Archive for May 3rd, 2010
Troll Dissection 101: Multiple Trolls Are Often the Same Person, Using the Same IP Address, Posing As Many People
Recently, we realized some of the most vulgar and hateful troll droppings we receive on a regular basis had a familiar ring to it — in sentence structure, tone, and general craziness.
There was also a recognizable pattern to their posting: suddenly, a new identity would appear, out of the blue, and would post a flurry of hateful, threatening messages (mainly in the meme that we should get AIDS and die, or that if any of us ever came to New Hampshire, we’d be physically or sexually assaulted by this troll personally, and then given AIDS somehow, perhaps through a needle prick, the troll is never specific). None of these would get through the spam filters. Realizing this, the troll would go volcanic with its hate until, poof, that particular identity would disappear and would never be heard from again.
Replacing it would be a new name, using the same tone, with the same rantings.
Someone suggested we run an IP search through old comments and see if the worst of this stuff was coming from the same IP. Amazingly, in many cases, that’s exactly what’s happening.
Susan Traversy is a disturbed middle-aged woman in New Hampshire who runs an eBay business of some kind, with her husband Brad Kinne (they sell, among other things, creepy leather troll masks, like the one below).
What Susan Traversy might wear while at the computer trolling.
In her spare time, she sends death threats and hatemail to gay men in Boystown, Chicago. Perhaps she’s also into decoupage and likes doing the Jumble too. She may have all sorts of hidden talents. But, the one we’re most familiar with are her AIDS-o-grams.
As in the following gems, cast our way under her many aliases, but all originating from her same IP:
Good thing eBay doesn’t let her sell old hospital needles on the Internets, because then she and her husband wouldn’t have any left to jab us with when we come to New Hampshire.
If Susan Traversy sent this sort of thing, on a regular basis, to the NAACP, Rainbow Push Coalition, the White House, or any random black person, and instead of being AIDS-o-grams they were racially motivated hatemail, even the Left, we’re sure, would come down on Traversy and her trolling.
But, this troll attacks gay guys who don’t support the Leftist agenda and who speak out against what this current president and Congress are doing to the nation.
So, we are attacked.
Every day.
By the likes of Susan Traversy and the other trolls coast to coast living in their mother’s basements – or, in Traversy’s case, her eBay storeroom where she sells “antiques” to strangers who have no idea what she does in her free time.
What her “hobby” is.
We’re curious if other sites out there have been visited by any of Traversy’s aliases, or have received messages from similar-sounding trolls using the same IP address. We doubt Traversy is a professional, paid DNC troll, because we don’t think Organizing for America would allow her to send AIDS-o-grams to anyone. Too much liability in that.
This appears to be just one disturbed woman who took Obama’s “get in their face” order from 2008 to heart, and is still fighting the election battle, every day, down in her basement, like one of those Japanese soldiers in the years after WWII who never got word the Empire collapsed. They kept fighting, alone, in the darkness of some South Pacific jungle atoll, while the rest of the world moved on and forgot about them, growing crazier and nastier every day, filling up with more and more hate, since they must have realized the God-Emperor they pledged their devotion to was, in the end, a total fraud who abandoned them.
So it must be with Traversy in the wilds of New Hampshire.
A state we’d love to visit again, but since we don’t want AIDS, and since Traversy and her husband have pledged to stick us with needles or have us raped if ever we came to Concord, we better just make do with going to Massachusetts and using binoculars to stare across the state lines into glorious New Hampshire.
If Susan Traversy’s the welcoming committee, maybe it’s not the best place to ever go.
Israel Round Up for May
Dear Hillbuzz,
I’m worried. I’m worried about a new war brewing in Israel. I’m aghast, day in and day out at the animosity of the current administration toward the State of Israel-the world’s Jew. I don’t think that Israel has been treated as badly since James Baker’s policy of “f&ck the Jews”. The President of the USA has lived a life surrounded by the most vile kind of anti-Semitic, radical, self-hating American leftists around. We should not be surprised now that we are seeing such aggressive, public loathing of Israel-but we can be concerned.
I’m concerned but not pessimistic because I know that the American people have a deep love and deep bond with the Jewish people and the State of Israel. With luck, this one-term president will be buried in history books and remembered only as competing with Jimmy Carter for the title of Worst President Ever. Caroline Glick of the Jerusalem Post, calls him the first “post-American” president, which I think is quite apt. But the American people are resilient and will overcome this temporary intrusion into their freethinking and freedom-loving way of life-you continue to inspire me.
Here are some articles for you to consider, some food for thought on this sunny spring day.
We all read about Obama’s disgraceful treatment of Bibi Netanyahu at the White House, but one has to wonder if the treatment is part of a larger, organized plot?
The Jew-hatred is right in your backyards. The campus intifiadah is emboldened all over North America because the hot heads have not been disciplined. When Jews are attacked, Western values are being attacked. The Jews are the canary in the coalmine.
Here’s another piece I found interesting. When Israel tries to keep Palestinian terrorists out of its territory, all hell breaks loose. When Egypt tries-not so much.
Here’s a great piece from Commentary about our ongoing discussion of Jews and their liberal allegiances. Will Jews ever give up their ties to the Democratic party? I live in hope. That would require them becoming much more Jewish, in a way-“converting” to traditional Judaism, not just “bagels and lox” Judaism. Will they leave the Church of Liberalism in great droves? Probably not, but certain individuals will and many current conservative intellectuals today started their careers firmly on the left. Like I said-I live in hope. This piece is not about Israel, but about Jews and their liberalism-maybe this guy is my long lost twin brother?
The second last link is from Bibi Netanyahu’s speech on Israel’s Holocaust Memorial Day. Contrast his elegant understanding of history, with the classless treatment he was afforded at the White House. The contrast could not be more stark.
The bottom line: Don’t despair. The Jews are a hopeful, joyful people. The people of Israel live (in Hebrew “Am Yisrael Chai”). And even in our times of the worst sorrow imaginable, we look out for one another and force ourselves to remember the circle of life, and the beauty of life.
As always, please feel free to leave comments and questions and I will try to address them in an upcoming Round Up.
Laura Rosen Cohen
Toronto, Canada
Computer Question: Could more than one troll turn up with the same IP address?
Here’s a question for anyone with solid computer knowledge: could more than one troll turn up with the same IP address and not be the same person, or be connected in any way?
It’s pertinent because one of our most prevalent and vulgar trolls seems to try taking on different names and email addresses to trick the spam filters, but her attacks keep coming from the same IP address.
The way we understand IP addresses, each computer has an individual address, so by that logic everything coming from that IP – no matter what name is being used – is the same person.
Is that correct?
What's with Obama's obsession with Justin Beiber?
The current president (left) and Canadian Ellen impersonator Justin Beiber (far right). TV's Michael Dorn looks on in horror (center).
It’s very strange the amount of attention the current President of the United States gives Canadian Ellen Degeneres impersonator, and sometimes singer, Justin Beiber.
For weeks leading up to the White House Easter Egg Roll, Obama kept aides, including his “body man” Reggie Love, in a frenzy, obsessing over whether Beiber would or would not perform for him, and whether he’d get the chance to meet Beiber, and maybe spend a little alone time with him, “just hanging out, maybe playing some Wii, you know, chillin’ like villains”. If the president gave this sort of attention to the oil spill threatening Louisiana and other Gulf Coast states, there wouldn’t be a drop left of crude in the water.
This weekend, the White House still hasn’t figured out an effective strategy for tackling the Gulf disaster, but Beiber was strangely invited to the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, where Obama insisted he sit at the People Magazine table, so he could have a clear sightline of Beiber at all times.
Why?
Here’s the list of the Correspondents’ Dinner attendees, via Nikki Finke’s Deadline Hollywood:
ABC Table: Kathryn Bigelow, Mark Boal; Modern Family‘s Julie Bowen and Ty Burrell; George Stephanopoulos and Ali Wentworth, who invited J.J. Abrams and his wife, Katie McGrath.
American Urban Radio Network Table: Wendy Williams
Bloomberg News Table: Rosario Dawson, James Brooks.
CBS Table: Julianna Margulies; Morgan Freeman; Betty White; Chelsea Handler
CNN Table: Ashley Judd; Dennis Quaid; Quinton Aaron; The Tuohy family, whose story is the basis for the film The Blind Side; James Badge Dale and Jon Seda of the HBO miniseries The Pacific; Larry King, who is bringing Seth MacFarlane and Jeff Probst; Joy Behar.
Creative Coalition Table: Jessica Alba and her husband, Cash Warren; Ashley Greene; Omar Epps; Steven Weber; Cheryl Hines; Adrian Grenier; Spike Lee; Morley Safer; Tom Fontana; and CCH Pounder.
Essence Table: Queen Latifah
Fortune Table: Michael Douglas.
Fox News Channel Table: Vanessa Williams; Chace Crawford; Matthew Morrison; Enrique Iglesias; Ali Larter; Marlon Wayans; Patricia Arquette.
Huffington Post Table: John Cusack; Scarlett Johansson; Jeremy Piven; Ari Emanuel.
NBC Table: Jon Bon Jovi; Anna Kendrick; Bradley Cooper; Alec Baldwin; Ewan McGregor; Jimmy Fallon; Mariska Hargitay; Angela Kinsey; Elisabeth Moss; Fred Armisen; Today and Morning Joe show hosts.
Newsweek Table: Chevy Chase, Jeremy Renner.
New Yorker Table: Judd Apatow and his wife, Leslie Mann, Tracy Morgan.
People Table: Justin Bieber, Gabourey Sidibe, Tom Colicchio, Kristin Davis, Jessica Simpson.
POLITICO Table: Mary J. Blige, The Jonas Brothers, Tim Daly.
Talking Points Memo Table: Darren Star.
Time Table: Steven Spielberg and his wife Kate Capshaw; Michelle Pfeiffer and her husband, David E. Kelley.
Rumored others: Ryan Seacrest, Zach Galifianakis, Terrence Howard.
There are other randoms on this list that raise a few eyebrows here in Boystown, like Chase Crawford and Ryan Seacrest — who, shockingly enough, did not arrive together (now, how they left is another matter, but don’t tell JC Chasez). Then there’s Bradley Cooper, the Jonas Brothers, Ewan McGregor, and Queen Latifah.
Evidently, the Village People, Lily Tomlin, and the ghost of Liberace were unable to attend. Rip Taylor’s still prohibited from coming within two miles of any sitting president, as Secret Service strangely classifies confetti as an IED (an Irritating Eye Distractor).
Otherwise, the Capitol Pride invitation list seemed to be cut-and-pasted into the Correspondents’ dinner, though downgraded from full-on Judy to mere Liza in terms of fabulous.
But, with Miss Thang yucking it up with Jay Leno, having a gay old time, as usual for this president, who needs a parade — not with Michelle up there on the dais proud of everything for the first time in her adult life, already dreaming of something even more hideous she could be wearing out in public to another party tomorrow.
What oil spill?
Who's Dressed Better: The First Lady or Mumm-Ra?
Click photo to embiggen
And in related matters…
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Monday Open Thread: May 3rd, 2010
What’s on your minds this Monday?
What are people talking about in your part of the country?
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