
Ask HN: Someone is harassing me online, using my personal info. What can I do? - sumsuni
Hi everyone,<p>I am the admin of a relatively large forum site, and recently had to ban one user. Without going too much into the details, the user got extremely heated and researched my personal information online, found my CV and also where I&#x27;m currently doing my PhD studies. He has also built a blog site recording all my personal info&#x2F;phone numbers&#x2F;family members, etc. and sending them to my supervisors with a request that I be terminated due to unethical behavior. As I&#x27;m currently in Germany, you can imagine how this might cause a lot of confusion with my superiors.<p>So my question is, is there anything I can do to stop this individual? I have some basic information about this guy which I can report to some authorities (list of IP addresses, email address) but as he&#x27;s located in Egypt, I&#x27;m not sure there&#x27;s any good that these will do. Really looking for some help in dealing with this matter, and talking to this guy directly will probably not solve anything (maybe even just make it worse since he&#x27;ll think he&#x27;s winning).
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jacquesm
Problems like these can be extremely annoying and very hard to resolve. Beyond
what lutusp already said (get a lawyer) you're facing an uphill battle because
law enforcement in the country where your perpetrator is located (Egypt) will
likely not assign a very high priority to resolving your issue.

I ban 100's of people daily on my own website and have run in on multiple
occasions to people who love nothing more than to ruin other people's lives
online from the relative shelter of online anonymity.

Worse still, authorities usually don't lift a finger (unless there is child
pornography involved or the victim is a politician or a relative of one) and
if they do move it is at a glacial pace.

If you know who he is then a letter from a lawyer _might_ help, if you only
know IP addresses and a general location then you are facing a long and hard
battle.

Going back through your server log might help you to figure out more
information about this person, maybe he's made multiple accounts, maybe one of
his aliases shows up in google allowing you to figure out more about him. Any
work you can do prior to hiring the lawyer will likely result in some
acceleration or maybe even prompt resolution.

The only reason this works is because there is an information asymmetry
between you and your attacker, he knows all there is to know about you and you
know nothing to very little about him.

As for your superiors, if they would act on anonymous complaints sent over the
internet rather than have a good laugh at it then you should probably explain
that _anybody_ with an axe to grind can attack anybody else on the net in this
way for no particular reason.

Best of luck with all this.

~~~
sumsuni
Thanks for the advice. I have his original IPs, and then a second list of
Proxy sites which he used to create fake accounts and also post abusive posts
(I had IP-banned him). Presently, the forum is locked down to new
registrations until I can find a way to stop this guy from coming back.

I don't have his physical address, so not sure how I could get a letter
delivered. Perhaps some kind of tool exists to bait him into giving me his geo
coordinates?

The supervisors are not too pleased with getting 10-15 emails this morning,
with a PDF of my personal information and other harrassing information related
to my work for the site, which takes place off-work.

~~~
jacquesm
One user of my website, a girl that one morning decided that it was very
clever to undress on cam got a guy that kept on mailing her bosses, her family
and so on. It caused no end of trouble. Your bosses are essentially blaming
the victim, it's a real pity that understanding of these matters is limited
until you are typically hit by it yourself.

The fact that they assign any value to this at all is certainly worrisome.

If you send me an email privately (jacques@mattheij.com) with what information
you currently have on the guy then I may be able to give you a hand (no
promises though).

------
Throwaway823
I run a large community as well, and had some similar issues. Occasionally
threats work if you can convince them you're willing to take legal action, and
you can scare them with evidence pointing to their name or IP address.

If that doesn't work, or they're based in Egypt which is going to make legal
action difficult, you might be best off to ignore them completely. They're
looking for a response. They want to see you upset, they want to see you in a
panic, they want to see you begging them to stop, etc. If you ignore them, and
never respond or talk again, they'll likely move on with their life. They're
not going to maintain a blog on you forever, that takes time, and if they're
getting nothing in return, they'll stop, although it might take weeks or
months.

Now, work on preventing this in the first place. I had my community hosted on
the same servers as my personal projects (small startup, didn't realize it was
going to grow to the current size), and this allowed people to connect the
dots to my name by looking up the server IP and related sites. I'm in the
process of trying to separate my personal identity from my community, and to
reduce the trail leading back to me. I can't recall how many people are banned
from my community, but it's in the area of 5,000. I'm surprised I haven't had
more personal attacks, but it's only a matter of time, so I'm trying to
separate things before it occurs again. You might want to do the same if
possible.

~~~
jacquesm
I actually did the exact opposite, I made sure that I'm _very_ easy to connect
to the community to deflect all attention from those doing the actual
moderation. I'm also known as someone who will happily sue you for every penny
you've got and I tend to win so the jerks and jackasses tend to tread a little
more careful around me. I wished that extended to the users of the website
though, who on occasion do very silly things and make themselves identifieable
in many ways.

They don't usually realize the consequences (even if warned) until it is too
late.

But as a website operator I'd always make sure to attach both my corporate and
personal identity with the service.

Why appear like a scam when you're not?

------
lutusp
Because of the international aspect, people here aren't going to be able offer
constructive help beyond sympathy. At risk of stating the obvious, you need to
engage the services of a lawyer.

------
dognotdog
Posting this kind of info is probably at least against the TOS of whatever
hosting he uses, and probably illegal in most countries. If you want it taken
down quickly, the help of a good lawyer is probably needed. Chasing him and
putting out fires is probably all you can do without venturing into illegal
territory yourself.

------
DanBC
You are being stalked. Research the protections that stalkers need in your
country - you might want to set up a website describing what's happening so
you can point people to it. Include links to stalking information to avoid as
many "it must be something you did" accusations as possible, although there
will be some of those.

CLEARLY DOCUMENT EVERYTHING. At some point in the future you may want to go to
the police and having everything they need neatly laid out is helpful to them.

------
skidoo
Fight fire with fire. Find an altruistic hacker to hunt him down and make his
life uncomfortable.

~~~
PeterWhittaker
This got downvoted, and I can understand why, but I have to admit the idea has
a certain dark appeal.

Well, I snorted appreciatively when I read it, at least.

(This is why I dislike downvoting. Ignore ideas you dislike, flag abuse, but
downvote "honest opinions"? Hmm. Sure, that begs the question of abuse Vs
honest opinions, but that is the purpose of discussion and reason: To sort the
abuse from the honest opinions, to accept and improve upon the latter.)

~~~
S4M
I just downvoted the GP, and not because I disagree with his opinion, but
because I think his advice is a dangerous one to follow. For example, the
stalker could be using someone else's computer, and hacking him back would
only harm that other person.

~~~
jacquesm
Stalkers typically use their own computer and do so through a variety of
layers of deception. Recall that 'push to allow people from TOR on websites'
earlier today right here on HN? That's what you get for your troubles.

As for the GGP comment, he advised to get the help of a 'hacker to hunt him
down' not to hack him back. That's a world of a difference.

~~~
Jayd2014
"Stalkers typically use their own computer and do so through a variety of
layers of deception". In this specific case, the stalker is in Egypt and there
is a very high chance he is using a "cybercafe" to access the internet rather
than his personal PC/Internet connection.

------
tcooks
Dox him or pay someone to do it. Once you have an address, send him a german
lawyer template asking him to take down the site.

Can you get his infos from the blog?

~~~
sumsuni
Not much info about him on this blog, but tons of it on me. I'm not sure how
much good a German lawyer template will do if he's operating in Middle East.

------
lotsofcows
Ignore him, he'll go away eventually. There's not much you can do so "don't
feed the trolls" is the best you're going to get. Of course, some people think
differently - see Maddox's page of hate mail for example.

------
mnw21cam
What country is his blog site hosted in? If it's one of the big blogging
sites, you may get a good response by contacting them about his breach of
their terms of service. Law enforcement are unlikely to be interested.

~~~
sumsuni
It's actually hosted on Wordpress.com. I've posted the URL yesterday to their
abuse form requesting it to be taken down, but currently remains active. I
guess they need time to process it.

------
bruna597
You'll find this helpful:
[https://digitaldefenders.org/digitalfirstaid/](https://digitaldefenders.org/digitalfirstaid/)

------
deodorel
What about using the new google tool that they were forced to do by the EU to
get his blog out from the search results? I think you have a pretty good case.

------
ZoFreX
Have you tried talking to him? There have been a few times where I've managed
to get trolls and hackers to desist with a friendly chat.

------
walterbell
Will he take down the information if you let him back onto the site?

------
robotgod
Would you getting fired make the asshole stop? If so...

Get one of your supervisors to contact the guy and lie to him that you have
been fired, take on a new username and stop posting non-anonymous stuff with
it.

------
onion2k
Unban him from the forum. Then he'll (maybe) stop. Maintaining control over
your life and online reputation is more important than keeping him banned.

~~~
walterbell
(banned person could be reading this thread)

Banning is a governance issue for any community. If the community is large
enough, there may be other senior (by time and participation) community
members willing to act in a leadership role. Ask for their help in formalizing
the ban process.

The governance group (ideally excluding you) can engage the currently banned
person in a public process on the forum, where terms of engagement are defined
by the community, not lawyers or countries or emotional individuals.

If the costs (time, money, risk) of maintaining a forum become too high, other
admins have closed their forum. Presumably the aggrieved party simply wants to
participate in the forum, not destroy it.

~~~
sandycheeks
Excellent response.

There should probably be an open discussion on the forum engaging members and
other moderators where the banned user can see it. Let them discuss the ban as
well as the subsequent harassment and honor their decision.

I am a former admin of a large forum. I let trolls and spammers wear me down
over years and regret that I did not handle some things openly.

