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NICK DOUGLAS — Okay, okay, you're sick of hearing about Kevin Burton, but this is hilarious. Kevin commented on Valleywag and denied peeping at women's AIM conversations at wifi cafes, saying he was "joking" to the Wired writer who wrote this as fact in 2004. "If I'm guilty of anything here, it's trust," he told Valleywag. "I expect you to correct your article and update the story." Ahaha, not so fast. Kevin's a long-time chatter on an IRC channel named #joiito. And in 2004, he sounded honestly proud of the "alleged" spying tactic. In fact, he said it was how he wanted to be remembered. Here's a chat log.

< cskaterun> burtonator finds chicks by snooping their AIM screen names at internet cafes < burtonator> it only works some of the time

< burtonator> its called wardating... and I invented it :)
< burtonator> if Winer claims credit for RSS then I claim credit for Wardating!
< burtonator> thats what I want to go down in history for

< adamhill> burtonator is the creepy guy you always see hanging out at SBux
< burtonator> though thats not a good thing for your current girlfriend to find
< burtonator> :-/
< burtonator> good thing it shows far down on my google query

Lesson learned: Don't say something you'll regret in an internet chat where anyone could log it.

(Photo: Scott Beale of Laughing Squid. Disclosure: I met Kevin on IRC in 2005; I know him in person. Good luck on the Google query, Kevin.)