The web site Real Science has posted an announcement of the death of blogger and former WUWT contributor Steve Goddard. WUWT has not yet been able to verify any of the details but Anthony has asked that the link be posted.
UPDATE :
An alternate Steve Goddard site is claiming that Real Science was hacked and that the death announcement is fake. WUWT is still unable to verify the details.
UPDATE 2:
It is becoming increasingly apparent that the report of the death of Steve Goddard is somewhat premature. When I first e-mailed Anthony with this news, his first response was “I don’t know this might be a fake is real name is ….” a subsequent e-mail responding to a link to the Real Science site noted “some of it jibes with what I know it some does not I’d be cautious…” then he asked me to post the link to the notice with a notice that we could not confirm anything. Apparently his caution was justified and WUWT readers can be assured that Anthony keeps a close watch on his interns even when he takes a rare few hours off.
UPDATE # 3
Steve Goddard himself appears to have weighed in here at WUWT:
I’m fine. I was off at a soccer game when this happened. Basically, someone I trusted went insane and took control of the site. I still don’t have access, as my IP address has been blocked.
I replied to an email purportedly from Real Science and got this response…seems like a fishing trip.
Thank you for your interest in contributing posts to Real-Science.com. Feel free to send us as many posts as you would like for review per day.
Username: Editor
Password: RealScience951
http://www.Real-Science.com/wp-login.php
The user name and password are real
Sea Ice is above normal on both poles, they must be worried now having to resort to this.
Billy Liar says (April 21, 2012 at 3:26 pm)
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Hmm. I made the same suggestion some time ago but got moderated out. I presumed it was because the Mods were working on it and didn’t want to give the game away. This is what comes of reading too many spy novels.
Note to moderator- might be wise to remove that for now?
[REPLY: No, this is getting interesting. -REP]
David ball.
i dont know whether i was the first or was not the first. I made no claim to priority and make no claim to priority and don’t give a damn.
It seemed obvious to me when I made the comment a couple years ago. Priority really isnt the issue
march says:
April 21, 2012 at 3:35 pm
March, I logged in using your info. It let me in.
I saw my nasty comment pending but logged out.
Now I’m probably on the suspect list…
What was I thinking?
I think the person posting on stevengoddard.wordpress.com is not SG either, as he gives no useful information. If it is indeed SG, then this is an unpleasant intramural or family matter. If not SG, a police matter. I’m in the middle of reading “State of Fear” by Michael Crichton, and there are enough unpleasant people in that book, never mind in the real world.
You haven’t changed your sticky.
I received the death notice email as well.
For a hoax, it sure is spooky.
kbray in california says:
April 21, 2012 at 3:50 pm
“Now I’m probably on the suspect list…
What was I thinking?”
I did as well. It’s only an editor account. You can’t do much. I tried to find out the e-mail addrs of commenters, doesn’t work. You need more rights for that.
Updated post at the other Real Science…
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2012/04/21/more-information/
It seems a little tangled. Nick Stokes and Mosher both agree that Goddard was not 81. Stokes says he is/was an avid cyclist and that they spent time together in Lisbon. Stokes says his name IS Steve Goddard. Mosher says it is not. I’m not certain how or where one could verify information for a wordpress blog. A “whois” run on real-science.com points to an ENOM.com, which in turn points to moniker.com. Other whois information for real-science.com points to whoisguard.com, which acts as a privacy cut-out that theoretically protects site owners from being spammed. So whoever the real Steve Goddard is, he or she is (or was) really fanatic about privacy (amusing when you consider the existence of a public blog) and probably wasn’t 81.
New message by Steve
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2012/04/21/more-information/
Whether on the real-science.com site or on the stevengoddard.wordpress.com, how can we know any messages from Steve Goddard are real?
I certainly hope Steve is OK. But this is not unraveling into clarity yet.
John
Some of you may be reading something into the fact the real-science.com whois listing shows cloudflare.com as the dns servers.
Cloudflare is a benign web caching service (I used it on two of my web sites for some time). It collects hit stats, and provides a protective layer between the primary web servers and users requesting pages. It caches web pages to increase web page response speed and also acts as a configurable filter that will block certain malicious attacks and known spammer queries so that total traffic is reduced to real queries in some cases dramatically lowering band width usage by the primary domain and improving page response times. So there is nothing significant about that dns info.
Regarding the rest of this issue I have no further info.
Larry
I’m inclined to agree with NZ Willy. While the announcement on real-science.com appears to be a hoax, I’m not completely sold on the ‘hacking’ of that web site. I’ve posted comments today at stevengoddard.wordpress.com that remain in moderation – one comment provides the result of the WHOIS I posted above. It’s publicly available information available to anyone capable of typing ‘whois real-science .com’ on a Unix-like computer, or going to any WHOIS web site.
Plus, the Steven Goddard posting at stevengoddard.wordpress.com says it’s a long story. Sounds to me [speculation] like Mr. Goddard found a marvelous wooden horse outside the gates and decided to bring it in to Troy. He got punked, and gave someone the keys to the domain as well as the web site. [/speculation]
I just received an e-mail from “info@real-science.com”:
“Scientist Steven Goddard has died in Dallas, aged 81. Paramedics were called to the scientist’s home at about midnight after he stopped breathing.
Goddard was taken to the medical centre early in the morning, and paramedics administered CPR in the ambulance. He did not regain consciousness and was reported dead about two hours later.
His friend, Susan Moore, told us: “He was a hilarious man. He had an outlook on life that was very honest and made you laugh with all the facts he came out with all the time.”
Goddard’s Dallas funeral at the St. Elizabeth of Hungary Catholic Church and cremation are scheduled for Wednesday. He is survived by his wife, activist Sarah Goddard, and their three children.
P.S. We will have a day of silence tomorrow where there will be no posts. On Monday 23rd April 2012 a new management team will take-over. If you are interested in writing for Real-Science.com, please contact us at info@real-science.com”
I suppose it’s because I left a comment there once or twice.
But what’s the point? “We know who you are and where you live, etc.”? Is that it?
Well if you wanna know, why don’t you just ask? I’ll happily answer.
DirkH,
Steve says it’s a friend of his… ouch!
I think he’s trying to shield his friend from criminal ramifications.
Let him work it out…
Personal betrayal really sucks.
On the 19th April, a number of WordPress vulnerabilities were published on bugtraq. Bugtraq generally doesn’t publish the info until the vendor has been contacted, and patches released (assuming they acknowledge the issue). If the hosting server for real-science hasn’t been patched, there is a possibility that they used one of the 3 published vulnerabilities, or they used a php sql injection directly and gained control.
Patch Tuedsday is an extremely important day.
I’m fine. I was off at a soccer game when this happened. Basically, someone I trusted went insane and took control of the site. I still don’t have access, as my IP address has been blocked.
Steven Mosher, you may have missed my addedum.
David Ball says:
April 21, 2012 at 3:14 pm
Oh, I see, that is your version of the five. I agree completely with your post then, …
Bebben says:
April 21, 2012 at 4:27 pm
“But what’s the point? “We know who you are and where you live, etc.”? Is that it?
Well if you wanna know, why don’t you just ask? I’ll happily answer.”
Would you also tell everyone your e-mail address so they can impersonate on you on blogs?
Thank you Steven,
AG
@ur momisugly Steven Mosher says:
April 21, 2012 at 3:00 pm
Fantasing about the death of skeptics is the penultimate step. Given what Zwick wrote, this hacking is not to be taken lightly. Long before this or the 10:10 video I explained that this stage would come. First stage: declare the end of debate. Second stage: ignore the other side.
Third stage: dehumanize the other side ( crazy, criminal, ect) Fourth stage: Fantasize violence.
5th stage: real violence.
******************************************************************************
You may find this monograph from the Army War College, of interest regarding your stages of violence. http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pubs/display.cfm?pubID=1101 . Although it is primarily focused on the Title statement ( Drug Trafficking, Violence, and Instability) , it has some bearing on your stages and notes that VNSA’s (Violent Non State Actors ) are on the rise around the world. I would include those organizations and individuals in the AGW camp who are promoting violence, in this description. It has been commented that: ““As surprising as it may seem, pirate attacks off Somalia, militias in Lebanon, and criminal armies in Mexico are part of a global pattern and not anomalies.” While these groups may not be discernably coordinated or associated, I would agree that there is a pattern developing.
The full paper may be freely downloaded as a ~ 3mb pdf.
Here is the introductory synopsis:
Quote:
Brief Synopsis
Although challenges posed by various kinds of violent armed groups initially appear highly diverse and unrelated to one another, in fact they all reflect the increasing connections between security and governance and, in particular, the relationship between poor governance and violent armed groups. In many cases, these groups are overtly challenging the state; in others they are cooperating and colluding with state structures while subtly undermining them; in yet others, the state is a passive bystander while violent armed groups are fighting one another. The mix is different, the combinations vary, and the perpetrators of violence have different motives, methods, and targets. In spite of their divergent forms, violent nonstate actors (VNSAs) share certain qualities and characteristics. These violent armed groups represent a common challenge to national and international security, a challenge that is far greater than the sum of the individual groups, and that is likely to grow rather than diminish over the next several decades. This monograph focuses on the complex relationship between human security, crime, illicit economies, and law enforcement. It also seeks to disentangle the linkages between insurgency on the one hand and drug trafficking and organized crime on the other, suggesting that criminal activities help sustain an insurgency, but also carry certain risks for the insurgency.