Slashdot Mirror
Korea's Online Aggression a Taste of the Future?
DerGeist writes "Imagine your life ruined by an organized mob that convicts with scant, unreliable evidence. Fueled only by hearsay and rumors, an invisible horde of your fellow citizens begins bombarding your snailbox, email, phone, work, school and family with threats, insults and general harassment. You are forced to drop out of school and quit your job as a result of constant attacks. You are shunned and ridiculed in public as anywhere you go, you are instantly recognized. Although it may seem to be just a second-rate Hollywood nightmare scenario reminiscent of "The Net," this sort of "organized mob" justice is being dealt out freely in South Korea where net usage is booming. So freely, in fact, that almost 1 in 10 of 13-65 year-olds has felt its sting. Could this trend hit the U.S.? Will policing net behavior eventually become necessary?"
The U.S. citizen has lost all notion of public shame. What in South Korea gets you ostracized, in the U.S. get you on "Entertainment Tonight".
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
Could this trend hit the U.S.?
No, because every smart admin trys to block all IPs from Korea!
Oh do you mean could rumors and shit started by people in the US hit hard here? They already do. People are always into drama, especially online. They are hiding behind their computers and believe they are anonymous.
There's really nothing better than receiving threatening e-mails at work and home as well as subscriptions to gay magazines, threats of violence against your home, family, and dog just because you locked a thread on a forum.
It really makes the Internet fun.
If they are issuing "real" threats or abusing services, they should face the consequences of those abuses. It shouldn't require any new Internet Police(tm) or anything like that, the e--mailer/ISP/local rules for harassment, etc, or abuse of service should do it.
stuff |
AOL USer searches:
"Organized mob life ruin"
"Fill Ted's inbox with junk"
"Dog urinates on everything"
"Dog urinates on Ted"
"Ruin Ted Life"
"Ted Porn"
As long as we have users like that, I wouldn't worry.
....but there is going to be hell to pay once their server farm of Vic-20s sends all those viruses through Fidonet at 300 baud in order to bring America's SychroNET and C-NET C64 BBS user base to its knees.
Where were you when the voynix came?
Ever hear of defamation or libel?
Who needs the net to ruin lives when you have the traditional media? Ask the parents of JonBenet Ramsey or Richard Jewel about having your life ruined by false accusations. Do you think CNN will ever have to pay for either spectacle?
an ill wind that blows no good
It's just a larger scope than it used to be.
Small towns used to be this way (and still are) where every small little thing get talked about and blown out of proportion.
In the town I grew up in merely having a young males car parked outside a young females house while he goes and visits another young male across the street will spawn all kinds of rumors and anger.
Television has been doing this for quite a while, just take the recent developments in the Jon Benet Ramsey case. I can't even remember at this point why everyone threw so much anger at the parents.
Until people stop hating at first site this won't go away.
Oh no, it'd be like Slashdot all over again
The nannies, values police,and the do-gooders will do anything to get the cops policing our wild-west network into some surburbaned picket-fenced wasteland. This excuse seems as useful as all the "for the children" excuses.
... would happen in the US for one reason: we have firearms, lots of firearms. =)
...just ask Patricia Ramsey.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
give parent cake
For those who CBF paging through ads...
l es/2006/08/14/news/korea.php
http://www.iht.com/bin/print_ipub.php?file=/artic
"invisible horde of your fellow citizens"
If Koreans have developed invisibility, I don't see the problem. Poof! Just disappear and everything is solved.
But I thought that In Korea only Old People use the Net!
I'm trying to visualize "1 in 10 of 13-65 year-olds" being "instantly recognized" and "shunned and ridiculed in public" anywhere they go.
While an amusing image, I'm having a hard time believing it.
Harassment is harassment, whether it takes place in person or over the net. Stalking is stalking, online or not. The laws we have are already adequate to cover these scenarios. The only problem, of course, is identification, but no law will help solve that.
If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
They have no Seoul.
"Ask the parents of JonBenet Ramsey"
It's still not all revealed. How could this guy get into and spend time in the Ramsey house at Christmas time without the Ramsey parents knowing about it. And if they did know about it, why did they never mention this houseguest to police? Something is still incomplete here, but the way things are going this too might be answered in days or even hours.
Where were you when the voynix came?
Probaly will evolve, if not already happening, into online gang warfare's first.
Timang tinggi tinggi
parang sudah asah
alang alang mandi
biar sampai basah
Things are still being figured out. I think the powers that be will finally conclude one day that John and Jane Doe cannot be allowed to access the Internet without being identifiable to law enforcement. Hopefully we can convince the politicians not to let that happen, but seems like every other week there's a new ignorant Internet law on the table.
Only more benign, being without the constant physical violence.
Reminds me oddly of this:
http://www.gangstalking.ca/
Also, watch the video:
http://www.eharassment.ca/videos.htm
Are that words can be agression or thoughts can be a crime.
but there is going to be hell to pay once their server farm of Vic-20s sends all those viruses through Fidonet at 300 baud in order to bring America's SychroNET and C-NET C64 BBS user base to its knees.
Nope, they've seen the latest Norwegian research and are moving up to ip-packet-carrying birds. The good news is that you can disable that network with a 20-gauge shotgun, and in a pinch, those pigeons are actually edible. Pheasants (which originate in Asia) are better eating, but don't home as well, and they're bigger targets. Though they might work well in a Token-Ringneck network topography.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
It just goes to show you that that the internet is going to be responsable for the complete downfall of society. we need good christian values. If you boiled one offender in oil a week in public this sort of thing wouldn't get out of control. Heck if parents beat their kids regularly said kids might not go out and hurt other people
I often have trouble remembering which way is out of bed in the morning.
Just clean up the damn dog shit!
The evaluation of an action as 'practical' . . . depends on what it is that one wishes to practice.
The U.S. citizen has lost all notion of public shame. What in South Korea gets you ostracized, in the U.S. get you on "Entertainment Tonight".
I can think of several examples where spammers' personal info was posted to Slashdot, and the (alleged) spammer was subjected to harassment in virtually all of the ways described in the article.
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
Remember?
1 7
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/11/21/00552
You're using her as bait, Master!
Imagine your life ruined by an organized mob that convicts with scant, unreliable evidence.
Your talking about the current US administration here?
OH.. OH... sorry... This is just another bizarre offspring of the We're-better-than-you kind of US-agenda right?
"Pheasants (which originate in Asia) are better eating [uplandlife.com]"
I think you have an imperfect translation of Mao's little red book there. He was actually referring to how tasty peasants were.
"Token-Ringneck network topography."
Gollum must have been the ultimate pencil-necked geek if he could wear the One Ring around his neck!
Where were you when the voynix came?
I don't think this kind of thing is likely in western countries. The likes of South Korea have teched up really quickly, and I think they haven't had time to develop a healthy sense of skepticism about what they read on the net. Sure, there are sections of society that will believe anything they read here in Britain (and presumably most western countries), but in general we seem to be pretty good at differentiating between reliable and unreliable sources of information, and acting accordingly. In countries like South Korea, that doesn't yet seem to be the case. Either that, or there's some social dynamic that causes people to act on this kind of thing even though they actually know the information is unreliable - no evidence for that, but you can't discount it.
Oh no... it's the future.
This comment has been redacted due to content.
They (the "authorities" I suppose you mean) didn't "catch" the guy, he CONFESSED; the difference being that they weren't really looking for anyone else since they'd already convicted the parents in their own "court of private opinion". Especially sad when you consider that stress is a well-known factor in the growth (and probably the beginning) of cancers; if they'd received 1/2 the "service" from these "public servants" as gets heaped upon investigations of nonviolent crimes maybe (just maybe) the receipt of justice rather than suspicion would have meant the difference between death and being able to fight-off the cancer.
It already DOES happen. The guy who uploads naked pics of his ex, the guy who took a mugshot of his ex-buddie and posted it to somethingaweful, and not to forget the Star Wars Kid.
And let's not even get close to afternoon TV and other forms of "entertainment" that resemble a freak show more than anything.
Could it be worse? Would "online mobbing" be worse? Hardly. Online only means that more people learn about it, but 99.9999% of those don't care at all. They don't know you, wouldn't even recognize you if they met you on the street. What matters is your peers, and it is fairly easy to tell them about whatever you did supposedly do or say, with or without the 'net.
If you really want to mob someone to the point where he loses friends and family, you don't need the net. You only need gullible people, and they are running free in our streets.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
to create a small population that is easily distinguished from the masses? If 1 in 10 people are chosen for these attacks, I find it VERY hard to believe the general public knows them ALL - there would just be too many people to remember. It seems to me that this type of attack looses power the larger a problem it becomes, as there are too many people attacked in this manor. Kinda like information overload.
Why, yes, we have. Who do you wish to sue?
<IRONY=100%>
What do you mean, you don't know their names? Look at what you've got:
<IRONY=0%> (There - I remembered to put the opening tag on this time!)
You also haven't considered that the filer of a libel/slander lawsuit has to (a) prove the allegations are false, and (b) prove that the allegations were made maliciously or with a "reckless disregard." Judges and juries often set that bar pretty high (hey, it's a free country, isn't it?).
Finally, so what if you win? Some individual gets hit for damages, they pay what they have to and declare bankruptcy, and the false information is still out there. Factual statements can be proven or disproven, but suspicions are notoriously hard to lay to rest.
In short, libel or slander suits are quite workable for the people and/or companies who can afford the time and effort needed for them. For ordinary citizens who are being plagued by a group of self-styled vigilantes, that option isn't available.
Strike while the irony is hot! -- The Freethinker
I'm an American with a Korean wife. I speak Korean, and my wife, kids and I watch Korean TV shows together. We especially like the game shows. The game shows mostly have popular stars as participants.
Certain participants are so popular, that if a not-so-popular star insults a popular one (even during a game called "Dangyon Haji", or "Of Course", where the OBJECT of the game is to insult the other person until they quit), that not-so-popular one will get bombarded with hate e-mail, hate-posts, and sometimes they even get bombarded by physical objects! Their popularity drops dramatically. Some stars have been known to lose intentionally to avoid earning the wrath and ire of the "fans."
I don't think this has anything to do with the fact that they "teched-up" rapidly before online etiquette was formed. This has more to do with emotion-driven Korean culture. The word "fan" comes from "fanatic," and that is what some of the "fans" really are!
For instance, you can get on places like MySpace or USENET, pose as your victim, and start saying crazy things that will eventually find its way to future employers.
Or you can pose as other people saying nasty things about that person and make it sound like a large number of people hate this person.
Using anonymous proxies (or remailers on USENET) will make you increasingly resistant to being discovered and punished; but even if you are, that person will still have to clear their name with employers and such that don't know the "rest" of the story (such as, it's all a lie and perhaps their attacker is now in jail). The thing is, employers would rather not hire people mired in that kind of drama; so even if God tells them the truth, that only bolsters their decision not to hire the victim of such online malevolence.
This has all the elements it needs to be the next wave of domestic terrorism in America: anyone can do it, and the damage can be overwhelming. Plus, law enforcement is typically too slow and unconcerned with dealing with people who do this, and when this wave of terrorism hits its stride, civil courts will be crushed by all the thousands - or millions - of court cases, as every Tom Dick and Harry in the world takes advantage of what will be seen as the most powerful weapon of mass defamation in history.
I say "in history" because it's super cheap (free), super easy, super effective and super devastating, if the harasser knows how to do it right in the correct forums where information will propagate far and wide.
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
Are that words can be agression or thoughts can be a crime.
"Avada Kedavra" doubles as words and aggression. And thoughts can be crimes, ask the Dark Phoenix.
"Imagine your life ruined by an organized mob that convicts with scant, unreliable evidence.
I think they're called the RIAA.
See, for every story of privacy invasion from the police which prompts people to want better encryption and being anonymous on the web, once in a while there's an article like this one that doesn't make me want more protection from privacy invasion. Think about it, if people could make death threats like this totally anonymously, without any chance of being caught... I want those people to leave trace somewhere so they can be caught.
Last year my uncle has been the subject of his ex-lover's efforts to destroy his reputation on TV, Philippine newspapers & local blogosphere in a bid to get their child back, win in the court of popular opinion & for money. His ex-lover used her media & political connection to go on live TV to accuse my uncle of being a murderer, land grabber, gangster, etc (basically making him out as a Hannibal Lector if he was a lawyer) and told people to look him up on the Internet. Seeming she couldnt mention his name due to legal reasons she had to mention a Philippine Army General who harassed our family 15 years ago as a key word so people would know who he was.
You see my uncle is a lawyer who is a giant question mark in the mainstream media & the general public and it doesnt help his name shows up in a lot of court decisions posted on our government's Supreme Court website. For the curious by-stander who just happened to have a casual interest you would automically assume my uncle was truelly that "evil" seeming he was mentioned in so many contraversial Supreme Court cases. I do not blame people making such brash assumptions seeming court documents are long, wordy & use very legalistic terms that would cause any non-lawyer to scratch his head and make wild guesses. It is far easier to trust a female celebrity guesting on the local equivalent of the Oprah who bashes my uncle as the devil than to make the effort to get the whole unvarnished truth through court documents.
Because of these lengthy legal papers people automatically think all the things the ex-lover said was true, that he was a real monster.
If only people took the time to read the legal papers they'd see that the ex-lover was manipulating them. It pisses me off that the ex-lover had to dredge up our family feud & shame that legally ended with a Philippine Supreme Court decision back in 1991. I will probably never forgive her for that.
I can relate to the Korean fellow whose reputation was tarnished because of very malicious rumors & half truths spread by those who make assumptions.
I know a lot of people dont like lawyers but please, no taste-less jokes that lawyers deserve this kind of flack. I also know by not including links my post doesnt pack the punch that would really make the discussion & I apologize.
i was thinking the same thing this morning watching GMA. the dad was all "i have no idea how this guy knew my daughter." wha? how is this possible? i mean, the guy claims he loved her, not just knew her. surely there's some connection there that we just haven't heard. the fact that the guy was into kiddie porn just further raises my suspicions. something's just not adding up. the darkest suspicion would be that the dad was somehow involved with the kiddie porn ring with the killer... then again, evidence about that would surely have been discovered and leaked sometime in these 10 years.
Remember the "How NOT to steal a SidekickII incident"?
http://www.evanwashere.com/StolenSidekick/
In most countries, Internet users oppose government attempts to censor the Internet. In South Korea, however, in both government-funded and private surveys, a majority of people support official intervention to check unbridled freedom of speech on the Internet.
Oh I get it now... Throw around a few anecdotes of people who got harassed using the intarweb, the thinkofthechildren crowd stands up and starts spewing forth its usual crap (such as somethingmustbedonewhereisthegovernment), and presto, censorship of the aforementioned intarweb.
There are weirdos everywhere, and it's not the government's job to slap on a pair of balls to people to make them stand up for themselves.
Besides, like that guy's sig says, The plural of anecdote is not data.
Such total lies, this could NEVER happen here.
Mod down any comments that suggest otherwise.
I have already downvoted all of DerGeist's comment history for even suggesting this blasphemy.
And I have some naughty photos of timothy in a compromising position with CowboyNeal, who volunteers to host them if he doesn't take this absurd story DOWN DOWN DOWN?
Mob justice is SO not American.
In Korea, only old people harass others.
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
Agressive Words can lead to agressive actions you know...
As far as thought crimes, I'm with you there AC. But If someone threatens me, whether it be to me face, by phone or by internet, I would probably take it seriously to some extent. Because you never know.
Is there heaven? Is there Hell? Is that a Tuna Melt I smell?-Primus
Mildred, the church gossip, and self-appointed monitor of the church's morals, kept sticking her nose into other people's business. Several members did not approve of her extra-curricular activities, but feared her enough to maintain their silence.
She made a mistake, however, when she accused George, a new member, of being an alcoholic after she saw his old pickup parked in front of the town's only bar one afternoon.
She emphatically told George and several others that everyone seeing it there would know what he was doing. George, a man of few words, stared at her for a moment and just turned and walked away. He didn't explain, defend, or deny. He said nothing.
Later that evening, George quietly parked his pickup in front of Mildred's house ... and left it there all night.
I couldn't help thinking that Poe (others too, probably) already thought of this 150 years ago, specifically in Some Words With a Mummy , written in 1850.
Korea is much more of a collectivist culture than the West is. I imagine that that makes it much easier for this stuff to happen.
Ever hear of defamation or libel?
I assume that we're ignoring the fact that it's usually nigh-impossible to find the people who started the whole rumor mill going or that it's impossible to sue EVERYBODY involved in mob harrassment or that you may have actually done what you're accused of like the woman who was infamously harrassed for letting her dog poop in a subway car and refused to clean it up, etc.?
Well, the main problem is that suing people can take years and is basically closing the barn door after the horses have run free. It in no way stops the harrassment, which will die out on its own long before then and leave smoldering distrust and disdain in people's minds towards you. Suing is far less effective than preventing it from happening in the first place. All suing is is vengeance, and vengeance is always a thing for after the damage has been done.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
This sounds like a combination of Nigerian 419 scams and the standard government overreaction to anyone caught using cannibus. Plus as Americans we can expect to get a truckload of this kind of ship from all the self-righteous assholes around the world who believe that as Americans we are responsible for every little chickenship thing that goes wrong in their life.
Ten years ago you would get this kind of harrassment (from authority figures, but not on the PC) because you were young and didn't feel like getting killed in some endless insane war. Or if you were a sexual minority (Gay, Lesbo, transexual, etc...). Or if you used cannibus.
25 years ago you would get this ship if your were anti-war, gay, negro (the term at the time for African-American), Spanish-speaking, or cannibus friendly.
50 years ago you would get this ship if your were anti-war, gay, negro (the term at the time for African-American), Spanish-speaking, Jewish, or cannibus friendly.
100 years ago you would get this ship if your were anti-war, gay, negro (the term at the time for African-American), Spanish-speaking, Jewish, or female.
150 years ago you would get this ship if your were anti-war, gay, negro (the term at the time for African-American), Spanish-speaking, Jewish, Irish, or female.
Every culture has a certain number of people who feel a gripping inner need to make other people's lives miserable for no good reason. All that changes is the pathetic excuse that they use for their need to discrimate.
20 years from now the people who will be discrimated against will be those fail bogus genetic tests for disease predispositions, or for being Muslim, or all those people caught by the RIAA for 'illegal' downloading.
The more things change, the more they remain the same. The best that you can do is personally refuse to participate in the patterns of discrimination against whoever has been chosen by the Asshole Society for abuse.
As long as they apply (which, logically, they should) to internet harassment no new "policing of the Internet" or new laws are required.
MORTAR COMBAT!
More and more, as our world becomes a society of instant information, I rely upon a passage I read from a Hesse novel years ago. The gist was: the vast majority of people are children, and children like to exaggerate and tell lies. The only information you can trust is that information you can verify yourself. And then you must guard against self deception, because lying to yourself is very common too. This is true for all aspects of life. Religion? Politics? Levels of crime? The love of your spouse? There is no way of knowing the truth. The mature individual realizes this and guards their beliefs and actions appropriately.
This was alluded to in a Slashdot article the other day, wasn't it? What did they call it..."the wisdom of crowds."
42,000 people file formal complaints with the police and you consider that "a few anecdotes"?
Clear, Dark Skies
Threats don't seem to be the main issue; slander does. People going hog-wild and spreading rumors, out of some combination of ignorance and malice. From the article:
Since last year, dozens of people have been indicted on charges of criminal contempt or slander for writing or spreading malicious online insults about victims like Kim Myong Jae. They face fines of as much as 2 million won, or $2,067.
Sounds like they need to step up efforts to cut slander, that's all. If you knowingly perpetuate a rumor and destroy someone's professional or personal life, you should suffer consequences greater than "as much as" $2k out of your pocket.
Publishing your name, photo, address, telephone number, and all known BB account names on a government website for "known internet slanderers" would be a GREAT first start. Methinks you'd be a LOT less likely to engage in slander if you knew that if you were caught, you'd be unhireable (what company will hire someone known to be a malicious liar?), undateable, etc. Best case for 'eye for an eye' if I ever saw it.
Please help metamoderate.
Want proof? Fearless Leader hasn't lost a game of StarCraft in six years!
And by "we" I mean the governemt? Is't this what the sex offender registries, the public shaming spots for "johns" that were caught trying to buy a little on the side, and several states up and coming meth dealers lists all about? You can argue that the first is about public saftey to a point, but why is it so public? Why does someone in Duluth MN need to know the address of a level 3 sex offender in Baltimore MD? The one about about johns is unabashedly about shaming, and the last is as well.
Sera
Slashdot, where armchair scientists get shouted down and armchair theologians get modded up.
He said he was responsible. But that it was an accident, not murder.
The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination
- Douglas Adams
A female friend of mine was emailed by some guy on her myspace account. She told him she wasn't interested in dating, and he proceeded to email everyone on her "friends list" that she had an STD, this list included friends, family, coworkers, ex-boyfriends etc... So she's been trying to do 'damage control' for 3 weeks now at this falacy.
Even though it was probably some 'script kiddie', this kind of stuff being emailed to nontechies can be mortifying.
...would be to enact and enforce libel and slander laws there. TFA suggested that they would have to curtail free speech, but the US has libel and slander laws, and they don't seem to be causing any 1st ammendment issues.
Is it just me or could the Korean peninsula use a massive U.S. airdrop of new baby-names?
Or nevermind. We really wouldn't want to incite an onslaught of Kim Jong Il's new Taepodong missiles.
Ten years ago you would get this kind of harrassment (from authority figures, but not on the PC) because you were young and didn't feel like getting killed in some endless insane war.
You might want to check your calendar. I don't remember the USA being in a war in 1996. Or young people being harassed into quitting their jobs, dropping out of school and moving because they didn't want to volunteer for military duty.
25 years ago you would get this ship if your were anti-war, gay, negro (the term at the time for African-American), Spanish-speaking, or cannibus friendly.
25 years ago was 1981. I'm pretty sure that the term "negro" hadn't been used for at least 15 years before that. In addition, the United States wasn't in any wars in 1981, either.
150 years ago you would get this ship if your were anti-war, gay, negro (the term at the time for African-American), Spanish-speaking, Jewish, Irish, or female.
This is like shooting fish in a barrel. I defy you to produce any evidence that in 1856 American citizens were hounded out of their homes for the crime of being female.
You need to put down the bong and pick up a book.
Clear, Dark Skies
Stick your head in the sand and say it doesn't exist and the truth goes away, eh?
I can make that scenario I described happen in 5 days flat. I've actually done all those things to online bullies before. There's a guy in Illinois who can't get a job because he threatened to sodomize a USENET poster's kid and I posed as him reposting his remark at local web boards and even had someone post his remarks on paper on a few telephone poles.
Yeah, he got an attorney, and yeah, I offered to fly out and answer to libel and stalking charges. But then he would have to admit to threatening to sodomize an 8 year old girl living no more than 25 miles away from him in the discovery of evidence phase.
That case flew like a lead brick.
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
making a public shaming a part of a legally determined punishment for a crime and allowing people to randomly persecute individuals on the basis of rumors that the police have actively denied.
Clear, Dark Skies
Why, just the other day I was talking to a guy who had to quit his job and change his phone number because he didn't like Bush.
Clear, Dark Skies
We already have this here. The "Star Wars Kid" has already experienced this and would easily be recognizable by almost any /.er. He had to drop out of school and even got cash from the people who started it.
You've probably heard this from a million people already, but people who get victimized by online users need to use a little common sense.
Maybe if they didn't go posting their name and address and photo everywhere on the internet they would be a lot more anonymous.
If they're posting something that's illegal or something that could land them in a lot of hot water otherwise (in the jurisdiction of the user / the web site) then it makes a bit more sense to use Tor or anonymous proxies or library computers.
For something like harassment though (at least here in the US) one can't easily go to a person's ISP or email provider and ask for personal information which would allow the attacker to go harass someone outside of the internet.
Perhaps it's easier to obtain that stuff in South Korea, who knows...
Bottom line is, if you don't want to get targeted, keep the amount of information that you reveal online to a minimum.
People who host blogs, forums, etc can use some common sense too. If they see users attempting to harass another user they can do something about it. Perhaps banning the attacker from the service. I'm an admin at a small online forum / community, and although we rarely ban people, we have done it if they are creating enough problems.
Same with flamebait that gets posted, most of the mods in the community I'm from trash anything that is meant to be inflammatory.
Before you post something controversial it helps to see the demeanor of the community and especially its mods / admins.. harassment problems like that could be averted otherwise.
If the scorn comes directly from public knowledge of your actions, it makes this an interesting problem.
On one hand, it kind of makes sense--you did it so people finding out you did it is only passing along information...
On the other hand, it's EXTREMELY easy to abuse (Fake a picture or movie), and with the masses on the Internet, the scale of the response is likely to be much larger than deserved.
Are our private lives are supposed to be "Private"? Are we are supposed to be able to "Get Away" with doing things that are illegal, "immoral" or just tend to piss everyone off (spam)? If so, there are a few politicians and movie stars we should start apologizing to.
Cyberviolence? Cyber what??
I'm from East St. Louis. There, "cyberviolence" would be when you're beaten to a bloody pulp with a broken computer, then stabbed with shards from teh broken monitor, and shot several times as you lay bleeding to death.
Cyber VIOLENCE? WTF?
What bothers me is the way lies are being tossed around with reckless abandon. Yes, this behavior the article speaks of is is wrong wrong wrong, but no it is NOT violence. No blood, no swelling, no bruising, NO VIOLENCE.
And I read all the comments, not one of you seems to have noticed this. But I didn't expect it; we've become used to it.
Bush (parroting Fox news) talks of "Islamofacists." Facists? As if Islam is controlled by industry?
And how about a group of people, 50% of whom have attempted suicide, calling themselves "gay?"
There's no point in trying to communicate any more, none of the words in our language have any meaning left. Might as well start shooting.
The gist was: the vast majority of people are children, and children like to exaggerate and tell lies.
I don't think adults exaggerate and lie less than children do, but I do think that they're much more sophisticated and subtle at the insidious craft. A great deal of nuance goes into grown-up lies.
There is no way of knowing the truth.
On the contrary! Everyone knows what Truth is. Bad guys are liars and and propagandists, and good guys are truth-speakers and educators. Those last two statements are valid for all value systems that my limited mind can recognize or imagine.
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
Words can be aggression. Thoughts can be crime.
The difference is that for things that fall into these categories (verbal aggression and thought crime), there must be no enforcement except against tangible violations. So you can spout off about murdering someone all you want, and yes, it is aggressive. You can think about taking someone's stuff all you want, and yes, it is a crime (and has been throughout human history - it's known as "covetousness", which can be described in modern law terms as "intent to steal"). But until you act on those words or thoughts, enforcement of the law should be strictly hands-off. A visit from the police to warn you that you might be headed down the wrong path, or that you really shouldn't talk to people a certain way - fine. But no pushing, shoving, fingerprinting, handcuffing, etc. is allowed. But once you do inflict real harm on someone (and none of this "emotional stress" bullshit), then you pay, and in a big way.
Then again, humans have never been capable of ruling each other, so why should they start now?
I can say that internet usuage is bred into just about everyone over there. When on the subways/trains nearly everyone is either playing a game, texting, or e-mailing over their uber-phone. When they are not doing that they are taking pictures of themselves to send to their friends and/or use for some sort of web use. I love Korea and am planning upon returning soon, but I can understand why the medium is the internet over there for these type of situations. Heck, you could get 100mbs down and 20mbs up VDSL connection for approximately 35/month.
Music, my drug; dance, my ecstasy.
We have people like that. For half a decade Internet sites and journals have been raided by vigilantes. Years ago Something Awful would promote an offensively stupid website and encourages users to 'visit' its guestbook, invariably flooding the guestbook with spam and Goatse, or crashing the site with their own Slashdot Effect. Unprotected LiveJournals were obliterated under the mass flood of Tubgirl. It was both terrifying and awesome, in its Internet-limited no-one-gives-a-rip scale.
/b/tards have stalked accidental celebrities with nigh-disturbing fervor. Cracky Chan and the like. They've moved up to destroying deviantArt accounts, recently having suggested one user change her password to something a /b/tard suggested... social engineering for dummies.
/b/ is the next level up. All forced anonymous. They've brought moronic commercial services like Habbo Hotel, Furcadia and Second Life to a halt, overloading servers and disrupting legitimate users. The
Now, when tens of thousands of these people are concentrated in one small country, they seem to reach mass and their actions spill into the real world. They also become shielded from internal conscience. When the legions of American vigilantes want blood they tend to restrain themselves from crossing into real world criminal behavior, and a sane few have shown they can temper the mania of the masses. In America, cliques of vigilantes are seperated and mingle little. Single system administrators like SA's Lowtax, YTMND's Max, or 4chan's Moot can kill their isolated mobs. South Korea seems to present a more united front - hell, even their search portals name the most popular target/victim of the day. Their culture isn't strikingly different from American online culture. Their fanatic individuals are far more common, however, and their offensive actions are coordinated across servers, while voices of reason are fractured and lost.
My problem with spontaneous human combustion is that never seems to happen to the "right" people.
When at least once a week I'm assaulted on the public highway for no reason other than the fact that I'm driving on the same highway as a bunch of nut jobs, I'm not real worried about internet assault. I never thought I'd miss Atlanta traffic, but Austin is making me do just that.
...only old people are safe from email humiliation ;D
*ducks*
Or may be they get cranky soon!!
I have heard chinese students saying "Koreans get cranky soon after eating dog!" Anyway, whatever be the reason, I also have same experience with Koreans! They utter things without thinking!
If any of you recall the "interweb wars" between Somethingawful.com, YTMND.com, Albinoblacksheep vs Ebaumsworld.com over the issue of Eric Ebaum stealing the Lindsey Lohan animation. Apparently Ebaum was litteraly harrased into the ground and even got FBI invovled about people were shoing up at their corporate headquarters.
Not that Ebaum deserved it, but I'd say it was an intense movement against him via phone, email, postal, and people showing up at his office to question said theft.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
"I'm an American with a Korean wife. I speak Korean, and my wife, kids and I watch Korean TV shows together."
I am scared to death of Korean women... you are either very argumentative or very foolish. Why do you think the number of marriages in Korea is falling like a rock?
...this guy's story. Of course we'll have to wait until the investigators have done their work, and possibly until after a jury hears the case, but at this point it just doesn't wash. He says he kidnapped her because he loved her...so why does he also say he wanted to collect a ransom? And if the ransom was the reason all along, why did he write the note in the Ramsey house, instead of bringing it with him? And why ask for 118K, which (coincidentally?) happened to be the size of a company bonus John Ramsey had just received? There may be good reasons for these inconsistencies, and I certainly wouldn't rush to accuse the parents as many did, but there are a few things that suggest there's more to this than a child molesting teacher.
The article is a bit too late in relating to the USA. It's already been done here.
Stolen Sidekick
MK Ultra made him confess falsely to this deed.
First conspiracy post!!
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
Bush != America
therefore
Anti-Bush != Anti-America
is not a troll.
But let's clarify the points being made in response to this story, points which the grandparent poster was inaccurately deriding as "America bashing": online flashcrowd style bullying is a major threat to America because we are just as vulnerable as the South Koreans are, to this problem. We have demonstrated, highly publicized incidents here as well.
Of course, that just flew right over the heads of many angry and painfully alienated Republicans, some no doubt wielding mod points in one hand and hurt feelings in the other.
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
You might also want to add that: some rich, white, *AMERICAN* girl was killed.
There's a lot more than can be done locally about a local murder than one overseas. Both pieces of news matter, but one is more local and can be dealt with by local police/courts/etc
The suspect in question is a teacher. It's not impossible that he met the girl through that, either by teaching in hero school or even being her teacher (substitute or permanent).
"Tens of thousands of people were busy sharing my identity and discussing how to punish me. My name was the most-searched phrase at portals" The real problem is them gossiping so much, and not farming me gold or leveling my Warrior.
"Will policing net behavior eventually become necessary?"
Ignoring net behavior will probably be the most stress-free and effective way to deal with it.
Actually it sounds like the tactics of Scientology against any of their perceived enemies.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Yes we have. It's called Political Correctness, and you only oppose it at your own dire risk.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
I've read many articles about high school click cyber-bullying.
In pre-computer days it would have been gossip and shunning.
Now its cyber-gossip that everyone can read.
In the flesh the worst is restrained when the bully gets immediate feedback
from the victims suffering or they come to fisticuffs.
However these checks are lacking online, and bullies may go further.
In a similar way the computer facilitates plagarism and also detects it, cyber-agression can be detected and supposed by logging and publishing who does what to whom.
The story seems to enumerate a number of criminal, or at least civilly-liable actions on the part of the 'horde'. Perhaps they are not criminal or civil violations yet, but perhaps they should be soon...
1. Ownership of my private information. The linkage between my identity and all of my private attributes, such as my name, my address, phone number, email address, where I work, type of car I drive, license plate number, drivers license number, social security number. That linkage should be between my identity and each of those attributes, or any linkage between multiple attributes which could be used for the purpose of uniquely identifying me, should be my property. It should be a crime to distribute any of those linkages. Obviously my address is just an address, and my phone number is just a set of numbers, but the linkage between them, or the uniqueness created by several of them linked together, is what should not be sent around willy-nilly.
This would slow-but-not-stop identity theft. However, we'd never pass such a think except through initiative process, or until we start seeing something that drives us to it.
2. Repeatedly calling a number without a legitimate business purpose, or continuing to dial the number after being asked by the answerer not to. This should be some sort of crime. You have the freedom of speech, but it stops when it hits my phone, in my house, and I have to make effort, take time (= money) to deal with you.
If these incidents in S Korea were already crimes, I hope these get prosecuted. I have a feeling it might balance itself out when the people realize how much wasted energy this is. Sure, the guy should be publicly shamed, but that should happen in the context of "his community". That could be his family, neighborhood, workplace, church. No reason to have every nutjob whiner in the country sign up to flame him.
This is totally off-topic, but this actually strikes me as oddly similar to Franz Kafka's The Trial (I just had to read that over the summer for English class, aamzingly enough I actually understand it ;-) Who knows, maybe it's just me.
Creative misinterpretation is your friend.
A universal principal of American jurisprudence is if you die before you are sentenced, you are automatically acquited. Ken Lay was acquited! He died before his appeal could be heard.
This happens a lot more often than is commonly known. There was a guy in New York state who murdered his wife, the jury returned a guilty verdict, but he died before he was sentenced. He was posthumously acquited, and the murdered wife's family couldn't sue in civil court to recover the estate. The large estate went to the husband's side.
And it's quite common for a nut to confess to someone elses' infamous crime. There are plenty of charge card records and security tapes around to verify what happened with this guy.
I doubt the extreme effectiveness of this. My main reason for doubting this is that I'm constantly getting emails or other contacts for other people with my same name. For a smear to work, you have to have a google search for my name turn up the smear, and not get lost in ten thousand pages about other people with my same name.
True, I suppose that you could sully my main email address, and I'd have to disassociate from that, which would suck, but how hard is it to get a new email address?
I'm not saying you couldn't cause me a hell of a lot of grief, but it's a long step from there to ruining my life.
For the prosecutors and the police, the hard part becomes turning their way of thinking around and going "how can we prove this guy isn't guilty?"
Which they typically don't have to worry about. In the adversarial legal system, as used in the US, a guilty plea ends the controversy that the court was set to settle, and then the sentencing phase begins. (In a civil law legal system, the admission of guilt is an interesting fact, but doesn't end the case.)
However, in cases in which the death penalty is possible, a jury has to hear the case, so a jury might end up hearing this case.
Besides, I think that the county prosecutor is very interested in making sure that the right person is found, and is unlikely to take a guilty plea in this case.
Whoever wrote this article has obviously never used Usenet before. If they had, they'd know that was the original home of net vigilantism. If you got someone angry with you there, getting cancel requests sent out after your original post was a *best* case scenario. Worse things involved massive cases of libel, people publicising contact information, (such as phone numbers/snailmail addresses) people issuing death threats, and in the very worst scenarios, people attempting to actually carry said death threats out.
It's not so true now...but years ago, a person had to be very careful what they said online. You'd never know what unhinged lunatic might see your words, take them personally, and then decide to do something about them.
But until you act on those words or thoughts, enforcement of the law should be strictly hands-off.
:-)
That's an attracive idea; but it has problems in practice. For example, in your view, is there any level of implied threat that is acceptable to convict someone for, before a crime is commited? If so, what is that threat level, and who should decide what it is? It gets complicated fast...
If there is no such level, doesn't that mean that I have to wait until you actually decide to pull the trigger on the gun that you have pointed at me before I can legally call the police? As a potential shooting victim, I see that as a problem.
For example, in your view, should conspiracy to commit murder not be a crime anymore? What about pointing a gun at them? What if I poison a drink, and offer it to you, but you decline it? Is that a crime yet?
It's not so simple, is it?
Instantly recognizing 1 in 10 *KOREANS*? Not to sound racist or anything... but man, don't they all look alike?
This is a common tactic used by the republican/neo-cons against various 'liberals' and democrats such as Cindy Sheehan, John Kerry, and students at UC Santa Cruz.
Greetings from the land of Hegel:
Problem. Reaction Solution.
Problem: People are hurting other people on the internet
with unsubstantiated claims and vicious "hate speech"*
Paid-for tiger teams inflict sensational damage and
media focuses on it.
Reaction: Somebody ought to do something about this! If that
is "Free Speech" then we certainly don't need it! There should
be a law against it.
Solution: Another law outlawing "unbridled" speech. What
they wanted all along and now they even got people clamoring
for it.
Yawn.
* a previous module already installed that is also designed to
put a stop to free speech.
What the f*&% is wrong with these people. I'm at a loss for words. I wish somebody could explain the psychology of this.
But then again, I appear to be one of the few people in the world that doesn't give a rat's ass who Angelina Jolie is boffing. If it ain't me, I don't care.
Please Angelina, help me care.
He who said 1,000,000 monkeys on 1,000,000 typewriters would eventually type the great novel, never saw an AOL chat room
A further interesting tidbit is that the term mob itself is a shortened form of another word: mobility, or mobile vulgas going back to the Latin. It's empowering the common person, in multiples, with the ability to move without hinderance, frequently with malicious intent or action. Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle trilogy draws on this strongly.
Oddly enough, the Internet is a wonderful facilitator of mobility, at least so far as words, ideas, images, etc., go, and the fact that it generates such flash mobs isn't particularly surprising.
The bad thing about this email assault is that it's really the old people who are hurt the most.
However, you are absolutely right in your points, that plenty of criminals have been caught by doing something stupid, and that police do sometimes give out misleading or inaccurate information. That would seem to be a little unusual for a coroner, but not necessarily impossible in the case of a seriously sick case.
You are also right that we won't know enough until the Colorado police interview the guy - assuming they tell us what they're told. And even then, based on what is known, I'd still want to hear from a mental health professional after a serious period of observation.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
"it's impossible to sue EVERYBODY"
Someone should tell that to the RIAA.
In a more serious note would it really be impossible to hire a lawyer and file a class action suit against anyone who called your cell phone, sent you an e-mail, or some other way harrassed you in the "real" world? It seems to me that if 1 in 10 have been harrassed like that, then you would definetly have the social backing. Not that I believe those numbers for a second. If it where true, then following the trend would imply everyone in that country will be targeted within the next 10 years. You would think that having felt the effect they would stop doing it to others. So, the problem kills itself... In a perfect world.
Look, a private Post Office box (while keeping your address to yourself),
:-/
;-)
:Candice Bergen as
not giving folks your land-line tel.no. (get a SkypeIn number instead;
only answer folks whose Caller-ID or Skype-name you recognize & like), &
keep a low, law-abiding profile.
So, then, who's going to harass you?
QED
---
What you describe, by way of neighbors' ill-founded feedback,
reminds me of a scene from "Fahrenheit 451" in which a suspi-
cious neighbor reveals the reason for her suspicion (that a
neighbor of hers had been - shock horrors! - reading books!):
"Look... Up there!" (No TV antenna on her neighbor's roof!)
Not able to participate, such as they did at the time,
in the daily [Pseudo-Cousin] TV series (pre-cursor to
Big Brother & other 'reality' series, I'd suggest...)
---
"I don't watch TV, I have a Life"
"Murphy Brown"
Wasn't it just a few weeks ago that an internet mob bombasted a NY family over a cell phone that was left behind in a cab and found its way through the black market?
Yeah. It certainly was. Using the internet to whip up a froth of mob hatred is nothing new and nothing regional. Assholes live in every region, and can reach through the internet with ease.
There is the potential to get money for it. If you can prove who did you can take said person to court. Why? Because they spread false and malicious lies so they could be sued for slander. So if someone slandered me I could potentially get the amount of damage from moving costs, future paychecks that were lost because said slander cost me my job, any other costs that it may have caused me and some for emotional trauma. How many people are smart enough to retaliate with a slander suit though if they have the eveidence? Would that be enought to clear their names?
OMG, its about time this has come up. This is happening in the USA and its called gangstalking. Look it up on google. Ill let you know now that many people whom are victims of this crime can not accuratly describe it, and many times their ideas of what is happening become deluded. This is reflected on their websites. I have been a victim for about 4 years, and im about to become homeless, because it has runied my life. I have been in contact with many victims whom all experience the same harassment. Ive heard that if you try and talk to the police or the psychologist, they will think you are crazy and put you on meds. This happens because the only way you can describe it is to tell them people are messing you with you. That immediatly puts up a red flag in their head. I hope some people take some time to look into this crime. It is spreading fast, and it needs to come to light.
Im just going to keep reposting this in hopes that someone will look up gangstalking on google.
Sexual offenders lists combined with a few devoted loud mouths have already created such mob harassment in America. Of course, that is sort of the point.
Koreans rarely sue for libel. Americans do.
There is a film about that phenomenon: "Bashing" it is by Masahiro Kobayashi. It is about the Japanese hostages that got harassed by other Japanese after they were freed and brought back to Japan. It is not a documentary but it is very definitly based on facts. In real life the hostages got harassed after remarks by Koizumi (their president / prime minister or whatever they call it in Japan) that they brought shame to Japan.
This film is definitly worth seeing (Although the copy I saw was pretty worn out from travelling all over the world.)
What, with the speaking tours, book deals and all.
I'm sorry, but Wilson brought most of it on himself and, as far as I can see, has benefited from it. The Dixie Chicks weren't hounded out of anything, their fans simply stopped buying their records or listening to their music - which is hardly the same thing.
Those events are the same as what's been going on in Korea in the same sense that Charon is a planet - technically and, even then, barely.
You're one of those people who hears a pekinese yapping and screams "wolf", aren't you?
Clear, Dark Skies
I've seen photos of her dressed similar to Shirley Temple [konformist.com], dressed as a Vegas showgirl [crimemagazine.com], dressed as a school girl [kcci.com], a Nashville country queen [jonbenetindexguide.com], but I haven't found the "cheap whore" photos of her.
And judging by what I see many little girls wearing in public these days, dressing them as "cheap whores" isn't criminal (though I'm still not in favor of it).
/b/ is starting to swap over into the real world too.
It starts with harmless things like "wear an afro wig to the SoaP premiere", but I don't dare imagine where it will end.
GANG STALKING / WORKPLACE MOBBING Here is a copy of a letter I sent to the Toronto Sun newspaper about an article that was published. This incident that happened to me is an odd health and safety issue. Here is a situation where a union might have made a difference. I will be sending more letters to various groups in the up coming year. Hi Mr Margolis. I found your article about Edward P. Wilson all too frightening and hits me personally way too close to home. I was working at Harper Detroit Diesel in Toronto and one of my co workers or somebody in my customer base or the competition started poisoning my food over a period of months. I almost died. I had worked in the diesel generator industry for twenty two years as a field service technician at a variety of dealers and distributors based mostly out of the Toronto area. In this position I worked in and around all types of generator set applications such as apartment buildings, schools, retail stores, hospitals, marine units, motor homes, data centers, airports, telephone switching centers, or just about anywhere you would find a generator set. This position also took me into a lot of high security buildings or buildings that you don't need to know exist. Some of the customers I have dealt with include Metropolitan Toronto Police, the Ontario Provincial Police, the R.C.M.P., Bell Canada, Transport Canada, Navigation Canada, Public Works Canada, Department of National Defense, the Ontario Realty Corporation, Nexacor Realty AT&T, Cantel, C.I.D.A., External Affairs, and many, many more. I did quite a bit of work on high security micro wave and fibre optics communication links all around North America. This is where this poisoning comes from. One person I worked 15 yrs with on these systems, who I had not seen in 4 yrs, called me at home one night in the middle of this series of poisonings, who I didn't even know had my home phone number and asked "aren't you dead yet". I wound up on the West Coast of Canada standing in a parking lot with what were suppose to be Chinese Nationals from F.E.T.A.C. being photographed by the R.C.M.P. as part of a smear campaign. The worst part of all of this is Gerry Duffett almost died, that's me. The next worst part of all of this, is this is my tax dollars paying these freaks. I wonder how many times a day this goes on. I still don't know who poisoned me. I was off work for almost one year. I can now 5 yrs later barely hold a full time job. The harassment in my work place is unbelievable as far as off color and snide comments about my mental health. There is much more to the story. Thank you. Gerry Duffett. 14-4218 Lawrence Ave E Box 218 Scarborough Ontario Canada M1E4X9 gerryduffett@fastmail.ca gerryduffett47@yahoo.com http"//www.goliathboards.com/users5/gerryduffett/i ndex.cgi
P.S.
Just in the last couple of years a new fibre optics system was
installed in Ontario to link all the power generation stations to
one central control center code named Ledcor.
Don't tell anybody you know that, somebody might try to kill
you.
TOXIC WORKPLACES / WORKPLACE BULLIES / CANADA Wow what an experience. I was employed at Gal Power Systems in Mississauga to work on diesel generator systems. I was working on a pair of 16 v 92 Detroit diesel generator sets at 4160 volt at a facility called the South West Regional Centre in Chatham Ontario. I was requested by the project manager Moe Gallick of the Ontario Realty Corporation to supply and install some fuel system components at an Ontario Provincial Police transmitter tower close by. When I went there to do the work I saw that this was an old abandoned site no longer in use. I was let into the building and began work. As I was working I noticed the building had a an unusual amount of rat poison or toxic chemicals distributed inside the building. No breathing equipment or protective clothing were supplied by either my employer Gal Power Systems , The Ontario Realty Corporation or the Ontario Provincial Police. Mr Gallick did not spend very much time in the building. I did not complete the work. Shortly after this I had to seek medical attention within the Ministry of Health and was off work for close to a year. This was a deliberate act. I almost died. This act of incompetence was the end of a series of poisonings that started a couple of years earlier when I was working at Harper Detroit Diesel on a project at Mississauga Hydro , probably continued when I was hired by Thomson Technology in British Columbia and almost ended in my death at Gal Power Systems. Talk about bad politics or a toxic work place. That's kind of the ultimate. Some people say there is no corruption here in Canada. The harassment in my workplaces to date with snide and off colour comments about my mental health are unbelievable and intolerable. There is much more to the story. Gerry Duffett 14-4218 Lawrence Ave E Box 218 Scarborough Ontario Canada M1E4X9 Pager # 416-612-5689 gerryduffett@fastmail.ca gerryduffett47@yahoo.com http://www.goliathboards.com/users5/gerryduffett/i ndex.cgi
TORONTO / ONTARIO / CANADA
O.P.P.TRANSMITTER TOWER LOCATION MINI GAS CHAMBER Tower location here : http://ca.maps.yahoo.com/maps_result?csz=chatham%2 Contario&country=ca
North / East section of Communication Road and Highway
401
Chatham, Ontario, Canada
This building was set up by Gal Power Systems, The
Ontario Realty Corporation and The Ontario Provincial
Police, loaded with toxic chemicals to serve as a mini
gas chamber to try and suffocate me.
I almost died and was off work for close to a year.
My health suffered greatly.
Gerry Duffett
Pager # 416-612-5689
http://www.goliathboards.com/users5/gerryduffett/i ndex.cgi
TORONTO / ONTARIO / CANADA