Disclaimer: I have no idea who Stephen Nolan is, and I'm not aware of the context. The reaction is based solely on the article.
I get a feeling that the light is only being shed on the side of the story which makes the "victim" look like an alpha male. All this "message" and "tracing" crap.
I wonder how this "troll" was "traced". Specially trained Twitter-hound? You don't just "trace" people on the internet.
They way I see it (the way the article depicts the situation), they very well knew who could be the troll, and simply threatened the offender:
> There was immediate contrition and categoric statements of regret, with the individual pleading for anonymity due to his expressed personal security concerns
People usually say things like that when there is a presence of an immediate danger to their well-being.
I mean, fair enough, you play with the bull you get the horns. But don't make it look like a triumph of justice accompanied with an honourable act of mercy. You just blackmailed six figures out of a person for sending texts.
I mean, there's doxxing, which is often effective, or getting a court to issue a subpoena to Twitter for an IP that you can then go subpoena an ISP for.
I must admit, writing the comment I didn't take into account authorities being able to request personal information. But my initial thought was about something else, and I could've communicated it better.
> The BBC radio and TV presenter traced the identity of the person who was behind an online campaign against him.
The wording in the article can be seen as the man and his colleagues did all the tracing of a completely random internet-troll themselves. Not only that sounds ridiculous, but also falls in line with the display of power I mentioned.
Although possible, it doesn't make much sense to use a personal account in this scenario, especially given the political nature of the messages which the article fails to mention along the other contextual details.
I'm assuming a perfect offender here, who is sitting on a throwaway account, on a burner phone, and behind a VPN or three, all via public WiFi spot. Why? Because it makes sense, but most importantly because the article leaves a lot to the imagination, especially using the terminology such as "troll".
> I'm assuming a perfect offender here, who is sitting on a throwaway account, on a burner phone, and behind a VPN or three, all via public WiFi spot.
These are very silly assumptions, IMO.
I've seen an enormous number of trolly comments directed at public figures via long-running Facebook accounts under what appear to be real names. My local legislator gets harassed incessantly by a local business owner I've encountered in person.
Most people doing this kind of thing are doing so from their ordinary smartphone.
If someone has set up that much opsec just to post abuse, they definitely know they're doing something wrong. Few vulnerable activists have that level of security.
> I wonder how this "troll" was "traced". Specially trained Twitter-hound? You don't just "trace" people on the internet.
Look up Kurt Eichenwald. He found and sued an anonymous Twitter troll who send him a GIF "you deserve a seizure" in 2017. I'm not sure exactly how, I think the authorities helped him, so Twitter just might've gave them the information.
So for anyone else that found that completely odd, the whole story is that he sued someone who sent him a DM with a gif that purposefully triggered his epilepsy and caused him to seize. The words "you deserve a seizure" were definitely not the basis of the suit.
Minor correction, it wasn't a DM, it was a public tweet that had him tagged. Then his wife (or him pretending to be his wife) responded to the tweet from Eichenwald's account, that he just had a seizure and that she had called the police.
Good point. That's possible and could've made the things easier. I tend to forget that authorities can request personal information from companies (and that the companies don't mind sharing most of the time).
FTR, it happens ALL... THE... TIME. Court issues subpoena saying give us everything you have on this tweet/message/posting or be held in contempt. Company then responds with all info on account IPs, logins, timestamps, etc. Unless your OPSEC is impeccable, it's usually quite easy to identify a user and only requires the permission of a court.
I get a feeling that the light is only being shed on the side of the story which makes the "victim" look like an alpha male. All this "message" and "tracing" crap.
I wonder how this "troll" was "traced". Specially trained Twitter-hound? You don't just "trace" people on the internet.
They way I see it (the way the article depicts the situation), they very well knew who could be the troll, and simply threatened the offender:
> There was immediate contrition and categoric statements of regret, with the individual pleading for anonymity due to his expressed personal security concerns
People usually say things like that when there is a presence of an immediate danger to their well-being.
I mean, fair enough, you play with the bull you get the horns. But don't make it look like a triumph of justice accompanied with an honourable act of mercy. You just blackmailed six figures out of a person for sending texts.