Malwebolence: New York Times Article on Internet Trolls

Saxtonite · Post by **Saxtonite** » 2008-08-21 01:30am

This guy went with to met several internet trolls in real life, talked to them on why they troll, etc.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/03/magaz ... ref=slogin

one guy's response, the comments listed are interesting
http://themedium.blogs.nytimes.com/2008 ... lls&st=cse

One of the trolls mentioned in the first article, "Weev" is interviewed by the site corrupt.org
http://www.corrupt.org/act/interviews/weev

the guy's LJ and some more of his explanation and beliefs
http://weev.livejournal.com/305600.html

Kevin Pereira discusses this with Matthias Schwartz on G4TV
http://www.g4tv.com/attackoftheshow/vid ... ernet.html

what do you think

Saxtonite · Post by **Saxtonite** » 2008-08-21 01:34am

I just checked the links, first link does not work (have to register). google "The Trolls Amongst Us" and click the first link to get to the article unhindered.

Post by **Edi** » 2008-08-21 04:48am

So these guys are unhinged morons with some computer skills with delusions of grandeur about their importance. Whoopde-fucking-doo.

Solauren · Post by **Solauren** » 2008-08-21 08:01am

Not total morons.

They know if they pull that shit in real life, say in a bar, it will get them beaten the crap out of, so they do it online where its safe.

General Zod · Post by **General Zod** » 2008-08-21 09:12am

“Lulz” is how trolls keep score. A corruption of “LOL” or “laugh out loud,” “lulz” means the joy of disrupting another’s emotional equilibrium. “Lulz is watching someone lose their mind at their computer 2,000 miles away while you chat with friends and laugh,” said one ex-troll who, like many people I contacted, refused to disclose his legal identity.

I'm sorry, but I just can't take the article seriously after this. I'm suddenly reminded of the part in Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas where Hunter is at that press conference listening to some clueless twat in a suit talking about marijuana culture.

Mobius · Post by **Mobius** » 2008-08-21 11:43am

why am i reminded of this?

Post by **Coyote** » 2008-08-21 11:47am

I like how they also try to make it sound like some sort of Robin Hood public service-- "we go after blowhards, people who are full of it". Uh-huh. The griefers go after everyone. That they actually tried to get that description of their activity in after describing how they pilloried a dead kid and stalked and terrified his family.... yeah. Real public service against egoists, there.

Knife · Post by **Knife** » 2008-08-21 11:52am

Wow, that was a lot of text to say; 'geeky kids lash out on the internet where they can be bullies, instead of real life where they'd get their teeth kicked in.'

To illustrate;

After receiving death threats, Fortuny meticulously scrubbed his real address and phone number from the Internet. “Anyone who knows who and where you are is a security hole,” he told me. “I own a gun. I have an escape route. If someone comes, I’m ready.

He's a big man while hiding behind the internet, and yet still realizes he's a fucking douche in real life.

Covenant · Post by **Covenant** » 2008-08-21 02:59pm

Weev is far and beyond the more aggrivating of the two, since he takes what's just standard interwebs banditry and adds in layer upon layer of religious context which would make him something along the lines of a fundie hacker. Obviously it's hard to take anything he says as honest, but adding "religious zealot" and "bigot" to the list is extra special negative awesome. The article's big issue is that it gives the idea that trolling is a philosophy overall, rather than the idea of a philosophy just being tacked-on by the crazy extremist sorts. A real internet war to settle these people out can never happen, so you're always going to be left with a variety of mess on the internet, but that doesn't make it a movement.

Buddha · Post by **Buddha** » 2008-08-21 06:26pm

Coyote wrote:I like how they also try to make it sound like some sort of Robin Hood public service-- "we go after blowhards, people who are full of it". Uh-huh. The griefers go after everyone. That they actually tried to get that description of their activity in after describing how they pilloried a dead kid and stalked and terrified his family.... yeah.

Are you talking about the guy who took drugs and was egged on by friends online? The guy went by the chat name Ripper. Same sentiment there.

Pablo Sanchez · Post by **Pablo Sanchez** » 2008-08-21 07:34pm

So from an emotionally disturbed loser (look at how he tried to pick up that waitress, ffs) with a history of sexual abuse and a delusional sneak thief we are supposed to extrapolate some kind of movement? I found the article interesting enough to finish but not interest enough to draw any conclusions from, except stuff I already knew, that trolls and griefers are nothing more than assholes too timid to misbehave in public.

ArmorPierce · Post by **ArmorPierce** » 2008-08-21 07:37pm

Mobius wrote:why am i reminded of this?

Out of 90 friends they killed 32 of my friends... computers.

Saxtonite · Post by **Saxtonite** » 2008-08-21 08:55pm

Edi wrote:So these guys are unhinged morons with some computer skills with delusions of grandeur about their importance. Whoopde-fucking-doo.

Based off the article and their tactice, some of them seem pretty intelligent. Assholes yes.

Mobius wrote:why am i reminded of this?

you know, FOX did a follow-up on that linked here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ai09cWlyPrQ

General Zod wrote: I'm sorry, but I just can't take the article seriously after this. I'm suddenly reminded of the part in Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas where Hunter is at that press conference listening to some clueless twat in a suit talking about marijuana culture.

how so, that's close to encyclopediadramatica' article on "lulz".

General Zod · Post by **General Zod** » 2008-08-21 09:00pm

Saxtonite wrote: how so, that's close to encyclopediadramatica' article on "lulz".

Nobody takes Encyclopediadramatica seriously, and frankly anyone that does either has a stick up their ass or is a clueless twat. The fact that they think "lulz" are a point system just shows that they're either completely clueless as to the reality of *chan boards or the trolls they talked to were yanking their chain.

Illuminatus Primus · Post by **Illuminatus Primus** » 2008-08-21 09:05pm

I don't see a link to SDN.

Saxtonite · Post by **Saxtonite** » 2008-08-21 09:12pm

General Zod wrote:
Saxtonite wrote: how so, that's close to encyclopediadramatica' article on "lulz".
Nobody takes Encyclopediadramatica seriously, and frankly anyone that does either has a stick up their ass or is a clueless twat. The fact that they think "lulz" are a point system just shows that they're either completely clueless as to the reality of *chan boards or the trolls they talked to were yanking their chain.

oh; I just saw the first sentence. Oops.

Covenant wrote:A real internet war to settle these people out can never happen, so you're always going to be left with a variety of mess on the internet,

Can you explain?

Pulp Hero · Post by **Pulp Hero** » 2008-08-21 09:38pm

Ahhh, someone dress the OP's links. My eyes.

Tanasinn · Post by **Tanasinn** » 2008-08-22 12:44am

The problem with doing anything on trolling is that they're a pretty varied group with a ton of different stated and actual motivations, methods, and targets of choice.

Also, I don't know why these journalists insist on focusing on and improperly interpreting "lulz" when there's the perfectly servicable "schaedenfreude" to describe what trolling provides for the average troll.

I can't say I take the bits on weev seriously at all. I'm not familiar with the guy (the idea of a troll celebrity strikes me as hilarious, since internet preeners tend to be a favorite troll target), but he sounds so far out there as to be yanking the guy's chain.

Covenant · Post by **Covenant** » 2008-08-22 02:38am

Saxtonite wrote:
Covenant wrote:A real internet war to settle these people out can never happen, so you're always going to be left with a variety of mess on the internet,
Can you explain?

Not really. I don't think it needs an explination, since only a deranged mind could take it out of context. Aww, but whatever, fine.

I'm just saying that since the dregs of the internet never go away. The good people of the Earth could log on and out-troll the trolls, or clean out the security loopholes and data leakage, or learn to entirely ignore anyone who says a mean thing, and it won't do a thing. They'll always exist, and they'll remain as just a bunch of internet hooligans. They're common thugs. Even your average hacker is just a bog-standard moron with little more distinguishing merit over a hoodie-wearing mugger.

The only thing they do have that the e-chavs don't have is relative safety from reprisal, since the law has not yet caught up or determined what role it should take in a variety of these cases. It's also difficult to support harder legislation for some of this in light of the hamfisted way a lot of that legislation is written. So unlike gang crime comitted by idiots with knives, these idiots with computers have a level of security due to the fact we can't just fight back or flood their stomping grounds with police.

Unlike the wild west scenario that they posted, you can't send in the lawmen and bring some order to the border. Thus, no e-war to cleanse the interwebs of script-kiddies and dime-a-dozen hackers that aid the troll efforts. Even if we tried, they'd just keep cropping up. Hackers of various sorts will mess with each other, with the rest of us, grow disenfranchised and decide to create security firms at the same rate as new moron script-kiddies come to take their place and hassle other people. Casting them as anything else but thugs who prey on the easy opportunity of the internet's relatively poor security does a disservice to the kinds of people they harass. You don't need to deserve it, or be a high-profile whiner, to get harassed. It's extremely easy to get someone's SSN, or their address, or other information, and to throw that information to the wolves who are too happy to mess with someone's life.

Lulz or not, people deserve more respect. They'd be able to demand it too, if these weren't cowardly attacks from the darkness.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2008-08-22 02:44am

Assholes thrive in anonymity. What a shock.

This kind of thing will never be solved as long as we demand privacy and our computer and telecommunications networks are set up to provide it. The same privacy which some people crave in order to assuage their fears is also what gives trolling assholes their cover.

Frankly, what most of these trolls need is to be outed and then beaten to a pulp, but we all know that won't happen. They think it's oh so hilarious to intrude on other peoples' lives, but they meticulously keep their own lives secret and would be indignant at any attempt to do the same back to them.

CaptainChewbacca · Post by **CaptainChewbacca** » 2008-08-22 11:13am

I don't think its been said yet, but the term 'Malwebolence' makes me want to punch someone in the neck, such is its idiocy.

Saxtonite · Post by **Saxtonite** » 2008-08-23 02:11pm

Darth Wong wrote:This kind of thing will never be solved as long as we demand privacy and our computer and telecommunications networks are set up to provide it. The same privacy which some people crave in order to assuage their fears is also what gives trolling assholes their cover.

Frankly, what most of these trolls need is to be outed and then beaten to a pulp, but we all know that won't happen. They think it's oh so hilarious to intrude on other peoples' lives, but they meticulously keep their own lives secret and would be indignant at any attempt to do the same back to them.

What about the trolls who don't care and are okay with revealing who they are-as Jason Fortuny is (and has done so in the past).

Also, what about the other trolls (what is a good 'remedy' to the minority of trolls who don't need their asses kicked)?

And Covenant, thank you.

Dooey Jo · Post by **Dooey Jo** » 2008-08-23 02:37pm

A troll that doesn't need to have its ass kicked? That's like a Christian who doesn't need God.