[conspire] (forw) Re: 'Consortium of All Bay Area Linux' translation

[Edward Cherlin]

On Thu, Apr 28, 2011 at 18:40, Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com> wrote:
> The funny thing is, Eric Raymond and I recently got a similar inquiry,
> likewise from a free-of-charge webmail account, asking our permission
> to translate 'How to Ask Questions the Smart Way' into Belarussian.
> I thanked the correspondent, and gently pointed out that there's already
> an existing Belarussian translation that's not only on the Web and
> (as far as I'm aware) perfectly adequate but also is mentioned right
> under the Table of Contents _and_ that permission is granted to
> translators under quite generous standard conditions right under that.
>
> And now, this weirdly similar, almost identical offer, and a quick
> check finds similar inquiries with MirOS Project, GNU Octave,
> Amavisd, GCC, Linux Documentation Project, FreeBSD, Perl5 Porting FAQ,
> LAPACK, Cygwin, Linux ASM, Procyon AVRlib, and Git (which puts CABAL
> in august but odd company).   Is something strange going on in Belarus?

It goes without saying that strange things are going in in Belarus all
the time, but I take your point. I also note that our strange
correspondent's e-mail handle "bozograf", means "Lord of the Bozos" in
any Slavic language, as well as in German. (Well, technically Count,
but it's too good to pass up.)

But wait, there's more!

> ----- Forwarded message from Bohdan Zograf <bozograf at gmail.com> -----
>
> Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2011 01:13:34 +0300
> From: Bohdan Zograf <bozograf at gmail.com>
> To: bofh at linuxmafia.com
> Subject: 'Consortium of All Bay Area Linux' translation
> Reply-To: "bozograf at gmail.com" <bozograf at gmail.com>
>
> Hi!
>
> I'm willing to translate publication located at
> http://linuxmafia.com/cabal to the Belorussian language (my mother
> tongue). What I'm asking for is your written permission, so you don't
> mind after I'll post the translation to my blog. The translation is
> intended only for web, no print copies planned.
> Visitors of your website, who come from Minsk (Belorussia) will be the
> ones, who will read this blogpost, that's the only way to spread them,
> no additional instruments we can use. Every translation we ever do
> does not costs a penny for the webpage, which is translated. All we
> ask is to link back in whatever way you feel confident about it.

Aha! I think I've rumbled him. If my cynical supposition is correct,
he's going to post either an existing translation or a machine
translation of the works in question on a Web site and try to Make
Money Fast/fob off malware/insert other spammy activity from those we,
all unknowingly, send to his site, which we can't read to check for
said nefariousness because it's in Belarussian (which we could fake),
and mainly because he unaccountably did not provide the URL.

It isn't a 419, but somehow it puts me in mind of

Dragon:		What's the charge?

St. George:	Devouring maidens out of season.

Dragon:		Out of season?!?  You'll never pin that rap on me!!  Do you hear me,
copper?!?!

St. George:	Yeah, I hear you.  I got you on a 412 too.

Dragon:		A 412!!!  What's a 412?!?!?

St. George:	Over-acting.  Let's go.

Don-de-don-don

St. George and the Dragonet
Stan Freberg, 1953

> Thank you for the article.
> You can leave a voice message and I will call you back, if you prefer
> a call instead of emails.
>
> Sincerely,
> Bohdan Zograf
> +(360) 488-0303
>
> ----- End forwarded message -----
> ----- Forwarded message from Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com> -----
>
> Date: Thu, 28 Apr 2011 15:26:46 -0700
> From: Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com>
> To: Bohdan Zograf <bozograf at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: 'Consortium of All Bay Area Linux' translation
> Organization: If you lived here, you'd be $HOME already.
>
> Quoting Bohdan Zograf (bozograf at gmail.com):
>
>> I'm willing to translate publication located at
>> http://linuxmafia.com/cabal to the Belorussian language (my mother
>> tongue). What I'm asking for is your written permission, so you
>> don't mind after I'll post the translation to my blog.
>
> I hope you won't mind satisfying my curiosity:  What on
> http://linuxmafia.com/cabal is interesting to people in Minsk?
>
> I'm flattered that you would ask, but it seems incredible to even
> dream of that page being interesting anywhere outside a 200 km
> circle surrounding Menlo Park, California.
>
>
> ----- End forwarded message -----
>
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-- 
Edward Mokurai (默雷/धर्ममेघशब्दगर्ज/دھرممیگھشبدگر ج) Cherlin
Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation.
The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination.
http://www.earthtreasury.org/