Someone doesn’t like me. OK–that’s an understatement. Of those who don’t like me someone is being pretty mean about it sending me a stream of vile emails and blog comments. It’s been going on for a while.
Not only have I been the target, so has a co-worker and some other people (more on them later).
I know who it is. It’s pretty obvious. I just don’t know why–what I ever did to this person to deserve his wrath?
I suspect some of you reading this know who it is too. You connect the dots.
This weekend he sent comments to my blog from a McDonalds on Mansfield Avenue in Norton, MA. That’s right by I-495. Today it was from a Barnes and Noble in Farmington, CT. That’s what you’d expect if someone in Maine was coming here for a visit or vacation.
Most of the time his stuff has come from the Bangor area of Maine.
How do I know? The Internet isn’t anonymous. In order for data to be sent to a computer the server must know its IP address. So, when this person spewed on my website it was in my logs.
Facebook is a little more problematic. Well, it was until I found out the originating IP address in Facebook mail is hashed within the message and it can be pulled out. With that little tidbit I found a mean and nasty email sent to a co-worker via Facebook came from a RoadRunner account serviced from Warren, ME, between Portland and Bangor.
Earlier web comments came from another Maine RoadRunner account and from a business account serviced by MidMaine.net
Our miscreant has a variety of pen names he uses, creating and discarding Gmail accounts at will. The most interesting to me are: Fishers4, Dick Fishamajig and JackHammer1968.
Fishers4 and Fishamajig would imply this is someone who knows something about fishing. The 1968 might be his birth year.
One of these pseudonyms appears on a bulletin board sending the same “good wishes” to a former KC-101, Country 92, disk jockey. Maybe our boy has a radio connection?
I know who this is. I have all the pieces except why. I’d rather not go to the police and lodge a case for harassment, but I’m getting to the point where I have no choice.
As I said in the beginning–some of you know this person. Maybe it’s time to put a hand across his shoulder and give him some wise advice. You’ve been caught. Stop.
Incredible job of cyber-sleuthing Geoff. It’s great to think that this person’s (assumed) anonymity was just shattered with this blog entry.
Good luck. I hope this person learned his lesson that nothing it truly anonymous on the internet… and to not mess with you!
Geez Geoff. I sometimes got annoyed at you because of our obvious differences in political opinion. I fixed the issue by visiting your site less and not reading your political opinions. After a while, I have decided that I enjoy your musings more than I disagree with your opinions. It never never never entered my mind to harass you. My mind doesn’t work that way, and not yours I am sure. You have my sympathy.
That sucks, I had someone harassing me online for over a year. these cyberbullies get to the point that when you don’t respond to them (because they need the respose to fuel themselves) then it makes them even angier. My stalker got to the point of sending death threats when I wouldnt respond. This was someone I knew 16 yrs. ago and all of a sudden started popping up. but when i got the death threats i immediately called the cops over to my house so they can see it right on my screen while it was happening, (This was a year ago 2008). This man is now finally seeing his day in court.
There are different types of cyberstalkers out there and you need to be careful. I had another quite a few years back, it was my old boss, cyberstalked me for months, I had over 175 emails from him, and in all of them, he made it very clear it was him, I kept ignoring them, but at the same time, i printed every one of them up. when i wouldnt respond to him, he actually filed false charges with his police dept. saying that I was stalking him! Beleive that shit? The judge through it out because he had no proof of course, but I still had to go through all of the hell. My opinion? take what you have to the police now before it escalates any further and save yourself possibly years of torment.
LV