Shostack + Friends Blog Archive

 

Emergent Chaos has TSA "trolls," too

Over at We Won’t Fly, George Donnelly writes:

I was about to delete an offensive comment on this blog – one of the very few we get – and thought, hmm, I wonder where this guy is posting from? Because, really, it is quite unusual for us to get nasty comments. Lo and behold, the troll posted to our website from an IP address controlled by the federal government’s Department of Homeland Security! Here is the taxpayer-funded troll’s gem of a comment, for your entertainment:

In response to Chris’s “Ron Paul supporter inadvertently gets iPhones banned from U.S. aircraft” we got a comment from 216.81.80.134. It was from Ran, and he wrote:

“What color eyes and hair did the terrorist who shot up the Holocaust museum a few days ago have? How about the guy who murdered that abortion doctor?
Are you suggesting that your blonde haired blue eyed friend should be given a pass when alarming airport metal detectors because he has an X-Ray image that he claims is of his ankle? You have got to be kidding, right?”

Which, really, isn’t a dumb comment. It’s an element of a reasonable threat assessment. Which just plays into my confirmation bias that our commenters are regularly smarter and more insightful (or at least more aware of privacy enhancing technologies and practices) than other blogs commenters.

Thank you all for a lovely year of insightful comments here at the combo.