rjg@sialis.mn.org (Robert J. Granvin) (06/08/88)
After following the entire original postings and resulting flood of
followups, I would say that the only "victor" in this was JJ himself.
Consider the following:
We have two rounds of postings that supposedly originated from the
same person. This person posted a ridiculous article that a lot of
people took almost excessively negative. These postings "at least"
utilized the crossposting feature which is designed for some measure
of efficiency. If the poster had not crossposted, he would have had
to do more work, but then you would have literally seen the article
all over the place.
Since those simple postings, the following has occurred:
- The net at large has been extremely vocal about the incident,
screaming and flaming publicly. This has resulted in:
- Significant increased volume in the groups affected.
- More discussion based on previous discussion, causing a nice,
sometimes vicious loop, thereby increasing volume again.
- "JJ" receiving a great deal of personal attention.
- Certain public access sites have been verbally attacked, complete
with suggestions that they be totally cut off electronically from
the net. This has resulted in several subitems:
- Attacks against a select number of public access sites that
charge for services and include usenet access in that charge.
- Attacks against users of those same sites who are trying to
explain to the net at large what services they actually receive
from the site, or perhaps just defending it.
- Article forgeries intended solely to fuel the fires further:
- Encouraging additional flames, discussions and followups, as well
as increase anger and aggravation resulting solely in increased
net traffic on the subject by trying to convince the reader that
the source was actually "JJ".
- Name, address and phone number were posted, "subliminally"
encouraging the reader to enact harrassment, all of which could
provide the recipient with enough reason and evidence to file
charges in reverse...:
- Mailing letters with postage due.
- Making harrassing phone calls during obnoxious hours of the
night.
- A number of letters a phone calls have undoubtedly be sent to the
postmaster in Lincoln in complaint against "Rob Noha". This release
of the users name raises one very serious question, and one
secondary question:
- Has it been confirmed, beyond a doubt, that "JJ", on Portal
is indeed Rob Noha? Is it entirely impossible that "JJ" did
not provide the name of someone in Lincoln rather than his
own? If Rob Noha provided a charge account number to pay for
his Portal net access, there is definate proof to support the
allegation of his identity, unless the charges were charged
against a card whose account number has been stolen.
- Do we know for certain that "Jayorr" on ncoast is again the
same person and not a copycat?
There are others...
So, in retrospect, I would say that "JJ" has most probably reached or
exceeded his goals. This type of person is not concerned about losing
net access, but probably revels in creating and fueling a great deal
of attention which centers around himself. I'm sure that even the
money issue wasn't one. If he actually got some, I'm sure he would
just laugh at all the "suckers" who took him seriously.
What this type of person generally wants is attention.
Congratulations. He got it.
--
"I've been trying for some time to Robert J. Granvin
develop a life-style that doesn't National Information Systems, Inc.
require my presence." rjg@sialis.mn.org
-Garry Trudeau ...uunet!{{amdahl,hpda}!bungia,rosevax}!sialis!rjg