Thanks for the very interesting blog you're writing! There are technical solutions to the problem of identity theft. Not yet widely exploited, and perhaps not viable on the web yet, but you might want to start using it anyway. Also, it could become extremely important for bloggers in Iran in their fight against oppression, because that is what it was made for: It's called PGP. Start at http://www.openpgp.org/ There's also http://www.pgpi.org/ but that's more of historical interest. You use strong cryptography to digitally sign and/or encrypt files, pieces of text or whatever. A receiver, which also uses PGP can with some effort check that the text was written by the person that it claims to be written by. There is some effort involved, because it is not sufficient to just use the software, you have to physically meet some people, in order to build a web-of-trust. By a web-of-trust if we trust somebody that we've both met to correctly identify each other, we can verify the author of a message as being somebody we haven't met. The web of trust can be expanded, depending how sure you need to be about someones identity. Thus, if you sign your message with your digital signature, and we're reasonably close in the web of trust, I can verify your identity, and identify the fake. BTW, this message is not signed, but my key-id is 6A6A0BBC.
- By: Kjetil Kjernsmo on June 5, 2003

Here's the hoaxer's IP address: 64.229.130.132
- By: Jeff Jarvis on June 3, 2003

Hosein, It's not a big deal! You need to tell ur visitors about it so that they can tell others. ur visitors are at least a large portion of bloggers.
- By: Soroosh on June 3, 2003

Dear hosein, isn't it a type of net-censorship ? I think pyralabs did a wrong move, I will compare blocking of that weblog with new wave of blocking of iranian site's in my weblog few hours later regards, Nima
- By: Nima on June 3, 2003

Hello dear Hoder, Hopefully it is blocked and perhaps deleted now, I think it is better to neglect these stupid attempts otherwise they feel they are doing something; besides I think right of talking and writing is for all and as you see in many opposition sites they can write everything and event insult others but the maun thing is TO IGNORE THEM not to talk about them and even complain because it will give them more credit.
- By: Simone on June 3, 2003

Since the fake blog was written in Farsi, I wonder if this was some sort of attempt to discredit you guys to other Iranians. Hmmm.... who would want to do such a thing?
- By: Andrea Harris on June 3, 2003

Hoder: I got lots of links to this in my comments, asking me to link to it from my blog. I smelled something wrong (as I say now on my blog) but, of course, I couldn't verify that it was a hoax since I couldn't read the language. (The guy posted something about me but, of course, I can't read that, either.) People will know the real Hoder from the fake Hoder; even I could see he put up a tacky blog.
- By: Jeff Jarvis on June 3, 2003

Wow! I checked that weblog again and it seems that it is deleted now! Good Luck! Michael,
- By: Michael on June 3, 2003

Hello dear Hoder, As far as I know there is no legal way to stop writing but I sent an email to blogger yesterday because I saw that stupid writings before and recently, after I checked that site, it seems it is blocked now. so do not worry and Good luck. Michael,
- By: Michael on June 3, 2003

Hello Hoder; If this is the same guy I have seen at blogsport, hey, you are sitting on so much legal muscle you have no clue. I read that you say this guy lives in Canada. Are you sure? If this is for sure, You have even more power. There must be some law in Canada. I live in the U.S. and I know there is tons of laws to stop these guys. I can give you some legal guidelines on slander and defamation laws. Send me email. Keep up your good work. :-)
- By: Hooshyar on June 3, 2003

Below is a recent comment entry in buzzmachine.com. I suspected that there is something spooky about it when I read it. And this is a serious concern. We should do something about it to protect our identity. Can't anybody track his IP and block it or request blogger to shut the site? "Hello dear Jeff, It is my new weblog address, please spread the word all around. http://www.ihoder.blogspot.com Appreciated, Hossein Derakhshan"
- By: Rezwan on June 3, 2003