{"id":93,"date":"2018-11-30T00:01:21","date_gmt":"2018-11-30T00:01:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/enclair\/?p=93"},"modified":"2018-12-01T10:14:24","modified_gmt":"2018-12-01T10:14:24","slug":"case-notes-s01e02-paul-ceglia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/enclair\/2018\/11\/30\/case-notes-s01e02-paul-ceglia\/","title":{"rendered":"Case notes: S01E02 \u2013 Paul Ceglia"},"content":{"rendered":"

CONTENT RATING:<\/strong> UNIVERSAL<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

In 2010, Paul Ceglia sues Mark Zuckerberg for half of Facebook. In response, Zuckerberg calls in a forensic linguist. Below you will find credits, sources, and a transcript.<\/p>\n

Audio credits<\/h1>\n

Kai Engel \u2013 Run<\/a>
\nLee Rosevere \u2013 Five minute meditations album mix<\/a>
\neddy – Though the Tunnels<\/a><\/p>\n

References, sources, and more<\/h1>\n

The data, including Doc 39 and Doc 50<\/a>
\nWikipedia: Paul Ceglia<\/a>
\nWikipedia: Mark Zuckerberg<\/a>
\nArs Technica<\/a>
\nArs Technica (bail)<\/a>
\nAllFacebook<\/a>
\nBloomberg #1<\/a>
\nBloomberg #2<\/a>
\nBuffalo News<\/a>
\nBusiness Week<\/a>
\nBusiness Insider<\/a>
\nForbes<\/a>
\nThe Inquirer<\/a>
\nLanguage log<\/a>
\nNew York Post<\/a>
\nNew York Times<\/a>
\nPC Mag<\/a>
\nWebcitation<\/a>
\nWellsville Daily<\/a>
\nWired #1<\/a>
\nWired #2<\/a><\/p>\n

Transcript<\/h1>\n

Case S01E02 – Paul Ceglia.<\/p>\n

It’s spring of 2003, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the US. April here has been a pretty chilly month, close to freezing for the most part except for a couple of unseasonably warm days.<\/p>\n

In a Harvard University dorm room, a nineteen-year-old student is scrolling through Craigslist, looking for work. He spots an advert for website development, and responds. The advertiser seeking help with his website is then-27-year-old ex-teacher and business man, Paul Ceglia. After some email conversation, in April 2003, Ceglia agrees to pay the student $1,000, sets a deadline, and writes up a contract.<\/p>\n

Nine months later, in February 2004, the student launches a website, but Ceglia’s name is nowhere on it. This site will quickly become the biggest social media platform in the world, and the student will become one of the richest people on the planet. This student is, of course, Mark Zuckerberg, and the website is Facebook.<\/p>\n

Seven years pass by. Zuckerberg has long-since dropped out of Harvard and moved to California to focus on Facebook. It is a decision that will prove to be more than worthwhile.<\/p>\n

Let’s consider 2010 alone.<\/p>\n

In July of this year, Facebook will hit half a billion users.<\/p>\n

In October, Vanity Fair’s annual list of the top 100 most influential people of the Information Age, will put 26-year-old Zuckerberg in first place.<\/p>\n

And in December, Time magazine’s annual list of the 100 wealthiest and most influential people in the world will include Zuckerberg for the first time, and he will continue to appear in this ranking every year afterward, to the present day.<\/p>\n

On the surface, then, it would seem that Zuckerberg is literally a living embodiment of the American Dream. But behind the scenes, there are the first tremors of a potential nightmare.<\/p>\n

In June of 2010, Ceglia files a lawsuit. In this suit, he claims that he paid Zuckerberg $1,000 for a project called “The Face Book” and that his contract entitles him to 50% of this site. He also claims that a further clause in the contract awards him an additional 1% interest in the site for every day it was late past a January implementation deadline. In total, Ceglia is suing for 84% of Facebook. Zuckerberg, meanwhile, agrees that he did indeed do work for Ceglia at around this time, but on an entirely unrelated website known as StreetFax.<\/p>\n

Ceglia, however, claims to have a receipt for the $1,000, an email trail, and a copy of a contract for \u201cThe Face Book\u201d to prove his claim.<\/p>\n

Surely no one would be so audacious as to invent such a wildly implausible story… would they?<\/p>\n

If true, this would be a bombshell. Zuckerberg would likely be bankrupted overnight.<\/p>\n

The world’s biggest and most powerful website, Facebook, would effectively change hands.<\/p>\n

And Ceglia would be catapulted into unimaginable wealth and power.<\/p>\n

Welcome<\/h2>\n

Welcome to en clair, an archive of forensic linguistics, literary detection, and language mysteries. You can find case notes about this episode, including credits, links, and a transcript at the blog. The web address is given at the end of the podcast.<\/p>\n

Context and history<\/h2>\n

During the trial, alongside plenty of other evidence from forensic digital analysis of computers, two types of linguistic evidence are presented by Ceglia – the contract, and the emails between Ceglia and Zuckerberg. We\u2019ll focus just on the emails, and for good reason. In those online conversations between Zuckerberg and Ceglia, there are statements that further support the terms within the contract that Ceglia claimed to have with Zuckerberg. For instance, an email allegedly from Zuckerberg to Ceglia supposedly sent in February 2004, a few weeks after the site was meant to be implemented, states,<\/p>\n

I\u2019d like to suggest that you drop the penalty completely and we officially return to 50\/50 ownership.<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The following day, on the 03rd<\/sup> of February, Ceglia then supposedly replied,<\/p>\n

Ok fine MArk 50\/50 just as long as we start making some money from this thing.<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Then on the 04th<\/sup>, Zuckerberg supposedly emailed,<\/p>\n

Paul, thefacebook.com opened for students today.<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The 04th<\/sup> of February is indeed the day that Facebook actually launched. Ceglia replies the same day with some congratulations and a suggestion to remove the initial “the” from the site name, along with some ideas for monetising the site through selling branded merchandise.<\/p>\n

Two days later, on the 06th<\/sup> of February, Zuckerberg responds:<\/p>\n

Sorry it\u2019s taken me a few days to respond, (sic) Now that the sites (sic) live I feel I must take creative control and I just can not risk injuring my sites (sic) reputation by cheapening it with your idea of selling college junk, nor do I wish to spend my time shipping out coffee mugs to rich alumni. The site is cool as it is and I don\u2019t care about making any money on it right now, I just want to see if people will use it. If I had the rest of the money I was owed by you for all that extra work I did I wouldn\u2019t even need to make money at all on this site. That is money I am entitled to and is rightfully mine.<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Two months later, on the 06th<\/sup> of April,\u00a0Zuckerberg\u00a0supposedly sends Ceglia another email:<\/p>\n

Paul, I have become too busy to deal with the site and no one wants to pay for it, so I am thinking of just taking the server down. My parents have a fund that I can tap into for my college expenses and I would just like to give you your two thousand dollars back and call it even on the rest of the money you owe me for the extra work. At this point I won\u2019t even really be able to work on the facebook until Summer.<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There are several other emails besides, and you can read all of those that are available via links provided in the Case Notes. To save you some time, the main of the correspondence is contained in Document 39.<\/p>\n

So far, it seems like Ceglia might have a pretty good case. But there\u2019s a catch. Under normal circumstances, when dealing with emails, a forensic analyst would check the email headers \u2013 the information about when they were sent, what servers they were routed through, who they were sent to \u2013 and they would cross-reference this with the server logs at, say, Harvard University where Zuckerberg was. But Ceglia claims that he kept these emails saved in three different Word files. In other words, in some form or other, he was copying and pasting them into Word, but whatever he was doing, there are no headers. Still, this doesn’t automatically mean that they are not real. It just makes it harder for Ceglia to prove their authenticity.<\/p>\n

In response, Zuckerberg\u2019s defence team hire a forensic linguist. Their\u00a0job? Analyse the emails that Ceglia claims Zuckerberg wrote, and compare this with the language of emails\u00a0known to be sent by Zuckerberg. Would the language be similar?\u00a0Or would they be quite\u00a0different?<\/p>\n

Data and evidence<\/h2>\n

Facebook’s legal team hire forensic linguist, Gerald\u00a0McMenamin.\u00a0At the time of this case being heard \u2013 that is, in 2011 \u2013\u00a0Gerald\u00a0McMenamin\u00a0is\u00a0Professor Emeritus of Linguistics and former Chair of the Department of\u00a0Linguistics at California State University, Fresno.<\/p>\n

McMenamin’s\u00a0approach to\u00a0forensic linguistics is to use\u00a0forensic stylistic analysis. What is this? Well, in simple terms, this uses a\u00a0subdiscipline\u00a0within linguistics known as stylistics to study variation in language. In essence, stylistics is interested in the choices we make at each point in a text.\u00a0Take\u00a0Case Notes, for instance. Do we choose to write\u00a0this as\u00a0two distinct words \u2013 Case \u2026\u00a0Notes?\u00a0Or\u00a0as\u00a0a hyphenated word \u2013 Case-dash-Notes?\u00a0Or\u00a0as\u00a0one complete word with neither spaces\u00a0nor dashes\u00a0in the middle?\u00a0And\u00a0do we make this choice every single time? Do we use\u00a0am not<\/i>,\u00a0cannot<\/i>,\u00a0do not<\/i>, or do we use\u00a0aren’t<\/i>,\u00a0can’t<\/i>,\u00a0don’t<\/i>? Do we write\u00a0should have<\/i>?\u00a0Or\u00a0should of<\/i>? Just to stress, this\u00a0isn’t\u00a0about\u00a0picking up\u00a0errors\u00a0or correcting people. This is about habits and preferences, or in short, it is about style. These choices come\u00a0through in every level of our language from where we put in full-stops right up to how wordy we are in our\u2026\u00a0er\u2026 podcast\u00a0scripts.<\/p>\n

One feature alone\u00a0doesn’t\u00a0tell us very much, of course.\u00a0There’s\u00a0little point in\u00a0only\u00a0observing that you write while<\/i>\u00a0and I write\u00a0whilst<\/i>.\u00a0There’s\u00a0also little point in noting that I say\u00a0knock-a-door-run<\/i>\u00a0and you say\u00a0knock-knock-ginger<\/i>.\u00a0And\u00a0there’s not much use in merely\u00a0stating\u00a0that I routinely don’t capitalise whereas you always capitalise beautifully. Any one of those features, alone, is not unique to either of us. (EEEther\u2026 Or is it\u00a0EYEther\u2026?!)\u00a0Moving on,\u00a0stylistics\u00a0doesn’t\u00a0care for one feature alone. Its interest is in collections of features that begin to characterise an individual’s overall style, or idiolect.\u00a0The more of these you can find within a text, the more you build an idea of that person’s habitual choices.<\/p>\n

Back to the case.\u00a0McMenamin’s\u00a0findings\u00a0are outlined\u00a0in a relatively short analysis contained in Document 50.\u00a0As\u00a0I’ve\u00a0said,\u00a0McMenamin’s\u00a0task\u00a0was a simple one:\u00a0he was given thirty-five emails known to be by\u00a0Zuckerberg\u00a0to compare against eleven\u00a0emails\u00a0that\u00a0Ceglia alleges\u00a0Zuckerberg\u00a0wrote.\u00a0But\u00a0these eleven disputed emails, as it happens, are sourced from the amended complaint \u2013 that is, Document 39. As\u00a0McMenamin\u00a0writes in his report:<\/p>\n

I\u00a0was\u00a0[\u2026]\u00a0asked\u00a0to determine,\u00a0to the extent possible, the authorship of a series of QUESTIONED writings excerpted\u00a0into an Amended Complaint in this matter\u2026\u00a0<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What’s\u00a0the issue here? Well,\u00a0it’s\u00a0not entirely clear why\u00a0McMenamin\u00a0wasn’t given clean, proper copies of\u00a0all\u00a0the emails by Ceglia’s team, and why he instead had to rely on the ones in\u00a0Document 39. Those emails\u00a0have clearly been altered\u00a0in a few different ways. Glosses\u00a0have been inserted\u00a0into some to make referents within the email clearer. Multiple times, (sic)\u00a0has been added, presumably to indicate that some typo or other is an original feature of that email.\u00a0And\u00a0one time, just after paragraph 32, the email starts with a three-dot ellipsis, which usually indicates that some preceding text has been cut-off, perhaps because it hasn’t been deemed relevant. The email also reads as though some prior text is missing.\u00a0Similarly, Paragraph 41 contains a short example from an email that ends with an ellipsis. It is very unclear in both cases where those ellipses have come from.\u00a0I’ll\u00a0come back to this shortly.<\/p>\n

On the other side of the fence, we\u00a0don’t\u00a0get much information about the\u00a0thirty-five\u00a0known<\/i> Zuckerberg emails. We find out that they were all from the same time period, and that some were ones that Zuckerberg did indeed send to Ceglia, but about the others, all we are told is that they went to “related parties”. What their purpose was,\u00a0who\u00a0they were sent to, how formal or informal they were, what device they were composed on, how long they are on average\u00a0\u2013\u00a0all\u00a0of these factors are\u00a0not described, and I’ll also come back to those issues\u00a0in a little while.<\/p>\n

Overall, then,\u00a0McMenamin\u00a0had\u00a0thirty-five known Zuckerberg emails\u00a0to use as a comparison corpus against the eleven questioned Zuckerberg emails that\u00a0had been extracted\u00a0from Document 39. If you scroll down\u00a0Document 50 to\u00a0Exhibit B,\u00a0McMenamin\u00a0lays out\u00a0eleven features that\u00a0he\u00a0focussed on\u00a0\u2013\u00a0two\u00a0issues of punctuation, three of spelling, five of syntax, and one feature at the discourse level.\u00a0I’ll\u00a0go through most, but not all of them.\u00a0So what did\u00a0McMenamin\u00a0find?<\/p>\n

    \n
  • Zuckerberg consistently uses apostrophes\u00a0in contractions and possessives\u00a0correctly,\u00a0but\u00a0in the emails produced by Ceglia, there were four instances when this\u00a0didn’t\u00a0happen\u00a0when they should have.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

     <\/p>\n

      \n
    • Zuckerberg writes the three-dot suspension point\u00a0\u2013 the ellipsis \u2013\u00a0with\u00a0no spaces between the dots, nor between the dots and the word that comes directly beforehand. However, one ellipsis\u00a0in\u00a0Ceglia’s\u00a0emails\u00a0has\u00a0spaces between each dot, and the other comes after a space.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

       <\/p>\n

        \n
      • Zuckerberg writes terms like backend and frontend\u00a0and also\u00a0cannot\u00a0as one word, whereas in one case,\u00a0in\u00a0the disputed emails, backend is\u00a0split into two words, whilst cannot is split into two multiple times.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

         <\/p>\n

          \n
        • Zuckerberg capitalises\u00a0the word Internet twice, but the one time this occurs in the disputed emails, it is not capitalised.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

           <\/p>\n

            \n
          • Zuckerberg\u00a0never produces\u00a0a\u00a0run-on sentence, but\u00a0the disputed emails contained at least nine\u00a0examples.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

             <\/p>\n

              \n
            • Zuckerberg frequently opens\u00a0sentences with words like Okay, And, Anyhow, Also, But, Then, However. The disputed emails instead used words like Further, Additionally, Thus, Again, First, Mostly, Paul.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

               <\/p>\n

                \n
              • Zuckerberg consistently uses\u00a0commas after an if-clause. In fifteen possible places where\u00a0these\u00a0can\u00a0occur, they\u00a0are present\u00a0thirteen times. In the disputed\u00a0emails\u00a0there are three possible places for commas\u00a0to occur after if-clauses, and\u00a0they\u00a0never do.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

                Aside from these differences,\u00a0like any good forensic linguist,\u00a0McMenamin\u00a0also observes\u00a0points of similarity, and notes two.<\/p>\n

                  \n
                • Both the known and disputed sets of emails\u00a0each include\u00a0an\u00a0instance\u00a0of\u00a0an email\u00a0finishing\u00a0with the word\u00a0Thanks!<\/i><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

                   <\/p>\n

                    \n
                  • And\u00a0one of the disputed emails started with the word\u00a0S<\/i>orry<\/i>\u00a0once, whilst emails known to be by Zuckerberg started with the word\u00a0Sorry<\/i>\u00a0four times.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

                    What can we say about this analysis? Well,\u00a0we’re\u00a0obviously not going to get every tiny bit of detail in a report\u00a0aimed at\u00a0the court. The court\u00a0usually only wants clean, clear\u00a0results. They\u00a0don’t\u00a0want all the\u00a0lengthy, minute, extended detail\u00a0that can surround those results. If\u00a0there’s\u00a0something to be challenged in the methodology or the execution or whatever, it\u2019s for the cross-examining lawyer to investigate if and when the forensic linguist takes the stand. However, just on a read through of this there are definitely things I would ask more questions\u00a0about.<\/p>\n

                    Firstly,\u00a0let’s\u00a0take\u00a0the\u00a0capitalisation of the word\u00a0internet<\/i>. Plenty of software has a penchant for autocorrecting perceived errors in text, including “fixing” (I’m\u00a0saying this\u00a0in quote marks) things that are otherwise fine.\u00a0In fact\u00a0it’s\u00a0such a common issue that there are whole websites dedicated to autocorrects that have gone horribly, or hilariously wrong.\u00a0Zuckerberg’s\u00a0known emails could well have been composed using an email editor that does precisely\u00a0this, and\u00a0if we put him on\u00a0another device that doesn’t do this\u00a0and made him type\u00a0internet<\/i>, we might discover that he actually never capitalises\u00a0this word.\u00a0What we\u00a0could\u00a0have here is interference from the device used to compose the message.\u00a0In fact, depending on\u00a0the\u00a0autocorrects\u00a0and\u00a0the\u00a0message,\u00a0it is sometimes possible\u00a0to\u00a0tentatively\u00a0infer\u00a0operating systems or\u00a0devices\u00a0that\u00a0have\u00a0been used to compose\u00a0a\u00a0message.<\/p>\n

                    A\u00a0second\u00a0issue is the sheer opportunity for occurrence. This is an issue of not only length, since longer texts will generally offer more chances for a feature to crop up.\u00a0It’s\u00a0also one of context. For instance,\u00a0let’s\u00a0consider the four missing apostrophes in the disputed emails versus the known emails where every apostrophe occurs as it should.\u00a0It’s\u00a0extremely unlikely, of course, but\u00a0imagine that there are only two possible instances for those apostrophes to occur in Zuckerberg’s actual emails. Perhaps he very infrequently contracts words\u00a0like\u00a0I am<\/i> to\u00a0I’m<\/i> or\u00a0she would<\/i>\u00a0to\u00a0she’d<\/i>\u00a0and instead prefers to write them out fully, reducing the overall requirement for apostrophes. Getting\u00a0them all\u00a0right\u00a0if they\u00a0don’t\u00a0occur very often\u00a0is not beyond the realms of chance.\u00a0These\u00a0are contextual issues that\u00a0are left out of the description of the known Zuckerberg dataset. In short,\u00a0to really understand\u00a0McMenamin’s\u00a0analysis and results, we also need a sense of how often the feature\u00a0could<\/i>\u00a0have occurred, versus how often it did or did not occur in each dataset.<\/p>\n

                    And thirdly, remember those three-dot suspension points \u2013 the ellipses? There were two in questioned emails\u00a0and they crop up in\u00a0McMenamin’s\u00a0feature list.\u00a0However, when we look at them in\u00a0Document 39, as I mentioned, one occurs\u00a0at the start of an email and\u00a0looks like\u00a0it\u00a0has\u00a0been inserted to signal that some previous part of the email had been cropped for brevity, whilst the other occurs\u00a0at the end of a very short email quote, and could have been inserted to mean the same thing.\u00a0If so,\u00a0this feature is actually noise and interference from whoever put Document 39 together. This takes us back to the issue of\u00a0McMenamin\u00a0not\u00a0being given\u00a0a clean, clear set of data to work with.<\/p>\n

                    To finish off, however,\u00a0it’s\u00a0vital to return to the notion\u00a0that forensic stylistic analysis works on the basis of combining a multitude of features together. No single feature in this list makes\u00a0a case\u00a0alone, since each is relatively weak in isolation, but therein lies the strength of the analysis. If one feature\u00a0is discounted, there are\u00a0\u2013 or should be \u2013\u00a0a host of others\u00a0still, and it is in that constellation of features, rather than in any single choice, that we find an individual’s overall style.<\/p>\n

                    In this case, the points of similarity \u2013 the\u00a0sorry<\/i> and the\u00a0thanks<\/i>\u00a0are extremely weak. You could\u00a0find thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of people all doing these exact same things in their emails right now, around the world. By contrast,\u00a0the pattern of\u00a0differences\u00a0which\u00a0range\u00a0from run-on sentences to comma- and apostrophe use\u00a0and more besides is relatively compelling.\u00a0These results\u00a0can’t\u00a0tell us\u00a0who\u00a0did<\/i> author the\u00a0eleven questioned emails,\u00a0but\u00a0McMenamin’s\u00a0comparison\u00a0makes a good case that\u00a0across a range of dimensions, those eleven emails produced by Ceglia don’t match the thirty-five emails known to be by Zuckerberg.<\/p>\n

                    To return to the point,\u00a0McMenamin’s\u00a0overall conclusion is unsurprising. In\u00a0his expert report,\u00a0Document 50, he gives his opinion thus:<\/p>\n

                    Based on the contrastingly-distinct style markers which the QUESTIONED excerpts and the KNOWN-Zuckerberg writings demonstrate, as well as the presence of no more than two minimally-significant similarities\u00a0between the QUESTIONED and KNOWN-Zuckerberg writings, I conclude that the KNOWN writings of Mr. Zuckerberg demonstrate a sufficiently significant set of differences vis-\u00e0-vis the QUESTIONED writings to constitute evidence that Mr. Zuckerberg is not the author of the excerpted QUESTIONED references.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

                    Conclusion<\/h2>\n

                    From Ceglia’s perspective, the case all very quickly starts to fall apart. In rapid succession, he is fired by a raft of law firms that he has hired to represent him, including DLA Piper, Connors & Vilardo, and Lippes Mathias Wexler Friedman. Whether spurred on by McMenamin’s forensic linguistic report, or because of their own discoveries in the interim, some of these firms directly cite the fact that Ceglia is using forged evidence as their reason for dropping him. In turn, Facebook sues a number of Ceglia’s past legal representatives, alleging that these lawyers knew, or should have known, that Ceglia was a conman, that his lawsuit was a malicious fraud, and that he was using forged documents.<\/p>\n

                    In late 2012 Ceglia is arrested and charged. A GPS tracker is fitted to his leg to monitor his whereabouts and his bail is set at $250,000. Ceglia’s mother, father, and brother become guarantors for the bail bond. For those who are not clear what this means, if Ceglia breaches his bail conditions, he will land his family with a debt of a quarter million dollars.<\/p>\n

                    For a few years, at least, this seems to work, but then, in early 2015, the authorities become suspicious that something has happened. Agents break into his home and according to reports in the media find his GPS tracker strapped to a rotating ceiling fan. Ceglia’s leg, and the rest of him, are nowhere to be found. It seems that Ceglia has somehow managed to get the tracker off, but perhaps suspicious that it will send out an alert if it doesn’t move enough, he has found a method to fool it into thinking that it is still being worn. This has then bought him enough time to abscond with his wife, two sons, and even his Jack Russel, Buddy.<\/p>\n

                    A warrant is issued for Ceglia’s arrest and reward money is offered, but he appears to have vanished without a trace. Ceglia remains at large for the next three years, somehow, successfully keeping himself and his family hidden.<\/p>\n

                    In 2018, however, the authorities track Ceglia \u2013 now aged 45 \u2013 down to a location in Ecuador, South America. At the time of recording, Ceglia is being represented by Roberto Calder\u00f3n, and he is currently fighting extradition back to the US.<\/p>\n

                    If returned, he will likely face charges of wire and mail fraud \u2013 offences that can carry a sentence of up to forty years in jail.<\/p>\n

                    Outro<\/h2>\n

                    This episode of en clair is entirely researched, narrated, and produced by me, Dr Claire Hardaker. However this work wouldn\u2019t exist in its current form without the prior efforts of many others. You can find acknowledgements and references for those people at the blog. Also there you can find data, links, articles, pictures, older cases, and more besides. The address for the blog is wp.lancs.ac.uk\/enclair. And you can follow the podcast on Twitter at _enclair. Or if you like, you can follow me on Twitter DrClaireH.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

                    CONTENT RATING: UNIVERSAL In 2010, Paul Ceglia sues Mark Zuckerberg for half of Facebook. In response, Zuckerberg calls in a forensic linguist. Below you will find credits, sources, and a transcript.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":77,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-93","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paoUKh-1v","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":569,"url":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/enclair\/2019\/11\/30\/case-s01e99-season-two-trailer\/","url_meta":{"origin":93,"position":0},"title":"Case S01E99 – Season Two Trailer","author":"DrClaireH","date":"30 November 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"CONTENT RATING:\u00a0Universal See the Self-care page if you need support. We\u2019re going on holiday for a bit. It\u2019s a vacation before we start Season Two. On this note, what sort of cases, you might ask, will Season Two bring? And what can you listen to, read, or watch, till en\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 1 comment","block_context":{"text":"With 1 comment","link":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/enclair\/2019\/11\/30\/case-s01e99-season-two-trailer\/#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":185,"url":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/enclair\/2019\/02\/28\/case-notes-s01e05-messages-in-music\/","url_meta":{"origin":93,"position":1},"title":"Case notes: S01E05 – Messages in Music","author":"DrClaireH","date":"28 February 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"CONTENT RATING: universal Authors and painters have found many ways to encrypt messages into their creations, but how do you do this if you are a musician working with instruments? Below you will find the data, audio credits, further reading, and a transcript of the podcast. Audio credits Kai Engel\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":181,"url":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/enclair\/2019\/01\/31\/case-notes-s01e04-david-elliott\/","url_meta":{"origin":93,"position":2},"title":"Case notes: S01E04 – David Elliott","author":"DrClaireH","date":"31 January 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"CONTENT RATING: universal In 2012, David Elliott filed a lawsuit arguing that the word Google has become so generic, it should be stripped of its trademarked status. Would David or the goliath Google win? Below you will find the data, audio credits, further reading, and a transcript of the podcast.\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":306,"url":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/enclair\/2019\/03\/31\/case-notes-s01e06-the-pendle-witch-trials\/","url_meta":{"origin":93,"position":3},"title":"Case notes: S01E06 – The Pendle Witch Trials","author":"DrClaireH","date":"31 March 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"CONTENT RATING: PG-16 See the Self-care page if you need support. Between 1400-1750, at least 40,000 Europeans were executed for cursing, casting spells, and other forms of witchcraft. This episode looks in particular at the Pendle Witch Trials, and asks just how reliable the evidence and records used to convict\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":59,"url":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/enclair\/2018\/11\/01\/case-notes-s01e00-welcome-waffle\/","url_meta":{"origin":93,"position":4},"title":"Case notes: S01E00 – Welcome waffle","author":"DrClaireH","date":"01 November 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"CONTENT RATING:\u00a0UNIVERSAL Welcome to en clair. Rather than including extended waffly intros on every episode saying the same sorts of things over and over, I've put it all in this one podcast, one time. This prelude to the series answers questions like: How do I subscribe to the en clair\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":363,"url":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/enclair\/2019\/06\/30\/case-notes-s01e09-the-yorkshire-ripper-part-3-of-5\/","url_meta":{"origin":93,"position":5},"title":"Case Notes: S01E09 – The Yorkshire Ripper, part 3 of 5","author":"DrClaireH","date":"30 June 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"CONTENT RATING:\u00a0PG-18 See the Self-care page if you need support. For half a decade, the Yorkshire Ripper terrorised northern England, attacking and murdering at least twenty women. In the third of this five-part miniseries, the police turn to linguists for help. 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