Bonum Certa Men Certa

Patent Troll (Ray Niro) Resorts to Attacking People, Not Just Companies

Web Anonymity is Officially Dead!



Shane and I were never editing anonymously anyway...

Fool us once, Ray Niro, shame on you. Fool us seven times [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7], shame on us. Here is the latest update on the Ray Niro/TrollTracker situation:

Ray Niro emailed me yesterday, complaining about the personal attacks being made on him in Slashdot.

[...]

He also tells me he now definitely knows who I am. I'm waiting for confirmation, since he didn't tell me my name. Then we'll see. According to him, one of my "friends" turned me in for the cash. Thanks, whoever you are, if true.

Meanwhile, I might as well get rid of a couple of posts I have saved, and was planning to post next week, when I'm not going to be able to post for various reasons. You know, go out with a bang, so to speak!


In case you are new to this saga, the father of patent trolling (perhaps also the patent holder of patent trolling as a business method) offered a bounty. He became somewhat of a head-hunter seeking to find the identity of a blogger in pursuit of a sane patent system.

Anonymity was killed by the money. For similar reasons, a Microsoft blogger called mini-microsoft no longer blogs much and he rarely criticises Microsoft as much as he used to. The platform he uses, Blogger, has already leaked out details upon demand. It spilled the beans on its own customers.

“Intimidation is becoming a new method for media control, censorship and attacks against criticism.”Intimidation is becoming a new method for media control, censorship and attacks against criticism. This ought to worry you because many anonymous people out there on the Web are proven Microsoft shills. It's not a legend, it's a fact (see examples galore). In other words, wealthy companies can deceive using anonymous figures whereas their critics get threatened.

Speaking for myself, be aware that in USENET and Digg the personal attacks against me pretty much doubled in the past week. It would be about 20 attacks per day, many of which are obscene and slanderous. This is annoying, very annoying. It's distracting. I have asked others whether they have noticed anything similar, especially amid times when we see dumping techniques. I know for a fact that somebody else needed to stop checking E-mail because of abuse that was becoming a handful.

Anyway, getting back on subject, Ray Niro can't just take criticism for his abuse of the patent system. When there is bribery involved, anonymity becomes an impossibility. I have seen friends whose strong desire for anonymity was of no use when they criticised Microsoft. Anonymous people with remailer thrashers and/or proxies went out of their way to publicly post full addresses of the people in question and sometimes made implicit threats. I still get a fair share of death wishes myself.

Didn't some 'special' lady called Maureen O'Gaga spy to Pamela Jones a couple of years ago? Was she just a curious journalist? It is hard to tell, but the situation is appalling. If you think you can exist on the Web anonymously (and I too lived anonymously on cyberspace some years ago), then you ought to think again. If someone wants to know your identity, then you haven't a chance in the world! Even Dan Lyons, who attacked Linux and other rivals of Microsoft under that "Fake Steve Jobs" persona, got exposed.

We covered the Dan Lyons Astroturf phenomenon several times in the past [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]. This is ugly business. Very ugly.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Destruction and Distortion of Information, Including Facts About Linux (Bonus: This is Destroying the Planet)
All that LLMs have going for them is hype, and moreover media that intentionally misrepresents them and their supposed capabilities
IBM Layoff Rumours, Large-Scale Implementations Weeks Ahead (in March 2025)
There are some people corroborating
Microsoft Blasted for Adding Insult to Injury: Workers Laid Off Without Prior Notice, Without Severance Payment and Basic Coverage (Like Health), Then Stigmatised as Bad Performers So They Cannot Find a Job Elsewhere
Such stereotypes end entire careers
 
Microsoft Skype in a Freefall: About 20% Decrease in Site Traffic in 3 Months (Amid Microsoft Phasing Out Credits)
Microsoft axing more services/features may mean that now they scrape the bottom of the barrel and Skype will simply die, discontinuing service (like ICQ) in a matter of years
Gemini Links 12/02/2025: Depression, Gabbro, WikiTok, and More
Links for the day
Links 12/02/2025: Health, Security, and Monopolies
Links for the day
Gemini Protocol is Increasingly Important to the Net
Gemini Protocol will turn 6 this summer
Former EPO Manager Warns That the Illegal 'Court' for "Unitary Patents" Enables “Law Shopping”
Daniel X. Thomas opposed the very existence of the UPC, which any honest person could recognise was both illegal and unconstitutional
Like GAFAM, the EPO is Passing the Financial Pains to Staff
the EPO is operating illegally at this point
Morale at Microsoft Ruined by the Company Labelling Thousands of Workers 'Low Performers', Sacking Them on the Spot and Denying Them Basic Benefits
people laid off as "low performers" go to social control media to bemoan the label
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, February 11, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, February 11, 2025
Links 11/02/2025: Current state of the Internet and Smallnet Information Services (SIS)
Links for the day
Conservative Estimate: Over 10,000 IBM Workers to Be Laid Off in the Next Two Waves
The morale is low and layoffs are expected soon, with mass layoffs likely happening next month and then again later
Links 11/02/2025: Trade Wars and "Crisis for American Universities"
Links for the day
Parasitic LLM Slop Sites Destroy the Ability to Find "Linux" News in Google News
Remember that Google News laid off lots of its workers
Richard Stallman's English Talk in Italy Less Than 24 Hours Away (Torino) and Then Another Talk in Italy Scheduled (University of Bozen-Bolzano)
He's active and he travels a lot in spite of his medical condition
Links 11/02/2025: Nutritional Poverty, Closure of USAID, More Fictional 'Valuations' Around Buzzwords
Links for the day
Perl Programming Leftovers
recently in perl.org
Microsoft in Africa: From 98% to Less Than 10% in Just 16 Years
Microsoft being on less than 1 in 10 Web-connected devices in Africa is a very big deal
Almost as If MElon Reads Techrights
The joke we started appears to be spreading
Gemini Links 11/02/2025: NeoVim and Deploying Other People's Code
Links for the day
BetaNews is Still Publishing LLM Slop/SPAM About "Linux"
Assuming it is indeed LLM slop, it seems clear BetaNews has no intention of improving or is simply unable/unwilling to improve
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, February 10, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, February 10, 2025
Scheduled Maintenance Tomorrow and on Valentines
If the site (or Gemini capsule) is offline for a bit, the maintenance windows are likely the root cause
If Matthias Kirschner Loves Free Software, He'll Change the Name of the Microsoft-Sponsored Organisation He Governs (in Order to Avoid Confusion)
The FSF-EEE does not really like Software Freedom, it just loves money (including Microsoft's)
Soylent News Lessens the Scope of Discussion Due to Persistent Trolling and Online Abuse
if they make it a lot harder for new people to participate, then they limit the "general appeal" and reach
EPO's Local Occupational Health, Safety and Ergonomics Committee (LOHSEC) in The Hague: Workers Are Getting Sicker, Conditions in Which to Assess Patent Applications Deteriorate
"According to the Office statistics the total number of days of absence has gone up from 12.4 to 13.1 total number of sick days per Full Time Equivalent (FTE) from 2023 to 2024."
The Standard Needs to Improve Its Standards for Fact-Checking, Aaron Swartz Had Nothing to Do With Reddit and He Detested the Company That Created It
The Web is already bad enough as it is
When the Livestream of Richard Stallman is Apparently Bury-Brigaded Offline You Finally Learn to Avoid Google/YouTube for Streaming
Please, people, stop uploading to Google/YouTube
New Paper From the EPO Highlights Large-Scale Discrimination at the Office, Where People Are Rewarded for Granting More and More Illegal Patents
Even the Kremlin is probably more competent than this
Links 10/02/2025: Ban on D.E.I. Language, Listeria Risk/Outbreak
Links for the day
Links 10/02/2025: Announcing "Stringless" and Mental Health Improvement
Links for the day
Links 10/02/2025: Facebook Mass Layoffs, "Meta" Did What Aaron Swartz Had Done But to the Tune of 81.7 Terabytes
Links for the day
Microsoft Tarnishing the Brand of Arch
Of course Arch can do whatever it wants, but being associated with Microsoft is a badge of shame
The Ultimate and Inevitable Fall of OpenAI (Even Brave is 'Bigger' Now)
"When you advertise at the Super Bowl, you’ve reached just about every consumer in America. It’s the last stop. If you’re not profitable yet, you never will be."
Adding Slop to Your Blog Only Makes One Assume All the Text is LLM Slop
Simon Coter from Oracle has turned to slop
Macao is Leaving Microsoft Behind
Windows is falling to new all-time lows
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, February 09, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, February 09, 2025
Microsoft's WSL (LSW) Shows That It Can Never Love Linux, Only Windows
that's just how Microsoft rolls
Activism in Times of War and a Coup
'Linux' Foundation works for fascism
What the Silencing of Neatnik Tells Us About Linus Torvalds Inside a Microsoft-Dominated 'Linux' Foundation
Is Linus Torvalds free to express his mind as he wishes about every topic, even just any technical topic?
Windows Down to 11.35% in Senegal, as Measured by statCounter
Another all-time low (Windows was at 99% in 2009)
"Latest Technology News" in BetaNews is LLM Slop Promoting OOXML and Proprietary Software at the Expense of LibreOffice and OpenDocument Format (ODF)
Remember that "open-source" and Open Source aren't the same; the former is fake