
Facebook Steps Up Attack On Man Who Claims Ownership - lakshmikandh
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/02/facebook-steps-up-attack-on-man-who-claims-ownership/
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hugh3
_But Facebook said it had copies of the two-page contract examined by Frank
Romano, a professor emeritus at the Rochester Institute of Technology and an
expert in document authentication. Professor Romano found “significant
inconsistencies” in type sizes, spacing, margins and other details between
pages 1 and 2. He concluded that Page 1 and Page 2 were printed at different
times on different printers and that Page 1, which includes references to The
Facebook Book, is an “amateurish forgery,” according to the motion.

Facebook said it also had Mr. Zuckerberg’s e-mail account at Harvard examined
by a digital forensic expert and found that the e-mails Mr. Ceglia provided do
not exist. The expert also found 175 other e-mails between the two men that
never mentioned The Facebook, the company wrote in the motion._

Sounds pretty convincing to me. By all means, let Ceglia's team have at that
if they want, but I'm pretty inclined at this point to believe that he's a
scammer, coming _way_ late to the "no really I own facebook" party with some
forgeries.

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kenjackson
Yes, it sounds pretty strong to me. If Facebook didn't strongly believe these
were forgeries, they wouldn't be pressing Ceglia for proof, but would be
pushing some other defense. Good for Facebook and Mark.

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vessenes
This is huge; saying unilaterally to the court that the documents are forged
sets up a massive worst-case "you lied when you told me these are forged"
scenario.

Frankly, I'm surprised. I would have guessed that they'd take a "This isn't
the The Facebook Book you're looking for" angle.

I'm marking this as the moment that Zuckerberg steps fully into his CEO role;
this is a quality counter-attack from someone who is no longer placating early
co-founders.

(crossposted from another FB/Zuck thread)

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anigbrowl
'This looks shopped to me. I can tell from some of the pixels, and from having
seen quite a few shops in my time.' ;-)

On the one hand, Ceglia has looked like a highly questionable plaintiff from
the outset, and when his first suit sank without trace I wasn't terribly
surprised. On the other hand, he's now represented by DLA Piper, one of the
largest law firms in the US, and the senior partner who is the lead counsel on
his case has a long and distinguished reputation.

It seems unlikely that the firm would risk its time or reputation on such a
questionable case without doing some due diligence of their own. There's a big
enough market in document authentication/forensic analysis for the legal
industry to sustain several companies; they advertise regularly in legal
magazines and newspapers. It's not like a new or high-tech concept that would
be unfamiliar to Ceglia's lawyers. Sure, it's _possible_ that Ceglia is hiring
Kip Hall [1] and his team by the hour, but much more probable that they're
working on contingency because they think he has a credible case.

1\. <http://www.dlapiper.com/kip_hall/>

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dhruval
The emails from the Ceglia complaint make Mark sound like a bad parody of the
character played by Jesse Eisenberg on the Social Network.

[http://i.zdnet.com/blogs/cegliavszuck.pdf?tag=mantle_skin;co...](http://i.zdnet.com/blogs/cegliavszuck.pdf?tag=mantle_skin;content)

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publicus
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you. Then they fight you, then you
win.

Sounds like Facebook is now at the fighting stage.

