In 2017, an individual named Duncan Campbell (not to be confused with the Guardian crime reporter of the same name) embarked on what now appears to have been a mission to undermine and discredit research into Guccifer 2.0. Regrettably, Campbell resorted to illegitimate means, engaging in a malicious and deceitful campaign involving slander and the spreading of fabricated rumors, reminiscent of the McCarthy era.
Campbell was caught scandal-mongering early on and was recorded having to backpedal on a series of bogus claims he had made (suggesting Russians were using one of my sites, suggesting this site was "reaching out to the CIA", claiming there were fabrications of evidence on this site, claiming there was disinformation and suggesting I was being paid by "The Russians", etc.)
On December 28, 2017, a VIPS (Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity) associate, who was privy to the recording referred to above, requested that Campbell substantiate his rumors and allegations with evidence. Campbell failed to do this.
On January 21, 2018, the same VIPS associate called Campbell out in front of VIPS founders and three editors of a technology publication (that Campbell had hoped to have publish his false accusations.)
Campbell was asked explicitly to support allegations he had made including the claim that my site was "linked to follow-on operations supporting Russia".
Again, Campbell was unable to support his claims and his first attempt at a hit-piece fell apart before it was published.
Unfortunately, though, later in 2018, Campbell discovered a publication with a more permissive editorial policy that was amenable to disseminating unsubstantiated allegations, while neglecting to exercise due diligence in verifying the veracity of Campbell's assertions.
On July 31, 2018, an article by Campbell alleging that I had ran a "Pro-Kremlin Disinformation Campaign" was published by Computer Weekly. Despite the allegations made, the article failed to demonstrate what the headline alleged.
On August 1, 2018, it was shown that Campbell had produced disinformation in his hit-piece and that it contained other falsehoods.
In subsequent recorded communications (on October 4th, 2018), Computer Weekly's editor-in-chief, Bryan Glick, conceded that he had not verified the "Pro-Kremlin" and "Disinformation campaign" allegations in their headline and stated that the allegations were based on "belief" and "opinion".
Glick, clearly unable to substantiate the allegations, was asked to make this clear to readers but failed to address this and chose to retain a headline he knew he couldn't substantiate. (The publication later claimed, in 2021, that it adheres to the IPSO Editors' Code of Practice, however, with this issue remaining as it is, they maintain a position that is in violation of the code.)
Following this incident, more evidence emerged corroborating the earlier findings of those Campbell had attacked and several of his conspiracy theories were discredited.
In 2019, Campbell took to Twitter to allege a "scam" because "funny data with US timezone only appeared in one specially tampered document dump". Unfortunately for Campbell, further examples of evidence pointing at a US time zone for Guccifer 2.0 had already been reported on here, here, here, here, here and here, and there was other evidence suggesting a US origin aside from time zones.
In 2019, Campbell also started writing an article that we now know contained disinformation and invented false 'facts'. Campbell was hoping for CJR (Columbia Journalism Review) to publish this.
Undeterred by Campbell's efforts, I produced my final summary report on Guccifer 2.0 at the end of 2019, making it clear that my skepticism was built on a significant volume of evidence and that conspiracy theories and false information are only really required by my opponents.
In May 2020, I contacted editors at Computer Weekly, sending them a link to the evidence of Campbell's disinformation (that had been in the public domain since August 2018). however, I was greeted by a wall of silence and nobody was willing to respond.
In December 2020, I asked editors to confirm receipt of the May 2020 email. They did not respond and their inaction also meant they were violating assurances given by the editor-in-chief (Glick) regarding correcting demonstrable falsehoods. I called William Goodwin (investigations editor of Computer Weekly and the editor who seems to have been directly involved in overseeing Campbell's contributions to the publication) to ask him to confirm receipt. Goodwin would not confirm this and made up excuses to terminate the call.
Also, at some point in 2020, CJR declined to publish the article Campbell had written for them.
In January 2021, Computer Weekly commissioned a second hit-piece from Campbell (despite being sent links to evidence showing their author produced disinformation for them previously). Instead of telling their readers about all of the evidence we discovered and disclosing that their author was shown to have engaged in disinformation, they exploited the topic of Seth Rich in order to launch new smears against me, however, in doing so, they made misleading claims about a libel case (between Aaron Rich and Matt Couch) and William Goodwin implicated himself directly in disinformation.
In 2022, Campbell tried again to get CJR to publish the article he started working on in 2019. His article was declined for publication again and he was unable to disseminate false information to CJR readers.
In February 2023, Byline Times published the article authored by Duncan Campbell that CJR had previously declined to publish twice. Campbell's article was promptly found to contain disinformation. Claims made in the article were known to be false for over four years.
Campbell's efforts were illegitimate from the outset and proved to be little more than a worthless and desperate distraction from the evidence discovered regarding Guccifer 2.0 by various independent researchers since 2017 (and my reporting on this).
In December 2022, to help clean up the Guccifer 2.0: Game Over project and keep things focused on facts and evidence, everything relating to Campbell's fraudulent efforts was removed from the project updates feed and moved to this page.
Byline Times Just Published Disinformation That Was Debunked In 2018
On February 4, 2023, Byline Times published an article by Duncan Campbell. It was immediately discovered that Campbell's article contains claims he had invented out of whole cloth and that he has known to be false since 2017.
We are now into year five of Campbell's campaign (if we go from the date Campbell was first caught spreading bogus McCarthyite rumors and slandering Forensicator and myself in late 2017).
Byline Times Just Published Disinformation Debunked Over Four Years Ago
I really didn't think it was going to be necessary to still be debunking Campbell in 2023 but here we are.
As per usual, Campbell can't explain why he does this and won't respond to inquiries.
Computer Weekly Editors Stonewall When Evidence Emerges
In August, I published an article discrediting Computer Weekly's latest hit-piece with new evidence.
The article shows that rumors and speculation from their author was wrong, reveals that statements I had made were concealed (and that Computer Weekly engaged in a deception through omission by claiming I hadn't responded) and that Computer Weekly's investigations editor (William Goodwin) continues to struggle with handling facts and evidence honestly, keeping Computer Weekly's readers in the dark when it comes to reality.
Since being presented with the new evidence, Goodwin has predictably returned to stonewalling once again..
Computer Weekly Stonewalls
When Evidence Emerges
The fact that editors Bryan Glick and William Goodwin commissioned another hit-piece from an author we had already legitimately discredited (and shown to have engaged in disinformation in the past) combined with the timing of this suggests the commissioning was motivated by malice.
It would seem Duncan Campbell, William Goodwin and Bryan Glick know they're in the wrong judging by the way they routinely hide from fair questions and stonewall when presented evidence discrediting their silly conspiracy fantasies.
Computer Weekly Push More Propaganda, Editors Now Directly Implicated In Disinfomaion
Computer Weekly has published false allegations about my communications with Couch and Butowsky's attorneys, about communications between myself and ComputerWeekly's William Goodwin, about my company's infrastructure, about the intentions of Forensicator and myself (and purpose of our efforts).
They've published claims the author should have known to be false (disinformation), have managed to muddle up evidence from two different incidents, have re-used frames that turn reality upside down (and that we have already discredited with evidence in the past) and have egregiouly misled the public once again.
Unfortunately, for ComputerWeekly, this adds to a list of problems we have in relation to their past publication of bogus conspiracy theories and disinformation.
The disinformation their author engaged in, the previous false allegations made and the fact that nobody at ComputerWeekly seems willing to accept evidence or be accountable is all documented in the following article:
ComputerWeekly's
Fake News Fiasco
There is much more I could say and demonstrate but, for now, I just wanted to get a basic rebuttal published so that journalists can see there are some serious issues with the latest hit-piece ComputerWeekly have published and that it contains demonstrably false information and gets a lot of things wrong.
On October 3, 2019, NBC published an article by Ben Collins that featured a false conspiracy theory origin story and included some nonsense from Duncan Campbell.
At the end of July 2018, Duncan Campbell wrote a hit piece defaming several people (though primarily targeting myself). He promoted a conspiracy theory (that was soon debunked) and came up with a technical theory supposed to support a premise that Guccifer 2.0 had tampered with timestamps in the NGP-VAN archive.
Yesterday, scrutiny of Campbell's tampering theory was published:
I will soon publish a brief recap on the situation with ComputerWeekly, highlighting how their hit-piece has disintegrated over the past year.
I'm also preparing to release further evidence relating to journalistic malpractice. I don't want to release it but, if necessary, I will. The final decision on this will be made on August 1, 2019.
September 10th, 2018
Smear Campaign Against G-2.Space, Forensicator, Disobedient Media & Others - Conclusion
Recently, Forensicator published "The Campbell Conspiracy", an article that debunks key aspects of the conspiracy theory Duncan Campbell has constructed as part of a hit piece targeting several individuals (and that was published by ComputerWeekly at the end of July).
