(updated 16th Oct 2001 to reflect only website directory changes)
(last significant modification 8/27/99)
PAGE TWO - This page contains additional Supporting FACTS
Following are internal links in this page.
FACT 2: DEREK HAS NOT PROVIDED SIMPLE INFORMATION
The first thing that Derek has never reasonably explained is: How did he get a PhD without publishing or listing his dissertation? Derek has said that he suppressed publication on his own. He did it because he wanted to keep his secret BC3K neural network code a secret. There have been at least two posts ( here's one) from PhDs in the news group (c.s.i.p.g.s.) that have stated that a PhD candidate cannot suppress publishing on their own, without withdrawing from the program. The primary owner of the dissertation is the school. If the candidate withdraws from the PhD program then, they don't get a PhD. The book, "Get the Facts on Anyone" doesn't mention any possibility that a PhD dissertation could be suppressed. A call to UMI has verified that the author cannot suppress listing in DAI for schools that choose to use UMI. Of course, if Derek actually got his diploma from a diploma mill then whether or not it was listed (if it actually exists), would be up to him and UMI.
The far more important bit of information that Derek has never revealed is the name of his college. I believe this fact alone is what convinces most people that Derek hasn't earned a PhD. The standard response when someone asks about any academic degree is to just name the school. It's extremely suspicious to not give this information when asked. Derek has been asked many times. Using www.DejaNews.com, I conservatively calculate there's been between 3000 and 8000 posts to the newsgroup, since 8/26/97, that had at least some reference to the PhD issue. It seems incomprehensible to me that anyone with a valid PhD wouldn't have just named their school and ended it a long time a go.
Derek has refused to name his alma mater on many occasions. I've listed all of Derek's reasons to show how poor and inconsistent they are. These are in "Background Supporting Information - Derek's Reasons His School is Secret".
Fact 2 on top of Fact 1 proves PhD fraud beyond a reasonable doubt, in my opinion. Fact 4 was much more important when the PhD fraud story first broke. But, as each day passes, Fact 2 becomes stronger.
FACT 3: DEREK'S LAWYER PRACTICALLY ADMITTED IT'S NOT
ACCREDITED
Mr. Smart's lawyer as much as admitted that
Derek's "school" wasn't accredited when he wrote
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed, 25 Mar 1998 18:45:16 -0500
From: Eric Rotbard
To: Bill Huffman
Subject: Re: Libel
Bill Huffman wrote:
>My concern is that there would be other extremely important issues
>that wouldn't be verified. For example, it must be an accredited
>institution in the normal sense of accredation.
>
>Thank you very much for your quick response to my voicemail.
>
>Sincerely,
>Bill
I'll ask the registar for this, and it will be provided to Charles Curran, Esq. But as I said, I am only concerned with the "Ph. D. fraud" issue, so I am not going to spend my time with a "laundry list" of questions for the alma mater that are tangential to the Ph. D. issue. So long as it awarded Derek a Ph. D., I would like the issue concluded.
Eric
------------------------------------------------------------------------
At the time it appeared that Mr. Rotbard was just trying to finesse
away the accreditation issue and pass off a bogus diploma as the real
thing. I believe that conclusion was validated because, from then on he
just ignored my protests, questions and complaints on this issue. He
NEVER tried to claim that Derek's school was accredited even though
Derek still claims it is. Mr. Rotbard tried to pass off Derek's bogus
diploma as a real PhD but, I made it clear to him that I did not and do
not consider that a tangential issue. If Derek did in fact use the
services of a diploma-mill then the question of accreditation goes to
the HEART of the issue and is in no way tangential to PhD fraud.
See the discussions in Background Supporting Information that address
the differences between Bogus Diploma Mill
Scams and a real PhD.
For more details and to verify that Mr. Rotbard continued to ignore my questions and protests regarding accreditation, you may reference dejanews or click lawyer emails to see the complete emails between the lawyer and me.
FACT 4: DEREK SMART HAS CHANGED HIS
STORY
In my opinion, a really good sign of a fabrication is
when the liar changes his story after being caught in a lie or
inconsistency in their story. Derek has done this on numerous
occasions.
Derek said his dissertation was published and listed. When it couldn't be found then, Derek called me a liar. He said it wasn't possible to search worldwide for a dissertation. He said it was "published and listed" and he pleaded that no one else should search. When other people said they should have found it but, couldn't find it either then, he admitted it wasn't published. However, he still claimed his name was in the list and that the searches failed because his real name is Derek K?????-Smart. He refused to reveal his K???? name, only that it began with the letter K and was hyphenated. When searches were done that proved that there was no K??????-Smart with a dissertation and no dissertation with either title Derek claimed, he later changed his story again and now emphatically states it's not listed anywhere.
Another obvious change of story is whether or not Derek used credit for life experience to get his PhD. Life experience credit is a very common "con" that the diploma mills use. While "life experience credit" is valid for many lesser degree programs, it is not for Ph.D. degrees. It costs the con-artist nothing and it is used to make their "mark" think that the "mark" is getting away with something because the diploma mill doesn't check up on the claims. You canNOT get significant credit for Life Experience in real PhD programs.
On March 27, 1999, Derek posted, "btw, I got my Ph.D in under 2 years and yes, I *did* get credit for my experience and existing work". (Here's a link to the full post.) Derek took flak from some real PhD's after this post for the falsehood.
On August 5, 1999, Derek changed his story to, "Unfortunately for him, it does *not* apply to me because I did *not* get credit for 'life experiences'." (Here's a link to the full post.)
I especially appreciate Derek's astreisks for emphasis, it makes it clear that it just wasn't a typo in either of the completely contradictory cases. May I suggest that you reread the two contradictory statements above, it is really quite flabbergasting that Derek can make such contradictory statements and still continue claiming a PhD like he expects people to believe him. When confronted with these type of inconsistencies, Derek just refuses to acknowledge it.
Another part of the story that Derek has changed is about the bet he proposed August 9, 1997. This is much less convincing than the previous two examples but I enjoy this lie, because of the brashness that it exhibits. I challenged Derek to name his school because, I suspected the PhD was a fraud. Derek responded by saying that he would bet that each one of his 3 degrees (in math & CS) is valid for six months of my salary for each degree. He's now changed his story and is saying the bet was that I couldn't find the dissertation. I believe Derek said this lie to try and cover up his lie about his dissertation being published. I consider the lie brash because, I was claiming Derek had no PhD and therefore had no dissertation. Why would he want to bet me that I can't find what I'm claiming doesn't exist? I've posted a detailed account of this little episode. A copy can be found by going to Flame War History and paging down to 8/6/97.
The first and third examples of Derek's story changes can be verified by going to the PhD Fraud Anthology collection of Derek Smart posts. To verify this last story change, it will also require you to reference partial copy of some posts in the "Background Supporting Information - Copies of Mr. Smart's Posts".
FACT 5: DEREK'S LAWYER DID NOT PRODUCE PROOF OF A
PHD
On March 12, 1998, Derek wrote a letter to his lawyer,
Eric Rotbard and copied Fthx and me (Huffman). In this email, Derek
ordered Eric to take legal action against us for libel. I assume Fthx
was threatened because he had a site documenting some of Derek's inane
posts. I was threatened because of this web site arguing that Derek's
PhD is a fraud. (Note: more recently Fthx has withdrawn from Derek's
flame war and I have put up a site with an archive of past posts.
There's a link to that site at the bottom of this page. It's titled
"Anatomy of a Flame War".)
On March 20, 1998, Eric said Derek's PhD was a provable fact. I agreed that Derek's PhD would be an easily provable fact, if it were valid. It was agreed that proof of the PhD would be provided to a third party lawyer. This lawyer would then tell me and the web page would be removed. (The third party was required because the name of Derek's alma mater is a personal matter and the third party lawyer could be legally bound to secrecy.) After waiting over a month, Derek reneged on the deal. The only reasonable explanation I can think of for Derek reneging is that Derek is a PhD fraud and couldn't produce the agreed upon proof.
The email exchanges with Derek's lawyer showed that the "school" was probably not accredited. From this email and a book by Dr. John Bear, it became obvious to me that Derek had just purchased a bogus PhD diploma at a British diploma mill, a scam. Even if it is just an unaccredited college, Derek is still a PhD fraud because, he claims it is accredited.
For more details about why an unaccredited institution is much more likely than an accredited school and why a diploma mill is much more likely than just an unaccredited college, you may reference those two discussions in the "Background Supporting Information - Accredited Versus Unaccredited School, Diploma Mill Verses Unaccredited School ".
For more details and to decide for yourself whether or not there was an agreement that a third party lawyer would be used, you may reference dejanews or click lawyer emails .
FACT 6: DEREK COULD EASILY CLOSE THIS SITE
Derek could easily close this site and be rid of me if he weren't a PhD
fraud.
When I started saying that Derek had reneged on the agreement to close this site, Derek made up the lie that there never was any agreement. This was a favorite topic of Dan Brooks (a fanatical Derek supporter who seems to fall for every lie Mr. Smart utters) until it was proven that Derek indeed lied. On April 22, 1998 Derek's lawyer said, "Our negotiations were limited to the nature of proof that would be acceptable to both parties which was agreed from close to the outset." This shows that Derek's irrelevant argument is a lie. The fact is that even today, Derek could tell an agreed upon third party the name of his school and this person could verify the PhD then, I'd take down this web site and never bother him again. It is an irrelevant lie because, whether or not Derek himself actually agreed or not isn't the real question. The real question is, "Why didn't/doesn't Derek just do this?" He obviously wants this web page taken down. He said he couldn't publicly name his school for personal reasons (as well as many other even more bizarre reasons). Why can't he tell a lawyer that is legally bound to secrecy? And, why did he make up the lie about never having an agreement? There's only one explanation I can think of, Derek doesn't have the degree he's claiming.
Derek's own lawyer was the one that originally suggested using a third party lawyer because it would assure that Derek's "privacy" wouldn't be violated. I've even offered to cover the expense for the third party lawyer. This means that the only reason for Derek not to accept this offer is that he is a PhD fraud.
Based on some things Dan Brooks has said, I think that Derek has somehow convinced Dan that Derek decided to renege on the agreement over a year a go and not take down this site because he decided to "destroy" me instead. Dan apparently doesn't understand that if Derek had a real PhD he could do both! He could have done the deal, had this site taken down and destroyed me. Why doesn't Derek do the deal now and still continue on with the suit? Maybe Dan is thinking that Derek voluntarily doing more damage to his reputation by leaving this site up means that he can sue me for more money? I'm not a lawyer but, I can't imagine that could possibly be true. In fact I would think that Derek passing up on such a simple opportunity to have me take down this site would be a significant mitagating factor.
The ONLY possible defense I can think of that anyone could have against this Fact 6 is if the person just plain didn't care. Here's a whole directory of threatening posts by Derek Smart that indicates he cares a great deal.
Whenever Derek starts acting like he's going to sue again or that he is righteously disgusted, I just make a copy of this fact and point out how easy it would be for him to get rid of me, if he weren't a fraud. This makes this fact extra fun. It shuts him up immediately. I've probably done this at least a half dozen times and every time it causes Derek to cower in a corner and tremble in fear of the truth.
FACT 7: DEREK SAID THAT HE WAS GOING TO SUE
What seems obvious is that Derek's threats and the hiring of a lawyer
were really nothing more than an attempt to use scare tactics to try
and get what the truth could not do for him. If it was true that he had
a PhD, it would be very easy to lay it all to rest. Instead Mr. Smart
tries to squelch the truth and hide his fraud by attacking everyone's
right to free speech by spending money on a lawyer.
If Derek had a real PhD, his threats to sue don't make sense. His threatened lawsuits are nothing but a desperate bogus shame. If he had a real PhD, he could have easily ended it a long time a go. It seems obvious, he wants to get rid of me and to get revenge. For example, he's contacted my employer, his explicitly stated purpose was getting me fired. He has even enlisted the support of his fanatical supporter, Dan Brooks. I know they've both contacted my employer because, my employer has contacted me about it. He is trying to get me fired, out of pure revenge and spite.
From the VERY beginning, I've said that I would apologize and disappear, if his PhD was real. My first offer to apologize then disappear was on the eve of Derek Smart Fraud Day, August 26, 1997. See it and Derek's response. Since then I've offered many more times to post an apology and to disappear. In my first response to Derek's lawyer I once again posted my proposed apology and offer to disappear, see it at the end of my open letter to Derek's lawyer.
Derek had extended an invitation to anyone to come and look at the diploma hanging on the wall of his office as "proof" that his PhD is real. When someone that lives near him tried to take him up on his offer, Derek warned him not to show up and threatened him with immediate physical violence if he did show.
If Mr. Smart is not a PhD fraud, he's doing his very best to look like one.
FACT 8: DEREK SAID THAT HE GRADUATED FROM LIT
Derek posted.
From: dsmart@pobox.com (Derek Smart)
Subject: Re: Daikatana Demo
Date: 15 Mar 1999
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action
On Mon, 15 Mar 1999 10:29:27 -0600, "Sten" nospam@die.spammers.die wrote:
>Where did you get your Ph.D. from?
LIT
where did you graduate from?
--
Derek Smart, Ph.D.
------------------------------------------------
There's no recognized school in the UK with the initials LIT. The official list of all recognized schools in the UK that can grant UK degrees is
http://www.hmso.gov.uk/stat.htm (1997, numbers 1 and 54 and 1998 number 876)
Here's a copy of email from the UK government that explains the details of the three documents referenced above. It is my source of the fact that all recognized schools in the UK are in fact listed in the above three lists. UK Government Email
After I posted the list of UK government approved schools, Derek claimed that in the above post he was NOT giving the name of his school. As some fun and interesting information, you can look at Diploma Mills that Could be LIT.
Email:
Bill Huffman