Jon Monsarrat, $160 Million DotCom Icon, to Expose 100 Cyberbullies

[genesayssitdown.livejournal.com]

this press release, like all his other press releases, is now being spread far and wide over the spammy areas of the internet:

"Boston, MA-NH (1888PressRelease) May 08, 2013 - Jon Monsarrat announced this week that as part of an Internet defamation case, he will expose the real identities and addresses of 100 cyber bullies as part of his new cyber investigation service. The dotcom era icon and Internet expert was previously the founder and first CEO of Turbine, which makes games like Lord of the Rings Online and Dungeons and Dragons Online and was bought by Warner Brothers for $160 million in 2010."

here is a link to the full press release: http://www.1888pressrelease.com/johnny-monsarrat/jonathan-monsarrat/jon-monsarrat-160-million-dotcom-icon-to-expose-100-cyber-pr-470259.html

Comments

[genesayssitdown.livejournal.com]

"His company is working in partnership with Defend My Name, perhaps the most technically advanced of the top anti-defamation services, and Ishman Law Firm, which has expertise in defending victims from cyber-attack."

[squirrelitude]

Someone should check with Defend My Name to see if they're surprised or not to hear of this press release.

[ds-crier.livejournal.com]

Did one of you guys submit this as a joke?

[anomie666.livejournal.com]

Its like reading the onion...

[genesayssitdown.livejournal.com]

no. i have been paying attention to jonmon's press releases from hard data factory, which he promulgates all over the shitty areas of the internet. it's real.

here's his second most recent press release: http://www.good.is/posts/jon-monsarrat-160-million-entrepreneur-gives-keynote-speech-on-cookie-monster

and his third most recent press release: http://www.shvoong.com/society-and-news/opinion/2370699-jonathan-monsarrat-building-world-largest/

all coordinated around his new company, hard data factory ( http://harddatafactory.com/ )

[blk]

wow....... That's... Special.

[also-huey.livejournal.com]

[ron_newman]

So, this press release is written by, or at least attributed to, Rickland Powell. Who has 51 friends in common with me on Facebook. If you are one of the 51, can you talk some sense into him?

[koshmom.livejournal.com]

Rickland is quite busy, as his wife is ill (that's putting it mildly). I don't know for sure, but I doubt that Rickland is spending much time penning press releases, since he doesn't even have time to prepare dinner.

[infinitemorning.livejournal.com]

I like how he's equating what we all said with the actions of, say, the Lori Drews of the world.

While filing a defamation lawsuit.

Against us.

Also, I like how he's now trying to turn his creepy stalkerish behavior into a goddamned career.

[genesayssitdown.livejournal.com]

"Also, I like how he's now trying to turn his creepy stalkerish behavior into a goddamned career."

+1

[infinitemorning.livejournal.com]

Also, I would DEARLY love to get Jon and some current and former Turbine employees under oath and expose EXACTLY how Turbine earned its success, because I do not personally believe he was as heavily involved as he claims he was. He was a founder, and he was the CEO for a while, but my understanding was that he left before DDO and LOTRO were even launched. He maintained an interest in the company for a while afterward, but from what I've been told, he cashed out in 2008 and did not see one cent of the WB buyout.

[genesayssitdown.livejournal.com]

seriously though. of all the conflated bullshit? he has some pretty intimate information about all of us. is he going to release just our names? addresses? work places? what is he planning? is it legal?

[ds-crier.livejournal.com]

Who really gives a shit? If my name were on that list, I would consider it a badge of honor.

[ds-crier.livejournal.com]

At this point, since Johnny Monsarrat is claiming that the Boston Globe is hosting his company, I'd like to put pressure on the Globe to explain why they would host a company designed to cyber-stalk and file SLAPP lawsuits against people for criticizing a 40+ year old man for hosting an underage drinking party. It may be that they are not hosting his company and JonMon is fabricating that fact, but in that case they should at least force him to stop tarnishing their name.

I'm tweeting to the Boston Globe on Twitter. I've been posting a lot about the JonMon scandal. Follow me at https://twitter.com/atrkurha.

[miss-chance.livejournal.com]

How can Boston Glove "host" his company? Akamai hosts Boston Globe and about 20% of the rest of the world's traffic. What does it even mean to claim that Boston Globe "hosts" his business?

[jikamens.livejournal.com]

Wait, so he's using a lawsuit as a publicity stunt to pimp a "cyber investigation service"?

And he thinks the judge presiding over the lawsuit is going to look kindly upon this?

Is he insane?

Do the lawyers representing him really expect not to end up being sanctioned by the court?

This is just surreal.

[ron_newman]

I've already forwarded this press release to my new lawyer.

[myselftheliar.livejournal.com]

I don't want to live in fear of my address and personal info being exposed.

[lbmango.livejournal.com]

Wait a second. So, not only is he accusing people of libel, he's publicly accusing them of cyber bullying? Isn't that ... umm ... libel?

Is the moron really setting himself up for a counter suit that well? He really needs to STFU before he hurts himself.

He reminds me of a student that I had when I was an instructor many years ago, who cheated on projects, and then asked the department questions that directly lead to us finding out who did it. The student got expelled. Presumably a similar thing will happen here.

Also, "dotcom era icon" ??? Really? had anyone actually heard of him before he got famous for being creepy? He has a WAY over blown concept of his own competency.

[usernamenumber.livejournal.com]

ICON!

Maybe at some point we should all just make that our icons for the day, at least for dslj stuff.

[myselftheliar.livejournal.com]

[bluesauce.livejournal.com]

(http://smg.photobucket.com/user/gotkrypto/media/spiderman/threadcontrol.jpg.html)

[rax.livejournal.com]

Jon Monsarrat went to college at 16, getting his MIT BA and MBA and going to Harvard and Brown as well.

Nitpicking, but MIT doesn't give out BAs, even in the humanities. His resume (http://www.mit.edu/~jonmon/Business/monsarrat-resume.doc) gets it right, at least. There are also grammatical errors ("one of Monsarrat's client," arguably a missing comma in the first paragraph, "gave handwritten advice on small colored card to") although nothing more than any of the awful press releases my employer puts out seemingly as a matter of course.

Also, what. Just what.

(edited to fix link)

[serious-noir.livejournal.com]

So apparently this whole brouhaha is a PR scheme to garner attention for Monsarrat's new business venture. What an asshole and sick individual.

[cos]

What this press release implies is that the point isn't to win the lawuit, but to use the process of suing to do discovery and then publish people's private information. On the other hand, this press release doesn't actually state which lawsuit it's talking about, and says "the release of names and identities is part of this new service, for one of Monsarrat's client with an ongoing legal case against cyber bullies." - he could be his own client, but isn't that weird?

[jikamens.livejournal.com]

What this press release implies is that the point isn't to win the lawuit, but to use the process of suing to do discovery and then publish people's private information.

Yes, and that's so clearly and unequivocally an abuse of the legal system that if the Ron's lawyer is able to convince the judge to read it the same way, which shouldn't be difficult if the judge has a decent brain in his head, then JonMon and his lawyers are going to be in Big Trouble.

If I were his lawyers, and I had have a brain in my body, I'd be looking to back out right about now unless I were being paid very, very well.

[icecreamempress.livejournal.com]

Has anyone sent this to Ken White et al. at Popehat?

[crschmidt.livejournal.com]

His post "popehat signal" post has ~10 comments that went through moderation about it, so I expect someone over there has seen it.

[tito-burrito.livejournal.com]

I started getting phone calls on Tuesday night from a blocked number. When I finally answered, the guy said that he was doing some kind of voter survey and started asking me questions about where I live. I just hung up and didn't think much about it until now. I thought it was a little odd that he was calling me at like 9:00 PM. I hope it wasn't this creep. :/

I'm using a sock puppet in the hopes that I don't get dragged into this mess if I haven't already.

[hahathor.livejournal.com]

Oh Christ! I got a call from a blocked number, also claiming to be a survey. When they asked if I was i a place I could "speak freely" I said I was on a bus (which I was) and they should call back some other time. So far, no call.

[shava23.livejournal.com]

To all you angry flamish people who may or may not have called jonmon an asshat in the past:

I'd like to remind people that if you are party to a suit, it's a bad idea to discuss it in public. This is public.

I'd also note that to get LJ to release personally identifying information, you have to get someone at least posing as law enforcement (and they'd probably accept a private investigator) to be investigating a civil or criminal action:

Safety and Security: We may share your personal information with U.S. Law enforcement officers to investigate, prevent, or take action to prevent or stop illegal activities, suspected fraud, situations involving potential threats to the physical safety of any person, violations of LiveJournal's TOS, and/or if it is necessary to comply with, and/or cure a potential violation or breach of, U.S. law.

So without a suit, an investigator can't get a provider to give up personally identifying information generally. He may or may not intend to continue the court case after launching his big nym-outing press event. He may have decided it was a good way to launch a business, or he may in fact want all your action figure collections for himself.

When you click through licenses for an online service, you are often agreeing to allow them to give up your information "upon reasonable suspicion" of fraud, and it often doesn't even say to law enforcement. Check privacy policies. There are cases of bad ex's calling up ISPs and online services and getting home addresses and numbers of ex's by saying they are lawyers tracking debts. You know what they might call that? Cyberbullying.

to all and sundry including jonmon:

What jonmon doesn't properly realize is the consequences that have befallen people who pull stunts like outing 100 nyms online, regardless of their motivations. They tend to come to the attention of folks like 4chan. I am a nonviolence instructor. I have nothing to do with these people. I would not wish those kinds of consequences on my worst enemy. But he needs to ponder coming back to the community for mediation over his trouble, rather than building a business model on it -- there is a reason this hasn't been done in the past.

My experience with the Tor Project has me in touch with a number of folks in the white hat community including cyberbullying researchers and activists. I really feel this might qualify as a really bad plan IMNSHO, as a business in that sector. Anonymity and pseudonymity are tools that, overwhelmingly, protect people from bullying, more than they protect bullies -- it is the business of real law enforcement to uncover the identities of those who are cloaked, and they do so regularly through proper channels -- and a bit too often through improper channels. This is not civilian business.

If jonmon or anyone else tries to make it so, he's putting himself in the peaceable -- slow but exceding fine -- path of folks like me and the EFF, and in the much faster narstier path of folks like 4chan and Anonymous. And he might not enjoy that. His framing would seem to put him on our side of the ethics, but I don't think a lot of folks in my general community would read his actions that way. I suspect it would suck to be him. This is not a threat -- it's an assessment. I am in the business of anticipating problems, as the pleasant little sign on the Infinite Corridor used to say.

to jonmon:

There are far more civil ways to deal with this kind of thing. Johnny, be happy to chat with you, you know where I live (at least online ;). Also, just as a note, I have no assets worth suing for -- basically monastic, sorry. I'd be happy to help you find a business model more worthy, find a way to mediate with the community, or help with something else to bring something out of this be it saving face or whatever.

But in the fine hacker culture tradition of challenging ideas you think are flawed -- "you're doing it wrong."

Don't want to see the community hurt, and frankly, seeing you splattered by 4chan wouldn't make me gleeful either. I get no joy from lulz gone wild.

I would far rather see people refrain from being dumbasses at each other, which seems to be the theme here all around. Pardon my precise if crude language.

[talvinm.livejournal.com]

Found this via a friend with a closer interest in the matter.

As others are fond of saying, "IANAL". That said: I notice the press release says he launched a "cyber-investigation service" earlier this year. That sounds similar to a Private Investigator.

Two questions for the pros to possibly answer:

1) Does someone need to have a Private Investigator's License to carry on such business in Massachusetts?
2) If the answer to 1) is "yes", does he (or someone in the company) have one?

I did a very brief check on the P.I. licensing rules for MA. What I found doesn't really give me a hint either way.

[sommerfeld2.livejournal.com]

I'm also not a lawyer but looks like some of the relevant law may be in MGL chapter 147 sections 22-30.

start with: http://www.malegislature.gov/Laws/GeneralLaws/PartI/TitleXX/Chapter147/Section22 (http://www.malegislature.gov/Laws/GeneralLaws/PartI/TitleXX/Chapter147/Section22) and go forward.