Good Schools, Attacks

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"...every group that wishes to see conflicting interests resolved reasonably, or is wise about the conditions under which it enjoys its own freedom, must be profoundly concerned with the state of freedom of speech and assembly, freedom of inquiry and teaching, freedom of press and other forms of communication, freedom of cultural opportunity and development. For in large measure intelligent moral choice depends upon them."
--Sidney Hook (1902-1988), disciple of John Dewey, and champion of pragmatism and democracy

Regular (and often creative) attacks on Goodschools present constant challenge

I am not one to complain about opposition to this website, and I am not complaining now. It is a simple fact that almost from its inception it has been the target of constant attacks. Some of these attacks take the form of intelligent repartee. I like those attacks because I can deal with them logically. Initially, most of the attacks took that form.

However, once the Goodschools' antagonists realized that they were not winning the battle of words, different tactics were employed. Here are some of the most recent, and most common attacks:

There are numerous attacks each day by those who hate this site, attempting to plant a virus or worm on the goodschools email server. Of late my administrator has been more successful in blocking these attacks, but I do know that in the past thousands of bogus emails have gone out under the goodschools' name, mostly promoting the most nasty of porno sites.
Some months ago the whole goodschools site was virtually hijacked by an attack from a culprit located just outside Paris (at least that's where his server was located). Using FTP access, he loaded goodschools with a pirated current popular movie, and was wrongfully allowing downloads of that movie to those who engage in buying such things. We are not certain if this activity was designed for profit, or simply to get goodschools in legal hot water. We caught this early on, and locked down the site to prevent similar attacks. While these activities are against the law, they are very hard to prosecute.
The most sneaky attack involved at worst the possible capture and editing of a PDF, or at least the manipulation of the content of that file. The altered file was one that was accessed from a link on this website. It was the "Printable Copy" (www.goodschools.com/darwin.pdf.) of the page on Darwin's Theory of Evolution. The editing involved the addition of ("the black race") after "anthropomorphous ape." When I first heard about it, I thought the whole matter ludicrous, because that silly inclusion ("the black race") did not appear in the HTML text of my original web page. I never thought to click on my own link to view the text of the printable PDF of that page. Finally, a reader (thank you Celeste) brought it to my attention (that I needed to click on the "printable copy" link in order to find the inclusion). When I initially read it, I had no idea how it got there. I did not think that PDFs could be altered. My first reaction was that I might have injected it in jest just to rile up a colleague, knowing it not to be correct, but never intending it to reach the actual web; but upon further investigation, I found that it had to have been the result of tampering. (It should be noted here that Darwin's term, "anthropomorphous apes," which he uses numerous times throughout "The Decent of Man," while ubiquitous, could never be seriously equated with " the "black race." In fact, in the very quote itself Darwin uses the term "savage races" (which in Darwin's mind did represent the "black races") to designate something quite different from the "anthropomorphous ape." It would have been totally impossible for me to have made even a typo suggesting Darwin's "black race" and his "anthropomorphous ape" were the same. I must add here that Darwin's "anthropomorphous ape" is his term, it is a descriptive and nothing more, and does not designate a scientific category, as might be construed from his usage of the term.)

Later, upon examination, I found that not only did this parenthetical not appear in the original "html" of the web page that linked to it as its source for a "printable copy," and not only did it not represent my thinking; but when I went back and found the original "Pagemaker" file (from which PDF was created), that file did not include that parenthetical.

Furthermore, after more careful consideration, I determined that had I actually placed that inclusion after "anthropomorphous apes," even in jest, I would have used brackets, not parenthesis. I concluded that it was virtually impossible that this could not have been my work; but rather was yet another attack, just one more insidious than most. My biggest errors in this regard, were (1) not taking greater care to guard the vulnerabilities of my web server, and (2) not periodically reviewing the content of the site (I understand that this problem persisted for a long time).

How, then, did it get there?   I researched the subject and found that PDFs can be edited. I already knew that an attack on goodschools had occurred via the FTP portal. Most likely, once the attacker had got in, it would then have been a possible (but not very simple) step to make this change on the PDF.

Another possibility would have been for the attacker to have downloaded the original Pagemaker file from my server (that file was on the server), and created a new PDF from that file.

In retracing the attacker's tracks, I found that once access to the site was gained, I could accomplish what the attacker accomplished using both methods. While I am not sure which tactic was employed, I do know that surreptitious entry was gained, and that it was gained via the FTP portal.

The resulting attack was quite effective because the attacker had correctly assumed that I would not discover his work for a considerable amount of time. In this respect, it was far more effective (because it was less obvious) than had he simply altered the HTML of the original page.

At any rate, I have corrected this PDF issue by replacing the corrupted file with the original, and by blocking the FTP portal. I can also say that I have taken other steps that I have been told will prevent this from happening again.   But, there are a lot of very smart people out there who would rather attack the truth with lies and manipulation, than argue the facts. I suspect that something like this will be attempted again; perhaps with success (Please do not view this as a challenge!). I will remain as vigilant as possible, but I can make no promises. If you find what appears to be error, let me know. If I am found to be in error, I will admit it (I have been corrected before, and welcome such).

...And, if my site is again compromised, I will fix it.

But I will not give in to scoundrels--neither should you.

--Mike Carrier (MA, NYU--Graduate School of Arts and Science)

This site features a frank presentation of issues facing parents, taxpayers and schools in reforming schools in the twenty-first century. Good Schools promotes good schools, and explains what is necessary to achieve good schools. We are convinced that good schools can be obtained only with sound curriculum, which does not include the teaching of Darwin's theory of origin, or Darwin's theory of evolution. We believe that local school boards need to be empowered, and the influence of teachers' unions ought to be limited to labor-related issues. Teachers' unions should have no say in curriculum.

We are convinced that the teachings of Darwin, particularly Darwin's teachings on evolution, and Darwin's theories on origins, ought not be taught as fact. Darwin and Darwin's theories are not generally accepted by contemporary physicists and cosmologists, and, therefore, Darwin and Darwin's theories ought not be accepted whole-cloth by our schools of education, and ought not be presented as fact in public schools.

Because Richard Dawkins has set himself up as the number one defender of Darwin and Darwin's theory of evolution, we will go to some length explaining Dawkins' Darwin defenses, and we will do our best to explode Dawkins' Darwin defenses.

We seek to show from Darwin's own hand that Darwin, and Darwin's theory of evolution, are racist at the core. Darwin was a racist, Darwin's theory of evolution is racist, and Darwin's theory of origins is racist.

We further seek to show that Darwin's theory of evolution is not scientific. We show that racism, more than science, was behind Darwin and Darwin's theory of evolution, and Darwin's theory of origins.

Some of the terms commonly used on this site are: Darwin, Dawkins, schools, public schools, education, gun control, teachers, John Dewey, Littleton, racist, racism , school choice, African American, Sidney Hook, evolution, and Mike Carrier.

Bottom line--good schools require work. Good schools do not just happen. We need good schools, if we are to have a good nation.