Somebody Seeks Revenge...on Me!
 

I sent an email mildly criticizing (honest) somebody's website and, without responding to me in any way, the webmaster posted the email in its entirety on their website. My address is up there for all the webbots to see and so even Mail.app's Bayesian filter is letting 5 emails per day get by.

I emailed the webmaster and his ISP. The same day, the webmaster changed the webpage to reflect a "warning" prior to clicking on the link to send email. This warning basically says that the webmaster gets "irrevocable license" to any emails sent. Of course, this warning didn't exist prior to my writing the email, and thankfully I have the Google cache to prove it (I saved both the new and cached pages as archives in IE5.5).

This is a disaster, as I don't know what my next step should be. Thus far, I've collected as much information as I could on this guy.

The question is, <b>what does one do next??</b>

change your email addy?

Go talk to a lawyer. Most will talk to you on the phone first and let you explain the facts before deciding whether or not they can help. That part doesn't cost anything.

Getting spam isn't the end of the world, I probably end up with ~30 spam messages a day that my filters don't catch, and I know people who get hundreds.

As for the behaviour of the guy running the website, there's not a lot you can do. He pretty clearly demonstrated that he's immature and refuses to take criticism. As for getting your e-mail address taken down, not gonna happen.

Keep training the SPAM system and maybe add your own rules. If you don't get much email you can go the other way and make up rules creating a white list of users who CAN email you.

I hope you're not talking about http://maddox.xmission.com/ because that guy will not give up.

From what you posted above, I just thought that this might be the sight you're refering to, seeing how he is famous for that kind of thing.

docbungle, the link doesnt work.

and back on topic, the isp looks like your only hope.

just take off the comma at the end ;)

with sites like that link docbungle gave, those guys dont give a crap! there is nothing you can do but give up or get him back hard other wise just say fuck it cause the guy is a dipshit.

if my attempts with a lawyer and ISP fail, how would one suggest "getting him back harder"?

man, it would be very easy to go about "getting him back harder", but remember there's always someone out there who's more l33t than you -- unless they are personally attacking you or causing you some sort of real harm, i'd say just let it slide and ignore 'em all. who cares, i say screw 'em!!
email spam is easy to filter out, on one of my accounts i probably get more than 50+ junk emails each day -- but the filters catch em and there's no harm done. doesn't bother me, but that's a junk account.
even if they are DDOS-ing you, your ISP can take care of that pretty quickly, and in that case it usually only lasts for a few hours.
if it's more serious than that, definitely talk to a lawyer, and check out your legal options! good luck!!

Post a story about it to Slashdot, with a link to his site.

Once his site is "Slashdotted" and he's paying umpteen bucks worth of extra bandwidth charges... well at the very least the site will be offline for a little while.

or Fark. I think if your chances are slim and none of getting it posted on slashdot (which is what I think they are), your chances are at least slim to get it posted on fark.

you could fark it as well...

Yeah, the only reason I think it might stand a chance getting on /. would be the "posting his email where the spam-bots can get to it" angle. Probably cause some frothing mouths at /.

Two words:

DOS attack

ok, I am pretty sure that doesn't mean DiskOperatingSystem Attack, Somebody want to explain it to me?

Denial of Service
a quick link found on google

not exactly legal btw.

not that this is your fault, macman, but you should have used an online email service to send the initial email from. any time you email someone you dont know, you run the risk of having your email addy exposed to the general internet public. use your home addy only for correspondence with those you know and trust.

http://jetable.org/ -- offers timed, disposable email addresses. Set it up for 24 hours and it sends all email to the new disposable address to your real address for 24 hours and then is disposed of. Great for sending this type of email.

No, no, I've been using computers for years and the Internet since '94...hell, I remember eWorld! But it was careless for me to use my real addy...really, it became a case of "Ah hell, he can't *really* be an insane asshole"...

Thanks for all the advice, guys; yeah I'm doing the jetable.com thing now, it's a great idea.

<b>Oh</b>, and I've found a very last resort for myself, by the way, that wouldn't disrupt things to a dramatic extent. Since realizing this "out," I'm feeling a lot better :-)

Well what site was it? I personally think that Maddox's site is great, and he isnt a jackass to you unless you are totally a dipshit. From reading the hatemail he posts, i can say that those people deserved every bit of it because they are stupid as all hell.

If it was Maddox's site, if you write him an email asking him to take down the email addy he will do it. He has done it before.

All of this might have been avoided had the "mildly critical" email not been sent. I have no idea what your comment was, nor does it matter, however you are now dealing with the consequences of your action.

While you and I have every right in the world to share our opinion, that doesn't keep us immune from bullies and vengeful people.

Sounds like this was a lesson learned in what NOT to do if you want to criticize someone.

What did my mother always say: "if you don't have something nice to say about someone, don't say anything at all."

Life will go on and you will survive things that will make this pale in comparison.

:)

You could always try and find out where the guy lives, pay him a visit, and "persuade" him to stop this... When talking doesn't work, brutal beatings usually do.

This sounds like the kind of guy that is very brave while anonymous on the internet, but just pathetic in real life. He obviously needs to get his arse kicked, so that *he* will see the consequences of his actions, not you. A nice little lawsuit might do the trick too, but only if you stand a chance, of course.

And yes, people like this piss me off.

(/vengeful nature)

I'm not going to say the site, since *that* might get my arse in deeper shyt, too (who knows) but it's not Maddox's site. And yes, Rubicon, I'm living with the consequences, but it's like morphine, I'm trying to find a way to dull the pain. Ok, maybe it's more like an antibiotic, I'm trying to find a way to limit the damage. But I could use some morphine.

:-)

One might say that the site's owner is harrassing you; he might be spamming you (which might be illegal); he might be abusing your copyright by reprinting the e-mail. He definately is a massive jerk.

Limiting the damage may seem like it's good for you, but he'll end up "winning", because you gave up; he's probably getting a stiffy by doing that. He'll also be going on to annoy other people this way.

If you manage to get his home address, there's tons of non-violent things you can do to ruin his life. Sign him on for junk mail, putting up his name and details in a "looking for gay S&M sex" ad, and other such things.

If you cannot get the details, at least you have his e-mail addy, which can be used in various get-back schemes. A similar "mail the asshole" site, or a round of sign-me-up-for-gay-midget-S&M-porn-spam might annoy him a lot.

(Note: I have nothing against gay S&M porn, nor midgets performing in such acts. It's just an example. :) )

I can offer you one way to annoy the individual without getting into any trouble with hacking laws. If you know the person's mailing address, sign them up for all sorts of "reader response" information like you see in the backs of magazines.

They will eventually get on so many mailing lists that their postal mailbox will be worse than their email box.

Thanks for the support, everybody. These suggestions are quite interesting, but I'll have to wait until diplomacy fails :-)

One thing is for sure, though - I'm NOT going to give up on this one.

SCORE!

I didn't have to resort to any cruel nonsense on the Internet! I asked the guy again, noting that I caught the change with his "website warning," indicating that I've been getting lots of spam lately, and ending with asking for him to be decent to another human being.

It worked; thanks for all the support through this guys!