Forum Moderators: phranque
I can't ban him because his IP Address is dynamic. I can ban his e-mail but he keeps coming up with new e-mail addresses.
Even though I've been level-headed in all my replies to him the situation has now escalated to where he's made death threats against myself and several members of my website.
He admits to stealing all our content and plans to use it to form his own website.
He's even filed a complaint with the IFCC.
I get no response from the abuse department at his ISP.
I called his local police department about the death threats and was told there's nothing they can do and that I have to take it up with my local police department.
The problem is I don't know who this person really is so my local police department said there's nothing they can do about it.
Any advice on how to handle this situation based on your own experiences would be most appreciated. Thanks.
Death threats are a serious matter. I would contact your local FBI office, in writing, to ask for help.
I would not reply to any of his messages - but as soon as his posts appear, delete them. Maybe he will tire of being ignored and snipped.
Call in at your local police station and ask to make a statement, they have to act on it then not just push it to one side
ncw164x
In any case, just keep deleting his nonsense and he'll go away eventually.
Mardi_Gras
I would contact your local FBI office, in writing, to ask for help.
I will do that, thanks.
thehittmann
could you ban his complete IP range?
That would ban everyone in the Lansing, Michigan area. I don't want to take out my frustrations on anyone else who might want to join from that area.
ncw164x
Call in at your local police station and ask to make a statement, they have to act on it then not just push it to one side
As I mentioned above I did call my local police department. They would not take a statement and did push it to one side. They said if I don't know who made the death threat they cannot act upon it.
txbakers
With terrorist alerts on High, any threat needs to be reported and this guy locked up, or scared sh**less.
Part of the problem is he seems to relish being antagonistic. Every time he tells me something more that he's done or is going to do I politely reply thanking him for giving me even more evidence to use against him. That's when he starts with the death threats, ethnic slurs and all the rest of his illiterate but vitriolic turpitude.
Conclusions:
The police have refused to do anything about it unless I can identify the person which I cannot do. His ISP refuses to reply to me other than an automated response stating they're looking into it and asking me to send e-mails. It seems like they think this is a spammer being reported. I cannot seem to make it clear to them that it goes way beyond that. For now I'll take Mardi_Gras' advice and contact the FBI. I have printouts of all his messages, and printouts of all the e-mails (with headers) my website staff and myself have exchanged with him. In my eyes, as the son of a retired lawyer, I have all the evidence I need to prove he's the one committing fraud and making death threats. I just need someone to take me seriously and help find out who he really is. Perhaps the FBI can do that. But will they really take this seriously? Nobody else has so I am skeptical albeit desperate enough to send the letter anyway.
If anyone else would care to comment I'm sure I'll appreciate your advice. Thanks.
Every time he tells me something more that he's done or is going to do I politely reply thanking him for giving me even more evidence to use against him.
That's your problem, right there.
Don't politely tell him anything, just ignore it and it will go away. Just delete his stuff as it comes in. That's all you can do.
Unless your name and address are on the site (which I hope it isn't...) then you don't have to worry about anything.
I had a situation once where I was pestered by a maniac, and needed to reply for legal reasons. Every letter was the same: Thank you for your comments, your concerns have been noted.
No baiting, no sarcasm. In your case I wouldn't even acknowledge the weirdo.
Call and get the name of the agent in charge. Send the correspondence directly to that person. Do include all relevant correspondence in your package - make it clear that you are being threatened.
I would not expect much help from your local police - this isn't really the kind of thing a local police department is set up to handle.
And as txbakers and I said, don't respond to anything this person posts - just delete it.
Good luck.
So basically I have to stop letting him do to me that which he's probably trying to do, antagonize me further. It's going to be hard to ignore his e-mails because they are so hateful but perhaps that is the best bet. How do you work out your frustrations in a case like this? Punch walls, get drunk, go shopping, something else?
My name is on the site. So is my partner's. But there is no address or phone information. But that's going to have to change soon because I'm working to make the site COPPA-compliant so we can allow underage visitors to become members. That means we have to provide contact information. But that's a different topic in a different thread.
Mardi_Gras:
Thanks again for further clarification with regard to the FBI. I'm going to call them now and find out who I should send my pile of documentation to.
They said if I don't know who made the death threat they cannot act upon it.
I find this hard to believe and I think in may be a police dept. that doesn't want to deal with it. Many crimes are commited by people who are unknown. Plenty of women who are stalked make statements about unknown men who send threats. If I were you, I would pose the question to your local legal aid office (or one of your parent's still in business friends).
I really don't see how the police could say they can't take a statement if you don't know who is doing it. That's kind of like saying they can't investigate a murder b/c they don't have any suspects.
I would then dig up everything you can on the entire line between you and the individual. NeoTrace all for contact addies. When you have everyone above him/her in the pipeline, then you start firing off messages.
Dig so deep you end up finding the ipadmin, sysadmin, support, tech, abuse, or hostmaster of each provider along the way. His ISP won't respond favorably to you? Go upstream. Go so far upstream 'ya reach the headwaters.
When dealing with something as potentially serious as death threats it is difficult, sometimes, to locate the individual, but it can be done!
Have you tried cloaking a page just for him/her? As much of that clandestine stuff as I've read here at WebmasterWorld it would seem there should/could be a way to send him/her along a path more easily documented? <-Just fishing.
Locational: Once you narrow down the area geographically, then you can list the previous IPSs used and start investigating the track thru those ISPs.
Ok, Lansing. There it is. You have the list of ISPs the individual has used, right? Compare that list against the Yellow Pages for any obvious patterns. Make a plot map to help clarify any neighborhooding. (Some folks will only deal with 'local' businesses.) Then start 'calling' those ISPs and ask to speak with the owner. Not everyone uses the biggies and the Mom and Pop ISPs will sometimes do sooo much more than the Nationals....particularly on the personal level. It's important to note that most ISPs will NOT give you what you really want. BUT, they might just give you a tid-bit or two to add to the list.
Sure some won't help. But some will and it's those little scraps of data that you will need to harden your case.
If you wish, you can sticky me with whatever details you feel comfortable divulging and I can look around a bit.
Oh. One more thing. You see what txbakers said about the language of your responses? Yes, yes, yes. Kill them with kindness... Never get argumentative, they thrive on it.
I doubt that that is the case. Local poice departments are not set up to deal with this kind of thing.
I have to respectfully disagree. I believe that NO response is the appropriate response here. And I think you are miscontruing what txbakers said...
There are also key phrases in Canada which the police by law can not ignore. If I phone and ask for "an officer to keep the peace", they can not ignore my call. They must respond. They do not have to come in the next five minutes, but they must attend the call. Does your state have something similar?
If you do get to speak with an officer that does take some action, get the file or incident number. The police deal with thousands of calls every day. the incident or file number allows you to reference action taken previously and to build the file with complaints.
Hope this helps,
Shane
But surely his information are on the whois database?
I contacted the company that hosts my server. They're at least willing to try and help and perhaps as one ISP to another they'll get more cooperation from this guy's ISP.
Second Q: Why not call your State congress person and explain the situation to them. Ask them who you should speak with and when they run down the list of people you've already contacted, tell him/her so and ask if there's anything they can do to help.
A thought: You could initiate a fee based subscription for folks that come from that IP range (unless you think this guy is smart enough to use a proxy) then if he signs up again, you'll have his CC# and a way to identify him - assuming of course that if he wants to steal your content he might be dumb enough to actually use a real CC#.
Or set a specific cookie identifying this individual, and then bar him from accessing your site that way. Again, it's easily bypassed but only if the person realizes what you're doing.
At the very least do not accept any signups from that IP block using free email accounts.
As far a local police, you should be able to file a report. I wouldn't expect them to do much, but if the worst happens at least they'll know who to look for. :(
lorax
First Q: How are you identifying it's the same guy?
Second Q: Why not call your State congress person and explain the situation to them. Ask them who you should speak with and when they run down the list of people you've already contacted, tell him/her so and ask if there's anything they can do to help.
At first he kept rejoining the site using the same IP Address.I banned that IP Address so his so-called daughter signed up using an e-mail address that had the same name in it. I asked her about it and she admitted it was her father. I told her she could remain as a member and be judged on her own actions. In her first post she admitted to being ten years old which means she didn't read our TOS with regard to COPPA. I deleted her immediately. Then her father started joining under a variety of e-mail addresses (all @yahoo.com). Gradually, as it became clear it was the same person I started deleting those accounts and adding the e-mail address to our banned list. He kept it up until the death threats and ethnic slurs started. At that point I told him I was going to take legal action against him. That's when he began to intentionally harass me via e-mail. I tried to not reply, but he was pressing all the right buttons. However I did try to be as polite as possible in my replies while still letting him/her know I wouldn't stand for this any longer. That's when he ramped up the threats even more.
My father is friends with Senator Graham from Florida. Perhaps that's a good thing to try lorax, thanks.
rogerd
have your lawyer send them an overnight letter
If I knew who this person really was and how to reach him via postal mail I wouldn't be in this spot right now. I did have a legal e-mail digitally signed sent to him. That's when he went to that Internet fraud website I mentioned and claims to have filed a case against the website. Also, the local police were not interested in this at all. Same with the FBI. Neither one would let me speak to anyone like an agent.
To everyone else, thanks again for your continued comments and suggestions. Some of the suggestions are just not practical. One thing I have tried is contacting the major automotive manufacturer he claims to work for to see if they can offer any help.
>Every letter was the same: Thank you for your comments, your concerns have been noted.
Mardi_Gras, this is what I was addressing. Note the word 'language' in my response? Such to say, IF responses are the order of the day, a statement just such as that is perfect!
(For those who may not be familiar with American Colloquialism. - Killing them with Kindness is an old expression that simply means 'give them no quarter to retaliate with like-kinded threats and such'.)
These individuals are less likely to become enraged and more likely to reduce their negative efforts when the reward (in this case terse messages in response) is replaced with the type of response I advocate.
Trust me on this folks. An individual who takes as strong of measures (to date) as has been described in this thread will not, repeat will not stop just because they are being ignored.
Besides, how dare we presume that enough verifiable evidenciary facts have been gathered to prosecute, before the individual runs from lack of input or boredom?
Nope. Just keep collecting that information and establishing those time-lines of moving from ISP to ISP as this more than anything goes to intent. Once they establish intent and with subpeona, law-enforcement will hit every ISP on your list as they investigate.
Remember, the fluidity of the Internet requires pin-point, almost on-the-fly documentation if you want a successful investigation - and the best way to do that is in real-time.
They have to be caught with their hand so far in the cookie jar, that it appears a natural appendage, for the best chances of prosecuting.
Once this whole thing is said and done, I think you'll find the individual is white, below the age of 18, affluent and homebound. I would also hazard a guess that the site-in-question isn't the only one the individual is harassing.
Also, you noted that this guy used a yahoo address. Any chance you've contact them to notify them of the threats this guy has made against you?
lorax: I have not contacted Yahoo. At least not yet. That's because it's too easy to sign up with fraudulent info on these types of mail servers. At least with a genuine ISP like Comcast he has to provide legitimate contact and billing information.
[edited by: GaryK at 7:34 pm (utc) on Dec. 29, 2003]
Yes. You read that just right and your assumption is correct. :)
Youbetcha :)
[edited by: pendanticist at 7:46 pm (utc) on Dec. 29, 2003]
Thanks, pendanticist. :)
[edited by: GaryK at 7:43 pm (utc) on Dec. 29, 2003]
