Been seeing a lot of news articles such as this one below, where people under a pseudonym post racist or otherwise sexist content and then find themselves sacked or resigned:
https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/top-cop-resigns-…
Just thinking; there are millions and millions of Youtube Posts that are vile and racist, how is it that at times the pseudonym is tracked to a user's workplace?
It's not like the anti-racist police are doing IP checks on each and every post?
Meanwhile Sarah Jeong gets to call people 'white trash' and 'dumbass f(*&^ing white people', and gets promoted at the New York Daily Worker Times.
https://www.news.com.au/finance/business/media/new-york-time…
The Left in America don't apply their rules to themselves. They are a bunch of self righteous virtue signalers who are not surprisingly latent racists.
I always wonder what great sin is it that people on the left have committed that they feel they need to absolve by being so militant on the far left of politics..
Oh yeah I saw that blow up online as well. As a bystander it's hilarious in a "What the hell are the liberals doing - I thought they were the side of "logic and reason" - kind of way". But more seriously, it makes you think: Do the left-wing in the US have absolutely no better people to be promoting into these positions that they have to settle for blatant racists who use excuses like "Oh, I was counter-trolling them!" to get away with clearly racist rants?
I'd call myself a liberal - in the small "l", "freedom and liberty for all", old school sense of the term. I've no idea what relevance big "L" Liberals in the US nowadays have to that concept, or what the hell most of the modern day left-wing of politics has become.
Meanwhile Sarah Jeong gets to call people 'white trash' and 'dumbass f(*&^ing white people', and gets promoted at the New York Daily Worker Times.
Oh yeah,and the NYT actually defended her saying her tactics we're suppose to mimic the rhetoric of her abusers.. W…T…F??
Look what batouchu wrote below. The Leftist NYT readership adopts this view. The NYT doesn't need to defend or apologise for her when the readership actually cheers her on as someone who fights racism rather than commits it.
Racism is not about skin colour but power dynamics. Not that long ago, Greeks and Italians were talked about the way Somalis are now.
Calling white people dumbasses or white trash doesn't change the fact that by, and at large, white people earn more, have higher levels of employment, enjoy disproportionate representation in government and executive levels etc.
The view that only white people can be racist because they have power over other races is a disgusting world view. It's part of the far left view that has enabled actual racists like Sarah to be racist about white people but hide behind the colour of her skin as some BS excuse that she can't be racist.
I would bet my left nut that Sarah has a lot more money and power than most the people on this website - and you're going to spill the tripe that she can't be racist because she isn't white?
That's a disgusting view you have, and you should be ashamed of yourself. You are an actual proud racist and hide behind the fact that because your prejudice is against white people, that you aren't racist.
"Calling white people dumbasses or white trash"
Calling someone callous names based on their skin colour is flat out racist.
"Racism is not about skin colour"
Really? lol.
Question 1: Do all white people have well-off lives, with high-paying jobs, living in affluent areas? (That's rhetorical, the answer is obviously no.)
Question 2: Were all/most white people able to view Jeong's disgusting and racist rants? (Also rhetorical, answer is yes.)
Looking at the rest of your comments, I would bet your right nut as well that you're racist as hell "but it's all in jest, you should grow a thicker skin, the real racists are the left."
For someone who's not racist, you sure like to post according to their workbook.
You are a far leftist racist and you are following the identity politics of the far left to a tee by accusing me of racism even after writing what you did.
@batouchu: Really? Making completely empty assumptions and accusations against others of racism is your idea of a response? Let me quote your comment:
Calling white people dumbasses or white trash doesn't change the fact that by, and at large, white people earn more, have higher levels of employment, enjoy disproportionate representation in government and executive levels etc.
Yeah. I think it's pretty obvious who the actual racist is here.
Except that Ms.Jeong, as an Asian-American, is part of the group with the best outcomes including education level, wage, incarceration rates, etc. Furthermore, on a personal level, she is from a wealthy family and a Harvard graduate.
So, even if you wanted to buy into the conveniently developed rhetoric which provides a 'get out of jail free' card for everyone espousing racist views against the white population, on the pretext that they are the 'privileged' group and therefore cannot be discriminated against, you can't do so here since Sarah is not only from a privileged population group, but is from a privileged family. The racist people on the left performed some intense mental gymnastics to decide on their own definition of racism, but even that definition can't help them dodge reality in this case, yet they've still done it.
Racism is not about skin colour…
Interesting but let's run with this a little..
Calling white people dumbasses or white trash…
Sorry, what's not about skin colour again?
@c0balt: c0balt please shut up about things you don't understand. Of course all people can be prejudiced against anybody else but to ignore the centuries of systematic oppression that have been all over the world exercised by colonial european powers against others is heinous and intellectually dishonest.
c0balt please shut up
In a comment thread about freedom of speech? Please tell me you're deliberately being ironic.
but to ignore the centuries of systematic oppression
No one is ignoring oppression. The concept of "racism" just doesn't include it. If you show prejudice against someone because of their race, that's racism. No ifs or buts. I don't care if they're literally walking around in clothes sewn from pure gold thread with shoes carved out of diamond - racism is racism.
Arab people by, and at large, earn more, have higher levels of employment, enjoy disproportionate representation in government and executive levels IN ARAB COUNTRIES
African people by, and at large, earn more, have higher levels of employment, enjoy disproportionate representation in government and executive levels IN AFRICAN COUNTRIES
Asian people by, and at large, earn more, have higher levels of employment, enjoy disproportionate representation in government and executive levels IN ASIAN COUNTRIES
@YoungFriendly: YoungFriendly, any comment on the 400 years of Jihad waged against Europe?
Any comment on Mao's 45 million killed Chinese people?
Or Pol Pot and the Cambodian people?
Or the Arabs and the Barbary (White European) slave trade?
Or the Mongols and their 150+ years of barbaric conquest?
Or the Ottoman government's systematic extermination of 1.5 million Armenians?
Why single out European people - are you racist?
Even if you are using a pseudonym, if you are posting from a device/ip address you are known to own/frequent then it is easy. For example, using your phone to post or posting from a work computer. Furthermore, if you log into legitimate accounts with real information in the same session as your pseudonym it would be trivial to track.
A lot of these individuals who get caught do not seem to be taking any precautions and as such, if I can see you logged into your email and the same ip logged into YT and made a racist comment is doesn't take a genius to put two and two together.
I don't think social media is reporting this stuff to the police but concerned members of the public, friends/family, co-workers or office tech staff might be.
When you write stupid offensive stuff, people can look you up, find your fb etc. Can even find your real name, address, email etc. Everyone wants to see what the idiot looks like.
I don't know in this case, but in others it has been the person giving themselves away bragging about an online post they made, and then somebody else tying that to previous posts.
People who post regularly will slip up. Use the same userid on gumtree to sell a car and your mobile is exposed. Use a profile pic that can be reverse image searched, mention where you live on one social site, and mention where you work on another and people can use that info to test guesses about who you are.
Also, network effects. I have a fake Linkedin profile I use to cyber stalk people we are doing business with to see their work history without revealing I am looking at it. But because I have visited the fake profile a couple of times when logged in with my real one, it has suggested connections of me and my close team mates displayed for all to see, blowing my cover.
I can imagine similar where the mystery user is revealed because they have links to all the other members of a club or team or something except themselves.
Best thing to do is to not say horrible things to people or about subjects that may offend people.
You don't really have anonymity on the internet, if you libel against someone, that person can ask the forum admin for your IP, track you down and begin legal proceedings.
You offended me by saying that.
I'm going to doxx you now, seeing as that's what you is acceptable for being offended.
Can I compensate you for the offence?
2 Eneloop AA's?
How about at every public event you hold from now on, you have to thank the traditional bargain hunters of the land before you for the air you breath?
Then you also need to not address the rampant crime in areas populated by native bargain hunters because that would be racist against the bargain hunters somehow..
Am I doing this reparations based on being offended correctly?
"Best thing to do is to not say horrible things to people or about subjects that may offend people"
What's horrible/offensive to one person isn't to another. Perhaps we should all walk around with duct tape over our mouths just in case.
How about this… Try not to post anything on the internet that you would be terrified of your friends and family ever finding out about.
Or random strangers on the internet who might dox you and cause enough of a PR issue that your company is forced to fire you, right? People aren't being fired by their friends and family…
My bar was set at family and friends, because I figure the goal is to not be an asshat.. not just to stop short of doing something you can be fired for. :)
You don't really have anonymity on the internet, if you libel against someone, that person can ask the forum admin for your IP, track you down and begin legal proceedings.
Wait this isn't about a Forum chat, obviously Forum Admins such as OZB, Whirlpool can get your IP, Location, etc in a jiffy.
I'm talking about a platform like Youtube or Twitter, I don't think it's that easy to go to YouTube and say, Mr X just made an anti-semtic remark against my religion, can I please have his location to see if he works for an Organisation that can sack him??
If there is enough backlash yes, you can be outted.
Example….the wife of the General Manager of the Philadelphia 763rs NBA team used an 'anonymous' Twitter account to troll NBA players.
She was found, the GM lost his job.
https://nypost.com/2018/06/07/76ers-gm-bryan-colangelo-out-o…
It seems that not many people understand how social media collects information. The primary function of facebook, google, microsoft etc is to make money. The secondary function is to collect your data. Why do you think facebook is so keen for you to make all these connections, or google will one day give you google home for free? I misinform when it comes to my personal details - all my facebook friends actually know me, so it doesn't matter. But I know that the facebook bots and algorithms would still have a pretty accurate profile on me. With that spreadsheet type information the average mr plod wouldn't have a hard time at all.
Mr. Plod doesn't have access to information like that.
It's true that you would have ghost profiles made for you based on your contact's information and what they say about you, but that's not how people get doxxed.
It's like hacking passwords.. people often think there was some elaborate scheme in place to use a virus to hack into their computer to get their password when really you just logged into a phishing website once and gave it away yourself. That's how people get doxxed from anonymous accounts, they leave breadcrumbs (that anyone can easily access) or get tricked into giving them away without realising it.
You are so naive. You're imagining things are just fine while Australia is actually a police state but I guess this is how it happened - people asleep at the wheel.
The Australian Turnbull government has legislated compulsory metadata retention on every individual. The AFP and tens of other non law enforcement agencies have already accessed the metadata multiple times without warrants which is supposedly illegal. Mr. Plod is already doing what you imagine he isn't.
I don't think there's any flesh under all the layers of foil on your head.
Think about it this way, if what you said was true - with your post history you would already have had 2 .22s in the back of the head from the 'police state' and it would have been ruled a suicide.
The fact that you're still here to spill your extremist anti-establishment ideals should be all the evidence you need that there is no conspiracy against you.
What we have are a bunch of people on the left having one set of rules for themselves and one set of rules for everyone else, that's what's causing the doxxing and the fallout from it. On a legislation level - metadata laws are just for transparency, it's been going on forever regardless of how long the legislation has been active for. Intelligence and LEA services all around the world have been doing it for decades, they wouldn't be doing their jobs properly if they hadn't been drag netting everyone's metadata since they had access to the tech for it. This isn't anything new, nor is it something Mr. Plod has access to.
So the incremental power-grabs by our elected servants is nothing to be concerned about?
Oh look, they're at it again!
When sworn in, their oath is to serve the Crown. You and I are fodder.
@c0balt:
Mygovt, Myhealth etc. apple cloud, google plus, laws in place now for data to provided. You can be compelled to do so now..
https://www.itnews.com.au/news/govt-finally-reveals-how-it-p…
Social media stuff-up revealed Brett Guerin’s secret online life
On May 8 last year, Assistant Commissioner Brett Guerin — charged with upholding Victoria Police’s ethical standards as head of Professional Standards Command — posted a critical comment on the Facebook page of an association of ex-police officers, using his own name.
Five minutes later, that post had disappeared and was replaced by a near-identical post by “Vernon Demerest”, a character played by Dean Martin in the 1970 film Airport.
The slip was noticed and recorded by the secretary of the Community Advocacy Alliance and his wife, who administers the association’s Facebook page.
Nice one, that explains it.
I knew no-one will go the lengths of tracking comments on YouTube like that,
Youtube is a global platform, so many bad s& is said there, I would say YT will be inundated with people trying to find out who said what..
Obviously saying something extremely racist on a forum like this is a diff story,
oh shiet… are you saying all my post in ozbargain can be tracked?? i thought you can say whatever you want and hide behind your keyboard? My whole life has been a damn lie.. i don't wanna live in this planet anymore..
Not to mention the Meta Data Laws here in shitty AU…
In April, the government’s data retention law came into effect. The law requires telecommunications companies to store customer metadata for at least two years. Metadata from our phone calls, text messages, emails, and internet activity is now tracked by the government and accessible by intelligence and law enforcement agencies.
If you're not a baddie you have nothing to worry about. The laws exist only because baddies exist.
The government only wants to help by keeping everyone safe from the baddies.
Indeed. Pay your taxes on time (this is important), don't ask questions, and generally lay low. The government knows what's best for you and we don't need to worry about our privacy here because it's the officials who have access to our data and they're all goodies. The baddies are the ones to worry about and the government has our back here!
Reminds me of that Bill Hicks segment.
“Go back to bed, America. Your government has figured out how it all transpired. Go back to bed, America. Your government is in control again. Here. Here's American Gladiators. Watch this, shut up. Go back to bed, America. Here is American Gladiators. Here is 56 channels of it! Watch these pituitary retards bang their f****** skulls together and congratulate you on living in the land of freedom. Here you go, America! You are free to do what we tell you! You are free to do what we tell you!”
If you're not a baddie you have nothing to worry about. The laws exist only because baddies exist.
Is that right?
So you're happy for Texts and emails between yourself and your partner archived and read, including your internet browsing history, what food you like and what heels you're wearing on Friday night?
You may aswell photo copy your license and ID documents, pint your Phone book and texts and just throw them out the window.
We dont need privacy when you're good citizens eh?
I think your sarcasm detector is broken. :-)
"The government only wants to help by keeping everyone safe from the baddies."
Really, If someone breaks into my house and I attack them I get in trouble. Teenagers are constantly breaking into cars and houses and they get a slap on the bloody wrist.
A 'baddie' in Australia is a dissident, anyone who has views which differ from those of the ruling elite. Being a conservative in Australia is akin to being a Communist or Unionist in Nazi Germany. Freedom of speech means you can have an opinion and express it publically without being persecuted by your government. This is not the case in Australia. Australia has become every bit as totalitarian as Nazi Germany.
Well how come the trains don't run on time then?
n00bs
Most people don’t really think about just how much the content they post gives away about themselves until it’s too late. Even if they are wary of it, they may not realise that people will use more than one source and that the information gathered from each adds up to a complete picture.
People use the same “alias” on multiple sites. - Sure, you might not give away much about yourself on Ozbargain, but perhaps you mentioned at some point that you like 4wding with your local club. You never give your location though, so you’re safe. Except then you go and post on Whirlpool with the same name talking about the connection speed in Chatswood, NSW. So they look up the social media page for the biggest 4WD club in the area and they find a post from the same alias that has a picture of their car in their driveway.
People don’t remove location data from their photos and social media. - The 4WD club isn’t particularly tech savvy and they haven’t removed the photos meta data, which includes the location the photo was taken.. which is the owners driveway.
People use their original content on multiple sites - It wouldn’t have mattered though, because after finding a photo posted by the user on the original Ozbargain account, they did a reverse image search to see where else that totally unique photo was used and they found the owners Facebook page and Flickr account, both which use their real name. You also found it shared on their reddit account, which after you throw it into an analytics site like snoopsnoo, gives you a profile that outlines their active hours, interests, probable family makeup and location.
People don’t set their social media privacy settings - Now that they know exactly who they are, they can see their LinkedIn, their friends list and who they work for.. they can see the locations you frequent. and they can share content from all those different sources that they found to those friends, family and coworkers. You can now do reverse image searches on all the new photos from their social media accounts to see where those lead..
All this is just the basic, non technical options. People that take this seriously will scrape 100s of sites for information automatically and compile it for review. Their are companies out there that make quite a bit of information available for the price of a subscription. If the person targeting you is willing to take the “next step” and risk prosecution, there’s nothing stopping them from downloading password hashes from big hacks over the last decade and looking for your alias / email address etc and finding out the password you were using on that site. They then go and try that username / password combinations on every other major site and see if they actually gain access to any of them. If you use the same password on multiple sites, you’re well and truly up **** creek without a paddle.
If the person doing the doxxing has some kind of admin or moderator access, they probably have IP and email addresses which can be used to cross check with other sites as well.
Well said.
Screen peeping from co-workers in the office when you're trolling online.
That's why I don't have a profile picture on OzBargain and am glad it doesn't display your username when logged in.
If you don't want to he tracked wear some sort of disguise like fake moustache/beard (or both) and spectacles with a prosthetic nose attached to the frames. That way if you do get tracked you can claim it wasn't you. Also you are probably best using the dark web via a vpn (ozbargin way would be to use a free vpn).
I saw this all in a movie once and if it is in a movie it has to be true!
ozbargin way would be to use a free vpn
Welcome to captcha-hell, where I am every day!
Can't stand them captchas. Sick of them discriminating against robots.
It could be the email that they used to sign up with was found, and instead of using a burner email or whatever they used their professional email or work email.
Not only that but forensic linguistics can help you to identify a person also by the way they type messages online.
It's super easy to track most random users on the internet down and most likely find out their real name and much more.
Most people use the same username and email address across several sites. If you can track them down to some forums where they open up, you can get details like country and suburb, workplace, type of car they drive etc
If you hit the jackpot and find their Facebook page. You got family,friends, check ins and could even stalk them in real-life from there.
A lot more people hide their Facebook info now days because it's a lot easier than it used to be to enable those settings. But using the same username across social media and forums is where people get caught out.
this is why you gotta have multiple identities and use VPNs, if you wanna troll then you gotta treat it like a professional operation
Always post under a nickname. I'm willing to bet everyone has at some stage in their life written something online that could be used against them later on, even years down the track. That joke could become politically incorrect a decade later. The drunken rant at 4am could come back to haunt you. Any comment about religion or politics is offensive to someone, somewhere.
Never post under a real name. Always maintain plausible deniability.
Another way he could've been caught is he was probably logged into Google Chrome, so since he was commenting on Youtube videos Google could've easily linked his troll persona to his real name that way then reported him to Victoria Police for breaking hate speech laws.
Also if he didn't use a VPN they could just see what other accounts logged in with the same IP address and find his real Google account and name as well.
Is it actually illegal to say racist things in Australia?
Yep. There's a federal law and state laws regarding it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech_laws_in_Australia
It's well known that Google has been trying to clean up Youtube after the recent advertiser boycott, so I wouldn't be surprised if they investigate serial pests like this cop and forward his information to AFP/state police via their Australian HQ. Getting a big name on state or federal charges might dissuade other trolls.
OR maybe it was just something as simple as a colleague looking over the dude's shoulder or the IT department caught wind of his internet usage. :P
There's a federal law and state laws regarding it
Wow, true to my username, I thought we had free speech. Thanks for the info.
@idonotknowwhy: We have no constitutionally recognised free speech although we are signatory to the UN Charter of Human Rights which does cover it to some extent. But bear in mind we also have defamation laws (as does the US) and freedom of speech ends at the point that it does real harm to someone.
[@frostman] here is how, quote: "Assistant Commissioner Brett Guerin is exposed as the man behind the alias. He had been commenting on the Facebook page of the Community Advocacy Allance (CAA), when he posted almost identical message on Facebook accounts in his real name and the name of Vernon Demerest.
Mr Guerin takes down the Vernon Demerest Facebook page, deletes posts and attempt to remove all online traces of his trolling."
Source: https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/timeline-of-a-tr…
Thanks, makes sense.
I just thought some random person on YouTube saw the racist comments and filed an investigation to YouTube which seems far fetched…
if they can track ross ulbricht down, you are most likely not even a challenge.
also many people on internet have alot of spare time on their hands, and love exposing 'high profile' figures.
bots and AI are also among us.
…etc
lack of any form of intelligence
How Do People Get Caught on Social Media?
If it is online, it can be hacked/infiltrated . Simple as that .
There are many very intelligent people who have the skills (and spare time and resources) to infiltrate anything online. One of my friends is 1 such person . He calls himself a "white hat hacker" aka hacker for good, rather than for bad things (such as fraud or stealing peoples money etc) .
He hacked a dating site for free, so he didn't have to pay for introductions. He did start to explain a bit about how hacking cyber security works. He was thinking to join cyber security for law enforcement too, but did not want to have to do the beginning part (they make you do 6 months or something as a regular beat cop, before going into what he is really really good at) .
Im sure there are plenty of people like my friend around. Some use it for bad, some for good, some for neither (just because they are bored and/or because they can).
At the end of the day, we all should be aware anything that is on the internet, is potentilly accessible to anyone . Kids hack government organizations that supposedly have good cyber security. It makes the news ffs. Everyone should be aware by now that nothing posted online is 100% secure and/or private. Maybe 99.999999% secure, but never 100% secure IF it is online.
Usually it happens in reverse. The person gets into an argument on social media, or they espouse 'unpopular' views in real life. Others then trawl through their posting / internet history to try and link them to online pseudonyms.
Left wing people have been doing it to conservatives for years it seems, and now right wing people have started doing it too, most recently to James Gunn. Funnily enough, with Gunn the left-wing have come out saying "Oh but that was years ago it shouldn't count!" Which to me, and I have no skin in the game, is hilariously hypocritical.