Marvin Sirbu's broken his silence on Usenet. There's been a long flamewar raging on alt.internet.media-coverage over the TIME/Marty Rimm cyberporn debacle. It resurrected itself after Phil posted a recent (and excellent) TIME article to the newsgroup. I added alt.current-events.rimm-study to the Newsgroups: line of my latest reply, and Sirbu, Rimm's advisor, responded. This is his first public post in months. I suspect that some members of the Committee of Investigation are reading the newsgroup and Sirbu felt compelled to reply. Sirbu's misrepresentations in his post are largely through omission. Note that I said Sirbu "allowed" Rimm to pass himself off as more than an undergraduate. Some errors in Sirbu's post: * Sirbu says I have "no way of knowing" what he told anyone. He apparently doesn't realize that I can and have talked to Phil and Rimm. * Sirbu characterizes my posts in general as "passing off speculation as fact," but doesn't say where I'm wrong. It sounds good but means little. * Sirbu says he never "allowed Marty to represent himself" as a post-doc. This is a misrepresentation through omission. If Sirbu were interested in truth-telling, he should have required that Rimm be honest and straightforward about his status and that of his fictitious "research team." Sirbu allowed Rimm to represent himself as the leader of a large interdisciplinary research team -- a representation that was nothing more than fiction. Jim Thomas wrote in an ethical analysis: As Sirbu should know, "research team" has a special connotation among scholars. A research team is not a casual circle of people who may occasionally interact. Sirbu's professed close relationship with Rimm and involvement in Rimm's research would give him knowledge of whether a "research team," as the term is conventionally employed by reputable scholars, did in fact exist. Sirbu's claim (above) that some high-level faculty "collaborated" with Rimm adds credence to, and perpetuates the image of, an established group of professionals well-integrated into a research project directed by Rimm as "principal investigator." Yet many members of Rimm's "research team" have disclaimed any knowledge or substantial involvement with him or Sirbu. Rimm also used other devices to conceal his true status from the public. When Rimm was a student, his computer account on CMU's Andrew system revealed his class status at Carnegie Mellon. "Finger"ing his Andrew account would have shown that Rimm was an undergraduate: a senior Electrical and Computer Engineering major. To hide his true status, in 1994 Rimm acquired another Andrew account that was labelled "CIT Dean's Office," meaning the Carnegie Institute of Technology. He used this account to communicate with researchers at other universities, often not revealing that he was an undergraduate student. Since CMU policies would have required Sirbu to sign the paperwork for Rimm's "Dean's Office" account, Sirbu knew or should have known what his student was doing with it. Rimm often used this account to lend the imprimatur of the Dean of CIT to his study. When Aaron revealed on Usenet that the author of the "Carnegie Mellon study" was an undergraduate, Rimm replied from the Dean's office account, without signing the mail: Date: Tue, 27 Jun 1995 07:59:02 -0400 (EDT) From: CIT Dean's Office To: Aaron L Dickey Subject: Re: Time, Dewitt AWFUL article More than two dozen members of the Carnegie Mellon community contributed to the project, including eleven faculty members and three graduate students. Thank you for your interest. As I documented in my "Case of the Two Cybersex Studies," Michael Mehta was a graduate student at York University in Ontario when Rimm called him to talk about similar projects the two were researching. He misrepresented his identity to Mehta, leading the Canadian to believe Rimm was a professor. Mehta said afterwards: "I feel like a total fool now. I was under the impression that Rimm was a tenured faculty member. He never corrected me when I called him 'professor Rimm.'" Again, Sirbu knew or should have known what his advisee was doing. Advisors have a responsibility to oversee the actions of their students. Even Rimm's paper clouded the issue of his own lack of background and credentials. Nowhere in the paper was his student status mentioned. The biographical footnote simply identified him as "Researcher and Principal Investigator, College of Engineering, Carnegie Mellow University." Since Sirbu's name was on the paper, and he was the faculty member signing off on the SURG grant, Sirbu should have read the paper before it was sent to the GLJ. Sirbu knew or should have known about this deceptive behavior and stopped it. I could keep going, but I'll stop here. This really annoys me. -Declan --- Date: Tue, 9 Jan 1996 10:46:56 -0500 (EST) From: Marvin Sirbu To: Outbound News , Outbound News , Outbound News , Outbound News , Outbound News , Outbound News , D B McCullagh Cc: mnemonic@well.com, ssatchell.820530586@bix.com Subject: Re: TIME on Net Censorship Excerpts from netnews.alt.current-events.rimm-study: 9-Jan-96 Re: TIME on Net Censorship by D B McCullagh@netcom.com > PED knew both times what Marty's status was. I told him what it was > myself in November 1994. > > Marvin Sirbu, Marty's advisor, allowed Marty to represent himself as a > post-doctoral researcher. So did CMU's PR office. PED went along with it. > Declan, you should stick to making statements about subjects you know something about. Unless you've been wiretapping my office you have no way of knowing what I've told Marty, PED or anyone else. But then, passing off speculation as fact is characteristic of many of your posts. I personally informed Time of Marty's status in November, and never condoned or "allowed Marty to represent himself as a post-doctoral researcher" as you allege. Marvin Sirbu