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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."
to cancel my Comcast subscription?
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.
There's a huge investigation on the guy by the Finnish police (according to the article). He's already been in jail once. The problem is, he hasn't done anything (as far as anyone can tell). He complained on a forum, and other people have been doing the harassing.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
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?
Time to go to Finland and beat the crap out of him.
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.
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
Yeah, but what's the rest of his family guilty of?
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.
Things people always seem to forget they can do. If you have credible evidence against an individual committing a crime, you provide it to law enforcement and they refuse to act, you sue the law enforcement agency. Remember, in the US, the requirement to make a lawsuit valid is you need to be able to prove the defendant has caused you damages. Though not required, most states will allow a jury trial of up to 6 jurors for a civil matter if requested. For federal issues, a civil case amounting of more than $20 is constitutionally required to be given a 6 person jury. And a law enforcement agency not acting on a criminal offense when provided credible evidence is pretty well a slam dunk in front of a 6 person jury for damages caused. And if it's the FBI refusing to act, congrats, the constitution guarantees you that jury trial.
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.
Don't use Nazis to make your argument.
Do you know who used Nazis to make his argument? HITLER!
That's why both the e-mails of the services attacking him have his name in them? Please.
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
Sometimes violence is the answer and this sure sounds like one of those times.
You've already got one. It's called "Don't browse at -1".
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!!!
But they are Finnish and I'm sure they'll finish eventually.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
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
Actually, it might. It will attract attention from sympathetic people and companies. And if it goes viral, it may even affect public policy. And it might even inspire white hat hackers who don't like Trolls to help identify the culprits. It sure sounds like the work of more than one.
Anyway, it sure sounds like it can't get much worse.
I can see the fnords!
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.
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." -
As opposed to left wing radicals like sjws and george soros? Do you not realize they're all part of the same problem?
And a law enforcement agency not acting on a criminal offense when provided credible evidence is pretty well a slam dunk in front of a 6 person jury for damages caused.
That's special that you think that. Warren v. D.C., DeShaney v. Winnebago County, and a slew of other court rulings argue otherwise.
Basically you hire a lawyer to sue the crap out of the idiots who fell for those pranks causing you to suffer. So sue comcast for falsely claiming you disconnected, sue the power company if they cut you off, sue every one who falsely messed with you. The reality is, it is their failure and when you sue them, their lawyers will undoubtedly find the perpetrator and make them pay. It is their fault for failed security proceedings. As for those threats, threats under some ones else's name is still a threat and prosecutable, not the falsely named person of course but the person who made the threat. So sue law enforcement for failing to follow up and prosecute the person who actually made those threats.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
A post about people who moderate gets modded up... CRONYISM MUCH
lucm, indeed.
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.
The problem is that people who aren't at -1 reply to the -1 posts.