Why I hate bullies.

So the events of the past 24 hours have been fun. LOL ("I do not think that word means what you think it means." LOL)

Let me start by saying that one of the parties is now claiming they had nothing to do with this whole scenario. That they've tried repeatedly to get in touch with me and clear this up. Well, funny, I haven't received any emails from them at all. (Yet the bully was able to email me? Hmm.) If they want to email me, deets are on my contact page. Nothing secret about that.

So, here is an open message to that person. If you are really genuine in wanting to "clear the air" about this, then send me an email. Let's talk. Here is why I've made the statements I did about you:

You say you were only on our group for a day. No, you were a member longer than that, and then after being banned after being warned about your behavior, you tried to rejoin using multiple personalities (which you admitted you had). And quite a few people have contacted the admins of our group saying you had friended them under multiple personalities, and used those to add them to the copycat group, in some cases re-adding them with one of the alternate personas if they forgot to check the "prevent someone from this group from readding me" box. Our admins have also received complaints about you soliciting money via emails and PMs. And this happened in not one, but TWO groups I run.

I personally have received several messages from people who said they had to block you well before all this started for spammy behavior.

Not spammy? If you don't think that's spammy behavior, then you really do need to take a step back and go back to social media school.

But, again, I'm willing to give you the benefit of the doubt. My email's listed on my Contact page. Shoot me an email. Open a dialog. I have received ZERO emails from you asking to clear this up, despite what you said on your Facebook page. Explain to me how your behavior isn't spammy. I'm a reasonable person. You really want to clear this up? Then let's talk. If you aren't the person who sent the threatening emails to me, email me and let's clear this up. If you are innocent, I will be more than happy to make a public statement to that effect.

Why don't I tolerate bullies?

I started the BDSM Bibliophreaks group to be a community. Not a place to pimp books, but a place for readers and writers to come together to discuss the BDSM lifestyle and books related to it. It's always gratifying to me when someone tells me that being in our group, and being able to ask questions in a judgment-free atmosphere has helped them in real life.

THAT'S the lifeblood of our group.

Then people who get pissed off that they got bounced out of our group for violations of our policies (and after multiple complaints to the admins from our members about them) decide they want to "screw" with our group.

I go momma bear over that. I am very protective of our members. Had they simply created their copycat group and done their thing, whatever. But they spam-added members from our group.

I am no stranger to bullies. I spent several years as a lay counselor to people recovering from abusive relationships. But even more important, there's something I don't talk about a lot.

I was a victim of a crime when I was 18. The man was a couple of years older than me and a fellow student in one of my classes in college, and when I said no, he didn't stop. When I threatened to go to the cops, he threatened to kill my family's dogs. At the time I was young, naive, and completely believed him. He knew where I lived and could have easily done it.

That I didn't press charges haunts me to this day. I can only hope he didn't prey on others, and that guilt haunts me.

I'm no longer that terrified 18 year-old. So when someone sends me a threat, regardless of if they simply think they're "screwing" with me or people I feel protective of? I treat it seriously.

I don't let it go unchallenged.

Had the people behind this simply left our members alone, this would have died off. But then some mental midget had to send out threatening email messages (and apparently they're not up on the latest cyberstalking laws in our post-911 society).

I am very protective of the people who placed their trust in us in the BDSM Bibliophreaks group. Because some of those people don't HAVE any other place they feel safe discussing the lifestyle or asking questions.

Back down, to some anonymous coward on the internet? I don't think so. I'm sure the person who sent me the emails thought it would send me running for cover. But the exact opposite happened. So I will do what my home state is already notorious for: I will stand my ground.

Love and light, peeps. To everyone who's sent me messages of support, thank you, I <3 you all!

Oh, goodie. I now have a cyberstalker.

So apparently I've "made" it since I've pissed off a couple of spammers. (EDIT: I've added a second message they've sent me.) What's even stupider? I HAD been planning on letting it die down now that we had notified our members. But now that I'm getting email threats, including (see below) a threat to burn down my house, law enforcement WILL be involved in this. (I will post updates.)

SECOND UPDATE: A third message was received and added below.

Long story short, I run the BDSM Bibliophreaks group on Facebook. Well, we had a couple of people, spammers, who after giving them chances to adhere to the promo rules on that group, and after getting multiple complaints about them, we banned them from the group. One of them had multiple personas on Facebook, and had even complained before being banned from our group that Facebook had been shutting down their multiple personas. (And they tried to join our group with their mulitple personas.)

They then started a group on Facebook called "BDSM Bibliofreaks." Notice the similar spelling? In their "about" section they listed "selective censorship" as the reason they started it. Uh, well, if you call banning spammers from our group censorship, whatever.

Then they spam-added several HUNDRED people from our group into their group. That's when me and the other admins started getting LOTS of WTF kinds of PMs from members asking what was going on.

And yes, you can go to the membership list of the copycat group and see if a person was "added" by someone, or if they requested membership on their own. The two people who were the biggest culprits were also (surprise) the people we'd received numerous complaints about.

Now, those who know me, know that I don't tolerate spammers in my groups. And since it was obvious who the two culprits were, I named them.

So this started yesterday. And tonight I received this email, which I will be filing a police report about. (To the person who sent it, you didn't help the case of the person you think you're trying to help.) Apparently they think using a TOR server will help them stay hidden. Uh, guess they didn't hear about the FBI taking down the guy who ran Silk Road.

Why am I posting this? Because I'm going to give the person the benefit of the doubt that it's just a misguided fan who wrote the letter. And if so, they can post on their social media outlets that their "fan" needs to knock it off because law enforcement is getting involved. This isn't a game. And the spammers who are guilty? It's obvious who they are. Simply troll through the member list and see all the people who were spam-added and the two names that crop up most often. Doesn't take a detective.

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Subject: biblio group
Message-ID: <6838518165a961661ce93258763340fa@foto.nl1.torservers.net>
Date: Fri, 11 Oct 2013 19:32:16 -0400 (EDT)

Anonymous <anonymous@foto.nl1.torservers.net>
7:32 PM (12 minutes ago)

to me 
your childish war with the other group is growing old.
you have also been attacking other parties who aren't
even involved in what's going on.
i strongly suggest you apologize to the people you have
attacked, and you move on. you are now dealing with
people who can find many, many ways to entertain
you. you will grow tired of it long before we do, i promise.

tymber dalton. that's not your real name though, is it?
yes, your real name is out there, and your address, but
that's not the point i'm getting at. have you ever read
facebook policies? you know, the ones you are so quick
to accuse others of breaking? did you know it's against
facebook policy to use an alias? sorry to say,legal name is
all that's permitted. guess what facebook will do if and
when they find out you're not using your real name?
what about the members of biblio? many of them being
authors, how many of them are using a made-up name
too?
i'd hate to see what will happen when facebook
starts to get reports that these people have fake names.
they will start closing accounts. oh and we will make sure
they know that YOU had the chance to prevent it.
and that will just be the beginning. how about a barrage
of one star reviews? blog entries all over the place? and
that's just what can happen online.
knock your crap off. apologize for your sins. maybe
even step down as the admin of biblio, because we can
all plainly see that you have no clue how to run a group.
oh and we already have all the names and addresses from
biblio saved, so hiding the group won't help.
you have 24 hours to make this right, or hell is going to break
loose, and it is not going to be pretty. i offer you this one
chance to set things right.

--

Second message they sent:

Delivered-To: tymberdalton@gmail.com

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To: tymberdalton@gmail.com
Subject: no...
Message-ID: <d4da6ddff4a637b5923a10eff8e88354@foto.nl1.torservers.net>
Date: Fri, 11 Oct 2013 20:33:04 -0400 (EDT)

we didnt say pseudonyms are ILLEGAL. they ARE however
a violation of facebook policy. you are required to use
your REAL name. because you obviously are not taking
this matter seriously, i'm going to report one of your
friends as a fake/fictitious name, to show you what i mean.
law enforcement? because someone threatened to
report you to facebook in an argument over a bdsm
chat group? yeah, i'm sure they'll get RIGHT on that.
well, forward this to them too:
i hope nobody comes to the tampa area and sets any
homes on fire.
i ask you one more time. do you really want to
start something? NOBODY will win this, i promise
you that.

--

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To: tymberdalton@gmail.com
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Message-ID: <355af6e557c7ad756742fca0b000db8d@anonymitaet-im-inter.net>
Date: Sat, 12 Oct 2013 03:45:12 +0200 (CEST)

you're not too bright are you?

people are threatening to burn down your house?

"i hope nobody comes to the tampa area and sets any
homes on fire. "

good luck with arguing that in a court of law.

seriously. remove yourself as group admin, and this all ends.

Life imitating art: zombies and cyberthreats

Source

It's funny how life can imitate art. In my book Two Geeks and Their Girl (coming 8/2 from Siren-BookStrand) the two heroes are working on a project called Artemis, which hunts down devices hooked to the internet that aren't properly password protected, and then tracks down and notifies the owner of the problem.

I'd gotten the idea from reading an article awhile back about this sort of issue. It can effect power plants, water treatment facilities, traffic signaling devices, etc. Including the story of the sign pictured here, as well as similar stories. (Simply run a Google search for "zombie attack highway sign" for more stories.)

This morning, I see the following in my email from ZD Net:

U.S. Emergency Alert System open to more 'zombie' hackers after accidental SSH key disclosure

Heh.

No, it's not funny. Not really. Well, yes, it's frakking hysterical, but only on the surface.

The problem is, if someone wanted to do something nefarious by gaining entrance to these devices. Or post something a little more plausible on the EAS system, maybe along the lines of the hacked AP tweet falsely reporting an attack at the White House.

Which then promptly tanked the stock market even though the hack was discovered immediately and the account disabled.

So while, yes, my story is fiction, it's scarily bolstered by facts. The fact is that foreign agents don't need to bomb us to drive our country into the ground. All they need are a few moderately talented hackers who can take down the systems we've come to depend on.

Something to think about, isn't it?