Hiding behing the keyboard

This post is basically a placeholder to make sure that the materials concerning an ongoing investigation are published for everyone to see. The other reason is that it seems like people think they can get away with anything when hiding behind a keyboard.

WARNING – this post contains direct transcripts from online chats, some of which have been translated to the best of my knowledge from Hebrew to English in an attempt to preserve the original meaning. It contains foul language, profanities, and visual and direct threats of violence. It’s NSFW.

The story starts when a small number of member in the DC9723 group on Facebook started trolling (posting annoying messages, discrediting others, and then posting misogynistic comments that were borderline racist). As an open group that I am proud to be one of the founders of for over 2 years, the line taken is usually conservative in terms of moderation. This time we had to step in and remove some of the comments, and eventually some of the members (with an open invitation for them to come back once they realize the code of conduct in a group that is supposed to represent most how people should behave online).

For some reason these actions led to some nasty conversations starting with a person who’s not just hiding behind a thin profile, but a full-on fake one – “John Smith” (I kid you not).

After John Smith was remved from the group, he requested to join again, a request which has been denied. After requesting to join for the second time, I started a chat with him to verify that he understands the meaning of getting back on.

Apparently, during that time, another member in the group approved his membership and he was already in.

On June 21, 2013 5:22:18 AM PDT, Iftach Ian Amit wrote:

hey, I understand that you are ready to join the dc9723 group again…

On June 21, 2013 8:54:53 AM PDT, John Smith wrote:

?

again?

On June 21, 2013 9:02:18 AM PDT, Iftach Ian Amit wrote:

You sent a request to join. If that’s not the case I’ll remove it.

On June 21, 2013 9:03:50 AM PDT, John Smith wrote:

you said “agin”?

“again”?

you might not explain your self well

try again, i might understand

On June 21, 2013 9:05:42 AM PDT, Iftach Ian Amit wrote:

Forget it. I’ll make sure you are still out.

Talk to you when you are ready.

On June 21, 2013 9:06:30 AM PDT, John Smith wrote:

what are you talking? i never been to that group. are you mentaly disturbed?

On June 21, 2013 9:07:49 AM PDT, Iftach Ian Amit wrote:

There you go. Fixed it for you.

Have a great weekend!

On June 21, 2013 9:08:21 AM PDT, John Smith wrote:

fuck you ass hole i never been to that group you moron

now go fuck your tiny ass somewhere else

That seemed to take care of that.

Momentarily. As another member started arguing and trolling again in the discussion that spoke about ethics and code of conduct. That member was Daniel Feldman.

Unlike the conversation above, I’ll have to comment inline, as most of the chat was in Hebrew (see the original transcript from Facebook, which also has the translation at the end), and contained references to local lingo and other elements. The public discussion quickly deteriorated to Daniel attacking me personally, and thus a private chat has been initiated.

A couple of notes – I thought about trying to translate “Ars” but found it hard. It’s something between a lowlife, a pimp, sprinkle in a bit of redneck, guido?, and pimp. Not really the type you want to mingle with (but which unfortunately plagues large parts of Israel – especially outside of Tel-Aviv).

Also – the spelling mistakes in the translation are way funnier in Hebrew. I just tried to pass on the meaning of this. At this point things are getting more personal from his end, again, probably prompted by the fact that Daniel feels fairly anonymous (his Facebook profile is fairly well privatized, and there aren’t any pictures of him, or his whereabouts on it).

Untitled-1

(This image is basically the conversation between us, at the “Ars” part, pointing to his public Google+ picture, and back to where he’s shooting racist homophobic profanities. Then him responding to my claim that he should calm down with the epic “I’m calm you son of a bitch!” – with the obvious “You mad bro” meme).

At some point, Daniel probably freaks out as he thought he’s completely protected behind the keyboard. Now there’s a picture of him, and he probably also knows that I know that he lives in Nazareth Illit .

Eventually, I had to take it to the police. Getting specific threats (promises), which included my family isn’t joking matter. There isn’t really a point in dealing with these kinds of trolls, but there’s a message that I personally believe needs to get by – you can’t be a complete dick on the internet, and expect to get away with it. You can be a troll (and I completely get the fine art of trolling where trolling is due), you and be a bit of a dick, but when it gets to very specific “promises” like this, you have crossed the line. Now time to deal with it.

So it goes – to Daniel Feldman ([email protected]), Drupal developer out of Nazareth Illit, Israel. Have a great life, and a successful career. Just make sure you don’t try to attack this site directly from your home IP address (85.64.57.192 on June 22nd 23:49 Israel time, and 84.229.202.243 on June 24th, 16:06 Israel time). Definitely try not to fall for tricks like WebLabyrinth when scanning with w3af as it’s most likely to crash 🙂

S Memo-1

 Police complaint filing. Case number 274719/2013

I’ll keep posting updates here if they become relevant, hopefully with some good news (and not how I found my premature departure because of an idiot who had a public Google+ profile with him picture and home address there).

BTW – if it wasn’t clear enough – I didn’t even try too hard to out the guys 😐 Here’s how it looked on Google’s image search yesterday (after he deleted his Google+ profile):

Screen Shot 2013-06-24 at 7.47.35 PM

And here’s his full resolution picture taken from Google+ on Saturday when he freaked out:

Daniel Feldman m.f.g.witchcraft@gmail.com

 

“Daniel Feldman” (sometimes goes by “Danny Feldman”). Image file aptly named “My picture corrected small.jpg”

Lovely, I know 🙂

Update 1: Wow, faster than I figured, some more NSFW stuff for you. Apparently someone can’t even stand behind their “promises”, and keep on hiding behind the temporary safety of a keyboard. And have set up a fake Facebook page, wait for it, just for me!

How lovely. My first Facebook hate page. Here are the screenshots as I’m not sure for how long it’s going to stay there:

Screen Shot 2013-06-25 at 2.58.41 PM
Screen Shot 2013-06-25 at 2.54.47 PM
Screen Shot 2013-06-25 at 3.06.37 PM
Screen Shot 2013-06-25 at 9.52.01 PM Screen Shot 2013-06-26 at 5.58.26 AM

 

 

Update 2: Apparently our friend has also been messing around with some of those “make money fast online” scams. From the scammer perspective that is 😉 : http://www.realmoney.co.il/archive/index.php/t-56868.html

Update 3: Finally Facebook have decided to remove the slandering homophobic hate page (after at least half a dozen people reported that their report was not accepted). Small wins I guess?

Update 4: I believe we can put this behind us. Someone owned up to their identity, and I’m pretty sure that the concept of owning up to your actions online when they affect another individual. Post has been shortened and the full transcript is available for download.


Comments

4 responses to “Hiding behing the keyboard”

  1. Too funny – your friends in Athens 😉

  2. Man, I was converted in your fan … You make him nervous and in the end, teach a little about security … who knows, the next time he search for at least what a TOR.

  3. This is awesome, I need to setup an RSS feed to this post!
    Waiting for the analysis on the apache logs 😉

  4. wtg 😉

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