Some of my favorite stories about standards involve slime-balls and other criminals. For example the international airline industry had to set a standard for a sandwich because some of their members were passing off such low quality things as “sandwiches” the rest of the industry needed to write rules to standardize a minimal “airline sandwich”. Another nice example is that there was a time when people making shoe leather would add salts to the leather until they reached the physical limit on how much salt could be added. That became the standard. This pattern, where the standard is in fact a floor onthe acceptible behavior is a surprisingly common form of standard.

But this is this story is a whole different example of criminals and standards. In this case the criminals would prefer that their victums adopt the standard. So when their victums take the bait the crooks redirect those who were not up-to-date with the latest standards to the the web site of an advocacy group. That in turn slanders the reputation of the advocacy group.

Thanks to the most excellent Dive into the Mark.