Adam On…

Update: Looks like this was a belated April Fools joke and I fell for it. Great job! Now excuse me while I wipe the egg off my face…

Today is a solemn and sad day over at AdamDodge.com. Attrition.org announced today that it is no longer going to be updating the DLDOS site or the DLDOS feed. I completely understand the reasoning behind this move. I have noticed for a while now certain for-profit outfits using the ESI feed for their services so I can only imagine that the type of outright theft and plagiarism that sites like Attrition.org and PogoWasRight.org deal with. (Dissent over at PogoWasRight.org has a great post up about this whole situation.)

One of the first decisions I made with ESI was to ensure that I not only gave credit to the news source where I pulled the Abstract, but that I also gave a nod to the site where I found the news story. If I found it on my own, I list ESI as the source. However, if I find it on a site like Attrition.org or PogoWasRight.org I make damn sure I give them the credit. I run a breach disclosure web site so I understand how much time it takes to find and catalog these incidents.

The fact that companies and organizations out there feel the need to steal and repackage work done by others without attributing credit is a despicable practice and I urge anyone that uses such a service to reconsider the fact that you are paying for content that A) is being delivered through unethical and possibly illegal means and B) is most likely available from the original source for free.

I too understand the pressure to ensure that posts are mistake free. I have made a number of mistakes on ESI and I always feel horrible when I discover them. I always make sure to update the story to not only correct the mistake but to also point out that I did make a mistake. Given the lack of ethics the vultures that rip my content without permission and/or attribution display, I often worry that they never bother to correct these mistakes. So for everyone using these services that are not worried about ethics or the fact that they are paying for content that is freely available elsewhere, consider the fact that you may be paying for information that is not correct.

I want to thank Attrition.org for the hard work in running this amazing resource. I know that I for one will greatly miss the DLDOS.