[jimwise]

No disagreement with the basic, point, but was a bit surprised by this quote:

"So, here's our situation. We have a man (presumably; at any rate he appears to want to be identified as such) in the Australian Linux community, who targets women by sending them private abusive emails from a throwaway address and with a name that can't readily be connected to any publicly known member of the community. His ISP won't hand out information about him without a court order, his abuse doesn’t present the kind of imminent threat to physical safety that might interest law enforcement, and despite Linux Australia’s diversity statement and Linux.conf.au's anti-harassment policies, it's not clear that there’s any practical thing that either of those groups can do about him."

Is it Bayley's position that ISP's should give out information on their users in response to warrantless requests -- from private individuals, no less?

Is it likewise Bayley's position that law enforcement should be going after people for making lewd comments online?

[dpark]

I didn't read that from the quote. I read it as "It sucks that there's nothing I can do about this", not "The system should change".

[zdw]

Unless he's swapping IP addresses on a regular basis, or hiding on a highly shared server, figuring out who this actually is without any help from an ISP or law enforcement shouldn't be that hard (this is the same way that "why the lucky stiff" was outed), assuming that the person is also an active contributor on other lists.

I tend to view this as another example of how anonymity allows people to be jerks (with the requisite comic: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/3/19/ ).

[DiabloD3]

MikeeUSA abuses open proxies and tor like mad. He also comes onto IRC channels with random nicks. Soon as he opens his mouth, though, he usually has outed himself.

I have referred to that same PA comic in the Darkplaces IRC channel (which hosts frequent games of "ban the MikeeUSA").

[bigB]

I think from what I have followed of this, there have been some pretty lewd and targeted comments made, not only on blog comments but via direct email.

While I dont know Bayley at all, from what I can gather she is highlighting the fact that people have to put up with such harassment due to the fact that ISP's or Police will not act on it.

Being that the comments were made via direct email, I guess you could liken it to someone calling you at home and telling you to "F!?K off out of your house", I think anyone would be creeped out at that. But as there are no actual threats of harm made, the law is useless to do anything.

[nobody314]

Except if they phoned you - it would be a crime and the police would investigate.

[mchanson]

I don't know, but in the US don't a lot of states have stalking laws that would cover this kind of behavior.

I see this site has info by state. Dunno if this kind of thing exists in Australia...

http://www.haltabuse.org/resources/laws/index.shtml

[roel_v]

"Is it Bayley's position that ISP's should give out information on their users in response to warrantless requests -- from private individuals, no less?"

Of course, because there is no worse crime than harassing women and any and all civil rights are second to all efforts to punish those who do. Let's not forget that the OP is identifying with a movement where it is commonly advocated to reverse the burden of proof in rape cases.

[DiabloD3]

MikeeUSA frequently states dumb shit like "oh, women deserve to be raped since the day they first bleed because this is what God created women for" and other shit.

He does it purely for the sake of trolling, and people periodically bite the trollbait.

Is this illegal? No. Should he be beaten with in an inch of his life? Yes. Is that going to happen outside of a prison? Probably not, no one is quite sure of his exact address.

[ugh]

“Should he be beaten with in an inch of his life? Yes.”

No. No. Definitly not. Are you crazy?

[Tangurena]

A number of women have been beaten, raped and/or murdered by men making identical noises. MikeeUSA wasn't trolling, he was threatening to murder those women he was stalking, and justifying it.

As MikeeUSA himself wrote:

> The women of the "geek feminism" movement will be just as effective at excising men from the movement as Nina was at systematically destroying Hans Reiser's life untill he saw no reason, nothing left in his life, that could hold him back from striking back.

Hans was convicted in 2008 of murdering his wife Nina. MikeeUSA is saying categorically that Nina deserved to die, just like MikeeUSA's targets.

http://geekfeminism.org/2011/10/13/on-being-harassed-a-littl...

[DiabloD3]

But thats just part of his troll persona. He's like 14, lives in his parent's basement, and hates the bright light of the daystar in the big blue room.

If a woman said hi to him, he'd spooge his pants and pass out, complete with nosebleed.

[sixtofour]

Who decides whether he gets the beating, and who administers it?

Sounds like a step backward in civilization to me.

Should we ignore this kind of problem? No. Should we go full vigilante on it? No.

[sp332]

Anybody can decide to attack you, whenever they want. We have police, courts, etc to settle disagreements, but if they are not interested in getting involved in your case, you two are on your own.

[maximusprime]

He's not the problem though. The problem is people being offended by it or taking the bait.

Ban, ignore, report, shun etc...

Setting up a geek feminist movement is pretty much the worst thing you could do if you wanted the abuse to stop.

[bigB]

I don't know about you, but that's a poor and weak excuse. Would your be offended If I said that to your wife, daughter, mother in person.

If someone said that to my wife in person I would break their nose, so why should online be any different.

[epscylonb]

The statement (insult, trollbait, whatever you want to call it) doesn't make sense.

I would be a bit unhappy and would try and get away from the guy, but I wouldn't challenge him on it and try and start an altercation.

[maximusprime]

If you said things to me / my family in person, there is the added threat of violence.

Online, there is no such threat. You could just as easily be a bot spewing hate, as a real human being. And being offended by a bot is pretty irrational.

Online, there is "data". If I know you, or have formed attachment to you via ongoing conversations etc or divulging details about myself, then the data becomes more meaningful and has emotion attached to it. But random data? No point being offended by that.

FWIW If someone I didn't know said that to my wife/mother/etc we'd just ignore them and walk away.

[bigB]

If that person kept coming back again and again with the same or similar comments, would you see the threat, this is what is happening here if you care to actually read the articles

[maximusprime]

I do have sympathy, but I think it's pretty sad to call the 'sexist' card when it's clearly just a case of a troll.

If you ignore him, he'll move on to someone else soon enough. It looks from the article that he wasn't being ignored at all.

[scott_s]

Please read this post: http://geekfeminism.org/2011/10/11/online-harassment-as-a-da...

[propater]

If you want to change the statu quo, you have to speak up. Saying the solution to sexism is to shut up is not helping to solve the problem (and there is a problem, I witnessed it several times in real life, it is not just a "troll problem".)

[DiabloD3]

When you start ban evading, you ARE a problem.

Not that I'm sticking up for those who take the bait, feeding the troll is always bad, but MikeeUSA and his ilk should just stay on /b/ where they belong.