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One Family Suffering Through Years-Long Trolling Campaign (dailydot.com)
blottsie writes: Since 2010, the Straters have been under assault from an online campaign of ever-increasing harassment — prank deliveries, smear attacks, high-profile hacks, and threats of violence against schools and law enforcement officials in their name — and it's slowly torn them apart. Masterminding it all is a teenage Lizard Squad hacker from Finland, at war with their son, Blair, over a seemingly minor dispute. "When the family started getting notices about their utilities being disconnected, they realized things were escalating out of control. Utility provider Commonwealth Edison once called the house to iron out the details about a request to have the power turned off after a supposed move. Something similar happened with their trash service. On Halloween 2013, Comcast shut off their cable and Internet service."
Maybe. Maybe.
I have yet to meet one who can out troll bullet!
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to cancel my Comcast subscription?
Well if anything can help, it's putting their name all over the interwebs.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I wonder how much a camo dude ( hired gun ) would charge for a one week vacation to Finland
Time to hire a lawyer, one in the US and one in Finland. A Finnish lawyer is going to be able to mobilize the local authorities, and better sue the guy in Finnish civil courts.
Someone you trust is one of us.
Cut off my cable because some stranger told you to do so? Better give me a free month or be sued for breach of contract.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
This article tries to make the troll sound evil, but he did get them disconnected from Comcast
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
This is my official request for a moo blocker chrome extension.
Just finished reading this article all the way through, it's fucking disgusting.
And yet, I can see how easy it would be for this to happen in the first place.
He's basically a 21st century Charles Manson, I'll bark if you bite.
Have you ever fallen asleep at the keybhanusdiog?
Ah yes, victim blaming.
The real point we should all take away is how insecure these utility companies really are. You would think any competent business would not be fooled more than once on the same address. How hard is it to put a note there this address is prone to phishing attacks, don't process request without fully verifying with owner. Lock account without direct content to owner. There are so many easy ways around these common exploits, but the management of these companies is so behind the times it's ridiculous.
It wouldn't be hard to do something like 2 factor authentication right over the phone either and that could be turned on for high risk targets like this. Basically utility companies are not taking their customers security seriously.
But the article indicates the kid being targeted by this campaign is no saint himself, both in his interactions online plus his arrest for hacking his own high school's website.
In a series of interviews with the Daily Dot, Kivimaki wasn’t particularly forthcoming with personal details. He’s currently 18 years old and has been a computer hacker for nearly half his life. His lengthy 2013 indictment serves as an incomplete guide to some of the alleged exploits of his previous hacking group, Hack the Planet.
Mess with the best, die like the rest.
2) Some of it comes from companies acting really stupidly. The cable, power, Twitter etc. really did a BAD job handling the attacks and should have done a lot more to fix the situation. In particular, the 'services for the deaf' loopholes need to be fixedas this is a common abuse.
3)We need to admit that recently, there are a multitude of ways to steal/borrow people's Identity and we change government laws to account for this. Offer name/ID change services from the government, that require the participants to give DNA, fingerprint, photo, and signature (to avoid criminals abusing it), then issue new names and ID numbers linked to duplicates of the real data with certain key facts removed so it can't be back traced. You lose your old fair-weather friends, but can give you real family/best friends the new bio data, on the condition they give it out to nobody.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Just got an email notice that someone signed up for a credit card in my name and with my email address. Presumably they're trying to get a copy of my credit report?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Anonymous has always been a joke.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
So we should be all nice and fuzzy with a group intent of harassing people. Oh they are making peoples lives miserable, but let them just go on their marry way, because if we mess with them they will mess with us too.
Yea it is OK the Nazi were capturing Jews, because we weren't Jews, if we did try to stop them, then they would just go after us.
Yep that mentality is looked soooo fondly in the view of history.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Oh look, someone broke into your house, and stole all your valuables and personal belongings. Well you were stupid enough not to use bank vault doors, and you gave the spare key to a close friend who didn't lock his door that day.
The problem with Information security is that to be safe you need professional level of security on your consumer devices, and constant vigilance to keep it up. This is a lot of work for a person, especially if they don't find security patches fun, or barely get by using the internet.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
No, don't get into an online pissing contest with anyone, because THERE ARE NO WINNERS!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
How would you solve that flaw?
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
That's very bad for them, and I sympathize.
For society as a whole there's perhaps a valuable lesson to be learned here, about trust, e.g. trust that those who call to cancel utilities etc. are who they claim to be.
I don't have sympathy for parasites, but sometimes they can make the body's immune system stronger. That's also true on a societal level, and I hope it's going to happen here.
Could Lifelock or perhaps a more active defense service (do these exist?) help with this? I know home/auto/life insurance companies offer identity protection and/or recovery; do any of them offer protection/defense services against this kind of [sic] siege?
I find throwing stones at windows endlessly amusing. I find it amusing because it exposes a fundamental flaw in physics.
And because I'm a fucktard.
Don't use Nazis to make your argument.
Do you know who used Nazis to make his argument? HITLER!
At some point you have to think they could get in touch with the Feds and ask to be put through the witness protection system. Come out the other side with scrubbed identities, etc.
Even better, keep the old identities alive and use them as bait to draw these people out.
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
In reply to the sig, AC because it's not furthering the discussion.
I suspect most scientists would trade a soul (possibly tarnished, possibly belonging to someone else) for a reasonable chance at building a teleporter. Most people would try it and determine they didn't notice anything different about it.
Jazz musicians would probably become more sought after though, and that might be a good thing.
Shouldn't rational people be examining each argument based on its own merit rather than grouping an argument with others that it may not correspond to simply because someone chose to use a particular analogy which is perceived as overused or often inappropriately used?
A rational person should be more aware and mindful of their own cognitive biases more than another person's. The biblical quote about failing to notice the log in our own eye as we rush to point out the splinter in another's comes to mind.
On a side note, when did ACs get mod points?
When I was in HS, kids would sign their friends up for hundreds of magazine subscriptions at a time and thought it was funny. I think you can still fill out those cards and prank your friends, although I've never tried. I understand the challenge with cancelled service, but how are they getting things like gravel delivered without a deposit of some sort. Heck if I were the gravel company, I'd be happy to take a deposit, call the victim, agree not to deliver the gravel and split the deposit with them!
You've already got one. It's called "Don't browse at -1".
> On Halloween 2013, Comcast shut off their cable and Internet service.
Right, because that never happens...
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Hm. I wonder if Anonymous takes cases like this.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Lifelock is essentially worthless.
They are a "monitoring" service.
So what they do is go "Woo! Someone just got hold of this person's info and might be misusing it! Isn't that interesting?"
They're a fucking confidence scam.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
I find swatting ... Endlessly amusing. I find it amusing because it exposes a fundamental flaw in telecom systems.
You're quite mistaken there. It isn't a "fundamental flaw in telecom systems," it is a flaw in the social system. Fortunately there is an excellent patch for this issue. The problem is that it isn't used enough. If the patch was applied more regularly the problem would be likely to pretty much disappear. Will you be volunteering to demonstrate?
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Are you unaware that the Koch brothers finance a lot of right-wing extremists? There's nothing "unhinged" about opposing people who undermine our political process by helping RWNJs get elected via their disproportionate influence. Money should not equal political power in a democracy.
So what? Their "right-wing extremists" are better than a lot of things they could be funding.
Blair says it stemmed from a disagreement over the release of a “zine” describing the exploits of Hack the Planet, a group he was also a part of. Kivimaki says his hostility stems from Blair’s threat to release the names and personal information of some of Kivimaki’s friends
In either version of events, this family is not an innocent victim.
Join a recreational "haxor" group, get fucked over by said group. End of story.
If you care about digital advocacy join a white hat group like the EFF, but if you are a black hat, then get slammed by black hats, you don't deserve a long huge fonted thoughtful story piece.
Sure. However some people have no real argument and realize that they have no real argument. So they will happily use an obviously bogus argument that's emotionally loaded.
Unfortunately, it works very well. Otherwise people would not bother.
It doesn't help that most people on both sides of the pond are nitwits.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Right, agreed, it's a daunting task. So the additional security step is "don't attract attention by hanging out with trolls and then pissing them off."
This is advice. It is not blame.
That said, I feel really horrible for the family, especially the daughter. They don't deserve any blame.
As for Blair, TFA is very inconclusive about what he may or may not have done to attract attention.
I can see the fnords!
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/website-offers-to-cancel-comcast-for--5-180730710.html
Can't they do something like what the credit card companies do and put a "watch" on the account? When I did customer service, we didn't have specific watches, but we had the call log and pulled up customer history with every call. They could, at the very least, put NOTICE CUSTOMER WATCH in the subject line for a log entry. They could request to not have any service changed except by personal appearance with ID at the office. That should easily stop a teen from Europe.
Hell, I can't even get my cc company to block charges from some lowlife scammer, I have to dispute the charge every.damn.month.
I am told the only way to stop them is to cancel and get a new card issued...trouble is, it's only $20 per month. That is an enormous hassle to me because the credit card company can't just block one bad actor...I'm continuing to dispute the charges month-by-month so far, but once it reaches a year of this nonsense I'll probably cave in and get a new card. Damn their eyes.
"I love animals! Some are cute, others are tasty, what's not to like?" - Betsy Schroeder, Jeopardy contestant
I would not call it scam. Lifelock delivers on exactly what they promise. The monitor. The faster you react to a stolen identity issue the better. It makes it much easier to sort out.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
The so-called hacker collectives are really just perpetrating the tragedy of the commons. We build a fence around the sheep pasture, and they knock it over to show us that we should have built a stronger fence.
"Why did you do that?"
"To show you what will happen when the bad people come to steal the sheep."
It will take them a decade of growing up to realize that they were the bad people.
Same thing with finding a wallet on the ground. A guy takes the money and tosses the wallet in the trash, saying that if he didn't take the cash someone else would have. No...it was you who took the cash. You're the bad guy.
Well, not accepting 911 calls from spoofed phone numbers would be a start. VoIP makes it far too easy to spoof the phone number currently. It's like the same people who wrote the SMTP RFC created it.
Even if you take the view that Blair deserves what's coming to him, these dicks are going after his parents and siblings. That's reprehensible.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
If someone else sets up a fake account in your name, it still shows up when your name is searched. You can disavow it all you want, but it's still going to put off potential employers. If you have a generic name then it might not matter, but if your name is unique, you will have a much more difficult time.
That's not really an option for us who moderate on a regular basis. We have to deal with the trolling and the spam.
"Be particularly skeptical when presented with evidence confirming what you already believe." -
But so long as modern Scandinavia forsakes its Viking roots and is saddled with a legal system that metes out six months of community service for genocide, people like Kivimaki will keep getting away with whatever they want.
As opposed to left wing radicals like sjws and george soros? Do you not realize they're all part of the same problem?
https://c2.staticflickr.com/6/...
So, your okay with puttinng up with the hassle of disputing the charge every month, but not with the temporary hassle of getting a new card? So you pay with cash for a few days and have to update cc details on a handful of sites. You're wasting more effort disputing the charges every month!
Just rip the damn band-aid off quickly already!
But...but...i have this number memorized... :'(
Yeah, I know, I should just do it. But it's also kind of a "why should I have to move, I was here first!" thing now. If I dispute it often enough, perhaps someone will actually investigate these assholes and shut them down...I know, wishful thinking...
"I love animals! Some are cute, others are tasty, what's not to like?" - Betsy Schroeder, Jeopardy contestant
http://www.theverge.com/2015/1...
Requiem for the American Dream
Sam Lowry: My name's Lowry. Sam Lowry. I've been told to report to Mr. Warrenn.
Porter - Information Retrieval: Thirtieth floor, sir. You're expected.
Sam Lowry: Um... don't you want to search me?
Porter - Information Retrieval: No sir.
Sam Lowry: Do you want to see my ID?
Porter - Information Retrieval: No need, sir.
Sam Lowry: But I could be anybody.
Porter - Information Retrieval: No you couldn't sir. This is Information Retrieval.
A post about people who moderate gets modded up... CRONYISM MUCH
lucm, indeed.
Did you really post that on Slashdot
lucm, indeed.
So you're one of those people who follow the letter of the law, but not its spirit.
lucm, indeed.
I dunno. I've got karma to spare for a test like this. We'll see...
I never moderate - as in never. I probably haven't used my moderator points in years, probably several, and I get moderator points on a very regular basis.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Wow, currently sitting at your native +2. Maybe there is something to say for the cronyism.
Do you ever get the 15 points at once? As a moderator, I hate when that happens, I feel like I can't post until they are spent, so I don't end up posting on that day.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
I fully intend to win my war against APK post spam!
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
Actually, from testing, this is not true. Even when you click post anonymously, it still removes your mod points from the article. You have to log out completely, close your browser, and maybe even use a private mode in order to not lose the mods.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
I have but it's not typical - I don't think. I just don't really notice or spend them. I don't moderate, as a general rule. The posts that I'd flag down are just spam and those are already covered. Other than that? I don't feel a need to curtail others speech or to impose my standards on the speech of others. If I disagree, I'm more inclined to say something or ignore them, not to delete them. I'd moderate spam, and have, but I don't usually bother - I just delete the notice. I'd rather comment in the threads and doing so as an AC, if I moderated, is against the rules so I don't do that either.
Mostly, I know that my moderation means that they get a lower score. With a lower score they're less visible. That means they're less likely to be heard. Which, I figure, means they're more likely to just repeat themselves or it hides their posts from people who don't read at -1 or the likes. Meh, let 'em read it. I read almost everything - if I have time. I keep a Slashdot tab open and return to it when I have a few minutes. It's a good time burner. I like to discuss, not to hide speech. With the exception of spam, well, who am I to judge? So, it's a few reasons but no - as a general rule I don't spend them.
But yeah, I've seen 15 a few times but I don't see them as often any more. I think that's because I don't moderate? I still get points but not as frequently. When I stopped using them, they stopped showing up as often. If I take a day or two off and return then I've generally got a few notifications. I'm not entirely sure how the system works. I don't think I've gotten a slot of 15 at one time for a while but I think I've had 15 waiting for me when I returned? I just delete them and the temptation goes away - I still see the settings but I can ignore those fairly well. ;-) I'd rather comment. Maybe I'll learn something?
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Some people win, if they enjoy golden showers.
"Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
Interesting. The Koch brothers do fund research that supports their point of view - just like a bunch of left wingers (whingers?) like Soros and Clinton. But of course when you put 'Right Wing' in the name it's supposed to be scary! Oohhh! Afraid yet? If anyone is unhinging our political process, it's the Clintons and Bushes.
Unfortunately, the useful idiots don't see this as an issue. For some reason, they believe that left wing extreme wealth is on their side - when extreme wealth is only on the side of the owner of said wealth, not a political position or other individuals.
Apparently, you're still trying to white knight your way out of some insecurity or other. Does your wife wear the strapon or do you? See? I can hurl insults too! Can we be friends now?
The problem is that people who aren't at -1 reply to the -1 posts.
Yeah and Kim Jong Un is better than Mao, but if asked which is the most preferable leader of a country, I'd still answer neither.
It's not an either-or situation, it is possible to reject all retardation regardless of where on the political spectrum it sits.
I get 15 points about evey three days or so. It's not always consistent as some days I forget to log in.
"Be particularly skeptical when presented with evidence confirming what you already believe." -
Anonymous Vows Revenge on ISIS: http://www.newser.com/story/21...