I ran across this article on trolls (Long, but an excellent read) by the New York Times' Mattathias Schwartz via Sheila. I'm fortunate that this place is obscure enough that it hasn't become an issue here but I have dealt with its forerunner in the past. Most trolls are essentially attention-starved vandals. They do and say things strictly to see what kind of reaction they can get. When I was a BBS sysop in Fidonet, it was called flaming. Not sure why a new name for the activity was invented. These people troll alone and they troll in packs. What has always gotten me about them (This goes for hackers, too) is their shared notion that their activities are doing good. Some examples from the piece:
"You look for someone who is full of it, a real blowhard. Then you exploit their insecurities to get an insane amount of drama, laughs and lulz."
"Am I the big horrible person who shattered someone's life with some information? No! This is life. Welcome to life. Everyone goes through it. I've been through horrible stuff, too."
"What's he going to sue me for? Leading on confused people? Why don't people fact-check who this stuff is coming from? Why do they assume it's true?"
"It's not that I do this because I hate them. I do this because I'm trying to save them."
Common sense defenses work against them 99% of the time. They're almost always looking for a quick fix and will move on if they don't get it. I don't want to get into specifics except to say to identify what they want and just deny it to them. But then we have the 1% of trolls who bring a little more weaponry to their cause:
"Weev says he has access to hundreds of thousands of Social Security numbers. About a month later, he sent me mine."
Stare at that for a moment.
33 days until football season ...
Quote of the Day
You could hand me a billion dollars, and I'm still going to be on the field. It doesn't matter to me. But everyone has different situations, has different views on money. Money is not more important than football to me right now.
A J Hawk, Green Bay Packers
Blog of the day here.
Quote from said blog: "This past week I've been finishing up the revival of The Dog House BBS which has been down for just over 5 years."
Interesting article on trolls, and those are not your garden variety trolls. The very last line of the article sums it up nicely I think:
“I’d say empathy is probably a factor.”
Or lack of it, to be specific. Among other things.