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  1. #1

    Unhappy Online Impersonation

    I am the co-owner of a very popular parenting website where we run articles written by well known authors and where I write and blog. A few weeks ago, I was monitoring some questionable comments on my blog, where a group of people (most likely the same person) was questioning the actions of a mother who pressed charges against an Internet predator who molested her child. Since the subject matter was so sensitive, I engaged the hostile party and warned them of crossing the line. Finally, another poster urged everyone to drop the conversation because it was getting strange.

    Then, the person in question, started posting on another blog post and then another and then another, in which their intentions became critically clear -- they were there to promote their pedophile advocacy. A quick search of their handle (they never used their real name) resulted in their being named on some pedophile "outing" blogs. I noticed he was also taking his very disturbing brand of advocacy on other sites.

    I urged other people engaging him to please stop. I tried to ban his IP but he was/is using a cloaking device so I could not trace him, same with his email. His IP was so radom, I had to switch to moderation mode. I then posted that this person was a pedophile (keep in mind, they have not revealed their true identity anywhere and only identifies himself with a screen name, which includes "Pedophile" in the title.

    He was so angry that I did this, that he started spamming our site continuously and threatened tht if I didn't take down the libelous comment, there would be consequences. Well, I took it down via password protection. I didn't want to delete it completely, in case I needed it for evidence down the road.

    He still retaliated. He created a blogger account, in which the URL is my exact name, accusing *me* of being a pedophile and accusing me of these horrific sexual desires, POSTING AS ME and referencing my website. Although the material is written in third person, he signs all the posts as me and as I stated before, the URL is my exact name. I have written blogger (which is owned by Google) several times and they have sent a form letter back (via email) that says they don't get involved in online disputes and that I should contact this person directly and ask them to take it down. They're also espousing their freedom of speech, blah, blah, blah. (I wasn't aware that stealing somebody's identity for libelous reasons fell into that category.)

    I cannot contact this person, I am SCARED of this person! Plus, I wouldn't even know how as they are using a proxy server.

    To add insult to injury, this guy has "tagged" the blog (I don't know if anybody here knows anything about Tehnorati tags) so when you do a search for my name on Google, it comes up on the very first page! Like I said before, I own and operate a very successful online parenting site and this is not good.

    I suppose I can't do anything about the heinous, libelous comments, even though it could seriously damage my reputation, given the superb credibility of my site, but I really think that legally, it should be known that it is someone else that created that site and it is not me posting those comments!

    Please advise...does Google have to do the right thing here, since the poster cannot be traced and is using my own identity to libel and hurt me?

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Sep 2005
    Location
    Behind a Desk
    Posts
    98,846

    Default Re: Online Impersonation

    People give away a lot more clues than they realize when posting online. You should, for example, compare what this person wrote to what you can find in other places, such as searching the web (using all the major search engines) Usenet, Google Groups, etc. - if you take a phrase or sentence which is relatively unique, you can come up with all sorts of surprises. (This, for example, isn't available any more at the original website, at least for public view - it may be archived or moved into a private forum, or it may be deleted - but indicates a probability that your nemesis was participating in that OCD/Pedophilia site a few years back.) He's registered using various usernames - see what else exists on the web both for those usernames and for those he used on the email accounts he used when he registered. People tend to use the same names over and over, and they get careless.

    This person is probably good at hiding his tracks - I suspect he's been actively doing so for years in order to conceal the sites he reads, posts he makes, and dubious materials he downloads. But if you work at it you may be able to find enough to identify him. If you get a lawyer to help you, you can file a "John Doe" lawsuit and start using subpoenaes to get information from services like Google, or the site where he apparently previously posted, to get more IP information, email addresses, etc. And you keep following the trail.

  3. #3

    Default Re: Online Impersonation

    Well, Mr. Knowitall, you obviously know who I am from very little information. Call me paranoid, but that is freaking me out!

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Sep 2005
    Location
    Behind a Desk
    Posts
    98,846

    Default Re: Online Impersonation

    I didn't want to freak you out, and I don't think I gave away the farm in my answer, but I did want to illustrate that there's often a lot more evidence presented in a post than somebody realizes and a savvy investigator can find a lot more than you might expect. And yes, I think your villain posted the old OCD post I found.

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Jul 2006
    Posts
    22

    Default Re: Online Impersonation

    If you have more time than money you could file a complaint against the guy, obtain permission to subpoena the various servers, and gain his identity.

    If you have neither the time nor money to go through that process, the best you can do is start contacting the various groups that are interested in finding and prosecuting pedophiles and those that support them. Visit wiredsafety.org for some ideas.

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