From Talk:Daniel_Brandt#Daniel_Brandt:_International_man_of_mystery._Yeah_Baby.2C_Yeah.21
See Daniel Brandt for context.
I'm not the author of the prank!
Daniel Brandt: International man of mystery. Yeah Baby, Yeah!
editI am a lawyer/investigator from the UK. I became aware of Brandt's activities through the press, following the JFK killing accusation affair. I saw his list. It seemed that for a man who had spent decades campaigning for privacy rights it was an extraordinary thing to print the name of someone who wished to remain anonymous simply for calling him "a complete kook". To then threaten legal action on that basis, which by the way is a threat of frivolous legal action, which is itself actionable in many jurisdictions. Users named here may very well have a case here and might want to take legal advice. I became interested in how Brandt went about getting the information. Some had the info on their user-pages etc. but some not. Brandt claimed to have experience and contacts in the intelligence establishment but I could not see how he had come upon some of the information.
He asked for anyone to send him information, so I decided to give him some: I set up a Gmail account (googlemail in the UK). Here is a screen-capture of the email I sent him:
I went to bed and when I woke up about 6 hours later, Brandt had added the information to his site - to the extent that User:Splash was no longer "John Doe #6" and was now known to be "Daniel Atta Benzona":
Quite amazing, since Brandt (a Berkley graduate, supposedly a sharp guy with a history around intelligence services) had put this (potential libel) up without even the most basic checks. He also accepted information (and then disseminated) information from someone claiming to be a creditor and enemy of Splash (of course this is all a fantasy.) Even though Brandt was made aware of the enmity this did not lead him to question the veracity of the information. He apparently did not do a search for Dr Callum Derbyshire (not my real name) - if he had he might have found that there is no such person - it would be strange for a person with a PhD or an MD to have no online results, nor any trace in UK people searches. This is all quite disgraceful stuff, and is extremely bad practice. This kind of behaviour goes against everything Brandt has stood for. It also makes a mockery of his attack on wikipedia which comes down to the problem that any anonymous fraudster can get anything added in - it appears that the same applies to Brandt's site. In fact it is much worse in his case: here anyone could see that it is false, if I hadn't made this public it probably would have stayed there forever. (Especially if I had chosen a more believable name.) Anyone who so desired could contact Brandt with the name of someone they don't like and Brandt would uncritically put their name and location online (so that anyone with a subscription to privateeye.com could get their home address) and make a legal threats against them! Simply breathtaking.
And what does the fake name "Daniel Atta Benzona" mean in Hebrew? [1]
- "Daniel you are a son of a whore"
Callum Derbyshire 14:20, 13 December 2005
- No one ever said causes can't be led by a hypocrite. Since I saw the list, I've always chalked it up to him removing the privacy of those who removed his privacy in an effort to maybe get them to see what its like to have your privacy taken away when you may be a person of marginal news worthness. Seen in that way, he still is working to enhance privacy. If my privacy were taken away then I would proboly think long and hard about protecting it in the future. As far as being an international many of mystery, just posting anything anyone sends him isn't smart nor helping his cuase. --Silver31u 14:35, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
- Well done, Mr. Derbyshire! Daniel Atta Benzona! That was simply inspired. This is conclusive evidence of what many of us have long suspected about Brandt. Hypocrite doesn't even begin to describe. I've wondered about his information gathering techniques ever since he listed me as "Craig Anderson", but this is just too amusing. Canderson7 (talk) 14:47, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
- Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!! Genius - pure genius!! Daniel, you son of a whore!! I nearly puked when I read that. All credit to the great "Dr. Derbyshire". I wonder how long it will take brandt to change his page back? jucifer 15:12, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
- Well, this is all very interesting and funny and all that, but am I the only one that finds it absolutely UE and self referential for it to be in the article about DB, whose supposed "notability" that "earned" him an article in WP against his wishes had nothing to do with WP? --FRS
- My own POV aside, I have to agree that mentioning this in the article is highly questionable. Still, Brandt and his wikipedia watch site have recieved a lot of media attention of late, so the site is certainly notable enough to deserve a full presentation in this article. I'll leave the decision to people that haven't had past dealings with Brandt. Canderson7 (talk) 15:25, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
- Ya, I'm not sure it is notable, it is just funny. But, if you do mention that he has put up names of wiki users, then I think it is appropriate to point out the dubiousness of the acuracy of that info. jucifer 15:35, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
- I'd agree with Juicifer, if you include that he's collecting wiki editor/admin info then the acuracy (or lack there of) is fair game. At the same time his "difficulty" in getting acuracte information feeds into his and others critisism of WP about creditbility and holding people accountable for what they write. --Silver31u 16:28, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
- Ya, I'm not sure it is notable, it is just funny. But, if you do mention that he has put up names of wiki users, then I think it is appropriate to point out the dubiousness of the acuracy of that info. jucifer 15:35, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
- My own POV aside, I have to agree that mentioning this in the article is highly questionable. Still, Brandt and his wikipedia watch site have recieved a lot of media attention of late, so the site is certainly notable enough to deserve a full presentation in this article. I'll leave the decision to people that haven't had past dealings with Brandt. Canderson7 (talk) 15:25, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
- Well, this is all very interesting and funny and all that, but am I the only one that finds it absolutely UE and self referential for it to be in the article about DB, whose supposed "notability" that "earned" him an article in WP against his wishes had nothing to do with WP? --FRS
- He's fixed it. [2] Canderson7 (talk) 15:32, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
And there I was thinking I had been outed. -Splashtalk 15:59, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
- Mr. Splash should locate "Callum Derbyshire" and sue him for libel. Or at least get him fired from his job. 4.230.153.208 16:36, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
- This incident is a bit ironic, because we are criticizing Brandt and questioning his creditibilty because he posted false information. We know who Brandt is and that he runs Wikipedia-Watch. We judge him based on the info he posted - which was false and his creditibility suffers because of it. But if he was able to enforce privacy like WP editors/admin then we wouldn't be able to judge Brandt accordingly because all he would be is a screenname. --Silver31u 17:54, 13 December 2005 (UTC)