On The Outing of a Troll

Initial publication: 23 Oct 2007

Addendum 24 Oct 2007

This is going to make no sense to almost anyone who arrives here.

What's the story?

Years ago, decades in internet time, a minor Grokwar skirmish had flared up in early January of 2005.  At that point most of the Grokwarriors had respected the shaky truce on Yahoo! SCOX and were active on CKX. (CKX is trading about where it was back then, but it's tossed off almost $2 in dividends since then.)  A well known and annoying troll deepdisrust from the SCOX board had followed us there and pitifully attempting to fan the flames.

A brand new nym stimpsonsaid appeared with something quasi-relevant to the war discussion and made an unverifiable claim relating to private e-mail.  I responded with "show us the proof."  Subsequently I received an e-mail from a Yahoo! mail account.  The Yahoo! id was a nickname/lastname combination.  The e-mail was signed with firstname/lastname and the last names matched.  The header showed the e-mail originating from a consumer cable modem IP address.

The initial e-mail claimed to be a friend of stimpsonsaid and contained the forwarded e-mail that had led to the claim.  (For the record, I later e-mailed the third party in question and verified the initial claim to my satisfaction.)  Subsequent e-mails revealed a number of things:

• The e-mailer was stimpsonsaid and the person who had e-mailed the third party
• The e-mailer was also deepdistrust
• The e-mailer was a consultant and did not want personally identifiable information released out of concern it might affect future gigs.
• Almost all e-mail headers showed the same cable modem IP, but one showed a Fortune 50 IP. (Not computer/software tech related)

I did some searching on my own relating to the name(s) and the Fortune 50 company and mostly hit blanks.  Using the signed firstname/lastname combination, I had less than 10 Google hits and only one of them could possibly be associated with the Fortune 50 company--but it struck me as incredibly unlikely that my hit was the person in question.  Below, I discuss that the same searches today return many more hits.

I had always found deepdistrust annoying, but not to the point where he made Yahoo! unusable.  From many discussions with others, I realize that I have a much higher tolerance for BS and a much greater desire for dissent than others--though, I prefer that dissent to be intelligent.  My gut feeling at the time, a feeling that has not changed, was that deepdistrust was not paided to use ledite's terminology.  I believed then and now that he is acting as an individual.  I'm willing to admit I could be wrong.

I did post on CKX that I had corresponded with stimpsonsaid and later that my own e-mail had confirmed his information.  I did not post the deepdistrust/stimpsonsaid link.

Later, if I remember correctly--I've not been able to track it down to confirm--the deepdistrust/stimpsonsaid multi-nym screwed up and posted in a thread in such a way as to indicate that stimpsonsaid=deepdistrust.  stats_for_all used all his skill and had quickly e-mailed me asking for information on stimpsonsaid because he was really deepdistrust.  I replied that I already knew they were the same person and related the generalities to stats_for_all.  My memory is that I also indicated that when the sender had indicated that he was deepdistrust and did not want his name out there because of possible future employment, I replied "no problem. I understand."

Stats didn't give up, but eventually dropped it.

Likely as anyone reading this is aware, there has been a recent crapflood on Yahoo! SCOX by what many believe to be incarnations of deepdistrust.  Looking at it myself, I would tend to agree.  Once again, I have been asked to reveal the information in those e-mails both publically and privately.  I must admit I'm tempted.  I must also admit that barring a crime, I feel very strongly that I am still held to my perhaps ill-advised promise from nearly three years ago.

What do I have?

Well, I have two IPs: a cable-modem and a Fortune 50 company.  I have two name variations that agree on last name.  That's it.  Of the three hits on the full name that existed almost three years ago, only one of them could even conceivably tie to the Fortune 50 company but even that didn't pass the smell test.

The same search today shows many more hits on the signed name and indicate a growing career.  Those hits make any connection with the Fortune 50 company even less likely.

However, a search on the shorter version of the name in the e-mail address shows two hits of interest.  One from the last millennium, which did not exist in Google when I looked in 2005, would seem to identify the individual in question, give an age of 42/43 and a US state when the post was made, a state that would make the two IP hits consistent.  The location would make sense with the IP hits.  Another less likely hit offers a full name that would tie the two different first names with the last name.

I'm 43.  I go by the diminutive of my middle name.  I have been a consultant.  I have trolled as long ago as Usenet and more recently, but always much more intelligently and constructively than Mr. Distrust.  I also have a name that while unusual is not as distinctive in that most of the Google hits are not me.  I am also a good enough consultant that I would have known what could be revealed in IP headers and would never have been stupid enough to reveal the information Mr. Distrust did, but that could be because I was active enough in things to be around when Usenet was web 2.0 social networks.

What else do I have?  I am quite certain that the bulk of the matches on one name variant are going to be for someone who is totally unrelated and in a career where reputation matters more than many.

And, I have my promise, however ill-advisedly given.

What to do?

So, I've been asked to reveal what I know so that a troll can be stopped.  Presumably this would take the form of public outing/investigation/embarrassment. 

Anonymity on the internet is a curious thing.  For TLA's with access to rooms that don't exist, anonymity is easily pierced.  For Google, with their googlesyndication cookies, search history and potentially e-mail/apps access, anonymity is all but non-existent.  To most other posters on a Yahoo! board a fellow poster is completely anonymous.  To a geek, who understand much of what various internet protocols can reveal, there are ways of controlling levels of anonymity but also a realization that true anonymity is relatively futile.  To the anmcbrides and the deepdistrusts, there is the one screwup which can bring it all tumbling down to anyone wiling to dig a bit.

Anonymity on the internet has many benefits.  Nonetheless, it allows for the breakdown of social norms.  Many have posted things on message boards that they would never say face to face at a cocktail party.  Of course, I'd like to think that my mental construct of some of the entities involved is such that I can think of people on both sides of the SCO message board scene whom I suspect would say pretty much the same thing at a cocktail party that they do on the message board.  But, they are the exception.

When MOG acted as a SCOX proxy to pierce PJ's anonymity, even the Grokwarriors were appalled and rose up in indignation.  Nearly everyone on the anti-SCOX side felt that PJ should be allowed her anonymity and that it was morally repugnant to try to pierce that.

Yahoo! message board limits prevented the posting of this full message, so I am going to post a pointer to this page on Yahoo! and then link it back to here.

Unless someone can convince me that deepdistrust is paided or that a crime has been committed, I am not convinced that I should reveal what meager information I have.  Yet, nevertheless, I have to admit a conflicted desire to do so.

Addendum 24 Oct 2007

stats_for_all pointed out that I had left out of the narrative above some material from Summer 2006, and he is correct.  Stats was kind enough to forward me redacted correspondence that I had sent him last year.  I reproduce that almost in full below.  The XXXX are original deletions made by me in 2006 before forwarding to stats.  The material in brackets are deletions I am making today in posting this.

It all starts with me e-mailing Mr. DDT about some thread on Yahoo! SCOX, I assume.  I honestly don't remember what it was.  I'll let the rest speak for itself.  It begins with my final response to DDT.  I've not gone through my e-mails, so I don't have dates on everything.

As I recall, this e-mail did result in a change in DDT postings for a bit.

And I don't check this one very much, so I just now saw your reply.

Regarding your opinion of Linux.  I mostly agree.  I've rec'd a few of your 
posts and replied with reasoned support with one of my troll accounts.

I suspect that if you weren't so over the top, you'd get more people 
agreeing with you.  Personally, I hope you don't leave completely--though, 
I'd ask that when something worth talking about (say 707 today) is going on 
I'd prefer you hold back a bit.  Not that my opinion matters one whit.

BTW, Stats did trace you to a [STATE DELETED] [CORPORATTION DELETED] IP from a 
few years back.  To the best of my knowledge, though, he never connected 
that with a person.

         ---Tim

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
> To: "Tim Rushing" <[RUSHING ADDRESS DELETED]>
> Subject: Re: From heimdal31 aka Tim Rushing
> Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 13:29:58 -0700 (PDT)
>
>
> Tim,
>
>    Sorry about replying so late. I only saw this today - I don't use this
> email address that much. Thanks for keeping my confidence. Stats_for_all looks
> like a good guy, not at all the kind to call people late at night, but still.
>
>    Yes, I am trolling, but only partly. I do mean some of the stuff about
> Linux supporters' denial and the like. I'm going to give it up "shortly"
> anyway. No, there is no payment involved!
>
>    As for [MATERIAL DELETED], I guess there is no one thing. The general dishonesty,
> I guess, the extreme rigidity of position, and the tendency to demonize people over
> disagreements. We may not see eye to eye on this, but I think all these
> attributes are present in the Linux world at large. (Yeah, I do the same in my
> Y!SCOX posts, but I am trolling!)
>
>    Thanks again for keeping my information private, and hopefully, I will be
> able to largely leave you guys alone.
>
>    XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
>
> Tim Rushing <[RUSHING ADDRESS DELETED]> wrote:
>    Man, that was an impressive troll!
>
> You should know that stats wrote to me because you recently revealed
> that stimpsonsaid was one of your nyms. He Yahoeuvred it and saw that I
> had exchanged e-mail with the person behind that nym.
>
> He asked for details.
>
> I told him that the person who sent me the e-mail had revealed that he
> was also deepdistrust and that he had asked me to keep that info to
> myself. Thus, I wrote, that I could not give stats any information
> about that e-mail, the content or the e-mail address.
>
> I also said that I thought you were trolling for fun. Who knows, I
> could be wrong. Hell, if your paided, I hope you get a bonus. I'd love
> to ask what your motivation is and why the recent Linux attacks, which
> have some substance but are over the top and quite repetitive. Of
> course, if you are paided, then you'd say it was all just for fun, so I
> couldn't completely trust your answer.
>
> The main reason I'm writing, though, is to tell you that I have not
> given your e-mail or name to anyone and do not intend to. For some odd
> reason, it matters to me that you know that. WASP upbrining and all and
> likely related to the reason I got so pissed at SCO.
>
> If I can ask, though, what was [REST OF LINE AND ONE MORE LINE DELETED]
>
> ---Tim Rushing
>