Lotus Geek :: The scary side of blogging...

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An old friend and coworker of mine has become a very popular blogger in his own right, especially in the mobile space. His name is Russell Beattie, and he is an opinionated, brilliant, and extremely nice guy. And he blogs about his opinions, for all the world to see. Of course not everyone agrees with him, and he deals with it as he sees fit - as do we all who happen to have blogs that express personal opinion.

But Russ is experiencing a scary side to blogging - a side we all think about in the back of our heads, and hope to avoid.

Russ is basically being "cyberstalked" by some ~~**expletive deleted**~~ guy named Jacek Rutkowski who runs a blog (posing as a mobile news site, using a ripped-off Register motif) called MSMobiles.com (I am not going to link to it - I don't want to drive his hit count up since he has advertisers). And the cyberstalking is getting really, really scary. You owe it to yourself to go to his site and read the accounting of what is happening.

So, this brings up a bunch of questions. First,is this a tempest in a teapot? I know some think so, but this guy is calling his *home*, and is speading slander all over the place (i.e. other blogs, etc.) about Russell. IMHO, this you cannot discount stuff like this in this day and age. So, what can be done to stop something like this? I mean, the guy lives in Europe, so restraining orders and the like don't apply. What would you do? I post opinions on here all the time, but I guess I am lucky in that I am not that visible (like Russ, or Scoble, or even Volker and Ed), so I don't think I am nearly as exposed as they are.

But it does give me pause. Do you watch what you say to minimize the risk of getting some freak like this going after you? I mean, this guy basically hates Russ for being anti-Microsoft. WTF? I could see it if it were because of his political leanings or some other "hotbutton" topic, but we're talking about GEEKY stuff. So, I don't think you can self-sensor enough to prevent something like this, if the right psycho reads it.

So, do you ignore it and hope it goes away? Do you warn your prospective employers/clients/etc. that "hey, I am a good person, and can help you, but I have some psycho stalker spreading lies about me and he may contact you, so just ignore him"? That isn't a good thing to have to say to someone who is a current client or prospective employer.

Do you close up shop, and remove all web presence except the bland corporate site? Do you drop back and do strictly tech postings, devoid of opinion? (I'm not sure that's even possible.) I don't know... Personally, I find that my tech postings seem to get people to visit my site (i.e. they search for something on the web, like modal dialogs on the Web, or doing threadmaps in Domino, or designer font recommendations, etc.), but they come back and post on my site for the opinion stuff. And I love the interaction. But is the risk worth it?

This is one of those things I rarely think about when I am writing topics for this blog. But this type of thing does give me pause.

I am curious to see what you think...

Rock
**No matter what happens, somebody will find a way to take it too seriously.

**PS: I put up that photo of Jensen Beach, Florida with this entry because it is cold and wet here, and between the weather and this topic I wanted to put up a picture that invoked happy thoughts. Enjoy.

Comments

1 - Yeah, I've been following this. I don't think the guy's scary but the phone calls are way out of line.

Google him and you run into all kinds of stuff: he's been kicked off of Java mailing lists (he used to run javamobiles.com), has written mad rants to theregister.co.uk, and so on. He even commented on my site last night.

He'll go away eventually. There are so many idiots out there... that's the frightening aspect of all this.

Posted by Ben Poole At 12:24:40 PM On 11/22/2004 | - Website - |

2 - I'm just amazed at how MUCH there is out there on this guy. He has done this for a LONG time. Unreal, man.

I don't withhold info on my site. I try not to mention when I'm going out of town or specifically where I live, but for the most part I'm open. Hell, nobody reads my drool anyway...LOL.

Posted by Tom At 02:45:20 PM On 11/23/2004 | - Website - |

3 - Stan, if you think "blogs tend not to get too much more personal than my own" then I should introduce you to some friends of mine... especially the type that hang out on livejournal.com and the like.

Posted by Ed Brill At 01:27:53 PM On 11/22/2004 | - Website - |

4 - this is exactly why I do not write about my family by name and even when i do it is rare on my blog. Too many unknowns!

Posted by Christopher Byrne At 12:31:24 PM On 11/22/2004 | - Website - |

5 - This is why I don't use my children's names and such, but it does always seem like a risk. I think the fact that he is phoning the home is very scary, but I wouldn't say that because he is in Europe he is untouchable. Isn't Poland part of the European Union now? I can't believe the European Union doesn't have ant-stalking laws.

Posted by Ben Langhinrichs At 02:17:20 PM On 11/22/2004 | - Website - |

6 - Ah, you're basing that on existing content, obviously. There's a ways to go yet before your original "where from here" question is completely answered, Ed. I don't intend to use scatology for its own sake or anything of that nature, but there are some corners of dark and light yet to be visited. I didn't want anyone to be too thoroughly surprised by what they found, though -- I'm easing into it. Too much information? I hope so, eventually.

Posted by Stan Rogers At 01:49:56 PM On 11/22/2004 | - Website - |

7 - I for one am always careful in my writing. -- NOT.

Seems like your buddy needs a half decent lawyer. If in fact he has not committed a crime, his accuser has left himself open to significant civil action.

At the very least, <deleted, as I won't advocate violence, someone could take it seriously. You'll have to guess what I would have said.>

Posted by Andrew Pollack At 05:39:59 PM On 11/22/2004 | - Website - |

8 - While I do occasionally post technical stuff, blogs tend not to get too much more personal than my own. I realize that there's a significant degree of risk involved, but I've tried to make that risk entirely my own, and I carefully considered the possible consequences before beginning down that road. I would likely attract a different, and to some extent, more manageable sort of loonie, if any.

The scary thing about this guy (and yes, he IS scary) is that he's taken an "attack my platform, attack me" tack in life. I'm sure that he sees anything not squarely in line with his SmartPhone opinions as a personal attack. Phone calls and attempts to sabotage a person in the workplace are not at all in keeping with defending a platform from a perceived technoslight. That is clearly lunacy -- while we may be (as a group) somewhat biased towards favoring Notes and Domino (okay, that's putting it mildly), we are perfectly capable of recognizing that an attack on Domino is an attack on Domino, and if there are specifics to defend, we will respond to the technical points. Maybe a bit enthusiastically, but "rabid" wouldn't fit, I don't think.

Posted by Stan Rogers At 12:43:54 PM On 11/22/2004 | - Website - |

9 - I can't believe that someone went ape on ye for slanging Microsoft. Everyone knows when sometime gets that big and has 90% share of PC market, its fair game.

Posted by EC NOW At 04:58:25 AM On 06/05/2005 | - Website - |