The Day Leo Traynor Confronted His Troll

McGruber writes "Dublin-based writer Leo Traynor has written a piece about confronting the troll who drove him off Twitter, hacked his Facebook, and abused and terrified his family. Quoting: 'I blocked the account and reported it as spam. The following week it happened again in an identical manner. A new follower, I followed back, received a string of abusive DMs, blocked and reported for spam. Two or three times a week. Sometimes two or three times a day. An almost daily cycle of blocking and reporting and intense verbal abuse. ... Then one day something happened that truly frightened me. I don't scare easily but this was vile. I received a parcel at my home address. Nothing unusual there – I get lots of post. I ripped it open and there was a Tupperware lunchbox inside full of ashes. There was a note included, saying, "Say hello to your relatives from Auschwitz." I was physically sick. ... In July I was approached by a friend who's basically an IT genius, and he offered some help. He said that he could trace the hackers and trolls for me using perfectly legal technology, which would lead to their IP addresses. I said yes. Then I baited them – I was deliberately more provocative toward them than ever I'd been before.'"

Comments

Trolling?

[steppedleader]

Compared to the typical trolling found on the internet, this seems a bit more like harassment or stalking, no?

Re:Trolling?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm disappointed that the author didn't press charges. This kid is probably a sociopath. When he stalks and hurts other people in the future the police won't have the evidence they need of past cases. Sociopaths don't learn how to stop hurting people, they just learn not to get caught the next time.

Re:Trolling?

[Anonymous Coward]

Norman, Is that you?

Re:Trolling?

[jamesh]

I'm disappointed that the author didn't press charges. This kid is probably a sociopath. When he stalks and hurts other people in the future the police won't have the evidence they need of past cases. Sociopaths don't learn how to stop hurting people, they just learn not to get caught the next time.

Or he's a messed up kid who didn't have a clue that his actions were hurting someone.

If it was me being stalked I'd be demanding that the kid doesn't go near a computer for 6 months (or until he's legally an adult) and that he has a curfew at night so he can't just be off at a mates place doing the same thing. It should give him a chance to catch up on Jewish/German history and have some appreciation for what he's ranting and raving about.

I think he should be given another chance, but only one. I'm not sure what it's like in the country where Leo Traynor resides but people have gone to jail over here for less.

Re:Trolling?

[bloodhawk]

yep it isn't actually trolling at all. It seems nowadays any bad or obnoxious behaviour gets labeled with troll, I guess this is what happens when people try to use a catchy term without actually understanding what it means.

Re:Trolling?

[TheRaven64]

No, that's insulting. Good trolling seems to be a dying art these days. A good troll post says something that sounds plausible, and encourages responses. During the thread, it becomes less and less reasonable, but the aim is to make the other person say something unreasonable first or to make them waste a large amount of effort replying. If you want to see a good troll, read some of the threads started by roman_mir.

Re:Trolling?

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed. A troll keeps things on the forum only. Once they extend beyond the forum I also think it is more than trolling.

Re:Trolling?

[TheRaven64]

Sociopaths don't learn how to stop hurting people, they just learn not to get caught the next time.

That's not true. A sociopath merely lacks empathy - they may be aware that they are hurting someone, but they don't understand why that's a bad thing. Placed in an incentive system where hurting people is penalised and provides no advantages, they'll do what's best for them and stop.

Re:Trolling?

[GNious]

So, eh, a good beating would be useful to teach a sociopath to stop hurting others?

Re:Trolling?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you want to see a good troll, read some of the threads started by roman_mir.

Not only is good trolling rare, but no one even knows what trolling is anymore! Someone isn't trolling just because they say something you disagree with. I can say with certainty that although I disagree with roman_mir, there are people who genuinely have similar 'extremist' views.

Re:Trolling?

[Quiet_Desperation]

I agree with the AC. The extent of what the evil little miseryshit did proves it was not just a game to him. I'd wager his show of tears was just that- a show. His brain is miswired. There's a whole section that simply isn't working. Coulseling won't acomplish a damn thing, but he'll be able to make it look like it did.

Sociopaths are the most manipulative people in the world. It's why the alphas go into politics. They thrive there. They are one of the three types of people in this world that you never EVER trust along with junkies and Party loyalist ideologues.

Re:Trolling?

[Seumas]

Yes, but the target's name is Leo Traynor; not Lisa Traynor. Therefore, he won't get as much traction or sympathy as he possibly could. If his name was Lisa, the internet would have a white-knight-shit-storm and there'd be an endless stream of navel-gazing articles visiting the tired old trope of "the internet is sexist, vile, misogynistic, blah blah durp durp" and Twitter and Facebook would be called to the floor for not protecting him. Er... "her".

Re:Trolling?

[hairyfeet]

Yes but sadly we see more and more of this, sick little maladjusted fucks that decide for whatever reason YOU are the cause of some problem in their lives or the world would be better off without you and will go VERY stalkerish on you.

In fact as someone who recently had to deal with something not as sick, but creepy and weird where some asshole was hacking into a nice former customer of mine. this guy is soooo fucking bland I can't imagine how he could do anything but bore someone to death but this little prick would take over his computer and wipe his files, trash the OS, even pop up a box calling him filthy names. I have to thank the slashdot community for when i put up a list of what i had done trying to stop this guy with no luck you guys pointed out things I had not thought to check and thanks to you I was able to stop him, so thanks guys.

But what we old greybeards think of when we think of the word troll and what we are seeing now? Two totally different things. Hell I had one last year that followed me around the net for a solid year, making piles of accounts everywhere I went. For what purpose? just so he could post a response to everything I said with the sentence "Die you fat fucker DIE!". That's it, just that sentence over and over and over, across dozens of websites. While it never phased me, when you think about how much work he had to do, searching the web for every place he could possibly find where I was, spending a good 15 minutes or more making fake accounts...just for that sentence.

We are seeing more and more sick puppies out there, personally i think its just what happens when one of Gabe's fuckwads loses touch with anything other than the little bubble they create for themselves on the web. I'm sure if a shrink got a hold of this nutbag he would believe that he was actually the moral one here, that Traynor had somehow "insulted" him, dared to enter the space HE owned, or some other bullshit that to HIM would be perfectly rational, just as the cockbag that trashed a couple of years worth of data on a nice bland nobody's PC probably felt it was somehow "justified". Which just goes to show how truly warped and twisted those without a firm grasp of reality can get when they live in cyberspace.

Re:Trolling?

[Fjandr]

Unless he's already very practiced and had reason to believe he'd been caught after years of successfully pulling this behavior off, the fact that he spontaneously burst into tears without any indication that Leo actually knew it was him means it's unlikely. The scenario was a trap, and he confessed without being presented as the suspect.

Not likely a sociopath, but definitely fucked up in some way or another.

Re:Trolling?

[Fjandr]

The problem with the idea that the tears were for show was that it was deliberately kept from him that they knew he was the perpetrator. He confessed without being confronted with evidence linking him to it, or even the slightest hint that they suspected he was the perpetrator. At least that's the picture presented by the article.

Re:Trolling?

[Registered Coward v2]

No, that's insulting. Good trolling seems to be a dying art these days. A good troll post says something that sounds plausible, and encourages responses. During the thread, it becomes less and less reasonable, but the aim is to make the other person say something unreasonable first or to make them waste a large amount of effort replying. If you want to see a good troll, read some of the threads started by roman_mir.

True, a good troll had that ring of plausibility that it triggered teh "Huh? I must respond to this..." reflex before the responder sat down and thought it through. For example:

While Star Trek (Star Wars / Firefly / Battlestar Galactica - pick one) tried to stay true to science as much as is possible in a science fiction world where faster than light travel is the norm; they missed one big thing -> everytime a shuttle craft passed the Enterprise it cast a shadow. In a vacuum; everyone knows you don't have shadows in a vacuum.

Of course, posting that in a Star Trek (or Mensa) group is like shooting fish in a barrel..

Trolling isn't flaming (any idiot can flame); but unfortunately trolling has lost its original meaning much as hacker has. Nor is simply disagreeing and laying out your position; though many people are willing to yell "Troll" when they can't defend their position. AFU, in the old usenet days, was a great example of the art of trolling; unfortunately since the decline of usenet and the onset of eternal September it's a different world.

Re:Trolling?

[steppedleader]

Nah, roman_mir is just a libertarian type... I like having a few of those around. Don't necessarily agree on a lot of the economic stuff, but it's nice to have someone complaining about the lack of respect for civil liberties among the mainstream parties.

Committed establishment Republican types? Now, there's a mystery. I've completely lost the ability to tell them apart from trolls.

Re:Trolling?

[flyingfsck]

Yes absolutely. A good beating will modify the behaviour of anyone dramatically. If it is a true sociopath, you just have to beat more agressively. Medieval crowd control methods as practised by the Catholic Church and Vlad the Impaler, still work just as efficiently today, as it did back then.

Re:Trolling?

[1u3hr]

In TFA Leo says how his wife was also targeted.

Re:Trolling?

[hairyfeet]

Hell name a SINGLE Internet word we old greybeards came up with that hasn't been butchered all to hell by folks that don't get it had a specific meaning, just one. Troll, shill, virus, its all lost its original meanings because too many who don't have a clue what they meant use them wrong constantly. That's why I don't even say words like trojan or virus anymore but just tell them "You got a bug" because as far as the public is concerned everything is a virus, and everyone that does something bad on the net is a troll. its just lost its meaning.

Re:Trolling?

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with the idea that the tears were for show was that it was deliberately kept from him that they knew he was the perpetrator. He confessed without being confronted with evidence linking him to it, or even the slightest hint that they suspected he was the perpetrator. At least that's the picture presented by the article.

Bullshit. If a cop had you in a room and started talking about the details to a crime you committed and you 'spontaneously' confessed, you can hardly say that you didn't realize you were a suspect. This man who barely knew the kid suddenly visited him and then started showing him the details of his crime. Yet you still think the kid didn't realize that he was a suspect? Come on! The kid confessed because he figured it out and knew that manipulation was required to keep his freedom. That is all. It wasn't remorse. Sociopaths are more manipulative than you can imagine.

Re:Trolling?

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember that the author already knew the kid for a long time. He's in a much better position to judge what the kid is like than we are. Teens are less mature in their capability to judge the consequences of their actions or to control their impulses than adults. What you see may be caused in part by immaturity instead of sociopathy. He appears to be pretty messed up, but it may be something he will outgrow. He may be a sociopath, but he may also be an overly sensitive kid who has already been scared shitless by this confrontation and doesn't need more to motivate him to get back on the right track. That is not something we can judge from just reading a short article like this. Leave the judgement to the people near him.

Re:Trolling?

[Psychotria]

If you want to see a good troll, read some of the threads started by roman_mir.

Not only is good trolling rare, but no one even knows what trolling is anymore! Someone isn't trolling just because they say something you disagree with. I can say with certainty that although I disagree with roman_mir, there are people who genuinely have similar 'extremist' views.

I began to write a new comment saying pretty much the same thing as you. Since you've almost nailed it, I decided to reply to your comment instead. So, l will reiterate. Nobody knows what trolling is anymore! They don't. Being abusive is trolling. Saying something controversial isn't trolling. Trolling is leading the person to believe what you're saying or showing them, or leading them into a trap, and then, although not compulsory, making them look like a damn fool. This is quite distinct to saying something like "you're a gay horse". I dunno what a gay horse is, but let's pretend it's offensive. That example is an insult, not a troll at all. The media doesn't know what a "troll" is. They label people who bombard people with insults as trolls. The people who do that are not trolls. Trolls are much more subtle and often *funny*. Maybe it's going to end up like the hacker vs. cracker shit. It seems like the more mainstream things become the more our past is lost.

Re:Trolling?

[Psychotria]

Correction to my post: being abusive isn't trolling.

Re:Trolling?

[Psychotria]

I'd like to add that possibly satire is more align with trolling. A lot of The Onion articles are "trolls". To the initiated they illicit a response based on a falsehood. That's a troll.

Re:Trolling?

[jamesh]

I agree with the AC. The extent of what the evil little miseryshit did proves it was not just a game to him. I'd wager his show of tears was just that- a show. His brain is miswired. There's a whole section that simply isn't working. Coulseling won't acomplish a damn thing, but he'll be able to make it look like it did.

Sociopaths are the most manipulative people in the world. It's why the alphas go into politics. They thrive there. They are one of the three types of people in this world that you never EVER trust along with junkies and Party loyalist ideologues.

So what are you suggesting? If he as sociopathic as you suggest, then simply pressing charges won't change anything, so you'd have to lock him up to get him out of harms way. You couldn't lock him up forever of course (what court would do that?), so eventually he'd get out again. And if he wasn't really that messed up when he went in, he would be when he got out.

And I bet the tears weren't for show. Even if he is a sociopath and didn't care one way or the other how much pain he'd caused, he would still have been truly upset that he got caught.

Re:Trolling?

[QQBoss]

TL;DR. Trolling is a art.

Grammar Nazi trolling is more of a science, actually. Normal everyday trolling is more of AN art.

Re:Trolling?

[Antonovich]

Wow, I guess the 30 minutes or so a day I spend on /. isn't enough. To be far, I rarely read ALL the comments but this dude gets mega-hammered every time he writes anything. Basically everything he writes gets modded down to -1. I think he definitely deserves some serious credit for having a comment branch off and talk about him though, whether he be a genuine Troll (TM) or not!

Re:Trolling?

[smittyoneeach]

A dying art?
I do my part
Clean-shaven tradition:
A most healthy start.
Burma Shave

Re:Trolling?

[Psychotria]

This is a real troll. And a good one (even if it's not true):

http://www.bash.org/?244321

Re:Trolling?

[Psychotria]

It seems like the more mainstream things become the more our past is lost.

No, you're just romanticising the past. Trolls have always just been assholes looking to piss people off for fun. Just like this kid, as a game.

Pissing someone off (in the end) without overtly doing it might be a troll. Being an obvious asshole isn't being a troll. Trolling doesn't include being a total fuckwit (like the boy in the article). What the boy in the article did was not trolling; it was abuse and harassment.

Re:Trolling?

[Zero__Kelvin]

Since you've almost nailed it, I'll just add one thing. Here on Slashdot we have a -1 Troll option and a -1 Flamebait option. Almost nobody here knows what either of those terms mean anymore, including right here on Slashdot. As an example, when someone is clearly making moronic statements that they actually believe, and one calls them a moron, that is neither a troll, nor is it flamebait. Wikipedia gets it completely wrong as well. Flamebait is much like trolling, where the poster says something ridiculous in order to bait people into flaming them. Ergo, if I call someone a moron when they have made it clear that they are either a moron or intending to be one, my response might be a follow up to flame bait (if the poster intended to get me to call him a moron), but is not itself flamebait. Now, I'd really like to see people read this, understand it, and start modding correctly, but let's face it: there are a lot of morons in the world ;-0

Re:Trolling?

[Tastecicles]

that's up there with telling someone the green light on their CRT is really a camera...

Or "Oh, you wanna hack me? OK, my IP, to make life easy for you, is 127.0.0.1, and you can try and plant this command: "format c: /f". I'll send you a thousand Dollars if you can kill my computer."

Next system message: "SUCKER HAS LEFT CHAT (BROKEN PIPE)"

Re:Trolling?

[MysteriousPreacher]

No, that's insulting. Good trolling seems to be a dying art these days. A good troll post says something that sounds plausible, and encourages responses. During the thread, it becomes less and less reasonable, but the aim is to make the other person say something unreasonable first or to make them waste a large amount of effort replying. If you want to see a good troll, read some of the threads started by roman_mir.

Truth! Good trolling divides communities because not everyone realises the game they're playing. This kid was trolling in the sense that demanding an ATM PIN at gunpoint could be considered to be "hacking".

Re:Trolling?

[Zero__Kelvin]

" This kid is probably a sociopath."

Since he broke down and cried because his conscience was getting to him it is quite clear that he is not a sociopath.

Re:Trolling?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's why I don't even say words like trojan or virus anymore but just tell them "You got a bug"

So you are the one who is resposible for the abuse of the term "bug" as whatever instead of an error in program code.

Re:Trolling?

[Anonymous Coward]

Throwing around beatings works wonders until you hit the wrong kind of person, or someone whom the wrong kind of person cares enough about, who'll be waiting in a tree for you far away with his long range sniper rifle that he acquired and learned to use just for you. Though I guess you are right that this is a dramatic modification of behavior. This will become even more of an issue once good 3D printers become easily available.

Re:Trolling?

[manwargi]

The irony is that these threads on the subject of trolling seem to be generating the intended effect.

Re:Trolling?

[DrXym]

Holding libertarian views and loudly and consistently extolling them regardless of how stupid they might be in the context of the thread or even on their own merits isn't trolling.

Re:Trolling?

[reub2000]

The part of the sociopaths brain that connects their present action to future consequences simply does not work. No matter how severe the punishment, the sociopath won't even consider it when hurting someone. That's why these people are constantly in an out of jail.

Re:Trolling?

[narcc]

Think about your breathing.

Re:Trolling?

[Millennium]

It seems to me that the only real difference is one of degree.

Re:Trolling?

[Hentes]

but the aim is to make the other person say something unreasonable first or to make them waste a large amount of effort replying

Out of curiosity, how much time have you just spent explaining an AC how real trolls are so much sophisticated?

Re:Trolling?

[drinkypoo]

We are seeing more and more sick puppies out there, personally i think its just what happens when one of Gabe's fuckwads loses touch with anything other than the little bubble they create for themselves on the web.

OK, but how do they become a fuckwad in the first place? Usually a lack of parenting. The parents let electronic devices raise their children. The content for the devices is paid for by sociopaths, so it is written to appeal to sociopaths. Then they are surprised when the children become sociopaths.

Re:Trolling?

[drinkypoo]

This will become even more of an issue once good 3D printers become easily available.

This is already theoretically an issue because you can acquire all the parts but the barrel to build some guns without even being 18, if you're sneaky. It's not actually an issue because making a barrel is non-trivial and you need specialized equipment, and 3d printers won't be able to make one any time soon.

Re:Trolling?

[drinkypoo]

Being abusive is trolling

How ironic. You're ranting about what trolling means when you don't even know what it means. Trolling is when you say shit that you don't even believe in order to get a specific response. It can be used for good, if you're having a conversation and you say something ridiculous to point out how ridiculous it would be to say that thing. Mostly it's used for ill, e.g. to make people upset about references to gay niggers.

Re:Trolling?

[truedfx]

What definition of troll do you use? I would consider being abusive as one particular, not necessarily very effective, form of trolling. Just like the messages we both agree on as trolls, being abusive also can be done in order to get you to ignore a rational discussion and just flame me as a response. If that's the goal of the message, why isn't it a troll?

Re:Trolling?

[jcr]

Yeah, trolling is something very different from what went on here. Trolling means posting inflammatory messages just to elicit a reaction.

-jcr

Re:Trolling?

[jcr]

Nobody knows what trolling is anymore!

Just like nobody seems to know what hacking is, either.

-jcr

Re:Trolling?

[1u3hr]

It's not "an issue" in America, because any idiot with $100 can already buy a gun, and have it in his hand a lot faster than crafting it on a 3D printer.

Google "buy guns cheap" and have your credit card ready.

Re:Trolling?

[drinkypoo]

It's not "an issue" in America, because any idiot with $100 can already buy a gun, and have it in his hand a lot faster than crafting it on a 3D printer.

Depends on where you are. In California, not so much.

Google "buy guns cheap" and have your credit card ready.

I live in California, so I can buy a gun with a credit card, but then it gets sent to a gun store and I have to deal with the background check and pay $40.

On the other hand, I know people who can get me any gun I want if I'll pay for it. But I won't get ANYTHING from them for $100. I don't have any interesting weapons, because I live in California and that's extra-sketchy here. Just normal ones.

Re:Trolling?

[Anonymous Coward]

Weak attempt at trolling, steppedleader.

Re:Trolling?

[Anonymous Coward]

With respect, I don't think roman_mir/udachny is a troll.

I thought he was, but then he started replying to some of my anti-libertarian bait threads.

Eventually he started rambling incoherently about how Stalin's goons killed his family, how evil I was, etc., descending into telling me that he would be in prison right now if I were closeby as he wouldn't be able to hold himself back. He also told me he now has a "personal interest" in me or something.

At that point I decided that either I'd out-trolled him and he didn't know what to do next, or that he really was a guy whose family had been killed by Stalin and who - as a result - decided that anything which wasn't his perceived diametric opposite must be pure evil. IOW, roman_mir/udachny is another example of someone with a harrowing childhood experience with X who quickly associates everything with X.

Of course, that itself could have been part of the troll. But mindless threatening abuse isn't trolling - it's mindless threatening abuse. Anyone with enough time can do it.

A more subtle conclusion would be that which, I believe, applies to many trolls: they are reflecting a good dose of their opinion, but know it's too irrational to be able to justify soundly, so instead they pretend to themselves that they're playing a game. Eventually they get so caught up in the game that they forget that they've been coming out with bullshit. I believe this is particularly true with the libertarianism/social Darwinism crap that's also popular in the mainstream media these days. Consider Fox News: after a few months working at that place, I am convinced that you entirely forget just how unscientific your journalism is. You've come in as a conservative possibly genuinely wanting to Expose Liberal Lies, and you come out as a conservative prepared to say absolutely anything as long as it seems to advance the Party Line.

tl;dr A Troll is someone with an unsound belief doggy-paddling in a slough of anti-intellectual culture.

Re:Trolling?

[BasilBrush]

It might be if he isn't really a libertarian.

I have to say, before slashdot I didn't have such strong views about how libertarianism was such a stupid, selfish and immoral philosophy. You have to wonder whether some of the people extolling it's virtues here are actually people who are deliberately trying to give it a bad name.

Re:Trolling?

[mapkinase]

Summary was a waste of time. The submitter should have specified that "The Troll" turned out to be victim's friend's stupid teenager son.

I understand that the fear of the victim and suffering, etc. was real, but for the rest of us, statistics is what important and the identity of the petty young sociopath as a (1) acquaintance (2) teenager, would help a lot for other victims of anonymous harassment to be more calm about such cases.

Re:Trolling?

[drinkypoo]

forget about the gun and substitute anything really nasty. Running a car over you in a lonely street, rattlesnake, poisoned blowdart ...

all of which takes more prep (meaning they're less likely to actually do it) and is more likely to get you caught than a long-range rifle shot.

In actuality it's a load of shit. You are I hope aware that the federal government offers discounts on surplus main battle rifles (M1 garands) and their ammunition through the Civilian Marksmanship Program. Our government wants us to be riflemen. Terrorist snipers are not a common problem in the USA in spite of the broad proliferation of high-powered scoped rifles. The risk of this sort of thing is grossly overblown.

Re:Trolling?

[mapkinase]

The difference between the troll and The Onion, is that The Onion is well known satire magazine and only Iranian government and people who live under rock don't know that. The troll who signs up "The Troll" is not a troll anymore, he is just expressing obviously offensive material with a noble desire to wake up the masses from their .. .well, you know what I mean.

Unless he is Holocaust victims. God forbid trolling the Jews.

Re:Trolling?

[Anonymous Coward]

"The kid did wrong"

The guy engaged in a persistent laborious and concentrated effort to stalk, harass, and threaten the guy. He did very badly wrong, many times over, with a deliberate intent and malice.

"to ASSume he's a sociopath is just utter stupidity"

Why? It seems like a pretty reasonable assumption.

Re:Trolling?

[BasilBrush]

But who's being trolled? It might be the guy pretending hunter2 is his password.

Re:Trolling?

[1u3hr]

ell name a SINGLE Internet word we old greybeards came up with that hasn't been butchered all to hell by folks that don't get it had a specific meaning

Well, "net" lingo usually borrows and perverts vocabulary from other realms. "Troll" is a bit of wordplay on the net fishing method and the mythical monster. "Geek" used to be a guy who bit the head of chickens in a circus sideshow. You can't complain too much when the words receive wider usage and change their meanings again.

Re:Trolling?

[drinkypoo]

name a SINGLE Internet word we old greybeards came up with that hasn't been butchered all to hell by folks that don't get it had a specific meaning, just one. Troll, shill, virus

You think we invented the word shill, created in the 1920s?

That's why I don't even say words like trojan or virus anymore but just tell them "You got a bug" because as far as the public is concerned everything is a virus, and everyone that does something bad on the net is a troll. its just lost its meaning.

And you helped.

Re:Trolling?

[Charliemopps]

Agreed. I'm an argumentative person, and generally like to debate. I basically can't post in regular forums any longer, as forums have devolved into dens of like-minded individuals that do not want to have their view points challenged. Disagree and they're shouting troll and locking your posts in seconds.

Re:Trolling?

[Zero__Kelvin]

Re-read it, and what I wrote. Pay special attention to because his conscience was getting to him. He didn't know he was caught yet, so they couldn't have possibly been crocodile tears.

Re:Trolling?

[Zero__Kelvin]

Not at all. I do however posses enough awareness and intellect combined with an ability to comprehend what I read to realize that he didn't know he was caught so there was no punishment for his actions to be avoided as far as he was concerned.

Re:Trolling?

[Nursie]

Err no. RTFA again. Trolled Dude talks to the parents and tells them what's going on, then arranges a meeting with Troll Mama, Troll Papa and Troll. After a polite chat he breaks out the file full of stuff and starts going through it.

THEN Troll boy cries.

Re:Trolling?

[curiousJan]

"Messed up kid"s who send ashes and make references to relatives from Auschwitz are far more than "messed up" ... I have to agree with the posit that this a potential-sociopath and worthy of watching _within_ the system, so that he can be further constrained should he devolve. All the better if he's not a sociopath and has really only made a very, very stupid mistake.

Re:Trolling?

[curiousJan]

Yeah the kid did wrong, but to ASSume he's a sociopath is just utter stupidity.

Making logical inferences from the, granted minimal, information available from this particular case and adding in the base knowledge available via psychology of sociopaths is not utter stupidity ... ignoring the signs and allowing the potential for further harm to additional individuals would be.

Re:Trolling?

[multimediavt]

That's not true. A sociopath merely lacks empathy - they may be aware that they are hurting someone, but they don't understand why that's a bad thing. Placed in an incentive system where hurting people is penalised and provides no advantages, they'll do what's best for them and stop.

Actually, a sociopath is just someone that has no regard for other people whatsoever. This takes many behavioral forms including the example talked about by the OP.

The kid needs help and I am glad that the situation was resolved the way it was. If the kid had been arrested he may not have gotten the help he needs and gotten far more antisocial. I hope his parents also get some counseling because they are the ones that raised that monster! Obviously they let him spend far too much time on that laptop and not enough time interacting with real people. Far too easy to nurture your psychosis in the fantasy world that is the Internet.

Re:Trolling?

[b4dc0d3r]

Look at any dictionary. Definitions are listed in the approximate order in which their usage first became known. Each mild variant of meaning came into being in the same way. Technology is no different.

Words get thrown out there, people use them in various ways, and the meanings change over time. Then people settle on a usage, the "vulgar" definition. Which in itself is an interesting read. The Damascus Latin Bible was "vulgar" for a thousand years.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/vulgar

I try to keep people to the real meaning of things. But people were taught in school how to determine meaning from context. When they find a word or phrase they don't completely understand, they use it they way it makes sense to them. So you have "for all intensive purposes" and "begs the question" in common usage. You can correct it, but you can't win unless you personally intervene with everyone, individually, and repeatedly.

Good for you for wanting to be specific and clear when communicating. When groups of people do that and agree on the meaning, it is "jargon". No one cares.

This happens to be the kind of "trolling" where you have a specific victim in mind. It is not clear that Leo was the only victim - he could very well be the only one willing or able to find his troll. If you have any fringe awareness of the concept of "4chan", you should be aware that targeted trolling is no different from anonymous random trolling. Except for the heightened satisfaction it gives when you know you have "won" again.

As I understand the story, this kid targeted the facade of a neighbor, the online presence who is not a person but a bunch of text and pictures inside the little box. And he kept dragging his line, and got a kick out of every time Leo bit. The only way to make it more fun was ramp it up a notch. The only difference here is the kid's inability to see a neighbor as a person. Counseling was appropriate. Although if your neighbor had some sort of fame or notoriety outside of being a neighbor, such as being popular on Twitter, it could be possible to associate the neighbor with the person you met, and the persona with the digital world.

Re:Trolling?

[fustakrakich]

No way... Dr.Bob,DC has him beat by a long shot. He's always very civil, and never insults anyone. In a Slashdot poll he would be number one. In fact, I wish they would do that poll.

Re:Trolling?

[Anonymous Coward]

its just lost its meaning.

You are witnessing two phenomenons of language: regression, and the newbie factor.

Considering how briefly computers have existed, and the etymology of the words in question, it should be expected to happen. Troll has just regressed back to its original meaning: a monster that lives under a bridge - or the slight variation a monster that lives in a computer. Most people aren't told the intended meaning when confronted with these words, they just hear them in the context they're used and assume a slight variation on the old meaning (if any).

If you don't want regression to happen, use a random word generator or bizzare prefix/suffix. If a word didn't exist, it can't regress. For example, instead of troll, use "ignoll". It sounds like ignore, plus gnoll. Instead of cracker, re-purpose jargon like nop (gnop, gnopper), or jmp (hjmp, hjmper - pronounced like humper).

For the noob factor: restricting access and adding hurdles (actual challenges, quizzes, whatever). Just don't accommodate as much.

Re:Trolling?

[b4dc0d3r]

No this is terrible. When you are making a movie or TV show, you have to illuminate things so the folks at home can see them. Since you don't have much light in the vacuum of interstellar space, you have to provide your own. You can't light every surface because you don't have a portable sun, so you do the best you can. So you get the occasional shadow.

The shadow is maintained in more modern movies, when it can be fixed digitally, because it provides atmosphere (the literary kind, not the physical kind). If you broke with tradition people would go nuts on you, call you Michael Bay, and make a song about how much your movie sucked. Like taking out the whip-smack sound effect from martial arts movies - if it doesn't sound like it hurt, it wasn't kung fu.

And, just because you don't see the light source doesn't mean there isn't one. They could be right next to a dwarf star, or close enough to a solar system. It just isn't in frame.

And finally, anyone familiar with "in space they can't hear you scream" is unlikely to have a brain fart long enough to replace sound with light in their model of how fake science works. So go lrn2intrnet moar.

Re:Trolling?

[b4dc0d3r]

Could you simply not see the "Edit post" button on your own stuff so you don't have to double-post like that, karma whore? And btw nice try slipping in a reference to "OMG PONIES" to lend yourself some cred.

Rule of thumb: once the news media pick up a thing, it is no longer that thing. They don't understand it, and the misinformation spreads like wildfire. People tweeting and re-tweeting so that something that should have been an ephemeral thought gains persistence and lives on long after you corrected it. Kinda like your first post (which you can't edit now that you have replied), and probably like this guy Leo. If he had just stayed away from tweeting, he would have been fine, but he had to type stuff into the internet like he was famous or something. Who wants to read what you're typing? That's the problem with writing - everyone can do it.

Re:Trolling?

[fustakrakich]

... everyone knows you don't have shadows in a vacuum.

You mean we only see a lunar eclipse because we have an atmosphere? I did not know that

Re:Trolling?

[dbIII]

Nobody knows what trolling is anymore!

I do!
It's dressing up as a Scandinavian monster!

Re:Trolling?

[dbIII]

There seems to be a popular form of argument on the net (and other media) where people will deliberately pretend to be incredibly stupid if that's what it takes to reject the viewpoint of another. It's sometimes obvious that they do not actually believe what they've written but don't really care about lying to people outside what they see as their little tribe, so long as they "win" some sort of childish argument game. I think some of those who look like they are deliberately trying to give something a bad name instead fit into that category and don't really care what "outsiders" think about it.

Re:Trolling?

[PJ6]

So what are you suggesting? If he as sociopathic as you suggest, then simply pressing charges won't change anything, so you'd have to lock him up to get him out of harms way. You couldn't lock him up forever of course (what court would do that?), so eventually he'd get out again.

Eventually, that's exactly what they do. The parole process assigns heavy weight to a test for sociopathy. If you score high, which means, you're still a sociopath (this never changes, but they re-apply the test every time) then you don't get paroled.

Some day a-la a an old Voyager episode they may have a cure for it, but right now the prevailing wisdom is to keep them locked up forever, because a death sentence is actually more expensive.

Re:Trolling?

[PJ6]

The part of the sociopaths brain that connects their present action to future consequences simply does not work. No matter how severe the punishment, the sociopath won't even consider it when hurting someone. That's why these people are constantly in an out of jail.

Lack of empathy and lack of self-control are independent traits. Of course, the most obvious sociopaths have both.

Re:Trolling?

[Anonymous Coward]

Read the GP's post history. He is an obsessive anti-Muslim bigot. Constantly trolling and looking for fights. Downmods are appropriate when it comes to the crap he posts.

Re:Trolling?

[microbox]

but they don't understand why that's a bad thing

Correction: the suffering of others does not naturally fit into their cost function.

Re:Trolling?

[qvatch]

Now, this, this is an example of trolling. Slightly absurd, somewhat believable statement which derails the thread.

Re:Trolling?

[Zero__Kelvin]

I highly doubt you know what a standard deviation is, actually, but try looking three in the other direction or so if you actually do.

" Let me ask, do you have a doctoral level degree in a social science."

So if I had a doctorate in Anthropology, for example, that would make a difference to you? You don't need a high IQ to figure out that a guy who posts as an AC and then hangs around to see the replies and post more idiotic ramblings is a troll.

Re:Trolling?

[sg_oneill]

I'm sure if it wasn't his friends son, he would have. But friends dont put friends kids in jail. More to the point, because the kid WASNT a stranger he had other less destructive options available than ruining the kids life in revenge.

Re:Trolling?

[hazah]

WTF!? It's a genetic mutation to begin with which is fostered by the environment in which the child develops. That is why not everyone of them turns out to be a serial killer and why some actually have relatively normal lives. My father shows an overwhelming number of traits, it doesn't mean I look down at him for it. Think a little harder and maybe look this up before you mod, or is that too much of a challange?

Re:Trolling?

[circletimessquare]

it's almost as if no one controls the language

leading to a constant fertile ground of imagination and invention of new words and shifting meanings

and this is a bad thing in your mind?

Re:Trolling?

[Seumas]

Yes, but as an extension of himself, so the double-standard has still been applied to her by extension, unfortunately.

Re:Trolling?

[Toonol]

That may be true; but there's a disconnect between that kind of sociopath, and the typical usage of the word as bandied about here. On slashdot, 'socialpath' is nearly synonymous with 'jerk'. You can't identify sociopaths with the loose definition, and then treat them according to the stringent definition. Logic error.

Re:Trolling?

[Anonymous Coward]

But you repeat yourself.

Libertarianism is just the statement that society has no duty to protect the weak. "Enables suffering because he can" is the effective definition of "dickhead".

Re:Trolling?

[Greyfox]

Shouldn't that be Myanmar Shave, now?

Re:Trolling?

[stridebird]

Sociopaths are the most manipulative people in the world. It's why the alphas go into politics. They thrive there. They are one of the three types of people in this world that you never EVER trust along with junkies and Party loyalist ideologues.

Arguably, junkies and ideologues are sociopaths too. It's enough to say "never trust a sociopath". Except the problem is that sociopathy isn't simply absent or present in a person; sociopathy exists in all people to a greater or lesser extent. And sociopathy is probably the result of the interactions of a set of underlying psychological states and conditions: the forces that establish such properties as self-esteem, motivation, empathy and so on.

Re:Trolling?

[jellomizer]

I see this as more of a Cyber Bulling then really trolling. Trolling is usually a way to either get someone flustered up so to avoid an honest factual discussion. I see in the news a couple of great trolls out there.

The birther movement and Obama is a Muslim troll: Why debate issues when you try to keep debate going on some lame conspiracy theory that really facts will do nothing to stop it.

The Romney Quotes, most of those quotes that he said are often taken well out of context. However they are used out of context to get am emotional response.

Re:Trolling?

[unkiereamus]

This kid is probably a sociopath....Sociopaths don't learn how to stop hurting people, they just learn not to get caught the next time.

Fun fact, per the DSM-IV Sociopathy, or actually Antisocial Personality Disorder, as it's now known, can't be diagnosed before age 18.

What that source material doesn't cite, and what 5 seconds of googlin failed to turn up, and thus would require too much effort for me to cite, is why.

Put simply, almost all kids profile as sociopaths. Look at the diagnostic criteria, I'm sure you'll see why.

Now, before anyone jumps up and says "But...but...he's 17, that's close enough to 18, right?", I'll point out that like any developmental milestone, that's just a guideline, there's always some play in development, plus or minus.

Now, having said that, it's entirely possible that this kid actually is a sociopath, personally it doesn't read like that to me, but I'm willing to be wrong.

Re:Trolling?

[LordLimecat]

Go on to 4chan and tell me whether all of those folks on /b/ are sociopaths, or whether it is remotely possible that growing up in this always anonymous age tends to break down that brain filter that would tell you what lines not to cross.

Re:Trolling?

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Did you know that if you touch that dangly bit in the back of your throat you can taste everything you've eaten in the last 12 hours?

Re:Trolling?

[hairyfeet]

Oh I'm with you there 110% Drinkypoo. When my sister was diagnosed with a terminal illness right after the birth of her second son and her husband decided 'that was too much for him" and bailed i was handed two adorable little boys under the age of two as my mother had to devote herself full time to taking care of my sister. I was lucky that mom had given me a great example so I sat there reading "Great sci-fi writers of the 70s" to them and when it came to electronics while my boys got to have all the electronic stuff they could possibly want, what with me being a geek (My sister was royally pissed that the oldest boy's first word wasn't "mama" but "MINE!" as I had snuck the controller out of his hand while he snoozed and replaced Barney Hide and Seek with Eternal Champions and he caught me) I never EVER used it as a babysitter, i used it as a learning tool.

I didn't just get educational games, I did things like took apart a hard drive and had a friend cut me a clear plastic top for it so they could see how the drive spun and wrote when they would hit save, showed them by putting their faces into DOOM levels how what you saw on the screen was controlled by loading files and scripts, I tore things apart and showed them how they work. This paid off later in life as the oldest now helps the others in his pre-med classes that don't have great computer skills and the youngest is becoming incredibly skilled with graphics.

But when I would pick them up from their friends houses or ask them how things were there....damn, just damn. Homes without a single book in them, not a single one which shocked the hell out of my boys which were reading Narnia and Harry Potter from when they were little, and parents that frankly never actually interacted with their kids! It was ALL TVs and consoles in their bedrooms and as long as they weren't "bugging" the parents whatever they did was fine. I didn't choose to have two babies dropped into my lap but the thought of just dumping two little kids in front of an idiot box and never interacting with them just horrifies me, talk about stunting their development!

But there comes a time when shitty parents or not its time to grow the hell up and accept responsibility and at 17 I think the kid is old enough to know better. Its not like there isn't tons of horrific footage of the death camps all over the net, 5 minutes in Google would have shown him that wasn't something to be using like some sort of prank. Its time for him to man the fuck up and learn what he can and can't do or frankly this little shithead is gonna open his mouth to the wrong person in college and get his ass stomped.

Re:Trolling?

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Erm... then why does Slashdot get an exemption?

Re:Trolling?

[Anonymous Coward]

ell name a SINGLE Internet word we old greybeards came up with that hasn't been butchered all to hell by folks that don't get it had a specific meaning

Well, "net" lingo usually borrows and perverts vocabulary from other realms. "Troll" is a bit of wordplay on the net fishing method and the mythical monster. "Geek" used to be a guy who bit the head of chickens in a circus sideshow. You can't complain too much when the words receive wider usage and change their meanings again.

What nets? Trolling is something people do every day from the back of their personal boats, you just drag a line in the water while moving.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolling_(fishing)

That's what trolling a forum is, tossing some lines out while you putt around hoping they follow. For amusement, to change the subject, or whatever.
IMHO, the analogy still makes complete sense, and to call someone who trolls, a troll, is hardly wordplay.

Using 'troll' (noun) to mean 'asshole on the Internet' is COMPLETELY WRONG. Trolling takes skill. You have to be both correct, and incendiary, or incorrect and sincere, or ... well, you have to try it to learn other patterns, but I think I made my point. You don't even need to be anonymous to troll, you just have to be believable. "I'm voting for Mitt Romney because I like his economic policies, and he is white." would work under almost any circumstances, for example.

Mailing a box of ashes to someone is NOT TROLLING, that is inviting police action.

Re:Trolling?

[reub2000]

Kid seems like more than just a jerk. Maybe he is that kind of sociopath. Who knows.

Re:Trolling?

[houstonbofh]

Uh, no... RTFA again. "A couple of days after that conversation I met my friend, his wife and their son in a quiet and discreet location. The son, The Troll who almost driven me mad, was totally unaware that I'd be joining them." This was a man telling a friend how crazy his life was getting. The kid MAY have been smart enough to catch on, but they did what they could to trap him. A true socio-path might have been just enjoying the results of his work.

Re:Trolling?

[LordLimecat]

"You got a bug"

Us TRUE greybeards object to that incorrect usage. A bug is actually a moth or other such insect that got stuck in the electrical relays of a mainframe computer. But its been butchered beyond belief and has lost its meaning.

Re:Trolling?

[houstonbofh]

Internet is the main form of communication for kids today and depriving someone of internet access will isolate them socially completely.

We used to call that "grounding" and somehow I survived it more than once. I know this may come as a shock, but punishment is supposed to be unpleasant.

Re:Trolling?

[houstonbofh]

You really think that Leo Traynor will not be watching his friends kid who tortured him for a year? He still has all the data and proof, so if he does devolve, the record is still there.

Re:Trolling?

[houstonbofh]

Take it from personal experience... Being run over by a car takes almost no prep. Getting away with it takes more, but that is the case with anything.

Re:Trolling?

[houstonbofh]

You can't identify sociopaths with the loose definition, and then treat them according to the stringent definition. Logic error.

There is more than one person on slashdot. And sometimes they disagree. So I will see your "Logic Error" and raise you a "False Premise."

Re:Trolling?

[SomeKDEUser]

No, Although I sympathise with the notion that more people ought to be stalwartly and adamantly in favour of personal freedom, libertarians are not adding anything to the conversation. They operate on the fundamental principle that no-one should even try to stop dickheads from being dickheads because PERSONAL FREEDOM and MARKET WILL SELF-CORRECT.

This is nothing to do with personal freedom: this is just the expression of a wannabe psychopath angry that he cannot follow his impulses. But not all libertarians are like that. Some have been lucky in life, and they deeply want to believe they are successful because of their efforts, and not their circumstances. Think middle-aged white guy in a gated community.

Fundamentally, libertarian do not understand that their cherished market and contract law needs to be enforced. Enforced by an entity powerful enough for that: the government, and that the government to be legitimate and powerful enough, needs to stem from the will of the people, and be large enough, and that the people might think that the dog-eat-dog world of the libertarians is not what they desire. So deep down, libertarians wish that their perfectly free world be enforced by a fascist dictatorship.

Re:Trolling?

[greg_barton]

HOW DO YOU KNOW MY PASSWORD??

Re:Trolling?

[houstonbofh]

Does it have to be either / or? It could never be that our rather screwed up sociality is raising people that have less value and empathy for others?

Re:Trolling?

[houstonbofh]

That's why I don't even say words like trojan or virus anymore but just tell them "You got a bug"

So you are the one who is resposible for the abuse of the term "bug" as whatever instead of an error in program code.

A virus has been referred to as a bug since before there were computer viruses. And a listening device has been referred to as a bug since before there were common keyloggers. But even with your argument, how does most mallware get installed? Through a software bug... (If you answered "Adobe" you still get credit.)

Re:Trolling?

[PCM2]

Could you simply not see the "Edit post" button on your own stuff so you don't have to double-post like that, karma whore?

What site do you think you're on?

Re:Trolling?

[houstonbofh]

Read the GP's post history. He is an obsessive anti-Muslim bigot. Constantly trolling and looking for fights. Downmods are appropriate when it comes to the crap he posts.

Also, true. But in this case he was both on-topic, and correct.

Re:Trolling?

[PCM2]

Shouldn't that be Myanmar Shave, now?

Not really. The governments of the U.S., UK, and Canada do not recognize the current Myanmar government as being legitimate, so they still refer to the country as Burma.

Re:Trolling?

[Jane Q. Public]

"I have to agree with the posit that this a potential-sociopath and worthy of watching _within_ the system, so that he can be further constrained should he devolve."

I might agree with you except for one thing: I have seen what "the system" itself has devolved into. For some time, it has no longer been a "justice" system, but instead has been a money-generator for the state, corporations who run "corrections" facilities, and the multiple other businesses (lawyers, parole officers, counselors, etc.) that support them. All at taxpayer expense.

Today, "the system" is designed to never let you out once you get in. Even for minor things, they put obstacles and conditions and fees on things that are intended to make you stumble, or miss payments, or violate parole, and keep you attached to them forever. I have seen that happen to more than one person.

I am sure it is worse in some states than in others. But if I had any concern for the kid or his family at all, I would invoke "the system" only as a last, desperate resort.

Re:Trolling?

[drinkypoo]

Take it from personal experience... Being run over by a car takes almost no prep. Getting away with it takes more, but that is the case with anything.

Well, that's what I'm talking about. If you're far from the scene of the death, it's probably a lot easier to get away with the crime. But then, people do get away with hit-and-run.

Re:Trolling?

[LurkerXXX]

You can't blame the kid bro or judge him too harshly.

Yes I can. Everyone is responsible for their own actions. Not everyone in adverse situations turn into raging assholes. It's not an excuse.

Re:Trolling?

[ColdWetDog]

Sociopathy isn't a black / white thing. Most people have sociopathic tendencies at times. Some people are really, really bad sociopaths. The latter often end up in prison or politics, or both. Most leaders in business have more sociopathic tendencies than say, most rank and file.

So, for our pet sociopath in this discussion, it's a little premature to suggest he be placed on an ice flow with a hungry polar bear (although this imagery is comforting when thinking about most members of Congress). But he does need some close evaluation.

As Raven64 noted somewhere above, you can create situations where the sociopathic tendencies can be controlled. Probation is one - most people don't want to go to jail. If they're smart enough and not too fucked up, you can rig it so the big hammer stays over their head for long periods of time. He might just change enough of his behavior to get by in society and become, say, a member of Parliament.

Re:Trolling?

[ColdWetDog]

You got a bug because you didn't use a Trojan.

The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.

Re:Trolling?

[ColdWetDog]

Not necessarily. While a bad home environment is the cause of many of societies recursive ills, there is quite a bit of research on de novo human psychological pathology. Some kids are just bad.

I recall watching a couple of videos on 5 year olds that talk about starting fires, knifing siblings and torturing animals. The families, as best as can be reconstructed (and notice that is a significant caveat, but there are lots of examples of this sort of thing) aren't in any way malignant. It's just something in their neurological development that went astray.

These kids appear to have been born that way and they are friggin scary.

Re:Trolling?

[budgenator]

What we'd call trolling isn't even attempted by these pathetic posers, they don't have the intellectual horsepower to do it.

Re:Trolling?

[budgenator]

So, l will reiterate. Nobody knows what trolling is anymore! They don't. Being abusive is trolling. Saying something controversial isn't trolling.

Actually my definition of trolling is "Saying something controversial for the simple purpose of stirring up controversy" , some trolling is actually good generates pageviews and drives up revenues from ads and puts a little passion into the discusion; too much get peoples pissed and they leave the site.

Re:Trolling?

[Teancum]

I did that once upon a time. As troll bait I simply gave out what looked like a plausible password that I never used before in my life and now will never use either.

At least that is better than the password "password", "12345678", or "changeme"

I've seen all of those used as passwords before is the sad thing.

Re:Trolling?

[Teancum]

Because if you make an offensive video about Jews, they wil form mobs and burn down your embassy.

In of course the dozens of countries that they form the majority of the population.

Of course what happens if you make an offensive video about Buddha? I suppose some monk will set themselves on fire if they really want to protest.

Re:Trolling?

[Forty Two Tenfold]

catch up on Jewish/German history and have some appreciation for what he's ranting and raving about

Or maybe he's just up to date with more recent Israeli^WJewish/Palestinian history.

Re:Trolling?

[Onymous Coward]

Unless he was smart enough to see that this special, unannounced meeting with Traynor was set up to confront him.

But, yeah, it's hard to say.

Re:Trolling?

[camperdave]

The age-of-18 thing is probably a legal thing, not a psychological or physiological thing. From Behavenet:

The purpose of DSM-IV is to provide clear descriptions of diagnostic categories in order to enable clinicians and investigators to diagnose, communicate about, study, and treat people with various mental disorders. It is to be understood that inclusion here, for clinical and research purposes, of a diagnostic category such as Pathological Gambling or Pedophilia does not imply that the condition meets legal or other nonmedical criteria for what constitutes mental disease, mental disorder, or mental disability. The clinical and scientific considerations involved in categorization of these conditions as mental disorders may not be wholly relevant to legal judgments, for example, that take into account such issues as individual responsibility, disability determination, and competency.

The definitions at Behavenet are not purely clinical. Below 18, the subject is legally a minor in most jurisdictions.

Re:Trolling?

[bernywork]

Where's grub when you need him with a good Dr Bob post?

My coworkers looked at me like I was nuts when reading through that post.....

Re:Trolling?

[A nonymous Coward]

You give him a police record. Eventually he hangs himself with further crimes, and at least people who google have a chance at being forewarned.

Re:Trolling?

[Phoghat]

I'm disappointed that the author didn't press charges. This kid is probably a sociopath. When he stalks and hurts other people in the future the police won't have the evidence they need of past cases. Sociopaths don't learn how to stop hurting people, they just learn not to get caught the next time.

AFAIK, doesn't seem to be much difference with a kid who tortures dogs and cats and this. Both seem dangerously close to growing up to be outright sociopaths.

Re:Trolling?

[Anonymous Coward]

He knwe it was hurtful, or ihe wouldn't have bothered. This.... isn't enough to be certain of sociopathy, but I'd certainly check the kid's history for animal abuse or sibling abuse for other clues.

This is serious stalking. This isn't :give the kid a chance" turf, this is "get the kid in therapy and look for other crimes to see if they need to be locked up or to justify long term therapy."

Re:Trolling?

[reub2000]

Maybe he's not even a sociopath. Normal people can do some pretty inconsiderate things. Maybe he has some socipathic tendencies and a little punishment will do wonders. If he's a full blown sociopath then no amount of punishment is going to change him. It's hard to draw any conclusions from the information given in the article.

Re:Trolling?

[Macgrrl]

This is quite distinct to saying something like "you're a gay horse". I dunno what a gay horse is, but let's pretend it's offensive.

I don't understand, could we get a car analogy to explain it?

Re:Trolling?

[Nursie]

Keep reading... Junior only starts bawling after a whole list of things are brought out and he realises the game is up.

Sociopath or not this kid needs to a full on psych eval, not just 'counselling'

Re:Trolling?

[Macgrrl]

Unless you have gastroparesis, then it's more like 24-48.

Re:Trolling?

[brusk]

The hunted2 becomes the hunter2?

Re:Trolling?

[stridebird]

ooo my own personal troll. how nice.

Re:Trolling?

[StoneyMahoney]

If the kid is a sociopath, he needs help and counseling, possibly medication as well. He's not choosing to be a prick, he's mentally ill. Punishing a kid for being ill is a disgusting idea - who the hell modded this post up? You should all be ashamed of yourselves!

Re:Trolling?

[DrXym]

I think he's genuine in his beliefs regardless of how stupid I consider them personally. On the other hand that Dr Bob cretin who stinks so many article with chiropractic screed probably is a troll, or mentally unbalanced, or both.

Re:Trolling?

[martyros]

Some day a-la a an old Voyager episode they may have a cure for it, but right now the prevailing wisdom is to keep them locked up forever, because a death sentence is actually more expensive.

Is it really necessary to lock them up? If someone is born without empathy, they can't really do anything about that. But they can at least see that there are benefits to having people happy with them, and living roughly within the rules for society. They can even channel their sadistic tendencies to appropriate channels -- like playing certain kinds of cut-throat games (Diplomacy comes to mind). I'm pretty sure I've got people of my acquaintance who fit this description, but manage not to be evil anyway.

Re:Trolling?

[parkinglot777]

You really think that Leo Traynor will not be watching his friends kid who tortured him for a year? He still has all the data and proof, so if he does devolve, the record is still there.

How would he be watching the boy? The boy already knew how to disguise his identity on the Internet even though he made a mistake using his own house IP address. Next time, he would be more cautious on this mistake. Now what? The author is not an IT expert. The author is not with the boy 24/7. Also, what would be benefiting the author for watching the boy all the time?

Also even though he has the history proof of the boy, how would an authority trace back to the boy and then him (the author)? It is not likely to be processed (get to) that quick when there is no official record of his misbehave. Technically, yes he has the proof but just that would really be helpful in practice? Maybe, maybe not...

Re:Trolling?

[Quirkz]

A co-worker discovered a 'bug' in this traditional sense just a few months ago. Some kind of beetle got pinned in the fan of a power supply, causing it to jam and the device to repeatedly overheat.

Re:Trolling?

[kaatochacha]

Yeah, but he acknowledges the sock puppet account.
I'd presume he was more troll-y if he pretended it wasn't him.

Re:Trolling?

[Dan1701]

To be honest it sounds to me a lot like the kid's major existence was on assorted social networking sites, and much of his social self-worth was about getting reactions from other people in these social networks. There're only a few ways of consistently getting such reactions; always posting wise and apposite comments (which I manage maybe 30% of the time, try though I might), posting jokes or humourous cat photos, and posting attacks which attract the schardenfreude tendency of others.

However, I think that social media must have become pretty much ALL of this kid's socialisation and social life; like all teens he is mentally driven to socialise as much as possible, but he's not actually meeting people face to face much so isn't getting the all-important slaps in the face for being rude, aggressive or basically just a jerk.

The cure is to limit his access to social media and try get him socialising face to face a good deal more. He simply hasn't learned the rules, and won't do either, not if socialising is confined to texting on a smartphone or somesuch.

Re:Trolling?

[kaatochacha]

Why did the company choose Burma for the original name of the product? Was Burma particularly well known for perfectly shaved men? Or was China Shave already taken, and they were going for the far east thing?

Re:Trolling?

[mcmaddog]

Did we read the same article??? He pulled out the box of "Mementos" and that's when the kid realized what they were there for.

Re:Trolling?

[kaatochacha]

I miss Dr. Bob...i was always wondering how he would swing things around to chiropractic health.

Re:Trolling?

[Quiet_Desperation]

Eh, he knew the jig was up, and they probably wouldn't even be confronting him with nothing.

Re:Trolling?

[Quiet_Desperation]

There's a clear and concise response, but with detritus like you it would be a waste of time.

Or did I hit a little too close to home? Hmm.

Re:Trolling?

[Quiet_Desperation]

Eh, not seeing that. I know plenty of people mired in political ideologies that are otherwise good people. Sometimers it's their ability to care that leads them to such things. By ideologues I meant people who are not running for office. They may work for a campaign, or just vote regularly, but have solidly bought into a single school of ideological thought without it being a source of power or control for them personally.

Junkies I suppose could be considered a form of chemically induced sociopathy? ;-)

As for everyone having it, well, none of the works I have read try to spread it that far. Everyone has a level of self interest- it's arguably necessary for survival, but there's nothing pathological about it in most people.

Re:Trolling?

[Quiet_Desperation]

Wasn't suggesting anything. I have no idea what to do. It's big problem that has stymied people who are experts in the field.

Re:Trolling?

[cyberchondriac]

My pet peeve is overuse of the term "download".. like years ago, when my FIL says he "downloaded" the file off the CD he put in his CD drive to his Desktop. I guess "copied" doesn't sound contemporary enough; I didn't have the heart to tell him a download/upload only applies to files moved across a network at the time, he was so happy he just figured out how to do it.

Re:Trolling?

[hairyfeet]

I wish I could find a link on the net to the video, it was one of those "scared straight" kinda shows in the mid 90s and they took these kids to a big pen, Riker's I think.

What I'll never forget is the warden looked at their case files and said "Most of these you can help, #3 and #14 are lost causes" and when asked he explained why. #3 was named Leroy or something like that and was a crack baby. he said "This kid has had the part of the brain that lets him visualize the future and past just wiped out, I've seen it a million times. you can't teach a person not to commit crimes if they have no concept that there is gonna be a tomorrow and they will be punished. For Leroy there is ONLY today, yesterday and tomorrow are concepts he'll simply never understand" and the second one? Pedo which he pointed out you just don't stop those with anything short of prison, once they have started preying on kids that's it.

Sure enough at the end of the show they did a follow up, and the 14 year old Pedo was already in jail for raping a 7 year old but it was leroy that would have raised the hair on your neck. he was in jail for bashing a man's head in for a leather coat and they asked him about it: "Leroy did you LIKE what you saw at prison?" no. "Then WHY did you bash that man's head in?" because he had a nice coat and I wanted it. And then they talked to the warden who said "This is EXACTLY the behavior I was talking about, Leroy has brain damage. His brain simply cannot process the concept of yesterday or tomorrow, all he knows is this very minute. How do you teach someone right from wrong when they can't understand the concept of future and past? you can't, all you can do is lock them away so they can't hurt anyone else" and watching that kid? TRULY SCARY as he really didn't understand, he just couldn't grasp the concept that things you do this minute can affect you in the future, that part of his brain will simply never work. So for the rest of his life Leroy will be a predator, because if he sees something he wants? He'll just take it as he has no concept of consequences and never will.

Re:Trolling?

[tibit]

If I ever meet you, I'll buy you as much beer as you can stomach and then some. More people like you is what the world needs. Thank you. There never seem to be enough thank you's, you know.

Re:Trolling?

[Chrisq]

Read the GP's post history. He is an obsessive anti-Muslim bigot. Constantly trolling and looking for fights. Downmods are appropriate when it comes to the crap he posts.

Translation: "He has studied Islam and can refute our statements that it is peaceful. Because we are embarrassed by this truth we resort to ad-hominem attacks from anonymous accounts and modding him down to try to censor the truth".

Re:Trolling?

[Bryansix]

Online stores that sell guns still abide by the laws of the destination address. In most places that means it has to ship to someone with a Federal Firearms License who then holds it for you until you pass a background check, make sure you have a safety certificate, and hold it for at least 10 days. Each state differs but its not like buying on the Internet somehow overcomes the laws.

Re:Trolling?

[kaatochacha]

There comes a point in life where people you meet and interact with don't care that you had a fucked up life, or you were beaten, or your parents were evil, or you have any number of problems.
They just care that you're an asshat.
And write you off as one. Not everyone has time to sit around and ponder "hmm, i wonder if he had a bad childhood".
An example of this is job interviews. Act like an ass, you're gone. poof.
It's life, it's just how it is.

Re:Trolling?

[DekuDekuplex]

"Good trolling" was dead before it was born. It was about as "good" as "good cracking." Your distinction is just about as valid as the one between "good harassment" and "bad harassment."

Re:Trolling?

[sartin]

So you have "for all intensive purposes"

I used to design physiological monitors. They monitored ECG, BP, PPO2, and one or two other things (this was a while back). They were used in CCU, ICU, NICU, SICU, and stepdown units. So, I designed heart monitors for all intensive purposes.

So, let the opining begin...

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

So, do we actually believe that a college-age man is sufficiently motivated to troll the same person, including offline, for weeks on end; but so obtuse that he doesn't realize such trolling's effects, or did TFA's author just get played by a sociopathic little fucker's crocodile tears?

I'm voting for #2, personally. Wholly anonymous mob pile-ons can easily enough sweep up ethically-unimpressive-but-basically-standard-issue people; and some damaged-but-mostly-harmless types actually seem willing to spend their time dumping copypasta on entire forums; but solitary, prolonged, systematic trolling of one target chosen for no reason? Kid is bad seed.

Re:So, let the opining begin...

[Doctor_Jest]

I tend to agree with that... how I read it is he was crying because he got caught, not because he realized his stalking was a bad idea. If he had kept it to online nonsense, you could write it off as a bored moron who needs a swift kick in the ass, but when he started the whole mailing of packages thing, well, now the fucker needs locked up, or at the very least institutionalized until they can figure out what the flying fuck is wrong with his brain.

I'm ambivalent to the whole Internet Fuckwad Syndrome, because it's nothing to get pissed about... but when it moves outside to the real world, well, that is when it needs to be prosecuted harshly. This isn't a Troll... this is a psychopath. It's like the word 'hacker'... non-techies have co-opted a word and changed its meaning. (Unlike 'cyberbullying'... which is a term coined by technophobes about trolling...) ...that's for another thread, though...

Re:So, let the opining begin...

[Anonymous Coward]

What does Europe and neo-Nazis have to do with anything? Reading and believing anything written in some damned blog is a common malady for people who spend way too much time online, and conspiracy sites are only slightly less reputable than some of the "news" sites often quoted online.

Re:So, let the opining begin...

[immaterial]

...well, now the fucker needs locked up, or at the very least institutionalized until they can figure out what the flying fuck is wrong with his brain.

Prison is going to do what for his mental health exactly? Then note that Leo Traynor's condition for not going to the police was that the parents put the kid in therapy.

Re:So, let the opining begin...

[Anonymous Coward]

If he wasn't a Jew he would have been attacked for something else. Any it could have happened anywhere. You're reading too much into the message of a sociopath, and thereby giving him more credit than warranted. The attack wasn't in the message. The attack was in the stalking. The message was just tailored to the victim.

Re:So, let the opining begin...

[tbird81]

Who cares. Prison isn't there to make people better or to rehabilitate them. Its purpose is to punish people.

Re:So, let the opining begin...

[cheekyjohnson]

Prison isn't there to make people better or to rehabilitate them.

Exactly. It's good for the economy that people end up right back in prison.

Re:So, let the opining begin...

[Doctor_Jest]

It is assuming he is mentally ill. He could just be a fucking cocksucker who needs to be placed out of society before he kills someone. I am not qualified to know if he's in need of help or cornholed by a huge black guy named Thunderdick. But something needs to be done, or we'll all be reading about this asshat's killing spree with our Post Toasties.

Re:So, let the opining begin...

[chrismcb]

So, do we actually believe that a college-age man is sufficiently motivated to troll the same person, including offline, for weeks on end; but so obtuse that he doesn't realize such trolling's effects,

Yes

Re:So, let the opining begin...

[1u3hr]

if he's in need of help or cornholed by a huge black guy named Thunderdick. But something needs to be done, or we'll all be reading about this asshat's killing spree with our Post Toasties.

Since he's in Ireland and not California, none of your scenarios are likely.

We keep getting stories here about how foolish it is to demonise video games, because there's a difference between virtual violence and real violence. This guy was a jerk and needs to be taught a lesson, but not punished as if he'd actually physically assaulted someone.

Re:So, let the opining begin...

[shiftless]

.....which is a travesty. I hope you're not advocating this.

Re:So, let the opining begin...

[Fred Ferrigno]

Option #3: The kid has a severe psychiatric disorder and fixated on a family friend when it just as easily could have been Jodie Foster or Gabrielle Giffords.

Re:So, let the opining begin...

[immaterial]

Yeah, we should lock this kid up with only criminals to socialize with, where he can (out of desire or necessity) join a neo-nazi prison gang who will reinforce all his fucked-up worldviews. And then a few years later we can throw him back into society and everything will be peachy-fucking-keen.

Not only is the philosophy you're touting far more damaging to society as a whole, your RAWR PUNISHMENT attitude isn't even supported by the victim in this case. Who is being served by throwing the kid in prison?

Re:So, let the opining begin...

[Chrisq]

I tend to agree with that... how I read it is he was crying because he got caught, not because he realized his stalking was a bad idea.

I immediately thought "this is one of those White guys who has converted to Islam". If he is not stopped soon we will hear about him doing something much more serious

Re:So, let the opining begin...

[The Master Control P]

You really don't see what's wrong with a prison system that all but guarantees that anyone who isn't a cold, hardened criminal going in will be one coming out?

There are enough people who are naturally or are turned into habitual criminals without a "justice" system actively creating them.

Re:So, let the opining begin...

[Sique]

And what is punishing people good for? If punishing wasn't done for some reason, why even bother?

Re:So, let the opining begin...

[blackest_k]

I'm not so sure you can call it mental illness, there are people with a genuine hatred of jews and blacks asians Muslims even plain old Americans.

I have a friend who seems your typical republican nut job , loves jesus, dogs and a pathological loathing of Obama is it because he is a democrat or because he is black i suspect the latter to be honest.

Is it mental illness that caused the recent American deaths in Libya ?

Having extremest views tends to be misguided, but are they mentally ill? When the westbourough baptists picket the funerals of American servicemen are they mentally ill?

Now if you are a believer in the zionist conspiracy does that make you mentally ill or misguided? You have to bare in mind the victim is jewish which is extremely rare in Ireland. I don't know any jews in ireland so chances are this kid only knew of this one family and possibly only leo is jewish. Almost certainly that will be why he was targeted.

On the positive side it maybe that the kid will no longer see leo as that Jew but as a regular human being like the rest of us. That's the thing with labels people see the label and not the people that are being labelled.

How much labelling goes on here for instance, is that by mentally ill people or misguided ones?

How about the 1% maybe some of them should be executed, interestingly that is a hard target since you only really know the companies not the leadership. I really can't see how you can equate extremism with mental illness without coming to the conclusion we are already in the asylum and there are more of them than us.

Re:So, let the opining begin...

[drinkypoo]

Who cares. Prison isn't there to make people better or to rehabilitate them. Its purpose is to punish people.

But who will punish you for supporting an activity which makes the world an uglier place? Oh wait, that would just make the world uglier. I guess I forgive you for being so short-sighted. Just try to develop a longer view, please.

Re:So, let the opining begin...

[Azghoul]

So you're in favor of either committing him to a mental ward against his will (read Thomas Szasz), killing a 17 y/o kid for being a dick, or having him suffer life-long physical and emotional injury due to prison rape. When the victim here says he wants to give the kid a chance.

And you're the sane, socially acceptable guy here?

Re:So, let the opining begin...

[drinkypoo]

So you're in favor of either committing him to a mental ward against his will (read Thomas Szasz), killing a 17 y/o kid for being a dick, or having him suffer life-long physical and emotional injury due to prison rape

Isn't this a UK story? Isn't prison rape mostly a US problem? Well, maybe Turkey, that used to be the canonical example before we picked up the torch.

Re:So, let the opining begin...

[BasilBrush]

The three objectives of punishment in the criminal justice system are punishment, rehabilitation and deterrence. It's not correct to say it's only for one of them.

Re:So, let the opining begin...

[Artifakt]

I really can't see how you can equate extremism with mental illness without coming to the conclusion we are already in the asylum and there are more of them than us.

Yes, but there are times when it feels like that is exactly the case. I have an acquaintance (I'll call him Nutcase A) who has swung far into the Teaparty side of politics. Now I'm not claiming anybody else at the last rally he attended is particularly mentally ill, but this guy has, for just one example, gotten so down on some people for letting their kids watch PBS that he has explained to a group of us how all those European travel shows are fake because the Russians tore up those European countries so bad they don't really look like that. A couple of people present with me drew him out on this point, and he now apparently genuinely believes that World War 2 was the US against Russia, that Russia conquered Europe as far as Italy and France, making them all Socialists, held that territory until the 80s, and that those countries weren't freed until Reagan won the cold war. By him, the Germans were on our side during WW2 until the Commies overran them. The Berlin wall enclosed all of Commie Europe, up the Atlantic seacoast. It's like he listened to some Limbaugh and Coulter descriptions of Hitler being a leftist because the Nazis were National Socialists and took that argument to heart so sincerely that he had to re-write fifty years of history to be consistant with it.
            Oh, and Clifford the Big Red Dog is particularly a commie plot to indoctinate the youth of America. I know this guy passed at least a normal high school history class once, but it's like he's now rewritten it all in his mind, and everything he seems to believe is being filtered through an incredibly and increasingly warped version of right libertarian philosophy.
      What your comment made me think of is that his example has made me ask other people on the Tea Party side about their nutcases, and there's a strong tendency for those people to claim there aren't any people like that guy attending their rallys and speaking at their town halls. I know some of these people have met Nutcase A, and in a couple of cases, have heard him say at least something totally whackjob. I was there when those cases happened. Even if Nutcase A is 1 in 1,000 and there's a lot more reasonable people making up the bulk of the group, I'm finding it harder and harder to believe those other people are not in some weird state of denial, deliberately or delusionally pretending they don't have any Nutcase A's at all around. And, I'm wondering about what else they are in denial over. When somebody claiming affiliation with the American right says, for example, that they haven't seen any signs the dislike of president Obama is racially motivated, I wonder if they have just ignored hearing a dozen rants and a hundred racial slurs at their last meeting - wondering if they start out thinking in each incident that those people aren't really the core of their group, and five minutes later have turned it into "that didn't happen at all - we aren't like that, so I didn't hear what I heard.". When people appear to be standing right next to some ranting and raving 'crazy people', and swearing they didn't hear anything crazy, yes, you start figuring the whole group is part of the illness.

Re:So, let the opining begin...

[multimediavt]

But it wasn't a random person this kid targeted. If you read TFA then you would have seen the part where the kid is the 17-year old son of a friend. The kid was someone Leo knew as a boy as his description of the cookie offer at the meet clearly states. The kid is just messed up and thought he could mess with people with no consequence. Counseling is the best option for that, not dumping him into the UK legal system and making him more antisocial. But, this kid knew his target for a long time. This was NOT a random person attacking another.

Re:So, let the opining begin...

[Opportunist]

The company running the prison. Duh.

Re:So, let the opining begin...

[Cochonou]

Ah, finally !
Thanks for showing us what a real Troll is. :)

Re:So, let the opining begin...

[mbunch5]

What your comment made me think of is that his example has made me ask other people on the Tea Party side about their nutcases, and there's a strong tendency for those people to claim there aren't any people like that guy attending their rallys and speaking at their town halls. I know some of these people have met Nutcase A, and in a couple of cases, have heard him say at least something totally whackjob. I was there when those cases happened. Even if Nutcase A is 1 in 1,000 and there's a lot more reasonable people making up the bulk of the group, I'm finding it harder and harder to believe those other people are not in some weird state of denial, deliberately or delusionally pretending they don't have any Nutcase A's at all around. And, I'm wondering about what else they are in denial over. When somebody claiming affiliation with the American right says, for example, that they haven't seen any signs the dislike of president Obama is racially motivated, I wonder if they have just ignored hearing a dozen rants and a hundred racial slurs at their last meeting - wondering if they start out thinking in each incident that those people aren't really the core of their group, and five minutes later have turned it into "that didn't happen at all - we aren't like that, so I didn't hear what I heard.". When people appear to be standing right next to some ranting and raving 'crazy people', and swearing they didn't hear anything crazy, yes, you start figuring the whole group is part of the illness.

I may be misjudging you here, and for that I apologize, but I was nodding along with your post until it became a not so subtle attack on one side of the political spectrum. The thing is, I know "Nutcase A's" that are just as vehement in their support for Obama. Different alternate histories, but the same fervor and delusion. So my question to you is, did you not notice those guys the last rally that you were at?

Re:So, let the opining begin...

[Jeremi]

So, do we actually believe that a college-age man is sufficiently motivated to troll the same person, including offline, for weeks on end; but so obtuse that he doesn't realize such trolling's effects, or did TFA's author just get played by a sociopathic little fucker's crocodile tears?

I'm not sure it really matters what we believe. We're just a bunch of random nerds who were fed a few kilobytes of ASCII text, and are using that, plus our own imaginations, own personal experiences and prejudices to try to reconstruct a model of "what must have happened".

But the truth is that we don't really know. We've never met any of the people involved, and we never saw or heard anything of what transpired, except for one short textual account.

Given that, it's pointless to try to draw any firm conclusions, since they are likely going to be wrong anyway. Pretending we have the ability to do accurate third-hand psychological diagnosis based on 5 minutes of reading a story is just flattering and fooling ourselves.

Re:So, let the opining begin...

[PCM2]

I tend to agree with that... how I read it is he was crying because he got caught, not because he realized his stalking was a bad idea.

I've had the misfortune to have dated a couple of people who I'd describe as sociopaths, and this is exactly how they act. Not having empathy for other people's feelings doesn't mean you don't have any of your own. When bad things happen to you -- like getting accused of something serious -- you get upset. In fact, I would suggest that a lot of the behaviors you see in sociopaths are actually complex coping mechanisms designed to help them avoid painful feelings. They're keeping themselves happy and it's up to you to do the same for yourself; it's not their concern.

Re:So, let the opining begin...

[KritonK]

Prison isn't there to make people better or to rehabilitate them. Its purpose is to punish people.

Perhaps it is, in your part of the world, but there's a reason why, even there, prisons are called "correctional facilities"; punishment is only part of the reason people are sent to prison.

Re:So, let the opining begin...

[niado]

I think he was using the Tea Party as an example that he was personally familiar with, and one which many readers identify with since "those crazy tea-partiers" is a common meme on slashdot (and well, everywhere really).

I personally have met no "Nutcase A's" among Obama supporters, though I am acquainted with (and have close friends among) several in the opposite camp. However, this is likely due to the fact that I live in the heart of tea-party land (which unfortunately correlates to the heart of "racism land") and meet very few Obama supporters in general.

Re:So, let the opining begin...

[Mike Van Pelt]

I personally have met no "Nutcase A's" among Obama supporters,...

Check out the "Zombietime" web site, and you'll get pictures and descriptions of a number of the Bay Area's finest examples of the type. (Note: parts of this site are bodaciously NSFW... The Full Monty of the Bay Area tradition of naked protestors is on display here. What Has Been Seen Can Not Be Un-seen.)

Yes, I know, "Zombie" has (his/her) biases. and yes, does have an agenda. It was quite interesting to see wider views of the same scene shown on the front page of the San Francisco Chronicle, to see the "spontaneous" demonstration being orchestrated by a woman with a bullhorn wearing a North Korean flag T-shirt.

Yes, I am also aware that that woman, and many of the protestors in the area, are far from Obama supporters, and actually consider him to be a far-right-winger.

Re:So, let the opining begin...

[j-beda]

The three objectives of punishment in the criminal justice system are punishment, rehabilitation and deterrence. It's not correct to say it's only for one of them.

Unless punishment serves the goals of deterrence and/or rehabilitation - it would seem a bit pointless. I suggest that "punishment" should not be an objective, even if it might be on of the tools to obtain the actual objectives.

Maybe is is part of "revenge"? Should that be one of the three objectives?

Re:So, let the opining begin...

[tibit]

What I don't particularly get is what extreme libertarianism has got to do with being a nutcase in the sense of believing in a made up version of recent world history. Yes, the specimen you mention might be both libertarian and a nutcase, but it's a coincidence IMHO.

Re:So, let the opining begin...

[BasilBrush]

Sorry, you're right. I mistakenly repeated the word "punishment". It should have read:

"The three objectives of punishment in the criminal justice system are retribution, rehabilitation and deterrence."

Retribution is to fulfil whatever need there is in the victim or society to make the offender pay for what they did.

Re:So, let the opining begin...

[kaatochacha]

THIS is what passes as +5 interesting? Wow, the trolls are apparently moderating now as well.

Re:So, let the opining begin...

[Bryansix]

Why again do we let prisoners socialize with other prisoners? Do they need to socialize? Yes they do. Do they need to socialize with other prisoners? I think not.

Re:So, let the opining begin...

[Maritz]

If we're using sociopath as a synonym for psychopath (which is quite reasonable, neither has a universally accepted definition) then from what I've read they have very shallow affect and feel emotions much more mildly than non-psychopaths (in addition to being devoid of empathy I hasten to add). So yes they may cry but if they do it a LOT it's probably geared towards manipulation in some way.

Re:So, let the opining begin...

[Bryansix]

I may be misjudging you here, and for that I apologize, but I was nodding along with your post until it became a not so subtle attack on one side of the political spectrum. The thing is, I know "Nutcase A's" that are just as vehement in their support for Obama. Different alternate histories, but the same fervor and delusion. So my question to you is, did you not notice those guys the last rally that you were at?

Quote for Truth! I know this is Slashdot and all but I can only stand so much intellectual dishonesty in one post and the original example about the Tea Party is about as intellectually dishonest as it gets.

Traced his IP?

[Kindgott]

I bet they used a GUI interface using Visual Basic!

Re:Traced his IP?

[Anonymous Coward]

I bet they used a GUI interface using Visual Basic!

No! Everyone knows when you trace an IP it does a 3D mapping google fly over with a little dot following a line from each location and then zooms in close to the final location showing a live video feed! I watch movies I know how computers work!

Re:First post

[jd2112]

God hates fags

Yes. Smoking can kill you.

Keywords

[Anonymous Coward]

Keywords in the original text:
"basically an IT genius,"
"hacked my facebook account"
"trace the hackers and trolls for me using perfectly legal technology, which would lead to their IP addresses."
"the abuse had emanated from three separate IP addresses in different corners of Ireland."
"The third location was a friend's house."

so, you can know the house location of each poster on twitter ? - troll-

Re:Keywords

[wordsnyc]

There are a lot of people arguing that this whole story is a fable; the IT guy the author presents to defend his account is a feckless bullshitter. Basically it's a case of two guys who don't know that they don't know the technical difficulties in what they claim to have done. The whole thing is embarrassing and annoying.

Re:Keywords

[blackest_k]

No you can't know the IP of a random twitter account, but he moved off twitter on to his own system probably hosting his own blog at his own domain.

This gives server logs which hold an ip for each visitor and comment. While it is unlikely that you would be able to know much more than ISP. Googling the IP might indicate the use of an internet cafe, the identifying one probably came about because some messages from that IP were from the friend and others from the troll.

A smarter troll would have used a proxy.

Also if you have a google adwords account you can identify your site visitors to a geographic location usually to the nearest city. Your ad's can be tailored to specific areas. No point in paying for clicks when you are advertising a product or service which will require a customer to visit your business address. Geolocation isn't perfect, i use a mobile broadband provider and my traffic is on the isp's network to Dublin so you might think i was in Dublin. There is a browser add on for firefox called geolocator which can set a location to give to certain websites.

From the sounds of it somebody got lucky, If the ip hadn't have been identifiable as a friends address then the only alternative would have been to get the guards to investigate who would contact the ISP and locate the address of the account using the IP at the time. This course of action would have almost certainly led to a criminal prosecution. As it was a friends son, it would have been socially awkward to have taken the same action.

Guess knowing this stuff makes me an IT genius! or perhaps !genius on this site.

Re:Keywords

[Hentes]

I can imagine that some wifi hotspot IPs can be found in public, and it's also not completely impossible that his friend had a static IP which he knew. Facebook passwords can be broken like any other (although I won't call that a hack, but this guy is not an "IT genius"). How they got the IP is a better question, but one method would be to set up his acount to automatically send him the login logs (not sure about Facebook but it can be done in Google+ which he said he used in the baiting), pick a weak password and hope the troll will try to crack the account.
It can still be fake but I wouldn't say it's completely impossible.

Re:Keywords

[Psychotria]

Yep, I agree. The article seems more like a troll than the alleged troll the article talks about (the "alleged troll" is not a troll at all but a case of abuse or harassment).

Re:Keywords

[Arker]

It may be a fable but there is nothing here remotely impossible. If you cant figure out how to get a stalkers IP in the circumstances in question, you arent thinking very hard. Several other posts here have already outlined one of the more likely techniques involved.

Re:Keywords

[frisket]

However what stands out to me in this story is that the guy claims to have gotten a package from the offender, but doesn't so much as mention checking the return address.

Parcels sent locally here (Ireland) don't need a return address: that's an American requirement.

Re:Keywords

[Zero__Kelvin]

"so, you can know the house location of each poster on twitter ? - troll-"

No, but if it is the IP of a friend you can compare this IP from emails he sent you and determine that the IP used to post to twitter is the same as the one used to send the emails. Since IP based geolocation is accurate to the city in general, once you know it is local it is a no brainer to start looking at those you know for us guys who are "basically IT Geniuses" ;-)

Re:Keywords

[Reschekle]

There is no such requirement in America either.

Re:Keywords

[Artifakt]

Plus, the article describes having three IP numbers, one of which was a private address. That suggests the other two were associated with public locations, i.e. coffieshops, schools, or libraries. I don't know that much about how it's set up in particular parts of Ireland, but in the US, those are usually fixed IPs, plus, if one of them was a school, wouldn't that be a pretty good clue about which member of the home was most likely? Suppose, for example, the two fixed IPS were within a few blocks of each other, one was a school, one was an internet enabled cafe, and the timing fit school hours and such?
            I'd figure getting from there to connecting the private IP with an address (and doing it, as the article says, legally) is the challenge, and there are some likely techniques already mentioned, but depending on just what the public IPS are, you might start off with a pretty good guess of the age group of the 'troll', whether they walked or drove from location a to b at certain times, and other such things. The fixed IPs alone might be enough to do some detective work in the physical realm, plus they certainly would help confirm whatever you narrowed it down to. There are probably 500,000 people who could do it with the 'legally' stipulation, and millions without that part.

Re:Keywords

[Artifakt]

Hate to shoot down my own post, but on rereading, I noticed that the IPs are described as different corners of Ireland, something which would have made me suspect an older person or small group, and if this was set up by a teen, suggests they made some serious efforts at obfuscation. Given that point, I don't think the locations would support moving part of the investigation into the real world. Still, you can get a little useful info from the facts, for example, I'd expect anyone routing through proxies would probably also pick some that crossed international borders (a real pro would tailor proxies to give a misleading impression, but the semi-skilled always pick exotic (to them) proxy locations whether it's actually useful or not), so any person trying to follow a trail there could probably justify proceeding from the assumption that the 'troll' was still physically local.

Re:Keywords

[Rogerborg]

Then why the bullshit about geolocating the IPs? Spin it any way you like, but the story as presented makes no sense.

Puhleese

[kiriath]

Sounds like a lifetime movie to me.

At what point...

[ameoba]

At what point would a sane person just call the cops?

Re:At what point...

[Truekaiser]

Before or after he found him?
A sane person would of given the cops the information and let this be a legal issue. I would of done the same. Basically this kid crossed the line from harmless internet troll, to potential killer when he moved the trolling to the real world. that has consequences and it they ruin his life well it's his fault.

Re:At what point...

[Anonymous Coward]

He did. And they were not helpful.

I was petrified.
They had my address.
I reported it to the authorities and hoped for the best.
Two days later I opened my front door and there was a bunch of dead flowers with my wife's old Twitter username on it. Then that night I recieved a DM. 'You'll get home some day & ur b**ches throat will be cut & ur son will be gone.'
I got on to the authorities again but, polite and sympathetic as they were, there didn't seem much that could be done.

Sort of surprising because I'm fairly certain the language of that threat rises to a criminal level with the threat of bodily harm and kidnapping, especially given that the person making the threat knows the address of the person they are threatening.

Re:At what point...

[Kohath]

Paragraph 13 of the original story. It's a good read.

The cops can't protect anyone. They just show up after you're dead and string up crime scene tape. In the UK you're not allowed to protect yourself either -- it undermines government authority.

Re:At what point...

[Cl1mh4224rd]

At what point would a sane person just call the cops?

He did. Twice.

Re:At what point...

[Anonymous Coward]

would of --> would have

please

Re:At what point...

[Anonymous Coward]

He did. "I was petrified. They had my address. I reported it to the authorities and hoped for the best.

Two days later I opened my front door and there was a bunch of dead flowers with my wife's old Twitter username on it. Then that night I received a DM. "You'll get home some day & ur bitches throat will be cut & ur son will be gone."

I got on to the authorities again but, polite and sympathetic as they were, there didn't seem much that could be done."

Re:At what point...

[advocate_one]

well they'd have taken far more notice the moment it became a "hate crime" with the Tupperware box of ashes and the note about relatives in Auschwitz

Re:At what point...

[Type44Q]

'You'll get home some day & ur b**ches throat will be cut & ur son will be gone.'

I agree with others; the story smells. Anyway, if it'd been me, my concern would've evaporated the minute I'd read the "ur" instead of "you're" - fucking imbeciles just don't have what it takes to make me feel truly threatened, I suppose; imagine being approached by a mugger... and suddenly the mugger suffers a loud, explosive bout of diarrhea: any and all "streed cred" they might've possessed... just ran down their pant leg.

Re:At what point...

[Anonymous Coward]

... In the UK you're not allowed to protect yourself either -- it undermines government authority.

While in essence what you say is true, in practice, you'll find that not all the police, judiciary and juries are 'on side' with that particular message.

Another thing, whilst I'm at it, the UK has three separate legal systems, one covering England/Wales, one covering Scotland, and lastly Northern Ireland. There may be UK wide laws, which are usually 'rubber stamped' by the Scottish and NI legal systems, but the implementation and interpretation of said laws depends on which legal jurisdiction of the UK you're in.

Having been told by a Chief Constable in Scotland that in the event of anyone breaking into my house, so long as it's within my property, I have the right to defend myself and my family, and if I fear for their or my life, then extreme actions are permissible, then I'd think it's safe to say that I do have a right to protect myself, the issue lies with how much force I use to do so and in what circumstances.

I've no idea what the legal position is in England/Wales, but having lived there for 15 years and having on at least one occasion been caught on 'surveillance' cameras 'defending myself' against a couple of muggers (one ran, I left the other U/S on the ground) and despite the incident being on camera/tape, and despite my good self being a somewhat easy individual to spot in a crowd the police never did anything about it.

So, yes, we have a bunch of control freaks in power who'd love to regiment every microsecond of our lives (irrespective of what political party they're pretending to be this month), yes, we're not allowed to own guns the same way you Americans are, yes, these restrictions haven't done a damn thing to stop the increase in 'gun crime' in the UK (Fact: gun crime is on the rise, and it is now easier to get large calibre handguns on the 'black market' since the UK government banned the ownership of the things), but, please, please don't get hung up on the fact that we do not own firearms somehow equates to we're without the means of defending ourselves, and, despite the best efforts of the State and despite the picture the media paints, we are allowed to do so.
The laws are still policed and implemented by the more than occasional human being, a lot of incidents never get to the legal system in the first instance as the Police/CPS/Procurator Fiscals take one look at the evidence and won't present it, of those which do go, you only hear about the 'being prosecuted for self defence' cases that papers with a political agenda like the 'Daily Mail' want you to hear about, you'll never read about the people who are admonished/found 'not guilty' (unless it suits the paper 'politically').

Re:At what point...

[Arker]

While in essence what you say is true, in practice, you'll find that not all the police, judiciary and juries are 'on side' with that particular message.

Naturally. And here the mirror is true, while in essence our legal system still recognises a right to self defense, not all police, judiciary, or juries are on side with that either. It's a daily battle to try to preserve it.

Another thing, whilst I'm at it, the UK has three separate legal systems, one covering England/Wales, one covering Scotland, and lastly Northern Ireland. There may be UK wide laws, which are usually 'rubber stamped' by the Scottish and NI legal systems, but the implementation and interpretation of said laws depends on which legal jurisdiction of the UK you're in.

Similarly, the USA has 51 separate legal systems, one for each state, and a federal system which has original jurisdiction in federal territories. Your right to self defense is much more strongly enshrined in, say, Texas or Idaho, than in New York or California.

Having been told by a Chief Constable in Scotland that in the event of anyone breaking into my house, so long as it's within my property, I have the right to defend myself and my family, and if I fear for their or my life, then extreme actions are permissible, then I'd think it's safe to say that I do have a right to protect myself, the issue lies with how much force I use to do so and in what circumstances.

Some US CoPs would tell you the exact opposite here. In both cases it can depend practically on the people involved. If the prosecutor wants to prosecute and the judge wants to convict they can generally find a way, and vice versa.

despite my good self being a somewhat easy individual to spot in a crowd the police never did anything about it.

But in practice they can get away with selective enforcement. The fact that no one bothered to hassle you on previous occasions wont protect you if someone wants to do so in a similar situation in the future.

Re:At what point...

[Tastecicles]

You know what? I just saw the last shit I will ever give, walk off into the sunset.

If someone threatens my family or me in my own home, then I will not consider any sort of moral tightrope as I end the threat. Period.

Re:At what point...

[Zero__Kelvin]

Early on in the process, which is why that is exactly what he did before he enlisted the help of his friend.

Re:At what point...

[BasilBrush]

we're not allowed to own guns the same way you Americans are, yes, these restrictions haven't done a damn thing to stop the increase in 'gun crime' in the UK (Fact: gun crime is on the rise, and it is now easier to get large calibre handguns on the 'black market' since the UK government banned the ownership of the things)

That's not a fact at all. Gun crime in the UK peaked in 2003/2004. It's been declining since.

http://blogs.channel4.com/factcheck/files/2012/09/19_fc_guncrime.jpg

Re:At what point...

[multimediavt]

Before or after he found him? A sane person would of given the cops the information and let this be a legal issue. I would of done the same. Basically this kid crossed the line from harmless internet troll, to potential killer when he moved the trolling to the real world. that has consequences and it they ruin his life well it's his fault.

But, like many other knee-jerk reactions to headlines, you failed to read the article to find that the kid was a family friend's kid and that throwing him in the slammer would be the worst thing for a sociopath. So you're saying you'd lock up your friend's kid rather than confront the family and deal with the issue with empathy and regard for the well being of others? Nice sociopathic behavior on your part, btw. The kid needs help, not punishment! He's 17! Still a minor in most developed countries' legal systems. Throwing him in jail would have only made his behavior worse, and might have led to actual physical harm to those involved when he got out. Sociopaths LOVE revenge!

Re:At what point...

[multimediavt]

Sort of surprising because I'm fairly certain the language of that threat rises to a criminal level with the threat of bodily harm and kidnapping, especially given that the person making the threat knows the address of the person they are threatening.

Not at all. Firstly, this all happened in the UK, so unless you live there you have no idea how their legal system deals with cases like this. I know that in the U.S. it is dealt with differently state-by-state as there are different laws in different states dealing with cases like this but, one thing holds fairly true throughout. Unless they actually do something, threats mean nothing and the police file your complaint until something happens. Once something happens those threats get used as evidence, but most threats and such go uninvestigated because police just don't have the time. Sorry, there are no super cops that investigate every report that comes in. That's TV myth and misguided presumption in most cases. Unless the guy is caught on the premises or in the act of threatening you, the police aren't gonna care. Have a nice day...

Re:At what point...

[O('_')O_Bush]

Need data from 2011 and 2012 as well to dispute GPs claim. Also, try to stay away from pop media and blogs (your source was both) as both have agendas and cherry pick numbers. One should be able to find crime statistics from the U.K. gov't.

Re:At what point...

[1u3hr]

basically this kid crossed the line from harmless internet troll, to potential killer

Everybody is a "potential" killer. The kid never showed any sign of committing real violence. He crossed a line, several lines, but was nowhere near the "murder" line.

Yeah, he was obnoxious and threatening online. He sent the guy a box of ashes. That was still purely symbolic "violence".

Re:At what point...

[BasilBrush]

Channel 4 is not pop media. It's a respected British terrestrial broadcaster, who's 7 O'Clock News programme, of which this is a branch, is second to none. The very existence of Factcheck is to take claims of politicians and check the facts to see if they are saying the truth or not.

But I only quoted that because I already knew it from reading the British Crime Survey for many years. Yes, that's official government statistic service figures. If you check out the British Crime Survey, you'll find that the exact same figures are buried in it's PDF pages.

That trend is accurate. And 2010-11 is the latest published. It's a biannual publication.

Again, gun crime has been falling in the UK since 2003/4. That's the true fact.

Re:At what point...

[joseph90]

He is not in the UK. He is in Ireland (the republic of) a seperate country.

J.

Re:At what point...

[Truekaiser]

The kid had the 'guilty mind' and the will to commit a violent act. The fact that he took the time to send packages that could not be easily traced by the layperson back to him proved he has the will to cause harm. He just did not have the opportunity to do so. Given the opportunity I believe based on the information provided, he would of caused harm to them. The only reason I think he shows remorse is that he got caught and confronted.

He should of faced legal consequences of his actions, at his young age it would of not impacted him as badly as an adult but still would of shown his actions have consequences. As well to his parents to show them that they should be just a little bit more involved in his online activity.

Re:At what point...

[bigrockpeltr]

I would've beat the shit out of him and then call the cops. that's what we do here to burglars.. catch them and beat them then call the cops and beat them till they arrive then ask the cops for 15 more minutes... by this time they are basically begging the cops to take them away.
death threats to me and my family?? don't expect to walk properly afterwards.
after reading the article i was a bit disappointed that nothing happened to the stupid kid. and also question the validity of the story. maybe i have been trolled lol

Re:At what point...

[tibit]

A sane person knows the cops won't do a thing.

Re:At what point...

[tibit]

IOW, the relationship between you and X varies the outcome of X's stay in the slammer, everything else being equal? That's news to me, I must say.

Re:At what point...

[Maritz]

There was a bit about pissing on Leo's wife prior to killing him. That's fairly direct.

I'm inclined to agree with you general, but sadly there's a risk that all that's happened is a psycho/sociopath has just learned how to get away with this shit. Any reasonable line that's been drawn has been well and truly crossed. Since it's the friend's kid, fine, but if it was a stranger I know I'd throw the book at the twat.

Re:At what point...

[1u3hr]

The kid had the 'guilty mind' and the will to commit a violent act.

No. He never committed any violence. It was all symbolic.

Also, Traynor knew his family, so if the kid ha a history of real violence he would have known.

The kid was acted despicably, needing to be socialised and taught that what he did was wrong, but that's all.

Re:At what point...

[1u3hr]

There was a bit about pissing on Leo's wife prior to killing him. That's fairly direct.

It was a threat. It's not violence. he never pissed on anyone. He never killed anyone. He was trying to scare them, and succeeded, It was just a game to him.

If you've been online for more than a couple of weeks you get that and worse at the drop of a hat. I've had a few threats of violence here. The Fuckwad theory is pretty well founded. But fuckwads are just hot air. if you treat the words the same as the act, what do you do with people who actually do commit violence? Straight to the electric chair?

People have seen so many slasher movies that they think the world is full of psychopaths -- it is, but not violent ones. Plenty like this kid though. He was roleplaying. He should be punished, but for what he actually did.

Re:At what point...

[barrtender]

Yes, because all serial killers can all spell very well...

Example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zodiac_Killer

Your story is backwards anyway. If a mugger comes up and tells you to give him your money in a very uneducated tongue it's much more likely (at least, it seems to me) that he would be liable to do something stupid, whereas someone who is clearly very learned will most likely think before stabbing someone for $20.

great ending

[calzones]

Oddly heartwarming ending. It's awesome when people can take the high road and restrain themselves from lashing back at abusers, who do this stuff out of boredom, insecurity, and immaturity (or sometimes mental instability issues, alas). But recognizing that people do stupid regrettable crap, and that maybe their lives need not be ruined over it, and that maybe some good might come out of something bad... that's great strength and maturity. Kudos.

Re:great ending

[Sique]

Why? He put IP-Adresses of his new places on the internet. He uses the usual channels, Google+ and Facebook and Twitter. The new places are on servers his IT genius friends has set up. He gets the logfiles and analyses the addresses. Three adresses he can't put a name on.

Why you seemed to understand that he got the logfiles from Facebook is beyond me. It's described differently in the article.

Re:great ending

[MysteriousPreacher]

Oddly heartwarming ending. It's awesome when people can take the high road and restrain themselves from lashing back at abusers, who do this stuff out of boredom, insecurity, and immaturity (or sometimes mental instability issues, alas). But recognizing that people do stupid regrettable crap, and that maybe their lives need not be ruined over it, and that maybe some good might come out of something bad... that's great strength and maturity. Kudos.

Oh come on. Police involvement is only going to ruin a life if the offence committed is so serious that disruption of their life is clearly warranted. It's not as if the police the are in the habit of sending kids to the fabled "Federal Pound Me in the Ass Prison" for being a bit mean. They're looking for serious harassment and threats, and certainly something beyond a random YouTube comment threatening to come there and kick someone's ass. This kid not only crossed the line in to Fucked Life Country. He gaily skipped across - waving his cock as he went. He clearly has issues that should not be dismissed as boyish pranks. The box of ashes is pretty messed-up, as is the threat to kill his girlfriend. All of this to someone who was a friend of the family? Yeah, that's regrettable and certainly should be dealt with to see what else this kid's been up to.

It's serendipity that the kid's parents are friends of the victim. If that were not the case, I'd see no reason at all to not get the Gardai take this pretty bloody seriously. Most likely, barring a track record for acting the cunt, he'd get a talking to and perhaps a caution. Had a kid in the UK harassing a friend of mine. Hacked some of his accounts (yeah, his passwords were terrible), and threatened to screw up the business he was running. I traced the guy quite easily because he'd left a pretty obvious footprint on the web, and we contacted his local police. Never heard again from the kid. Was he arrested? Probably not. Likely the police had a chat with his parents, who promptly pulled the plug on their little proto-neckbeard.

Re:great ending

[drinkypoo]

Police involvement is only going to ruin a life if the offence committed is so serious that disruption of their life is clearly warranted.

That's a load of shit. If the police are personally arsed by the offense they will put their own effort into it.

It's not as if the police the are in the habit of sending kids to the fabled "Federal Pound Me in the Ass Prison" for being a bit mean.

Police don't send people to prison. They send people to court (effectively) and the court sends them to prison, which it may well do for political reasons as well as logistic ones. It's only called a "justice" system.

It's serendipity that the kid's parents are friends of the victim. If that were not the case, I'd see no reason at all to not get the Gardai take this pretty bloody seriously.

Odds are the kid chose his victim based on the high likelihood of getting away with it even if caught.

Re:great ending

[drinkypoo]

Odds are the kid chose his victim based on the high likelihood of getting away with it even if caught.

...and he would be right, too.

Indeed, and that is precisely where I fall into a moral quandary on this issue. On one hand, putting the kid into the system is unlikely to actually produce a net positive result. On the other hand, playing into his hands is unlikely to produce a net positive result as well, and meanwhile, nothing is really being done. I think a course of therapy is about as likely to cure him of his sociopathic behavior as a homeopathic dose of dioxin is likely to cure you of dioxin poisoning. What he really needs is a life experience that will change him for the better. I don't think that's prison, but I don't think that's therapy, either. I propose to force him into the peace corps.

Re:great ending

[MysteriousPreacher]

That's a load of shit. If the police are personally arsed by the offense they will put their own effort into it.

Sure, and the kid could die from "accidentally" falling down the stairs while in custody. Is what you describe likely in this case, and if so, why?

Police don't send people to prison. They send people to court (effectively) and the court sends them to prison, which it may well do for political reasons as well as logistic ones. It's only called a "justice" system.

Yes, you're technically correct - the best kind of correct. I was of course speaking colloquially. Neither the police nor the courts send people to some place named "Federal Pound Me in the Ass Prison". Is this kid likely to go to prison for political reasons?

Odds are the kid chose his victim based on the high likelihood of getting away with it even if caught.

Sure, or he chose his victim because he thought he'd never be caught. Who knows? Asking that the kid receive counselling is a good idea, and it seems that his parents are taking things seriously. I don't know if the kid has a habit of antisocial behaviour. Hopefully the confrontation and some counselling will set him straight.

The key word there...

[avatar139]

...being basically! As if a real I.T. genius would ever use basic!

Safety first

[Kohath]

This is why content delivery systems need to be licensed by governments. This wouldn't have happened if Twitter were prohibited because it's unlicensed.

It's a safety issue. Just like the license you need before you can drive your own car. Just like the license you need to be a barber. Or the permit that those kids should have gotten before the cops shut down their lemonade stand. Or the license that that guy in North Carolina needs to publish dietary advice on his blog. Or the law license that Elizabeth Warren doesn't need because she's one of the special people.

Leo Traynor should be ashamed for having an unlicensed conversation with his Troll. Is he a certified criminal counselor? He should have gotten the authorities involved, because they should always be involved. In everything.

Re:Safety first

[cheekyjohnson]

He should have gotten the authorities involved, because they should always be involved. In everything.

Precisely. Sadly, some people are perfectly willing to trade away safety for this 'freedom' nonsense. I honestly wish it was possible to have a TSA agent constantly breathing down everyone's necks; if that happened, we'd be perfectly safe from all the evil trolls, rapists, and terrorists! Oh, and copyright infringers (the most dangerous criminals of them all).

Safety first.

Re:Safety first

[circletimessquare]

Can't tell if you're a parody or serious

Re:Safety first

[demonlapin]

Ergo, GP post is a good example of an actual troll.

Re:Safety first

[TeamMCS]

I completely disagree, if you introduce licenses for content providers you suddenly raise the barrier of entry. In one fell swoop you'll push yet more communities underground and inhibit those little sparks of creative which begin an explosion.

Your sentiment I do agree with and we should think of ways to introduce accountability or self policing of some kind. It is simply almost impossible to remove negative/pseudo psychotic behaviour from any corner of the web, funnily enough it is a part of freedom we have to manage. Maybe the real answer here is to work with people to mitigate the effects trolls have.

Re:Safety first

[TeamMCS]

...That said, Twitter (et al) should be punished through existing legal means if they allow said trolls to run wild without giving the community a method to self manage

Re:Safety first

[The Master Control P]

If you don't see that that's a parody your sarcasm detector needs to be completely replaced.

Re:Safety first

[fa2k]

You trolled at least a couple of people, well done :)

Re:Safety first

[Turminder Xuss]

The irony is strong in this one.

Re:Safety first

[circletimessquare]

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe's_law

Re:Safety first

[cheekyjohnson]

Why? If their community doesn't like it, they can leave. No need to blame Twitter for someone else's actions.

Something doesn't sound right

[93 Escort Wagon]

"I was deliberately more provocative toward them than ever I'd been before."

This sentence makes me think that, however vile the "troll" could have turned out to be, this wasn't an entirely black-versus-white situation. I suspect this guy was being a jerk back at anyone who was a jerk to him, and it escalated further than he thought it would.

Re:Something doesn't sound right

[Hentes]

My account was followed by a fairly innocuous looking one which I followed back and within 10 minutes I had received a direct message (DM) calling me a "Dirty fucking Jewish scumbag". I blocked the account and reported it as spam. The following week it happened again in an identical manner. A new follower, I followed back, received a string of abusive DMs, blocked and reported for spam. Two or three times a week. Sometimes two or three times a day. An almost daily cycle of blocking and reporting and intense verbal abuse. So I made my account private and the problem went away for a short while.

He might not have been agressive, but he was definitely careless and a very slow learner.

Re:Something doesn't sound right

[MysteriousPreacher]

This sentence makes me think that, however vile the "troll" could have turned out to be, this wasn't an entirely black-versus-white situation. I suspect this guy was being a jerk back at anyone who was a jerk to him, and it escalated further than he thought it would.

It may not be as black and white as presented, but to extrapolate as you did is pure crystal ball gazing. On examining the entrails, I suspect that Traynor declined to involve the Gardai because Traynor had been conducting an affair with the kid's mother, which the kid threatened to reveal to the world. This would also explain why the kid was so aggressive.

Or perhaps Traynor had sometimes responded angrily, as many would do under similar circumstances, but had deliberately begun goading the kid in order to trap him.

Re:Something doesn't sound right

[jon3k]

Hard to know what that means without context. Sounds to me like he just dangled some very jewish statements out and let the psychos work up a lather about it.

Re:Something doesn't sound right

[multimediavt]

"I was deliberately more provocative toward them than ever I'd been before."

This sentence makes me think that, however vile the "troll" could have turned out to be, this wasn't an entirely black-versus-white situation. I suspect this guy was being a jerk back at anyone who was a jerk to him, and it escalated further than he thought it would.

Have you ever had a troll come after you? It all starts off as harmless verbal sparring and ALWAYS escalates. Trolls are like dogs with frisbees and just won't let go, especially when they are minors with no responsibilities, plenty of time on their hands and sociopathic tendencies. What you learn is to cut them off, like Leo tried to do, but some don't go away. Try having your own discussion board some time and be required to deal with trolls. I think your perspective on being a jerk would change dramatically. Plus, he was trying to bait the troll at that point to find him, duh! Just like the cops SHOULD have done way before he had to.

this is not trolling

[circletimessquare]

This is stalking

Its like calling arson vandalism

Identify the nature of the transgression correctly

I read this 4 days ago. Interesting nonetheless...

[Gordo_1]

A kid basically ruined the guy's life, essentially just for lulz -- or for lack of anything constructive to do with his time. Fortunately, the kid did not understand how traceable IP addresses are and he was caught and confronted. Most interesting part of it was that the kid really didn't seem to truly comprehend what devastation he was causing to another human being, because he did it all remotely from the safety of his computer.

Reality is that this is just an extreme example of what goes on daily on semi-anonymous message boards (like this one). If we all had to show our faces, I'm sure we'd be a little more civil toward one another. Personally, I don't think I run a very high risk of ending up in the situation that this guy was in, since I value my online anonymity too much. I realize that for many, the temptation to spread their personal misery is just too great, and so they troll, which is really just a cry for attention -- something they probably didn't get enough of growing up.

Anyway, enough pontificating. Queue the trolls...

Nothing new here, just new medium

[dbIII]

I tend to agree with that... how I read it is he was crying because he got caught, not because he realized his stalking was a bad idea.

See also the radio troll Alan Jones in Australia - very upset this weekend because he was caught the second time he said he publicly addressed a group of people with a comment about the Australian Leader's recently deceased father dying of shame. Stirring up a race riot a couple of years back and getting away with it probably made him think he could get away with anything.

Re:Nothing new here, just new medium

[bloodhawk]

It is bad enough the article doesn't understand what trolling is and mislabels the stalkers actions as trolling, please don't compound the issue by calling what Alan Jones does as trolling. He is obnoxious, insulting, abusive, rude but that doesn't make him a troll.

Re:Nothing new here, just new medium

[dbIII]

Since his role is insulting people to stir up trouble (eg. Cronulla riot) I think that makes him a troll in every way apart from the "on the internet" definition. If you disagree, fair enough, but that's my opinion.
Alan Jones is a relic of the time when pedophile teachers were quietly sacked instead of turned over to the police as soon as circumstantial evidence appeared. Whether he was guilty or not that infamy and sudden end of his teaching career turned him into someone that pre-emptively insults just about everyone to get a reaction, which must have been considered entertaining by the idiots that put him onto Sydney radio.

Re:Nothing new here, just new medium

[mikechant]

Since his role is insulting people to stir up trouble...

That's more like flamebait; trolling is *a bit* more subtle.

Re:First post

[Anonymous Coward]

What god? Cthulu hates everyone.

Fake

[TechnoGrl]

Yeah ... this is being pushed all over the web - likely by Traynor himself and it stinks of fakery.

1. Are we really to believe that Traynor and his wife get physicaly threatened for THREE years and Traynor does literally nothing about it? No restraining order after he finds out? He just decides to let it all go away.

2. Conveniently Traynor doesn't prosecute so there is no real record of this actually happening

3. How does Traynor's "genius" I.T. friend get an IP address from ...Facebook (wtf??) ? And how does he use that without a court order issued to an ISP to track it to a physical address?

4. After the very first drop off of a message and ashes at his doorstep Traynor NEVER puts up a cam so he never sees the OTHER TWO drop offs of messages on his doorstep? W.T.F.??! He lets at least two chances go by and NEVER goes to the police and files a report we can verify. Bogus /. has seen a LOT of Munchausen's by Internet over the years - from sad cancer tales that never were to stories of little children dying of diseases who never did and now this. It has fake written all over it and I SO wish someone would look closely at Traynor and get to the bottom of this.

Re:Fake

[drcagn]

Re: 4. He said he got a parcel, I'm assuming from the post. So no one dropped it off, it was delivered.

Re:Fake

[GeLeTo]

How does Traynor's "genius" I.T. friend get an IP address from ...Facebook (wtf??) ?

Quite easy. You post a status with a link that's only visible to the stalker. When he visits the link, you have his IP address.

Re:Fake

[tftp]

How does Traynor's "genius" I.T. friend get an IP address from ...Facebook (wtf??)

You publish an interesting link that points at your own server. Your stalker will inevitably visit. But I have no idea how to tell him apart from another 100,000 visitors and search bots.

And how does he use that without a court order issued to an ISP to track it to a physical address?

That is a good question. My own IP address geolocates to the city where my ISP has their HQ - that is not even close to where I live. The ISP won't tell anyone, I hope, unless presented with a sufficiently valid, legal request.

Conveniently Traynor doesn't prosecute so there is no real record of this actually happening

This is possible if Traynor is a meek, soft guy who cannot stand for what is dear to him - his family. By all indications, the whole story points in this direction. Any normal, red-blooded guy would sue the bastard into oblivion. Anything else would be just a slap on the wrist, enabling the stalker to continue his "games" with other people. He will only be more careful. His downfall was that he was stalking someone he knew. If only he was threatening an old lady in another town, nobody would ever find out. Even in this case the stalker could have said "No, it wasn't me, I don't know - but I had a virus on my computer a while ago, mayhaps that was it." The evil bastard got excellent training on this one, and the victim shook his hand and walked away.

After the very first drop off of a message and ashes at his doorstep Traynor NEVER puts up a cam so he never sees the OTHER TWO drop offs of messages on his doorstep? W.T.F.?

That's another item to prove that Mr. Traynor is a weak, technophobic person who just got lost when faced with true evil. The police was useless; they didn't even give him an advice like you did. Stuff the house with cameras, announce to the world that you are leaving on vacation - and you will attract the stalker to the house, sure bet.

It must be said, though, that Mr. Traynor is not alone in his dependence on "someone else" to solve his safety and security problems. In UK any other approach is worse than the threat. Maybe even setting up a camera will violate someone's rights. Most people in his shoes (about 100%) would be first scared. This is normal - we don't face crime every day. The question is only in what they do after they come to their senses - who they talk to (police, lawyers, private investigators, gun dealers, etc.) and what proactive measures they take. This guy did exactly nothing of value. In the SHTF situation he and his family would be among the first to go.

Re:Fake

[Psychotria]

If it's "fakery" and people all over the web fell for it, then that is the real troll ;)

Re:Fake

[Tastecicles]

It was delivered by *somebody*, whether courier or USPS.

Re:Fake

[TechnoGrl]

Had you read the actual article you would have discovered that he did NOT get the alleged IP address from an embedded web link but solely from Facebook. Had you any actual technical background at all you would know that the IP address is only part of the problem - you then have to get the ISP to translate that IP address to a customer physical name and address and THAT takes a court order - especially in Europe where privacy protections are far greater than here in the states.

But then again I would expect a troll who uses both ageism and misogynism in his post to support a likely troll like Traynor.

Re:Fake

[TechnoGrl]

Yes but consider that non-commercial IPs are almost always dynamic (surely the I.T. "genius" in Traynor's story would have told him this) and if you are going to confront your best friend's son over charges of heinous racism, threats of physical violence to himself and his wife, as well as terrorist packages sent to his door - all things that carry potentially long criminal sentences (especially in Europe) - would you REALLY do so over a dynamic I.P. or would you spend the extra week or two to confirm the link between IP address and physical address by a court order to the ISP?

Also are any of us seriously to believe that the father of the story-child's first reaction was to turn him over to the police? Just based on the word of his friend and NO other evidence (nothing from an ISP). Wouldn't you at least think maybe he would first get a lawyer for the kid maybe? It seems way too pat and easy - not to mention that the first thing the guy who has been terrorized for three years does to the kid is ... give him cookies? What/. The ? F.? !!!

One more thing. Traynor doesn't want the kid to go to jail, he wants to give him a second chance right? So what does Traynor do? He spreads this story ALL over the internet for two weeks - which maybe would carry the risk of the kid getting outed all over the internet and his life ruined. Does any of this make sense?

Come on we both have seen this thing before - attention seekers spreading stories of their fake exploits all over the internet. This one carries the double viral-inducing quality of rage at the terrorist story-kid combined with marvel at Traynor's saint-like goodness in giving the kid a second chance. It's all too pat and none of it makes sense. It's fake and I sure that will be proven in the days and weeks to come but by then Traynor will already have his 15 minutes of fame.

Re:Fake

[Rogerborg]

And then you find out the household that was using that IP address at that time by...?

Remember, Fantasy Man here assures us this his "basically an IT genius" friend did it "legally".

How?

yeah it seems to me this story is made up

[circletimessquare]

It's a nice moralistic story but it doesn't pass the smell test

Re:fable

[TaoPhoenix]

"There are a lot of people arguing that this whole story is a fable; the IT guy the author presents to defend his account is a feckless bullshitter. Basically it's a case of two guys who don't know that they don't know the technical difficulties in what they claim to have done. The whole thing is embarrassing and annoying."

Are we getting ... wait for it ... trolled? (Can I start a meme? Rick-Trolled?)

What's really out of whack is the sequence of events. So the cops can't find this guy, they're wringing their hands in helplessness. Along comes "An IT Genius" that traces the house by IP ... and the cops couldn't call any of their guys on the entire force to do that? However if the kid torrented a Song they would have found him pronto.

Re:First post

[binarylarry]

Cthulu want more brownies!

Re:IT'S CALLED BULLYING !!

[Anonymous Coward]

With a dash of terroristic threating thrown in. All perfectly NOT legal, even over here. This is something Usama taught us. Now get those shoes off, and let's see your pretty little thing in the booth.

This is a simple case.

[xor.pt]

The author is just too naive, or cowardly to deliver his friend's son with legal action.
In the end the author tries to spin this little story as a 'I'm the bigger man' tale instead.
The author is at this point just enabling him, like his parents.
This is a 17 year old who's in college. He's a danger to himself and others, and any additional damage caused by him will also be in the author's head.
What did he learn from this? Cry when you get caugh, and your actions have no consequences.

How is it even difficult?

[Kohath]

Post a link for a guy to click on. He clicks on it. It goes to a page you publish on your server. You look in the server logs. You know his IP address. Then you can find his city and possibly his neighborhood from that. And you know his ISP.

After that it can become more difficult. But it's hardly impossible. If a friend at the guy's ISP will do you a favor (the troll in the story is local), or if you can simply guess the right answer and check it, it's easy again. If you can read someone's cookies with a cross-site scripting vulnerability or trick them into installing malware, it's not going to be too hard to find them.

Re:How is it even difficult?

[jimicus]

You don't need to go that far.

It was pretty obvious the stalker was known to his victim. If he sent an email from home, the IP address of their router would be in the headers.

If there was an accurate entry in a geo IP database, that gives you the town.

Now, if you don't live anywhere near that town but you have a friend who does - sounds like a hell of a coincidence.

Re:How is it even difficult?

[Anonymous Coward]

Post a link for a guy to click on. He clicks on it. It goes to a page you publish on your server. You look in the server logs. You know his IP address. Then you can find his city and possibly his neighborhood from that. And you know his ISP.

After that it can become more difficult. But it's hardly impossible. If a friend at the guy's ISP will do you a favor (the troll in the story is local), or if you can simply guess the right answer and check it, it's easy again. If you can read someone's cookies with a cross-site scripting vulnerability or trick them into installing malware, it's not going to be too hard to find them.

You don't even have to have him click a link. Send an email with a web bug (1 pixel img), hosted on a server you have log access to, and when he reads it you have his IP. I'm not a hacking wizard but have actually managed to backtrack someone sending stalkish emails to a friend to the stalkers place of employment (which made identifying who it was obvious in this case) just using a simple web bug and traceroute.

Re:How is it even difficult?

[jcr]

Or you can just look for whoever's reading your blog far more than any other visitor. Your usual readers might hit your site daily or so. A stalker might be just about camped out on it.

-jcr

Re:How is it even difficult?

[InsectOverlord]

That's assuming he was not using a webmail (a pretty big assumption).

Re:How is it even difficult?

[jimicus]

Not necessarily a problem. Most web-based email systems put the public IP address of the client PC that sent the email in the headers somewhere.

Re:How is it even difficult?

[rohan972]

I've taken the IP address from infected emails and searched for it in my legitimate email. They were coming from my cousin's place. Having identifiable mail with the same IP makes it a lot easier and is probably what happened with this guy.

Re:How is it even difficult?

[Phroggy]

You don't even have to have him click a link. Send an email with a web bug (1 pixel img), hosted on a server you have log access to, and when he reads it you have his IP.

This doesn't work with modern email clients. Spammers can set the URL of the image to a unique ID code that's linked to your email address, so as soon as you load the image they've just confirmed that your email address is valid. We don't want that, so external images are blocked by default.

However, a decade ago this would have been more likely to work.

Mildly spurious

[jones_supa]

All the symbolic deliveries of ashes and dead roses was very romantic, but I guess that could happen. However, what's up with the "IT genius friend" part, who can somehow get the message senders' IP addresses and then trace them up to an accuracy of a house? I think the story got a bit twisted or is missing some information there.

Tech?

[mister_playboy]

This is pretty much the definition of Idle, is it not?

Cool story bro seem appropriate.

Typo?

[Anonymous Coward]

Queue the trolls...

It may be that you intended to use the homophone of the word, which would be typical. However, either form could be potentially valid semantically, despite having distinct meanings.

Either way, encountering this part of your comment effected my reaction.

Doubt exists....

[BigBadBus]

Read this

Re:Doubt exists....

[Doctor_Jest]

Interesting... while it is far-fetched and most likely a fusing of many stories into one "meta" story about trolling (though as I've pointed out elsewhere in the thread that 'trolling' isn't what this blog entry describes), I am now more curious about the details than I was initially reading it (I was not convinced the "IT genius" was using legal means to track the perp... I just thought they got lucky, considering.)

At the very least your link provides some doubt to the veracity of the claims made by Traynor. That should be enough healthy skepticism to invalidate the entire story, to be honest.

Re:Doubt exists....

[TaoPhoenix]

Echoing a post of mine elsewhere.

Isn't trolling the theme of making up something designed to get people riled up?

Your article does a much better job of detailing the raw concerns I touched on above - I too noticed big problems with the police aspect.

Happened to me in high school.

[Chrontius]

Happened to me in high school.

I blocked at least a dozen AIM accounts a night for weeks (maybe months); I can be fortunate there was no "twitter" then, nor this "book of faces", and that smartphones were this exciting new thing Handspring was just introducing to the market that nobody could afford.

Then I got two unsolicited copies of the TSR novel "Death of the Dragon" in the mail - this may have been an error by a small book distributor I did business with, so I can't be sure -- but "Dragon" was part of the IM name I used at the time, and I could never be sure. I still have both copies, and I haven't read either. I don't actually think I even touched either after I put them on the bookshelf those years ago.

Then the fella proved himself grossly incompetent, and threatened to beat me to death. In a public library, where I "was", he was "behind" me. I was sitting at a desk, at home, with a baseball bat within arms' reach. I mocked him for the rest of the night, and then it ended. He failed. Epically. His confrontation... wasn't.

But I'm not in high school any more. I spent the next couple years reading books like "Shooting To Live" and "Kill or Get Killed". I took years of aikido, tae kwon do, and studied a few forms of swordplay for a few more years. I carry a gun, and enough ammo to get through the statistically average civilian-defense gunfight, and then a little more. Sometimes, more than one. I'm seriously considering building some ghetto-but-effective body armor. (Steel rifle plates went out of style because they're heavy and unconcealable, but they offer an awful lot of protection). I don't carry a gun because I expect to get in a fight; I carry because I don't expect to get in a fight. If I expected one, I'd simply send a SWAT team in my stead, and sip Starbucks in the mobile command center. (No police department takes documentable, documented conspiracy to commit murder lightly in this age of lawsuits!) I don't sit with my back to the door at restaurants any more, I know what phrases like "condition yellow" mean, and I look for the bulge of a poorly-concealed weapon now when someone walks into the gas station while I'm fueling up.

Fortunately, for the most part, I don't mind living like this. In practice, 98% of the time, it just means I can make unplanned trips to the gun range without going home for weapons. And - unlike most liberals - I know a secret: The shooting sports are fun. I hesitate to say it, but it's a blast to put 20 shots into a single hole not any bigger than a nickel; mastery for its own sake is one of the most rewarding things.

But somewhere, deep down, I know and cannot forget: I found this thing I enjoy because someone threatened to kill me in a public place, in front of witnesses, and get away with it. And other geeks may not get through it as well as I did. I may enjoy the trappings, but I wouldn't want to put anyone through the scary parts on the way to where I am today.

Let us not mistake this for an isolated incident; it is not. Let us not mistake it for something new; it is not. Let us not allow this to happen again; it should not.

Re:Happened to me in high school.

[shoemilk]

I don't sit with my back to the door at restaurants any more,

Wild Bill Hickok is that you?!

Re:Happened to me in high school.

[circletimessquare]

it seems like you beat the monster by becoming him

Re:Happened to me in high school.

[fustakrakich]

More than a bit irrational in your rabid anti self defense spiel, aren't you? You are one of those types who tell the rape victim to relax, don't resist, just lie down, and enjoy it.

Re:Happened to me in high school.

[circletimessquare]

i dunno. you're the stalker, it seems like you would have experience with your scenario

Re:Happened to me in high school.

[fustakrakich]

No, I only respond to you when you say particularly stupid shit. Which seems to be more often than not. Sometimes I like feeding trolls like you, no, excuse me, flamebaiters (flamer for short) like you for the money shot. If I were stalking, I would go after everything you post and seek you out. But since you do appear to be lucid and semi coherent sometimes, there's no need for that.

Re:Happened to me in high school.

[circletimessquare]

whatever is source of your frustrations in real life, try to focus your awesome sense of judgment and keen punitive abilities on that, rather than random people on the internet

thaaanks dude

Re:Happened to me in high school.

[phantomfive]

It's a little worrisome that you've bought into this self-defense thing so much that you are considering wearing body armor everywhere you go. Statistically speaking you will never see an average civilian gunfight. But in any case kevlar is cheap, you can get a real vest instead of some ghetto body armor. It will be better.

Re:Happened to me in high school.

[fustakrakich]

Word!

Re:Happened to me in high school.

[radish]

Wow. Paranoid much? I hope you don't drive, eat red meat or smoke. Because all of those things are waaaaay more likely to kill you than some nutjob with a gun (unless you count yourself - people shoot themselves accidentally with worrying frequency!). Best take a parachute next time you fly as well...

Re:Happened to me in high school.

[Chrontius]

Perhaps I wasn't clear (I wrote that at something like 4AM local time; it's not exactly my best writing) - I did not mean for wearing everywhere I go. I meant for leaving under the bed in case those books were sent deliberately, and not accidentally; if that's the case, the guy has my address.* I'm not sure if the library thing was his way of some kind of cop-out; it could have been genuine incompetence and coincidence, or it could have been some way to end the confrontation while still coming off as though he would have gone through with it had he identified me correctly.

Statistically speaking, I will never see a gunfight, and if I ever do, it will be too soon. I'd be perfectly happy to have "wasted" that investment. If nothing else, I'll enjoy shooting bowling pin matches after work, I guess.

*(The books came from the same shop as, and shortly after, an order I placed. I could have simply gotten the book someone else ordered by mistake, and the one the bookseller sent when the other customer complained they never got their reading material. Or, they could have been purchased as a "gift" for me by my troll. I doubt I'll ever be able to know conclusively how they ended up on my doorstep.)

Re:Happened to me in high school.

[Chrontius]

AC, first, I'd like to thank you for serving our nation. (Or your nation, if we don't share one; it's still quite a patriotic decision.)

I'd consider ceramic plates if I actually expected to get shot at. (As mentioned above, I'll statistically never need either weapon or armor.) Actually, I'd probably go with polymer plates; despite the bulk, they're a couple pounds lighter than ceramic and I hear they don't tend to shatter when hit by rifle fire (though, they are terribly expensive). Steel rifle plates are something like 20 pounds each, but if you're only going to wear them for five adrenaline-fueled minutes after you hear someone kick down your front door, I think I could live with that weight. I appreciate the voice of experience, however; if you think they'd be more burden than is prudent, I'd like to know.

Re:Happened to me in high school.

[Chrontius]

Most of the time I'm happy to live a boring life, knowing I'm doing my civic duty to deter strongarm criminals from working in my city. Some of them are smart enough to avoid targeting well-armed populations, as the odds don't tend to favor a long career as a professional crook. I think I'll just quote this: "In 1966, the city of Orlando responded to a wave of sexual assaults by offering firearms training classes to women. Rapes dropped by nearly 90% the following year." Source is either the DOJ or a study by the University of Chicago; this footnote is a little ambiguous. The Bureau of Justice Statistics reports the same thing occurred in Texas when concealed carry was legalized; a 93% drop compared to the rest of the nation the first year, and 500% the second. I conclude that well-armed populations get left alone, {sarcasm}and my civic duty is to help my friends and neighbors be left alone.{/sarcasm} Traffic safety, I can't do much about that beyond driving safely. Other than that, I vote in local elections for the candidate promising to fix roads, or with a track record of doing so - I do what I can.

Red meat's attendant risks can be offset via not overindulging and staying in shape. It's not the only way to get enough iron in your diet, but it's certainly the tastiest.

I'd debate your "worrying frequency", as well. Firearm accidents account for 0.8% of all accidental deaths, according to the CDC in 2001 (pardon the age of my data, it's what I have it hand). There were 800 accidental firearm deaths in 2001, and the number has been continuously falling since 1981 with the exception of one puzzling spike in 1993. Most of these are hunting accidents* along the lines of Dick Cheney's incident with his lawyer.

*(Gary Kleck, “Targeting Guns: Firearms and Their Control”, 1997, pages 293-324)
**(And no, I don't smoke.)

Re:Happened to me in high school.

[phantomfive]

Uh, didn't that happen a long time ago? Are you still worried this guy is going to try to kill you?

Re:Happened to me in high school.

[Chrontius]

It did. I'm no longer worried about him. That's mostly the product of a nagging worry, which is under most circumstances dormant; most months I never think about this once. However, in the last day or so as a result of reading about Leo's ordeal, it all seems quite fresh in my memory - which is unavoidably going to color my normal responses.

In a week, I hope to once again believe that body armor is a silly way to spend a bunch of money, but that hit a little close to home.

Re:Happened to me in high school.

[phantomfive]

I guess I can understand. I got punched in the face once, and the emotional memory of that stayed with me. For a long time, whenever a car drove by me on a lonesome street, I was worried that the driver would shoot me (or throw an egg or something) as he went by. After time of ignoring that feeling (that is, doing what I wanted), it went away, and I no longer worry.

Re:Happened to me in high school.

[gmhowell]

History is written by the winners. Typically that's the guy who brought a gun to a fistfight.

Re:Happened to me in high school.

[alexo]

Fortunately, for the most part, I don't mind living like this

How about your wife/girlfriend? Does she mind?

An example of a "crack" in learning culture.

[beachdog]

I am exploring the hypothesis that motor skill development in children, and in particular, the failure of certain children to learn certain motor skills lays the groundwork for the later development of toxic and unhealthy behaviours such as harassment described in the original post and related behaviours such as bullying, a recently widely reported socially destructive behaviour.

What do I mean by "explore a hypothesis"? I work with severely disabled kids. Kids that have huge time delay around a simple task like holding a pencil and making a mark on a sheet of paper. This has lead me to observe non-disabled elementary school kids and the extreme rapidity where every month every child develops new abilities to play games. Kids quickly move from "throw it to me" to performing screen passes and showing new control as they play basketball.

The same learning process, in public school, trails off into disorder and incompleteness in matters of moving from motor skills to social skills like befriending and interacting socially in a group at lunch. Some kids stand in clusters, trying to figure out how to get and give attention. Other kids are silent. All of them floundering around gradually falling into a gelled relationship. Whatever that relationship is, it is not formally a part of "school" (but I see the same processes taking place as when I went to elementary school some 50 years ago). The capability of making a friend, being a friend and being able to keep becoming socially healthy is something of great importance and real delicacy.

The hypothesis applies to this kid and this cruel trolling or harassment like this: many years beforehand this person failed to learn some motor skill, then failed to pick up the game, then failed to learn the ideas and rules embedded in the game. When his motor skill apparatus had matured to the point where he was able to engage in sophisticated motor skill planning he lacked an adequate experience and capability base to conduct himself in a constructive manner.

The past few years it seems like lots and lots of kids are getting to their high school and college years and displaying highly developed motor skills and planning skills with a really grave absence of the high level part of culture. Are the number of socially deficient young people greater now than in past years? I don't know.

I feel tracing the bad social behaviour back to motor skill acquisition in elementary school points to a way to address the behaviour problem at it's inception.

 

Re:An example of a "crack" in learning culture.

[drinkypoo]

The problem with your idea is that there's kids who are physically damaged who can't play certain games who nonetheless grow up to be healthy and functioning members of society. There's ways to socialize that don't involve structured games. I was never really into them (though I did play four square with other kids, on purpose) but I did great socially until middle school. I was in sixth grade with the kids I'd been with since kindergarten on one side of town, and then we moved to the other side of town and I went straight into a middle school in the middle of the school year with a bunch of kids I didn't know, and I was different. Disaster ensued and from then on school was suffering for me and I was the very lowest man on every totem pole in four schools thereafter, counting that one which I got kicked out of, and then my first high school which I also got kicked out of.

I think that it's social trauma that causes social withdrawal which leads to further social withdrawal.

There was just a clipping posted to G+ where people were complaining about the suspension of a teacher who asked a fat kid if he ate his [missing] homework, right up until I pointed out that bullying begins with the teachers and the administration and works its way down. I was singled out for verbal abuse for my lack of participation in school from sixth grade on, but my lack of participation was due to the massive abuse I was receiving from the other students... which was encouraged by the attitude of the faculty. My self-esteem didn't really recover until I was in my late twenties. I moved to Texas and was thus able to re-invent myself. By the time I came back everyone who had been a problem was working at Wal-Mart or similar, or they themselves had grown up and realized what a festering little piece of shit they had been.

I trace the bad social behavior back to bad social behavior on the part of others, encouraged by bad social behavior on the part of the faculty. Since they're the adults in the situation, they bear the lion's share of the responsibility. If you think there's no more important job that you can do than parenting, try teaching, where you have the chance to fuck up thirty kids at once.

It's not trolling

[thetoadwarrior]

He's was being a complete dick. I hope his parents neuter him.

Article is most likely a fake.

[Qbertino]

The article is most likely a fake.
Tracking someones home simply by having an IP adress with no help from the ISP and various legal procedures? Yeah, sure.
*Not* going to the police over physical world death-threats? Yeah, sure.

I bet money that this is a fabricated news story by a loony pseudo journalist. Or that Leo Traynor simply doesn't exist. There are accounts on the interweb that indicate this.

Re:Article is most likely a fake.

[Sique]

You didn't read the article thoroughly. He went to the police. Twice. And you don't know who the IT genius guy knows at the local ISPs.

Re:Xbox 360

[Interfacer]

360 degrees means you're looking directly at the xbox again ...

Who the hell is Leo Taynor, and why do I care?

[JamesTKirk]

I've never heard of this guy. He's supposed to be a "writer", but the only thing I can find about him is his blog, and this article which he's managed to get plastered everywhere. Why do I care that his neighbor's kid was harassing him?

Humans are difficult..

[fa2k]

It's people like this (troll) who make it hard to argue for universal free speech. So we're stuck with some lame subjective standard for harassment.

You have all been Trolled.

[Tastecicles]

Leo Traynor is a fiction. Apparently he has lived in no less than seventeen countries over the past eight years, including some of the most politically unstable regions on the planet; more that he has managed to stay still long enough to gain a DPhil in international politics (no school anywhere has any record of him), that he has worked for all three main parties in the UK as a press liaison officer (yet no mention of him in the Press, ever). That he has worked for both parties in the US as a Press liaison officer (ditto). His story is so full of holes you could drain chips with it.

Leo Traynor, you are a bullshitter.

Re:You have all been Trolled.

[Anonymous Coward]

Leo Traynor's BS Exposed

Re:You have all been Trolled.

[valentinas]

Quick Google search gives no results from earlier than 2012 related to him (and 99% of results is that troll story). Is this meta, or what? Quick, someone write an article "How a troll trolled about trolling a troll"!

Re:You have all been Trolled.

[Tastecicles]

yes which is precisely why that same paper is censoring comments on the online copy to exclude those which it deems counter to the delusion.

Isn't it sad when so many people can see this shit coming from a mile off, yet the media insists it's genuine?

Re:You have all been Trolled.

[alexo]

Please mod parent up

Appropriate Response

[Millennium]

If you've ever seen very young puppies playing, you know that it's not as cute as it sounds. There's yelping and pain, and often even blood as the puppies bite one another mercilessly. But as the days and weeks pass, that stops; by being bitten, the puppies learn that biting hurts. It takes a little while, and is perhaps not the most pleasant of methods, but it's what their minds can process.

Some people are the same way. It's a cruel thing to force a bully (or its net-cousin, the troll) to look in the mirror and see what they've really done; what they really are. It messes with a person's head in a way that those who haven't experienced it cannot understand. But many of them legitimately NEED that kind of cruelty; it's the language they speak, the stimulus they know how to sense.

It's still cruel, mind you; it shouldn't be shied away from, but it shouldn't be glorified or looked forward to either. Sometimes it's not even possible, especially in the age of the Internet. But when it can be done, I'd call it preferable to bringing in the authorities. It's less wasteful, on account of not throwing up lifelong obstacles for the troll to overcome, and when properly applied it hurts worse than the law would allow our authorities to inflict anyway. Justice and vengeance, all wrapped up in a nice, neat package.

On the subject of 'bullies'

[SternisheFan]

These.trolls are just modern bullies, plain and simple. After being bullied throughout my childhood, at age 19, I've learned the 'trick' about bullies, Many have tried to bully me in the 30plus years since and I've allowed only one to succeed, a former girlfriend's twin sister, a 'special case. Allow me to relate how I lrearned about bullies.

One beautiful Sunday morning in Queens, N.Y., I am in my car, parked along a nice open-field park. It's,for the 19 year old me, a great morning! I'm enjoying my coffee and breakfast sandwich while listening to a great Dr. Demento show on the radio, and all is right in my world. Until I look in my rearview mirror and see something that doesn't 'fit' with my perfect morning. It's a straight road and far behind me a van is parked, and there are three young men around the driver's door, and they are yelling a great deal. I want to ignore this and go back to my Sunday comics, but I'm bothered by not knowing what to do. More upset that it's ruining my perfect morning,, I get out and walk a beeline course straight to them, not knowing what I'm going to do, but I do know what's happening is wrong.

The last 40 feet, one of the guys notice me, and the leader of their group walks tough up to me, words are exchanged. And yes, I am scared. He's bigger than I am, and if it came to a fight I'd lose. But a few weeks earlier I'd heard somewhere that when it comes to bullies, never show fear. Never 'back' from a bully, not even in your eye. They will sense your fear, once you show fear, the fight's over, you've already lost, and you may as well lay down and 'take your beating'. So when the tough moves toward me, I don't move, words get exchanged. I mention coolly (in my best Clint Eastwood voice) that three on one isn't fair, and that I'm just here to "even up the odds." And an amazing thing happened. He backed down, unsure of what I might know. They walk off, I check the driver who has a pretty girlfiend in his passenger seat. Ask if he's ok, he says "Yeah, thanks.", I walk back to my car feeling shaky from the adrenaline effect, and go back to my fine Sunday morning, feeling kind of good about the way that episode turned out.

I learned that day that bullies are mostly hot air, and also that I'm a pretty damn good 'bluffer'. It's a poker game, really. That bully didn't know me, and I acted confidant enough so that he felt I wasn't worth the risk, and 'folded' his hand. I've used this 'never show fear to a bully' technique throughout my life, and it works on some of the biggest guys! Now, there are situations where "walking away" is what a man must do, not all confrontations 'need' to be 'won', and some can't be won, best to leave. But know your local laws so you don't get arrested a lot. This post may get modded down, or off-topic. I'm typing it in so maybe some young man or woman reading this will be helped if they ever have dealings with a bully. They come in all shapes, sizes and types in life. 'Trolls should be treated the same way, never let 'em see you sweat.

Re:On the subject of 'bullies'

[SternisheFan]

Good job!

Bullying behavior is fairly standard, and so standard techniques work against them.

I also find they are easily intimidated by shining group attention on them. Dark people don't like sunlight.

I once had somebody hang a grisly package on my door knob because I'd stood up to them on a previous occasion. My first impulse was to immediately get rid of it, to hide that it had happened, but instead I didn't touch it or remove it, but let it hang there all day for all the other apartment occupants to walk by and see, and I told everybody I knew about it. By the end of the day, everybody was buzzing. I also told the apartment building managers. The offending person moved away soon after, not just from the building, but from the community.

I'm sure they still hate me, but who cares? Nobody likes bullies and they squander their social currency in a healthy community. Normal people out-number sickos.

Excellent, Nicely played! You handled that very well, because they don't like everyone to know. That's how they work, through fear and intimidation. Very hard to bully when there are witnesses, takes the wind out of their sails real quick.

One thing I should've put in my post was, to use a Clint Eastwood line, "A man's got to know his limitations." You have to be careful with some folks, not everyone is 'dealing with a full deck'. And nowaday's you don't know if someone's on medication, or is really deranged. Usually, go with your gut. Your gut doesn't usually lie to you.

And if you get a gang on you, don't even pay attention to any underlings, focus on the leader only. If he folds, the other's usually will too. But I like your public humiliation technique,

Re:Xbox 360

[drinkypoo]

They call it the Xbox 360 because when you see it, you turn 360 degrees and walk right back the way you came!

I assume you're meant to moonwalk on your outbound trip. I thought that was a Genesis game...

Re:I read this 4 days ago. Interesting nonetheless

[LourensV]

If we all had to show our faces, I'm sure we'd be a little more civil toward one another. Personally, I don't think I run a very high risk of ending up in the situation that this guy was in, since I value my online anonymity too much.

That's an interesting case of Prisoner's Dilemma there. If everyone is anonymous, nobody can stalk anybody, but there will be relatively many rude people. If only some people are anonymous (and potentially rude) and others aren't (and are civil), then the civil folks run the risk of being stalked by anonymous rude people. If nobody is anonymous, nobody can stalk anybody, at least not while escaping punishment, and we'll have fewer rude people.

In the Prisoner's Dilemma, there are several solutions to this. One is having an external authority that keeps both prisoner's from talking. Another strategy that works well (in the sense of fostering cooperation) is tit-for-tat with random altruism, where in each round of Prisoner's Dilemma you cooperate if the other person cooperated with you in the previous one, and betray if they betrayed you, except that you occasionally give them a break and cooperate even if they betrayed you. This latter feature keeps the system from getting stuck in endless loops of betrayal. The analogues in the case of Internet anonymity would be a real-name policy, and letting users selectively share their personal information with others. Note that for the user to follow the tit-for-tat strategy, users have to know that it's the same person who betrayed them last time, so you can't have multiple accounts per person (another reason for a real-name policy). Of course, there are also good valid uses of anonymity and anonymous speech, and there should be a place for them as well.

I realize that for many, the temptation to spread their personal misery is just too great, and so they troll, which is really just a cry for attention -- something they probably didn't get enough of growing up.

Exactly, and that is why the solution that Traynor chose is the right solution, and it's quite admirable that he did so. But even if all he would consider would be self-interest, this would have been the correct solution. Prisons and other punishment don't solve the problem of crime in a society. They just repress the symptoms, and they deflect and channel feelings of revenge into something more civilised than a lynching. If you actually want to solve the crime problem, you have to prevent people from becoming criminals, because once they are there is very little you can do to turn them into good citizens again. That means keeping a very close eye on 12-18 year olds who are running with the wrong crowd, who live in unstable families, and so on, and intervening where necessary. Keep them on the straight during puberty and adolescence, make sure they finish school and find a job and start a family, that's basically all you have to do (see also the recent find-hackers-girlfriends item). And for the ones for which it's too late, and the ones with mental disorders, well, so far prisons and closed institutions is the best we can do it seems. But if Traynor had had this kid sent to prison, the kid would have been out in a couple years, and would probably have got right back into stalking people or worse. The path he chose to take gives Traynor a much better chance of never having to deal with this again.

Re:fable

[am 2k]

So the cops can't find this guy, they're wringing their hands in helplessness. Along comes "An IT Genius" that traces the house by IP ... and the cops couldn't call any of their guys on the entire force to do that?

As far as I've heard from friends and experienced myself, the cops don't give much of a shit unless child porn or something similar is involved, or you lead them at the person who did it yourself.

I don't buy it

[DL117]

This story makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, and I see basically two possibilities:

1.The events described, as a whole, actually happened, but the technical issues described(finding the IP and hacking the facebook page) were misinterpreted by the author.
2. The entire thing is false.

I don't know which one it is, personally I think the latter as it sounds implausible and reads like a work of fiction.

The claim of the "IT genius friend" finding the house from the IP obviously makes no sense for two reasons:

1.Twitter and Facebook do not reveal their user's IPs, nor do most email services. Depending on the blog host, it's possible he could have found the IP there, but obviously there would be no way to be sure it was the same as the stalker(troll is the wrong word) on FB and Twitter.
2.Converting the IP to a physical address obviously is not possible without cooperation from the ISP. The author claims that his friend was able to deduce not one, not two, but THREE physical addresses from the IP addresses, including his friend's house. I don't see an ISP doing that without police or court involvement first, as giving a customer's physical location out opens them up to significant liability.

The overall story appears false as it is practically written to appeal to those who fear young people using computers. "His son was glued to the computer...couldn't watch TV without tweeting" "engrossed in conspiracy sites". This reads like a work of fiction pushing an agenda, an anti-youth, anti-internet hit piece.

When I started writing this post, I honestly wasn't sure which of the two possibilities was true, whether the author misconstrued the events or whether the whole thing was a hoax. Having re-read the article a few times now, I'm sure this is false and a hoax, and I hope it is exposed.

Re:I don't buy it

[DL117]

I just read the link to the blog, where he claims a public available geolocation site was used, that is obviously false since anyone who has ever tried plugging their IP into one of these knows it can only give you a very broad location, city-level.

Re:I don't buy it

[j_2048]

Does seem somewhat calculated to trigger outrage.
On his actual blog he attempts an explanation of the IP tracking by saying it is similar to a method described here:
http://evertb.wordpress.com/2012/09/26/tracking-a-troll/
but the method described is far from convincing.

Re:I don't buy it

[j_2048]

I get a location with accuracy to about 800km.

Re:I don't buy it

[wordsnyc]

Apart from the implausible IP tracking to house-level, the whole story itself screams fake. As someone said, it's a Lifetime movie. Do you really believe that a 17-yr old would put together a box of ashes with a note about Auschwitz as a way to terrorize his parents' friend? Most kids that age, sadly, have never heard of Auschwitz. Why is there no online record of the author's "bait" to the kid (web page, blog, whatever)? He claims to have been driven off twitter, but his twitter acct is a week old. Where's his old acct? What was the handle? Everything is mysteriously unverifiable, even though none of it would reveal the kid's identity.

IT"S ALL BULLSHIT, and half the friggin net has fallen for this stupid fairytale.

But wait, it gets better. I first saw Traynor's story in a link pushed on twitter by a Guardian reporter in Ireland. I asked him if he could vouch for its veracity. No reply. A day later, Traynor's essay was reposted as a personal essay in ... the Guardian. It got several hundred comments, only a few of which were skeptical. From personal experience in the comments thread and the comments of a few other readers it was apparent that the Guardian was deleting at least some comments that cast doubt on Traynor's story.

At this point I strongly suspect that that Guardian reporter is either the real author or is working with "Traynor" to boost his career.

Re:I don't buy it

[tibit]

At this point I can't but agree. Either the original article is very poorly written, or it's just fiction. The kid supposedly started harassing him when he was 15. Yeah, there are plenty of sickos even younger than that, but they don't act quite that way most of the time AFAIK. How the fuck does one get his Facebook account "hacked"?! I keep hearing this and all I can come up with that they used some trivial password that took 10 manual tries to figure out for someone who knows the target, or that the same password was reused on many sites, one of which has a breach. Hacked, to me, means that the perp either rooted (or otherwise had control over) the machine the target used to log in to FB, or that they got access to FB's very own password database and managed to brute-force the surely hashed and salted password hash to recover the plaintext password. Doesn't sound very plausible unless you the target is routinely using public workstations, and the perp can simply attach a keylogger a bit in advance.

Re:First post

[Millennium]

God also hates bullies: 2 Kings 2:23-24

This is fake

[hessian]

Sorry to burst bubbles, but this overly dramatic and sappy story is obviously designed for readership consumption and to get famous. It's 100% fake, doubled-down vague on details.

Re:This is fake

[wordsnyc]

One good question is why the Guardian chose to print this with absolutely no verification. The guy claims to have called the cops twice. There would be a record of that. And so on. Of course, the fact that the earliest known mention/promotion of this story on Twitter came from a Guardian reporter poses interesting possibilities. Paging Jason Blair....

Warning signs

[Anonymous Coward]

Young people setting fires, torturing animals, and yes sending threats via computer are obvious sing of psychopathic personalities. I predict the boy will eventually cause serious harm to someone.

Re:Merciful to a wicked is wicked to the merciful

[SternisheFan]

Mr Traynor has made a grave mistake. Merciful to a wicked is wicked to the merciful. Hopefully the next victim of the little shitface will also have an IT Genius friend. Reporting the little shit to GARDA would have been THE RIGHT THING.

I respectfully disagree. He showed 'mercy' to the confused young man, an admirable quality. Whether ot not this story actually happened, just because you 'can' seek retribution does not mean you always 'should'. That boy learned an important lesson, and the situation ended., that was what the man wanted. You don't always get 'justice' in life. And sometimes, people who seek out revenge oftentimes turn into a worse person for it. I've had times when I would have been entirely 'justified' in making someone's life worse by seeking 'righteous justice', instead I forgave them. It lifts a heavy negativeness off of me by forgiving. The people I forgive may still be the same, that really doesn't impact my life at all, I've found. But I can tell myself, "I'm SO glad I'm not like THAT person!" It helps me to get a sense of satisfaction, knowing I didn't allow myself to become another fool who shouts to anyone who'll listen, "But, I was right!" They let their sense of needing to be 'right' eat away at the good inside them, leaving them bitter and angry. That's not who I choose to be.

Trolling? Bullying!

[Opportunist]

That's basically what this guy was, a bully. He was picking out someone he deemed weaker, he looked for a trigger that he could push to make his victim cower in fear and he went for it. That's the same shit that has been going down schoolyards for ages now.

The only reason this gets some attention is that it can happen to someone of voting age.

Understanding

[loufoque]

Did the guy ever try to understand what drove this "Internet troll" to hate/despise him so much, or did he just assume it was baseless racism and he was crazy?

The Authoritarian Personality

[microbox]

A good beating will modify the behaviour of anyone dramatically.

Evidence shows that punishment like this only modifies behaviour whilst the threat continues. Remove the threat, and you'll find nothing changed. This has been very precisely studied.

Medieval crowd control methods as practised by the Catholic Church and Vlad the Impaler, still work just as efficiently today, as it did back then.

Gee... you must be an authoritarian personality. People are different. They are not all like you. Most are not like you. You cannot project your experience of life onto others. Perhaps medieval crowd control would be good for you -- but for the rest of us, it will just create a spiral of violence. Like the violence in medieval times.

Re:The Authoritarian Personality

[A nonymous Coward]

Or else YOU'VE been trolled. Your sarcasm detector is out of tune.

Re:The Authoritarian Personality

[skovnymfe]

So you keep showing up at his house and beat him up from time to time, just to make sure the message sticks, yah?

Re:The Authoritarian Personality

[microbox]

Yeah, yeah, got it. Have spent so much time reading right-wing-nut blogs that I'm failing to see parody from sane people. (Authoritarians used to be split between dems and GOP, but that was the old days.)

Re:Conspiracy sites

[PPH]

Or the kid did a bit of research and figured out what would push Traynor's buttons. He doesn't necessarily have to believe it. He just has to know what will get someone's goat.

it doesn't always end that way

[roc97007]

Whether the story is true or an attention grab, what occurs to me is that the end is unusual and in some ways unrealistic. It depends on the troll having some decency in them that they had not managed to suppress by their hatred or disdain of their quarry.

Yes, it is possible to track down an harasser. I've done it. (It was a team effort, and the guy eventually lost his job and will probably never work in that field again.) It needs to be someone who can manipulate the tools without knowing how they operate, and without the knowledge and experience to adequately cover their tracks. Lots of people are full of venom but not intelligence.

The thing is, just telling them what kind of person you are and how badly they hurt you is, if anything, added motive to (in my opinion) the great majority of scum out there. They don't care who you are, and the fact that they've caused you pain is invigorating. Making the world crash down on them is in most cases the only solution.

In this particular case (again, if true and not just a marketing effort), given that the troll was the son of a friend, confronting the kid with parents present is a necessary first step, but I'd be surprised as hell if it worked. Real life is seldom so accommodating.

Seriously? Jayson Blair wannabe!

[nicoleb_x]

What a crock of shit.

Sociopath

[FlynnMP3]

The thing that gets me about this story is the "IT genius" family. We are told basically nothing about them other than it consists of a husband, wife, and 17 year old son. We are told that the father did notice his son always being online and never watching TV. Didn't they start to suspect something was up with their son? If this boy truly does lack any empathy it would of shown up prior to this incident.

The story just doesn't go deep enough to provide context to the boy's actions. Yeah, taken at face value, that was easily premeditated harassment and deserves some kind of punishment. If his brain is lacking in chemicals that keep him from realizing what wrong he is doing, then it needs to be treated. Everybody deserves a shot at happiness in their lives.

Re:I read this 4 days ago. Interesting nonetheless

[32771]

Ruining somebodies life via the Internet, eh? I could say something like, "if that is possible you didn't have a life to begin with". Unfortunately, some of us are forced to use the internet via sites like Facebook and Twitter since the aggregate number of users there has become so large it has become sensible to attach your commercial interests to it.

Beyond that I do value my semi-anonymity here at slashdot and think people here are more civil than you portait them to be. I did meet bigger assholes in real life.

Re:Internet TROLLS = whimps & wusses

[Ash-Fox]

That's my "take" on it, & everyone here pretty much KNOWS I have my own personal "troll psycho-stalker fanclub"

Cool story, bro. :>

I suspect it's only a SINGLE fool though

For the hive mind!

Geeks are PRONE to "geek angst" when you "shoot them down" in errors... & they seek "revenge" via trolling (or as is often done here on /., downmodding posts & running - no justifications whatsoever that are vaild are offered either!)

Exactly! Like when you post "TLDR" to a post, you get rewarded with another TLDR post and a guy posting that you should answer him to disprove the facts on his TLDR post on all your other Slashdot replies!

Now, some of these "trolls" that stalk me CALL ME A TROLL... well, all I can say to that, is this:

I call you "The hosts file guy".

I thought the same thing.

[i286NiNJA]

But it's feasible that the author's statements that he baited the troll on might indicate he used some sort of honeypot to get the troll to cough up his IP address. As far as getting him to reveal his ACTUAL location, it seems like it might take a lot to get him to do it even once. But three times? I have to admit this would be quite a stretch without maybe some sort of actual hacking or something. But maybe he did indeed bait the troll into somehow installing something on his machine, that'd be illegal and he couldn't ever write about that, he'd have to sanitize his story a bit. Also the geolocation site could be something, If I had a friend who lived in a relatively small city in ireland and an IP showed up there. I might ask my friend... "hey this isn't your IP is it?" especially if my antagonist seemed to know a lot about me. But why your father's friend??? It's not like there aren't an endless supply of superior trolling targets on the internet, though I have encountered these sorts of trolls in the past, really angry and abrasive but not actually funny.

I think your points are hard to argue with though.

Antisocial Personality Disorder & Conduct Diso

[Guppy]

Fun fact, per the DSM-IV Sociopathy, or actually Antisocial Personality Disorder, as it's now known, can't be diagnosed before age 18.

Technically correct, because the childhood version has its own separate equivalent, known as Conduct Disorder, in which the criteria are appropriately tailored for the characteristics of younger individuals. Note that the criteria list for Antisocial Personality Disorder includes an item for past history of Conduct Disorder, too.

Re:The kid is crazy

[wordsnyc]

Lemme save you some time: NONE OF THIS ACTUALLY HAPPENED. SOME TWISTED ATTENTION WHORE MADE IT ALL UP. And he's not real good at makin' stuff up, hence the huge friggin' holes in the story. The author is not "stupid," he's just nowhere near as bright as he thinks he is.

So really - how did they get the IP address again?

[jools33]

According to the article:
"My Twitter account was deactivated but before doing so I posted links to my Google+ account, blog and invited people to contact me on Facebook. I'm delighted that a lot of my lovely friends did. I'm also delighted that The Troll did too."

So can anyone explain how you get to someones IP address by inviting people to contact you on Facebook?

but the speech wasn't

[DABANSHEE]

Yes going by the test there is a suggestion of Irish locality, but It seems it was composed by a Yank to me.

I thought it was fake too. Reminded me of made up journo crap straight away, like half the shit found in any Murdoch rag & in many other rags too.

Exactly

[Concern]

The author of this story typifies everything that is wrong with today's no-accountability culture.

He's weak in the exact way that fosters the troll that tortured him. I honestly find myself disgusted with him. I imagine, though she may not admit it, his wife was not thrilled and consciously or subconsciously thinks less of his approach to "defending" the family.

I don't care if it's a friend's kid or my kid. He needed to fail at manipulating his way out of trouble. He needed to go before the police and the courts.

Now others will suffer because of the author's common, and absolutely awful, "the past is the past, I forgive you" approach to dealing with crime.

Re:Exactly

[Stuarticus]

No-one ever learns from second chances do they? Lock everyone up, just in case, that's what I say.

Not a troll

[whitroth]

No, the kid wasn't a troll. He was, rather, a stalker. In the US, if he'd been after me, I'd have tried a couple of things: one, as much as I despise them, I would have called the FBI. This is possibly wire fraud, and is certainly a death threat. The Men In Black showing up at the kid's door, and probably taking his computer, might have gotten his attention to the RW.

Two: I could do my own tracking. The thought of either threatening to show up at his door with a real sword, which I know how to use, is vastly entertaining.

Three: possibly the simplest one, and the one I'd start with: I'd contact my 'Net provider, a phone company, and talk to their Fraud and Abuse dept. I can say, from having worked for several US telecoms, they do *NOT* take this kind of thing kindly... and they can talk to other phone co.s....

                  mark, who needs to sharpen his sword....

Re:Not a troll

[whitroth]

Oh, and a *real* troll crossposts to, say, five newsgroups guaranteed to start flamewars, like, a non-Xian religious group, talk.christian, and talk.abortion....

              mark, who loved the one who added alt.religion.editors

I don't believe the article...

[ToddInSF]

It's a fiction. There's no reason the troll shouldn't be in jail, and there's no way that the author, if he were telling the truth, wouldn't go tot he authorities and have the little asshole arrested and hailed.

I get the gist of the article, it's supposed to imply that game play and tech addiction is responsible for the trend of people being cowardly little shits.

The reality, though, is that it' not the tech, it's the culture and sociopathy. Don't confront trolls like this, that can get you killed. Gather the information and report them to the authorities, get a lawyer, sue them, and send them to jail.

It's where they belong.

No way is an adult man that's received a note about his wife's throat being slit someday going to just let something like this slide; nor should he. The article is fake, the guy is a liar, and his message is stupid.

Re:fable

[overmod]

(Can I start a meme? Rick-Trolled?)

No, but you could channel Ed Khil...

"Trollolo-Leo! Troll Leo! Troll Leo! Low, low, low, low..."

Re:fable

[Maritz]

So the cops can't find this guy, they're wringing their hands in helplessness. Along comes "An IT Genius" that traces the house by IP ... and the cops couldn't call any of their guys on the entire force to do that? However if the kid torrented a Song they would have found him pronto.

Once heard on the radio, that a body had been found in a suitcase washed up on the shore of the Liffey (Dublin). The radio advised that Gardai (police) were treating the death as suspicious.

You are part of the problem. Yes, you.

[Concern]

No one ever learns if there are no consequences other than having to cry when you torture someone's entire family for months (in the most vile way imaginable).

You get your second chance when the police and the courts are done with you. They give plenty of ill-advised second chances as it is, especially to kids.

Re:You are part of the problem. Yes, you.

[Stuarticus]

You don't have much of an imagination, do you? Only an idiot locks up children if there is any other option. Never underestimate the stupidity of young boys left to their own devices, I hope you do find yourself in a position to reflect on your opinions expressed previously with children of your own at some point.

Re:You are part of the problem. Yes, you.

[Concern]

Everyone is someone's kid. There is no crime that wasn't committed by someone's little angel, and if you don't think the courts can handle crime, you have bigger problems.

Only an idiot raises their children without real, proportionate consequences for their actions. This is not teasing another kid on the schoolyard. This is a teenager experimenting with very adult bad actions, and waiting to learn what the consequences will be. Will they be very adult bad consequences? What are the limits, really? And this determines what kind of adult they will grow into.

I hope you never find the opportunity to reflect on how you may not be the only parent with selfish and naive notions about an accountability-free world. Your precious angel may get in harms way of someone else's precious angel someday, who was raised the same way. The results will be predictable.

Loving your kids means raising them right. Not being their friend. Or treating it like they got caught missing curfew too many times when they mail your friend ashes labeled as their relatives who died in the holocaust.

Re:You're a troll I've wiped out before with facts

[Ash-Fox]

See subject-line above, & these times I've made you RUN like the troll you are

*A post talking about TLDR in which you reply with content that is still TLDR.*

*Link where another is advised to not bother going down to your level and you continue operating on that level, baiting*

Made me run? Not really, you just reinforced my points.

THIS? This was just "too, Too, TOO EASY - just '2ez'"...

You're so tense, it's amazing.

Re:"3 strikes, yer out", Ash-Fox you troll... apk

[Ash-Fox]

You RAN from my facts on Windows Server

Ran? I gave advice not to go down to your level, that was all.

You RAN regarding my posting style being upmodded MANY times

Your posting style upmodded many times, let's reference the posts you linked...

http://linux.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3110069&cid=41346029

Score: -1

http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3137925&cid=41448805

Score: 0

http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3132237&cid=41401485

Score: -1

Your mass posting style sure gets you upmodded...

Cool story, bro.

* Ash-Fox: Your life as a troll must be pretty depressing - you aren't even GOOD @ it, lol...

why so tense, bro?

THIS? This was just "too, Too, TOO EASY - just '2ez'" & it ALWAYS IS, vs. Ash-Fox especially...

It's interesting to find out that following me all over Slashdot, posting replies to me that go on for many lines is considered "too easy" as opposed to me posting "TLDR" to one of your posts.

Re:Ash-Fox the troll, STALKING me, again?

[Ash-Fox]

You're following ME around /., Ash. We see that much here too.

Not really, I just stumble on your posts from time to time. Now you on the other hand, five minute difference between each reply to one of my posts? Cool story, bro :>

You blew your modpoints from your MANY alternate registered 'luser' account sockpuppets on those posts of mine to downmod them, but YOU didn't disprove my technical points in them, and you know it, I KNOW IT, as does anyone else reading with 1/2 a brain does... period!

I find your posts to be "TL;DR" and you insinuate that I some how have the will power to maintain sock puppet accounts? Cool story, bro.

Re:You only show us you stalk me here

[Ash-Fox]

Funny I posted 1st in the links I posted, & you show up trolling AFTERWARDS... "funny that", eh (NOT)!

I already answered that in the previous post, reading comprehension issues again?

* Honestly - what IS your problem?

Well, it's certainly not being paranoid there is a guy out there who has many sock puppet accounts to harass just me because I wrote a hosts file management utility.

P.S.=> You're only showing us you do more of the same stalking of myself here now...

For the hive mind!

Re:Paranoid? Not @ all, & a question:

[Ash-Fox]

What have you ever written for programs others use Ash?

My current project is Exodus Viewer.

Don't you mean for the TROLLING COWARDLY WUSS "Ne'er-Do-Well" MIND instead

Nope, I'm making humor based off your plural form of representing yourself.

I say that since:

Since you're mad, bro.

You've already been shown stalking me around here on /., & for the past few weeks now in 3 separate posts.

Stalking you? Hardly. Stumble across your posts? Yes.

2.) You've never created ANYTHING OF WORTH yourself in the way of programs.

You didn't search very hard, did you?

3.) You're nothing but a troll...

I am a born again virgin.

Do yourself a favor Ash-Fox: Do something constructive & productive that's of service to others

Are you trying to imply I don't pay my taxes? I resent such allegations sir!

Re:Ok then, let's compare & contrast

[Ash-Fox]

I've done 40++

I wouldn't be surprised if I've been involved in more, but I haven't been counting.

1 even becoming a COMMERCIALLY sold one by certified MS partners (that did EXTREMELY WELL @ Microsoft Tech-Ed 2000-2002 as a FINALIST in the hardest category there - SQLServer Performance enhancement).

* That's SuperCache I/II by EEC Systems/SuperSpeed.com ... & the tuning engine for it (which made it 40% more effective in fact!)...

You sound fairly difficult to work with in general, I'm sceptical.

(So, how about YOU?)

NDAs prevent me from talking about commercial solutions I've co-developed.

You showed that you've stalked me @ least 3-4 times this month alone on these forums,

Stumbled across your posts, Mr. Hosts file guy. I don't go seeking them out.

LMAO - far, Far, FAR from being angry here... more pitying you stalking me actually!

Cool story.

For what? Ash-Fox?? Searching for someone by a "nickname" wouldn't usually YIELD a damned thing in most cases!

Which reinforces my point that you didn't search very hard.

(Considering you've only got 1 project, that's not even a commercially sold one? Well...)

More reading comprehension issues. I've done far more than just one project.

Re:YOU write it by yourself? Eat your words too!

[Ash-Fox]

It's 23:51 here, tldr.

Re:Tell us - how do your words taste?

[Ash-Fox]

P.S.=> IF you would have come up with 1 piece of proof of YOU being a developer on that project (especially SOLE developer, not part of a TEAM of them)?

http://exodusviewer.com/apk.txt

but, you can't prove any of it!

Sure I can. I'm just not easily motivated to do anything for a random angry guy on the Internet.

(Which only 1 other "troll" of mine here on /. had ever come up with to show for themselves - I respected him for it though, unlike yourself @ this point!)

Was it this guy (first result when searching your name)?

http://www.jaylittle.com/jaylittle/?cmd=article&sub=display&id=30

Re:You didn't answer the question

[Ash-Fox]

How do your words taste after you had to eat them, after stating you doubted I was part of SuperCache by SuperSpeed.com/EEC Systems?

I didn't get that far, I read the first search result on you instead, as I said earlier, I'm just not easily motivated to do anything for a random angry guy on the Internet.

Sorry, I won't visit a site you control

Regardless, that fulfills your "IF you would have come up with 1 piece of proof of YOU being a developer on that project" requirement. I don't care for your changing of goal posts.

what IS your name anyhow?

According to the first search result on your name, you harass people's ISPs and other crap. Why would I knowingly give that information to you? I don't care enough to deal with your tantrums.

Plus, it's not a commercially sold program either... despite your b.s. that "NDA prohibit you talking" (that is TOTAL b.s. - if you wrote part of something like that, then HOW WOULD YOU CLAIM IT AS PART OF YOUR RESUME otherwise?)

Easy, it goes along the lines of "Developed an ecommerce system for a major retailer using Oracle's ATG framework" etc.

Far from angry here

Your bold and caps says otherwise, guy.

To that, I produced Microsoft's OWN DOCUMENTATION on it?

Two points.
1) Microsoft doesn't have a good reputation here.
2) Microsoft is a huge company and bound to make mistakes.

He's still "sore" from defeating himself (just as YOU have here, troll)...

In my opinion, defeat is when I type your name in a search box and click "I'm feeling lucky" and find out you're a well known "asshole", "troll" and gloat a lot.

Re:Internet TROLLS = whimps & wusses

[Ash-Fox]

The second search result I got on Google was this:

http://www.thorschrock.com/2008/05/19/how-to-respond-when-people-threaten-to-sue-you-on-the-web/

In my opinion, you got played.

Re:You ran from this before, lol... apk

[Ash-Fox]

tl;dr - But from the length I assume you disagree.

Do you think you got played on the third Google search result?

http://www.jeremyreimer.com/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?t=4128

Re:HUGE mistake there too, lol...

[Ash-Fox]

Tell me more.

Re:Not until YOU tell us a few answers

[Ash-Fox]

Did you attempt illogical ad hominem attacks here directed MY way also, only to FAIL 3 TIMES MORE?

Attacks? Nope, never did/attempt or otherwise any attacks against you. You're really paranoid.

Mainly since they're failed attempts @ "trolling"

I see these posts as being very good examples of exposing your nature and your inability to process the reality of the situation.

They truly ARE, the sign of the "defeated troll"... lol, and you resorted to them.

How much more effort to you expend into replying to "tell me more", than I spent writing that reply again?

P.S.=> Funny lastly how I can produce PROOF

Funny how you say you're willing to accept proof and then suddenly change the goal posts when I show it to you. I can equally produce proof if I want to, I just don't feel inclined to because of your behavior.

Re:You avoid a question ('gee, wonder why?" not)

[Ash-Fox]

What were those links you dug I had to blow away then from Jay Little, Jeremy Reimer, & Thor Schmuck then?

You are mistaken, you didn't blow them away. If you did, they wouldn't be the first results when Googling your name.

They weren't ontopic, were they??

Considering the topic of this article, nope.

So, why did you attempt to use them vs. myself then?

I used them as counters to your point and wondering if you left search results up because you respected them, as opposed to failing to get rid of them.

You fail, badly...

Cool story, Bro. I'm not the one getting all tense and writing in capitals and bold etc.

...& you resorted to that 'fabled "last resort"', lol!... ...It's certainly a LOT better off than you are after this (lol)... ...Man, talk about "pot calling a kettle black"... lol!... ...a commercial product (you had no proof of this & vainly *tried*, lol...

LOL!

I wanted to see proof

And I gave it to you and then you started the whole goal post changing again.

Then WHERE IS IT?

So tense...

P.S.=> By the way, answer the question here -> http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3153677&cid=41557357 since you had to "eat your words"?

You tell me, since I don't recall that happening.