Slashdot Mirror
Controversy Erupts Over Craigslist Prank
An anonymous reader writes to mention something of an ongoing controversy over a recent Craigslist prank. Waxy.org has the full details: "On Monday, a Seattle web developer named Jason Fortuny started his own Craigslist experiment. The goal: 'Posing as a submissive woman looking for an aggressive dom, how many responses can we get in 24 hours?' He took the text and photo from a sexually explicit ad in another area, reposted it to Craigslist Seattle, and waited for the responses to roll in ... '178 responses, with 145 photos of men in various states of undress. Responses include full e-mail addresses (both personal and business addresses), names, and in some cases IM screen names and telephone numbers.' In a staggering move, he then published every single response, unedited and uncensored, with all photos and personal information to Encyclopedia Dramatica." The Wired blog 27B Stroke 6 has analysis of the prank, which author Ryan Singel views as 'sociopathic'. He then follows that up with responses to comments from his analysis, with further exploration of the weighty issues this juvenile prank has brought up.
Wouldn't this be some sort of breach of contract or communication? Since the guys who replied believed they were responding to an individual, and thus most likely consider it a private communication, would they be able to take legal action?
You can learn a lot about a person if you just take the time to inject them with sodium pentathol
With all the talk about "If you haven't done anything wrong, you have nothing to hide from the government", it's only natural that people will start to snoop on each other. After all, if you haven't done anything wrong, you have no reason to hide it, right?
It seems like the Transparent Society is coming closer all the time. I'm not sure it's a good thing, though.
On the other hand, I'm suprised social conservative types haven't pulled more of this kind of crap before. Outing a few dozen gay men would make them hesitant to associate, and it's not like fundamentalist churches don't have lots of money and members with free time... Maybe they're afraid some of their own would be caught or something.
On the other hand, though, publishing their information in a public place isn't quite kosher. Although we all know that sending someone a plaintext e-mail is almost as bad as shouting from the rooftops should anyone actually want to intercept the message, it's not quite as bad as posting pictures of your stoned self on MySpace and expecting nobody to ever find it. There is at least a little bit of expectation that this is a private sort of thing; I would be a lot happier with him if he'd just quietly notified the people who replied that they'd been scammed, and only published the details of those who became abusive.
One thing I don't really care about is the way the 27B-6 guy is complaining about marriages being destroyed because of this. It really makes no sense; if the guy is responding to ads online and his wife doesn't know about it, there's probably something deeply troubled in the marriage and it's likely to go to divorce soon anyway. Similarly with the public lynching argument: if you are so uncomfortable with your tastes that you wouldn't like to publicize them, why are you even taking the risk of replying to something on Craig's List? Yes, this is likely to be the first time such a stunt has been publicized, but still - you'd expect people would rather keep their activities a secret to take some reasonable precautions. Like not using their damn work e-mail.
Which actually brings up an interesting point! How many times has this stunt been pulled on Craig's List, only instead of being put on some stupid Wiki, those who responded with useful information just got blackmailed? How much would you pay so that your wife doesn't find out about your animal bondage fetish?
This is an example of the very rare Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress case that can actually win.
Depends on the jury, but this guy is absolutely liable.
Not for libel (I don't even know why people would suggest that).
I'd say IANAL, but I am.
In case it's taken down:
The Saga of Jerry and "Wife"
* Official thread
Jerry has already contacted me by e-mail, demanding I remove all traces of him from my post. This appears to be an anonymous reply from him in my LJ: http://rfjason.livejournal.com/410835.html?thread= 7629011#t7629011
Jerry claims he has an open marriage. Can anyone confirm/deny this?
Edit: Update. Jerry and his "wife" contacted me on AIM
Part I: Email conversation with Jerry
From Jerry@emailaddress.com
> You will remove the pictures of me from your stupid craigslist experiment.
> My wife and I have an open relationship, don\'t believe me? Contact her and
> ask her. But you will remove me, you have no right to post this kind of crap
> without first knowing the full details. Here is the bullshit i want you to
> remove: http://rfjason.livejournal.com/410835.html?thread= 7600851..t7600851
From Jason
Why should I?
From Jerry@emailaddress.com
Because I would appreciate it, because my wife and I have an open relationship
and I would never "cheat" on her. Because we play with others to enhance our
own relationship. Because she is fully aware of what goes on. And again
because I'd appreciate it.
I don't want to fight this out with you, I understand why you're doing
this - to husbands that actually cheat, however, I wouldn't do that - my wife
and I are fully participating swingers, now please remove the thread.
From Jason
Well, if anything, this should help you meet MORE people.
From Jerry@emailaddress.com
And it's not the way I want it done. So you have no intentions of removing it
then? That's fine, I'll ignore it and move on with my life.
From Jason
Wait, I thought you were going to sue me?
From Jerry@emailaddress.com
I'll look into all my options, and if I choose legal recourse, it
wouldn't be a
lawsuit. It would be a criminal case, if that didn't work, then I imagine I'd
have to settle for a civil suit. But either way, this is the last time I
communicate with you. I have nothing more to say - by even responding in the
first place I gave you what you want, and that was foolish of me.
Part II: IM Conversation with Jerry
[10:29] JrITadmin69: Just the man I was looking for.
[10:30] RFJason: Hi Jerry. I just replied to your e-mail.
[10:30] JrITadmin69: and i replied to yours
[10:30] JrITadmin69: Look, I understand what you're trying to do with your experiment.
[10:31] JrITadmin69: And I don't take offense, other then that you didn't attempt to get the whole story, and jumped to conclusions.
[10:31] RFJason: I didn't jump to any conclusions.
[10:31] JrITadmin69: And I learned my lesson as well, don't include my face anymore, assuming my wife and i decide to continue with our lifestyle.
[10:31] JrITadmin69: Sure you did, you assumed I was cheating on my
Excuse me, but sending very private information to someone you don't have the foggiest clue about pretty much means you don't know how the 'net works.
It's funny how many people will even respond to fraudulent requests to surrender information to "da man", thinking that everyone pisses their pants before even considering imposing as federal agents, not thinking that it could be kinda hard to execute federal US law against someone located in a country ending in -stan.
Then again, considering the anti-spam, anti-fraud, anti-bad-thing-done-through-the-internet laws passed recently, neither do politicians have a clue how it works...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Yes, as good an idea as he thought it was, any company that ever googles his name now will instantly see pages associated with sex-related pranks, and see pages and pages of controversy and arguments. I read in one place that a couple of marriages are breaking apart because of his actions*, and he has been anything but anonymous in his 'prank' (his full address was available along with phone number and name on his site when he first did this and it has been reposted in quite a few places), so one wonders what will come either legally or illegally of him as a result of this.
*Though they would probably have broken apart anyway as nobody can hide this sort of thing forever.
Warhammer forums
He used to say in his website: http://web.archive.org/web/20050211124330/rfjason. com/contact/
;)
Privacy Policy:
You are sending me direct contact information that is sensitive. I protect your privacy in the following ways:
(1) I will never sell, rent, or give away your address to any outside party, ever;
(2) I will never send you any unrequested e-mail, besides e-mail in the regular course of business; and
(3) Your information is stored behind network address translation and a software firewall.
But now he doesn't.
I learnt this lesson and stated to be careful around 10 (or more) years ago.
I came across a link to a website that said something like 'click here for hot chicks'. Of course I clicked on it and the front page asked me to enter my name and email address to see hot chicks. There wasn't a big problem with spam back then and porn was still mostly confined to alt.binaries.sex, so I entered my details in out of curiosity (of course).
The next thing I know, a picture of chicks (as in baby chicken) comes up with a message saying something like "Hope you enjoy these pictures of hot chicks. Here is the list of others that share your passion for poultry", followed by my personal details and a list of personal details of other people.
I've been careful with my details ever since.
Odd thing, the full Encyclopeida Dramatica site is down, and even more strange is that the Wikipedia article for it is deleted and protected, along with the talk page, and there is no explanation, it has been down since august. Does anyone have any idea why this is?
Did it get slashdotted, or purposely removed? Also whats up with the Wikipedia page. I would like to at least know what the Encyclopedia Dramatica is, the only source I could really find was from Urban Dictionary, which really isn't the best source of anything.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
FTFA:
September 10: Jason Fortuny modified his homepage to remove all references to his professional life: portfolio, resume, and references to past clients are all gone. (Compare to the older versions on the Internet Archive.) It also looks like he's been scrubbing his personal contact information from his Livejournal comments and homepage. For example, this link from my post originally went to a comment with his contact information, but it's been removed entirely. (Strangely, he didn't remove his home address and phone number from this entry.)
Bwaahahah, nice one Ferris. Pwn3d.
What he can't kill, he has sex on. Trent.
The simple fact he posted personal information like that will be his undoing. It being a prank or experiment is one thing, but when he violated people's privacy, he went too far. He could have somehow censored a lot of the stuff he was sent, still proving that he received the material though.
There's one thing though. If he's a heterosexual male, you have to feel sorry for the fact he saw the genitalia of other men.
As for those (stupid) people who gave out their personal information, at least their doing one thing good. Proving that it's a bad idea to give out such personal information. Always be cautious.
Does craigslist have any sort of policy against what has happened? Didn't any of the men put any disclaimer in the e-mails they sent to not share out their personal information? (I know when I contact certain sites, I ask not to be added to any mailing list inside the message, but of course, that's a different thing entirely.)
... now he's yanking information that was on his site, design portfolio stuff, etc... silly man, doesn't he know about the wayback machine? :)
http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://rfjason.com
Shadus
My girlfriend and I live in the same apartment complex as this Jason jerk in Kirkland, WA (a suburb of Seattle). He posted his address on a web site before taking it down. The only problem is that he didn't publish which apartment number he was in. There are only 4 apartments in our unit; he's in one of the upstairs pair.
So now I'm worried that some of these furious men will come after him and will instead throw their rocks through my windows, or worse. I feel like my well-being has been potentially endangered by this guy. What should I do? Part of me feels like shouting his address (WITH apartment number) from the Internet rooftops. Part of me wants to post a sign on our door that says "sociopath A-hole Jason upstairs, not here." Maybe I should even alert the police. Any ideas?
I've been waiting to comment on this one. I've seen it floating around in a couple places the past few days (digg, fark, etc.). The most repulsive part of this is that on the Tucker Max messageboard, he is asking for advice on how to turn this into some sort of career move.
My prediction is that this ruins his personal life, professional life, and finances. In the world of google, who doesn't run the name of a prospective employee through google? Lawsuit happy; Yep, he'd probably lose them and go broke. Personal life; I can't imagine there is much of one if he does this type of stuff, and even so, what girl would find this type of behavior endearing?
His best option at this point would be to just shut up, let it go, and do some growing up.
-steveNorway adheres to the Berne convention (or did last time I looked anyway) and if you take a picture of another person here, that person has a copyright on the picture. So does the person that took the picture, apparantly, but the person in the picture can veto any publication etc.
0 2-eng.pdf
In Norwegian here:
http://lovdata.no/all/hl-19610512-002.html#45c
In English (but unoffical I expect):
http://www.ub.uio.no/ujur/ulovdata/lov-19610512-0
(para 45c)
Of course, there is a lot of leeway for the media to use pictures that are in the public interest etc. even if the copyright holder might object, but the basic law is quite clear.
sigs are hazardous to your health
(karma whoring since I had to create a new account) I have been really intrigued by this guy rfjason's actions and have been googling for information just to see what the deal is... I think he might actually be the BIGGEST asshole ever. This is some choice links for insight into this guy's fucked-up-ness: Comments on New orleans Reply to someone who didnt enjoy his PREVIOUS prank His request for help at the tucker max forum The last one is amazing.... A bunch of self-declared assholes concluding that this rfjason guy REALLY is a douche-bag (they just have no qualms about helping him :P)
Another good one
Seriously, this guy is unbelievable and appears to have said something to piss off everyone at some point or another.
We come in peace... We leave in pieces...