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Compare this to skepticism over ElevatorGate.
FWIW, here's a woman at skepchick expressing doubt that Leo even exists: http://skepchick.org/2012/10/leo-traynor-anti-semitism-and-t...
The only strong case here is in the IP address geo-identification. Traynor could identify them if he were to cross validate the IP address location with a list of known friends and family - people of whom would have Traynor's personal address. But Traynor should have suspected his friend - not his friend's teenage son. That's the part of the story that doesn't add up.
Why would his friend be a more likely suspect? Psychopathic children are more common than psychopathic friends.
I say the friend because more often than not, the relationship includes some triggering factor for the cyber bullying. Where is the sense of power for the teenager when the victim is a hemisphere away, and not in class?
The only strong case here is in the IP address geo-identification. Traynor could identify them if he were to cross validate the IP address location with a list of known friends and family - people of whom would have Traynor's personal address. But Traynor should have suspected his friend - not his friend's teenage son. That's the part of the story that doesn't add up.
Depends on what the "IT Genius" tried. For example, IP addresses (even internal unroutable ones) are frequently passed along in email headers. If he was able to find an IP and an email sent by his friend in the same timeframe, that would be a good correlation. I've done this on occasion when someone's external IP has dynamically changed but they sent email, in order to fix VPN connections. Pinning it on the son is th…
If it's like most ISPs, this IP address is subject to change every couple of days, so this IP location service would need to be updated with personal addresses, across the globe, that often.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Depends on what the "IT Genius" tried. For example, IP addresses (even internal unroutable ones) are frequently passed along in email headers. If he was able to find an IP and an email sent by his friend in the same timeframe, that would be a good correlation. I've done this on occasion when someone's external IP has dynamically changed but they sent email, in order to fix VPN connections. Pinning it on the son is th…
Even with the IP address from the header, which geolocation service did he use to pinpoint the street address? If it's like most ISPs, this IP address is subject to change every couple of days, so this IP location service would need to be updated with personal addresses, across the globe, that often.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
0. He didn't change his behavior during the abuse, when he could have trivially stopped it by unfollowing. If your car was stolen, would you keep the loaner unlocked before your car was even recovered? 1. Only if they use non webmail 2. To sell a story. The default assumption should always be that tales like this are false or at least extremely embellished.
Wait... am I supposed to assume all blog posts are false? Certainly an interesting way to live. I'll start with your comment.
If there are several coincidences, then this leads to a pattern of behavior to which a motive can be questioned.
The author of this article is almost certainly trolling. It's perfectly logical that the victim would change his Twitter behavior even after discovering the identity of the harasser. If your car were stolen but then recovered and the thief arrested, would you stop locking it? After all, the threat has been eliminated... Just because you cannot traceroute an IP to a physical address doesn't mean you can't determine wh…
Well perhaps it's just as much a flaw that there wasn't really a motive for the troll. I think it's very likely that something is missing from the story to explain why he was targeted in particular.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Even with the IP address from the header, which geolocation service did he use to pinpoint the street address? If it's like most ISPs, this IP address is subject to change every couple of days, so this IP location service would need to be updated with personal addresses, across the globe, that often.
I have a "dynamic" IP address from Cox, it has changed three times in six years.
The author of this article is almost certainly trolling. It's perfectly logical that the victim would change his Twitter behavior even after discovering the identity of the harasser. If your car were stolen but then recovered and the thief arrested, would you stop locking it? After all, the threat has been eliminated... Just because you cannot traceroute an IP to a physical address doesn't mean you can't determine wh…
To be fair, there certainly is a motive for him to lie, and that's exposure/fame/internet celebrity/etc. Not that I think that he lied, but let's be honest, he certainly got a lot of attention from the story...
"Almost certainly" seems like a stretch. - The arguments regarding Traynor's behavior on Twitter carry absolutely no water with me and sound like totally average behavior. It's not very intuitive that only people you follow can message you. - Police in America frequently decline to investigate things like harassment and petty theft in favor of spending their time elsewhere. I don't know about Ireland, but it seems ve…
I am a very, very sporadic user of twitter - I've tweeted maybe 40 or 50 times, and one of the very few things I know about it, is "You can't DM somebody who isn't following you"
Nothing to do with intuition - the client gives you a big fat message saying so the first time you try and do it.
My understanding from the article is that this Traynor was a twitter veteran - and I'm guessing somewhere on the order of 99% of frequent twitter users, and DMers know this.