The Axis of Evil
Businesses Complicit with Cyberstalking Create a Defamation Superhighway
Search behemoths (most notably Google), Usenet news groups (most notably psychologists on sci.psychology.psychotherapy), and the news readers, have joined forces to build a defamation delivery system, otherwise known as the Defamation Superhighway, in reference to the ease in which defamatory material can be disseminated on the Web.
At the top of the diagram, we have the individual stalkers themselves, though it is not meaningful to refer to these persons as individuals in that none of them would be engaged in stalking if he or she did not have the support of confederates. The stalking is inspired, anonymized, modeled, legitimated, and disseminated by the group. Individuals working under multiple aliases and in collaboration with confederates creates an illusion of "much to do about something." As displayed in the diagram, the stalkers achieve another level of anonymity by expressing themselves through the use of tools that conceal or distort the address of their computer. Anonymous re-mailers relay a message to the news group through as many as six proxy servers, making the source of the message virtually untraceable. NNTP posting services (news servers) substitute the address of its own server for that of the messenger. These tools, in addition to other spoofing techniques & technologies, anonymize the messenger at the source. The Usenet platform (news groups) supports all these practices.
Once the messages are distributed to news groups, they become more immovable than any historical landmark. Usenet news groups have no ownership nor oversight, so there is no moderator to whom to direct complaints. This is one of the characteristics of the Usenet environment that make news groups attractive to stalkers. The other benefit of Usenet is its universality and innervation of the search engines. With thousands of news servers (also "news readers") programmed to receive messaging streams automatically from a thematic subset of news groups (e.g. health-related groups), any given news group message may be duplicated into dozens of pages with distinct URLs so that each one is recognized as independent content by robots (i.e. spiders, crawlers, wanderers) that index the Web for search engines. This multiplicity, coupled with the sheer number of ISPs that provide access to news groups, also contribute to the privileged ranking of news group messages in the results of a search.
The news reader is the only entity complainants can effectively lobby. While Article 230 of the Communications Decency Act excuses search engines from moderating responsibilities by immunizing them against civil liability, news readers, despite content automation similar to search engines, are not similarly protected as conduits. However, the sheer number of news readers presents a prohibitive challenge to complainants, who compare efforts to expunge news readers of false or unflattering messages to plugging 50 holes in a dam with 10 fingers. The creators of news readers range from well-meaning facilitator extraordinaires who believe they're connecting the masses to valuable resources (e.g. www.pahealthsystems.com/ and www.laborlawtalk.com) to stalkers and voyeurs who think the world wants to eavesdrop on flame wars or who seek to harass targets by skewing the way they're viewed through the eyes of Google (e.g. news-reader.org, www.news2mail.com). Regardless, each type of news reader admin has a reason to hide, if for no other reason than to avoid the work involved in adjudicating a critical mass of complaints.
Enter Domains by Proxy, Inc., a subsidary of Go Daddy.com, which provides privacy services by substituting its own company name and address for the name and address of its clients.
Once the Domains by Proxy, Inc. manager responds favorably to letters of complaint delivered by certified mail and removes its privacy services, the complainant discovers that the name and address information for the owner of the news reader (or libelous anti-target Web site) is fraudulent. In an alarmingly growing number of cases, these news readers are registered and hosted by Go Daddy.com, which built a business on the reputation for protecting abusive sites. Thus what we find at this level of the diagram is the domain registar / host that anonymizes the owner of the web site carrying the abusive content. In addition to an anonymous messenger, the parties responsible for the message's medium is either non-existent (Usenet news group) or hiding (news reader / abusive web site).
Like many news readers (e.g. pych-one.com), The Chat about Network web site and The Out Support Forums web site (AlltheSupport.com) web site are hosted by Domains by Proxy, contain no valid contact information, and provide false contact information to "WHOIS" databases.
Oh, the Chat about Network talks tough on legality. It's Terms of Service, designed exclusively to protect -- guess who? -- the Chat about Network, reads like an operations manual for the Department of Defense.
But when it's all said and done...
The company is apparently based in Virginia, but Domain Registration information directs your correspondence to Arizona-based Domains by Proxy. Domains by Proxy replied to a solicitation for legitimate contact information. In the reply, Domains by Proxy required that requests connected with legal issues be delivered by certified mail.
We also notice the same abusive evasiveness and deception by Domains-by-Proxy client allthesupport.com:
At first, I try to reach them through the e-mail address advertised on the web site as a point of contact:
When that fails, I use the official contact address presented by Domains by Proxy to the "Who Is" directories of domain registration web sites:
And the search engine Google, which purchased Usenet's archive from deja.com (i.e. Google Groups), is beginning to archive these messages directly from its Google Groups (Usenet news groups) to Google Web, ensuring that even a total recall of a message from the news readers will not prevent the message from appearing in a Google search of your name. The screen capture below serves as evidence that Google is indexing Usenet news groups.
It is a perfect marriage, the one between Domains by Proxy, Google, Usenet, and the network of news servers that multiply the white light from Usenet into a spectrum of web sites for the Google search engine. I too once championed the right to complete anonymity on the Internet, that is, until it became all to plain that these services make spamming and cyberstalking possible and provide no protection to the victims. Isn't it interesting that the most vocal defenders of freedom and privacy are those who depend on it to break laws or generally inflict harm on others?
All parties attempt to deflect responsibility for the defamation on to some other entity. Google refers me to the news readers, and in so doing, feeds me to the stalkers who developed some of these things. Google also suggests I blame the original authors -- stalkers -- as well. And as for my stalkers, well, they blame me for being the person I am. They will cease using the news groups for harassment and character assassination once I terminate my book, my Web site, and my association with an individual who happens to be on their enemies list. But it is not my responsibility to change who I am and what I believe, and news readers that circumvent disclosure laws cannot be held accountable either, not without an attorney and a good private detective. As for Google, well, Google recently informed me that if I compelled them by legal document to alter their archives in any way, which includes removing some post with no value beyond its potential for threat and libel, they would forward my name and documentation to an enemies of free speech web site for black listing (i.e. chillingeffects.org). Sounds like a threat to me.
Consultants closely monitoring the stalking of 'Wyatt Ehrenfels' feel strongly that many of the news readers (e.g. allthesupport.com) cropping up in recent months are created by Usenet stalkers with the intent of using the search engines as a defamation superhighway. Previously, the messages were only accessible through a search of the target's name in Google Groups (i.e. Google's interface with Usenet). But assuming you are a moral person free of mental illness, you won't spend very much time in Google Groups. Fond of pointing out that Usenet's network of news groups is "not the Internet," the stalkers are the first to realize the necessity of making the libelous messages in Usenet prominently available to the broader Internet community. Now these messages are accessible through a search of the target's name in Google Web, not to mention other web search engines and, failing to accomplish their purpose of creating doubt about the target, they at least clutter the search results in a way surfers find distracting. "A reasonable human being sees the message for what it is. The forehead wrinkles after an initial scan of the link to the message, and they move on to the next listing without giving it another thought. But while they may not believe the bad, just a handful of prominently placed junk like this can make it more difficult for them to find the good.
