Note: a helpful commenter pointed out that this story is actually several years old. I misread the date. Because it is still an interesting story I am posting it back up.
A couple weeks ago Slate magazine asked the question “Who is Robert Klingler?” This led to the larger question, “How do you know the person on the other side of your email conversation isn’t a dog?” [thanks for the tip Sanjay]
In the famous New Yorker cartoon by Peter Steiner, a dog seated in front of a PC turns to his canine colleague and boasts, “On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog.”
Although dogs have not logged onto the Internet in the numbers Web visionaries predicted in the early ’90s, Steiner’s lesson still stands: You can never be too sure that your fascinating e-mail correspondent isn’t a barking imposter. Last week, Slate got taken by an Internet dog when it published the diary of “Robert Klingler,” an individual who claimed in e-mails and on the telephone to be the CEO of BMW’s North American operations.
Slate published two installments of Klingler’s projected weeklong diary before discovering his ruse on Tuesday, March 5. When told by BMW that no Robert Klingler worked there, Slate disavowed both diary entries, and I published this mea culpa, “Slate Gets Duped.” I explained that Klingler had “spoofed” his e-mail address to make it appear that it had originated from the car manufacturer.
So who was Robert Klingler? I unfortunately can’t do this article justice and strongly urge you to read it for yourself but, I will attempt to summarize enough of it to give you a flavor. Continue reading
With spring here, Indian organizations around the U.S. will be getting ready to celebrate 
