Social ostracization is not happening here. Nobody specific is being called out.
That's unfortunate. His video likely won't amount to a hill of beans in preventing the person from doing it again in the future.
We don't know that; Sid Alpha may not have known the harasser's identity, but IP addresses are a thing. The mail server admin should have that information, which police can obtain with proper cause.
Also, as @Octagon7711 points out, making some noise in a situation like this is in fact the right thing to do.
Actually reporting it to the police is the right thing to do.
Google what to do if you get a death threat.
I'm gonna go out on a limb and say it's REPORT IT TO THE POLICE not make a youtube video.
"You CAN'T buy ships for RL money." - MaxBacon
"classification of games into MMOs is not by rational reasoning" - nariusseldon
Social ostracization is not happening here. Nobody specific is being called out.
That's unfortunate. His video likely won't amount to a hill of beans in preventing the person from doing it again in the future.
We don't know that; Sid Alpha may not have known the harasser's identity, but IP addresses are a thing. The mail server admin should have that information, which police can obtain with proper cause.
Also, as @Octagon7711 points out, making some noise in a situation like this is in fact the right thing to do.
Maybe so. And I never said that he shouldn't make noise, quite the opposite; I would've put the username on blast in a big neon sign so hopefully someone out there who knows who that person is can be like "Wow, a death threat? Dude, grow up. It's just a video game."
There is a very big difference between what you posted and making a detailed, credible threat against someone.
Only Sid Alpha knows as he didn't show the email (good move), but the way he described it made it seem the latter.
Doesn't really matter much, because he also was sharing publicly what for example that guy posted as one youtube comment, he was giving them what they want. A threat needs to be taken seriously and reported.
The moment who does this sees they managed to cause one impact (as with this case), they get what they want. They win, as they're protected by anonymity.
There is a very big difference between what you posted and making a detailed, credible threat against someone.
Only Sid Alpha knows as he didn't show the email (good move), but the way he described it made it seem the latter.
Doesn't really matter much, because he also was sharing publicly what for example that guy posted as one youtube comment, he was giving them what they want. A threat needs to be taken seriously and reported.
The moment who does this sees they managed to cause one impact (as with this case), they get what they want. They win, as they're protected by anonymity.
Last post on this snafu, but that's... not how the internet works, unless you are using TOR which I'm fairly sure doesn't jibe with email servers.
"The simple is the seal of the true and beauty is the splendor of truth" -Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar Authored 139 missions in VendettaOnline and 6 tracks in Distance
Last post on this snafu, but that's... not how the internet works, unless you are using TOR which I'm fairly sure doesn't jibe with email servers.
Yes but that will fall on the competence of authorities, the really big problem when it comes to death threats, and even when it is possible to track the author, is because it can be anywhere in the world, and the law enforcement on that aspect is one absolute mess.
Also in terms of email servers I think there are anonymous ones for TOR users, and their policies are usually "...does not cooperate with anyone attempting to identify or censor a ... user. We are anonymous and cannot be forced to reveal anything about a ... user.". Those idiots shield this type of people even from the authorities.
There is a very big difference between what you posted and making a detailed, credible threat against someone.
Only Sid Alpha knows as he didn't show the email (good move), but the way he described it made it seem the latter.
Doesn't really matter much, because he also was sharing publicly what for example that guy posted as one youtube comment, he was giving them what they want. A threat needs to be taken seriously and reported.
The moment who does this sees they managed to cause one impact (as with this case), they get what they want. They win, as they're protected by anonymity.
Last post on this snafu, but that's... not how the internet works, unless you are using TOR which I'm fairly sure doesn't jibe with email servers.
I had a friend who had his PS4 stolen this past year (among other things totalling well over 2 grand). He tracked down the machine's unique ID and even gave the authorities the last reported location the PS4 connected to the internet from. They were still able to do nothing about it.
He did the legwork, yet still they weren't able to do anything about finding who it was who stole the items. I don't have a lotta faith most local authorities would do much more here.
He did the legwork, yet still they weren't able to do anything about finding who it was who stole the items. I don't have a lotta faith most local authorities would do much more here.
Exactly, situations that escape this sort of 99.9% broken law enforcement over online crimes is like if the person who did the threat was living in the US against another person living on the US, that's a much easier situation.
But you'd need to be lucky to both stumbles upon a case where the author was track-able and resides on a location the authorities would have power to do something about it.
Internet anonymity shields crime, and we aren't seeing any real effort to change that reality anytime soon --'
Judging how an offender will react is pretty much a guess as no one really knows the offenders intent unless he has a history of following up on threats or bragging about being highlighted in a video. If the person is apprehended and it goes to court the video may be admissible in a trial to illustrate the effect the threat actually had on the victim.
Of course getting a police report doesn't guarantee the person will get caught or even investigated but it does provide an official record of what happened. And if something more should happen it also gives the police a greater reason to subpoena YouTube's or the email's provider records to help track this person down during an investigation.
If the police don't seem to want to do anything, I've seen people go to local investigative newsgroups who usually have a hotline for calling in tips and problems. Sometimes the extra effort resulted in the newsgroup picking the crime up as a story which caused the police to take further action.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
Judging how an offender will react is pretty much a guess as no one really knows the offenders intent unless he has a history of following up on threats or bragging about being highlighted in a video. If the person is apprehended and it goes to court the video may be admissible in a trial to illustrate the effect the threat actually had on the victim.
Of course getting a police report doesn't guarantee the person will get caught or even investigated but it does provide an official record of what happened. And if something more should happen it also gives the police a greater reason to subpoena YouTube's or the email's provider records to help track this person down during an investigation.
If the police don't seem to want to do anything, I've seen people go to local investigative newsgroups who usually have a hotline for calling in tips and problems. Sometimes the extra effort resulted in the newsgroup picking the crime up as a story which caused the police to take further action.
To me, the video only increases the problem. The moment you do that, you are giving them the power they want, the power to cause one impact.
You are feeding the same problem you would want to fight.
This is the same thing that happened with SWATTING, the more attention is given to that as more people talked about it, the more frequent it became, causing a more severe problem that requires going to further lengths to ensure your personal info does not leak.
Judging how an offender will react is pretty much a guess as no one really knows the offenders intent unless he has a history of following up on threats or bragging about being highlighted in a video. If the person is apprehended and it goes to court the video may be admissible in a trial to illustrate the effect the threat actually had on the victim.
Of course getting a police report doesn't guarantee the person will get caught or even investigated but it does provide an official record of what happened. And if something more should happen it also gives the police a greater reason to subpoena YouTube's or the email's provider records to help track this person down during an investigation.
If the police don't seem to want to do anything, I've seen people go to local investigative newsgroups who usually have a hotline for calling in tips and problems. Sometimes the extra effort resulted in the newsgroup picking the crime up as a story which caused the police to take further action.
There's no need to do all that if one can unmask the threat-maker themselves. Internet keeps records. If he follows through with escalating threats or an attempt to do anything more (like gaining PII on the target), guess who has a record on the internet?
I'd surmise the vast majority of death threats are made by folks never intending to follow through (not counting threats made between, say, family member or intimate partners, those are much different than an anonymous internet threat). Most of the time, they don't need a night in jail; they merely need to be highlighted to show how stupid it is to make threats over something so insignificant, shown how the internet will not provide the bulletproof anonymity they thought it would, and how society truly feels about folks making such stupid threats.
Officers generally don't follow up for the very reason that, most of the time, it's a waste of time as the threat-maker has taken no additional steps to act on it. They don't have the resources to follow up on the massive amount of random internet threats thrown around.
Shows more the immaturity of gamer's who defend games like it is their own child or something.Some people have no perspective of common sense or values,they put more value on a video game than perhaps even their own family members. Like imagine if this asshat is a father,gets busted for death threats,goes to jail,leaves his family w/o a dad,again lack of common sense would lead to situations like these.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Anonymity should go away... internet and games should require an ID number of some kind that follows you around...
Did you ever stop and think that the reason the dick who sent death threats to SidAlpha and his child was able to do so because that Youtuber's personal info was publicly available for the creep to use against him?
While true, it's the inequity of the anonymity that enables the threat-maker here. If he were as readily identifiable as Sid, that changes the entire dynamic.
Anonymity should go away... internet and games should require an ID number of some kind that follows you around...
Did you ever stop and think that the reason the dick who sent death threats to SidAlpha and his child was able to do so because that Youtuber's personal info was publicly available for the creep to use against him?
While true, it's the inequity of the anonymity that enables the threat-maker here. If he were as readily identifiable as Sid, that changes the entire dynamic.
And if Sid had mental powers like Professor X he could track the guy down himself, which is about as realistic an idea as an internet with zero anonymity.
Maybe so. Even so, anonymity many times crumbles once the appropriate resources are put to finding the person (unless the person is very well informed on how to hide tracks completely).
Most threat makers like this aren't tech or network gurus. Likely an internet with zero anonymity is impossible. As us a world without crime. Neither means the situation can't be improved tremendously.
Anonymity should go away... internet and games should require an ID number of some kind that follows you around...
Did you ever stop and think that the reason the dick who sent death threats to SidAlpha and his child was able to do so because that Youtuber's personal info was publicly available for the creep to use against him?
While true, it's the inequity of the anonymity that enables the threat-maker here. If he were as readily identifiable as Sid, that changes the entire dynamic.
And if Sid had mental powers like Professor X he could track the guy down himself, which is about as realistic an idea as an internet with zero anonymity.
Maybe so. Even so, anonymity many times crumbles once the appropriate resources are put to finding the person (unless the person is very well informed on how to hide tracks completely).
Most threat makers like this aren't tech or network gurus. Likely an internet with zero anonymity is impossible. As us a world without crime. Neither means the situation can't be improved tremendously.
Well doing something to the assholes if they can be caught would be quite a good start, but sadly even that seems like more than we can hope for.
True enough. Beyond ID chip implanting that interfaces with PCs used to access the internet (Mark of the Beast! Mark of the Beast! Mark of the Beast!), It's a tough problem to tackle.
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
Fanboys are the trash of everything. Most games endup garbage because Devs believe that fanboys speak for everyone. So by doing this giving them false power. Devs are great with ones and zeros but suck at reading people. The choices Devs are making for their games these days are just bad most of the time. Game companies should think about hiring psychologist to give Devs some help with reading people better. And Utubers are not experts at nothing most of the time. They just have a channel where they give their opinion. Why does anyone take them serious has been my question for years.
Fanboys are the trash of everything. Most games endup garbage because Devs believe that fanboys speak for everyone. So by doing this giving them false power. Devs are great with ones and zeros but suck at reading people. The choices Devs are making for their games these days are just bad most of the time. Game companies should think about hiring psychologist to give Devs some help with reading people better.
They do hire psychologists but it's to tell them how they can manipulate people better.
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
Fanboys are the trash of everything. Most games endup garbage because Devs believe that fanboys speak for everyone. So by doing this giving them false power. Devs are great with ones and zeros but suck at reading people. The choices Devs are making for their games these days are just bad most of the time. Game companies should think about hiring psychologist to give Devs some help with reading people better.
They do hire psychologists but it's to tell them how they can manipulate people better.
The first step to resolving issues is to identify the issue. If we remain quiet and do not draw attention because "it is trolling" we only enable this to continue in the background.
In order for laws and change to come about that prevents these types of abuse from occurring it needs to be talked about, it needs to be reported, and it needs to be dealt with. Developers have quit their careers over the types of threats they have recieved, and yet people are focused on "Do not give them attention, it is what they want". Perhaps they do want attention... that is the nature of a child. Attention good or bad is still attention. In other words it does not matter whether he says something or says nothing as it simply feeds the childlike ego of the person who threatened him.
This type of abuse on the internet is quite rampant, I have had children (10 years old) tell me they had a gun on the table next to them and that they were going to come kill me. This is not an acceptable behavior... We as gamers DO need to ostracize these people, as they do not need to reflect on ourselves.
I would also like to note that the actions of one fan DO NOT reflect the entire fan base, and anyone who believes this needs help. I could understand if it was hundreds of fans posting this... but one or two... no.
The first step to resolving issues is to identify the issue. If we remain quiet and do not draw attention because "it is trolling" we only enable this to continue in the background.
Okay that argumentation is flawed to me.
For a simple reason, the issue of death threats has been identified long ago, it has been given a LOT of attention, has anything gotten better? Fixed the problem? No.
In fact attention does not fix anything here, because the solution to deal with it lies within something much more complex, that ties to the same reasons online crime is so hard to stop.
If anything, as I stated before, it increases the problem. When the attention is given, you are giving them the power they want, the power to cause one impact.
We have gone through the same cycle with internet trolling and the more attention it has gotten, the worse it gotten, hence why we ended up on "do not feed the trolls", and I would say a lot of the people that send death threats do fall on that category, intending to cause impact / get a reaction / get attention.
The first step to resolving issues is to identify the issue. If we remain quiet and do not draw attention because "it is trolling" we only enable this to continue in the background.
Okay that argumentation is flawed.
For a simple reason, the issue of death threats has been identified long ago, it has been giving a LOT of attention, has anything gotten better? Fixed the problem? No.
If anything, as I stated before, it increases the problem. When the attention is given, you are giving them the power they want, the power to cause one impact.
We have gone through the same cycle with internet trolling and the more attention it has gotten, the worse it gotten, hence why we ended up on "do not feed the trolls", and I would say a lot of the people that send death threats do fall on that category, intending to cause impact / get a reaction / get attention.
I will agree that generally they are trolls.
However by bringing it out in to the open, this gets back to politicians, analysts, and people that make policy. If it is heard enough they will begin to understand that it is a real problem and change can be made.
As I said earlier they sort of win either way. To say nothing allows the problem to remain silent and allows the problem as a whole to continue. To draw attention to it feeds the troll. I prefer erring on the side of caution. I would also like to note that generally a Troll does not go in to much detail.... the psychology behind a plan does mean that the person is indeed dangerous.
"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing" -Unknown
However by bringing it out in to the open, this gets back to politicians, analysts, and people that make policy. If it is heard enough they will begin to understand that it is a real problem and change can be made.
As I said earlier they sort of win either way. To say nothing allows the problem to remain silent and allows the problem as a whole to continue. To draw attention to it feeds the troll. I prefer erring on the side of caution. I would also like to note that generally a Troll does not go in to much detail.... the psychology behind a plan does mean that the person is indeed dangerous.
"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing" -Unknown
This is the thing though.
Do you realize what it would take to defeat this? We are not talking just death threats and so, but actual online crime, piracy, etc... it all ties to the same sort of lines as to why it happens and why it not only continues to exist, it grows.
We would need fundamental groundbreaking changes to how things work, to how we exist online and the power of law enforcement to be able to defeat this type of stuff, that goes as far as the black market itself.
I think the political degree has been on this for years now, no further attention changes things, just see swatting, everyone recognizes it is a problem, it already led to deaths, but everyone admits they can't stop it, and it becomes up to you to ensure your info doesn't leak to prevent that specific situation.
Comments
"classification of games into MMOs is not by rational reasoning" - nariusseldon
Love Minecraft. And check out my Youtube channel OhCanadaGamer
Try a MUD today at http://www.mudconnect.com/The moment who does this sees they managed to cause one impact (as with this case), they get what they want. They win, as they're protected by anonymity.
"The simple is the seal of the true and beauty is the splendor of truth" -Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
Authored 139 missions in Vendetta Online and 6 tracks in Distance
Also in terms of email servers I think there are anonymous ones for TOR users, and their policies are usually "...does not cooperate with anyone attempting to identify or censor a ... user. We are anonymous and cannot be forced to reveal anything about a ... user.". Those idiots shield this type of people even from the authorities.
He did the legwork, yet still they weren't able to do anything about finding who it was who stole the items. I don't have a lotta faith most local authorities would do much more here.
But you'd need to be lucky to both stumbles upon a case where the author was track-able and resides on a location the authorities would have power to do something about it.
Internet anonymity shields crime, and we aren't seeing any real effort to change that reality anytime soon --'
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
You are feeding the same problem you would want to fight.
This is the same thing that happened with SWATTING, the more attention is given to that as more people talked about it, the more frequent it became, causing a more severe problem that requires going to further lengths to ensure your personal info does not leak.
I'd surmise the vast majority of death threats are made by folks never intending to follow through (not counting threats made between, say, family member or intimate partners, those are much different than an anonymous internet threat). Most of the time, they don't need a night in jail; they merely need to be highlighted to show how stupid it is to make threats over something so insignificant, shown how the internet will not provide the bulletproof anonymity they thought it would, and how society truly feels about folks making such stupid threats.
Officers generally don't follow up for the very reason that, most of the time, it's a waste of time as the threat-maker has taken no additional steps to act on it. They don't have the resources to follow up on the massive amount of random internet threats thrown around.
Like imagine if this asshat is a father,gets busted for death threats,goes to jail,leaves his family w/o a dad,again lack of common sense would lead to situations like these.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Most threat makers like this aren't tech or network gurus. Likely an internet with zero anonymity is impossible. As us a world without crime. Neither means the situation can't be improved tremendously.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
In order for laws and change to come about that prevents these types of abuse from occurring it needs to be talked about, it needs to be reported, and it needs to be dealt with. Developers have quit their careers over the types of threats they have recieved, and yet people are focused on "Do not give them attention, it is what they want". Perhaps they do want attention... that is the nature of a child. Attention good or bad is still attention. In other words it does not matter whether he says something or says nothing as it simply feeds the childlike ego of the person who threatened him.
This type of abuse on the internet is quite rampant, I have had children (10 years old) tell me they had a gun on the table next to them and that they were going to come kill me. This is not an acceptable behavior... We as gamers DO need to ostracize these people, as they do not need to reflect on ourselves.
I would also like to note that the actions of one fan DO NOT reflect the entire fan base, and anyone who believes this needs help. I could understand if it was hundreds of fans posting this... but one or two... no.
For a simple reason, the issue of death threats has been identified long ago, it has been given a LOT of attention, has anything gotten better? Fixed the problem? No.
In fact attention does not fix anything here, because the solution to deal with it lies within something much more complex, that ties to the same reasons online crime is so hard to stop.
If anything, as I stated before, it increases the problem. When the attention is given, you are giving them the power they want, the power to cause one impact.
We have gone through the same cycle with internet trolling and the more attention it has gotten, the worse it gotten, hence why we ended up on "do not feed the trolls", and I would say a lot of the people that send death threats do fall on that category, intending to cause impact / get a reaction / get attention.
However by bringing it out in to the open, this gets back to politicians, analysts, and people that make policy. If it is heard enough they will begin to understand that it is a real problem and change can be made.
As I said earlier they sort of win either way. To say nothing allows the problem to remain silent and allows the problem as a whole to continue. To draw attention to it feeds the troll. I prefer erring on the side of caution. I would also like to note that generally a Troll does not go in to much detail.... the psychology behind a plan does mean that the person is indeed dangerous.
"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing" -Unknown
Do you realize what it would take to defeat this? We are not talking just death threats and so, but actual online crime, piracy, etc... it all ties to the same sort of lines as to why it happens and why it not only continues to exist, it grows.
We would need fundamental groundbreaking changes to how things work, to how we exist online and the power of law enforcement to be able to defeat this type of stuff, that goes as far as the black market itself.
I think the political degree has been on this for years now, no further attention changes things, just see swatting, everyone recognizes it is a problem, it already led to deaths, but everyone admits they can't stop it, and it becomes up to you to ensure your info doesn't leak to prevent that specific situation.