Encylopedia Dramatica's Ryan Cleary Arrested, split from older ED topic Options

[Greaser]

Ryan has been arrested by Scotland Yard, working in conjunction with the FBI.

[EricBarbour]

Ryan's mother Rita, 44, said her son suffers from agoraphobia and attention deficit disorder and had not left his bedroom for four years.

Earlier this year, the mother of two was fined £100 for allowing her older son to grow cannabis at their home after plants worth £4,300 were seized.

Mrs Cleary, who is on incapacity benefit, claimed her son needed the drugs to ease his epilepsy symptoms.

Speaking at the family's home in Wickford, she said Ryan was an introverted boy who 'lives his life online'.

She added: 'He has a history of mental problems.

'He left school at 15.

'He has stayed in his room for the last four years in front of his computer.

'He is bright, but does not have any social skills.'

The teenager attended Heath School, in Stanway, Colchester, a school for children with special needs, and is said to have constantly spoken in 'computer jargon'.

In short, the stereotypical hacker. Or Wikipedia admin.

[Silver seren]

Question: Is it not true that DeGrippo sent a takedown notice to ED.ch's ISP and that, in order to avoid it, they changed servers?

Because that's what I heard and, if true, it shows proof that they are a copyright violation, since they worked to avoid being taken down as one.

[carbuncle]

Question: Is it not true that DeGrippo sent a takedown notice to ED.ch's ISP and that, in order to avoid it, they changed servers?

Because that's what I heard and, if true, it shows proof that they are a copyright violation, since they worked to avoid being taken down as one.

You have a funny idea of what "proof" means.

[lilburne]

Question: Is it not true that DeGrippo sent a takedown notice to ED.ch's ISP and that, in order to avoid it, they changed servers?

Because that's what I heard and, if true, it shows proof that they are a copyright violation, since they worked to avoid being taken down as one.

You have a funny idea of what "proof" means.

It probably equates to anything that hasn't been printed on shithouse paper.

[Daniel Brandt]

Question: Is it not true that DeGrippo sent a takedown notice to ED.ch's ISP and that, in order to avoid it, they changed servers?

Because that's what I heard and, if true, it shows proof that they are a copyright violation, since they worked to avoid being taken down as one.

No. You do not understand how Ryan worked. He simply ignored DeGrippo's notices. He may have responded with an insult or two for the sake of lulz, but basically he ignored her. His ED.ch servers are in the U.S. but he owns the IP address block.

[May 24 2011 12:46:21] <Ryan> all abuse reports goto me
[May 24 2011 12:46:24] <Ryan> directly
[May 24 2011 12:46:26] <Ryan> we own that IP space
...
[May 24 2011 12:50:39] <Ryan> armucat, legality is not an issue
[May 24 2011 12:50:41] <Ryan> you don't seem to understand
[May 24 2011 12:50:45] <Ryan> we own our own address space
[May 24 2011 12:51:03] <Ryan> the only higher authority than us people can go is to ARIN
[May 24 2011 12:55:36] <Ryan> we face no legal issues in america
[May 24 2011 12:55:37] <Ryan> lol
[May 24 2011 12:55:43] <Ryan> we are not child porn
[May 24 2011 12:56:03] <Ryan> dmcas are worthless because i send counter dmcas, if they want to go further than that they need to take us to court
[May 24 2011 12:56:15] <Ryan> 99% of dmcas are bullshit anyway
[May 24 2011 12:56:20] <Ryan> satire etc
[May 24 2011 12:56:28] <Ryan> they cant bring libel against us either

DeGrippo owned the old ED.com address block also, but since her legal instrument (Edrama LLC) is registered in the U.S. and her street address is in Kalamazoo, Michigan, she was more vulnerable. In ED.com's later days, they were responding to DMCA requests somewhat more responsibly than Ryan did. Ryan is in the UK, and is more protected against U.S. civil actions, if only because it is expensive to hire those UK dudes who wear those funny white wigs.

If you don't own your address space, the DMCA goes to your hosting provider. Depending on the mood they're in, they may knee-jerk and pull the plug on your entire site just because that's the easiest way to respond. WR is in that position, and so are 99 percent of all websites in the U.S.

As far as ED.ch's survival goes, there are two issues right now. One is whether Ryan will be able to continue administering the ED.ch servers, and the other is whether the other sysadmin, someone named "garrett", has sufficient privileges on the servers, and sufficient access, and sufficient resources and motivation, to administer ED.ch in Ryan's absence.

[Jun 22 2011 07:18:34] *** garrett changes topic to "ED Status: Still alive. | We know shit is fucked up, we're working on it. | RIP Ryan ;-;"
[Jun 22 2011 07:18:46] <Beefcake> HHHHNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG
[Jun 22 2011 07:18:58] <garrett> same
[Jun 22 2011 07:19:11] <garrett> i dont think i can backup the forum dbs without access to the box
[Jun 22 2011 07:19:16] <garrett> or at least a panel of some sort
[Jun 22 2011 07:19:27] <Beefcake> isn't root enough?
[Jun 22 2011 07:19:32] <garrett> i dont have root
[Jun 22 2011 07:19:38] <Beefcake> oh
[Jun 22 2011 07:19:57] <Beefcake> can't we contact Ryan some way
[Jun 22 2011 07:19:59] <Beefcake> ?
[Jun 22 2011 07:20:14] <garrett> ...
[Jun 22 2011 07:20:20] <garrett> Yes, lets waltz into scotland yard
[Jun 22 2011 07:20:28] <garrett> and ask if we can talk to an international crime suspect
[Jun 22 2011 07:20:32] <garrett> about a forum issue

[Silver seren]

That's pretty hilarious, actually, that Ryan getting arrested has essentially frozen them from actually taking control of the IP block.

In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the police actually used that to scope out ED.ch and anything else Ryan was involved in. I mean, they are investigating his connection to LulzSec and ED.ch is one of the first places to look, since he is the hoster for it.

This post has been edited by Silver seren:

[SB_Johnny]

Can someone catch me up here? Was Ryan (the arrested guy) in charge of ED?

Just trying to understand this thread... apologies for my lack of omniscience, of course!

[Tarc]

Can someone catch me up here? Was Ryan (the arrested guy) in charge of ED?

Just trying to understand this thread... apologies for my lack of omniscience, of course!

Yes.

Brandt has masturbated at least 3 times today in celebration, too.

[Daniel Brandt]

Brandt has masturbated at least 3 times today in celebration, too.

At least that's healthier than sucking in cans of butane.

Actually, here's a more informative article.

What would we do without British journalism?

[EricBarbour]

What would we do without British journalism?

Haw. Haw haw haw.

We'd huff less butane, I suppose.......

Here's another Daily Fail article about Ryan Cleary. This one doesn't have the ugly watermarks on the photos. Oops.

The Daily Mail gets more sleazy and stupid every day.....amazing.

[Sololol]

What would we do without British journalism?

Haw. Haw haw haw.

We'd huff less butane, I suppose.......

Here's another Daily Fail article about Ryan Cleary. This one doesn't have the ugly watermarks on the photos. Oops.

The Daily Mail gets more sleazy and stupid every day.....amazing.

The Daily Mail: Making American journalism look classy, one day at a time.
I feel the slightest twinges of embarrassment for the various government security chiefs who have to point to this guy as the firewall-hacking master criminal.

[lilburne]

So when did he make these regular visits?

Before Christmas.

[MaliceAforethought]

So good to see governments spending their time going after "master" criminals. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/confused.gif)

[Milton Roe]

So good to see governments spending their time going after "master" criminals. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/confused.gif)

"The Lulz Security Hacking Group." (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/confused.gif) For anybody who has read ED, the name itself has some lulz.

The rest is so archetypical that it might have been written as satire by somebody on ED:

The mother of the teenage computer geek accused over a series of hacking attacks revealed last night how he threatened to kill himself when she tried to confiscate his beloved computer.

Rita Cleary said her son Ryan had not set foot outside the family bungalow since Christmas and had his food left outside his bedroom door. He cut himself off from the outside world, leaving his room only to visit the bathroom.

But when Mrs Cleary attempted to cut the jobless 19-year-old’s internet access, he responded by saying he would slit his wrists.

I suppose there's a lulzworthy article in considering what happens when you go from living like THAT in your embryonic hideyhole being fed by your mother while you spend all your time jacked into the net, to being in a lock-up where you need to worry about getting your realworldass stretched by Joe Streetpunk, and your entire access to electronics consists of sometimes being able to make collect calls from the day room wall-phone, whilst Joe looks at the back of your neck.

If ED weren't such an essentially cruel site, all this would be more horrifying. As it is, I have to say that some of it should count as inpatient therapy for an addict. It's horrible but has to be done. And considering what ED would say about anybody else it happened to, all you can do is suggest that they write up an article about Ryan getting butthurt, then post it on Uncyclopedia, where it really belongs. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/wink.gif)

[Daniel Brandt]

The Cleary household is either rather clever at gaming the system, or is entirely screwed up, in my opinion. Before Ryan was a household word, his brother Mitchell and mother Rita were in court after police seized 39 cannabis plants and three large jars of cannabis. This happened last March. The attorney for Mitchell and Rita said that both of them "claimed incapacity benefit of £94 per fortnight and that they both suffered from agoraphobia, a fear of public or unfamiliar places." Mitchell smoked canabis to "ease the symptoms of epilepsy."

It worked then with Mitchell, but Mrs. Cleary might have trouble this time. Even if Ryan makes bail, I presume that he won't be allowed to go online as a condition of that bail. And if the UK authorities seem too lenient, there's always the possibility that the FBI will get pissed off and file for extradition of Ryan to the U.S. There appears to be evidence of Ryan's DDoSing and/or hacking that falls within U.S. jurisdiction.

You could also argue that even if Ryan needs psychiatric help, he sure as hell wasn't getting enough of it in his bedroom from his cat. He might be better off anyplace other than his bedroom, even prison. That's particularly true if the court makes sure that he has no Internet connection in his bedroom as a condition of bail or probation or whatever.

I think Mrs. Cleary had her chance already, and by now she is part of the problem.

[Milton Roe]

The Cleary household is either rather clever at gaming the system, or is entirely screwed up, in my opinion. Before Ryan was a household word, his brother Mitchell and mother Rita were in court after police seized 39 cannabis plants and three large jars of cannabis. This happened last March. The attorney for Mitchell and Rita said that both of them "claimed incapacity benefit of £94 per fortnight and that they both suffered from agoraphobia, a fear of public or unfamiliar places." Mitchell smoked canabis to "ease the symptoms of epilepsy."

You could also argue that even if Ryan needs psychiatric help, he sure as hell wasn't getting enough of it in his bedroom from his cat. He might be better off anyplace other than his bedroom, even prison. That's particularly true if the court makes sure that he has no Internet connection in his bedroom as a condition of bail or probation or whatever.

I think Mrs. Cleary had her chance already, and by now she is part of the problem.

If you read between the lines, you might consider that Ryan has been after the pot store lately, as well. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/fear.gif)

I mean, come now. Have none of you ever heard of people smoking so much pot that they just sit around at home all day playing with their toys, and never go out and do anything at all?

I've heard of it. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/hrmph.gif) It's an EXTREMELY rare side effect of cannabis use, but it's been reported in the medical literature. Yes it has.

[Somey]

I've heard of it. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/hrmph.gif) It's an EXTREMELY rare side effect of cannabis use, but it's been reported in the medical literature. Yes it has.

Bummin'?

I guess I wouldn't be surprised to see an article about that in JAMA, but you'd think it would be enough just to listen to some old 60's albums. Or maybe stay overnight in a frat-house a couple of times...

Anyway, I can sort of see why people of this sort would want to target large companies like Sony or even some of the larger ISPs, but when you go after the government, especially if it's your own, innocent civilians have to pay for that. That's money that could go to much better purposes, even though it often goes towards worse purposes like it usually did during the previous decade. Besides, there are better ways to stick it to the man, aren't they? But I guess those all require you to leave your bedroom... Damn, life sure is complicated these days.

[Daniel Brandt]

As far as ED.ch's survival goes, there are two issues right now. One is whether Ryan will be able to continue administering the ED.ch servers, and the other is whether the other sysadmin, someone named "garrett", has sufficient privileges on the servers, and sufficient access, and sufficient resources and motivation, to administer ED.ch in Ryan's absence.

Update: The details of what happened are unclear, but Garrett and Joepie91 had to abandon the server that was associated with Ryan Cleary. After a week of tinkering, things now seem relatively stable on a new box. For anyone who has copyright issues with content that is currently available on Encyclopedia Dramatica, the good news is that this new box is located in the U.S. It appears to be a dedicated server housed in a data center, and the box itself is owned by a web hosting provider that is obligated to operate under U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act provisions.

The Encyclopedia Dramatica watchdog site, josephevers.blogspot.com has identified this new provider and has just published information about how to file DMCA requests against specific content on Encyclopedia Dramatica.

[Somey]

It seems this may have had some effect - the ED home (and I'd assume, catch-all) URL is now just a simple static HTML page, saying they need a new hosting provider (and, of course, "donations" for same), one that "is able to host our kind of content."

There's more info on the ED forums, if you're willing to risk loading pages from there - if you do, be sure to read the comments too, of course. It looks like the DMCA request came from Sherrod DiGrippo herself, who apparently still claims copyright on the name.

[The Joy]

It seems this may have had some effect - the ED home (and I'd assume, catch-all) URL is now just a simple static HTML page, saying they need a new hosting provider (and, of course, "donations" for same), one that "is able to host our kind of content."

Please let it be Wikia. Please let it be Wikia. Please let it be Wikia! (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/laugh.gif)

[Daniel Brandt]

It looks like the DMCA request came from Sherrod DiGrippo herself, who apparently still claims copyright on the name.

Somey, it's "DeGrippo" not "DiGrippo". As long as Somey is naming names, Ms. DeGrippo's complaint ended up in the lap of Garrett E. Moore, who is 22 years old today. I haven't seen it, but I suspect that the complaint was fairly broad in scope, and not just about the domain name. Mr. Moore is the main man behind ED, now that Ryan Cleary is grounded due to strict bail conditions. He says he will have ED back up within a few days.

Mr. Moore is from Zanesville, Ohio and has also lived in Florida. Now he lives near Lansing, Michigan with his fiancee, Karen Rose Shinaver.

Here is Mr. Moore with a cute bow in his hair.

At the moment Mr. Moore is laughing at the possibility that Ms. DeGrippo has only seven days left to sue him. It probably won't happen, because Mr. Moore doesn't have any money. But if the two ended up in court, it would be interesting to hear Mr. Moore's attorney argue that the new ED is not doing anything different than what Ms. DeGrippo was doing since the original ED started in late 2004. True enough, but while this is a valid ethical argument, it is no doubt irrelevant in any potential DeGrippo vs. Moore civil case.

Mr. Moore has Anonymous and Anonops connections. However, he's not a trigger-happy DDoSer with his own botnet like Ryan was. Remember Ryan? That was only a month ago. How time flies when you're a basement-dweller having fun!

[EricBarbour]

The ED forums were always full of stupid, but this post-GV version is epically stupid.

I suspect their "community" is getting more hostile than ever. If this is the cream of Anonymous, toss em' all in jail, please!

[Daniel Brandt]

Encyclopedia Dramatica's seething satire is back

This is an article in a new online publication, and it was written by someone who went to journalism school. That means she used first and last names of people when this information was available. How quaint and refreshing!

I don't like that old December 2005 Jimbo quote about me that she repeated needlessly, back when Jimbo was talking out of his rear end and telling the press that Seignethaler brought it on himself, but I guess I have to take these things in stride.

[Silver seren]

Blerg, and it's given them more incentive to go and bug the talk page again.

I'm currently in an RSN discussion asking whether the Daily Dot is reliable. It probably is, however, once they make a freaking staff page, and I don't have a problem with that. It'll be nice to have a reliable site that actually covers internet topics.

However, Eordogh's article has spawned sections like this, which I can't even take seriously. In fact, I think i'm going to go and say specifically that.

But, yeah. It's all very tiring. I don't have a problem with expanding the coverage in the article on ED.ch if we have the sources for it, but lay off on minimizing Oh Internet. It gets really annoying after a while.


Edit: On a separate not, I seem to have pissed off Meepsheep, even though I don't remember ever interacting with him. But my ED.ch article is actually slightly insulting now, which is an improvement. Anything to make it less sad and pathetic like it was before.

This post has been edited by Silver seren:

[EricBarbour]

I seem to have pissed off Meepsheep, even though I don't remember ever interacting with him. But my ED.ch article is actually slightly insulting now, which is an improvement. Anything to make it less sad and pathetic like it was before.

Yes, I will say, the current version is good (meaning not completely moronic).

Wasting your time worrying, though.
I can see how this will end.....ED will disappear, and several online douchebags will go to jail.
And yet another perfectly good Wikipedia article will be obviated.

This post has been edited by EricBarbour:

[Michaeldsuarez]

And yet another perfectly good Wikipedia article will be obviated.

I'm currently working on rewriting that article. Do you have any suggestions or concerns? Silver_seren has already offered assistance.

Brandt, would you feel comfortable being mentioned in Wikipedia's Encyclopedia Dramatica article? Are there any inaccuracies or misrepresentations within the Daily Dot article that you're concerned about? You didn't have any say in how your old Wikipedia article was written, so I believe that it would be best to allow you to have a say in this before being included in that article. There is currently a discussion on whether the Daily Dot article is reliable. What's your feelings on its reliability?

This post has been edited by Michaeldsuarez:

[Detective]

I'm currently working on rewriting that article ... Silver_seren has already offered assistance.

Surprise, surprise! (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/tongue.gif)

You didn't have any say in how your old Wikipedia article was written, so I believe that it would be best to allow you to have a say in this before being included in that article. There is currently a discussion on whether the Daily Dot article is reliable. What's your feelings on its reliability?

Mike

You do realise that WP is a Wiki that anyone can edit. Whatever you put is subject to ruthless and arbitrary editing. And there's no guarantee you'd be able to revert, if a few editors decide to WP:OWN the article. Daniel Brandt's view on the reliability of the Daily Dot may not have much effect on anything!

[Silver seren]

Brandt, would you feel comfortable being mentioned in Wikipedia's Encyclopedia Dramatica article? Are there any inaccuracies or misrepresentations within the Daily Dot article that you're concerned about? You didn't have any say in how your old Wikipedia article was written, so I believe that it would be best to allow you to have a say in this before being included in that article. There is currently a discussion on whether the Daily Dot article is reliable. What's your feelings on its reliability?

I was going to ask whether adding information about Brandt was a due weight issue on the talk page, but asking him here probably is better.

@Detective: Between Michael and I, I think we'll be able to keep the information neutral. The community may hate him and that makes them often forget they're writing an encyclopedia, but it shouldn't be too difficult to tell when someone is trying to skew the information.

[Milton Roe]

Brandt, would you feel comfortable being mentioned in Wikipedia's Encyclopedia Dramatica article? Are there any inaccuracies or misrepresentations within the Daily Dot article that you're concerned about? You didn't have any say in how your old Wikipedia article was written, so I believe that it would be best to allow you to have a say in this before being included in that article. There is currently a discussion on whether the Daily Dot article is reliable. What's your feelings on its reliability?

I was going to ask whether adding information about Brandt was a due weight issue on the talk page, but asking him here probably is better.

@Detective: Between Michael and I, I think we'll be able to keep the information neutral. The community may hate him and that makes them often forget they're writing an encyclopedia, but it shouldn't be too difficult to tell when someone is trying to skew the information.

Note how respectfully Brandt is being treated here. "An armed society is a polite society" (Heinlein).

Note to Wales and Friends: Civility is not the same as respect. As the military demonstrates, the two are sometimes barely nodding acquaintences. And it isn't more civility that either the internet or Wikipedia needs. Rather, it's some attention to matters of respect. Respect requires memory and reputation, and an anonymous username system is handicapped in letting people acumulate reputations, right from the get-go. So there's a place to start.

Civility (ala Robert's Rules of Order) is what we do in order to keep from wasting time insulting each other, when we'd be better off debating facts. Sometimes, as in congress and the courts, civility has to be enforced as a rule. Respect, however, cannot be granted as a social right, and it cannot be enforced nor dispensed, any more than love. The best one can do is construct a social system that allows it to be freely given by grace, or earned, or both. This requires memory in the system, and a way for reputation to grow. Wikipedia is presently a system which allows respect to only a few individuals outside itself, and then only due to the threat of nuclear net reprisal. You might want to rethink the wisdom of that. Especially since you haven't seen the worst of what continuing this game under such rules can do to you.

[Daniel Brandt]

Brandt, would you feel comfortable being mentioned in Wikipedia's Encyclopedia Dramatica article?

The DailyDot article is at least as reliable as most Wikipedia articles — which is to say, I don't want my name in the article. It was clear that with the DailyDot article, my name was going in regardless of my wishes, because Garrett and Zaiger were on my case and she had already heard their side of the story. At the time, my ED.ch bio was featured in summary form on the ED.ch home page, complete with a picture of a very mean-looking old man that purported to be a picture of me. But it wasn't a picture of me. It was Zaiger's impression of how he thought I looked. I don't know whose picture it was.

(The reporter logged into the ED.ch chatroom and said she was a reporter, and asked for some quotes about the reappearance of ED. That's how it started. I didn't know she was writing something until I got her email, and it wasn't until later that I noticed the chatroom log.)

That's why I accepted her email invitation to respond to their charges. Otherwise, I would have preferred to be left out of that article too.

I must say, giving someone the right to reply is a credit the the DailyDot reporter. That's not something one sees very often when it comes to Wikipedia.

[Silver seren]

I find it funny that the article doesn't discuss the recent host/server change because Degrippo's DMCA notice got them to be dropped.

Of course, that would prove a lot of the negative things people are saying about ED.ch, so they can't discuss the truth of the matter in such an article.

[Michaeldsuarez]

Brandt, thank you for sharing your feelings. Unfortunately, I can't prevent you from being mentioned in the Wikipedia article, but I can prevent misinformation from becoming a part of that article. What I really need to know is whether any of the claims presented in the Daily Dot article are inaccurate. Do you have anything to say about the alleged harassment of Garrett's fiancée? How do you feel about the claims that you contributed to the end of the original ED? Did you offer advice on how to file DMCA to ED's opponents? Did you have anything to do with the suspension of ED's PayPal account? Your insight will help me separate fact from suspicion. I don't want too much weight to be placed on suspicion.

[Daniel Brandt]

Brandt, thank you for sharing your feelings. Unfortunately, I can't prevent you from being mentioned in the Wikipedia article, but I can prevent misinformation from becoming a part of that article. What I really need to know is whether any of the claims presented in the Daily Dot article are inaccurate. Do you have anything to say about the alleged harassment of Garrett's fiancée? How do you feel about the claims that you contributed to the end of the original ED? Did you offer advice on how to file DMCA to ED's opponents? Did you have anything to do with the suspension of ED's PayPal account? Your insight will help me separate fact from suspicion. I don't want too much weight to be placed on suspicion.

You have yet to establish that my name will appear in any article that is written. If my name appears in a future Wikipedia article about ED, and I feel that I've been described inaccurately or unfairly, I will object on the Talk page for that artilcle.

Yes, I'm a "banned" editor, and there was a time when any attempt to clarify inaccurate or defamatory information about me on Wikipedia, by way of a comment on a Talk page, would result in my comment getting immediately deleted by some Wikipediot admin — merely because I was banned.

Do they still do this on Wikipedia? Does Arbcom support this? Does the BLP policy say anything about this? That could get interesting.

It would be premature to address the questions you raise until an article appears that contains objectionable information about me.

[Michaeldsuarez]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encyclopedia_...and_vigilantism

Is this satisfactory?

[thekohser]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encyclopedia_...and_vigilantism

Is this satisfactory?

Kind of funny that you'd use that link to ask that question. Are you not aware that hours from now, that link could feasibly point to a section that says nothing more than "Brandtz is teh gay!" and is illustrated by a picture of a badger?

Michael, you do understand the nature of Wikipedia, right?

[Daniel Brandt]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encyclopedia_...and_vigilantism

Is this satisfactory?

Moore also accused Brandt of harassing his fiancée at her workplace.

CODE

[May 24 2011 00:10:29] <garrett> Hello!
[May 24 2011 00:10:35] <garrett> Daniel Brandt dox have been updated.
[May 24 2011 00:10:42] <garrett>     Power word: Daniel Leslie Brandt
[May 24 2011 00:10:42] <garrett>     Age: [redacted]
[May 24 2011 00:10:42] <garrett>     DOB: [redacted]
[May 24 2011 00:10:42] <garrett>     Height: 6'0"
[May 24 2011 00:10:42] <garrett>     Weight: "Some extra baggage"
[May 24 2011 00:10:44] <garrett>     Address: [redacted]
[May 24 2011 00:10:47] <garrett>     Company name: Public Information Research
[May 24 2011 00:10:50] <garrett>     Company address: [redacted]
[May 24 2011 00:10:53] <garrett>     Company phone number: [redacted]
[May 24 2011 00:10:55] <garrett>     Known e-mail addresses: [redacted]
[May 24 2011 00:11:04] <garrett> just putting that out there
[May 24 2011 00:11:16] <Xero> nice

By the way, the height and weight are arbitrary guesses from a fake Myspace page put up in my name in 2006, presumably by some Wikipediot.

Just several minutes after this IRC chat happened, I began receiving new spam emails. These were in the form of "Welcome to our mailing list" emails, and most of them had an unsubscribe link. I proceeded to unsubscribe as many as I could. One of them offered up the IP address of the party that had signed me up for the list. I did a reverse lookup on that IP address, which was 69.16.222.138. This is what came back: kaeroseen.wks.liquidweb.com. (It no longer reverse resolves to that. But the slightly modified domain of kaeroseen.liquidweb.com still forward resolves to that same 69.16.222.138.)

I knew already that this was the nick for Karen Shinaver, who is a sysadmin at Liquid Web Inc. in Lansing, Michigan, and I knew that she was a close associate of Garrett's. She had been on the ED.ch chatroom.

I complained to the management at Liquid Web that Ms. Shinaver, or someone using her company shell account, had signed me up for mailing lists so that I would get email that I didn't want. They investigated and a few days later said that it was against company policy to sign up people on mailing lists without their consent. They added that they would handle the matter internally.

I wasn't happy with this, but I dropped the issue. I never telephoned her employer trying to get her home address, but it doesn't surprise me if someone else tried this. In any case, Ms. Shinaver was complicit in the harassment of me. Either she let Garrett use her shell account on equipment owned by her employer, or she did it herself.

Twice I've had Mormon missionaries knock on my door because someone in the chatroom thought it would be funny. And I have to let the answering machine pick up my phone because I was getting crank calls.

My interest in emphasizing Ms. Shinaver's role is also motivated by my desire to geolocate Garrett more precisely. I feel that it would be worthwhile for the FBI to interview him, because he has friends in LulzSec. Now that it has been established that Ms. Shinaver is his fiancée, all the FBI has to do is flash a badge at Liquid Web in Lansing, Michigan, and get her home address. Then they'll be able to find Garrett and ask him about his role on Anonops, Anonymous, and possibly LulzSec. They could also track him down by looking for school and other records in Zanesville, Ohio, and then perhaps locate one or both parents. But they're probably too lazy to do that.

Remember, Garrett, you don't have to talk to them. But if you do, you shouldn't lie to them because that would be a felony.

[Silver seren]

*sighs* And now it's gotten sad again.

I mean, there's "showing that he sees this website as no more than a collection of poorly written attack articles"...I mean, that's pretty much what I think, yeah.

And this just made me laugh.

"he accuses ED of organizing a raid, despite the fact that we are a mere encyclopedia. It is also noteworthy that he does not call out the numerous attacks made against ED on that talk page, as he would with any other subject."

Of course ED has never been involved in a raid, everyone there are upright internet citizens.

[EricBarbour]

Well, I've been watching ed.ch for a few hours.
It goes up and down like a yo-yo. So does their forum.

What are they running it on now, a Commodore 64?

[Daniel Brandt]

Well, I've been watching ed.ch for a few hours.
It goes up and down like a yo-yo. So does their forum.

What are they running it on now, a Commodore 64?

The only servers we know about are the connection between Hetzner in Germany (85.10.206.54) and CloudFlare based in California. Garrett is claiming at least one additional server between the actual content and Hetzner. My guess is that there are about 100 hops total, involving at least one additional non-U.S. country besides Germany.

If you request a page that isn't cached at CloudFlare, or the CloudFlare cache has timed out and has to be freshened by them, then the packets have a long and treacherous journey before you see the page. Also, there may be content on the requested page that is not cached by CloudFlare, since it only caches relatively static content. If that's the case, the page cannot be delivered until that content is fetched. When everything is perfect for the page you requested, then CloudFlare sends it to your browser. If a router somewhere drops a packet, it has to be requested again. Every packet has to make it before CloudFlare delivers the page to your browser.

That's what I believe is happening, but it's mainly a guess. Why do they do this? They want to be so clever that no one can ever find the server that hosts the content. And even though the two main controllers of the content are Zaiger in Massachusetts and Garrett in Michigan, they want to be able to say that the content is not hosted in the U.S. and therefore U.S. laws are not relevant. Note Garrett's response to this CDA complaint: "Additionally, no one cares."

[Milton Roe]

If you request a page that isn't cached at CloudFlare, or the CloudFlare cache has timed out and has to be freshened by them, then the packets have a long and treacherous journey before you see the page. Also, there may be content on the requested page that is not cached by CloudFlare, since it only caches relatively static content. If that's the case, the page cannot be delivered until that content is fetched. When everything is perfect for the page you requested, then CloudFlare sends it to your browser. If a router somewhere drops a packet, it has to be requested again. Every packet has to make it before CloudFlare delivers the page to your browser.

That's what I believe is happening, but it's mainly a guess. Why do they do this? They want to be so clever that no one can ever find the server that hosts the content. And even though the two main controllers of the content are Zaiger in Massachusetts and Garrett in Michigan, they want to be able to say that the content is not hosted in the U.S. and therefore U.S. laws are not relevant. Note Garrett's response to this CDA complaint: "Additionally, no one cares."

So why aren't controversial-content sites like ED and Wikileaks available by BitTorrent, or Blog Torrent? Right now, it ends up being almost the same thing.

[Milton Roe]

Of course ED has never been involved in a raid, everyone there are upright internet citizens.

For those who don't know the history, I recommend the WP article on LulzSec. Of course, the connection between LulzSec and ED is tenuous (and seems to be mainly through Cleary himself), and I'm skeptical of reports that it was heavy, simply because those who want to attack ED for other reasons have no better way of doing it than to smear it with all the activities of LulzSec.

Inquiring minds want to know what Cleary did with his supposed botnet. Did he run around doing DNS attacks on his enemies or was he really into sophisicated hacking? Did he program the thing himself, or did he get help from LulzSec hackers who know the game better than he does?

[Somey]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encyclopedia_...and_vigilantism

Is this satisfactory?

Michael, did you actually read the article for comprehension, or did you merely scan it for juicy facts you could use in the Wikipedia article in question?

The mere fact that two sides of a dispute are presented in a "news article" does not make the information in that article "reliable." What you have there is claim and counter-claim - it's not much different than "how long have you been beating your wife" or "he stole my bike/no I didn't."

So no, that's not satisfactory. But then again, neither is Wikipedia in general, so I guess you'll get away with it.

[Michaeldsuarez]

Michael, did you actually read the article for comprehension, or did you merely scan it for juicy facts you could use in the Wikipedia article in question?

The mere fact that two sides of a dispute are presented in a "news article" does not make the information in that article "reliable." What you have there is claim and counter-claim - it's not much different than "how long have you been beating your wife" or "he stole my bike/no I didn't."

So no, that's not satisfactory. But then again, neither is Wikipedia in general, so I guess you'll get away with it.

The Wikipedia article now basically includes all the information the Daily Dot article has to offer. I also incorporated some information into the "Content" section and the "EncyclopediaDramatica.ch" section. Not all of this material is "claim and counterclaim". Did I leave out anything significant? I'm here for article's benefit.

This post has been edited by Michaeldsuarez:

[Somey]

Did I leave out anything significant? I'm here for article's benefit.

It's what you put in that's the problem, not what you left out. Using that article simply to source the fact that ED.ch is back online would hardly be problematic even in an actual encyclopedia, but all you're doing with the other stuff is repeating rumor and innuendo - the fact that "it has been reported..." as such doesn't make it less so. In effect, you're doing what Fox News does when they can't produce evidence for "terror babies" and "death panels" and what-not - they report on the rumor, and after a day or two, conveniently forget to mention that it was a rumor.

Admittedly, if Fox News were doing that stuff to promote responsible governance and sound economic policy, most people (including myself) probably wouldn't complain. The same probably applies to you too, though I can't think of anything about ED.ch that's sound or responsible... (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/ermm.gif)

I do wonder if the new incarnation will be as much of a useful "safety valve" service to WP as the old one was. I suspect it won't be, which is probably good in general, but probably not good for people (living or dead) who are the subjects of ED.ch articles.

Meanwhile, all the fuss over Ryan Cleary and moving servers around has boosted ED.ch's Alexa ranking to where it's now pretty close to what ED.com's was.

[Michaeldsuarez]

Speaking from my personal experience and insights, the only rumor included in the Wikipedia article is the claim that Brandt runs josephevers.blogpot.com, and the article notes that Brandt dismisses that claim. I can verify everything else in the Wikipedia article. The uncertainty of the blog's ownership doesn't diminish the significance of Brandt's involvement, as he himself admits. I didn't include the rumors about an "army of pissed people" and "false DMCAs" that the Daily Dot article speaks of. Are there any specific "rumors" in the Wikipedia article that you're concerned about?

This post has been edited by Michaeldsuarez:

[Daniel Brandt]

Speaking from my personal experience and insights, the only rumor included in the Wikipedia article is the claim that Brandt runs josephevers.blogpot.com, and the article notes that Brandt dismisses that claim. I can verify everything else in the Wikipedia article. The uncertainty of the blog's ownership doesn't diminish the significance of Brandt's involvement, as he himself admits. I didn't include the rumors about an "army of pissed people" and "false DMCAs" that the Daily Dot article speaks of. Are there any specific "rumors" in the Wikipedia article that you're concerned about?

You could add that the entire motivation for ED.ch is to increase traffic by drawing attention to themselves, and the way they do this is to defame and abuse others in the name of "lulz." Currently they are dismissing nearly all complaints from their victims by claiming that their secret server is located offshore.

You can quote me on that.

[Aug 1 2011 03:59:37] <garrett> haters make us famous
...
[Aug 1 2011 04:12:47] <garrett> our alexa rankings
[Aug 1 2011 04:12:48] <garrett> are like
[Aug 1 2011 04:12:49] <garrett> exploding
[Aug 1 2011 04:12:53] <garrett> thanks to all this media attention
[Aug 1 2011 04:12:54] <garrett> lololololol

Or you could withdraw from editing the Wikipedia article on the grounds that Garrett made you an ED.ch administrator. This means that you are editing this Wikipedia article with a conflict of interest, which is supposedly discouraged on Wikipedia.

14:43, 19 May 2011 Garrett (Talk | contribs) changed group membership for User:JuniusThaddeus from (none) to Administrators

[Michaeldsuarez]

You could add that the entire motivation for ED.ch is to increase traffic by drawing attention to themselves, and the way they do this is to defame and abuse others in the name of "lulz." Currently they are dismissing nearly all complaints from their victims by claiming that their secret server is located offshore.

You can quote me on that.

[Aug 1 2011 03:59:37] <garrett> haters make us famous
...
[Aug 1 2011 04:12:47] <garrett> our alexa rankings
[Aug 1 2011 04:12:48] <garrett> are like
[Aug 1 2011 04:12:49] <garrett> exploding
[Aug 1 2011 04:12:53] <garrett> thanks to all this media attention
[Aug 1 2011 04:12:54] <garrett> lololololol

Or you could withdraw from editing the Wikipedia article on the grounds that Garrett made you an ED.ch administrator. This means that you are editing this Wikipedia article with a conflict of interest, which is supposedly discouraged on Wikipedia.

14:43, 19 May 2011 Garrett (Talk | contribs) changed group membership for User:JuniusThaddeus from (none) to Administrators

My affiliation with Encyclopedia Dramatica isn't a secret. It's stated in plain sight on my userpage. I've been entirely transparent. The users who watch the page and participate in talk page discussions (Silver_seren, Conti, etc.) know about my affiliation. I'm not being deceitful. I assumed that you knew this already.

I'm not writing about ED in a promotional fashion, and if I were, I wouldn't be here examining concerns. I just wish to make information published in reliable sources accessible to readers. I thought that it would be preferable to have a responsible ED user incorporate that information into that article instead of waiting and risk having a .ch fanboy or one of your enemies do it.

This post has been edited by Michaeldsuarez:

[Silver seren]

You're the only one that's bothered to be up front about it. H64 and Zaiger didn't, though Zaiger does now, I believe. And, of course, I had to originally dig a tiny bit to find H64. You know if any of the other people involved on the page are also admins?

Considering Meepsheep's sudden interest in me, I would think he's one of the people on the talk page. Or maybe he just lurks as an IP.

[Michaeldsuarez]

Considering Meepsheep's sudden interest in me, I would think he's one of the people on the talk page. Or maybe he just lurks as an IP.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contr..._in_the_sandbox

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Kids_in_the_sandbox

Yes, he was on the talk page. You had a discussion with him.

[Silver seren]

Ah, I see.

That explains a good amount.

You should let him know that he needs to tighten up his writing style. The psychology section started out good, but then it turned all apologetic toward ED.ch and that just made it embarrassing. For ED.ch, I mean.

[Somey]

I didn't include the rumors about an "army of pissed people" and "false DMCAs" that the Daily Dot article speaks of.

Good!

Are there any specific "rumors" in the Wikipedia article that you're concerned about?

Well, two things. I'm not concerned about any of this; the word is probably more like "amused" or "fed up." (Admittedly, the last is two words). Also, I'm using the term "rumor" loosely - I actually don't doubt that any of this is true; I'm just pointing out what should belong in an "encyclopedia" and what shouldn't, once we're past the issue of whether this article would belong in one at all (IMO, it wouldn't).

So, having said that, the parts in boldface below are what I would delete, if it were my article.

According to Gawker, "Entire blogs have been devoted to exposing ED's staff as cyberbullies."[41] Garrett E. Moore described one blog in particular, josephevers.blogspot.com, as a "stalker blog." EncyclopediaDramatica.ch accuses Daniel Brandt of being the operator of josephevers.blogspot.com. Brandt denies being the blog's operator and claims that he only a "researcher and advisor" for the blog's operator, whose identity is unknown to Brandt. According to Moore, Brandt pressured DeGrippo into closing the original ED. josephevers.blogspot.com formerly hosted the personal information of the original Encyclopedia Dramatica's staff. Moore also accused Brandt of harassing his fiancée at her workplace. Brandt claims that it was in retaliation of the spam he received after Moore published Brandt's contact information on an IRC channel. According to an encyclopediadramatica.ch sysop, a complaint resulted in the deletion of encyclopediadramatica.ch's article on Daniel Brandt. The anonymous operator of josephevers.blogspot.com described his blog and the alleged team behind it as being dedicated to "the misdeeds of the people associated with the old and new Encyclopedia Dramatica. I have exchanged emails with Brandt. I've also exchanged emails with other people who feel they have been abused by ED and I've given them advice on how to deal with it."

...obviously the resulting material would have to be rearranged for readability, but you get the general idea.

[Daniel Brandt]

UK police, with FBI help, just arrested two more LulzSec hackers. They hacked under the username "Kayla," who was considered one of the highest-level LulzSec hackers. Garrett E. Moore and his fiancée Karen Rose Shinaver, have been supporters and associates of Kayla for a long time.

Garrett and Karen share an apartment in or near Lansing, Michigan, and she is a senior network administrator at Liquid Web Inc in Lansing. She works a four-day week from 10 pm to 8 am. Her account there was used to sign up one of my email addresses for spam on May 24 at 12:24 am EDT. I recently had to stop using that address because of all the Viagra spam, as well as lots of spam in Chinese characters, that's still coming in.

Garrett and Karen (aka "Kaeroseen"), who both help keep encyclopediadramatica.ch going, are depressed over this latest arrest. Last night Garrett tweeted to Kayla (aka "lolspoon" on Twitter): "@lolspoon We miss you already, I hope this is bullshit. Kaero and I are here for you. <3"

There was no answer, of course. An hour later Garrett (aka "KnownCyberbully" on Twitter) tweeted this: "The Internet is dead, go home folks."

By the way, I'd stay away from Liquid Web Inc hosting. I informed management there about the Karen, Garrett, and Ryan connection last May, a month before Ryan was arrested, and provided proof that Karen's account was involved. Management's only response was from "Clinton H" (he wouldn't give his surname), the "Support Manager" at Liquid Web. All he said was, "Signing anyone up for a mailing list without their consent is against company policy and we are dealing with this issue internally." ( What about LulzSec, Mr. "Clinton H" at Liquid Web? Don't you care about that? )

Ms. Shinaver still works at Liquid Web. In my opinion, their due-diligence and security isn't very good — I certainly wouldn't want Ms. Shinaver to have access to my dedicated servers!

[Wikicrusher2]

UK police, with FBI help, just arrested two more LulzSec hackers. They hacked under the username "Kayla," who was considered one of the highest-level LulzSec hackers. Garrett E. Moore and his fiancée Karen Rose Shinaver, have been supporters and associates of Kayla for a long time.

Garrett and Karen share an apartment in or near Lansing, Michigan, and she is a senior network administrator at Liquid Web Inc in Lansing. She works a four-day week from 10 pm to 8 am. Her account there was used to sign up one of my email addresses for spam on May 24 at 12:24 am EDT. I recently had to stop using that address because of all the Viagra spam, as well as lots of spam in Chinese characters, that's still coming in.

Garrett and Karen (aka "Kaeroseen"), who both help keep encyclopediadramatica.ch going, are depressed over this latest arrest. Last night Garrett tweeted to Kayla (aka "lolspoon" on Twitter): "@lolspoon We miss you already, I hope this is bullshit. Kaero and I are here for you. <3"

There was no answer, of course. An hour later Garrett (aka "KnownCyberbully" on Twitter) tweeted this: "The Internet is dead, go home folks."

By the way, I'd stay away from Liquid Web Inc hosting. I informed management there about the Karen, Garrett, and Ryan connection last May, a month before Ryan was arrested, and provided proof that Karen's account was involved. Management's only response was from "Clinton H" (he wouldn't give his surname), the "Support Manager" at Liquid Web. All he said was, "Signing anyone up for a mailing list without their consent is against company policy and we are dealing with this issue internally." ( What about LulzSec, Mr. "Clinton H" at Liquid Web? Don't you care about that? )

Ms. Shinaver still works at Liquid Web. In my opinion, their due-diligence and security isn't very good — I certainly wouldn't want Ms. Shinaver to have access to my dedicated servers!

"I hope this is bullshit" - It definitely is, though not definitely in the sense that he meant it. They should go free immediately. Hacking can't be much worse than the crimes committed by our leaders. Arresting them is just a sadistic punishment tactic.

This post has been edited by Wikicrusher2:

[Vigilant]

"I hope this is bullshit" - It definitely is, though not definitely in the sense that he meant it. They should go free immediately. Hacking can't be much worse than the crimes committed by our leaders. Arresting them is just a sadistic punishment tactic.

Fight the man...man.

[Forward!]

They should go free immediately. Hacking can't be much worse than the crimes committed by our leaders. Arresting them is just a sadistic punishment tactic.

Arresting people is a sadistic punishment tactic!? Arresting people is a prelude to a punishment, one which will be more fair and more just than anything ED/Anonymous/4chan/kids can come up with. Hacking is a crime, and while certain things our leaders have done are also possibly crimes, that's an argument for arresting our leaders *and* the hackers, and charging them both. The hackers don't get off scot free under any circumstances. They should have the common decency to do what they're doing openly, rather than hiding behind proxies, screen names, and weird cross-gender internet personae.

[SB_Johnny]

Stoopit

Reply to stoopit

No Comment needed.

Fight the man...man.

Damn straight, brother! (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/wink.gif)

I miss the grups. Where'd y'all go? (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/blink.gif)

[Detective]

I recently had to stop using that address because of all the Viagra spam, as well as lots of spam in Chinese characters, that's still coming in.

Switch to Gmail; it has an excellent spam filter. (Cue rant on the evils of Google and Gmail.)

[EricBarbour]

(IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/yecch.gif)

[Michaeldsuarez]

http://www.dailydot.com/news/encyclopedia-dramatica-outage/

Brandt, how do you feel about the latest Daily Dot article? The article says,

Brandt was unavailable for comment at time of publication.

http://www.dailydot.com/ethics-policy/:

The Daily Dot’s first and most important responsibility is accuracy. We make reasonable efforts to verify information by publication time and we disclose to readers transparently what we do and do not know to be a fact. Should we receive information that questions something we have published, we will not rest until we have established the veracity of that information and corrected the record.

Corrections will be made to the original story clearly and with explanation. In regard to material details being corrected well after publication, we will publicize the changes in a manner similar to the original publication of the story.

If you have anything to say or correct, you're welcome to let them know.

Before I revise the Wikipedia article, I wish to know whether there are any inaccurate statements about you in the article. Do you have anything to say about your alleged involvement?

Also, how do you feel about Kevin Provance's comment at the bottom?