The Day Leo Traynor Confronted His Troll 594
McGruber writes "Dublin-based writer Leo Traynor has written a piece about confronting the troll who drove him off Twitter, hacked his Facebook, and abused and terrified his family. Quoting: 'I blocked the account and reported it as spam. The following week it happened again in an identical manner. A new follower, I followed back, received a string of abusive DMs, blocked and reported for spam. Two or three times a week. Sometimes two or three times a day. An almost daily cycle of blocking and reporting and intense verbal abuse. ... Then one day something happened that truly frightened me. I don't scare easily but this was vile. I received a parcel at my home address. Nothing unusual there – I get lots of post. I ripped it open and there was a Tupperware lunchbox inside full of ashes. There was a note included, saying, "Say hello to your relatives from Auschwitz." I was physically sick. ... In July I was approached by a friend who's basically an IT genius, and he offered some help. He said that he could trace the hackers and trolls for me using perfectly legal technology, which would lead to their IP addresses. I said yes. Then I baited them – I was deliberately more provocative toward them than ever I'd been before.'"
Trolling? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Trolling? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm disappointed that the author didn't press charges. This kid is probably a sociopath. When he stalks and hurts other people in the future the police won't have the evidence they need of past cases. Sociopaths don't learn how to stop hurting people, they just learn not to get caught the next time.
Re:Trolling? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm disappointed that the author didn't press charges. This kid is probably a sociopath. When he stalks and hurts other people in the future the police won't have the evidence they need of past cases. Sociopaths don't learn how to stop hurting people, they just learn not to get caught the next time.
Or he's a messed up kid who didn't have a clue that his actions were hurting someone.
If it was me being stalked I'd be demanding that the kid doesn't go near a computer for 6 months (or until he's legally an adult) and that he has a curfew at night so he can't just be off at a mates place doing the same thing. It should give him a chance to catch up on Jewish/German history and have some appreciation for what he's ranting and raving about.
I think he should be given another chance, but only one. I'm not sure what it's like in the country where Leo Traynor resides but people have gone to jail over here for less.
Re:Trolling? (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree with the AC. The extent of what the evil little miseryshit did proves it was not just a game to him. I'd wager his show of tears was just that- a show. His brain is miswired. There's a whole section that simply isn't working. Coulseling won't acomplish a damn thing, but he'll be able to make it look like it did.
Sociopaths are the most manipulative people in the world. It's why the alphas go into politics. They thrive there. They are one of the three types of people in this world that you never EVER trust along with junkies and Party loyalist ideologues.
Re:Trolling? (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem with the idea that the tears were for show was that it was deliberately kept from him that they knew he was the perpetrator. He confessed without being confronted with evidence linking him to it, or even the slightest hint that they suspected he was the perpetrator. At least that's the picture presented by the article.
Re:Trolling? (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem with the idea that the tears were for show was that it was deliberately kept from him that they knew he was the perpetrator. He confessed without being confronted with evidence linking him to it, or even the slightest hint that they suspected he was the perpetrator. At least that's the picture presented by the article.
Bullshit. If a cop had you in a room and started talking about the details to a crime you committed and you 'spontaneously' confessed, you can hardly say that you didn't realize you were a suspect. This man who barely knew the kid suddenly visited him and then started showing him the details of his crime. Yet you still think the kid didn't realize that he was a suspect? Come on! The kid confessed because he figured it out and knew that manipulation was required to keep his freedom. That is all. It wasn't remorse. Sociopaths are more manipulative than you can imagine.
Exactly (Score:3)
The author of this story typifies everything that is wrong with today's no-accountability culture.
He's weak in the exact way that fosters the troll that tortured him. I honestly find myself disgusted with him. I imagine, though she may not admit it, his wife was not thrilled and consciously or subconsciously thinks less of his approach to "defending" the family.
I don't care if it's a friend's kid or my kid. He needed to fail at manipulating his way out of trouble. He needed to go before the police and the c
Re: (Score:3)
Err no. RTFA again. Trolled Dude talks to the parents and tells them what's going on, then arranges a meeting with Troll Mama, Troll Papa and Troll. After a polite chat he breaks out the file full of stuff and starts going through it.
THEN Troll boy cries.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Keep reading... Junior only starts bawling after a whole list of things are brought out and he realises the game is up.
Sociopath or not this kid needs to a full on psych eval, not just 'counselling'
Re:Trolling? (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree with the AC. The extent of what the evil little miseryshit did proves it was not just a game to him. I'd wager his show of tears was just that- a show. His brain is miswired. There's a whole section that simply isn't working. Coulseling won't acomplish a damn thing, but he'll be able to make it look like it did.
Sociopaths are the most manipulative people in the world. It's why the alphas go into politics. They thrive there. They are one of the three types of people in this world that you never EVER trust along with junkies and Party loyalist ideologues.
So what are you suggesting? If he as sociopathic as you suggest, then simply pressing charges won't change anything, so you'd have to lock him up to get him out of harms way. You couldn't lock him up forever of course (what court would do that?), so eventually he'd get out again. And if he wasn't really that messed up when he went in, he would be when he got out.
And I bet the tears weren't for show. Even if he is a sociopath and didn't care one way or the other how much pain he'd caused, he would still have been truly upset that he got caught.
Re:Trolling? (Score:5, Insightful)
Internet is the main form of communication for kids today and depriving someone of internet access will isolate them socially completely.
We used to call that "grounding" and somehow I survived it more than once. I know this may come as a shock, but punishment is supposed to be unpleasant.
Re:Trolling? (Score:5, Interesting)
Sociopaths don't learn how to stop hurting people, they just learn not to get caught the next time.
That's not true. A sociopath merely lacks empathy - they may be aware that they are hurting someone, but they don't understand why that's a bad thing. Placed in an incentive system where hurting people is penalised and provides no advantages, they'll do what's best for them and stop.
Re: (Score:3)
That's not true. A sociopath merely lacks empathy - they may be aware that they are hurting someone, but they don't understand why that's a bad thing. Placed in an incentive system where hurting people is penalised and provides no advantages, they'll do what's best for them and stop.
Actually, a sociopath [wikipedia.org] is just someone that has no regard for other people whatsoever. This takes many behavioral forms including the example talked about by the OP.
The kid needs help and I am glad that the situation was resolved the way it was. If the kid had been arrested he may not have gotten the help he needs and gotten far more antisocial. I hope his parents also get some counseling because they are the ones that raised that monster! Obviously they let him spend far too much time on that laptop and not
Re:Trolling? (Score:4, Insightful)
The Authoritarian Personality (Score:3, Informative)
A good beating will modify the behaviour of anyone dramatically.
Evidence shows that punishment like this only modifies behaviour whilst the threat continues. Remove the threat, and you'll find nothing changed. This has been very precisely studied.
Medieval crowd control methods as practised by the Catholic Church and Vlad the Impaler, still work just as efficiently today, as it did back then.
Gee... you must be an authoritarian personality [wikipedia.org]. People are different. They are not all like you. Most are not like you. You cannot project your experience of life onto others. Perhaps medieval crowd control would be good for you -- but for the rest of us, it will just create a spiral of violence. Like the violence in medieva
Re: (Score:3)
It's not "an issue" in America, because any idiot with $100 can already buy a gun, and have it in his hand a lot faster than crafting it on a 3D printer.
Depends on where you are. In California, not so much.
Google "buy guns cheap" and have your credit card ready.
I live in California, so I can buy a gun with a credit card, but then it gets sent to a gun store and I have to deal with the background check and pay $40.
On the other hand, I know people who can get me any gun I want if I'll pay for it. But I won't get ANYTHING from them for $100. I don't have any interesting weapons, because I live in California and that's extra-sketchy here. Just normal ones.
Re:Trolling? (Score:5, Interesting)
This kid is probably a sociopath....Sociopaths don't learn how to stop hurting people, they just learn not to get caught the next time.
Fun fact, per the DSM-IV [behavenet.com] Sociopathy, or actually Antisocial Personality Disorder, as it's now known, can't be diagnosed before age 18.
What that source material doesn't cite, and what 5 seconds of googlin failed to turn up, and thus would require too much effort for me to cite, is why.
Put simply, almost all kids profile as sociopaths. Look at the diagnostic criteria, I'm sure you'll see why.
Now, before anyone jumps up and says "But...but...he's 17, that's close enough to 18, right?", I'll point out that like any developmental milestone, that's just a guideline, there's always some play in development, plus or minus.
Now, having said that, it's entirely possible that this kid actually is a sociopath, personally it doesn't read like that to me, but I'm willing to be wrong.
Antisocial Personality Disorder & Conduct Diso (Score:3)
Fun fact, per the DSM-IV Sociopathy, or actually Antisocial Personality Disorder, as it's now known, can't be diagnosed before age 18.
Technically correct, because the childhood version has its own separate equivalent, known as Conduct Disorder [behavenet.com], in which the criteria are appropriately tailored for the characteristics of younger individuals. Note that the criteria list for Antisocial Personality Disorder includes an item for past history of Conduct Disorder, too.
Re:Trolling? (Score:5, Informative)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Trolling? (Score:4, Insightful)
ell name a SINGLE Internet word we old greybeards came up with that hasn't been butchered all to hell by folks that don't get it had a specific meaning
Well, "net" lingo usually borrows and perverts vocabulary from other realms. "Troll" is a bit of wordplay on the net fishing method and the mythical monster. "Geek" used to be a guy who bit the head of chickens in a circus sideshow. You can't complain too much when the words receive wider usage and change their meanings again.
Re: (Score:3)
Look at any dictionary. Definitions are listed in the approximate order in which their usage first became known. Each mild variant of meaning came into being in the same way. Technology is no different.
Words get thrown out there, people use them in various ways, and the meanings change over time. Then people settle on a usage, the "vulgar" definition. Which in itself is an interesting read. The Damascus Latin Bible was "vulgar" for a thousand years.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/vulgar [merriam-webster.com]
I try
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Trolling? (Score:4, Insightful)
You can't blame the kid bro or judge him too harshly.
Yes I can. Everyone is responsible for their own actions. Not everyone in adverse situations turn into raging assholes. It's not an excuse.
Re: (Score:3)
Trolling? Bullying! (Score:3)
That's basically what this guy was, a bully. He was picking out someone he deemed weaker, he looked for a trigger that he could push to make his victim cower in fear and he went for it. That's the same shit that has been going down schoolyards for ages now.
The only reason this gets some attention is that it can happen to someone of voting age.
Re:Trolling? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Trolling? (Score:5, Insightful)
No, that's insulting. Good trolling seems to be a dying art these days. A good troll post says something that sounds plausible, and encourages responses. During the thread, it becomes less and less reasonable, but the aim is to make the other person say something unreasonable first or to make them waste a large amount of effort replying. If you want to see a good troll, read some of the threads started by roman_mir.
True, a good troll had that ring of plausibility that it triggered teh "Huh? I must respond to this..." reflex before the responder sat down and thought it through. For example:
While Star Trek (Star Wars / Firefly / Battlestar Galactica - pick one) tried to stay true to science as much as is possible in a science fiction world where faster than light travel is the norm; they missed one big thing -> everytime a shuttle craft passed the Enterprise it cast a shadow. In a vacuum; everyone knows you don't have shadows in a vacuum.
Of course, posting that in a Star Trek (or Mensa) group is like shooting fish in a barrel..
Trolling isn't flaming (any idiot can flame); but unfortunately trolling has lost its original meaning much as hacker has. Nor is simply disagreeing and laying out your position; though many people are willing to yell "Troll" when they can't defend their position. AFU, in the old usenet days, was a great example of the art of trolling; unfortunately since the decline of usenet and the onset of eternal September it's a different world.
Re:Trolling? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I do my part
Clean-shaven tradition:
A most healthy start.
Burma Shave
Re:Trolling? (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:3)
No, that's insulting. Good trolling seems to be a dying art these days. A good troll post says something that sounds plausible, and encourages responses. During the thread, it becomes less and less reasonable, but the aim is to make the other person say something unreasonable first or to make them waste a large amount of effort replying. If you want to see a good troll, read some of the threads started by roman_mir.
Truth! Good trolling divides communities because not everyone realises the game they're playing. This kid was trolling in the sense that demanding an ATM PIN at gunpoint could be considered to be "hacking".
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
With respect, I don't think roman_mir/udachny is a troll.
I thought he was, but then he started replying to some of my anti-libertarian bait threads.
Eventually he started rambling incoherently about how Stalin's goons killed his family, how evil I was, etc., descending into telling me that he would be in prison right now if I were closeby as he wouldn't be able to hold himself back. He also told me he now has a "personal interest" in me or something.
At that point I decided that either I'd out-trolled him and
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
No way... Dr.Bob,DC has him beat by a long shot. He's always very civil, and never insults anyone. In a Slashdot poll he would be number one. In fact, I wish they would do that poll.
Re:Trolling? (Score:5, Insightful)
Committed establishment Republican types? Now, there's a mystery. I've completely lost the ability to tell them apart from trolls.
Re:Trolling? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you want to see a good troll, read some of the threads started by roman_mir.
Not only is good trolling rare, but no one even knows what trolling is anymore! Someone isn't trolling just because they say something you disagree with. I can say with certainty that although I disagree with roman_mir, there are people who genuinely have similar 'extremist' views.
I began to write a new comment saying pretty much the same thing as you. Since you've almost nailed it, I decided to reply to your comment instead. So, l will reiterate. Nobody knows what trolling is anymore! They don't. Being abusive is trolling. Saying something controversial isn't trolling. Trolling is leading the person to believe what you're saying or showing them, or leading them into a trap, and then, although not compulsory, making them look like a damn fool. This is quite distinct to saying something like "you're a gay horse". I dunno what a gay horse is, but let's pretend it's offensive. That example is an insult, not a troll at all. The media doesn't know what a "troll" is. They label people who bombard people with insults as trolls. The people who do that are not trolls. Trolls are much more subtle and often *funny*. Maybe it's going to end up like the hacker vs. cracker shit. It seems like the more mainstream things become the more our past is lost.
Re:Trolling? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd like to add that possibly satire is more align with trolling. A lot of The Onion articles are "trolls". To the initiated they illicit a response based on a falsehood. That's a troll.
Re:Trolling? (Score:5, Funny)
This is a real troll. And a good one (even if it's not true):
http://www.bash.org/?244321 [bash.org]
Re: (Score:3)
The difference between the troll and The Onion, is that The Onion is well known satire magazine and only Iranian government and people who live under rock don't know that. The troll who signs up "The Troll" is not a troll anymore, he is just expressing obviously offensive material with a noble desire to wake up the masses from their .. .well, you know what I mean.
Unless he is Holocaust victims. God forbid trolling the Jews.
Re:Trolling? (Score:5, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
It might be if he isn't really a libertarian.
I have to say, before slashdot I didn't have such strong views about how libertarianism was such a stupid, selfish and immoral philosophy. You have to wonder whether some of the people extolling it's virtues here are actually people who are deliberately trying to give it a bad name.
Re: (Score:3)
So, let the opining begin... (Score:5, Insightful)
So, do we actually believe that a college-age man is sufficiently motivated to troll the same person, including offline, for weeks on end; but so obtuse that he doesn't realize such trolling's effects, or did TFA's author just get played by a sociopathic little fucker's crocodile tears?
I'm voting for #2, personally. Wholly anonymous mob pile-ons can easily enough sweep up ethically-unimpressive-but-basically-standard-issue people; and some damaged-but-mostly-harmless types actually seem willing to spend their time dumping copypasta on entire forums; but solitary, prolonged, systematic trolling of one target chosen for no reason? Kid is bad seed.
Re:So, let the opining begin... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm ambivalent to the whole Internet Fuckwad Syndrome, because it's nothing to get pissed about... but when it moves outside to the real world, well, that is when it needs to be prosecuted harshly. This isn't a Troll... this is a psychopath. It's like the word 'hacker'... non-techies have co-opted a word and changed its meaning. (Unlike 'cyberbullying'... which is a term coined by technophobes about trolling...)
Re:So, let the opining begin... (Score:5, Insightful)
...well, now the fucker needs locked up, or at the very least institutionalized until they can figure out what the flying fuck is wrong with his brain.
Prison is going to do what for his mental health exactly? Then note that Leo Traynor's condition for not going to the police was that the parents put the kid in therapy.
Re:So, let the opining begin... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:So, let the opining begin... (Score:5, Insightful)
So you're in favor of either committing him to a mental ward against his will (read Thomas Szasz), killing a 17 y/o kid for being a dick, or having him suffer life-long physical and emotional injury due to prison rape. When the victim here says he wants to give the kid a chance.
And you're the sane, socially acceptable guy here?
Re: (Score:3)
Prison isn't there to make people better or to rehabilitate them.
Exactly. It's good for the economy that people end up right back in prison.
Re:So, let the opining begin... (Score:5, Insightful)
Not only is the philosophy you're touting far more damaging to society as a whole, your RAWR PUNISHMENT attitude isn't even supported by the victim in this case. Who is being served by throwing the kid in prison?
Re:So, let the opining begin... (Score:5, Insightful)
There are enough people who are naturally or are turned into habitual criminals without a "justice" system actively creating them.
Re: (Score:3)
The three objectives of punishment in the criminal justice system are punishment, rehabilitation and deterrence. It's not correct to say it's only for one of them.
Nothing new here, just new medium (Score:3)
See also the radio troll Alan Jones in Australia - very upset this weekend because he was caught the second time he said he publicly addressed a group of people with a comment about the Australian Leader's recently deceased father dying of shame. Stirring up a race riot a couple of years back and getting away with it probably made him think he could get away with anything.
Re:So, let the opining begin... (Score:5, Interesting)
I really can't see how you can equate extremism with mental illness without coming to the conclusion we are already in the asylum and there are more of them than us.
Yes, but there are times when it feels like that is exactly the case. I have an acquaintance (I'll call him Nutcase A) who has swung far into the Teaparty side of politics. Now I'm not claiming anybody else at the last rally he attended is particularly mentally ill, but this guy has, for just one example, gotten so down on some people for letting their kids watch PBS that he has explained to a group of us how all those European travel shows are fake because the Russians tore up those European countries so bad they don't really look like that. A couple of people present with me drew him out on this point, and he now apparently genuinely believes that World War 2 was the US against Russia, that Russia conquered Europe as far as Italy and France, making them all Socialists, held that territory until the 80s, and that those countries weren't freed until Reagan won the cold war. By him, the Germans were on our side during WW2 until the Commies overran them. The Berlin wall enclosed all of Commie Europe, up the Atlantic seacoast. It's like he listened to some Limbaugh and Coulter descriptions of Hitler being a leftist because the Nazis were National Socialists and took that argument to heart so sincerely that he had to re-write fifty years of history to be consistant with it.
Oh, and Clifford the Big Red Dog is particularly a commie plot to indoctinate the youth of America. I know this guy passed at least a normal high school history class once, but it's like he's now rewritten it all in his mind, and everything he seems to believe is being filtered through an incredibly and increasingly warped version of right libertarian philosophy.
What your comment made me think of is that his example has made me ask other people on the Tea Party side about their nutcases, and there's a strong tendency for those people to claim there aren't any people like that guy attending their rallys and speaking at their town halls. I know some of these people have met Nutcase A, and in a couple of cases, have heard him say at least something totally whackjob. I was there when those cases happened. Even if Nutcase A is 1 in 1,000 and there's a lot more reasonable people making up the bulk of the group, I'm finding it harder and harder to believe those other people are not in some weird state of denial, deliberately or delusionally pretending they don't have any Nutcase A's at all around. And, I'm wondering about what else they are in denial over. When somebody claiming affiliation with the American right says, for example, that they haven't seen any signs the dislike of president Obama is racially motivated, I wonder if they have just ignored hearing a dozen rants and a hundred racial slurs at their last meeting - wondering if they start out thinking in each incident that those people aren't really the core of their group, and five minutes later have turned it into "that didn't happen at all - we aren't like that, so I didn't hear what I heard.". When people appear to be standing right next to some ranting and raving 'crazy people', and swearing they didn't hear anything crazy, yes, you start figuring the whole group is part of the illness.
Re:So, let the opining begin... (Score:4, Insightful)
So, do we actually believe that a college-age man is sufficiently motivated to troll the same person, including offline, for weeks on end; but so obtuse that he doesn't realize such trolling's effects,
Yes
Traced his IP? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Traced his IP? (Score:5, Funny)
I bet they used a GUI interface using Visual Basic!
No! Everyone knows when you trace an IP it does a 3D mapping google fly over with a little dot following a line from each location and then zooms in close to the final location showing a live video feed! I watch movies I know how computers work!
Keywords (Score:5, Interesting)
Keywords in the original text:
"basically an IT genius,"
"hacked my facebook account"
"trace the hackers and trolls for me using perfectly legal technology, which would lead to their IP addresses."
"the abuse had emanated from three separate IP addresses in different corners of Ireland."
"The third location was a friend's house."
so, you can know the house location of each poster on twitter ? - troll-
Re:Keywords (Score:5, Informative)
There are a lot of people arguing that this whole story is a fable; the IT guy the author presents to defend his account is a feckless bullshitter. Basically it's a case of two guys who don't know that they don't know the technical difficulties in what they claim to have done. The whole thing is embarrassing and annoying.
yeah it seems to me this story is made up (Score:3, Interesting)
It's a nice moralistic story but it doesn't pass the smell test
Re:fable (Score:4, Interesting)
"There are a lot of people arguing that this whole story is a fable; the IT guy the author presents to defend his account is a feckless bullshitter. Basically it's a case of two guys who don't know that they don't know the technical difficulties in what they claim to have done. The whole thing is embarrassing and annoying."
Are we getting ... wait for it ... trolled? (Can I start a meme? Rick-Trolled?)
What's really out of whack is the sequence of events. So the cops can't find this guy, they're wringing their hands in helplessness. Along comes "An IT Genius" that traces the house by IP ... and the cops couldn't call any of their guys on the entire force to do that? However if the kid torrented a Song they would have found him pronto.
How is it even difficult? (Score:5, Insightful)
Post a link for a guy to click on. He clicks on it. It goes to a page you publish on your server. You look in the server logs. You know his IP address. Then you can find his city and possibly his neighborhood from that. And you know his ISP.
After that it can become more difficult. But it's hardly impossible. If a friend at the guy's ISP will do you a favor (the troll in the story is local), or if you can simply guess the right answer and check it, it's easy again. If you can read someone's cookies with a cross-site scripting vulnerability or trick them into installing malware, it's not going to be too hard to find them.
Re: (Score:3)
You don't need to go that far.
It was pretty obvious the stalker was known to his victim. If he sent an email from home, the IP address of their router would be in the headers.
If there was an accurate entry in a geo IP database, that gives you the town.
Now, if you don't live anywhere near that town but you have a friend who does - sounds like a hell of a coincidence.
Re: (Score:3)
However what stands out to me in this story is that the guy claims to have gotten a package from the offender, but doesn't so much as mention checking the return address.
Parcels sent locally here (Ireland) don't need a return address: that's an American requirement.
Re: (Score:3)
I can imagine that some wifi hotspot IPs can be found in public, and it's also not completely impossible that his friend had a static IP which he knew. Facebook passwords can be broken like any other (although I won't call that a hack, but this guy is not an "IT genius"). How they got the IP is a better question, but one method would be to set up his acount to automatically send him the login logs (not sure about Facebook but it can be done in Google+ which he said he used in the baiting), pick a weak passw
Puhleese (Score:5, Funny)
Sounds like a lifetime movie to me.
At what point... (Score:3)
At what point would a sane person just call the cops?
Re:At what point... (Score:5, Insightful)
Before or after he found him?
A sane person would of given the cops the information and let this be a legal issue. I would of done the same. Basically this kid crossed the line from harmless internet troll, to potential killer when he moved the trolling to the real world. that has consequences and it they ruin his life well it's his fault.
Re:At what point... (Score:5, Informative)
would of --> would have
please
Re: (Score:3)
Before or after he found him? A sane person would of given the cops the information and let this be a legal issue. I would of done the same. Basically this kid crossed the line from harmless internet troll, to potential killer when he moved the trolling to the real world. that has consequences and it they ruin his life well it's his fault.
But, like many other knee-jerk reactions to headlines, you failed to read the article to find that the kid was a family friend's kid and that throwing him in the slammer would be the worst thing for a sociopath. So you're saying you'd lock up your friend's kid rather than confront the family and deal with the issue with empathy and regard for the well being of others? Nice sociopathic behavior on your part, btw. The kid needs help, not punishment! He's 17! Still a minor in most developed countries' legal sy
Re:At what point... (Score:4, Interesting)
He did. And they were not helpful.
I was petrified.
They had my address.
I reported it to the authorities and hoped for the best.
Two days later I opened my front door and there was a bunch of dead flowers with my wife's old Twitter username on it. Then that night I recieved a DM. 'You'll get home some day & ur b**ches throat will be cut & ur son will be gone.'
I got on to the authorities again but, polite and sympathetic as they were, there didn't seem much that could be done.
Sort of surprising because I'm fairly certain the language of that threat rises to a criminal level with the threat of bodily harm and kidnapping, especially given that the person making the threat knows the address of the person they are threatening.
Re: (Score:3)
Sort of surprising because I'm fairly certain the language of that threat rises to a criminal level with the threat of bodily harm and kidnapping, especially given that the person making the threat knows the address of the person they are threatening.
Not at all. Firstly, this all happened in the UK, so unless you live there you have no idea how their legal system deals with cases like this. I know that in the U.S. it is dealt with differently state-by-state as there are different laws in different states dealing with cases like this but, one thing holds fairly true throughout. Unless they actually do something, threats mean nothing and the police file your complaint until something happens. Once something happens those threats get used as evidence, but
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Paragraph 13 of the original story. It's a good read.
The cops can't protect anyone. They just show up after you're dead and string up crime scene tape. In the UK you're not allowed to protect yourself either -- it undermines government authority.
Re:At what point... (Score:5, Interesting)
... In the UK you're not allowed to protect yourself either -- it undermines government authority.
While in essence what you say is true, in practice, you'll find that not all the police, judiciary and juries are 'on side' with that particular message.
Another thing, whilst I'm at it, the UK has three separate legal systems, one covering England/Wales, one covering Scotland, and lastly Northern Ireland. There may be UK wide laws, which are usually 'rubber stamped' by the Scottish and NI legal systems, but the implementation and interpretation of said laws depends on which legal jurisdiction of the UK you're in.
Having been told by a Chief Constable in Scotland that in the event of anyone breaking into my house, so long as it's within my property, I have the right to defend myself and my family, and if I fear for their or my life, then extreme actions are permissible, then I'd think it's safe to say that I do have a right to protect myself, the issue lies with how much force I use to do so and in what circumstances.
I've no idea what the legal position is in England/Wales, but having lived there for 15 years and having on at least one occasion been caught on 'surveillance' cameras 'defending myself' against a couple of muggers (one ran, I left the other U/S on the ground) and despite the incident being on camera/tape, and despite my good self being a somewhat easy individual to spot in a crowd the police never did anything about it.
So, yes, we have a bunch of control freaks in power who'd love to regiment every microsecond of our lives (irrespective of what political party they're pretending to be this month), yes, we're not allowed to own guns the same way you Americans are, yes, these restrictions haven't done a damn thing to stop the increase in 'gun crime' in the UK (Fact: gun crime is on the rise, and it is now easier to get large calibre handguns on the 'black market' since the UK government banned the ownership of the things), but, please, please don't get hung up on the fact that we do not own firearms somehow equates to we're without the means of defending ourselves, and, despite the best efforts of the State and despite the picture the media paints, we are allowed to do so.
The laws are still policed and implemented by the more than occasional human being, a lot of incidents never get to the legal system in the first instance as the Police/CPS/Procurator Fiscals take one look at the evidence and won't present it, of those which do go, you only hear about the 'being prosecuted for self defence' cases that papers with a political agenda like the 'Daily Mail' want you to hear about, you'll never read about the people who are admonished/found 'not guilty' (unless it suits the paper 'politically').
Re: (Score:3)
Naturally. And here the mirror is true, while in essence our legal system still recognises a right to self defense, not all police, judiciary, or juries are on side with that either. It's a daily battle to try to preserve it.
great ending (Score:3)
Oddly heartwarming ending. It's awesome when people can take the high road and restrain themselves from lashing back at abusers, who do this stuff out of boredom, insecurity, and immaturity (or sometimes mental instability issues, alas). But recognizing that people do stupid regrettable crap, and that maybe their lives need not be ruined over it, and that maybe some good might come out of something bad... that's great strength and maturity. Kudos.
Re: (Score:3)
Why? He put IP-Adresses of his new places on the internet. He uses the usual channels, Google+ and Facebook and Twitter. The new places are on servers his IT genius friends has set up. He gets the logfiles and analyses the addresses. Three adresses he can't put a name on.
Why you seemed to understand that he got the logfiles from Facebook is beyond me. It's described differently in the article.
The key word there... (Score:2)
Safety first (Score:5, Funny)
This is why content delivery systems need to be licensed by governments. This wouldn't have happened if Twitter were prohibited because it's unlicensed.
It's a safety issue. Just like the license you need before you can drive your own car. Just like the license you need to be a barber. Or the permit that those kids should have gotten before the cops shut down their lemonade stand [forbes.com]. Or the license that that guy in North Carolina needs to publish dietary advice on his blog [nytimes.com]. Or the law license that Elizabeth Warren doesn't need because she's one of the special people [volokh.com].
Leo Traynor should be ashamed for having an unlicensed conversation with his Troll. Is he a certified criminal counselor? He should have gotten the authorities involved, because they should always be involved. In everything.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
He should have gotten the authorities involved, because they should always be involved. In everything.
Precisely. Sadly, some people are perfectly willing to trade away safety for this 'freedom' nonsense. I honestly wish it was possible to have a TSA agent constantly breathing down everyone's necks; if that happened, we'd be perfectly safe from all the evil trolls, rapists, and terrorists! Oh, and copyright infringers (the most dangerous criminals of them all).
Safety first.
Re: (Score:3)
Can't tell if you're a parody or serious
Re:Safety first (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
Why? If their community doesn't like it, they can leave. No need to blame Twitter for someone else's actions.
Something doesn't sound right (Score:4, Insightful)
"I was deliberately more provocative toward them than ever I'd been before."
This sentence makes me think that, however vile the "troll" could have turned out to be, this wasn't an entirely black-versus-white situation. I suspect this guy was being a jerk back at anyone who was a jerk to him, and it escalated further than he thought it would.
Re: (Score:3)
"I was deliberately more provocative toward them than ever I'd been before."
This sentence makes me think that, however vile the "troll" could have turned out to be, this wasn't an entirely black-versus-white situation. I suspect this guy was being a jerk back at anyone who was a jerk to him, and it escalated further than he thought it would.
Have you ever had a troll come after you? It all starts off as harmless verbal sparring and ALWAYS escalates. Trolls are like dogs with frisbees and just won't let go, especially when they are minors with no responsibilities, plenty of time on their hands and sociopathic tendencies. What you learn is to cut them off, like Leo tried to do, but some don't go away. Try having your own discussion board some time and be required to deal with trolls. I think your perspective on being a jerk would change dramatica
this is not trolling (Score:5, Insightful)
This is stalking
Its like calling arson vandalism
Identify the nature of the transgression correctly
I read this 4 days ago. Interesting nonetheless... (Score:3)
A kid basically ruined the guy's life, essentially just for lulz -- or for lack of anything constructive to do with his time. Fortunately, the kid did not understand how traceable IP addresses are and he was caught and confronted. Most interesting part of it was that the kid really didn't seem to truly comprehend what devastation he was causing to another human being, because he did it all remotely from the safety of his computer.
Reality is that this is just an extreme example of what goes on daily on semi-anonymous message boards (like this one). If we all had to show our faces, I'm sure we'd be a little more civil toward one another. Personally, I don't think I run a very high risk of ending up in the situation that this guy was in, since I value my online anonymity too much. I realize that for many, the temptation to spread their personal misery is just too great, and so they troll, which is really just a cry for attention -- something they probably didn't get enough of growing up.
Anyway, enough pontificating. Queue the trolls...
This is a simple case. (Score:3, Insightful)
The author is just too naive, or cowardly to deliver his friend's son with legal action.
In the end the author tries to spin this little story as a 'I'm the bigger man' tale instead.
The author is at this point just enabling him, like his parents.
This is a 17 year old who's in college. He's a danger to himself and others, and any additional damage caused by him will also be in the author's head.
What did he learn from this? Cry when you get caugh, and your actions have no consequences.
Happened to me in high school. (Score:4, Interesting)
I blocked at least a dozen AIM accounts a night for weeks (maybe months); I can be fortunate there was no "twitter" then, nor this "book of faces", and that smartphones were this exciting new thing Handspring was just introducing to the market that nobody could afford.
Then I got two unsolicited copies of the TSR novel "Death of the Dragon" in the mail - this may have been an error by a small book distributor I did business with, so I can't be sure -- but "Dragon" was part of the IM name I used at the time, and I could never be sure. I still have both copies, and I haven't read either. I don't actually think I even touched either after I put them on the bookshelf those years ago.
Then the fella proved himself grossly incompetent, and threatened to beat me to death. In a public library, where I "was", he was "behind" me. I was sitting at a desk, at home, with a baseball bat within arms' reach. I mocked him for the rest of the night, and then it ended. He failed. Epically. His confrontation... wasn't.
But I'm not in high school any more. I spent the next couple years reading books like "Shooting To Live" [specops.pl] and "Kill or Get Killed" [resist.com]. I took years of aikido, tae kwon do, and studied a few forms of swordplay for a few more years. I carry a gun, and enough ammo to get through the statistically average civilian-defense gunfight, and then a little more. Sometimes, more than one. I'm seriously considering building some ghetto-but-effective body armor. (Steel rifle plates went out of style because they're heavy and unconcealable, but they offer an awful lot of protection). I don't carry a gun because I expect to get in a fight; I carry because I don't expect to get in a fight. If I expected one, I'd simply send a SWAT team in my stead, and sip Starbucks in the mobile command center. (No police department takes documentable, documented conspiracy to commit murder lightly in this age of lawsuits!) I don't sit with my back to the door at restaurants any more, I know what phrases like "condition yellow" mean, and I look for the bulge of a poorly-concealed weapon now when someone walks into the gas station while I'm fueling up.
Fortunately, for the most part, I don't mind living like this. In practice, 98% of the time, it just means I can make unplanned trips to the gun range without going home for weapons. And - unlike most liberals - I know a secret: The shooting sports are fun. I hesitate to say it, but it's a blast to put 20 shots into a single hole not any bigger than a nickel; mastery for its own sake is one of the most rewarding things. [ted.com]
But somewhere, deep down, I know and cannot forget: I found this thing I enjoy because someone threatened to kill me in a public place, in front of witnesses, and get away with it. And other geeks may not get through it as well as I did. I may enjoy the trappings, but I wouldn't want to put anyone through the scary parts on the way to where I am today.
Let us not mistake this for an isolated incident; it is not. Let us not mistake it for something new; it is not. Let us not allow this to happen again; it should not.
Re:Happened to me in high school. (Score:4, Informative)
Article is most likely a fake. (Score:3)
The article is most likely a fake.
Tracking someones home simply by having an IP adress with no help from the ISP and various legal procedures? Yeah, sure.
*Not* going to the police over physical world death-threats? Yeah, sure.
I bet money that this is a fabricated news story by a loony pseudo journalist. Or that Leo Traynor simply doesn't exist. There are accounts on the interweb that indicate this.
You have all been Trolled. (Score:5, Interesting)
Leo Traynor is a fiction. Apparently he has lived in no less than seventeen countries over the past eight years, including some of the most politically unstable regions on the planet; more that he has managed to stay still long enough to gain a DPhil in international politics (no school anywhere has any record of him), that he has worked for all three main parties in the UK as a press liaison officer (yet no mention of him in the Press, ever). That he has worked for both parties in the US as a Press liaison officer (ditto). His story is so full of holes you could drain chips with it.
Leo Traynor, you are a bullshitter.
Re:First post (Score:5, Funny)
God hates fags
Yes. Smoking can kill you.
Re: (Score:3)
Cthulu want more brownies!
Re: (Score:3)
How does Traynor's "genius" I.T. friend get an IP address from ...Facebook (wtf??) ?
Quite easy. You post a status with a link that's only visible to the stalker. When he visits the link, you have his IP address.
Re: (Score:3)
And then you find out the household that was using that IP address at that time by...?
Remember, Fantasy Man here assures us this his "basically an IT genius" friend did it "legally".
How?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
360 degrees means you're looking directly at the xbox again ...