J.L. Bell reports that while the upcoming HBO mini-series on our own John Adams might be riveting, possibly the most riveting scene of all never happened: A royal customs agent was not tarred and feathered here by a mob acting on the orders of John Hancock (although there was an actual tarring and feathering a year later; Adams represented a defendant in that case, which involved a ship that had been seized from Hancock).

Computerworld, a trade publication in Framingham, recently ran an article about some software the company's IT department installed to increase the uptime of its systems in one division. Now somebody claiming to be a John Hancock lawyer is threatening to sue Computerworld unless it takes the article off its Web site. Is it libelous? No. Does it reveal trade secrets? No (unless you count the fact that the software was installed in part to reduce friction between two different IT groups at the company; but that sort of thing is hardly unique to John Hancock). The lawyer is annoyed that Computerworld ran the article without getting a written consent form from John Hancock, even though the story is based on an interview with a company IT executive - who had agreed to talk to a reporter.

Via Dan Kennedy, who offers to post John Hancock's response.

A completely different disclaimer: I'm an editor at Network World, which is part of the same company as Computerworld.