pseudonym for everything I write. I think a pseudonym gives a writer a certain boldness that he/she cannot ever hope to have if they themselves are exposed to the public and that public’s criticism. Perhaps that was how it started out for Barth but snowballed into lie so big that Kennedy could not stop it.
Thanks for the comment. Yes, I agree. John le Carre is another example of the same thing. It’s a ‘brand’ not a deception. If you look at the copyright page of some his books his real name is there.
I guess part of what interests me in the ‘downfall’ of Barth/Kennedy was his reaction when confronted with the truth: Denial-denial-denial-collapse.
Sometimes liars reach for lawyers to threaten those who expose them. And, of course, lawyers will take their money, and even send um, let’s call them deficient documents to threaten and attempt to intimidate the whistle-blower/exposer.
Blue Chip was an example of spruikers-under-pressure using this ‘strategy’ … and so, I understand, is the yokel I mentioned earlier.
For the opposer and exposer of dark deeds, (like our friend at 5nz.com) it comes back to that old post of mine: Daring — if there was no risk it wouldn’t take guts
… and your own comments about vendetta. regards, – P
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