A System For Handling 'Impostor' Complaints

Frequent Slashdot contributor Bennett Haselton writes "A woman sued Yahoo because they wouldn't remove a page created by her ex-boyfriend pretending to be her and soliciting strangers for sex. What would be an effective system for large companies like Yahoo to handle 'impostor' complaints, without getting bogged down by phony complaints and unrelated disputes? This is a harder problem than it seems because of the several possible cases that have to be considered. One possible solution is given here." Read on for Bennett's analysis.

When I first heard that Yahoo had been sued because they refused to remove a page created by the ex-boyfriend of a woman named Cecilia Barnes to impersonate her -- portraying her as a slut looking for sex with strangers (who obliged by hounding her office with phone calls and e-mails) -- I thought Yahoo's conduct was indefensible. Even though, as the court ruled, they may have been exempt from liability under the Communication Decency Act of 1996, what possible excuse could Yahoo have had for the way they handled the situation, exposing Barnes to months of harassment, when it would have taken them only seconds to review the page, see that it was obviously causing harm, and remove it?

Then I thought more about the consequences of the rule that I was implicitly advocating by making that argument. Obviously, if an ISP has a policy of removing a user's page if some third party merely complains that the page is impersonating them, then one of your enemies could get your page removed by filing a complaint saying that they were really "you", and that your page was impersonating them. But if the ISP has a policy of not acting on such complaints, then someone could create a user account pretending to be you, and you wouldn't be able to get it removed.

In both cases, there are two problems. One is the fact that the ISP has to have a way to figure out who is telling the truth. The second is that the solution has to scale well, even for a company like Yahoo that probably gets so many complaints about user conduct every day that it would be impossible to read them all. It should be possible for genuine complaints about impostors, to reach the attention of the right people and get an account closed, without accounts being shut down because of (a) people who file complaints about 'rude behavior' that get unintentionally mixed in with 'impostor' complaints by someone who is too overworked to read them all very carefully; or (b) people who file outright false complaints that a given account is an 'impostor', just to get it shut down; or (c) people who are really sneaky, and file complaints about things like rude behavior, but who craft the complaints in a way that is deliberately designed to get them mixed in with the 'impostor' reports, in order to get the account shut down (this way, if the complainer ever sued or otherwise confronted about the complaint that they filed, they can say that they "didn't lie"!).

It's hard to think of a solution that covers all of these bases. For example, John Morris of the Center for Democracy and Technology explained how many ISPs use faxed driver's licenses to decide impersonation complaints:

In many cases involving real people, the challenged site (whether it is a legit site or a bogus site) contains one or more photographs of the person involved. What service providers do in this case is to get the person to submit a copy of their driver's license, and the provider decides whether the person submitting the license is the same person depicted in the photos. And if so, that person is the one who can control whether the site stays up or not. This works in lots of cases (because pictures are often, but certainly not always, involved).

The problem is that even this could be abused when used against a company like Yahoo that handles an extremely high volume of complaints. Suppose that Yahoo publishes a standard procedure for submitting complaints about impersonation, that includes the requirement of a faxed driver's license. Abusers of the system would figure this out, and they could start filing "complaints" against users and websites by faxing in complaint letters along with a copy of their driver's license, where the letters were not complaints about impersonation at all, but just bogus complaints about other things like "This guy was mean to me". Because the driver's license accompanying the letter is real and the statements in the letter are true (or at least a matter of opinion), the complainer can't be accused of lying or forging government documents. And if anyone ever challenged them and asked, "Why did you send your driver's license with the complaint letter? Weren't you trying to trick the ISP into thinking that this was an impersonation complaint so they would take it seriously?", the complainer could play dumb and say, "Well, I heard that if you file a complaint against someone, you're supposed to fax your driver's license with it." But if Yahoo is still getting too many messages to sort through them carefully, some of these crank complaints could still get users' accounts shut down.

So now you have an interesting, non-trivial problem. Before reading further, it's worth thinking about how you would solve this. What's a good policy that would honor legitimate complaints, without giving cranks a way to get their enemies' pages shut down for no reason, and that would scale well for large companies like Yahoo? There are really two questions here: (1) What would you do if you were drafting an ISP policy and trying to balance the interests of all parties? and (2) What would you do if you were drafting a law requiring ISPs to implement certain policies, also while balancing the interests of all parties? (The best solution may be no law at all, but I think you would have to argue that position, rather than taking the default libertarian stance and simply assuming that. After all, the "no law" status quo didn't do much good for people like Cecilia Barnes who had a legitimate grievance and couldn't get anybody to listen.)

The non-verifiability of complaints is the same problem that I've posed to hard-core anti-spam advocates who have said that ISPs should have a zero-tolerance policy towards spam and cancel any account that is generating spam complaints. The problem with that is that unless the ISP has logs of all mail sent out by a customer (and if the customer is leasing a dedicated server, this would usually not be the case), the ISP can't tell for sure if a spam complaint is real or not. If they adopt a policy of removing a site in response to a complaint (or three or ten complaints), then someone could easily get one of their enemies' sites shut down by filing phony spam complaints sent from multiple Hotmail or Gmail accounts. (You would have to forge some e-mail headers to make it look convincingly like the spam came from the site in question, but this is not very difficult.) If the hosting company has a policy of kicking customers off in response to some threshold number of spam complaints, then a dedicated adversary could just file that many complaints until the customer was terminated. On the other hand, if the hosting company won't kick off customers for any number of spam complaints, then they have no deterrent against their customers spamming. (This is mostly an academic question, because I tried filing complaints against all the dozens of spammers who spammed me in a given one-day period a few years ago, and none of the hosting companies terminated any of the sites I complained about. I wouldn't have expected any of them to terminate a customer based on one complaint, but I assume that some of the hosting companies were getting spam complaints about those customers from other people as well.)

The big difference between spam incidents and impersonation incidents, is that while there may be no reliable record of whether a piece of mail was sent in the past or not, the fact of whether the Yahoo user "bennetthaselton" really is Bennett Haselton is something that can be determined with evidence that still exists in the present day. Some kinds of evidence are more readily available than others. If I were drafting an internal policy for an ISP on when to remove pages in response to an impersonation complaint, I would take care of the low-hanging-fruit cases first:

• If the page directs people to contact the page owner at an e-mail address or phone number (as the page created by Barnes' ex-boyfriend did), and you e-mail the address or call the number and someone answers by saying, "No, I didn't create that page, it's a fake", then you don't need to do any checking of the real-world identities of the parties involved -- all you need to know is that the page purports to be created by the owner of that phone number, but it isn't, so it's a fake and should be removed. This would take care of the most vicious cases of goading visitors into harassing someone directly.

  (Although I'd make clear in the policy that this wouldn't apply to consumer pages about companies, telling visitors to call such-and-such a company to complain about their conduct. Encouraging people to air their grievances is legitimate as long as the page owner isn't claiming to actually represent the company. I'm ducking the question of whether this should apply to pages about individuals -- if I make a page saying, "My ex is a skank, call her at this number for a 'good time'," am I infringing on her rights? But since I'm not claiming to be her, the situation wouldn't be covered by a policy about impersonation pages.)

• If the page is created by a paid user, then you can check if the real name on file with their credit card information, matches the name on the site. If it doesn't, that doesn't necessarily mean the page is a fake (possibly one person paid for the account while another one created the content), but if it does match, the page owner is probably not guilty of impersonating anyone. (Here I'm ducking the question of what to do if someone shares their name with a celebrity -- for example, if your name really is Julia Roberts and you create a page saying "Hi, I'm Julia Roberts", that's probably not enough to count as impersonation. But what if you talk about your interest in film and your exploits as an actress in local community theater, how much are you allowed to let people think that you might be "the Julia Roberts?)

• If the page violates the hosting company's Terms of Service in other ways, then it can be removed without determining whether the page owner is guilty of impersonation or not. The Yahoo Terms of Service doesn't actually mention sexual content (they used to allow users to post "adult profiles" in their Yahoo Profiles accounts as long as the profile owner flagged them as such), but the document prohibits content that is "vulgar" or "...otherwise objectionable". I haven't seen the page created by Barnes's ex-boyfriend soliciting strangers for sex, but it probably violated the Terms of Service in itself.

And there may be other low-hanging-fruit options that I'm not thinking of. But what if there is no easy call, because none of these simplifying factors apply? A user creates a profile on a free site claiming to be Mr. X. A third party complains that they are the real Mr. X and that the profile is fake. What should the ISP do, if they don't want to spend money verifying the real-world identities of the parties involved, every time they get a crank complaint about any users on their system?

This is essentially an economics problem. Cecilia Barnes wasn't asking Yahoo to do anything that would have been too burdensome for them -- the "labor" required to look at a faxed copy of her driver's license probably wouldn't have cost more than $5, at which point Yahoo could have initiated the process of shutting the page down, which they already have built-in procedures for. The benefit to her of getting the page shut down could have been valued in the hundreds or thousands of dollars. Normally, when you need someone else to do something that costs them $5 worth of effort and brings you $1,000 worth of benefit, the natural arrangement is to pay them, but Yahoo doesn't offer this as an option.

In fact, I assume the real cost to Yahoo here would not have been actually reviewing Barnes's complaint, but actually finding it buried among all the bogus complaints that they receive, and noticing that it had real merit. Again, including a $5 payment would be one way to ensure that your complaint gets taken more seriously than all the others. But while the $5 fee might have helped in this specific situation, it's easy to imagine how that could set a bad precedent -- ISPs charging exhorbitant fees for users to submit abuse complaints to them, or users not filing complaints because they didn't want to share their payment information or pay money at all.

So, rather than paying a small fee directly, a better approach might be to require complainants to post some sort of "bond" -- which may not be something financial, as some examples will show -- in order to get their complaint to the front of the queue. Recall the example of submitting your driver's license along with an impersonation complaint. It's important to understand the subtle reason why this procedure actually works. It's not because someone couldn't still file a bogus complaint with a phony ID. (While it's somewhat hard to create a fake driver's license that you can hold in your hand, creating a fake faxed driver's license would be easy.) It's because if the complainant is lying, now they can be prosecuting for forging government documents. Essentially the complainant is posting their freedom as a "bond", going out on a limb and saying: "I can't prove to you that I'm telling the truth. But now you know that if I'm lying, I'll go to jail. Bet you the other guy won't be willing to make a binding promise like that."

So naturally I'd put that in the ISP's policy as well: If someone sends in a complaint about our user impersonating them, and they're willing to fax in a copy of their government ID proving that they are who they say they are, and we can verify that the page owner is claiming to actually be that person (and not merely complaining about that person or their business), then we would remove the page unless the account owner can submit even more compelling evidence that they are who they say they are.

This addresses the problem of the impersonation complaints that are completely fake. However, you still have the problem of what to do about people who fax in their driver's license along with letters saying "This guy is a jerk", hoping to get someone's account closed down. If a company like Yahoo is too big to read through all the complaints carefully, then it becomes hard to sort through the complaints to see which ones are really about impersonation and which ones are about other behavior that doesn't violate their TOS.

What might be a solution would be to borrow some of the non-terrible aspects of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act. The two most controversial provision of the DMCA are (1) a ban on software that enables the user to circumvent copyright restrictions, and (2) a requirement that ISPs have to respond to copyright-violation "takedown" notices in a certain manner. As I've said before about the DMCA, I'm opposed to #1 in principle because I think software should be protected by the First Amendment; I'm not against #2 in principle, but just concerned about how it could be abused in practice.

But one thing the DMCA does is solve the "sorting problem" -- how to get complaints about copyright violations to the top of the pile. Service provides often have a procedure for handling DMCA complaints that is separate from the regular complaint channels. The DMCA also provides protection for users against phony complaints, by stipulating that anyone who files a false complaint can be sued for statutory damages and attorney's fees, as in a case where Diebold, Inc. agreed to pay $125,000 as a penalty for sending false "takedown" notices. In other words, the DMCA solves the "bonding" problem too -- by sending a DMCA complaint, a user is effectively saying, "I agree to pay big money if I'm lying. So, I'm probably telling the truth."

So, a law addressing how ISPs should handle "impersonation" pages, modeled after the DMCA to solve the "top of the pile" problem and the "binding promise" problem, might go something like this:

• For a user to file a complaint, the complaint should cite the name of the anti-impersonation law, as in, "This complaint is being filed under the Anti-Impersonation Act of 2009". This gives ISPs an easy way to sort these complaints to the top of the pile, the same way that they have specialized channels for handling DMCA complaints.
• In the complaint, the user has to assert unambiguously that the page they are complaining about is impersonating them, and is not merely posting gripes about them or their business.
• The complaint should include a copy of a government-issued ID. (Again, this is not because this is hard to forge, but because now the complainant is promising, "If this is fake, I'll go to jail.")
• If the impersonation page is directing visitors to call a phone number or e-mail an e-mail address, and the takedown notification to the ISP includes a request to call that number or e-mail that address to verify that it doesn't actually belong to the page owner, then the ISP should follow up on that within a given time period of receiving the complaint. (And once they call that number or e-mail that address and get a response saying, "No, that page is definitely not mine", then the ISP should shut the page down.)
• Anyone who files a phony complaint citing that statute, can be held liable for statutory damages and attorney's fees, and if they faxed a phony government ID, then they can be prosecuted for that as well.

The problem-solver in me says that this is one way to ensure that legitimate complaints will be acted on, while making phony complaints much harder and riskier. It also seems to me that this is a minimal solution, in the sense that if you remove any part of it, it no longer solves the problem. For example, if you remove the part about complaints having to cite the anti-impersonation law, then you no longer have an effective means for these complaints to get to the top of the pile. And if you remove the part about civil penalties for filing phony complaints, then you no longer have any disincentive for people to tie up the system with crank complaints trying to get their enemies' accounts cancelled. Perhaps others can come up with an alternative solution that meets the logical requirements of enabling real complaints while discouraging fake ones. Meanwhile, the civil libertarian in me doesn't get a queasy feeling from it right away. It seems that it could only be used to stop cases of actual impersonation, and even as a free speech advocate I don't think that you have the moral right to impersonate someone else in a non-satirical manner for the purpose of actually deceiving or harassing people.

But even the absence of such a law is hardly an excuse for what Yahoo did. All they had to do is go to the page, look at the phone number, call the number and hear her say, "Yes, this is me and no that's not my page", and shut it down. The fact that they couldn't do this, shows a contempt for the process of handling legitimate complaints. Apart from the harm caused to Cecilia Barnes directly, incidents such as these might lead to Congress narrowing the scope of the immunity given to providers for hosting content posted by their users. Of course I'm technically suggesting a law that would narrow the scope of that immunity too, but only in a very narrowly prescribed way. If, on the other hand, Congress or the courts ever adopt the vague principle that providers can be held "jointly responsible" for whatever their users say once they've been "made aware" of it, it's going to get a lot harder for people to find Web hosting who have anything controversial to say.

Comments

Who's the Real Victim Here?

[eldavojohn]

A woman sued Yahoo because they wouldn't remove a page created by her ex-boyfriend pretending to be her and soliciting strangers for sex.

And as someone who responded to said page with a naked picture of myself (SOP), I'm suing Yahoo for having never received my sex! I tendered naked pictures of myself and now expect advertised sexual activities to occur upon my person--caveat emptor, indeed!

So, Mr. Haselton, how does your proposed solution protect me, the man-boobed basement dweller suffering from acute sexual frustration?

Re:Who's the Real Victim Here?

[LWATCDR]

I think you are using the wrong word.
Don't you mean vermin and not victim?

Re:Who's the Real Victim Here?

[SUB7IME]

Given your self-description, are you certain the diagnosis is acute and not chronic?

Re:Who's the Real Victim Here?

[michaelhood]

I am, for having subjected myself to the entirety of that summary.

tl;sr

Re:Who's the Real Victim Here?

[Anonymous Coward]

There is another scenario that has not been covered.

What about when you break up with your bf, get really drunk and create a slut profile for yourself.

Then regretting it later but too embarrassed to admit your mistake you blame your ex and sue Yahoo.

The ex denies everything, but no one believes him. The court case is quietly dropped (after a sufficient number of Slashdot posts), and you have a good collection of numbers of future fuck buddies.

Question . . .

[arizwebfoot]

Wouldn't it be better just to take the page down and worry about hurt feelings later?

I would think that even if there was the possibility that a page was not right, that either someone could comment on it or it just be taken down.

Re:Question . . .

[eldavojohn]

Wouldn't it be better just to take the page down and worry about hurt feelings later? I would think that even if there was the possibility that a page was not right, that either someone could comment on it or it just be taken down.

Scenario: You and I have had words on message boards before. Not friendly words. I have nothing better to do than troll your pages looking for your pages and marking all of them as offensive and hounding Yahoo! to take them down. I can make a ton of different users and gang-warn your pages into oblivion and harass you until you give up or Yahoo decides we're too big of a problem to deal with.

Granted it's much more feasible than Haselton's idea to attempt contact with thousands of users over potentially harmful pages. If I drop an f-bomb in my posting about an old PS2 for sale and it gets flagged for strong language, are they going to call me? Are they going to call/e-mail everyone? Who's going to run that labyrinthine operation?

Re:Question . . .

[Geoffrey.landis]

Wouldn't it be better just to take the page down and worry about hurt feelings later? I would think that even if there was the possibility that a page was not right, that either someone could comment on it or it just be taken down.

Because if it were their policy to just remove pages and worry about hurt feelings later (or not at all), and it became widely known that this was their policy, they would get about a hundred thousand demands for pages to be removed every day.

Even if only one tenth of one percent of internet readers are jerks who would abuse the system by spamming out phony requests to delete pages from people they don't like, there are a lot of jerks out there who take offense to pages that they disagree with.

Re:Question . . .

[AmiMoJo]

By doing that Yahoo would be accepting some liability for the content of the page, and would open themselves up to being sued if the complaint turned out to be bogus.

The obvious thing to do is let a court sort it out. That is, after all, what they are for. Just because it's on the internet doesn't change anything, it's a simple case of libel.

Re:Question . . .

[inviolet]

The obvious thing to do is let a court sort it out. That is, after all, what they are for. Just because it's on the internet doesn't change anything, it's a simple case of libel.

Good answer. Quick one, too. But you should rewrite it, reiterating your basic insight in a few meanderingly different ways, clearly in love with your own inflated prose, so that it will match the article.

Re:Question . . .

[u38cg]

I have to admit I tl;dr'd about a third of the way down, but this really seems to me like a non-problem. Moderated communities obviously look after themselves, and if not, let them take it to court. This is the kind of problem best solved by the free market, not some pontificating friend of Taco's.

Yahoo sucks.

[Spy der Mann]

It's not that they can't handle a high volume of complaints. It's that they can't handle ANYTHING.

Have you ever tried to reach a human being through yahoo? Good luck.

Re:Yahoo sucks.

[1u3hr]

It's not that they can't handle a high volume of complaints. It's that they can't handle ANYTHING. Have you ever tried to reach a human being through yahoo? Good luck.

True. I have a Yahoo account, $20 a year. I've had a few issues over the years and sent queries in. All I get back are cut and paste from FAQs that I've already read. I've pointed out they didn't answer my question, asked again. A week later, another copy of the same fucking FAQ. And recently I've tried to contact them about a problem with a Yahoo Auction posting, two weeks later not a response at all. And looking at their web pages, no direct email contact, and no phone or snail mail address. Seems you have to get some firearms and take people hostage before you can get a response that isn't a copy of a FAQ..

Re:Yahoo sucks.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not that they can't handle a high volume of complaints. It's that they can't handle ANYTHING.

Have you ever tried to reach a human being through yahoo? Good luck.

I have been trying to tell them for over a month that one of their FTP servers (referenced from a help page) no longer resolves through DNS. All that I get back are form responses. The server is still unreachable.

Re:Yahoo sucks.

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed FULLY. I got an IM from an ex-gf's accnt that said something akin to "I put my boobies on this page", since I knew her I clicked the link and saw what appeared to be a login to Yahoo. I entered my login details and thanks to the old behavior of Firefox, it asked me if I wanted to store the password BEFORE it actually submitted it when I realized that I had told FF to never store a password and never ask again. I shut down FF, went to the real login page and changed my password, just in case. I checked the link out again and it was a geocities site being used for phishing so I figured that Yahoo could get it removed since they owned geocities....

Then came the fun. My ex was aware of the problem after I called her and then I tried to call Yahoo which was a complete waste of time. I spent 1/2 hour on wait for some idiot in customer service tell me they "knew about the problem" to which I responded "then why is that damn page still there?" and all they could say was "there's nothing we can do about it".

Hey, Yahoo!!...it's called REMOVING THE FUCKING PAGE. By the time they actually shut that page down it had been up over a month. Great response time there.

Only worse response was an email I fired off to myspace reporting a spammer that took them 45 days to read(back then I used a message tracker that notifies you when a message is read).

Re:Yahoo sucks.

[JWSmythe]

    Don't worry, once you take hostages, it won't be Yahoo responding, it'll be SWAT. :) But when your demands list are solely "I want a human to respond to me from Yahoo", you'll have to deal with the hostages for two weeks, to finally receive a faxed copy of the FAQ.

    Trust me, it's one thing to live with an extended family. It's another to have 20 strangers whining about how they want to go home, or they don't like sleeping on the hard floor, or they want more than the bread and water that you're providing, or they need their medication so they don't die. Whine, whine, whine, that's all hostages ever do. And if shoot one as encouragement for the rest to behave, they all just start crying and whining even more. God forbid you release one as a good faith offer. They'll all want to be that one person, and the other 19 that you still have will whine even more about how they should have been the one released. "I have children", "I have a heart condition", "I need my insulin". It's a lose lose situation. 5 minutes after you start, you'll wish you hadn't. By the two weeks it takes to send the fax, you'll have killed half the hostages because they were driving you nuts, and wanted to shoot yourself but realized you already ran out of bullets. Don't worry though, just run out of the building with your empty guns drawn screaming "I'll kill you all", and SWAT will put you out of your misery. Hopefully the shoot to kill. If you're just wounded, now you'll be in pain for a long time, and prison for the rest of your life. Maybe the courts will take some sympathy on you, when they try to get a response from Yahoo regarding the incident and just get faxed back:

Yahoo Legal FAQ

#666
Q: Where should legal subpoenas for Yahoo be sent?
A: All subpoenas from the courts should be faxed to us at (555) 382-5968

      And the courts will realize, that's where they sent the request to.

   

Re:Yahoo sucks.

[julesh]

True. I have a Yahoo account, $20 a year. I've had a few issues over the years and sent queries in. All I get back are cut and paste from FAQs that I've already read. I've pointed out they didn't answer my question, asked again. A week later, another copy of the same fucking FAQ.

You're lucky you don't have to deal with them over something serious. I have a string of e-mails archived somewhere of me corresponding with HMRC (the UK equivalent of the IRS) over how the tax system works; general enquiries about how to operate a payroll, basically. Because I was writing payroll software. HMRC publish a document that explains how all this works and is specifically designed for payroll software developers. I knew this. I knew the title of the document I wanted. I knew who could provide a copy of it, i.e. the Internet Services Helpdesk. So I e-mail them and ask for a copy.

Get a response back, asking for my PAYE reference code. Respond that I don't have a PAYE reference code, I'm making a general enquiry.
Get a response back stating that specific enquiries have to be addressed to my local tax office. Respond that my local tax office can't help, as they don't have copies of the document I'm trying to get hold of. Attach the previous correspondence so that anyone reading it can easily see what was discussed previously.
Get a response back asking for my PAYE reference code, worded identically to the first. Respond pointing out that as an individual self-employed software developer I don't operate a PAYE payroll, so don't have a reference code, I just want access to the damned document.
Get a response back worded identically to the second. At this point I start ranting, which actually got me a personalised response. It said that they didn't have the document I wanted, they were for help with Internet services. So I respond with a quote from the list of available documents that quite clearly states that the document I want is obtained from the Internet services helpdesk.
Etc.

It took me about twenty e-mails and four days to get hold of that damned document. All but two of them were copies and pastes of form responses that didn't apply to my situation.

Damned bureaucrats.

Re:Yahoo sucks.

[Anonymous Coward]

So what you saying is that there is no actual website with your girlfriends boobies on it?

Re:Yahoo sucks.

[Jason Levine]

At least they took your money. I decided to upgrade my Yahoo Mail to Yahoo Mail Plus and had a problem on their order form. Repeated attempts to contact them resulted in no progress so I decided to stick with the free Yahoo Mail. Upon reflection, though, I think you're worse off.... At least my problem occurred *BEFORE* Yahoo got my money.

As a followup, the feature I wanted to upgrade to Yahoo Mail Plus for appears on GMail not too much later as a free feature. So I wound up not needing to pay Yahoo for the feature after all.

Re:Yahoo sucks.

[Anonymous Coward]

Bravo, a modern day Kafka!

Re:Yahoo sucks.

[antic]

Bennett, TL;DR.

On the high volume as mentioned by the parent, it's that they can't handle it profitably. If you set up a site designed to make money from user-generated content, be prepared to support it professionally, or don't bother.

One would think

[FlyingSquidStudios]

that it wouldn't be difficult to ask the one making the complaint to provide evidence that they are who they say they are... you know, like a credit card company does if your card gets stolen.

Re:One would think

[Spy der Mann]

That makes me wonder. Can't she sue him for identity theft?

Re:One would think

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope.

Re:One would think

[shawb]

I imagine this would fall under Libel.

Re:One would think

[bennomatic]

...and potentially, in some states, "Internet stalking".

I agree there's a problem on Yahoo's side here, but I'm not sure of the best solution. That being said, if she had the right resources (money, a good lawyer who didn't need a deep-pockets defendant to take the case), she could have laid the smack-down on her ex, who--if he knew what was good for him--would have taken down the post immediately. In the end, she can probably take him for everything he's got, but because that probably isn't much, her lawyer is going to focus on Yahoo, for better or worse.

Suing the wrong person

[Brad Mace]

While Yahoo would have the power to resolve her problem, it's her ex-boyfriend that's creating it. Sue him for libel/slander or whatever and take care of it that way. The courts can figure this out better than Yahoo, and have far more power to dole out the proper punishment.

Re:Suing the wrong person

[Brad Mace]

On a more cynical note, her ex probably has a lot fewer lawyers than Yahoo does. Having Yahoo providing evidence as a third party would probably work to her advantage far more than attacking them head on.

Re:Suing the wrong person

[Anonymous Coward]

While Yahoo would have the power to resolve her problem, it's her ex-boyfriend that's creating it. Sue him for libel/slander or whatever and take care of it that way. The courts can figure this out better than Yahoo, and have far more power to dole out the proper punishment.

this doesn't cover international issues and legal system is so complicated and corrupted that unless you have much money and determination it will not work

Re:Suing the wrong person

[Anonymous Coward]

That of course requires some form of identification as well, because she would need to prove that the person behind the website is indeed the ex boyfriend. So instead of reliably identifying her, Yahoo would then need a way of reliably identifying the person who put up the web page.

There should probably be a DMCA style challenge-response system for impostor complaints: Challenges of the identity are passed on to the web site author, who then either doesn't react or confirms his identity. If there is no response, the site is taken down, if the identity is confirmed, the site stays up and the service provider is no longer involved in the dispute. The web site author could prevent any problems by confirming his/her identity from the get go. (This would not affect anonymous speech, as there can be no anonymous impostor.)

Re:Suing the wrong person

[cptnapalm]

s/fewer lawyers/less money/g

And the answer is revealed...

Re:Suing the wrong person

[Translation Error]

Of course, this would require getting Yahoo to divulge the owner of the page, which may still require taking them to court.

Re:Suing the wrong person

[Brad Mace]

this doesn't cover international issues and legal system is so complicated and corrupted that unless you have much money and determination it will not work

Certainly if they're in a different country that makes things a lot more complicated, but I think in the majority of cases like this it's going to be someone in the same country (and frequently even the same town). If they are in another country though, I'd still contend that Yahoo it's not the guilty party. Get the service provider working with you, not against you.

Re:Suing the wrong person

[Anonymous Coward]

Not really a solution. It could take a year and cost a lot of lawyer bucks. Even getting a preliminary injunction wont be cheap.

Re:Suing the wrong person

[moon3]

it's her ex-boyfriend that's creating it

Oh really? How can we prove it is really him ? What if that person creating the slander page is some other guy she might have angered... This is classical example of prejudice about seemingly clear on-line situation, very prevalent in the web ecosystem.. we can't even reach TFA.

Re:Suing the wrong person

[horatio]

Suing the ex would get the court's attention enough that they could make a legal ruling, issue a restraining order/C&D, as well as direct Yahoo to remove the page. He, however, is a low-life with nothing to take in a settlement.

Yahoo has the money. I'm not saying this particular person decided to sue because of the money, but you can damn well bet the lawyers who got involved told her she could get a big payout from Yahoo - millions of dollars. The obvious incentive for the attorneys is to take a 50% (or whatever it is) cut of whatever she gets.

Re:Suing the wrong person

[bzzfzz]

And how can she can prove it's her ex in a court of law? Even with Yahoo's cooperation it may not be possible, especially if the ex has more than the least bit of understanding about internet anonymity.

Re:Suing the wrong person

[Brad Mace]

OK, i'll grant you it _could_ be someone other than her ex. My point was that it is *not* yahoo. And the court is the appropriate place to assign guilt, with Yahoo's help.

Re:Suing the wrong person

[russotto]

Of course, this would require getting Yahoo to divulge the owner of the page, which may still require taking them to court.

But not as a defendant. Take a page from the RIAA playbook: Sue the creator of the page as a "John Doe", and subpoena Yahoo for the actual owner.

Re:Suing the wrong person

[Registered Coward v2]

Suing the ex would get the court's attention enough that they could make a legal ruling, issue a restraining order/C&D, as well as direct Yahoo to remove the page. He, however, is a low-life with nothing to take in a settlement. Yahoo has the money. I'm not saying this particular person decided to sue because of the money, but you can damn well bet the lawyers who got involved told her she could get a big payout from Yahoo - millions of dollars. The obvious incentive for the attorneys is to take a 50% (or whatever it is) cut of whatever she gets.

While YAHOO did not have to remove it per the CDA; they apparently promised to remove it and then didn't resulting in a possible breach of contract and hence the suit. If YAHOO indeed said they'd pull it and then didn't I would not find it unreasonable for them to assume some liability over results of leaving it up longer.

As a side note, she should have gone after the ex as well; IMHO. Not for cash, but to get a court to order him not post the material again and take existing copies down. That way she'd have something to give hosting sites to bolster her argument to remove the material.

As a side note, if she was underage when the pictures were taken then a child pornography compliant would be a nice way to say "Thank you for bring my friend." If she was of legal age; then could the lack of a model release possibly grounds for a DMCA take down notice?

Re:Suing the wrong person

[ZachPruckowski]

Having more lawyers is a double-edged sword. If she adopted a strategy of "have my lawyer do the minimum to avoid getting the case thrown out", their legal costs would be 20x hers. While she'd go bankrupt in the long run, Yahoo would figure a settlement is cheaper for them. In fact, I'd wager that said "here's some money, go away" settlement would be for more than if she literally got everything her ex-BF owns.

This is often why companies settle for undisclosed amounts - there's no fault assigned, it avoids bad PR, it saves them piles in legal costs, and removes the risk of "we got a tech-illiterate judge" losses.

Re:Suing the wrong person

[s_p_oneil]

If Yahoo removed it, in theory he could post several more the next day under new accounts, and the problem only gets worse.

I'm not sure how the Yahoo posting works in this specific case, but if she can show somehow that it was his Yahoo account that posted it, she should be able to get the police to lock him up. There have been articles about people being arrested for posting photos/videos/private info of an ex without permission (it is against the law, after all). If he posted her photo, number, or address and caused her to get a lot of calls/visits about it, in theory they should be able to nail him with the same law, or something very similar.

This way no law suits are necessary and other assholes are discouraged from doing the same thing. I'm sure there are flaws in the plan, but at least this way, local officials handle local disputes, which is as it should be.

Re:Suing the wrong person

[Bigjeff5]

Civil suits (aka lawsuits) have a much lower burden of proof than criminal cases. You only have to show that it was more likely than not the person you claim it is - i.e. there are not alternatives more substantial than a "yeah, but what if ". If the only one who had motive for the action was the defendant, and the action wasn't for some reason impossible for him, he'll probably lose the case.

Now, even criminal cases don't require "proof" in the sense that you are 100% positive the defendant is guilty. It simply needs to be unreasonable that anybody else could have done it.

Look at OJ Simpson, he won his criminal case because there was enough doubt that he might not have done it, but he lost the civil suit because he more than likely did it.

To put it into numbers, civil cases require 51%+ assurance that the defendant is guilty, while criminal cases require 90%+ assurance. Both numbers are subjective to the Jury, but it's a good rule of thumb.

Re:Suing the wrong person

[Anonymous Coward]

As much as we here like to gripe about our legal system, this is one case where that system can be used as part of a process to ensure that the process works. And what you've described is exactly the way the court system can help.

Yahoo! should respond much more favorably to a court order to disable the page than they would to a lawsuit. The hassle involved in getting a court order solves the poster's scalability problem since it's sufficiently difficult enough to keep them from being flooded with requests and offloads the identify verification problem to the courts where, presumably, the parties involved will be present and can claims can be more easily decided upon.

But instead, she sued them, most likely trying to win a settlement rather than the removal of the content. And the courts were correct to rule that Yahoo! was in the right. If she hadn't gotten greedy, she could have sued her ex and probably won easily and Yahoo! would likely have taken down the profile an orderly fashion.

Too many words in the story

[commodoresloat]

I can't read all that. Can you summarize it in a few sentences, preferably using a car analogy?

Re:Too many words in the story

[eldavojohn]

I can't read all that. Can you summarize it in a few sentences, preferably using a car analogy?

So your car has a really bad super-ex-carfriend. And this ex-carfriend has not been leaving your car alone. Like your car always sees this ex-cf on the road when you're on the highway. Well, one day your car starts getting all these service calls from like multiple different auto-repair shops all asking if they could stick their dipsticks in her oil reserve. Well, when your car goes online, she finds a false picture of her and her phone number and name and address and all that on her. When she calls cars.com, they say her ex-cf made it and instead she sues cars.com ... you know how cars get.

So how'd I do?

Re:Too many words in the story

[192939495969798999]

If your ex wrecks your car into a tree using an old copy of your key, and then sicks the cops on you claiming DUI via the tree's owner, you can sue the cops for not figuring out that you didn't do it.

Re:Too many words in the story

[Anonymous Coward]

I concur...

TL;DR!

Re:Too many words in the story

[simcop2387]

It's like your neighbor pretending to be you in a classified ad, claiming you own a pinto when you've really got a volvo.

Re:Too many words in the story

[shawb]

Okay. A woman's ex husband is putting signs on her Camry advertising that she is looking for random sex with strangers. These signs include her work phone number and email address, which is causing her a lot of grief as people keep calling her looking for random sex. The author of the article is wondering why Toyota isn't doing anything about her ex putting these inflammatory signs on her car.

Re:Too many words in the story

[internerdj]

You buy a new car, pay cash, and are on your way to get it registered. Someone has dropped a bunch of copies of the key to your new car around town and identified what car it goes to. How do the police know whose car it is when you and several others walk up to the car to get entry?

Re:Too many words in the story

[GreatAntibob]

You've been ... Bennett Hasselton'd

=)

Re:Too many words in the story

[RandoX]

Is your place of employment hiring?

Re:Too many words in the story

[YrWrstNtmr]

Because you have the bill of sale and/or title from the seller/dealer. The others do not.

Re:Too many words in the story

[morgan_greywolf]

Except for the myriad of non-working solutions to the problem of working out whether the car's complaint about her ex-carfriend's deed is really valid or not, not too bad.

Re:Too many words in the story

[Anonymous Coward]

This is slashdot, we don't "drive"...

Re:Too many words in the story

[Anonymous Coward]

Toyota isn't profiting from this like Yahoo is. Nor is the car Toyota's property. How about, the ex-husband takes out an advertisement on the back of a taxi cab and the women sues the cab company for refusing to take it done. See the difference?

By Neruos

[Anonymous Coward]

Identity. Identity is one of those things that is never 100%. When you can accept this, then you have the forfront to understand what can and can not be protected. Online identity using todays standards and technology would require a single universal PIN. Since we do not have OPINs (online personal identification number) and no one wants OPINs. Then you can never really prevent false information from poping up. But even if you do, OPINs can be stolen. The federal government can not prevent identity fraud, what makes you think a online web service can?

So in the simple terms, you can't and never will until current standards and technology change. /why are questions like these allowed....

Re:By Neruos

[dword]

You can't stop identity theft, but you can narrow it down...

Re:By Neruos

[SignOfZeta]

Possible solution: when one posts the ad, the site (e.g., craigslist) usually sends a confirmation email, with a link to accept, edit, or delete the posting. Well, encrypt that message with the poster's PGP key, and let them decrypt that link. Assuming the private key is not compromised, it's bulletproof (if it is, then online posers are the least of your worries).

Seriously though, PGP could be the closest thing we have to an OPIN, as the parent suggested. It's just a keypair (username) and passphrase -- not a big departure from the popular username/password combo. All we need is some sort of wrapper to get the washed masses to use it without causing a brain embolism.

Gmail Labs, are you listening? You're Google; figure this shit out.

Re:By Neruos

[socsoc]

You're funny. The poster's PGP key. Like escorts, let alone anyone but Slashdot-level readers are going to know what that is.

Notary Public

[sampson7]

Um.... We in the legal industry solved this issue about 3,000 years ago -- back at least to Roman Times. You need to establish your identity for a legal purpose? You go to a notary public, prove your identity to the impartial 3rd party (the notary), the notary stamps the documents with a pretty stamp, you submit the original documents to the ISP.

Is it possible to forge such a certification? Of course. Just like it's possible to forge any document. Would I blame an ISP that had a notarized attestation and supporting evidence? Nope. Why the convoluted logic for a relatively simple problem?

Re:Notary Public

[Anonymous Coward]

PGP keys for all, have them signed by a known and trusted source.

Notary public of the 21st century!

Re:Notary Public

[evanbd]

Exactly. The issue isn't that the problem is hard to solve, it's that the relevant parties don't want to bother solving it.

The basic idea behind DMCA takedown notices could work (though you'd have to solve the problems that currently has). A statement under penalty of perjury that the page is impersonating would be sufficient to take it down, and a statement by the poster that it wasn't would restore it, and then the courts could sort it out. At a start, though, you would have to find a way to have penalties for abuse have some teeth, unlike the current DMCA situation. Unfortunately, I don't know how to solve that problem well in either case...

Re:Notary Public

[Anonymous Coward]

"we in the legal industry..."
Bullshit. Society solved the problem, if anyone did. The "legal industry" has done nothing but to ensure it's continued survival. You people are like AV software vendors... you don't really want the problem to go away.

Re:Notary Public

[julesh]

.... We in the legal industry solved this issue about 3,000 years ago -- back at least to Roman Times. You need to establish your identity for a legal purpose? You go to a notary public [...]

Except this isn't about establishing identity. There are plenty of ways to establish identity, like (as suggested in TFA) faxing a drivers licence copy (or other government-issued ID), which has the advantage of being much cheaper than getting a document notarised (which, at least where I'm from, can cost non-trivial sums of money... £50, I think I paid last time I needed the service).

The problem is one of how to handle the process in such a fashion that you can have large volumes of people doing it, it doesn't cost a fortune to run, and there are as few mistakes as possible. FWIW, if this were a serious, frequent problem, I think Bennett would be on the right track. As it is, though, I don't think it's common enough to warrant the kind of resources he's talking about throwing at it.

Re:Notary Public

[jra]

It's interesting this topic should come up this afternoont -- and annoying that you hit the solution I could not find.

I just this morning wrote a piece for RISKS about SSNs and why they make bad authenticators, and why that leads directly to identify theft.

The hole was "how do you authenticate yourself to vendors as the person a credit record belongs to if *not* by either an SSN or a "real" National ID Card #... and some system involving notaries is probably it.

Maybe PKI and short hex signatures...

but the notaries are the linchpin, and I missed it. Thanks.

Re:Notary Public

[Nipok Nek]

Amen. Why reinvent the wheel? I was going to suggest that there was some other law being violated in most of these cases and the police should be able to get some action where an ordinary citizen might not, but your way is even more convenient.

Also, imposters who aren't

[Todd Knarr]

If you hit Google, for instance, you'll find at least 3 Todd Knarrs out there. What's an ISP to do when they receive a complaint from one of them claiming that another's using his name? And I'd add that Google isn't complete, I know of at least a 4th Todd Knarr who doesn't show up. Names aren't unique identifiers.

I sum it up as "One in a million? That means there's 250 like me in the US alone.".

Re:Also, imposters who aren't

[mr_walrus]

i went to a small high school with about 1100 students in a city
area of about 130,000 people.

what are the odds of TWO *unrelated* teachers with the same name?
and a name that sounds fake at that :)

seriously, two Jane Smiths taught at my high school way back when.

Re:Also, imposters who aren't

[VGPowerlord]

Getting back to the case that started this, the ex-boyfriend posted name and address.

I know you're going in the broader sense, but while a name alone isn't a unique identifier, it can be combined with other things to create one... address, phone numbers, or photographs as examples.

Solution is to sue the individual

[ukyoCE]

If this guy were printing out leaflets and handing them out in a parking lot, would she sue the owner of the parking lot? The maker of the guy's printer? Maybe the car manufacturer of the vehicle he drove there in?

No. She'd sue HIM.

He is the one that needs to take it down using his account. If he's doing something illegal, that's for the courts to decide. If he's doing so anonymously, that's still for the courts to decide, before forcing Yahoo to hand over information.

The only problem with this is how poorly the courts have scaled. But that's still where the responsibility lies. People just go after Yahoo because they're easy target. It's often cheaper for them to comply than to send a lawyer to defend against a lawsuit.

Re:Solution is to sue the individual

[Hognoxious]

If this guy were printing out leaflets and handing them out in a parking lot, would she sue the owner of the parking lot?

If the owner of the lot has been notified and doesn't take reasonable steps to remove the leafleteer[1] then I don't see why not. [1] it is now.

Re:Solution is to sue the individual

[evanbd]

You're absolutely correct. You'll note that the courts basically agreed with you, with one caveat. The ruling suggested that she could potentially bring a new suit, on the basis that Yahoo specifically agreed to take down the page and then failed to do so. They didn't have any such obligation until they made that agreement. This actually seems entirely reasonable to me.

Re:Solution is to sue the individual

[Anonymous Coward]

I think most people would agree that this woman should have sued her boyfriend and was probably just trying to get a settlement out of Yahoo. The point of the article, however, is about how ISPs and other companies should handle these cases.

What about the case in which you don't know who's distributing the information? What if she really was a slut and didn't know which ex boyfriend it was? She can't just sue all of them until she finds the one that did it. The only real recourse she would have is to go through Yahoo to get it taken down.

Re:Solution is to sue the individual

[nsayer]

If this guy were printing out leaflets and handing them out in a parking lot, would she sue the owner of the parking lot? The maker of the guy's printer?

No, but how about if he got those leaflets printed by the local Kinko's? If the leaflets said, "My name is Karen Smith and I'm a dirty slut and will bang you if you call me at [work number]" and the fellow asking the clerk to run off 1000 of them for him is clearly not Karen Smith by any stretch of the imagination, and the clerk runs them off anyway, I'd say that Karen's got a pretty good case against Kinko's for negligence at the very least.

Re:Solution is to sue the individual

[ukyoCE]

I'm not sure if that's true. Most places don't allow leafleting, making it a moot point. If you notify them that someone is leafleting, they'll ask them to leave, and then follow up with the police if the person refuses. But the reason they do this is because it trashes up their parking lot and annoys their customers.

Can you really sue a grocery store for NOT removing a leafleter and his leaflets? Specifically based on the truthfulness of the content of those leaflets? I would be very surprised if anyone could win that lawsuit. This would hinge on an assumption that the grocery store is implicitly supporting the leafleting and its contents.

Being a (relatively) unregulated public space, I don't think the grocery store could be held responsible for the actions of private individuals on their property, whether legal or illegal. If the private individual's actions are illegal, that's for the police to decide and enforce.

Isn't that assumption specifically void for internet hosts in particular? I forget which law provides that immunity, but it sounds familiar. (IANAL)

Re:Solution is to sue the individual

[Bobb Sledd]

I see your point and your logic is sound. However, remember that there may be no evidence that it is her ex-boyfriend who is the one doing this, thus no one to sue.

To use your analogy, it would be as if you hired a guy to hand out leaflets on your behalf, Bobb Sledd. Then I come along and say, "hey! stop that! I'm Bobb Sledd!" and the guy goes, no you're not! Bobb Sledd HIRED me!!! And he doesn't stop.

So I go to the parking lot owner, driver's license in hand, saying "Kick this guy off your property, he is handing out leaflets in my name, and I'm the real Bobb Sledd.

So, who really hired him? Should the parking lot owner really be involved? Who are you going to sue? Who can you sue?

Re:Solution is to sue the individual

[ukyoCE]

I believe in this case you file a John Doe lawsuit against the individual, to find this "John Doe" guilty of defamation (or whatever), at which point you have grounds to obtain John Doe's real identity from Yahoo for enforcement of the court's ruling.

(IANAL though =D)

Re:Solution is to sue the individual

[ukyoCE]

Do you think that Kinko's reads and validates the information contained on/in every item they print? Would it be remotely reasonable to expect this?

What if a kid comes in and prints a poster that says the field mouse is an endangered species. Can I sue Kinko's for letting that kid print false information on a poster which he then used to mislead his kindergarten class? Does Kinko's have to proofread and fact-check every piece of paper that comes out of their printers?

It would certainly be nice of Kinko's employees to notice any egregiously unlawful materials being printed, but I find it hard to believe they're responsible or held accountable for doing so.

Re:Solution is to sue the individual

[drinkypoo]

Can you really sue a grocery store for NOT removing a leafleter and his leaflets? Specifically based on the truthfulness of the content of those leaflets?

Obviously, IANAL. But why not? They're providing a place for him to distribute libel. I mean, if you allow someone you know to be drunk to get in your car and drive it and they hit a pole, you're liable. Why shouldn't the grocery store be partially liable for the distribution of libels?

Re:Solution is to sue the individual

[plague3106]

No its not, because there's no reasonable way to know that the person at Kinko isn't acting on KS' behalf.

Re:Solution is to sue the individual

[Anonymous Coward]

If this guy were printing out leaflets and handing them out in a parking lot, would she:
sue the owner of the parking lot?

Yes

The maker of the guy's printer?

Yes

Maybe the car manufacturer of the vehicle he drove there in?

Totally yes.

No. She'd sue HIM.

Naa, he has no money reserves to go after. That plan is just silly!

Re:Solution is to sue the individual

[ukyoCE]

I mentioned John Doe lawsuits in another thread, but in your particular scenario here is what I imagine is the correct/ideal way for it to be handled:

-You call the police

-Police arrive and make a judgement call on whether you or the leafleter is more likely correct. In this case you are Bobb Sledd and have a driver's license saying so.

-The police arrest/detain the leafleter and get more information out of him for your upcoming lawsuit (the leafleter's ID, and any information they can about his employer)

-You proceed with the lawsuit against his employer for defamation (I'm not entirely sure if this would be civil-only, or if there would be additional criminal charges involved)

Hypothetically the employer may have successfully stayed anonymous when hiring the leafleter. Eg. grab a bum or college kid and say "hand these out" and hand him $50, maybe promise him another $50 when he's done but immediately leave.

In this case you're sort of SOL as far as "justice", but you still successfully stopped the leafleter by calling the police. The store (like Yahoo) is in no position to make judgement calls on who is in the right, and is in fact likely to get themselves into more trouble by expending resources to make those judgement calls than by sticking with the "There's the phone, call the police" line.

Re:Solution is to sue the individual

[ukyoCE]

Heh, yeah, IANAL either so this is all guesswork anyway. But saying he's "providing a place for him to distribute libel" is like suing the government because someone was shot in a public park. The government "provided a place for a guy to shoot someone". Quick, charge the government with murder!

I think there's an extent where it becomes gross negligence if the provider of the public space is knowingly allowing or encouraging the activity, but I'm not sure how far it has to go to cross that line.

Craigslist's "adult services" section and it's recent publicity is another great example of this. They're cooperating with NY (?) to change/remove that public space, but Craigslist is still adamant that they have no responsibility to do so.

And honestly, providing a forum that says "POST ILLEGAL ADULT SERVICES HERE" is a far cry more culpable than having a parking lot for your grocery store and having someone leaflet. Or offering web hosting and having someone put defamatory content on it.

Re:Solution is to sue the individual

[nametaken]

I'm not being argumentative, just curious, how do you sue the guy if you don't know for sure that it's him?

Re:Solution is to sue the individual

[Bobb Sledd]

But there's a further problem with the analogy: If you are doing this in my town, I can call the local police and they have jurisdiction to stop that.

But call the police in your town to stop Yahoo? What 'police' DO you call?

Re:Solution is to sue the individual

[Anonymous Coward]

If this guy were printing out leaflets and handing them out in a parking lot, would she sue the owner of the parking lot? The maker of the guy's printer?

No, but how about if he got those leaflets printed by the local Kinko's? If the leaflets said, "My name is Karen Smith and I'm a dirty slut and will bang you if you call me at [work number]" and the fellow asking the clerk to run off 1000 of them for him is clearly not Karen Smith by any stretch of the imagination, and the clerk runs them off anyway, I'd say that Karen's got a pretty good case against Kinko's for negligence at the very least.

Hey, maybe "Karl" likes to dress up as a "Karen" on the weekend. Or maybe his dominatrix makes him do it. Kinko's guy ain't gonna do jack.

Re:Solution is to sue the individual

[Anonymous Coward]

What if the guy had purchased billboard advertisements while pretending to be her? Would she not be able to cancel the advertisements while acting on her own behalf? How about a long running newspaper classified ad? Shouldn't she be able to call the newspaper and have them investigate possible fraud and cancel the remaining runs? I assure you that if I claimed to be a politician named John Doe and placed an ad contrary to John Doe's platform, a newspaper or billboard company would jump to confirm John Doe's identify if the real John Doe complained. I think what we want here isn't a knee-jerk reaction at the first sign of a take-down notice, but a system for investigating claims being made by individuals. I think that if Yahoo is going to offer a service then they should be required to offer reasonable customer support. Something as simple as calling or e-mailing the contact information published in the ad and asking her if she wants the page taken down would have saved everyone a lot of trouble. Sure the ex-boyfriend is ultimately responsible for creating the problem but Yahoo's refusal to investigate after being notified makes them responsible for allowing it to continue.

Re:Solution is to sue the individual

[nsayer]

Do you think that Kinko's reads and validates the information contained on/in every item they print?

Yes. They absolutely do. They do primarily because they're looking for copyrighted materials, which they refuse to copy. But even so, they have eyes. They have to at least glance at the thing they're copying at the very least to make sure they stick it in the machine the right side up. If I were a clerk, I'd at least give the guy a sideways glance and ask for the story. To suggest that the clerk would take the flyer in this circumstance, look at it, look back at the pervy looking customer and say, "Okie dokie! That'll be $19.95 and ready in 10 minutes!" and not be negligent is laughable.

Re:Solution is to sue the individual

[nsayer]

Sure there is: You can ask. If the guy lies to you, then you're off the hook, because you've exercised due diligence (the bar here is not very high).

Re:Solution is to sue the individual

[nsayer]

Hey, maybe "Karl" likes to dress up as a "Karen" on the weekend.

As I said in another reply, if the clerk asks and that's the answer, then yes, the clerk will probably comply. But by asking for the explanation, the clerk is no longer negligent.

Re:Solution is to sue the individual

[dana340]

simply press charges, but.....

What if you need the help of the ISP to track down the offender? ISP's still need procedure that will scale properly for this, yet also protect user's rights. i think this is where the original story really shines.

Re:Solution is to sue the individual

[plague3106]

Yes, I'm sure thats very effective. Why bother asking if it's so easy to lie and you can't possible discern the truth anyway? Oh, not like the employee couldn't lie about asking anyway...

Re:Solution is to sue the individual

[nsayer]

Why bother asking if it's so easy to lie and you can't possible discern the truth anyway?

You'd be surprised how many people would be in that exact same situation without having prepared a good lie up front, and who, if the need arises suddenly, can't come up with a convincing one.

And if they can, then as I said, the clerk has, in my view, met a reasonable duty to insure he isn't contributing to a tort (or perhaps even a crime) against an innocent third party.

Unquestioningly obeying orders went out of style in 1945.

Re:Solution is to sue the individual

[plague3106]

You'd be surprised how many people would be in that exact same situation without having prepared a good lie up front, and who, if the need arises suddenly, can't come up with a convincing one.

Doubtful. You're just making something up, you have no evidence... just your belief.

And if they can, then as I said, the clerk has, in my view, met a reasonable duty to insure he isn't contributing to a tort (or perhaps even a crime) against an innocent third party.

I suppose Dell should call you everytime you print to ask if it's going to be "contributing to a tort." Sorry, the store isn't responsible in the first place, no matter how much you'd like to think it should be. It's unreasonable, just the same as its unreasonable for someone to be questioned for buying a hammer.

Unquestioningly obeying orders went out of style in 1945.

What this has to do with anything is beyond me... but its a poor attempt to setup a strawman. Kinkos wouldn't be responsible.. they just allow people to copy whatever they want with their machines. It's up to YOU to be responsible, and you alone face the consequences.

tl;dr

[Hognoxious]

n/t

Re:tl;dr

[julesh]

n/t

Sorry, your comment was too long. I didn't read it. Perhaps you could summarise it in a single letter, rather than two of them?

Re:tl;dr

[Anonymous Coward]

agreed. long post is long.

Hmmm...even with cases like the phone #....

[Seakip18]

The problem is that systems like a phone number can still be subverted by the phony person.

Say I know the phone number that Yahoo will call me from, or heck, even the first 6 digits(area + 3).

I post a VOIP number that redirects all numbers BUT that of Yahoo to the person I'm annoying.

When Yahoo calls, I pretend to be that person and play it off like it's legit.

Yahoo thinks I'm really the person answering of all the calls. The person I'm attacking still receives 99.999% of the phone calls. The person can, at best, call in and say "Wait, that # is not mine but it's calling me!!!" but whenever yahoo calls, you confirm, that it is indeed the person under attack's #.

Unless Yahoo can disguise THEMSELVES to not be distinguishable from any other caller.

Re:Hmmm...even with cases like the phone #....

[sexconker]

Hey Joe, that moron is giving out conflicting info regarding the phone number listed on that page, and the voice sounds different when we call versus when we get a call. Check it out, will you?

K. Beep-boop-beep.

OMFG STOP CALLING ME.

Wait, I'm from Yahoo!. I called from my cellphone, and I get routed to you. When I call from the office phone, I get routed to the other person. HMMMM.

HMMM.

Re:Hmmm...even with cases like the phone #....

[Seakip18]

I foresee Joe getting something like this in the future:

TO: JOE
FROM: YAHOO HR
RE: Use of personal device for Yahoo business

Joe,

It has come to our attention that you have used your personal cellphone for Yahoo business. At this time, in Employee conduct and code booklet, section 5.a.1-No employee of Yahoo may use a personal communication device and conduct business on the behalf of Yahoo. All communication and conduct must be done on Yahoo approved devices.

Need we remind you that all communication on the behalf of Yahoo needs to occur with either prior legal approval for non-approved devices or only on preapproved devices.

You are docked 1(one) day personal leave and will need to attend a employee conduct class to continue to receive full benefits.

Thank you,

Yahoo HR

As you can see, Yahoo, not Joe, must disguise themselves. If that means buying up a temporary phone # that get's thrown away after every call, so be it. A business asking it's employees to use personal cellphones for company business just sounds like a bad idea, when you're the size of Yahoo anyways.

Re:Hmmm...even with cases like the phone #....

[Locke2005]

Uh... doesn't a "redirect" from a phone number controlled by you mean that your ex is no longer being harassed by random people, but is now being harassed by YOU? Congratulations, you've just given your pissed-off ex an excuse to have your sorry ass thrown in jail. I can assure you that is not a good thing!

Oh, and requiring a faxed driver's license accomplishes nothing. Every time I post random sex ads giving out my ex's phone number, I use pictures of women much hotter than her! (Disclaimer: I've actually done this zero times.)(It's not like pictures of hot women are difficult to find on the web.) So yes, actually using the contact information supplied in the ad to ascertain identity is the best approach. Now, if only I were a Yahoo or Craiglist employee, so I could give the vice cops and my wife a valid excuse to be calling those numbers...

Re:Hmmm...even with cases like the phone #....

[Seakip18]

I think when they find out it was you who posted her # in the first place, it won't matter the means in which she got dialed.

I believe there's also a way to spoof the CID on demand(I know my voip provider allows such things...) making it a tad more difficult to block the #.

Honestly, I can't imagine anyone going to this amount of trouble unless they've really got it in for a person.

Re:Hmmm...even with cases like the phone #....

[Locke2005]

Posting a free ad is no more difficult than posting a response to slashdot... which you seem to have done with far less motivation than a nasty breakup. By the way, my ex's phone number is 8675309 and her name is "Jenny"...

Re:Hmmm...even with cases like the phone #....

[dana340]

I post a VOIP number that redirects all numbers BUT that of Yahoo to the person I'm annoying.

Introducing this will make it easier to trace the offender. As long as the victim has a reliable phone service of some sort, that have to respond to the phone calls as harassment and investigate it from the inside. Now if I have something like free VoIP or magic jack, it wouldn't surprise me to get junk calls in the first place

Re:Hmmm...even with cases like the phone #....

[Fulcrum of Evil]

Unless Yahoo can disguise THEMSELVES to not be distinguishable from any other caller.

You can pretend to be yahoo - anybody can spoof callerId.

Standardize the form and involve real people

[bzzfzz]

Ultimately, there is no substitute for having an actual human being review the complaints and make a judgment call on whether they are actionable.

The federally-imposed system for uniform handling of credit card and charge card complaints might be an ideal model to use. It requires the customer to choose one of about a dozen specific complaints, supply supporting information and evidence depending on the nature of the complaint, and submit a signed statement. If the form is filled out properly and the story is plausible, the bank issues a chargeback and it is then up to the merchant to fight it if they wish. While the system has flaws affecting both sides, it works reasonably well and costs are minimal.

The structure of the safe-harbor provisions in the DMCA is similar but simplified.

Pushing individual cases out to the courts doesn't work because the anonymity of the person posting the libelous content is not known and often can't be determined with certainty.

Yahoo, like eBay, is trying to claim that customer service is too expensive to fit their business model. So abuses flourish because of their arrogance. Some sort of judicial or legislative backlash is inevitable if this continues. Even Wikipedia will take down clearly libelous material if you ask.

legal identity proof

[mehrotra.akash]

why not just have a system where yahoo(or any other site for that matter) would charge $10-20 for the complaint and refund the money if the complaint was found valid
the validity could be established by asking for a scanned copy of the driving licence, passport,etc
this would prevent spamming

if her photos or personal information uniquely identifying her is published, then, it would not be too difficult for her to give an id proof conclusively linking her to the article

somewhat similar to the policy my college has about exam result reevaluation

if you think that you have got less marks than you deserve, then you pay them Rs 500, if there is any correction found, your money is refunded

this is to prevent everyone from asking for reevaluations

Simple Solution

[PPH]

The woman sues her ex-boyfriend for harassment and possibly identity theft (claiming to be her while setting up the account). Part of the settlement is a requirement that he take the page down.

Yahoo shouldn't be held responsible for other people's bad behavior as long as they take reasonable steps to prevent their site from becoming a nuisance (allowing anonymous accounts, etc.).

Or....

[Anonymous Coward]

Instead of creating new legal headaches, why not just use, you know... existing laws? Sue for libel, slander, grief, monetary & opportunity losses, etc.

Here's A System

[sexconker]

Stop worrying about internet drama.

Caveat Lector

[srussia]

It's the intarwebs FFS!

DMCA

[Ecuador]

Yep, going after the ex was the right way. However, if she just wanted the page down fast, she could simply send a nice DMCA take-down notice claiming copyright to all material related to whatever her name is. It works beautifully for corporate lying bastards, why not her?

Re:DMCA

[gnasher719]

Yep, going after the ex was the right way. However, if she just wanted the page down fast, she could simply send a nice DMCA take-down notice claiming copyright to all material related to whatever her name is. It works beautifully for corporate lying bastards, why not her?

She would be in deeply illegal territory then, because the material on that page is actually _not_ copyrighted by her. The copyright holder is the bastard who put the stuff there.

Re:DMCA

[Bigjeff5]

Actually, if they are pictures of her person legal use requires the permission of both the copyright holder (i.e. the person who took the photograph or the person they sold the copyright to photo to) and the model in the photograph.

This is why candid-camera TV shows and the like must blur the faces of anybody who doesn't sign a consent form. They can still distribute their film/photos, but they can't legally show a person who hasn't given them consent.

Note that there may be fair use situations that would allow the use of the photos without consent, but these photos probably don't fall under that.

Issue a DMCA takedown notice

[aepervius]

If the photo or anything is from her, then she could simply misuse the DMCA to her advantage. Then the BF would have to prove he is holding the copyright for the photo or whatever was in that page. Alternatively jsut sue him for plain old libel or wire fraud.

Yahoo removed a few pages

[Orion Blastar]

that someone had created to defame me. They had used my real name, and real phone number, and I was able to get them removed with just an email from my paid ISP SBC/AT&T Yahoo account. I guess they could check my billing information to see that it was me.

Sad part is that the web pages had been going for a few years before I noticed them. Even indexed in Google. Eventually someone tipped me off about them. It may have cost me a few jobs and disqualified me for being hired for a few jobs.

There ought to be some Internet service that searches for your real name in search engines and is able to tell if the pages are fake or not. Some sort of identity theft service. I think such a service exists, but I don't know how to find them.

Re:Yahoo removed a few pages

[CorporateSuit]

There ought to be some Internet service that searches for your real name in search engines and is able to tell if the pages are fake or not. Some sort of identity theft service. I think such a service exists, but I don't know how to find them.

If there is one, I haven't found it. :(

-Ryan Goatse

Re:Yahoo removed a few pages

[Anonymous Coward]

according to this article

http://www.cfo.com/article.cfm/5404994?f=related

there used to be a service called PubSub, but that seems to be out of commission right now.

maybe it will come back.

Re:Yahoo removed a few pages

[Anonymous Coward]

Even indexed in Google.

There ought to be some Internet service that searches for your real name in search engines

It's called Google Alerts ace.

I would knock you for not knowing about it, but I noticed that your profile claims you come from the year 4061, despite your geoshitties page (that was discontinued in 2009) with the kickass flames gif, so maybe they don't have Google Alerts in the future and geoshitties became a phoenix.

These are fundamental problems that when solved...

[CyberLord Seven]

...will make the person who came up with the solution filthy rich!

This question is asking the fundamental cryptography question of resolving identity. Whomever comes up with a solution for this problem will have an opportunity to become filthy rich as banks, military organizations, and other entities strive to verify that the data Bob receives is from Alice and not that cunt Susan who is up to no-good. This is very similar to the question last week asking us to solve the business model case for a publisher. No one knows how to post material to the internet and make a profit. The person who solves that will have every publisher lining up at his door throwing wads of money inside.

I appreciate the idea of getting the masses of Slashdot to seek a solution, but to tell you the truth, if I had a solution I would not reveal it here.

The story implicitly forgives them

[Chmcginn]

As soon as I read this above, I got irritated :

The second is that the solution has to scale well, even for a company like Yahoo that probably gets so many complaints about user conduct every day that it would be impossible to read them all.

If your business model is based on your customer being unable to actually reach a real live human being, your company either should be set up to avoid complaints whenever possible, or your company is going to get a (probably well-deserved) reputation for crap customer service. But people like the submitter who expect that big companies can't have a big enough support staff to cover their complaints are part of the problem...

Outsourcing your customer service overseas isn't always a great solution, but it's almost always better than conducting 'customer service' through emails that involve cut & paste from FAQs.

Re:The story implicitly forgives them

[Smallpond]

What's interesting to note is that most of the steps outlined in the article for submitting a complaint could be automated on a form, so you don't actually need to reach a live human being.

• cite the law (checkbox)
• state that this is a case of impersonation (checkbox)
• proper ID - require Yahoo! login and have drop-down box and text entry for ID
• link to URI of offending website
• state what on the page is referring to you (link, phone number, IM, etc.)
• Give your contact info - name, address, phone, email, where followup will be sent

If the first level check was automated, I bet the number of non-crank complaints would be fairly manageable. The followup could be either a reply that the site has been taken down, or a reject with a case number for additional steps, or a request for more or missing information.

Take this, troll.

[shashark]

It's not that they can't handle a high volume of complaints. It's that they can't handle ANYTHING.

Have you ever tried to reach a human being through yahoo? Good luck.

Yes, and here are ten facts you must know

1. You are reading my comment
2. Now you are saying/thinking that's a stupid fact.
4. You didn't notice that I skipped 3.
5. You're checking it now.
6. You're smiling.
7. You're still reading my comment.
8. You know all you have read is true.
10. You didn't notice that i skipped 9.
11. You're checking it now.
12. You didn't notice there are only 10 facts

Beat that.

Re:Take this, troll.

[Anonymous Coward]

greatestoff topic comment ever

Refundable charge on Debit/Credit card/Bank Acct

[frith01]

Assuming that the majority of us have credit/debit cards ( at least in the U.S.)

Get each user to post a fee in their name to their credit card. Person who's name matches the fee wins & gets refunded.

Users without a card, can use a verifiable bank account number. ( doesnt even need to be billed, just call bank X, and verify banking info.)

At the worst case, someone else now has the identity verification problem.

Small Businesses have Found the Answer

[LifesABeach]

I believe the term is referred to as, "Customer Service."

tl;dr DMCA

[poptix_work]

After the first paragraph I said, "This is what the DMCA is for".

I work for a large provider, we host a number of inflammatory sites. We obviously are not in a position to verify anyones claims, nor do we usually have direct access to remove the content in question to begin with. This is precisely one of the things the DMCA was made for (as bad as it may be, it works well for this). We receive a complaint that anyone can fill out, we give our customer the legally required time to respond. If they choose not to respond with a counter complaint they must take down the offending content. If they do respond, the content stays up. After that we are only required to act upon a legal decision.

Yahoo - my ID - yeah right

[Pitawg]

Giving Yahoo or any Internet/Service Host a copy of my ID with Birthdate and more..... why not just post your ID on Flickr? Any states left with SSN still printed on state ID cards? Used for Account numbers? An open tiff in an unencrypted email stream?

Do all of their employees with access to incoming bandwidth get background checks? And I do mean any and all workers that have access to incoming bandwidth packets beit the physical wires or any routing machines in addition to any terminals setup for day to day work....?

Too many sites use too little information which is inclusive of some of the information on the State issued IDs for satisfying their requirements of identification. Adding a picture would also be frowned upon. Forget the tinfoil. There are reasons IDs do not come on lanyards for public display where ever one travels in day to day life.

I cannot even count on Yahoo to keep my email address out of the hands of spammers. Why would I send them any official documents of mine? The spam from their email accounts as it is use alphabetic lists of their other users still, just moved to the BCC field so the list is not as noticed as years past.

The problem is real, but you are trying to solve one little glitch when the entire system is currently a hole.

The third party view mentioned (notary) has promise, but not until there is secured communication. Even if it requires PI type services by licensed third parties for problem certification. (ISPs sign up with internet investigation teams to resolve identification issues with their users. Headline on page 3...)

Well...

[Anonymous Coward]

...rip out his heart...?

Simple Solution: Require a Police Report

[Anonymous Coward]

If someone lies on a police report they can be held legally/criminally responsible.

Survey says...

[neo-mkrey]

DMCA is the answer. The OP spent way too much time overthinking the problem. And I admit, about half way through the article, I lost interest and stopped reading.

Isn't this the "Two Generals" problem?

[Medievalist]

Or the "byzantine generals" problem perhaps?

I don't think it's something you're going to be able to solve effectively if you eliminate human judgment from your policies.

This is what the courts are for

[Morty]

What about parody? There have been some classic impersonating websites such as the fake Steve Jobs site. These are legal because it's parody.

What about multiple people with the same name? There is more than one person on the net with the name "Cecilia Barnes". What if one "Cecilia Barnes" calls up yahoo to complain about a website that is about a different one? Each can produce government ID. [I know, in this case, there was a phone number, but a law or new rule needs to be general.]

This sort of issue is a hard problem. It's hard to develop general guidelines that work in all cases. While it would be nice if yahoo would be more flexible in a case like this one, it's understandable why they have their policies. That's why we have the court system.

Speaking as a Notary Public

[querist]

I am a Notary Public here in SC, and at least in SC what you stated is correct. All a Notary does is verify someone's identity and witness statements made by the individual, either clearly written or implied. (e.g. when selling a vehicle, you are implying that you are the individual named on the title as the owner and not someone else who happens to have the same name. A notary will check the name on the ID against the name on the title and then ask the "seller" to verify that he or she is the same person.)

There are serious penalties for faking a notary seal/signature, either forging one of a real notary or making a fake seal and pretending to be a notary. Technically, Notaries Public are considered officers of the court. (I say "technically" because that's the way the laws are written, but I doubt you'd receive the same penalties for assaulting a notary as you would for assaulting a judge, magistrate, clerk, or a bailiff, for example.)

(an interesting side note: the controversial "education lottery" law in SC has some strange provisions, including the fact that certain persons in "positions of trust" such as officers of the court cannot legally play the lottery. Therefore, notaries, judges, cops, and elected officials are not allowed to play the lottery.)

The captcha is "extort". I'm sure there is some significance in there somewhere that I am not seeing yet.

PGP + Notary Public

[droopycom]

Thats probably a better solution.

The problem with PGP as-is, is that there is no designated central party you can trust. Sure, theoretically I could create a web of trust with the CEO of yahoo, with less than N degrees of separations, but the link trust is going to be very weak... Trusted party such as a Notary Public solve this issue

Pay the fee to the Notary public once to verify your ID and sign your PGP key. Then send PGP signed request to Yahoo. Yahoo and others can automate that part.

Yahoo and other could have requirements on your key (eg: needs to be less than x year olds, signed by 1 Notary public or a 1000 other marginally trusted keys,etc...)

Unreliable Notary Public could be revoked. Yahoo and others could share database of trusted Notary Public etc....

Re:PGP + Notary Public

[SignOfZeta]

Exactly. Man, I've got to scroll down before I went about PGP.

Make a Tech Solution Popular

[ZachPruckowski]

There are technology solutions for "here's how you know this is really me". The most common is something along the lines of PGP. If I could host a PGP public key on Facebook and have everything I write use that signature in some kind of meta-tag, then you know I wrote it.

The technical problems with this solution are (1) finding someplace everyone knows is mine for me to host the key (Facebook or MySpace would work well for this) and (2) making it easy to sign arbitrary things with that key while still keeping it secure (if someone copies your key, it's game-over).

The largest hurdle is getting such a thing adopted by (1) users, and (2) web apps.

Re:Make a Tech Solution Popular

[mccrew]

Facebook, MySpace, and virtually all websites lack any real rigor in their sign-up process. With the exception perhaps of a CAPTCHA, it's designed to be as streamlined as possible, because most websites are focused on creating value by quickly growing their user base. Drawn out identity verification doesn't fit with this model.

What's to stop someone from signing up under someone else's name, generating a PGP key, and then using it as you have described? I don't see how the situation is changed in any way.

The old PGP argument is to do the whole web-of-trust thing, with people signing each others' keys, but in the end it just becomes confusing and too hard to use for the overwhelming majority of users.

Link or Mirror?

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone have a link so we can see the page in question? If there was one in the article, I missed it (WAY too much to read)

I'd love to see what all the fuss is about as long as she's not a fat chick

Who the fuck keeps posting this crap?

[Anonymous Coward]

And what's the point?

The Bible solved this long ago...

[happy_place]

Clearly the only thing to do with a webpage where two parties are lying about whom the page belongs to is to follow the Bible... King Solomon had that whole issue with the two mommies wanting the same baby, and Solomon's solution was to cut the baby in half, and give each parent half. The evil mommy wanted half a baby, but the good mommy would rather see the baby live with evil mommy than split in half... and so... um... you could do the same thing with webpages... and um... cut them in half... and err... here's where it gets a little fuzzy, but I'm pretty sure, something would happen... that... um... err... forget it.

1100 students is small?

[professorguy]

If your high school was small, what was mine? In 35 years, we haven't graduated 1100 students yet.

Re:1100 students is small?

[socsoc]

A school with poor achievement?

What about Slashdot?

[steveha]

A while ago I remember some guy was posting troll messages from an account with a name that implied he was someone famous. I looked up Slashdot's policy about impersonation and found that the policy was basically "let the moderation system handle it".

I just looked at the FAQ and I could not find the section I remembered. Did Slashdot change this policy?

As a for-instance... suppose the user name "esr" was not registered, and someone registered it and started posting troll messages that superficially looked like something Eric Raymond might write (let's say the troll cut-and-pastes actual things ESR wrote). But then URLs are actually links to goatse, and the troll edits comments to include insulting racial epithets, and other changes like that. If the real ESR complained, would Slashdot help shut down the trolling "esr" account name?

steveha

You ALL take yourselves too seriously

[koona]

You ALL take yourselves way too seriously. This is just the internets for cripes sake, get real. If the lady has a genuine problem I'm sure she has recourse through harassment laws and so on. It is clear from reading the original article in its entirety that the situation is unfortunate but picayune in a systemic sense. If nothing else she must have a big brother or something. my friend Crotch Dave could help for a few bucks. Lets try and keep this all organic, eh? The Koona This post is encrypted twice with ROT-13.

Really?

[crossmr]

The non-verifiability of complaints is the same problem that I've posed to hard-core anti-spam advocates who have said that ISPs should have a zero-tolerance policy towards spam and cancel any account that is generating spam complaints. The problem with that is that unless the ISP has logs of all mail sent out by a customer (and if the customer is leasing a dedicated server, this would usually not be the case), the ISP can't tell for sure if a spam complaint is real or not.

If little ol' mrs smith who can barely operate her mouse without coaching is making 200 SMTP connections an hour to send e-mail..its probably spam. Most of the real spam coming from ISPs is from zombies I would gather and not someone spamming a newsletter. ISPs should have zero problem with identifying most users who are spamming (whether they know it or not).

Re:These are fundamental problems that when solved

[Anonymous Coward]

Umm public key cryptography?
Alice posts her public key online and Bob downloads it. Only she can encrypt messages using her private key that can be decrypted using the public key labeled "Alice". If a message cannot be decrypted using that key, it's not from Alice.
Need send a private encrypted message and identity verification? No problem. Alice encrypts a message using Bob's public key, and then encrypts the resulting gibberish with her private key. Now only Bob can decrypt using Alice's public key (which proves her identity) and then his private key (which ensures that only Bob can read the message).

Right on the money

[Anonymous Coward]

'I now expect the flocks of "Jeremy Reimer alternate guises" to appear to defend him' = by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 18, @04:11PM (#28002315)

Correct and a down moderation of -1 off topic happened (even though this is about others impersonating you, which is exactly what Jeremy Reimer admitted to doing on his forums). The reaction you predicated occured, exactly.

I think people are missing the point ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Why all the focus on Yahoo?

As the police will tell you, there is no crime on-line that isn't a crime off line. The internet is just a new delivery method for these things.

The problem is she shouldn't have been chasing Yahoo to take the page down at all. She should have gone straight to the police and had them get her BF to take the page down, and then sued the crap out of her BF.

As well, if she wanted a quicker response to getting the page removed, she could also have got the police to contact Yahoo and explain the situation.

A lot of the time the problem is that people go about some very simple things in completely the wrong way.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Want a job done right? Do it yourself (ask Reimer)

[Anonymous Coward]

"So, Mr. Haselton, how does your proposed solution protect me" - by eldavojohn (898314) * on Monday May 18, @01:02PM (#27999143) Homepage

This is NEVER a problem, assuming you're dealing with decent people that actually do their jobs - you can take care of morons that bother you online, easily enough, by doing it yourself... how do I know? Been there, done it, MYSELF... How/when/why/where/how, you ask?

Here -> http://windowsitpro.com/article/articleid/41095/the-memory-optimization-hoax.html

That's where a trolling online scumbag coward arstechnica "not man" (what I call cowards online that act more like women than men do) named Jeremy Reimer impersonated myself on his forums @ OSY/pegasus3d, & had to ADMIT he had done so, no less, right in the URL above AND on his own websites + a Mr. Martin Meszaros (as well as posting under alternate usernames to "support himself" and was caught in it also - see below).

Proofs, you ask? Ok, quotes of his own words (& those of his pals Jay Little + Jarrett DeAngelis as well):

----

http://episteme.arstechnica.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/48409524/m/573009083931/p/73 [arstechnica.com]

There, jayemcee said:

"Jeremy Reimer has no degree or certifications in computers and no professional hands on years to decades of experience in them either. Jeremy Reimer was caught email harassing, impersonating, & bother others online which ended up having his website have portions removed and his friends that helped him in it (a Mr. Jay Little of Atlanta Ga. USA) had their websites removed in their entirety. Posting as others (i.e. same person posting under multiple names/guises/nicks/handles) along with his friend Jay Little above to "support one another" when they were found SO technically inacurrate, they were laughed off that site and both of them outright left & that was after law enforcement were called on them both. Windows IT Pro is a widely read publication in the field of computers".

----

So Jeremy Reimer replied this set of lies:

"Bringing up APK quotes means you lose by default. APK is a mentally disturbed individual. He has repeatedly threatened Ars forum members with physical and legal violence. That's all he does. Almost everything he says is a lie: I was never accused of email harassment, my web site was never taken down, law enforcement was never contacted by anyone, and it was APK who was found to be using multiple identities to support his position. The fact that you would use APK quotes as an attempt to attack me personally without even bothering to check their veracity says a lot about you. I would never have done such a thing. Didn't you say that you were leaving Ars, and that you had me on Ignore? I guess that means you're a liar."

----

Others read the article "The Memory Optimization Hoax", such as jaymcee above, & are putting out the truth about you REIMER, & online, such as the one below from an educational institution who consider you to be nothing more than the unqualified charlatan you are in this science, see below... and just because YOU say someone lost? Big deal, who are you?? Nobody, but a liar and "not man" as this post will prove with your own words & misdeeds, read on:

AND?

More libel Jeremy Reimer my way above, in regards to calling myself 'mentally disturbed'? Do you have a phd in psychiatry to dispense that prognosis/diagnosis Jeremy? No, you do not. Continued libel of myself is all they have at this point... See - If anyone here is a liar & mentally disturbed, it is yourself for impersonating me on your website forums.

----

pegasus3d.com/cgi-bin/ikonboard/topic.cgi?forum=1&topic=10

"Anyway the "APK" registered here is just an affectionate clone of the original. In fact I pr

Jeremy Reimer of arstechnica is that 1/10th

[Anonymous Coward]

"Even if only one tenth of one percent of internet readers are jerks" - by Geoffrey.landis (926948) on Monday May 18, @01:17PM (#27999391) Homepage

I've run into that "one tenth of one percent" in Jeremy Reimer of arstechnica (who is 1/10th of a man)... but, this is NEVER a problem, assuming you're dealing with decent people that actually do their jobs - you can take care of morons that bother you online, easily enough, by doing it yourself... how do I know? Been there, done it, MYSELF... How/when/why/where/how, you ask?

Here -> http://windowsitpro.com/article/articleid/41095/the-memory-optimization-hoax.html

That's where a trolling online scumbag coward arstechnica "not man" (what I call cowards online that act more like women than men do) named Jeremy Reimer impersonated myself on his forums @ OSY/pegasus3d, & had to ADMIT he had done so, no less, right in the URL above AND on his own websites + a Mr. Martin Meszaros (as well as posting under alternate usernames to "support himself" and was caught in it also - see below).

Proofs, you ask? Ok, quotes of his own words (& those of his pals Jay Little + Jarrett DeAngelis as well):

----

http://episteme.arstechnica.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/48409524/m/573009083931/p/73 [arstechnica.com]

There, jayemcee said:

"Jeremy Reimer has no degree or certifications in computers and no professional hands on years to decades of experience in them either. Jeremy Reimer was caught email harassing, impersonating, & bother others online which ended up having his website have portions removed and his friends that helped him in it (a Mr. Jay Little of Atlanta Ga. USA) had their websites removed in their entirety. Posting as others (i.e. same person posting under multiple names/guises/nicks/handles) along with his friend Jay Little above to "support one another" when they were found SO technically inacurrate, they were laughed off that site and both of them outright left & that was after law enforcement were called on them both. Windows IT Pro is a widely read publication in the field of computers".

----

So Jeremy Reimer replied this set of lies:

"Bringing up APK quotes means you lose by default. APK is a mentally disturbed individual. He has repeatedly threatened Ars forum members with physical and legal violence. That's all he does. Almost everything he says is a lie: I was never accused of email harassment, my web site was never taken down, law enforcement was never contacted by anyone, and it was APK who was found to be using multiple identities to support his position. The fact that you would use APK quotes as an attempt to attack me personally without even bothering to check their veracity says a lot about you. I would never have done such a thing. Didn't you say that you were leaving Ars, and that you had me on Ignore? I guess that means you're a liar."

----

Others read the article "The Memory Optimization Hoax", such as jaymcee above, & are putting out the truth about you REIMER, & online, such as the one below from an educational institution who consider you to be nothing more than the unqualified charlatan you are in this science, see below... and just because YOU say someone lost? Big deal, who are you?? Nobody, but a liar and "not man" as this post will prove with your own words & misdeeds, read on:

AND?

More libel Jeremy Reimer my way above, in regards to calling myself 'mentally disturbed'? Do you have a phd in psychiatry to dispense that prognosis/diagnosis Jeremy? No, you do not. Continued libel of myself is all they have at this point... See - If anyone here is a liar & mentally disturbed, it is yourself for impersonating me on your website forums.

----

pegasus3d.com/cgi-bin/ikonboard/topic.cgi?for

You don't need courts, ask Jeremy Reimer

[Anonymous Coward]

"The obvious thing to do is let a court sort it out. That is, after all, what they are for. Just because it's on the internet doesn't change anything, it's a simple case of libel. - by AmiMoJo (196126) on Monday May 18, @01:23PM (#27999499) Homepage

It doesn't have to even get that far, because most of these libelling online trolls can be controlled easily enough by local law enforcement in their area, after the one in YOUR area contacts them in addition to yourself (provided you can "zero in" on them that is, & I had to do so, but in the end? It worked... read on):

This is NEVER a problem, assuming you're dealing with decent people that actually do their jobs - you can take care of morons that bother you online, easily enough, by doing it yourself... how do I know? Been there, done it, MYSELF... How/when/why/where/how, you ask?

Here -> http://windowsitpro.com/article/articleid/41095/the-memory-optimization-hoax.html

That's where a trolling online scumbag coward arstechnica "not man" (what I call cowards online that act more like women than men do) named Jeremy Reimer impersonated myself on his forums @ OSY/pegasus3d, & had to ADMIT he had done so, no less, right in the URL above AND on his own websites + a Mr. Martin Meszaros (as well as posting under alternate usernames to "support himself" and was caught in it also - see below).

Proofs, you ask? Ok, quotes of his own words (& those of his pals Jay Little + Jarrett DeAngelis as well):

----

http://episteme.arstechnica.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/48409524/m/573009083931/p/73 [arstechnica.com]

There, jayemcee said:

"Jeremy Reimer has no degree or certifications in computers and no professional hands on years to decades of experience in them either. Jeremy Reimer was caught email harassing, impersonating, & bother others online which ended up having his website have portions removed and his friends that helped him in it (a Mr. Jay Little of Atlanta Ga. USA) had their websites removed in their entirety. Posting as others (i.e. same person posting under multiple names/guises/nicks/handles) along with his friend Jay Little above to "support one another" when they were found SO technically inacurrate, they were laughed off that site and both of them outright left & that was after law enforcement were called on them both. Windows IT Pro is a widely read publication in the field of computers".

----

So Jeremy Reimer replied this set of lies:

"Bringing up APK quotes means you lose by default. APK is a mentally disturbed individual. He has repeatedly threatened Ars forum members with physical and legal violence. That's all he does. Almost everything he says is a lie: I was never accused of email harassment, my web site was never taken down, law enforcement was never contacted by anyone, and it was APK who was found to be using multiple identities to support his position. The fact that you would use APK quotes as an attempt to attack me personally without even bothering to check their veracity says a lot about you. I would never have done such a thing. Didn't you say that you were leaving Ars, and that you had me on Ignore? I guess that means you're a liar."

----

Others read the article "The Memory Optimization Hoax", such as jaymcee above, & are putting out the truth about you REIMER, & online, such as the one below from an educational institution who consider you to be nothing more than the unqualified charlatan you are in this science, see below... and just because YOU say someone lost? Big deal, who are you?? Nobody, but a liar and "not man" as this post will prove with your own words & misdeeds, read on:

AND?

More libel Jeremy Reimer my way above, in regards to calling myself 'mentally disturbed'? Do you

Call local law enforcement 1st, ask Jeremy Reimer

[Anonymous Coward]

"Alternatively jsut sue him for plain old libel or wire fraud." - by aepervius (535155) on Monday May 18, @01:35PM (#27999713)

Call local law enforcement first though, especially if you are impersonated and libelled online: That "gets the ball rolling", with professional witnesses to that effect... I know 1st hand, & had to go about it in that manner.

This is NEVER a problem, assuming you're dealing with decent people that actually do their jobs - you can take care of morons that bother you online, easily enough, by doing it yourself... how do I know? Been there, done it, MYSELF... How/when/why/where/how, you ask?

Here -> http://windowsitpro.com/article/articleid/41095/the-memory-optimization-hoax.html

That's where a trolling online scumbag coward arstechnica "not man" (what I call cowards online that act more like women than men do) named Jeremy Reimer impersonated myself on his forums @ OSY/pegasus3d, & had to ADMIT he had done so, no less, right in the URL above AND on his own websites + a Mr. Martin Meszaros (as well as posting under alternate usernames to "support himself" and was caught in it also - see below).

Proofs, you ask? Ok, quotes of his own words (& those of his pals Jay Little + Jarrett DeAngelis as well):

----

http://episteme.arstechnica.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/48409524/m/573009083931/p/73 [arstechnica.com]

There, jayemcee said:

"Jeremy Reimer has no degree or certifications in computers and no professional hands on years to decades of experience in them either. Jeremy Reimer was caught email harassing, impersonating, & bother others online which ended up having his website have portions removed and his friends that helped him in it (a Mr. Jay Little of Atlanta Ga. USA) had their websites removed in their entirety. Posting as others (i.e. same person posting under multiple names/guises/nicks/handles) along with his friend Jay Little above to "support one another" when they were found SO technically inacurrate, they were laughed off that site and both of them outright left & that was after law enforcement were called on them both. Windows IT Pro is a widely read publication in the field of computers".

----

So Jeremy Reimer replied this set of lies:

"Bringing up APK quotes means you lose by default. APK is a mentally disturbed individual. He has repeatedly threatened Ars forum members with physical and legal violence. That's all he does. Almost everything he says is a lie: I was never accused of email harassment, my web site was never taken down, law enforcement was never contacted by anyone, and it was APK who was found to be using multiple identities to support his position. The fact that you would use APK quotes as an attempt to attack me personally without even bothering to check their veracity says a lot about you. I would never have done such a thing. Didn't you say that you were leaving Ars, and that you had me on Ignore? I guess that means you're a liar."

----

Others read the article "The Memory Optimization Hoax", such as jaymcee above, & are putting out the truth about you REIMER, & online, such as the one below from an educational institution who consider you to be nothing more than the unqualified charlatan you are in this science, see below... and just because YOU say someone lost? Big deal, who are you?? Nobody, but a liar and "not man" as this post will prove with your own words & misdeeds, read on:

AND?

More libel Jeremy Reimer my way above, in regards to calling myself 'mentally disturbed'? Do you have a phd in psychiatry to dispense that prognosis/diagnosis Jeremy? No, you do not. Continued libel of myself is all they have at this point... See - If anyone here is a liar & mentally disturbed, it is yourself fo

Handle impersonators & libellers online, thus

[Anonymous Coward]

"people like the submitter who expect that big companies can't have a big enough support staff to cover their complaints are part of the problem" - by Chmcginn (201645) on Monday May 18, @01:39PM (#27999795)

They just don't know how to go about it properly is all (makes sense, because MOST folks are not freaks that impersonate & libel others online... freaks like Jeremy Reimer of arstechnica - I had to take care of he in that manner, for impersonating myself (and others, see below) as well as Jeremy Reimer's libelling of myself).

This is NEVER a problem, assuming you're dealing with decent people that actually do their jobs - you can take care of morons that bother you online, easily enough, by doing it yourself... how do I know? Been there, done it, MYSELF... How/when/why/where/how, you ask?

Here -> http://windowsitpro.com/article/articleid/41095/the-memory-optimization-hoax.html

That's where a trolling online scumbag coward arstechnica "not man" (what I call cowards online that act more like women than men do) named Jeremy Reimer impersonated myself on his forums @ OSY/pegasus3d, & had to ADMIT he had done so, no less, right in the URL above AND on his own websites + a Mr. Martin Meszaros (as well as posting under alternate usernames to "support himself" and was caught in it also - see below).

Proofs, you ask? Ok, quotes of his own words (& those of his pals Jay Little + Jarrett DeAngelis as well):

----

http://episteme.arstechnica.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/48409524/m/573009083931/p/73 [arstechnica.com]

There, jayemcee said:

"Jeremy Reimer has no degree or certifications in computers and no professional hands on years to decades of experience in them either. Jeremy Reimer was caught email harassing, impersonating, & bother others online which ended up having his website have portions removed and his friends that helped him in it (a Mr. Jay Little of Atlanta Ga. USA) had their websites removed in their entirety. Posting as others (i.e. same person posting under multiple names/guises/nicks/handles) along with his friend Jay Little above to "support one another" when they were found SO technically inacurrate, they were laughed off that site and both of them outright left & that was after law enforcement were called on them both. Windows IT Pro is a widely read publication in the field of computers".

----

So Jeremy Reimer replied this set of lies:

"Bringing up APK quotes means you lose by default. APK is a mentally disturbed individual. He has repeatedly threatened Ars forum members with physical and legal violence. That's all he does. Almost everything he says is a lie: I was never accused of email harassment, my web site was never taken down, law enforcement was never contacted by anyone, and it was APK who was found to be using multiple identities to support his position. The fact that you would use APK quotes as an attempt to attack me personally without even bothering to check their veracity says a lot about you. I would never have done such a thing. Didn't you say that you were leaving Ars, and that you had me on Ignore? I guess that means you're a liar."

----

AND, as anyone can see, in jaymcee's case there @ arstechnica? Others read the article "The Memory Optimization Hoax", such as jaymcee above, & are putting out the truth about you REIMER, & online, such as the one below from an educational institution who consider you to be nothing more than the unqualified charlatan you are in this science, see below... and just because YOU say someone lost? Big deal, who are you?? Nobody, but a liar and "not man" as this post will prove with your own words & misdeeds, read on:

AND? A detective Felton was contacted in British Columbia, where Jeremy Reimer live

Beat libellers/impersonators thus (Jeremy Reimer)

[Anonymous Coward]

"Sue him for libel/slander or whatever and take care of it that way. The courts can figure this out " - by Brad Mace (624801) on Monday May 18, @01:06PM (#27999199) Homepage

That's part of it, but law enforcement (such as policemen) are part of it also, & it works to "force the hand" of ISP's &/or HOSTING PROVIDERS... ask Jeremy Reimer of arstechnica about that, because that is exactly what happened to he for libelling, email harassing, & threatening my family no less + more (read on):

This is NEVER a problem, assuming you're dealing with decent people that actually do their jobs - you can take care of morons that bother you online, easily enough, by doing it yourself... how do I know? Been there, done it, MYSELF... How/when/why/where/how, you ask?

Here -> http://windowsitpro.com/article/articleid/41095/the-memory-optimization-hoax.html

That's where a trolling online scumbag coward arstechnica "not man" (what I call cowards online that act more like women than men do) named Jeremy Reimer impersonated myself on his forums @ OSY/pegasus3d, & had to ADMIT he had done so, no less, right in the URL above AND on his own websites + a Mr. Martin Meszaros (as well as posting under alternate usernames to "support himself" and was caught in it also - see below).

Proofs, you ask? Ok, quotes of his own words (& those of his pals Jay Little + Jarrett DeAngelis as well):

----

http://episteme.arstechnica.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/48409524/m/573009083931/p/73 [arstechnica.com]

There, jayemcee said:

"Jeremy Reimer has no degree or certifications in computers and no professional hands on years to decades of experience in them either. Jeremy Reimer was caught email harassing, impersonating, & bother others online which ended up having his website have portions removed and his friends that helped him in it (a Mr. Jay Little of Atlanta Ga. USA) had their websites removed in their entirety. Posting as others (i.e. same person posting under multiple names/guises/nicks/handles) along with his friend Jay Little above to "support one another" when they were found SO technically inacurrate, they were laughed off that site and both of them outright left & that was after law enforcement were called on them both. Windows IT Pro is a widely read publication in the field of computers".

----

So Jeremy Reimer replied this set of lies:

"Bringing up APK quotes means you lose by default. APK is a mentally disturbed individual. He has repeatedly threatened Ars forum members with physical and legal violence. That's all he does. Almost everything he says is a lie: I was never accused of email harassment, my web site was never taken down, law enforcement was never contacted by anyone, and it was APK who was found to be using multiple identities to support his position. The fact that you would use APK quotes as an attempt to attack me personally without even bothering to check their veracity says a lot about you. I would never have done such a thing. Didn't you say that you were leaving Ars, and that you had me on Ignore? I guess that means you're a liar."

----

AND, as anyone can see, in jaymcee's case there @ arstechnica? Others read the article "The Memory Optimization Hoax", such as jaymcee above, & are putting out the truth about you REIMER, & online, such as the one below from an educational institution who consider you to be nothing more than the unqualified charlatan you are in this science, see below... and just because YOU say someone lost? Big deal, who are you?? Nobody, but a liar and "not man" as this post will prove with your own words & misdeeds, read on:

AND? A detective Felton was contacted in British Columbia, where Jeremy Reimer lives as well as local law enforcement in

Customer Service vs Community Size

[psydeshow]

This issue is one that any reasonably successful online community struggles with: the technology can be made to scale quite easily, but the social contract it runs on cannot.

Yahoo! built a global-scale internet community, before (apparently) figuring out how they would provide enough moderators to enforce their acceptable use policy in a reasonable way. There is NOTHING inevitable about this, despite what Bennett Haselton writes. Nobody asked them to get so big, so quickly. Nobody required their architects to ignore policy and human nature when designing their systems.

So yes, suing Yahoo! doesn't fix this instance of the problem (the ex-boyfriend). But it does force them to address the larger issue of policy enforcement within their community. If they can't figure out that it needs to scale effectively, then we need to bring it to their attention in a way that they can't ignore. Yahoo! is just as bound by their policies as Yahoo! users are.

Force them to take it down (Jeremy Reimer)

[Anonymous Coward]

"He is the one that needs to take it down using his account" - by ukyoCE (106879) on Monday May 18, @01:17PM (#27999381)

That's part of it, but law enforcement (such as policemen) are part of it also, & it works to "force the hand" of ISP's &/or HOSTING PROVIDERS... ask Jeremy Reimer of arstechnica about that, because that is exactly what happened to he for libelling, email harassing, & threatening my family no less + more (read on):

This is NEVER a problem, assuming you're dealing with decent people that actually do their jobs - you can take care of morons that bother you online, easily enough, by doing it yourself... how do I know? Been there, done it, MYSELF... & I had Jeremy Reimer and his pal Jay Little get FORCED to do so, in much the same thing as this thread is about (impersonation of myself + others, & LIBEL as well).

How/when/why/where/how, you ask?

Here -> http://windowsitpro.com/article/articleid/41095/the-memory-optimization-hoax.html

That's where a trolling online scumbag coward arstechnica "not man" (what I call cowards online that act more like women than men do) named Jeremy Reimer impersonated myself on his forums @ OSY/pegasus3d, & had to ADMIT he had done so, no less, right in the URL above AND on his own websites + a Mr. Martin Meszaros (as well as posting under alternate usernames to "support himself" and was caught in it also - see below).

Proofs, you ask? Ok, quotes of his own words (& those of his pals Jay Little + Jarrett DeAngelis as well):

----

http://episteme.arstechnica.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/48409524/m/573009083931/p/73 [arstechnica.com]

There, jayemcee said:

"Jeremy Reimer has no degree or certifications in computers and no professional hands on years to decades of experience in them either. Jeremy Reimer was caught email harassing, impersonating, & bother others online which ended up having his website have portions removed and his friends that helped him in it (a Mr. Jay Little of Atlanta Ga. USA) had their websites removed in their entirety. Posting as others (i.e. same person posting under multiple names/guises/nicks/handles) along with his friend Jay Little above to "support one another" when they were found SO technically inacurrate, they were laughed off that site and both of them outright left & that was after law enforcement were called on them both. Windows IT Pro is a widely read publication in the field of computers".

----

So Jeremy Reimer replied this set of lies:

"Bringing up APK quotes means you lose by default. APK is a mentally disturbed individual. He has repeatedly threatened Ars forum members with physical and legal violence. That's all he does. Almost everything he says is a lie: I was never accused of email harassment, my web site was never taken down, law enforcement was never contacted by anyone, and it was APK who was found to be using multiple identities to support his position. The fact that you would use APK quotes as an attempt to attack me personally without even bothering to check their veracity says a lot about you. I would never have done such a thing. Didn't you say that you were leaving Ars, and that you had me on Ignore? I guess that means you're a liar."

----

AND, as anyone can see, in jaymcee's case there @ arstechnica? Others read the article "The Memory Optimization Hoax", such as jaymcee above, & are putting out the truth about you REIMER, & online, such as the one below from an educational institution who consider you to be nothing more than the unqualified charlatan you are in this science, see below... and just because YOU say someone lost? Big deal, who are you?? Nobody, but a liar and "not man" as this post will prove with your own words & misdeeds, read on:

I took care of Jeremy Reimer the low-life, thus

[Anonymous Coward]

"He, however, is a low-life with nothing to take in a settlement." - by horatio (127595) on Monday May 18, @01:28PM (#27999593)

Which is exactly what Jeremy Reimer of arstechnica is - not worth enough to go after with attorneys, but, instead, I used other means to get him to cease libel of myself, as well as impersonation of myself on his OSY/Pegasus3d forums, in addition to impersonating a Mr. Martin Meszaros as well (ontop of his email harassment of myself, & trolling/stalking me forums to forums alongside his friends Jay Little & Jarrett DeAngelis).

Attorneys ARE part of it, but law enforcement (such as policemen) is part of it also, & it works to "force the hand" of ISP's &/or HOSTING PROVIDERS... ask Jeremy Reimer of arstechnica about that, because that is exactly what happened to he for libelling, email harassing, & threatening my family no less + more (read on):

This is NEVER a problem, assuming you're dealing with decent people that actually do their jobs - you can take care of morons that bother you online, easily enough, by doing it yourself... how do I know? Been there, done it, MYSELF... & I had Jeremy Reimer and his pal Jay Little get FORCED to do so, in much the same thing as this thread is about (impersonation of myself + others, & LIBEL as well).

How/when/why/where/how, you ask?

Here -> http://windowsitpro.com/article/articleid/41095/the-memory-optimization-hoax.html

That's where a trolling online scumbag coward arstechnica "not man" (what I call cowards online that act more like women than men do) named Jeremy Reimer impersonated myself on his forums @ OSY/pegasus3d, & had to ADMIT he had done so, no less, right in the URL above AND on his own websites + a Mr. Martin Meszaros (as well as posting under alternate usernames to "support himself" and was caught in it also - see below).

Proofs, you ask? Ok, quotes of his own words (& those of his pals Jay Little + Jarrett DeAngelis as well):

----

http://episteme.arstechnica.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/48409524/m/573009083931/p/73 [arstechnica.com]

There, jayemcee said:

"Jeremy Reimer has no degree or certifications in computers and no professional hands on years to decades of experience in them either. Jeremy Reimer was caught email harassing, impersonating, & bother others online which ended up having his website have portions removed and his friends that helped him in it (a Mr. Jay Little of Atlanta Ga. USA) had their websites removed in their entirety. Posting as others (i.e. same person posting under multiple names/guises/nicks/handles) along with his friend Jay Little above to "support one another" when they were found SO technically inacurrate, they were laughed off that site and both of them outright left & that was after law enforcement were called on them both. Windows IT Pro is a widely read publication in the field of computers".

----

So Jeremy Reimer replied this set of lies:

"Bringing up APK quotes means you lose by default. APK is a mentally disturbed individual. He has repeatedly threatened Ars forum members with physical and legal violence. That's all he does. Almost everything he says is a lie: I was never accused of email harassment, my web site was never taken down, law enforcement was never contacted by anyone, and it was APK who was found to be using multiple identities to support his position. The fact that you would use APK quotes as an attempt to attack me personally without even bothering to check their veracity says a lot about you. I would never have done such a thing. Didn't you say that you were leaving Ars, and that you had me on Ignore? I guess that means you're a liar."

----

AND, as anyone can see, in jaymcee's case there @ arstechnica? Others r