Trolls - And Learning To Box

[Tom Watson]

When I was a skinny young fella of twelve, my Daddy grabbed hold of me and sent me down the path of the Sweet Science.

He'd been a Golden Gloves boxer, himself - boxed on aircraft carriers in the Pacific in the Great War - and he thought that he would give his young son an edge - by introducing him to the world of sweat and Everlast.

I have to admit that I loved it.

I fought until I was seventeen, did well enough to never have a problem with street bullies or other fools, but wasn't good enough to go to The Garden.

I got my nose broken twice, luckily in different directions, so it looks half-assed straight now. (watch out for body punchers who decide to go upstairs.)

Boxing was a great part of my education growing up - but it did not prepare me for what would happen on UseNet.

I still hit the heavy bag from time to time (twice a week - maybe), and work the speed almost every day, for about fifteen minutes. ( those of you are above the age of fifty know that this is more than enough.) I'll confess that the jumprope has been consigned to other tasks.

I know that we can't hit these little punks - but I do have a dream of a three minute round with a Troll.

Tom Watson - WoodDorker tjwatson1ATcomcastDOTnet (email)

(website)

[Dave Balderstone]

Way to go, Tom. You just keep on poking them with a stick. I'm sure we'll all be *SO* grateful when they decide another three-week pogrom attacking you is in order, that we'll all be rushing to your defence...

The *only* way to deal with trolls is to ignore them, you fargin' idjit.

[J. Clarke]

The only _legal_ way. A suitable application of high explosive has much to recommend it.

[Upscale]

I feel your pain. *My* dream is to be able to reach out from a monitor screen and give some scamming punk a slap on the face. Can you just imagine the shock he'd experience? Either that or have my image appear on the screen, tell him he's a scamming piece of sh*t and then have his monitor burn out with a suitable puff of smoke emanating from it.

Dreams. Aren't they great? :)

[Tom Watson]

Wow. I like your dream better than mine.

I like the smoke part the best.

Tom Watson - WoodDorker tjwatson1ATcomcastDOTnet (email)

(website)

[Tom Watson]

Try not to piss yourself Dave.

Tom Watson - WoodDorker tjwatson1ATcomcastDOTnet (email)

(website)

[SHOOTER1]

Why destroy the monitor? Just the appearence of your face informing him of what you think of him and adding: "I also know where you live", should make him stop and think.

[Upscale]

That would only cause a little mental anguish. I think for a spammer to be properly punished, he should feel some actual pain, physical or financial.

[lgb]

I noticed in the paper today that an email spammer had been found guilty in, IIRC, Virginia.

No mention of any lynch mobs outside the courthouse. Seems a shame.

[BobS]

Actually, with the help of one of the Aussies in the group, we were able to track down one real ass-hole that was plaguing this group about two years back. Even though he was using an anonymous remailer service, several emails and calls to the State Attorney's office along with a compilation of this idiots posts, and they determined he was breaking several laws.

The foreign remailer service cooperated with the State, and we never heard from that particular scum again.

Doubtful we'll ever stop all the scumbags but when they do break the law - there are ways to get to them if you really want to. They are not as invisible as they may think.

Bob S.

[George Max]

I like this. It's sorta like that James Bond movie "Golden Eye" where the guy at the Russian dish facility was screwing around on the internet with the FBI. At some point he sends a "spike" that according to that film destroyed the target computer. Kinda brings a smile to my face when I think of using such technology as retribution for spammers (usenet and email)

[Vito Kuhn]

Sometimes the immature little trolls cross the line and it becomes harassment. When that happens, something can be done about the problem. I encourage anyone that has been personally harassed by these swines to email me, regardless of any personal differences we might have had in the past.

VK

[-linux_lad]

Think of a chubby, pasty, thirty year old chainsmoking virgin who lives in his mother's basement and hasn't seen sunlight in a year.

verify that this post isn't forged, click here:

[Groggy]

He did go rather quiet, didn't he - Lol.

Ahhh, the good old days of troll-wollopin' - I'm mistin' up Bahb!

cheers,

Groggy

[BobS]

Groggy,

I do think he learned a lesson. Your super-sleuthing was the key element to locating him. I do believe his employer did not appreciate that he was using company resources to do his trolling and whatever else the State Atty's office thought he was doing that was illegal. Bob S.

[Tom Watson]

Groggster:

I'd like to hear the story.

Tom Watson - WoodDorker tjwatson1ATcomcastDOTnet (email)

(website)

[Dave in Fairfax]

I misremember, did it turn out to be the guy it said it was or his "buddy" in NY (as I remember)?

Dave in Fairfax

[BobS]

The short version,

The person worked for a company in downstate NY that did web design and such. He was hitting this group and others with a lot of ugly stuff using his employers resources (internet access, computers and time). In addition, he was using other's real names and email addresses and libeling people in his posts. He was also using an anonymous remailer service in an attempt to hide his real identity.

Through some super sleuthing from the dude down under, he was able to determine the information needed to nail this scumbag down. Since I live in NY and was on the hit list, I could file a complaint against him. In case you haven't heard, we have a State Attorney (Elliot Spitzer) that you really don't want to cross swords with....

A number of the postings and other information were sent to the Attorney's Generals office followed by several phone calls. Discussions between the remailer service and the AG's office evidently convinced the remailer to cooperate with their efforts.

The point being that when someone goes over the line and does do omething - illegal - and you have a State Attorney's office that is well versed on the internet - these types of individuals can be dealt with. Note, that this person went way beyond just being an annoying asshole and decided that he was immune of the laws because he was using a foreign remailer service. He found out that he was not invisible and that remailers can be asked to cooperate and obviously did so in this case.

It took about 30 days, several hours of time with emails and phone calls and no guarantee's of them being able to do anything. So I was surprised when I received a call from the case worker saying the problem had been resolved to their satisfaction. There were some other minor details like - the individual no longer works at the company. Don't know if this scum ever came back to haunt the group but I do not recall seeing any of his "signature" posts since this happened.

Bob S.

[Dave in Fairfax]

BobS wrote: snip

That's pretty much how I remembered it. We stopped tlaking about it on-line to avoid alerting him and I fell out of the loop at that point so I wasn't sure of some the background stuff. Thanks for the back-fill.

Dave in Fairfax

[Tom Watson]

(respectfully snipped)

Thanks.

It's nice to know that things turn out for the good some of the time.

Tom Watson - WoodDorker tjwatson1ATcomcastDOTnet (email)

(website)