NBC News Emailgate: The Truth May Never Be Known

Last week, a conservative group, Americans for Limited Government, alleged that NBC News producer Jane Stone sent ALG Director of Media Outreach Alex Rosenwald an anti-Semitic email. NBC denied the charge. Unfortunately, even if both parties release files documenting the email exchange, the truth may never be clear.

Want to get down to the bottom of the ongoing spat between NBC News and conservative group Americans for Limited Government? Well, the truth is out there, but it may never be found.

Late last week, Americans for Limited Government charged NBC News with having an anti-Semitic "culture." ALG alleged that NBC News producer Jane Stone sent ALG Director of Media Outreach Alex Rosenwald an email saying: "Bite me Jew Boy." NBC News claims that Stone's email included only the sentence: "Take me off this list!"

Unfortunately, even if both parties release files documenting the email exchange, the truth may never be clear due to the potential for forgery. Since server logs are written in plain text, a person with relatively elementary skills could easily alter server logs. "There is no way to ever be absolutely, positively sure that NBC sent the email - anything can be forged, anything! And that's a problem with the digital medium," asserted Kris Koiner, an expert in computer networks and architecture.

However, if NBC or ALG release their server logs, as they may do this week, there are a couple of things to examine:

"Server logs contain the size of the email sent - the size of the email is related to the number of characters in the message. If the size and the number of characters in the alleged email match, then additional evidence is offered to support the party's claim," explains Jacob Sheehy, a server administrator. Since "Take me off this list!" and "Bite me Jew Boy!" contain different numbers of characters, either NBC or ALG could release server logs that reflect the appropriate message size.

Further, if the email originated from an NBC server, the header should indicate communication between NBC’s outgoing mail servers and ALG’s incoming mail servers and their corresponding IP addresses (see an example below).

If both parties decide to release their server logs, certain steps could be taken to examine them for inconsistencies. In the end, however, if both ALG and NBC release server logs that reflect their claims, then we return to the ongoing standoff.

Part of an email header sent between two of my email accounts.

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