Slashdot Mirror
Why the Trolls Will Always Win
It turned out that a man named Andrew Auernheimer was responsible for having harassed Sierra. Known as 'Weev', he admitted it in a 2008 New York Times story on Internet Trolls. There, he spoke to the lengths which he and his cohorts went to discredit and destroy the woman. "Over a candlelit dinner of tuna sashimi, Weev asked if I would attribute his comments to Memphis Two, the handle he used to troll Kathy Sierra, a blogger. Inspired by her touchy response to online commenters, Weev said he "dropped docs" on Sierra, posting a fabricated narrative of her career alongside her real Social Security number and address. This was part of a larger trolling campaign against Sierra, one that culminated in death threats."
Now, seven years later, Kathy Sierra has returned to explain why she left and what recent spates of online harassment against women portend for the future if decent people don't organize. The situation has grown much more serious since she went into hiding all those years ago. It's more than just the threat of Doxxing to incite physical violence by random crazies with a screw loose. Read on for the rest of maynard's thoughts. These days, malicious trolls have taken to SWATting, where harassers call police and make false accusations to induce a SWAT raid. One prominent example is that of game developer Chris Kootra, who experienced a SWAT raid on camera while playing an online video game recently. There is also the troubling trend of developing malicious software intended to harm victims directly. For example, posting images on epilepsy forums which flicker at rates known to induce epileptic seizure. Given that Sierra is epileptic herself, this kind of harmful trolling hits home personally. She writes:
[While not photo-sensitive], I have a deep understanding of the horror of seizures, and the dramatically increased chance of death and brain damage many of us with epilepsy live with, in my case, since the age of 4. FYI, deaths related to epilepsy in the US are roughly equal with deaths from breast cancer. There isn't a shred of doubt in my mind that if the troll hackers could find a way to increase your risk of breast cancer? They'd do it. Because what's better than lulz? Lulz with BOOBS. Yeah, they'd do it.
And yet Auernheimer, the man who put her through all this horror, has for entirely different reasons become a kind of 'Net cause célèbre for Internet freedom. After having committed a hack against AT&T where he obtained the email addresses of thousands of iPad users, he attracted the attention of federal authorities. In due course he was convicted and sentenced to 41 months in federal prison for identity fraud and conspiracy to access a computer without authorization. Many thought his conviction and sentence egregious. Weev attracted support from the Electronic Frontier Foundation and prominent Georgia University Law Professor Tor Ekeland, and they worked together to craft an appeal and overturn the conviction. In April 2014, they succeeded. Auernheimer is now free.
Ekeland wasn't the only one bothered by the government's case. Even Kathy Sierra disagreed. Yet she's appalled that somehow she'd been dragged into supporting the very man who'd abused her.
But you all know what happened next. Something something something horrifically unfair government case against him and just like that, he becomes tech's "hacktivist hero." He now had A Platform not just in the hacker/troll world but in the broader tech community I was part of. ... But hard as I tried to find a ray of hope that the case against him was, somehow, justified and that he deserved, somehow, to be in prison for this, oh god I could not find it. I could not escape my own realization that the cast against him was wrong. So wrong. And not just wrong, but wrong in a way that puts us all at risk.
The lawyer Ekeland, in recent commentary at Wired, continues to defend Auernheimer as having been wronged by an overzealous prosecution, the precedent of which could have significant ramifications for 'Net freedom. "...the crucial issue here is not weev or his ideas but the future of criminal computer law in the U.S. You may think weev is an #@$hole. But being an #@$hole is not a crime, and neither is obtaining unsecured information from publicly facing servers."
Which leaves Sierra lamenting that Auernheimer still hasn't been charged and convicted for what she considers the real crime of harassment he'd committed, harming her and countless others. Where's the justice? Inciting violence and dissemination of "fighting words" are not free speech. Yet, as she admits, unless you're a celebrity, you're "...more likely to win the lottery than get any law enforcement agency to take action." So there is none. "We are on our own," she laments. "And if we don't take care of one another, nobody else will."
Thus, Sierra returned to push back — to push back against prominent journalists and members in the tech community who'd conflate prosecutorial violations of due process with the right to disseminate harassment and cruelty.
I came back because I believe this sent a terrible, devastating message about what was acceptable. ... To push back on the twist and spin. I believed the fine-grained distinctions mattered. I pushed back because I believed I was pushing back on the implicit message that women would be punished for speaking out. I pushed back because almost nobody else was, and it seemed like so many people in tech were basically OK with that.
Auernheimer, for his part, remains unapologetic. Responding to Sierra on Livejournal, he writes:
Yesterday Kathy Sierra (a.k.a. seriouspony), a mentally ill woman, continued to accuse me on her blog of leading some sort of harassment campaign against her by dropping her dox (information related to identify and location) on the Internet. ... Kathy Sierra has for years acted like a toddler, throwing tantrums and making demands whenever things didn't go her way. She rejects any presentation of polite criticism or presentation of evidence as some sort of assault on her. She was the blueprint for women like Zoe Quinn and Anita Sarkeesian, who also feign victimhood for financial and social gain. Kathy Sierra is the epitome of what is wrong with my community. She had something coming to her and by the standards set by her own peers in the social justice community, there was nothing wrong with what she got.
Some people never change.
If someone killed weev, the world would be a better place.
Has a way of catching you out in the end.
Oh, goody, more feminist bullshit from the "women are always victims" crowd.
"News for Nerds." Remember when this site used to do that? Good times, good times. Sadly long past.
I think people should treat her with more respect! After all, she has been teaching advanced Java classes, and Java is the best of all programming languages!
Time for a Second amendment solution.
Best Slashdot Co
It's about anonymous online sexual harassment, particularly when it's done by packs playing the part of street gangs.
Trolling is like ranting about systemd in response to every single /. article.
This is a tale between two people. Not two groups of people.
Trolls of this nature are unusual and they don't just target women. They target everyone.
You learn very quickly that you don't put personal information on the internet or you will get doxxed.
Is this guy a bad guy? Was she a victim? yes and yes. But it would be guilt and victimhood by association to say that there is a general issue with trolls or that they focus on women especially.
We can see what is going on in Infinite chan... the creator of that site, a gentleman with some sort of bone disorder is being Doxxed regularly. The trolls are calling it "cripple chan" and going after him because he's trying to create an alternative to 4chan.
Understand. I am not defending the trolls. Far from it. I'm just saying that they're not as pervasive as some would imply. They are a small group of very active trolls. You take basic precautions and do your best to avoid being a target. As to who is more or less likely to be a target? Anyone being obnoxious tends to get some focus. Being obnoxious doesn't mean you're right or wrong. It doesn't mean you don't have a point or do have a point. It just means you're annoying for some reason or other. And people that are being annoying do tend to get focused by trolls.
You get used to it.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
I really wish we could just drop the sexism part of this right now. Both genders get attacked by these people.
The second issue is if you want Anonymity than you will have this issue a lot.
Third is the simple fact that it is just a small number of folks causing the issue. The trouble is that it does not take a lot of folks to cause a good amount of harm.
The issue is that some people make heroes out of the idiots that do this when they do it to someone they do not agree with or like.
It really needs to be a time where all attacks are looked down on and discussion takes it place.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
He's a dick. On his nice days.
Trolling, online harassment and SWATing are different actions with considerable difference in severity, and I find your attempt to group them together dishonest and manipulative.
Without trolls under them. How is one to know what is idiotic without trolls? Trolls are a priceless commodity that need to be nurtured and protected so as we as a society don't lose sight of what is right and wrong. And Karma is some bullshit some asshole made up as to bring glory to their conduct that they don't deserve. People always want credit for shit they are SUPPOSED to do. What goes around doesn't come around. Shit happens. End of story.
There's two closely related problems at work here, I think. The first is that, in general, women have to work twice as hard for half as much respect. I have no answer to that.
But the bigger problem at work here is attackers have to work half as hard for twice as much payoff. The primary reason that "These attacks would never have happened if the interviewee was a man" is because for years men have shrugged off/ignored these attacks, so it takes a huge amount of attack to get a response. When the victim is a woman, it only takes a few short sentences to get EVERYONE riled up.
The mindset of a troll is the reaction is the reward. Therefore, they are 10 times more likely to make those sentences, as the desired reaction will happen. The Trolls generally believe it's "Harmless fun", but once enough bad-press/opinion starts to roll, social proof (See the writings of Robert Caldini for more info) get going and the threat of harm becomes very real.
But acting upon it is.
Nobody really cares if you know a fool proof way to kill the prez (well, aside of some professional paranoiacs). As long as you don't act upon it, you're fine. If you DO, though, don't expect to remain free (or, for that matter, alive) for any measurable stretch of time.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
In any unmoderated discussion the loudest and most insistent voices win. This has been true since democracy started - "politic" meaning roughly in the original Greek "To shout down"
We see this in our current political system as well - wingnuts running the show in both parties because reasonable people won't speak up.
Time and again I've seen this on forums I've been on that have been unmoderated, such as the OkCupid forums. After awhile, only the rudest and the crudest remain there along with those willing to tolerate them.
Here is the short paper by Jospeh Reagle "Free as in sexist. Free Culture and the Gender Gap" :
http://journals.uic.edu/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/4291/3381
mirror:
http://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/4291/3381#author
Very interesting.
beyond the s3ope of users all over the and shower. For
Auernheimer is one of the reasons we nice people can not have nice things. The worse problem is his supporters supporting his underhanded crusade against anyone he doesn't like. He is a threat to the safety of his targets to the extent that it most people would be imprisoned for decades for doing what he did. The message our justice system say to would be Auernheimers is "don't screw with the businesses and don't get caught threatening and underhandedly attack people" meaning doing what he did to Kathy Sierra is OK as long as you do it in a way that law enforcement won't care about it.
WHO CARES?!
I truly don't understand this. When I was a young awkward geek with very specific interests, I would have absolutely LOVED there to be women around with those same interests. Us guys totally loved the few geeky girls that were around and always wished there were more.
Yet today we see guys trying to scare the women away. What the hell changed?
Some people just like to see others suffer. It's a shame that his punishment was overturned. Freedom is not infinite, in the real world we don't have the freedom to cut each other with knives, why would we need that freedom on the internet?
Thank you, Bradley Manning, Edward Snowden and so many others, for courageously defending humanity, my freedom and more!
Trolls were here first. Go back and look some old pre-2000 bulletin boards. Trolls were everywhere, and no-one felt the need to cry over it.
You came to OUR home. Not the other way round.
Don't like the internet? Just turn it off.
This isn't about women, or trolling, or "culture". Andrew Auernheimer is a fucking sociopath loser who has no concept of what it means to live in a society of decent human beings. that he thinks he is "fighting the rich" or "part of the struggle" is fucking meaningless. It's just the stuff he tells himself to try to give some meaning to his pathetic, pissant little life where no one gives a fuck about him or who he is.
I think that the reasonable people do speak up. The trouble is that the press doesn't cover their input to the discussions. We end up only hearing from the extremist crazies because that's what the press thinks will attack more ears and eyeballs and sell more advertising.
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
First, shooting the guy is _not_ a solution. The problem is not him, but what conditions allowed a vermin like him to arise. You solve the general problem, then instances won't come up again. Well, sickos will always exist, but then they will be just a bunch -- much easier to handle. The way things are now, there are loads of trolls. And that is what we must end.
Second, next time I hear someone talk about spying is OK because he who does nothing wrong has nothing to fear, I guess I'll nominate the guy for the igNobel prize. Privacy is necessary exactly because of these trolls. Stop defending illegal actions from authorities: that is a crime, too.
Third, it's not about gender, it's not about that particular woman. Some people wield a post like a little piece of power and dream about destroying things. Great minds build, small minds destroy -- because that's what they can do at most. Evil has a way to make great guys frustrated with trolls... and that might turn some themselves into trolls, too. Let's not fall for that dumb trap.
Fourth, even troll judgment must take time to allow reflection. Remember last time when that Boston bombing occurred? IIRC, someone killed the wrong guy out of haste. It's not fun when they say you look like someone bad and decide you're better off this world. When you got 7 billion people, there's a good chance that someone looks just like you...
Fifth, trolls do not win. Winning should be reserved for great accomplishments, not foul play. Imagine a basketball game with a final score of 6 to 4 (they usually end in the hundreds range IIRC). This is not winning. There has been some badly thought out responses like /. automatic moderation; it doesn't work. But that doesn't mean there isn't a solution. This problem is akin to rescue a broken neighborhood: it's hard to do, but not unfeasible. We need expert help to exterminate weeds.
Because to be beaten by a woman would utterly destroy them.
If they can scare the women away, they can preserve their illusion of superiority (in a mythical competition in a mythical world).
There are more gamers in the world now, and with the Internet we're all far more connected than we used to be.
There are a lot of sociopaths and other unpleasant, selfish people in the world. Some of them play games.
You do the math.
But she was making the hobby of video games look bad, she deserved it!
That may sound insane but it's what I've learned from reading Slashdot.
Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
In any unmoderated discussion the loudest and most insistent voices win. This has been true since democracy started - "politic" meaning roughly in the original Greek "To shout down"
Not quite... Politics (from Greek politikos "of, for, or relating to citizens")
FFS, stop trying to spin the Gamergate content. So far every single submission has bought hook, line, and sinker into the lie that it's about misogyny and harrassment, to avoid talking about what the game journalists did (and still do), and how they colluded to cover it up. This is the worst so far.
/. At least users are still in charge of moderating the discussion here, unlike most of the gaming press sites where even speaking against the groupthink is banned immediately.
This is transparent and embarassing and I never expected it out of
I actually think 4chan is kind of an interesting study in this behaviour.
When you exclude external activities, and look at discussions within 4chan, it can be surprisingly level. When you give everyone anonymity and let them be the biggest assholes they can be, you end up with a culture that shows little reaction to horrible social behaviour, making horrible social behaviour boring. It makes for an interesting forum for discussion.
Politics comes from politeia, which comes from polis (city) and a suffix meaning person. It has nothing to do with shouting down.
Kathy Sierra has written several books that were very helpful when taking java exams. She has the ability to clearly explain things that not many people have mastered. She also created the javaranch.com site which is a great place to look when you have questions about java. I appreciate her contributions to the community and wish there were more people like her.
Let me stop and mention here that last week weev caused a storm when he wrote a racist screed for a white supremacist website. As usual I found out about it when my twitter timeline lit up with exhortations to do something about my client, the unpopular defendant. To me his bigoted viewpoint is just noise; the crucial issue here is not weev or his ideas but the future of criminal computer law in the U.S. You may think weev is an asshole. But being an asshole is not a crime, and neither is obtaining unsecured information from publicly facing servers.
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
It is math. If 1% are sociopath, those 1% will attack women and other "outsiders".
The probability that the 1% sociopaths are men is 100x higher than they being women, because of the skewed gender statistics.
Thus, you will have "men" scaring "women" away.
But if you think about it, calling these people "men" instead of "male sociopaths" is a choice you make in order to make the reality you want to see. Groups like these are really arbitrary. You could just as well say "sociopaths" or "weirdos" and remove the gender attribute.
It is your choice. That is why lies, damned lies, and statictics rules.
In the context of the Internet, the word "troll" used to mean, (according to Wikipedia):
"...a person who sows discord on the Internet by starting arguments or upsetting people, by posting inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community (such as a newsgroup, forum, chat room, or blog) with the deliberate intent of provoking readers into an emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion."
The campaign that Kathy Sierra was a victim of goes far, far beyond this. How does it make sense that one word is used to describe such a wide range of behaviour? It's like calling a violent rapist a 'cad'. Trolls, (in the original sense of the word), are assholes. Auernheimer and his associates exhibited obsessive, psychopathic, downright evil behaviour and attitudes. We should never equate mere assholes and psychopaths - doing so trivializes destructive psychopathic behaviour while making assholery seem much worse than it really is. And the latter is perhaps more dangerous; it gives authorities one more excuse for implementing draconian laws in response to minor social infractions.
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
There's no competing against an Old Ike story, hot grits, or the granddaddy of them all, a well hidden goatse redirect.
"politic" meaning roughly in the original Greek "To shout down"
Bullshit. The word "politic" is derived from "polis", the Greek word for "city". So "politics" is the art of running a city (or city-state, as most cities were back then), not the art of shouting your opponent down...
The original meaning in Greek politikos is "civilian" or "civic". Shouting doesn't have anything to do with it.
It's not the same guys. Don't attribute the bad behavior of a few sociopaths with the majority of guys who still enjoy the company of women. What's that hashtag? #notallmen
[John]
Shit better not happen!
In any unmoderated discussion the loudest and most insistent voices win.
If this were true, systemd would be gone, dice wouldn't own slashdot, and they'd stop accepting submissions from Bennett Haselton.
It's a mix of two things.
Firstly you have frustration and anger that women don't seem interested in these guys. Like that Rodger guy they really can't see what is wrong with them and vent that anger by attacking women, who must all be stupid evil manipulative whores because they only sleep with guys they can get something out of and never the poor troll.
Secondly the trolls are in serious need of some men's liberation. I bet you know exactly what a "real man" is. Masculine, strong, breadwinner, protects his woman, has loads of cool stuff. Now ask yourself what a "real woman" is. Not so easy to define.
It wasn't always that way. Back in the 1960s the ideal woman was the model 1950s housewife. A mother, good at cooking and cleaning, beautiful but homely, always trying to satisfy her man. Women's lib changed that. Women became free to break away from that model, be what they wanted to be, not get neurotic about their weight or finding a husband by age 25. Now they get to decide what matters to them, not what society expects of them. Men need that too. These trolls only feel threatened because they are so insecure, and see women participating in any traditionally male dominated area as a threat to the ideal they are trying to live up to.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
We aren't but that will change if they keep pushing their agenda in our hobby. Generally speaking, I don't care of the gender of a player, as long as he or she plays well and is the same for the vast majority of the players I've met online. That said, there are plenty of assholes online as well, but they are not particularly targeting women, they target everyone (for instance, I no longer play in expert in L4D and I immediately leave the game if the team choses to switch to expert because 90% of the time thats initiated by trolls whose only goal is to incapacitate the entire team)
But all that is past water and we are used to it, what changed in the past few years is the undeserved influence that trolls that happen to be female con artists like Sarkeesian in the gaming industry. If you like to play games, take a deep breath and watch her "Tropes vs Women" videos in youtube (I will NOT accept any liability for brain damage) and we can discuss it further.
Listen the the podcast on 5x5 called "overtired". In episode 15, the incredible Christina Warren describes the shit that she gets every day, and how she deals with it. I have some hope that a younger generation of women like Ms Warren will be able to react to attacking idiots without disappearing from the 'net.
I love Mondays. On a Monday, anything is possible.
Nothing changed. Most people are jerks some have it worse than others. I figured that out the first time I went online to play a deathmatch.
The vile putrid things out of these peoples mouths was sad and pathetic.
My wife, I have converted into a 'gamer'. At first she had no interest. Now she plays more than I do. Have not counted lately but I think she has me beat on the number of games she owns. No small feat mind you as I own thousands and I have to keep up on it to insure no duplicates.
When you first find out about 'online' it seems wonderful and cool. Joust against others with the same interest as me, GAMES!!! Then you find out they are not playing the same game as you. They are playing a different game. That of bully.
My wife has a pretty good theory. Basically they feel like you can not touch them. So they say whatever putrid thing comes to mind. These people are borderline sociopaths. They however do not carry their thin veneer of being nice over to the 'online world'. As there is no consequences to them personally. She says calls it 'the safety of their keyboard'. Which really sums it up very well.
So nothing really changed other than the group got much larger and the sociopaths figured out easy victims for their disorder. It is one of the reasons the whole youtube 'use your real name' thing blew up on google. A good amount of their audience do not want people to know who they are so they can basically be bullies on the internet.
Even people you would consider 'normal' turn into vile hateful things on the internet. They just put on a good show most of the time. The internet has stripped away the humanity people at least pretend to do in real life.
Basically at this point if a games main selling point is 'online'. I skip it, no matter how cool the game is.
Easy: They aren't.
Women, on the other hand, are trying to scare women away from gaming by painting gamers as this huge misogynist group that exists solely to stalk women and send them rape threats.
I'm assuming you're talking about #GamerGate. What's happening is that feminists are attacking gamers, claiming that they're all misogynists out to rape them. They're trying to claim that games are inherently misogynist (Sarkeesian) and that gamers hate all women (Quinn). When gamers disagree, all of a sudden a "campaign of harassment" materializes from out of nowhere.
See #NotYourShield. Women always have been and always will be welcome amongst gamers. Feminists who claim that all men are rapists, who claim that games are inherently misogynist, who claim that they're constantly harassed, on the other hand: they're not.
That's what you're seeing: gamers fighting back against a troll campaign by the feminists who are painting themselves as victims. Don't fall for it.
I really wish we could just drop the sexism part of this right now. Both genders get attacked by these people. The second issue is if you want Anonymity than you will have this issue a lot.
The ironic thing about this statement is that if we had TRUE anonymity, the sexism would NECESSARILY be dropped...you wouldn't know what sex the person was. However, women go out of their way to explicitly state that they're woman thus ruining their anonymity, and leaving the door unlocked to have that bit of personal info exploited.
I wish I could find a link, but there was a good explanation on /b/ about "tits or GTFO" and the idea was that, nobody knew what sex you were until you attempted to use this fact to your advantage. At which point, you had devalued yourself in the eyes of that group for being sexually manipulative and they wanted you to show your tits or leave. Obviously, it was stated more eloquently than this, but it made perfect sense.
This is what you Americans wanted because you hated goodness, truth, and beauty.
Or Jewish. Or gay. Or black. Or of a different political party. Or with a different opinion on a subject.
"Trolls" (they aren't trolls, they're ass-holes) will attack anyone for anything that the ass-holes do not approve of.
Anything.
The ass-holes are not attacking women because the ass-holes are misogynists. The ass-holes are attacking because that is what ass-holes do. Their attacks are phrased in misogynistic terms because the target is a woman.
They aren't, it is just a narrative to stir up trouble and you have fallen for it. Just because there is a predominant demographic in a group, that does not mean any action by any individual in that group can be attributed to the entire group.
Why are blacks dangerous? They aren't. Why are illegal immigrants drug mules? They aren't. Why are all women feminists? They aren't. Why are all gamers misogynists? They aren't.
There's two closely related problems at work here, I think. The first is that, in general, women have to work twice as hard for half as much respect. I have no answer to that.
No they don't. They have default respect because vagina. They have to work twice as hard to remove the suspicion that they're not in an organization to "make it better for women" which has the negative effect of shitting it up for profitability and stress level of the male employees. It's quite different, and the latter suspicion, given what we've seen over the last 5 years, is rational.
> After having committed a hack against AT&T
Is this that thing where he looked at the public page that AT&T offered freely? And please don't equate it to yet another unlocked house door, which is still designated property. It was more like leaving your "private" shopping list posted on a Public Notices board.
I think weev is a fucking douche, but I won't let that turn me into a puppet that can have right and wrong blurred or manipulated. Or "misstate" his life details to advance my agenda.
> she opined that maybe forum moderation wasn't a bad idea
> suddenly, death threats
I'm sure I'll be burned at the stake for being a witch here, but maybe, just maaaaaaybe, I should listen to the voice of logic that's whispering "there's a rational gap here; maybe, just maaaaaaybe there's more to the story than this."
Or maybe there isn't. Hard to know. The more time that's passed, the more we're stuck with mere He Said She Saids. I'm sure there were assholes involved, at least.
When I was a young awkward geek with very specific interests, I would have absolutely LOVED there to be women around with those same interests... Yet today we see guys trying to scare the women away. What the hell changed?
Nothing but the volume. I loved geeky women back then, and some geeky men were hostile. Now, I still like geeky women, and some geeky men are still hostile.
Nothing has changed, except the amplification of the extremists on both sides. The extremists on both sides want to drive a wedge to consolidate their base, just like the Republicans and Democrats. They use kernels of truth wrapped in emotionalist rhetoric to do it.
Black people aren't gangbangers. Muslims aren't terrorists. White men aren't aryan supremecists. Women aren't hyperemotional basket cases.
And male geeks aren't misogynists.
When you pick a bad characteristic of a subset of a group and label the whole group with it, that is prejudicial sterotyping. Doing so does not help feminism or technology.
Men aren't trying to scare women away from gaming, assholes are.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
I call B.S. on playing the sexism card. Trolls are trolls regardless of who the target is. This particular troll is particularly obnoxious. Had Ms. Sierra used a gender-neutral nom de guerre, I dare say that the results would have been similar with the exception of the SSN aspects.
Weev is an asshole, no question and it'd be nice if he were reprimanded for his crimes.
Somehow though, I have to be another one of those assholes and say that trolling is a big issue, but not solely a women's issue. If you want an example of trolling that reached an entirely new level and has most definitely contributed to the failing mental health of an autistic man, look up the story of Christian Weston Chandler.
Trolling isn't new, it's always been mind-boggilingly terrible, but we couldn't be arsed to do anything but laugh back when the victims were usually mentally ill and male.
this
Why the Trolls Will Always Win
They don't.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-e...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-2...
And sometimes they really don't.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-2...
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Wrong. The reason I don't want people to know who I am is because one of my goals in life is to avoid the judgements of others. That is to judge me rather than some online persona I may choose to have. We escape here where we can be ourselves. In the real world we can't necessarily. But that does not imply we're trolls, engaging in trolling, doxxing, or any other kind of sociopathy.
You're talking about a very small subset of assholes. The "gamergate" (god I hate typing that) thing is about a few obnoxious assholes and some SJWs. It in no way represents the vast bulk of people who play video games. That's the problem. It takes just a few vicious sociopaths to ruin shit for everybody.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
Richard Fuld - this is a truly heinous threat. Imagine how photons can kill random precious women when they read their comment section !!!!
We really need to increase NSA funding by 79% so that they can also work for the FEMI-NAZIs !
So you would advise that your NSA friends curate all online discussions, right ?
I don't think it's just a narrative, but I also don't think anything changed in the culture. Rather, we've just made it waaaay easier for the .1% of men who happen to be crazy and/or psychopaths to be really loud about it, totally drowning out the other 99.9% of the male population who aren't crazy, aren't starting disgusting trouble, and thus aren't noticed. I like to think that most geeky guys are like you, still, young and old. The crazy ones just get all the press.
I don't think it's a concious decision about scaring someone away. The reason some people do this trolling is probably not even obvious to themselves, it's a deep psychological cause and effect. The incidence of trolling towards women may also be over-represented if women are more likely to take this kind of abuse seriously, especially threats, and also if women are more likely to report the experience in public, instead of silently wtirhdrawing. I can't back up any of those theories, but they should be considered before concluding that the abuse is especially bad towards women.
If it turns out that women are indeed "trolled" more than men, that wouldn't be a surprise either. There is so many expectations related to dating and relationships, and the "creepy" label is dealt at the slightest deviation from the norm (this seems especially bad, almost ridiculous, in the US, based on TV and movies). If failure at dating constitutes the majority of ones experience with the other sex, it's not that surprising that some minority of people online will react in devious ways. Don't know how to fix it, but if more kids had friends of both sexes that may be a start.
There are real people killing by the hundreds every day in Syria and Iraq because the U.S. arms industry and their shareholders need freshly hacked meat for their biz to thrive.
And now these Precious Girls(TM) are offended by etheral bits from idiots ???
Those pussies should grow a thick skin and delete comments. Done.
And here I always thought it came from a combination of 'poly' meaning many and 'tick' meaning blood-sucking parasites...
I agree with you. This is not trolling. Trolling is a art.
I used to troll slashdot under another account. It was great fun. I'd see a good target story and write a well-structure comment. The first paragraph would be something on topic and sensible. The second would introduce minor logical flaws, which in the third paragraph would explode into completely ridiculous conclusions that would incense slashdotters, like that the only way to ensure privacy is for the government to monitor all communications at all times or something. Then you sit back and watch moderators only read the first paragraph and mod you +5 insightful, and then people come along and actually read the post and get enraged and write 12 paragraphs about how wrong I am. Then it gets moderated down to +1 troll, then people realize it's funny and it winds up at +5 funny. It was good fun.
But sociopaths threatening and harassing people not just on the internet but spilling over into real life (phone calls, calling their boss, their customers, etc) is not trolling. It's...criminal. Online trolling can be ignored, but I think the only way to stop that kind of behavior is legal action.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
I believe GP was saying that the particular study cited had a questionable definition of "rape", not that the victims were lying. The survey didn't ask if they were raped. The survey asked questions about if this happened or that happened, then the researchers call it rape, even if the "victim" was perfectly happy with what happened.
One question was if they engaged in sex while drunk or high to the point that they couldn't really give informed consent, or if their partner initiated sex while they were asleep. The researchers then called that rape, which is many cases it probably was. In other cases not - I recently spoke with a woman who didn't remember having sex with her husband one night when they were drunk. It just so happened that he videotaped about two minutes of it, and after he starts, then backs off she says "what are you doing, I thought we were going to have sex?" Upon viewing the tape, she wasn't bothered about it. Since she didn't remember it and was too drunk to really give consent, this study would call that rape. The woman doesn't think it's rape, but the researchers say it is.
I've actually talked to my wife about some of these situations ahead of time. I've told her I'd very much enjoy being awoken by her in a special way, and she said it's fine if I massaging her and such while she's asleep, waking her with sexual contact. The RESEARCHERS call that rape, we call it a great way to wake up.
The researchers also called it sexual violence if the partner did any of these things (quoting from the survey):
doing things like telling you lies, MAKING PROMISES ABOUT THE FUTURE WHICH THEY KNEW WERE UNTRUE, threatening to end your relationship,
or threatening to spread rumors about you?
wearing you down by repeatedly asking for
sex, or SHOWING THEY WERE UNHAPPY?
So letting my wife know I'm disappointed that our last two date nights were cancelled and I'd like to have a romantic evening is sexual violence, as defined by these researchers.
Sexual violence is an important issue. These researchers trivialize it and create more problems when they define "showing they were unhappy" as sexual violence.
The first guy was right. We should just shoot all the assholes. That would eliminate all the lawyers and politicians too. Win-win.
Sigh. Slashdot is truly dead. If there's one site on the whole fucking internet where editors should know what's a troll, it's this one.
That is the key, the goal. And this goes for all issues of speech. Regardless of "libel" and slander", or anything else. Words do, and always will mean nothing. The response is the only relevant piece in the matter.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
They aren't. Some women see people attacking them and assume "They're attacking me because I'm a woman". And the media loves to play this narrative. The real reason people get harassed isn't because of their gender, it's because they're idiots.
From the methods section
The specific types of sexual violence assessed included rape (completed or attempted forced penetration or alcohol- or drug-facilitated penetration) and sexual violence other than rape, including being made to penetrate a perpetrator, sexual coercion (nonphysically pressured unwanted penetration), unwanted sexual contact (e.g., kissing or fondling), and noncontact unwanted sexual experiences (e.g., being flashed or forced to view sexually explicit media).
Those are the categories they questioned about. If you really think that forced penetration or alchohol/drug facilitated penetration isn't rape, I've got news for you, son.
Here is the correct way to handle it:
1. buy a gun
2. stop the sexist bullshit about how it's all because you're a woman
3. ignore them
I played WoW and we would have women in our guild from time to time, and nobody fucking cared. We certainly wouldn't invite a subpar player in our raid just because they are female. They were very few women who were in hardcore raiding guilds, because women would rather play Candy Crush.
weev and others don't think the rules apply to them.
Well, there's rules against murder (it's totally possible to do it, so no actual impossibility there other than the illegal nature of it).
So when weev thinks the rules don't apply to him, LET US NOT APPLY THE RULES TO HIM.
Of course, I'd beat the shit out of the little twat and post a Youtube clip of the event for full publich punishment effect.
And continue to do so until the dicksack ran away to hide under a new name and manner.
However, I don't think that weev will accept that THOSE rules don't apply. Because.
>This has been true since democracy started - "politic" meaning roughly in the original Greek "To shout down"
Really? Here's what etymonline.com has to say:
politic (adj.)
early 15c., "pertaining to public affairs," from Middle French politique "political" (14c.) and directly from Latin politicus "of citizens or the state, civil, civic," from Greek politikos "of citizens, pertaining to the state and its administration; pertaining to public life," from polites "citizen," from polis "city" (see polis). Replaced in most adjectival senses by political. From mid-15c. as "prudent, judicious."
polis (n.)
"ancient Greek city-state," 1894, from Greek polis "city, one's city; the state, citizens," from PIE *pele- "citadel, enclosed space, often on high ground" (cognates: Sanskrit pur, puram "city, citadel," Lithuanian pilis "fortress").
The following is all subjective, so be warned. :)
From what I've seen (admittedly second and third-hand) the people attacking women are generally doing so at least in part *because* they are women. On the other hand, attacks against men are rarely gender-based, but rather based on other factors like religion/ideology/actions.
If this is true, then even if the numbers of attacks are the same, it would not be unreasonable for the attacked women to feel it differently because they are being attacked for something they *are* rather than something they *think*. (And actually I suspect this same feeling may hold true for race-based attacks against people as well.)
Weev made a good point so I don't know why it's being completely ignored here. The same people who denounce him have long since since decided that the harassment techniques he's accused of are legitimate means to their own ends. Is harassing, threatening, doxxing, campaigns to get people fired from their jobs, suddenly OK when you are on the side of justice and righteousness? Or do they always make you a rotten human being? Many people in this discussion are playing both sides of that argument, but Weev is not one of them.
By the way, I watched the Sierra thing unfold. Without in any way justifying the harassment against her, her blog was world-class marketroid fluff of the type that is universally hated here. That was a earlier in the web's history so I don't blame her for fucking up her moderation, but nowadays that type of blog would require moderater-approved commenting or you couldn't control your transparently bullshit message (which is exactly why the blog imploded.) I wish there were verifiable logs of the events that happened because I have seen a lot of flat-out lies spread by her which have been picked up and repeated uncritically (example: "someone posted a picture of a woman being violently suffocated" actually it was a piece of clipart of a woman with a pair of panties on her head over her mouth. Another example: "an entire website denegrating her was created" actually it was a website made up entirely of a clipart actress, making fun of worthless Internet marketers spewing Internet buzzwords interspersed with articles about lipstick and shoes and didn't mention her once. It was called "Kat Herding.")
The internet was a much better place back when it was by the geeks and for the geeks. Now just about any idiot can and does use it.
However, some people hate the other sex and therefore want to pillory them.
In male dominated areas, exclusion of women by those few men takes place.
In male dominated areas, the mere fact of male domination is taken as a priori proof of evil in the men in the majority by those few women takes place.
And vice versa for female dominated areas (though very much less so, since society is 100% happy with female victimhood, less so for male victimhood when the only significant discriminatory factor is the sex of the participants.
I've noticed people tend to get busted for the wrong crime fairly often, or busted on the wrong day. An old friend of mine started selling drugs, buying and selling abusable prescription drugs. He got busted for selling pot, which he apparently doesn't do, and he wasn't selling anything at the moment.
I can't think of anyone I know who isn't a criminal, yet ended up in jail. It's kind of odd, but in some ways it makes sense.
A good question, the answer is nothing changed. Men aren't trying to scare women away from gaming, that would be idiotic. What we have is assholes being assholic, and other assholes jumping onto the bandwagon to push their own agenda. There are examples of utter lunacy on both sides, and both sides think they are virtuous and right... Where have we seen this before?
He involved her kids.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
There were always girls into geeky interests. They were just invisible to you because what you really wanted was a *conventionally attractive* geek girl. You are just as sexist as them.
When there were only a few "geeky girls" around, they were a novelty, and there weren't enough of them to affect change in the workplace. I remember those days. We had lots of highly sexist/racist terms people would just throw around without thinking. Look up "BCH, RCH, and GCH" and the mnemonic for remembering resistor color that begins "Black boys" for example (I won't repeat them). Cheesecake calendars and centerfolds were also displayed prominently at desks. And the women there had to tolerate it. They had no choice if they wanted to stay.
But starting in the early 90's, women starting getting enough power to force companies to enact sexual harassment policies. The calendars disappeared and some topics of conversation became forbidden at work. And many men resented this.
So the trolls learned from this, and thus any woman who starts to be listened to in other male-dominated areas must be destroyed as soon as possible. This is what Kathy Sierra said in her posting. Because, by default, they are not deserving of the attention.
It's the same dynamic that has kept Rush Limbaugh on the radio for 30 years.
Hopelessly pedantic since 1963.
He doesn't hide the fact that his normal pattern and practice is to act like a complete asshole, especially online. Therefore, if someone says he was being a complete asshole online, that matches with what one would expect from him.
To me, it's similar to if someone were to tell me that my friend Christina delivered a pizza to their house. Christina was a pizza-delivery person for several years, so the statement is likely true, absent any evidence to the contrary.
Why does it seem that the first response to these kinds of problems is always legal? To sue someone? Is it just because that's what is expedient to existing victims? Because it won't help future potential victims. Even changing the law or boosting enforcement won't get at the root cause.
The fact is that sadly, sociopathic behavior like this is socially acceptable. Every time a woman speaks up, half of the crowd chimes in to defend the sociopath. "It was her own fault", you say. "Women are such whiners; this happens to everyone", you say. And let's be clear: it's easy for a woman to think women are unfairly targeted when she's come to know so many others who have been targeted, and the harassment is often sexual. There's a point to be made that women are perhaps too often thin-skinned. But often this point is made regardless to the severity of the harassment (total destruction of career, made to feel unsafe and insecure even in her own home or the home of her family, made to fear for the safety of that family). And most of the people making this point, especially in a place like Slashdot that allows people to post anonymously, make their point with misogynistic slurs. It's only understandable that this position is almost always attacked as "blaming the victim" when there are only a couple of rational voices in the mob.
How can the law help us? Will it stop people from being sociopaths? Not any more than drunk driving laws made people stop driving drunk. Drunk driving used to be just as socially acceptable as wife beating and criminal harassment. What changed? MADD and systematic messaging from law enforcement and driver's education told entire generations of new drivers that it is not acceptable. Now drunk driving is the sort of thing only completely irresponsible people do, right? While that doesn't mean nobody does it, it does mean nobody defends the behavior. We need a single message to spread to every single child regarding harassment: this is not OK.
Sociopaths are bad for society, which means that even when they aren't attacking you personally, their assaults still hurt you. Every time a Kathy Sierra is harassed out of her comfort zone, we lose another intelligent perspective. We lose the voice behind javaranch.com. And to all you lonely nerds out there: we lose one more woman that understands and appreciates what you do. One more woman that might have shared your dreams and obsessions.
What can we do about sociopaths? First, we can learn to defend ourselves. My first rule of the internet is to use a pseudonym, and keep your pseudonym separate from your family and local friends. Never attach any pictures or personal information that could connect your pseudonym to you. Never, and I mean never take a nude picture of yourself.
Remember though that none of this is a guarantee. All it takes is more effort to uncover who you are and where you live. So the second step is to support the victims. Now, I understand some of you are a bit obsessed with fraud, and think these victims are just seeking attention. You attack the victim's credibility. Stop. You don't have to personally believe the victim, but it does no good to cast doubt. Victims don't even want attention, and they definitely don't want to be assaulted even more. So many victims don't report crimes against them because they don't want to relive the experience, or because they are afraid of people like you. What victims (should) want is for their life to go on as if nothing happened, while also making sure the same thing can never happen to anybody else. What you can do is direct your attention toward the problem instead of the victim. Attack the crime, even if you don't believe it happened. You might say, "Harassment is wrong, and I am appalled to think this kind of thing even happens." You might say, "I actually have trouble believing the story because it's so unthinkable that someone could be this much of a sociopath." You might say, "I though this sort of thing never happened, and it certainly never sh
I sometimes ask revealing, often ignorant-seeming questions. Maybe they're harder to answer than you think.
First, let's skip over the whole idiotic concept of twitter as a serious medium of communication (quick, here's 140 chars, tell me everything you know), and go to places that you can actually write coherent sentences - that'd be anywhere from email, to usenet, to websites that allow long comments (or your own website).
Back in the day, we used to get trolls on a usenet group I was a regular in. Some where drive-by shooting, never seen again; frequently, we made sarcastic comments about their post. Then there were the longer posts, from someone who might even come back.
Y'know, I understand that about 1,000 years ago and more, if a bard, or someone, made a satire of you, you might as well kill yourself, because no one would ever forget it (admitedly, they didn't travel a lot back then, and the supply of humor was a lot smaller).
Our answer was to MST3k that person. Doing so, of course, requires intellegence, a good familiarity with language, and frequently, some basic logic. I don't think *anyone* everr came back after being misted....
It's a much more elegant solution, and more enjoyable to everyone else, than to simply JUMP DOWN THE ASSHOLE'S THROUGHT WITH COMBAT BOOTS ON.
mark "come on, meet me at x, and show me that you meant that crap"*
* Now, my sword, my walking stick, or just 911?
In any unmoderated discussion the loudest and most insistent voices win. This has been true since democracy started - "politic" meaning roughly in the original Greek "To shout down"
Would be awesome if it were true: The modern word 'political' derives from the Greek politikos, 'of, or pertaining to, the polis'. (The Greek term polis will be translated here as 'city-state'. It is also translated as 'city' or 'polis', or simply anglicized as 'polis'. City-states like Athens and Sparta were relatively small and cohesive units, in which political, religious, and cultural concerns were intertwined. The extent of their similarity to modern nation-states is controversial.)
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
> If you really think that ... alchohol/drug facilitated penetration isn't rape, I've got news for you, son.
When CONSENT is facilitated by EXCESSIVE alcohol, that's rape.
When my wife is stressed out and tense, so she wants to relax with a margarita and have a romantic evening, that's not rape.
When people decide to go out and party, to have a few drinks and hook up, that's not rape - that's college.
When a woman with vaginismus finds that a glass of wine helps relieve the symptoms, that's not rape.
This song is not about rape:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
besides your other bullshit, this is also bs: "wingnuts running the show in both parties"
Sierra comments that part of the problem is that she doesn't have the protection of a celebrity. This is an important thing to discuss. Celebrities don't have the choice of being exposed to the public. The rest of us do. In the early days of the internet, just about everyone would use a handle (a pseudonym.) For some reason, that changed over the years and many people just their real name for everything on the internet. When you put your name and picture up on the internet you are exposing yourself to the public and have to accept the risk that goes with doing so. You have to deal with the concequences. Obviously harassment is wrong but there is a limit to what law enforcement can and should do aobut it.
You're both wrong. Poli, from the greek word 'many' and tics, 'bloodthirsty insects'.
Another poster commented that trolls were a problem back in usenet days. Trolls were just a lot more limited in what they could do.
lol no
Its because they're men and thats how we bond, through veiled threats of violence and trolling. You're a woman, of course you don't understand.
There have always been women at the top in any game (not many, admittedly, but that's probably because not many play.
look we don't like you there because we want a place where boys can be boys, since your PC-ification of the world stretches everywhere else.
This is combat. There are no equals here.
Trolling is like gaming.
Some people go home and start up their killing simulator 2014.
Other people fire up firefox and troll people by threatening to kill them.
It's just a different way to unwind.
If you put your name to something unpopular in public, people may hate you for it. That's never been any different. That's why we have had anonymous pamphleteering and pseudonyms for as long as we have had free speech, and we protect them. This is not a women's issue or a feminist issue. And it's not a "civil rights" issue either. People like Sierra and Citron are not fighting for civil rights, they are a privileged and entitled elite who think that if they speak, the masses should listen in awed silence, no matter how offensive their speech may be. They want the same status that Catholic priests used to have: unquestioned respect and authority.
Fortunately, it's not going to happen. Use your head before you speak in public. And if your entire life is based on publicity and notoriety, realize that that the benefits you received from that can quickly turn into a liability when you fall from favor.
... Either do what SomethingAwful.com does (charge $10 for unlimited posting) or charge 1Ã per post. The Trolls will diminish quite quickly, especially if You choose the latter approach.
True fact: paid shills are filling this thread with nonsense in the hopes that they themselves won't be discussed. And they're not even good it it! This happens every time paid trolls are discussed. It would be ironic if it weren't deliberate.
Barb's YEARS of libeling me:
"I think he's getting upset because he's figured out that that I no longer read most of his posts, and when I do read one, I just quickly scan it for something to troll him with." - by tomhudson (43916) on Tuesday April 26, 2011 @11:01PM (#35949346) Journal
"And you do realize that all you're doing is pointing out to others just how easy you are to troll, right?" - by tomhudson (43916) on Friday April 15, @08:45PM (#35835824) Homepage
"I never stalked you - only trolled you for a week" - by tomhudson (43916) on Monday April 18, 2011 @12:47PM (#35856834) Journal
"Wait until he starts on another kick, then reply to him as an AC. It's the new meme". - by tomhudson (43916) on Sunday May 09 2010, @08:29PM (#32150544) Homepage Journal
"HOWTO: trolling the hosts file guy in one easy step The next time you see a post by him, just reply anonymously. And to really mess with his head, reply anonymously to your anonymous post, disagreeing with your first anon post (extra points if you claim in the second post that you're him - that REALLY sets him off)." - by tomhudson (43916) barbara.hudson@ ... a - h u dson.com on Saturday April 16, 2011 @01:38PM (#35841122) Journal
Those are only a SMALL sampling - I have TONS more from you!
YOU are clearly a mentally disturbed psycho whose inability to accept himself as a man made you do something as STUPID as a sex change - now you take your bullshit out on others like myself? You're whacked...
Even Smitty_One_Each noted that about you & your "trolling" you sick fuck -> http://slashdot.org/comments.p...
APK
P.S.=> Everyone also KNOWS about your many only KNOWN sockpuppets on /. you kept active @ the same time for trolling/harassing others + libeling them & modding yourself up with and those who get the best of you DOWN with http://slashdot.org/~BarbaraHu... = http://slashdot.org/~tomhudson... + http://slashdot.org/~Barbara%2...)
...apk
I, like you (somewhat), am peeved by the overuse of the word "hack". Asking AT&T for email addresses and getting them is not a hack any more than stealing someone's password from their wallet and using it to deface their website. Which also isn't "hacking", for those too dense to realize that stealing the keys isn't "hacking" just because it involves a computer.
I do think that the "unlocked door" idea is valid, though. If it were a personal home, then it ought to be unlawful to go up to that home (or personal computer) looking for unlocked doors. But that doesn't mean AT&T should be able to claim that defense, because it wasn't a personal home. It was their public storefront. If they posted a list of customer credit card numbers on a bulletin board visible through a window, it would be criminal negligence on their part. Reading those numbers isn't a crime, although using them for a crime would be...a crime. Even if it was behind a metaphorical door, an unlocked door in a storefront leads to a public space by default, where the same rules should apply.
Metaphors can be useful as long as they are a bit more accurate. Let's not conflate the difference between a private and a presumed public space.
I sometimes ask revealing, often ignorant-seeming questions. Maybe they're harder to answer than you think.
Cute, but not true. The original word is polis (I was going to be fancy and do it Greek letters, but then I realized I'd never get them intact into Slashdot's broken system) meaning city.
Thus, you will have "men" scaring "women" away.
But if you think about it, calling these people "men" instead of "male sociopaths" is a choice you make in order to make the reality you want to see. Groups like these are really arbitrary. You could just as well say "sociopaths" or "weirdos" and remove the gender attribute.
It is your choice. That is why lies, damned lies, and statictics rules.
More and more, I find it amusing that men lament women just don't want to come hang out at their clubhouse. Then when women do show up they are too frequently called uppity "bitches" and "cunts". While I do appreciate that men want to create a space for activities that they want to engage in, I just can't help but recalling that old maxim: you attract more flies with honey than you do with vinegar. Of course, this means that men in these online communites will have to make a choice. Side with the sociapathic trolls or with the women? Trying to have it both ways just isn't going to work.
Not even close:
Middle English politik, from Middle French politique, from Latin politicus, from Greek politikos, from polits citizen
Stop spreading misinformation, troll.
I have to disagree with you about javaranch. It might be one of the worst sites for when you have questions about java. Almost every single discussion thread on that site is someone asking a question and getting one of two responses:
1) Why do you want to do that? That's stupid, you should do this instead. (which to be fair is a pretty common response across the net)
or
2) You've violated Rule X of the javaranch posting rules.
With most threads either ending right there or devolving into an argument over the rules or why the person wants or needs to do what they're asking and why doing something else isn't an option. Javaranch is horrible.
Right, like social engineering up a password isn't "hacking" or any tech wizardry. There will be "unauthorized access" charges, though. You'll be accessing data that's designated as restricted by virtue of the password's barrier. Getting inside a designated-private wallet is also a no-no.
Even if AT&T put a pathetic sticky note of a label at the top of the page saying "This is private data and only Bob, Sally, and Jim are supposed to access it.", I would consider that a means of designating it a private document, even in located in a public space with absolutely zero security, and I would be much more comfortable with a charge of "unauthorized access".
In such a case you could still bust AT&T for negligence, if you like. Handling the goods/data of others means an obligation of security; the above paragraph only meets the much easier obligation of non-disclosure. As in, don't go telling everyone your customer's data. But their giveaway in 2013 didn't even meet that basic obligation.
Do you not know what "facilitated" means? No.
Getting someone drunk to get them to have sex with you isn't okay.
Actual fucking question for disingenuous jerks:
When you were drunk, high, drugged, or passed out and unable to consent, how many people have ever
had vaginal sex with you? By vaginal sex, we mean that {if female: a man or boy put his penis in your vagina} {if male: a woman or girl made you put your penis in her vagina}.
{if male} made you perform anal sex, meaning they made you put your penis into their anus?
made you receive anal sex, meaning they put their penis into your anus?
put their mouth on your {if male: penis} {if female: vagina}?1
put their mouth on your anus?1
made you put your mouth on their vagina or anus?1
made you put your mouth on their penis?1
put their fingers or an object in your [if female: vagina or} anus?1
Clearly fucking rape. The question includes the phrase "unable to consent". You have zero legs to stand on. Making shit up about the methodology to invent a narrative where it's "not rape" is basically utterly shitty.
> Yet today we see guys trying to scare the women away. What the hell changed?
What you actually see is people (including women) trying to keep sexists calling themselves feminists away from their hobbies.
You may have posted anonymously but I'm going to back you up on that. I think I had like five domains blacklisted on Google when they used to support that feature. The ones I remember were w3schools.com, experts-exchange.com, and javaranch.com.
Never, ever anything useful on any of those sites.
(Not that this really has anything to do with the article or that I doubt her skills with the Java language. I just found javaranch to be utterly useless.)
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
If someone killed weev, the world would be a better place.
Win win dude!
You are begging the question. Nobody except for maybe a few real lunatics has a problem with more women in gaming.
The problem is _some_ women coming to the party late and then wanting to change everything. This is why the main targets are the people who whine incessantly about scantily clad women, or violence against women in games (never mind that 99% of violence in games is against men).
By all means people should make and buy the games they want, and people should make all sorts of games for all sorts of people. But that's not at issue - at issue are professional whiners trying to change someone else's games and trying to make them feel bad for liking boobies.
I have to say it...too much resemblance to Richard Farley.
Asshole? Really? That kind of harrassment is not a joke,it's pure fear and stress, which are killers for sure. More than i hope that someone gives this guy the taste of the kind of fear he dishes out, i hope no-one else has to beon the recieving end. I'd feel little sympathy if the guy was lynched for sure.
> Do you not know what "facilitated" means? No.
I'm not sure that you, so if you think that's in question here you might want to look it up, along with vaginismus and stress/tension.
That one question covers things that are rape, assuming there's neither PRIOR consent nor implied consent. I clearly and carefully explained to you two actual instances of PRIOR and implied consent, in which the "victim" didn't see themselves as a victim. One one case I told you about, the prior consent was explicit, expressed. Don't you think it's a little odd for the researchers to claim someone was raped when the person themselves feels that they had a romantic evening with their spouse? Do you think you can convince my friend she was raped, because she thinks she had a good partying with her husband.
Aside from that one question, which isn't bad, did you notice the questions I copied and pasted for you?
This study calls it sexual violence if you choose to cheer your mate up because they were "showing they were unhappy".
I come home stressed out, irritated that the damn database admin keeps screwing things up. My wife knows what will cheer me up, and she decides to do so. That's categorized as sexual violence in this survey.
You seriously trivialize rape when you pretend that consensual activity between adults in a loving relationship is the same as an assault. It's not. It's actually okay for your wife to cheer you up with a BJ. It's okay for you to reciprocate.
Just like it's okay for you to not use bittorrent - wtf what was wrong with that AC is the other thread? :)
Or take out their knee caps. Don't go lethal when you can shame-maim. Maybe that's just the Italian in me.
Ah, classic Adequecy-style trolling. Great stuff... and Poe's law means it's almost impossible to tell from the real thing.
Doxxing? That's not a troll thing. Fake doxxing, where one sockpuppet doxxes another -- that's a troll thing since before the term "doxxing". Not real doxxing.
They asked the people themselves, if they were unable to consent. That's not ambiguous.
No one cares what other questions are on the survey, because we're talking about one stupid point contested by an AC. I see no reason to discuss the rest of the results, except as some kind of deflection about how you're totally and completely wrong about the rape part.
There's nothing stopping a blogger from blocking comments on their web pages. When cnn posts something it knows people will hate it doesn't allow comments on the article.
Auernheimer is a blight on the human species and a criminal.
Women are more vulnerable (on average!) than men to harassment and similar behaviours.
Both statements can be true.
ONE QUESTION asked if they were unable to consent. I said that question is pretty good. We agree on that. So I'm not sure why you keep bringing that question up. The question isn't perfect, and I showed you two real-life examples where it incorrectly labels something as rape, but that question is good enough. "Showing they were unhappy" is a horrible question. So we have a survey interpretation with some pretty good questions and some pretty bad ones. The results, therefore, are somewhere in the middle.
> Clearly fucking rape. The question includes the phrase "unable to consent".
Let me put it this way and maybe you'll understand my point.
When my wife woke me up via a blow job, I was "unable to consent" - I was out cold when she started.
I woke up very, very happy. I say I was not raped. Are you going to try to convince me that I was raped?
* You'll notice I already gave you this actual real-life event, and another like it, several posts ago.
TL;DR
They aren't. Some women see people attacking them and assume "They're attacking me because I'm a woman". And the media loves to play this narrative. The real reason people get harassed isn't because of their gender, it's because they're idiots.
Which is why silent bots get 25 times more harassment if they have female names than if they have male names.
and you suffocated , no one would care.
see the difference ?
It's mostly due some girls that aren't actually into games and just use it to get "nerdycred", but don't actually play anything considered worthy or are actually interested in getting good.
And the same happens to male "gamers".
Both are generally called several things like "casual gamers", "call of duty audience", "TBBT public" etc..
Of course, several girls that are actually interested in games get caught in the crossfire.
I'm a guy and I have been harassed by a relentless troll in the past after I presented a position that the troll strongly disagreed with. He did a google search of everything he could find out about me and pasted the results all over the place repeatedly. Lesson #1: Don't Use Real Name.
Table-ized A.I.
I wish I still had mod points, because this is the beginning and end of the issue. Unfortunately, most people are not able to see these issues objectively, but instead react to the emotional shouts from the extreme with which they are more closely aligned (which is usually pretty far from their beliefs, but just a tad closer than the opposing extremist views).
Nobody is trying to scare women away. Men get the Same Shit, the only difference is men are taught to ignore it or deal with it. Women are taught to damsel themselves and be helpless victims. Nobody cares when men get trolled or doxxed or swatted, when women get so much as trolled it's the end of the world.
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
Your theory falls flat when it turns out men get the same shit women do and the difference is in how everyone ELSE reacts. Men are expected to deal with it or ignore it, women get a crusade against the troll because "ZOMG MISOGYNY!"
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
It's simple. How do you bully nerds and geeks and gamers if you're still busy pretending "geek is in"? You find an excuse everyone will approve of and nobody will dare question. http://theflounce.com/harassme...
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
Over a million tweets averaging between 30-50 thousand a day is hardly a "few", nor are people who raise $70,000 for feminists to fund female game developers "obnoxious assholes".
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
but around here we're a representational democracy. Now, when our voter turnout gets above 50% you might have a point, but for now the gov't protects those what put 'em in office, and with our low as crap voter turnout that's gonna be whoever pays for the tv ads and voter reg drives.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
While the benefits of anonymous speech are often promoted, I have come to believe the dangers of it, more specifically the dangers of trusting anonymous information, are too often overlooked by our society. It seems people are too willing to give credence to rumors and anonymous tips. It isn't that I would eliminate anonymous speech, rather I wish there were forums for open speech where people actually stand behind their words and people could then decide for themselves which story seems to have a more credible backing. There are plenty of examples of both men and women being very unfairly and wrongly harassed and accused online (how on earth did the discussion go down that rabbit hole anyway). I just wish people would put a little more effort into checking out a story before believing it.
> Can you imagine a male blogger on his private blog receiving that kind of over-the-top campaign if he considered moderating comments? ... yes.
I've been a mod a few times and I've been called every racial epithet, been called a short, fat slob and every other such thing, as well as getting mail bombed with really disgusting porn. I did not react to it, I banned the assholes, and in the case of the mailbomb, I tracked the loser down and had him kicked off his ISP.
It helps when you know they're just trying to get a rise out of you, when you know that they don't actually know anything about you, etc. If you hate trolls, you really want to AVOID publicity, because showing that you're easily trolled is the best way to attract these losers. Once you understand how they work and that they're just looking for an issue that makes you angry, it puts you in control over them rather than the other way around.
This is not trolling. Trolling is a art.
I see what you did there, grammar nazi troll. ;)
Is this Cramer or sumdumass? Wait, wait, lemme guess, Karmashock!
It is sad that the Trolls abound but the knights are in retreat.
Why can't ladies be engaged and corrected politely?
Trolls should be slain.
However going after the trolls, then the laws is like chasing ashes without putting out the fire.
Start with electing people who want smaller government. (not just pork for their people)
Then revamp voir Dire. Jury selection. First 12 people unless they are close friends to the people in the case.
NOT the stupidest 12 the lawyers can pick out.
Then there is a chance that the bad laws can be corrected.
Tell Washington to stop spending MY Money!
Am I the only one here eating all this delectable irony up? I mean the ARCHANGEL MICHAEL is sitting here bitching about the government telling him what to do when his religion pervades every aspect of this very same government? Or that his religion has such a sordid history of tyranny and murder? I mean you're worried you might be killed in a "death panel" but you're obviously cool with some Inquisitions right?
You guys better hurry the hell up before I eat up all this delicious irony. Hey Mike, could you sprinkle some more of that on my popcorn here? I can't get enough!
You keep telling everyone that you're straight, but after that lovely weekend we had in my basement, we both know how you really are.....
See my subject: You've got it wrong - I don't want a "wannabe woman" weirdo!
APK
P.S.=> I go for normal REAL females ... apk
"I no longer read most of his posts, and when I do read one, I just quickly scan it for something to troll him with." - by tomhudson (43916) on Tuesday April 26, 2011 @11:01PM (#35949346) Journal
"you do realize that all you're doing is pointing out to others just how easy you are to troll, right?" - by tomhudson (43916) on Friday April 15, @08:45PM (#35835824) Homepage
"I never stalked you - only trolled you for a week" - by tomhudson (43916) on Monday April 18, 2011 @12:47PM (#35856834) Journal
"Wait until he starts on another kick, then reply to him as an AC. It's the new meme". - by tomhudson (43916) on Sunday May 09 2010, @08:29PM (#32150544) Homepage Journal
"HOWTO: trolling the hosts file guy in one easy step The next time you see a post by him, just reply anonymously. And to really mess with his head, reply anonymously to your anonymous post, disagreeing with your first anon post" - by tomhudson (43916) barbara.hudson@ ... a - h u dson.com on Saturday April 16, 2011 @01:38PM (#35841122) Journal
Those are only a SMALL sampling - I have TONS more from you: You're clearly a mentally disturbed psycho whose inability to accept himself as a man made you do something as STUPID as a sex change - now you take your bullshit out on others like myself? You're whacked...
Even Smitty_One_Each noted that about you & your "trolling" you sick fuck -> http://slashdot.org/comments.p...
* Modding down the last time I posted this too http://slashdot.org/comments.p... only proves your guilt on all accounts noted!
APK
P.S.=> Then there's also your many only KNOWN sockpuppets on /. you kept active @ the same time for trolling/harassing others + libeling them & modding yourself up with and those who get the best of you DOWN with http://slashdot.org/~BarbaraHu... = http://slashdot.org/~tomhudson... + http://slashdot.org/~Barbara%2... )
...apk
Winning a discussion doesn't mean you actually effect change.
Then I'd hardly call it a win at all.
To the winners go the spoils.
That's how you evaluate who the winner is. As it looks so far, systemd is winning the day by taking over many linux distros, Dice is still driving content here, and they just love posts by Bennet and will take as many as he can provide.
Given that, who do you think is winning?
Was it really necessary to call this article "Why the trolls will always win"? Couldn't it have been "Let's fight back against trolls"? Or "How one person survived a malicious troll attack"? The whole point is that people who were attacked ARE fighting back... and if the trolls think they will "always win", then they can't imagine how wrong they are. People are not lying down and taking it anymore, and that's what this article is really about. It needs a different title.
Along with everybody that also too part in criminal activities with him.
It's really just that simple.
The trolls causing problems may claim to be part of the group, that uses a social forum, but that does not mean it is true.
Criminals lie. If you don't believe one thing they say, then you should not trust anything they say.
These days computers are easy enough to use, there is no reason to believe they are even "geeks".
Imagine criminals in a prison, allowed to use the prison library computers for "education", signing on to random sites just to harass people... 8-P
I'm sorry but as a woman in tech, kindly slag off with the whiteknighting and "omg womens need to be defended from trollz".
Most of us are not treated poorly and I'm sorry but you'll notice some trends with the people who are treated that way.
That's not to condone harassment but to deny people flamboyantly say upsetting shit and then are shocked and appalled
when people send inflammatory shit right back "Because they're a woman' is annoying."
That dude clearly had issues but it's not "everyone on the internet' and Zoe Quinn has said some pretty disgusting shit to other
women. She tells people she's a misogynist in person as a joke and her and her friend Maya pick on other women and trans people.
Kotaku etc using her as a meatbag to get more clicks (because that's all it really is) and being surprised when people don't respect her work
because all they know about her is 'wahhh harassment' is just willful ignorance.
Journalists: Stop making "Harassment of Female Developers" news. Make their games news WHEN THEY ARE GOOD.
The sorts of analyses that can be conducted using game-theoretic formulations can be used to see what happens when a population is unable to defend itself because it swears off retribution in kind. The numbers are pretty dismal, without strong cooperation by the good people there is a sort of inevitability that the nice go extinct. Until the mid 1800's outlier antisocial behavior ran a high risk of being met by termination, which might not be a deterrent, but it sure reduces recividism. Once we became too civil to retaliate in kind (or stronger) we run the risk of losing to the trolls.
The ability to be anonymous just makes it harder to stop trolls, and any strong efforts to prevent anonymity are met by claims that the internet needs to support anonymity if it is to deliver freedom in the lands of tyranny.
All of this is fodder for great movies (where the bad guys are pursued by the good) but only if the bad guys hit equally evil players will they find meaningful retribution. If the trolls were to accidentally cost the Russian mafie some serious coin, they might find a knock at their door that would be much worse than having the FBI come a-knocking. (This is the plot of one of my tech-fi stories).
"There is no god but allah" - well, they got it half right.
Social engineering a password (usually) involves no tech wizardry. It is a skill that anybody can pick up that doesn't look like a headless guy in a suit...hunched over a computer screen typing code. The social engineer is the guy you just assumed was a building janitor. Calling every computer-related crime "hacking" brings along a lot of baggage that isn't always appropriate to figuring out how to catch criminals and prevent the crimes.
I sometimes ask revealing, often ignorant-seeming questions. Maybe they're harder to answer than you think.
Sounds like Andrew Auernheimer was jealous of Kathy Sierra. She accomplished something and he desperately wanted to and couldn't, so he instead sought to damage or destroy her. Comparing her accomplishments to his, he was, is and always will be nothing more than a pathetic, psychotic loser. He's no benefit to the computing community, but a cancer that should be excised and incinerated.
Real trolling requires witt and while infuriating the target should cause generally great laugther (eg. by seemingly playing along and letting the target run into a self-built wall). Threats are just a hate crime and should be procesuted.
He is not just a troll, he is most likely a JEWISH troll, that is the only reason he is getting away with his crimes!!
The level of sexist viciousness that many women get on the net greatly exceeds the level of regular asshole harassment that men and women get. Similar problems happen in real life, but anonymity on the net (which I'm all in favor of, for lots of reasons) gets abused much more against women.
I've read too many articles like this recently to keep track of who said what, but one of them pointed out that women especially get attacked by trolls when they're starting to become well-known and people are listening to their opinions. Kathy Sierra, for instance, started the Head First line of programming books, which I found useful, and got enough sexist trolling that she left the business. It's happened to other authors I know as well. And of course there are the trolls who hate having women in gaming.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
death threats and false claims of prostitution is not what I call trolling... this is just criminal behavior.
trolling is harmless, like saying you like apple in a windows post.
saying you will rape OP's mom and kill his dad because he posts about windows, is not trolling.
I agree. It's more related to bullying than to trolling. In swedish there is the term "näthat" (meaning web hate) addressing the phenomenon.
I can has pride. Y u shame?
nah, thats not pretty for the group of "moderated-trolls" that such trolls(?) are that agressive against ladies, who just wanted to be like "elfs" or "elves" - in this case a "doxxer" like that is not a "troll" any more - looks like this ex-troll could have been changed by stuff like falsified plastic "salt" in the supermarkets ?! (=chrystmeth or worse krokodile) ... whatever - here we dont know the backgrounds concerning parts of pervert industrial interests on collecting datas only by data-mining with "help" of "clue-less" contract-workers and their opposites as mobbing people or "trolls" or "doxxers" or what ever it is today only for data-collecting and again only for new "games" or just for "entertainment" ??? - (concerning t-r-o-l-l there are terms like "f-a-w-n" or "s-p-i-r-i-t-of-the-f-o-r-e-s-t" - a fawn is the antique word (greece?) for troll (word troll comes from scandinavia?) - ... only for entertainment and for data-mining by specialization with help of "forensic" groups for this ... - this is nothing any more to do with what people want of life ... so the different streams with thoughts about that "internet" makes things get worse are not that wrong ... ??? - ... who wants to complaint about this posting ?! - it is this way too - what people order and what people consume, they get this back too ...
but-all-in-all these inhibitious extrescences like in decadent days of Roman Empire or worse than that
I read through my above post and have decided to shorten and revise it. It really is too long and despite my efforts at the time still went on a couple of unrelated tangents. I know this is still long, but at least it is better organized. So, for the tl;dr crowd:
Why does it seem that the first response to these kinds of problems is always legal? To sue someone? Is it just because that's what is expedient to existing victims? Because it won't help future potential victims. Even changing the law or boosting enforcement won't get at the root cause.
The fact is that sadly, sociopathic behavior like this is socially acceptable. Every time a woman speaks up, half of the crowd chimes in to defend the sociopath. "It was her own fault", you say. "Women are such whiners; this happens to everyone", you say. And let's be clear: there's a point to be made that women are perhaps too often thin-skinned. But often this point is made regardless to the sexist nature (rape threats) or severity of the harassment (total destruction of career, made to feel unsafe and insecure even in her own home or the home of her family, made to fear for the safety of that family). And most of the people making this point, especially in a place like Slashdot that allows people to post anonymously, make their point with misogynistic slurs. It's only understandable that this position is almost always attacked as "blaming the victim" when there are only a couple of rational voices in the mob.
When you strip away the fact that women are the most common victims, you are left with the uncontroversial problem: sociopaths. Even when they aren't attacking you personally, their assaults harm society and by extension harm you. Every time a Kathy Sierra is harassed out of her comfort zone, we lose another intelligent perspective. We lose the voice behind javaranch.com. And to all you lonely nerds out there: we lose one more woman that understands and appreciates what you do. One more woman that might have shared your dreams and obsessions.
How can the law help us? Will it stop people from being sociopaths? Not any more than drunk driving laws made people stop driving drunk. Drunk driving used to be just as socially acceptable as wife beating and criminal harassment. What changed? MADD and systematic messaging from law enforcement and driver's education told entire generations of new drivers that it is not acceptable. Now drunk driving is the sort of thing only completely irresponsible people do, right? While that doesn't mean nobody does it, it does mean nobody defends the behavior. We need a single message to spread to every single child regarding harassment: this is not OK.
Stopping sociopaths and the harassment they inflict means we have to focus on their actions, not the possible failings of their victims. The victim has already been through enough and doesn't need you to tell them to toughen up. You don't even have to personally believe the victim! Attack the crime, even if you don't believe it happened. You might say, "Harassment is wrong, and I am appalled to think this kind of thing even happens." You might say, "I actually have trouble believing the story because it's so unthinkable that someone could be this much of a sociopath." You might say, "I thought this sort of thing never happened, and it certainly never should." Casting doubt on the victim doesn't help anybody. It just makes you the kind of asshole that future victims are afraid will attack their credibility if they seek help. And if they're lying, let that come out at trial; our public discussion cannot come nearly as close to justice for the specific people involved. All we can do is try to prevent this sort of thing from happening in the future by making clear that it is unacceptable.
Changing the law is a nice idea, but people tend to be pretty resentful of laws that don't match their personal beliefs. That's why the above is so important. You will never get people to report harassment and support victims just by passing laws. This is where we are
I sometimes ask revealing, often ignorant-seeming questions. Maybe they're harder to answer than you think.
This isn't trolling at all, it's fabrication, fraud, harassment, libel damage, destruction of someone's life.
This is not fucking trolling. It's a smear campaign among other things, who the fuck though they could call this trolling? Some angry fucking minecraft kid who got mad that his house was turned into a penis so he wants to outlaw trolling?
Trolling is baiting someone into a fight, not the destruction of their life.
Get it out of your thick repressed fucking heads that this kind of sick behavior is not god damn fucking trolling, and stop trying to use the wrong fucking words to make something you don't like illegal and drastric and super fucking wrong.
Her only crime was infecting the world with the* dumb-down "Head First" books.
Her sentence was beyond harsh, and the trolls inexcusable. But she should take a rep-hit for foisting such crap on the world.
Ekeland wasn't the only one bothered by the government's case. Even Kathy Sierra disagreed. Yet she's appalled that somehow she'd been dragged into supporting the very man who'd abused her.
But you all know what happened next. Something something something horrifically unfair government case against him and just like that, he becomes tech's "hacktivist hero." He now had A Platform not just in the hacker/troll world but in the broader tech community I was part of. ... But hard as I tried to find a ray of hope that the case against him was, somehow, justified and that he deserved, somehow, to be in prison for this, oh god I could not find it. I could not escape my own realization that the cast against him was wrong. So wrong. And not just wrong, but wrong in a way that puts us all at risk.
derail?