Posted on 05/09/2005 5:54:33 AM PDT by Lazamataz
There is an internet vandal who defaces Free Republic with very gross pictures (homosexual sex and stuff from rotton.com) as well as posting "ALL YOU F***** N*****S & JEWS SHOULD BE LYNCHED".
He pings a variety of people to his post, ensuring that the trash is still in their My Posts lists.
To me, this isn't the milder form of harassment that Eschoir engaged in so many years ago. The very worst he would do is ask if you ever committed sodomy, and he once used the screen name "Paula Jones Tw*t". This is mild.
What this sick piece of work is doing is much more egregious. I believe it crosses the line into criminal defacement and restraint of trade. Are there any Free Republic lawyers (especially prosecutors) who can address this issue, and are there any private detectives with internet savvy that will help track the identity of this person down?
A friend of mine used to encode his file sharing with false IP's to hide his ID for music and movie downloads. He is a senior Java expert and said he had a program that generates random IPs for each download. Apparently, he could do it for uploads as well. I checked out Google and there are many citations for such a thing. All I know, he never was caught sharing.
The time of day that these generally happen would lend credence to your thought -- perhaps a kid who posts his hit & run just before hopping the bus to school. In that event, his parents/parole officers would probably be very interested in this.
Also, as I said before, I'm sure this violates his ISPs Terms of Service.
If he can be tracked, I'm sure we can get his internet access revoked if nothing else.
That would be my guess.
If I were the defense lawyer, I'd request the judge instruct the jury that, as a matter of law, they were protected political speech.
Might not get that instruction, but I'd sure as hell try.
It's flooding FR with the filth and the mods have a hard time keeping up!
The filth was posted at 15 or more different threads and the Canteen was one of them!
The post was there for almost 20 minutes before it was removed!
The mods aren't slow but have their hands full!
I run Panda which updates daily, sometimes two or three times a day, and I also have two other security programs. I don't know how to check for a keylogger, or any virus/program, except to look at Panda's log book.
If this idiot inserted malware on my machine due to my pulling up FR pages with its posts on it then I wanted to warn others and see if it had happened to anyone else. It also increases the level of severity of the need to deal with this troll.
No, all I got were the two pics.
don't hurt me
Whatever the agenda, the pictures were more than just offensive. They leave quite an indelible image.
Googling on James54 brings up a link to an Australian hacker site, where some posts exist.
An image search also leads to a freaky teen bodybuilder site....worth checking, perhaps.
Yes, I've seen some of these, though not by someone named James54. I've seen them posted by Buttsex2 and Buttsex3.
The pictures are totally revolting and you know what? I have kids who often look over my shoulder as I freep. I've never before been concerned about that, but these pictures just appear out of the blue.
IMO, it is harassment or possibly cyber-stalking, if such a thing exists.
I agree and I have NEVER hit abuse until this.
Personally, I long for the days when kickin' the livin' shi'ite out of a piece of scum like the one in question would have folks writing congratulatory letters to editors.
Manners would be much improved.
I can imagine a list of highly-trusted members begin given permission to "hide" a post until review by Jim Rob. Any abuse by those "highly-trusted" members would result in their removal from the list and other possible sanctions. Once reviewed and confirmed as truly reprehensible, it could be deleted. Either way, final authority would remain with our host, and accountability of the "highly-trusted" would also be inescapable.
I have NO IDEA how to implement such a feature, but if it can be done, perhaps it should be considered.
Maybe a vote button could be put on posts and if a certain number of no votes were given, then it would be deleted. You could even weigh the voting process to favor those with the oldest sign up dates.
Given that FR is a privately owned & operated site, the speech wouldn't be protected as far as I can see it.
That's akin to demanding a guarantee to was poetic on DU. They're within the rights to yank you, just as we are.
And "protected speech" when directed specifically at individuals (i.e., those he pinged specifcally) would most likely constitute personal harassment.
Yeah, you're probably right. But every thread that gets bombed like this probably has a half dozen long-time posters with thousands of responsible posts logged over the years. I would trust any one of those people to act resposibility and send a post to the AM for "Instant Replay Review" before it can be posted again.
Maybe there has to be levels of membership here. If you are a long-time poster who hasn't abused the system, you can get certain additional abilities. I'm just spitballin' here, but what do you think, JimRob?
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