Want to really control a pest?

[shava23.livejournal.com]

First, IANAL. I did used to be executive director of tor.eff.org, but I haven't been for years, and I wasn't a lawyer then either. But I do have a reasonable expertise in online privacy issues (including cyberbullying).

I did used to live in Davis Square, and I did used to know jonmon when he was a grad student (hi!). Since I moved back to Boston some years back though, I've seen him at a couple parties and bought some curtains from him on Craigslist I think it was. We have oodles of mutuals. Not a friend, not an enemy, just this guy. I'm also pretty good friends with Ron Newman, which is how I know about all this. I posted this in an old thread and Ron suggested I post it in its own thread.



I am a nice woman, really. But I am curt, and an MIT geek type, and I'm going to be blunt here, because as far as I can tell, we have people who are behaving badly online, and people who are behaving worse online.

I am what is called in hackerish circles a "social engineer" -- social engineers are folks who are good at creating con games, marketing or business plans, propaganda, grifting, penetrating facility perimeters (think Mission Impossible, or the Bourne series and so on, but without guns generally), party crashing, politics, diplomacy, and seduction -- also law enforcement to catch people cooking up the criminal side of any of the above when it comes to fraud and abuse. I have spent much of my career working in social justice (and yes, a bit of marketing and other stuff...) at the intersection of tech and society work, in areas of social engineering talent, but I'm also historically a software and internet engineer -- a "white hat," a person who works (often for reform) inside the system with government (some of it anyway...), academia, and nonprofits.

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.

And all of you are behaving in ways that endanger yourselves and should STOP now, and if you are going to organize, do it either in person offline, or somewhere NOT ON LJ.

Stop. Think. Be rational about this and remember that either you are dealing with a legal case or a social engineer. Either way, you are DOING IT WRONG.

You've said that you got letters from jonmon that looked like they were not written by a lawyer. So legitimately, you might not be sure you're even involved in a real suit. However, in order for Johnny to get your personally identifying information from LiveJournal, he would have to convince their management that you are implicated in a suit.

If he can't get a real law enforcement officer to back him up, he might be able to convince LJ that you yourselves believe yourselves to be implicated in a suit involving him, and then they would release your information to him. So, he might be phishing. And you might be, one by one, playing into his hands, in the interest of LJSD "solidarity."

GJ, guys. Smart. This is why you aren't supposed to discuss a court case in public.

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.

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.

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. Or cleaning up his reputation. Or revenge.

Ultimately, it doesn't matter on a pragmatic basis for this discussion -- what matters is, you shouldn't be mocking his efforts or coordinating against him on LJ. It's playing into his hands. Even if to you it feels like resisting a bully -- to the public, it will look like you are bullying him.

I can't answer if you are. That's between you and the spaghetti monster, you know?

About organizing -- I've spent much of my career in social justice organizing and my father and grandfather were union organizers at various points in their careers.

Right now, from what I understand, you might be letting Ron do the lion's share of organizing despite the fact that it's pretty obvious that jonmon knows a lot of your personally identifying information already. Most of his power over you is all about the fear of de-cloaking you.

The most powerful thing you could do to bust his press event -- for those of you who aren't worried about your IRL identities -- would be to publish your real life identities and organize openly against his suit before his press event. Don't make Ron carry this on his shoulders with folks just giving him attaboys. It's really not fair, IMO. A few of you might be iffy about de-nym-ing yourselves, and of course there are civil rights issues regarding being forced to de-nym -- I am painfully aware of this. And again, IANAL and you might want to talk to a lawyer first. But one of the most powerful gestures you could consider is coming out.

Contacting LJ to find out if jonmon has attained access to your PID already is a good first step. If they'll tell you, and he has, then you have no reason not to organize openly.

But, talk to counsel first. I am concerned about the civil liberties issues here, and frankly although I understand that this sucks for personal reasons, I am concerned about the civil libertarian issues also.

to all and sundry including jonmon:

What jonmon doesn't properly realize (or he wouldn't be doing this) 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 options like coming back to the community for mediation over his trouble, rather than building a business model on it.

There is a whole set of reasons this kind of business hasn't been done in the past. And if he isn't careful that set could turn him into a stain on the wall. I sure wouldn't do it the way he's doing it -- I value my life, reputation, sanity and peace of mind. And I suspect I have more experience in forensics and a number of other areas involved. Not a threat -- a business plan evaluation.

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 legitimate civilian business. You have to be a licensed private investigator to do what jonmon is proposing, in the state of Massachusetts, if you are not law enforcement, to the best of my knowledge. And I've looked at those options myself as I have an interest.

If jonmon or anyone else tries this, 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. Again, 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 shava23 - at - gmail ;).

Also, just as a note, I have no assets worth suing for -- basically monastic, sorry. Manfred, Accelerando.

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 I'd suggest you let go.

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 further even if they are being petty gits, and frankly, seeing you splattered by 4chan wouldn't make me gleeful either. I get no joy from lulz gone wild regardless of the target.

I would far rather see people refrain from being dumbasses at each other (this likely means you dear reader), which seems to be the theme here all around. Pardon my precise if crude language.

In the ideal world, there would be no comments on this post.

Comments

[icecreamempress.livejournal.com]

Thanks for sharing your concern. You seem to have missed the parts where several of us Does, including Does specifically named in the complaint, have been open about our legal identities in all contexts (as I was on LJ long before any of these shenanigans started, and as I am with all my Internet pseudonyms).

Yours,

Julia Marietta Sullivan

[icecreamempress.livejournal.com]

And forgive me if I don't have a fuck to give about your opinion of me. I'll assume you give reciprocal fucks about my opinion of you, so will refrain from sharing it.

[pywaket.livejournal.com]

> In the ideal world, there would be no comments on this post.

Maybe in *your* ideal world, but not in mine. You're sanctimonious, officious person, and you don't get to tell people what they should or should not do.

So, tell us: what did JonMon threaten you with to get you to make this post?

PS: In my experience, people who feel the need to tell you that they are "nice" before telling you that they're "curt" rarely are actually very nice. You've proved that here.

[ron_newman]

Shava is a friend of mine, going back quite a few years now. I do not necessarily agree with what she has posted here, but I'm glad she did so, and I consider it worth reading and thinking about.

ETA: the idea that Jonmon or anyone else could ever intimidate Shava into making an LJ post is highly amusing to me (and probably to her, also)

[also-huey.livejournal.com]

If someone's behavior suggests that they'll sue anyone who talks about them, the suggestion to not talk about them amounts to forfeiting the battle for free speech without even taking the field. That's the 'chilling effects' the website gets its name from, see?

And while I'm not a lawyer, I nonetheless have a hard time believing that a statement like "wow, that Jonmon guy seems kinda sketchy to me" is legally actionable. If someone wishes to argue semantics, I'm willing to stipulate that I have no direct evidence that he has ever physically worn a human ass as a hat, I was merely using the term 'asshat' in the more pejorative connotation of 'a boorish, unpleasant-seeming person'. In fact, I am willing to testify under oath that, in my opinion, he does seem boorish and unpleasant. And should that become necessary, I'm confident that when that day comes, I will be well-represented by counsel.

And although, as you say, he's going about it in completely the wrong way, the goal of the exercise seems to be that he's trying to get people to stop talking about him. And now you're trying to get people to stop talking about him? ...that may be good advice for people who are already involved in the suit (although, if I were them, I'd probably be listening to the advice of my own attorney, rather than 'things somebody posted on LJ') but I think it'd be fun if everybody else took to the streets with colorful banners and flags and silly hats and toy drums and bullhorns, chanting "ASS! HAT! ASS! HAT! JON! MON! ASS! HAT!"

...because I think that would be fun. And I've got some great silly hats, that I so rarely get to wear.

[pywaket.livejournal.com]

BTW: great job reading the community rules before posting your screed.

to wit: Multiple images, images over 300 pixels in height and/or width, video embeds, and lengthy posts should be behind an lj-cut tag.

[shava23.livejournal.com]

Sorry about the cut tag issue -- I've never been an LJ regular. On the other hand, Ron asked me to come here and help out because I have some expertise in this area. Part of my experience says, the first thing people need to do is stop flaming each other. Sometimes the best way to do that is to get them flaming me, and that's just fine. It's often easier than calming people down when they are all behaving badly.

But it's fine. If you want to yell at me, PLEASE yell at me instead of jonmon, I make a much better target. Please vent at me.

See! I'm a target! Now, yell at me and I will not sue you! See how easy that is!

Hope it is just as satisfying as when you yell at someone who will take your words and use them against you in court. I won't. Jonmon says he will.

And you can vent against me as much as you want. Please go ahead, I don't mind playing rodeo clown.

It's an honorable role, if it saves a few people grief down the road. Unlike some people, I suspect words can't hurt me, particularly much. I tend to believe in free speech. And I would in fact like to keep y'all out of harm's way.

And I am not sorry about the information in terms of advice to take the discussion elsewhere. I am serious as a stick about that.

But you aren't really listening to what I'm saying, you are too wrapped up in your anger to read for content. If you want to help jonmon, I guess, go ahead, keep talking about the case here. Keep spewing bile about him. You are not helping the case of free speech, you are helping him. And you are endangering each other.

Wendy Selzer's "Chilling Effects" site? She was on my board at Tor. Still is on the board at Tor I believe. (I only volunteer there now, and by no means speak for the project in any way at this point...).

You don't respond to people trying to chill free speech by feeding their strategies to trap you into actionable conduct. Does that make sense?

If there were an employer trying to keep a union from organizing, he might try to trick the workers into rioting on the picket line, do you see? That's the sort of strategy you need to avoid falling for. That's why a lawyer would advise you not to discuss the case on this forum at this time for fear that the speech you use would be used to substantiate jonmon's claims in court. It's not an issue of free speech, it's an issue of playing chess with an opponent.

If you are in an adversarial position with Jonmon (and again IANAL) you need to start thinking of this as a strategic game you are playing. If you do not think of it as a game with rules, you will lose, because I can assure you jonmon is thinking of it as a game with rules.

He is a gamer -- he started Turbine, a really lovely game company. I expect like most entrepreneurs, he likes business deals because they have rules and strategies and you can win. So I am not giving you legal advice, but I am giving you situational awareness. He is likely playing to win. If you do not play consciously with that knowledge, he will win by default.

No, he didn't threaten me to post this. That's absurd. Ron asked me to help because this is my professional field. I spent years working with people in cyberbullying and various online coercion situations at Tor, before that with network security on college campuses and various places some of which involved police, FBI, and Secret Service, and have worked for decades with civil liberties and public policy work around privacy, security, and digital divide issues. I was a major voice in the Google Plus nymwars a couple years ago. And I'm trying to figure if EFF has an angle I can get them tempted to be involved in this.

And yes, I read all the "pest control" postings, and I know some of you posted your first middle (second middle/confirmation/whatever) and last names.

And yes, I tend to be long winded. It takes more time for me to write a short post than a long one. So sue me -- seems to be popular around here...:)

[turil.livejournal.com]

> But you aren't really listening to what I'm saying, you are too wrapped up in your anger to read for content

Yes. This is pretty much the whole problem with the entire group of people involved. It's mostly a lost cause, unless you're trained in some kind of really awesome therapy for helping people deal with their anger. Otherwise, people are going to just keep acting irrationally, and bullying each other back and forth. An eye for an eye is the way of the culture.

My only hope is that everyone here finds someone to love them unconditionally, gets all their human rights defended by the government (or some up-start substitute) so they don't feel forced to run the rat race just to survive, so they can all relax for once in their lives. Maybe then the psychotic behavior will recede. :-)

[shava23.livejournal.com]

And, even if you are not named in the suit, your post flaming him for being an ass! hat! etc. will appear as he tearfully plays victim and rakes in investors at a press event at his business launch, perhaps. At least, I can picture that scenario fairly easily. So, suit or not -- and I honestly find it unlikely the suit is intended to survive his press event but as the old radio play goes, "who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?" -- you may well be feeding his business ends regardless.

You know that saying about revenge being a dish best served cold? Well, I am not a person driven by revenge, but if you are, use this as your motivation: You are potentially helping drive jonmon investment in his business, or success in his suit against a neighbor, with every bad thing you say about him online in this forum. That's my best guess until an actual lawyer tells someone different, from my experience observing past cases I've been involved in or on the periphery of.

No one threatened me to get me to say that. In fact, if I am right, jonmon is more pissed at me than any of you are. I am, and generally always have been, an equal opportunity offender. People who wade into messes of other people's business as favors often are.

And yes, that is the cue for someone to tell me I'm not doing you any favors and I can bugger off now. But there are a few people listening and thinking about this by now.

[thetathx1138.livejournal.com]

I know you mean well, and I thank you for your concern.

But to be frank, it's clear you're unfamiliar with both the legal underpinnings of the case and the larger implications. I would strongly suggest you familiarize yourself with the whole situation (and read the complaint in detail) before attempting to lecture the community.

It's true that we shouldn't just hurl random insults, but by the same token, we all make choices in our life, those choices reflect on us and how we're seen in the community, and those choices affect other people in both positive and negative ways. We are not allowed to say "Shut up about how my choices have hurt you because it makes my life harder". We are not allowed to say "Shut up about how my choices make you feel because I don't like your feelings." We are not allowed to say "You may only talk about me the way I want you to talk about me."

That is not how a free and fair society works, and that's not how it should work. That simple.

[sparkgrrl658.livejournal.com]

also, i really resent the implication, or flat out statements that we are "behaving badly" and "psychotic" by simply discussing current events and personal experiences. that we have a community full of people that care about each other is exactly the opposite of that.

this all started because someone simply said "hey, check out this news" and other people, who have had personal experience with jonmon, joined in and said, essentially "i'm not surprised, [insert personal anecdote/other news reports.]"

further, the idea that i would not be allowed to say "i have a bad feeling about this person" is wrong on so, so many levels. this is a man that thinks because a person did not go to the police, he has never done anything wrong. that belief alone IS BEYOND CREEPY. i'm glad i'm aware of him and i'm glad my friends who have had negative personal interactions with this person no longer feel so alone.

i will agree that for the VERY few named in the suit, it probably is best to not discuss it so publicly, but most of us are not named. if i get a weird letter from a creepy guy you can bet i'll be discussing it.

[gingicat]

I admit that I have been really worried about the ad hominem comments (saying they are flames is not inaccurate; if they had been made against Ron, or Julia, or Spatch, or waket, or... then the community would have been up in arms...) made both over this instance and the original instance.

Hell, one of my dearest friends (and waket's) got excoriated by members of this community when she took another member of this community to court over being physically injured and discussed it here trying to get a simple apology and avoid legal action.

What angers me most is that Ron was only peripherally involved in the Jonmon thread. And I'm even more angered by the fact that Jonmon is using the name of a man who is taking care of his desperately ill wife and had no idea his name was on a press release. And most of the Does DIDN'T make ad hominem attacks.

Thank you for pointing out that Jonmon is playing us, and making suggestions of how to combat it. On Facebook, I reposted the Popehat blog pointing out that should Jonmon in, it's a dangerous precedent.

[sparkgrrl658.livejournal.com]

okay, but when spatch starts hosting creepy fetish parties for underage girls, and calling people and threatening them at work, and showing up at a person's mother's house, then that might be an accurate comparison. currently, it's pretty laughable.

[she-of-emeralds.livejournal.com]

I don't really have a grasp of what all this stuff is about, but I'd be more likely to read it if it didn't annoy me by taking up large amounts of space on my friends page. Please can we use cuts for these?

[crschmidt.livejournal.com]

I think it's worth noting that there is absolutely no evidence that anyone has gotten access to personal information from LiveJournal. I can say that it takes more than a wink and a nod to get access to people's PID from LJ (well -- "did", before it was bought by the Russian Mob, but I haven't seen evidence that they tend to be *more* open).

If getting information from LiveJournal was an option, I think many of the behaviors people have reported would have not happened: there wouldn't be the need to call people's homes, parents, or places of work. Letters wouldn't have been delivered to out of date voting registrations, etc.

I think for some participants, Most of his power over you is all about the fear of de-cloaking you. is true. But for the majority, I think it's likely that most of the power is in being a troublesome annoyance, putting the community on the defensive. Some people have already stopped commenting. I'm not at all a party to anything, and *I* have refrained from commenting. But it isn't necessarily because they did anything wrong, it's just because dealing with the fallout from being involved in a lawsuit isn't worth it -- even if they have done nothing wrong. (Some people clearly have done things wrong. Many people who have gotten letters have not clearly done things wrong.)

[srakkt.livejournal.com]

For a "social engineer," you seem to be woefully ignorant about the facts of the situation.

[intuition-ist.livejournal.com]

With all due respect to the members of DSLJ who are up in arms about this suit -- shava23 hit the nail on the head. i don't like it, but as the situation progressed, it's become obvious to me, and i had no idea how to express it in terms the agitators here could accept. I have many reasons to say this, and no reason to lie, and I have no intention of saying anything about them in a public forum. if I ever meet some of you, we can discuss over drinks.

[icecreamempress.livejournal.com]

I think that your describing people named in the suit, who are doing what they deem best in response to a legal action against them (since a legal action naming icecreamempress is a legal action naming Julia Sullivan, given my long-standing choice to link my legal name with this pseudonym) as "agitators" is extremely rude.

[ron_newman]

Shava, could you please add one or more judicious <lj-cut> tags to your post? Our community rules require this for long posts, and some people are unfortunately reacting to the form of your post instead of its content. Thanks.

To everyone else: could you please treat Shava with respect? She is a friend of mine, and I explicitly invited her to join our discussion.

[shava23.livejournal.com]

I am actually currently struggling with the tag on my phone trying to get it to work, and possibly failing due to it being 8am at the end of an all nighter. But, when I am more awake I will work on that. (See, short comment. ;)

[prunesnprisms.livejournal.com]

Thank you. 100% agree.

[ron_newman]

Right now, from what I understand, you might be letting Ron do the lion's share of organizing despite the fact that it's pretty obvious that jonmon knows a lot of your personally identifying information already.

I'm mostly trying to stay out of "organizing", and just letting the organizing happen around me. I have the "lion's share" of the legal burden right now because I'm the only person here (unless Deb Filcman is also reading this) who has actually been named in and served with this lawsuit. I am grateful for the community's support.

If I were in the position of the people receiving the letters, as opposed to the person named in the lawsuit, I'd likely react the same way that they have.

[usernamenumber.livejournal.com]

I was just composing something to check in with you re that comment, and am glad to hear that you haven't been feeling unduly burdened. For my part, I've been waiting for someone (I assumed you, but I quite understand if you don't want it to be you) to say "ok, I've consulted with my lawyer, and here's what people can do to help..." (personally I think preemptive de-cloaking is a silly suggestion for 'helping').

Not being named in the suit (so far), maybe that has happened and I just don't (and shouldn't) know about it, but in any case, if you need more than an 'attaboy' and it's something I can offer, I'm glad you know that you have it, from me and I'm sure from most everyone in the comm. In the mean-time, 'attaboy', 'you have my axe/bow/vuvuzela', etc.

Related question: having obtained pro bono counsel, what is the state of the usefulness of the legal fund?

[lyonesse.livejournal.com]

*giggle* i think in most folks' ideal world, they generally get the final world.

[aroraborealis.livejournal.com]

Heh, well said!

[ifotismeni]

to comment on the security/privacy advice in here solely -- i think your advice here is good, but there are a number of circumstantial specifics about what's going on in the case, reading through here, that you don't seem to have correct and IMO discredits some of your advice in the eyes of the intended recipients. which is unfortunate.

(to your credit and to the credit of a lot of folks here, a lot of what you've discussed in terms of PII disclosure and privacy has already been discussed at length, if that mitigates any concern at all.)

[sparkgrrl658.livejournal.com]

+1

[audioboy.livejournal.com]

Based on JGM's actions so far, I have a theory as to where this is all going. It may be a totally wrong theory, and it may earn me some ire as the bearer of news people may not want to hear, but it does seem like a possibility and people should at least consider how to deal with it, should it turn out to be correct.

I don't believe he intends to go through with the suit. My theory is that he established the suit to provide his new project with the most controllable data, which would certainly piss off any judge with half a brain. So he launches the project using the names of 100 ready-made "cyberbulllies", then drops the suit.

In that event, the real threat to everyone is *not* the lawsuit, but the fact that their names are now splattered across the Net as "cyberbullies". In addition to that, he can now deflect any and all discussion of his "creepiness" or "predatory habits" by pointing to the "cyberbullies" he has outed on the Net in his high-profile, corporate-supported anti-bullying campaign. It won't matter that most all of it is baseless. The names will be out there and the damage will be done. It'll take people months or even years - and perhaps lots of money - to have that damage undone.

He has dreamed up an extremely clever (albeit mean-spirited ) plan for launching his new project, while at the same time getting revenge on people he perceives as having maligned him. Why should he care that some of the people he's dragging into this never actually said anything actionable? As long as he has 100 names at launch, why should he? Who's going to bother confirming there's any validity to the claim that those people are actually "cyberbullies"? At least, not until long after the launch?

As a side note: While I may disagree with some of what Shava said, and feel that some of it could have been said better, she *does* have some valid points and her experience in the same areas as JGM should not be ignored. I did not see her as defending JGM. I saw her as explaining how he may be seeing this whole thing, which is something very important to know: how the "enemy" thinks.

PS: Several of my friends are being affected directly by this situation and I am totally in their camp. My money will go to support the legal fund to defend against this infamy. But I also believe cooler heads and reasoning will lead to success more quickly and less painfully than going for each others' throats out of anger and frustration at what some manipulative "rear-end fedora" has done.

[elements.livejournal.com]

+ 1

(I am also a friend of Shava's and have known and worked with her on this type of issue for years. She knows what she's talking about.)

[lbmango.livejournal.com]

On the one hand, what everyone here has said about shutting up is accurate. you don't stand down for a bully, and ironically, for someone who is starting an anti-cyber bully campaign, he is acting like a bully.

The one thing that was said here that I **DO** think has value is the advice to NOT organize on LJ. If the Does and letter receivers are going to organize (Which I believe they must) it should really be done offline, or at least off LJ. further actions taken on LJ are much more likely to be used against you.

Additionally, I want to re-iterate what others have said, that no one has claimed that he got personal information through any means other than Google and public available records. LJ is a Russian company, right? So it seems unlikely that they would really care about requests from some random guy in MA...

[audioboy.livejournal.com]

From what I understand, a closed LJ community for those who have received letters has all ready been created and is, I assume, being used for more detailed discussion.

[moechus.livejournal.com]

I have been involved in this mess as a friend of a number of people involved who also happens to be a lawyer. As such, I have recommended a vigorous and uncompromising defense.

But that's just as a legal strategy. As a matter of decency, I think we should welcome shava's offer of mediation and I would hope that people would be able to reach out to him with compassion and treat him with civility and maybe even respect, regardless of his past misdeeds.

Lord Polonius
My lord, I will use them according to their desert.

Hamlet
God's bodykins, man, much better: use every man after his desert, and who should 'scape whipping? Use them after your own honour and dignity: the less they deserve, the more merit is in your bounty. Take them in.

[jikamens.livejournal.com]

I have never been anonymous on the net. I don't use private registration for my domains; if you "whois" them, you will find my name, address, email address, and phone number right there in the open for anyone to use. I am sure there are situations when I might wish to be anonymous on the net, but one has yet to come up. (Then again, if it had, I suppose I wouldn't admit to it.)

I have no quibble with people who prefer to separate their identities on the net from their real lives (or, indeed, to have multiple, independent, identities). I suspect that many of you who do that have a lot more fun in your lives (both on-line and off-) than I do. However, I have a big problem with people who use anonymity on the net to get away with behaving in a way which would, rightfully, land them in hot water IRL.

My first reaction, upon hearing what JonMon was doing to Ron et al, was to post about it on my blog, on my Facebook page, and in a belittling tweet to JonMon, all with my real name and real-life identity clearly attached to it. I did this exactly because of what Shava said above. What JonMon is doing is wrong, and I want to support Ron and his other victims, and the best way to do that is by showing that I am not afraid of him adding me to his bogus lawsuit.

Interestingly, I have not yet received one of the infamous letters. I have a theory about why that is so. Perhaps there will be one waiting in my mailbox when I get home today, thus shooting my theory to hell, but until then...

* If, indeed, the point of all this is to show what a l33t d00d JonMon is because he knows how to dox people, then there's no point in adding someone to the lawsuit whose identity is already public, now is there?

* Frankly, a lot of people in this community seem unclear on where the line is between things that are OK to say, online or anywhere else, and Things That Should Not Be Said. Perhaps because I have opted not to be anonymous online, I try to be careful not to say things that fall into the latter category. It is entirely possible to express all of your feelings and opinions about JonMon without saying TTSNBS; does anyone here have any doubts about my opinion of him? Much of what was said in the threads three years ago was TTSNBS. While I abhor his methods, I have to admit that he had good reason to be upset about some of the things people were saying about him, and I think he is correct that some of it was legally actionable.

He tried in the thread in 2010 to get people to stop saying TTSNBS. Granted, he did it in a whiny, self-righteous, narcissistic way, but he wasn't entirely wrong. And I'm quite certain that most of it would not have been said if people had had to attach their real names to it in a public forum. Being behind a nym does not give you the right to say TTSNBS.

All this rambling brings me to where we are today... I wouldn't go as far as Shava and say that people shouldn't be saying anything at all about JonMon or the lawsuit online (though I do think that advice applies to people who have said TTSNBS; they should be quiet and talk to a lawyer, if they haven't already). What I would say, however, is that (a) everyone needs to be very careful not to say TTSNBS, and (b) everyone should start acting like grown-ups.

Calling him names is not helpful. Posting silly meme GIFs is not helpful. Speculating on his mental health or his motives in general is not helpful. Insulting each other is not helpful. Generally speaking, the threshold you should be using to decide what to say and how to say it at this point is, "Would I say this, this way, if it were signed with my real name, address, and telephone number?"

Yes, this is "chilling" in the sense that I am suggesting that it would be a good idea for people to think a bit more carefully about what they say and how they say it. But I will be frank... As an outsider who, because of the lawsuit, took a look at what y'all in this community have been saying, I can understand why JonMon is upset with how he has been treated here, and I don't think he is entirely in the wrong.

[ron_newman]

That leaves the question of, if he was so hurt by things that were said in 2010 (and then largely forgotten), why did he wait three years to act? If I were defamed on the Net, I'd want to fix the problem as soon as possible.

Also, if his only motive were to pierce pseudonymity, why sue me? I'm like you -- not anonymous in the least. Ditto for Deb Filcman.

[markf.livejournal.com]

Since there's several references to data being released by LiveJournal regarding this, I have 2 brief points to make:

1) No personal information of anyone has been released by LJ regarding the lawsuit which has been described in recent entries in this community.

2) We take privacy very seriously, and as it's relevant to this situation, I'm going to mention that we're a supporter of the Lee-Leahy reforms to the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) which would require law enforcement to get a court order or search warrant before requiring online service providers such as LiveJournal to release data (http://www.rstreet.org/policy-brief/letter-to-senate-judiciary-committee-on-ecpa-amendments-act/) except in the event of an actual emergency. It's moving along well (https://www.cdt.org/pr_statement/senate-committee-approves-ecpa-reform-bill), but still has a ways to go. ECPA reform isn't getting as much attention as bills that are moving the internet in a worse direction such as CISPA, but it's important to show support the bills that are a step in the right direction.

[ron_newman]

Are you a LiveJournal employee? When you say "we" do you mean LiveJournal, Inc? It would be good for you to identify yourself if you are speaking for LJ, officially or unofficially.

[shava23.livejournal.com]

I will reiterate that I am saying people should consider:

--- what they say in public
--- regarding an on-going legal action
--- that involves themselves or close associates
--- and involves an acknowledged trickster adversary

The choice of free speech (which I can't possibly deprive you of) in these circumstances has the assessed risk until the case, temporarily, of, likely:

--- causing additional harm to self or neighbors
--- aiding and abetting trickster
--- adding little that hasn't already been said regarding trickster

Eat your marshmallows now.
I am leaving the room.

Again, IANAL, and y'all might want to consult one.
I may or may not be up for more yelling after 5pm.

[anyee.livejournal.com]

My my, (For best effect, hear the voice Shinji Hirako from Bleach saying yare, yare) that's likely an offensive comment that is lost on most, yes?

I assume that you're referring to the marshmallow experiment, in which children who could not control themselves immediately ate their marshmallows when the experimenter left the room. Children who could control themselves held out for 15 minutes. Those children, over time, tended to succeed more in life than their more impulsive compatriots.

You call us children. You call yourself the experimenter. You imply a great deal about our impulse control.

If there were any doubts about your motives, I would say that they are completely and utterly laid bare.

Or perhaps you're not referencing that experiment, in which case you nonetheless consider us children while you hold yourself above us.

My, my.

Speak plainly. Don't pretend otherwise until you can.

[shava23.livejournal.com]

Well, I'll leave you folks on your own then.

I reported progress back to Ron, you can consider me an obnoxity passing in the night.

If we shadows have offended,
Think but this and all is mended,
That you have but slumber'd here
While these visions did appear.
And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding but a dream,
Gentles, do not reprehend:
If you pardon, we will mend.
And, as I am an honest Puck,
If we have unearned luck
Now to 'scape the serpent's tongue,
We will make amends ere long;
Else the Puck a liar call:
So, good night unto you all.
Give me your hands, if we be friends,
And Robin shall restore amends.

It's only 24h. I hope I'll have ended up doing more good than harm.

[anyee.livejournal.com]

You've proven that I should...I mean...well, let's just say...*chuckle*

Good night, little troll.

[zubatac.livejournal.com]

But you are not my own lawyer, so I should disregard your advice.
But I'm disregarding your advice, so I can listen to the advice of people other than my own lawyer.
But your advice says... *head 'splodes*