Deleted post

I deleted the post responding to the comment from Brad DeLong, as I wasn’t able to verify if was actually sent by DeLong.  Looks like I was the gullible victim of a hoax.  Oh well, live and learn.


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7 Responses to “Deleted post”

  1. Gravatar of Scott Sumner Scott Sumner
    29. July 2011 at 12:30

    Thanks to those who tipped me off. I can’t even find his email anymore, it mysteriously disappeared. And I found out that the email address is spelled slightly differently. Next time I’ll be more careful.

  2. Gravatar of Eric Morey Eric Morey
    29. July 2011 at 12:38

    Scott,
    The email standard that everyone uses works very much like the comment form on your website. Your email program has stored your Name, email address and a bit of other information as well from when you or someone who did it for you set it up to work. Your email program appends this information to the beginning of each messages in a plain text with some syntax in what is called a header. The recipients email program generally hides the header information, but uses it to “reply” to a message. There is trust that the header information was not faked. This tends to work because a) most people don’t know how to fake the header information and b) emails sent to you can only be retrieved with a username and password combination that ideally only you know. (The username and password is often stored in an email program, unless you use something like Gmail.)
    I hope that this clears things up.

  3. Gravatar of Lee Kelly Lee Kelly
    29. July 2011 at 13:10

    I always knew Brad Delong wasn’t a real person.

  4. Gravatar of OGT OGT
    29. July 2011 at 14:01

    If someone seriously is spending their time hoaxing Scott Sumner by pretending to be Brad DeLong, they need to take an econo-sphere break for the sake their own mental well-being.

  5. Gravatar of Scott Sumner Scott Sumner
    29. July 2011 at 14:32

    Eric, Thanks for the info.

    Lee, Yes, no one single person could know that much history.

    OGT, I’m not certain, but unless DeLong has two separate Berkeley email addresses, it looks like it was a hoax. Now that I think about it, the message was rather odd. I’m not even sure which person the hoaxer was trying to make look bad.

  6. Gravatar of J Mann J Mann
    30. July 2011 at 14:53

    Scott, you are smart not to anger DeLong. As we know, DeLong believes:

    1. The belief “there is no fundamental right to do X” necessarily implies “anyone who does X should be hunted down by killer robots.”

    2. There is no fundamental right to comment on his blog.

    3. Scott has commented on his blog.

    If I were you Scott, I wouldn’t invite Summer Glau in for a lemonade if she comes knocking, as much as it might pain you. . .

  7. Gravatar of Scott Sumner Scott Sumner
    31. July 2011 at 06:18

    Thanks for the tip J Mann, but I’m not intimidated. 🙂

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