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Privacy Your Rights Online

Richard Smith Moves From Privacy To Safety 15

griffjon writes: "Wired has an article on Richard M. Smith's (the other RMS) retirement from The Privacy Foundation to focus on safety using personal information, saying 'Most citizens, including me, have now put privacy concerns on the back burner. Sept. 11 completely changed everything, and one of the things it changed is that people are far less concerned about what the private sector is doing with information, and far more concerned about what the government is doing to keep them safe.'" I hope that he'll be keeping an eye out for privacy violations regardless.
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Richard Smith Moves From Privacy To Safety

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  • by VA Software ( 533136 ) on Thursday November 08, 2001 @08:36PM (#2540958) Homepage
    Smith believes the most effective air security system is a low-tech solution: reinforced cockpit doors

    So the information expert's recommendation is a hardware solution?

    The people that are more knowledgable about such things think Anti-terrorist cockpit doors are dangerous [bbc.co.uk]
  • Fool. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by forkspoon ( 116573 ) on Thursday November 08, 2001 @09:03PM (#2541083) Journal
    Those who oppose freedom and civil liberties want exactly this - it is the definition of terrorism and a fundamental rule of war to psychologically terrorise your opponent. By abadoning core values for conveinience and "safety", one hands a victory to their opponent. This perspective is the policy equivalent to runny away from a bully.

    Thanks,

    Travis
    forkspoon@hotmail.com
    • This is a load of crap. If I hold an unrealistic view of the world prior to a terrorist event then saying that replacing that view with a more realistic understanding of the way things work is somehow a victory for the terrorists is lunacy.

      Anyone that tries to convince you that changing your ways is somehow a "win" for terrorists simply has a vested interest in the stasis-quo.

      Be afraid - the world is a scary place. Be prepared - the world is an unpredictable place. Be alert - the world does not owe you a free ride.

  • I agree with forkspoon in that once we give up rights or allow those rights to be taken from us, the terrorist has won and we have lost bigtime. This new anti-terrorist bill that passed has taken away any barriers to the GOV monitoring, confiscating, etc anyone's computer (without a warrant) just by saying they "suspect this individual of terrorist activities". They do not have to seek a formal warrant or show just cause.
  • From the lack of comments posted here it appears that the guy is right: people don't care about privacy anymore.

    If they did, there'd be more comment here, wouldn't there?
    • No, the lack of comments just means it hasn't been a Slashdot front-page article.

      My take on his shift? Very simple.

      "Oh, fuck. The privacy-advocacy market is dead. Time to switch political viewpoints and save my career by joining the winning team."

  • I do it wrong


    Laying here in the shadows of my room, I squint up at my love. My Ms. Portman.
    I am sore and tired after fucking her for eight solid hours. My chapped and aching
    dick is soaking in grits to relieve the pain. She gets on her knees and starts lapping
    the grits up out of the bowl. She places her beautiful hands on my penis and starts to
    lick the grits off my achy piece.


    Massaging my nutsack she....


    WAIT, I DO IT WRONG!!!!


    Yanking my dick out of her mouth I throw her to the ground and shove it in to her
    gaping freshly fisted ass. [goatse.cx]


    "OH BIG ASS SPORK!! Fuck my ass, fuck my ass good. DEEPER, my stallion, deeper!!
    Make a Beowulf cluster of sperm on my back!!"


    "Imagine a Beowulf cluster of this baby!"


    I DO IT WRONG!!!!





    Due to excessive bad posting from this IP or Subnet, comment posting has temporarily been disabled. If it's you, consider this a chance to sit in the timeout corner. If it's someone else, this is a chance to hunt them down. If you think this is unfair, please email jamie@mccarthy.vg.

    HAHAHAHAA fuckers! I am not ssooo wrong I can't recover! All your trolls are belong to... forget it...

    Q: What do you call a 30week-old premee?
    A: An Appetizer!

    Q: What do you call a dead baby with no arms and no legs laying in a ditch?
    A: Phil

    Q: What is special about a dead baby over all other forms of life
    A: You can achieve deep throat from whichever way you enter

    Q: How are babies and the elderly alike?
    A: Both are fun to throw out of moving cars.

    Q: What's red and dances
    A: A baby on a barbecue

    Q: Whats worse than finding 7 dead babies in 1 trash can?
    A: Finding 1 dead baby in 7 trash cans.

    Q: What's the difference between a Dead Baby and a tree?
    A: One is legal to hit with an AX.

    Q: What bounces up and down at 100mph?
    A: A baby tied to the back of a truck.

    Q: What's brown and gurgles?
    A: A baby in a casserole.

    Q: Whats the best thing about a siamese twin baby?
    A: Threesomes.

    Q: What do you get when you have sex with a pregnant woman?
    A: A baby with a black eye!

    Q: What's blue and flies around the room at high speeds?
    A: A baby with a punctured lung.

    Q: What's red and goes round and round?
    A: A baby in a garbage disposal.

    Q: What's the difference between a gay man and a freezer?
    A: You can't hide dead babies in a gay man.

    Q: What's more fun than strapping a baby to a washingline and then spinning it around at 200km/h?
    A: Stopping it with a shovel.

    Q: What do you call a dead baby with no arms and no legs hanging on your wall?
    A: Art

    Q: What do you call a dead baby with no arms and no legs laying on your porch?
    A: Matt

    Q: What do you call a dead baby with no arms and no legs laying on a beach?
    A: Sandy

    Q: What do you call a dead baby with no arms and no legs in a swimming pool?
    A: Bob

    Q: What do you call a dead baby with no arms and no legs in the middle of the ocean?
    A: Fucked

    Q: Whats worse than smoking pot with a baby?
    A: Making a bong out of it.

    Q: What's the difference between a dead baby and a felt tip marker?
    A: you don't get second looks when you're writing with a felt tip marker!

    Q: Why did the dead baby cross the road?
    A: It was chained to a bumper.

    Q: What do you have when you have 4 dead babies, take away two, and add 5 more?
    A: An orgy!

    Q: What's the difference between a dead baby and a table?
    A: You can't fuck a table.

    Q: How do you make a dead baby float?
    A: Take your foot off of it's head.

    Q: If a tree falls on a baby in the forest, and no one is around to hear it, is it still hilarious?

    Q: What is red and creeps up your leg?
    A: A homesick abortion.

    Q: What's red and lies in all four corners of the room?
    A: A baby that's been playing with a chainsaw.

    Q: What do vegetarian dingos eat?
    A: Cabbage patch kids.

    Q : Whats white and bobs up and down in a baby's crib ?
    A : A Pedophiles ass.

    Q: What's the difference between a watermelon and a dead baby?
    A: A watermelon floats.

    Q: Whats the safest way to play with a baby ?
    A: With a condom.

    Q: What gets louder as it gets smaller?
    A: A baby in a trash compacter.

    Q: What do you call a baby on a stick?
    A: A Kebabie.

    Q: What's the difference between a lamp and a dead baby?
    A: It's really easy to turn on a lamp.

    Q: Whats does a blind, deaf, quadriplegic baby can get for Christmas ?
    A: Cancer.

    Q: Why are test tube babies the most beautiful ones?
    A: Because they're hand made.

    Q: What's the difference between a dead baby and a trampoline?
    A: When you jump on a trampoline, you take your boots off.

    Q: What is the definition of revenge?
    A: A baby with a dingo in its mouth.

    Q: What's the difference between a baby and a bagel?
    A: You can put a bagel in the toaster. You have to put the baby in the oven.

    Q: What's the difference between a bucket of gravel and a bucket of baby guts?
    A: You can't gargle gravel.

    Q: Why did the toddler fall off his bike?
    A1: A fridge fell on him .
    A2: He was quadraplegic.

    Q: Why do you unload a truck full of babies with a pitchfork?
    A: So you can tell which ones are still alive.

    Q: How do you know when you hit a live one?
    A: The pitchfork shakes

    Q: What's this? (hold arms out and shake them)
    A: A live one.

    Q: Why do you stick a baby in the blender feet first?
    A: So you can see the expression on its face!

    Q: What's blue and thrashes about on the floor?
    A: A baby playing in a plastic bag.

    Q: What is bright blue, pink, and sizzles?
    A: A baby trying to breast feed from an electrical outlet.

    Q: What's sicker than driving over a baby?
    A: Skidding.

    Q: How do you spoil a baby?
    A: Leave it out in the sun.

    Q: How do you stop a baby falling down a manhole?
    A: Stick a javelin through it's head.

    Q: How do you make a gay men pregnant?
    A: stick a dead baby up his ass!

    Q: Why did the toddler drop it's lollypop?
    A: It was hit by a truck...

    Q: What goes plop, plop, fizz, fizz?
    A: Twins in an acid bath.

    Q: What's red, screams and goes around in circles?
    A: A baby with its foot nailed to the floor.

    Q: What's the difference between a Cadillac and a pile of dead babies?
    A: I don't have a Cadillac in my garage.

    Q: How many babies does it take to paint a house?
    A: Depends how hard you throw them

    Q: Whats more fun than feeling up a dead baby
    A: Feeling up a dead baby with three nipples

    Q: What is the differance between a dead baby and a VHS tape?
    A: The VHS tape don't stink when you leave it out in the sun

    Q: How do you prepare a dead baby for Valentine's Day?
    A: You shove a box of chocolates down his throat and a boquet of roses up his ass.

    Q: Why did the Baby fall out of the Tree?
    A: Because he was DEAD!

    Q: What's grosser than gross?
    A: A garbage can full of dead babies.
    Q: What's grosser than that?
    A: The one at the bottom is still alive.
    Q: What's grosser than that?
    A: He has to eat his way to freedom.
    Q: What's grosser than that?
    A: He goes back for more.

    Q: How do you get a baby to run faster?
    A: Chase it with the lawn mower.

    Q. What's the difference between a dead baby and an onion.
    A. You don't cry when you chop up a dead baby.

    Q: What has 4 legs and one arm?
    A: A Doberman in a children's playground!

    Q:What does a baby and a Pinto have in common?
    A:They're fun to ride until they die.

    Q: What happens when you burn baby's face off?
    A: It makes weird noises and crawls into walls.

    Q: what's funnier than a dead baby?
    A: a dead baby sitting next to a kid with down syndrome.

    Q: What do you get whan you dislocate a dead baby's jaw?
    A: Deep Throat.

    Q: What's blue and bloated and floating in your beer?
    A: A dead baby with fetal alcohol syndrome!

    Q: Whats white and red and hangs from a telephone wire?
    A: A baby shot through a snowblower.

    Q: How do you know when a baby is a dead baby?
    A: The dog plays with it more.

    Q: What does a bum call a dead baby in a dumpster?
    A: A Freeloader.

    Q: What do you get when you put a dead baby in a blender?
    A: Hold on. I'll tell you in a second.

    Q: What is better than a dead baby?
    A: The revoked child-support.

    Q: Whats the difference between a baby and a grandmother?
    A: Grandmothers dont die when you fuck them in the ass

    Q: What's the difference between a dead baby and a peanut butter cup?
    A: The dead baby won't stick to the roof of your mouth.

    Q: Why didn't they crucify baby jesus?
    A: I dont know why they didn't either.

    Q: What's the difference between a truck full of bowling balls and a truck full of dead babies?
    A: You can't unload a truck full of bowling balls with a pitchfork.

    Q: What's the worst thing about fucking a dead baby?
    A: Wiping the blood stains off of your clown suit!

    Q: What's the best sound in the world?
    A: Hearing dead baby's hips crack under pressure!

    Q: what wiggles spits and is covered in shit?
    A: inside out baby!

    Q: What's blue and orange and lies at the bottom of a swimming pool?
    A: A baby with burst armbands.

    Q: How do you make a dead baby float?
    A: Two scoops of ice cream, one scoop of dead baby.

    Q: Whats worse than a having sex with a dead baby?
    A: Having sex with a dead baby filled with razor blades.

    Q: What's 18 inches long and makes women scream all night ?
    A: Crib death.

    Q: Why is there always hot water at childbirth?
    A: In case of a stillbirth, soup.

    Q: How do you stop a baby from choking?
    A: Take your dick out of its mouth.

    Q: What's red, bubbly, and scratches at the window before exploding?
    A: A baby in a microwave.

    Q: When is the best time to bury that baby you killed?
    A: When it starts talking to you again.

    Q: How many babies does it take to make a bottle of baby oil?
    A: It depends on how hard you squeeze them.

    Q: What's more fun than stapling babies to a wall?
    A: Ripping them off again.

    Q: What do you call a dead baby with its skin peeled off?
    A: Sexy.

    Q: What's funnier than a dead baby?
    A: A dead baby in a clown costume!

    Q: What's blue and flies around the room at high speeds?
    A: A baby with a punctured lung.

    Q: What do you call a dead baby pinned to your wall?
    A: Art!

    Q: How do you get 100 babies into a bucket?
    A: With a blender!

    Q: How do you get them out again?
    A: With Doritos!!

    Q: What is pink and red and sits in a corner?
    A: A baby chewing on razor blades.

    Q: What is green and sits in a corner?
    A: The same baby, six weeks later.

    Q: What is red and pink and can't turn round in a corridor?
    A: A baby with a javelin through its throat.

    Q: What is more disgusting than a pile of 100 dead babies?
    A: One live one in the middle is eating its way out.

    Q: What's blue and sits in the corner?
    A: A baby in a baggie.

    Q: What's present do you get for a dead baby?
    A: A dead puppy.

    Q: What's purple, covered in pus and squeals?
    A: A peeled baby in a bag of salt.

    Q: What sits in the kitchen and keeps getting smaller and smaller?
    A: A baby combing it's hair with a potato peeler!

    Q: What's pink and red and silver and crawls into walls?
    A: A baby with forks in its eyes.

    Q: Why did the baby cross the road?
    A: It was stapled to the chicken.

    Q: What do you get when you cut a baby with a straight razor?
    A: An erection.

    Q: Why did the baby fall off the swing?
    A: Because it had no arms or legs.

    Q: What's got four wheels, smokes and squeals?
    A: A bus load of babies on fire.

    Q: What's harder to do than nailing a baby to a tree?
    A: Nailing it to a dead puppy.

    Q: What's grosser than ten dead babies nailed to a tree?
    A: One dead baby nailed to ten trees.

    Q: What's pink and chunky?
    A: A baby with leporacy.

    Q: Why do babies have a soft spot in their heads?
    A: So you can pick them up five at a time.

    Q: How many dead babies does it take to screw in a light bulb?
    A: As many as it takes to climb on top of them in order to reach the socket.

    Q: What's pink and spits?
    A: A baby in a frying pan.

    Q: What's worse than finding a dead baby on your pillow in the morning?
    A: Realizing you were drunk and made love to it the night before.

    Q: What's more fun than a barrel of dead babies?
    A: Sticking pins in their eyes.

    Q: How do you make a baby cry twice?
    A: Wipe your bloody cock on his teddy bear

    The /. troll HOWTO
    This is version 0.6 of a troll HOWTO, sort of a companion piece to jsm's excellent troll FAQ. As a draft, comments and criticism are always welcome, if not appreciated :)

    Section 1 - Trolling techniques
    There are techniques used by successful trolls to elicit the maximum amount of responses from unthinking /.ers. This section is dedicated to explaining how to use these in the course of your trolls. Remember though, a great troll can break any or all of these and still be successful...

    Timing
    Because you're posting as an AC, your troll will generally be ignored in favour of posters using their accounts, and so getting in early is essential. A good guideline is to get into the first 20 posts, so that people reading the article will see the troll before it is swamped out. One way of increasing the speed with which you get your troll into play is to prepare them beforehand, and then quickly customise them for the current article. This is easier than it sounds since /. typically repeats stories with small variations and runs lots of similar stories.

    Note that this is why Jon Katz stories are pretty worthless as trolling material - by the time you've found the article and prepared a troll there's already 50+ posts on it, most of them flaming Jon Katz anyway :)

    Exposure
    Once you've got your troll in, you need people to actually read it. You also want replies - /.ers are more likely to read your troll if it starts a large thread. You also want to remember that some people have set their comment thresholds to values higher than 0 - to get the attention of these you either want to get your post moderated up (see Style, below) or get a reply which gets moderated up to 4 or 5, in which case your troll becomes visible to all.

    Accounts
    An alternative to the time-honoured tradition of AC trolling is that of creating a "troll" account. This gives you the advantage of posting at 1 rather than 0, and slashbots are more likely to take you seriously, especially if you at least sound reasonable. If you do this, try to avoid posting stuff where it is obvious you're a troll under the account - post it anoymously instead - some slightly more canny readers actually check your user info before they reply. Not many though :)

    The ultimate goal of the troll account is to secure the +1 bonus, which is currently received once you hit 26 points of Karma. To get there, employ the techniques of karma whoring that we see every day on /. and watch the karma roll in. And of course once you get the +1 bonus, the world is your oyster in terms of /. Posts made at a default of 2 hit even those people with the threshold of 2, are more likely to get moderated up even further if they are at all coherent, and people tend to lose their critical thinking abilities in the face of the +1 bonus. Milk it for all it's worth.

    Layout
    To get people reading it a troll needs to be easily readable. Make sure you break it down into easily digestible paragraphs, use HTML tags where appropriate (but always make sure you close them properly) and use whitespace appropriately.

    Size
    Generally a troll shouldn't be too short, otherwise it'll get lost in the crowd. A workable minimum is a couple of medium paragraphs. Conversely, it shouldn't be too long, or no-one will bother to read it. Keep it to a happy medium.

    Spelling
    Whilst spelling is important if you want the troll to be taken "seriously", key spelling mistakes can draw out the spelling zealots, especially if you mis-spell the name of a venerated /. hero, like Linus Torveldes or Richard Strawlman (thanks dmg). Related to this is the use of the wrong word, explaining an acronym as being something it isn't or making a word into an acronym even when it isn't.

    Subject
    The subject line needs to draw attention to your post without making it obvious that it is a troll. A simple statement of the main point of your argument can work here.

    Style
    Once you realise that most moderators don't bother to read past the first paragraph or two, you can use this fact to craft trolls that can be moderated up as "Insightful" (note that I mean this in the /. sense rather than the real-world sense). Start off fairly reasonable, making statements that are /. friendly and not being too controversial. As the troll goes on, make it more and more controversial, building it up for the coup de grace in the final paragraph.

    Linking
    As we all know, a post with links is considered "informative" by the /. crowd. Moderators love it, and they rarely check the links, so be sure to include as many as possible. And make them wrong - a link to the Perl website should instead point to the Python website instead, and vice versa. The other alternative to incorrect links is "useful" links to places like www.linux.org and www.microsoft.com i.e. places /.ers could never have found on their own :)

    Feeding
    The ideal troll requires no feeding - it runs on its own, generating flamewars between clueless /.ers for your amusement. But often a troll requires some help and so you should consider feeding it. Feeding is best reserved for people making either completely clueless responses, people making responses with holes in, or those wonderful people who write a 2000-word point-by-point rebuttal of your troll.

    Know your audience
    Always keep in mind the kind of things advocated on /. so that you can play on and against them. This is why anti-Linux, creationist, gun-loving, pro-corporation trolls work well - the vast majority of /.ers hold the opposite viewpoints. And if a few people agree with you, so much the better - it merely validates your viewpoint in the eyes of readers.

    Arrogance
    Be arrogant. You, as a troll, know that you're right. No other explanation could exist. The wronger the "fact", the more assertively you should state it. Make it clear that you are better than everyone else - you know the truth and they are just too stupid to realise it. Use plenty of sarcasm, and use "quotes" to show it to people too dumb to realise.

    Offensiveness
    Being offensive in your initial troll can be counter-productive - it causes moderators to mark you down as flamebait in general. But if you're feeding, then you can get away with calling /.ers all kinds of things. Make broad generalisations about /. readers - call them "long-haired Linux zealots", "socialist open-source bigots" or whatever. Stereotyping is encouraged - people always want to think that they're an individual, and will point this out to you given half a chance.

    Indifference
    Great for articles with a political or social bent, this kind of troll expresses complete indifference to the topic at hand, wondering who on Earth cares about it. An alternative method is to say that the topic only concerns a certain group of people - criminals, idiots, hackers (always use this instead of crackers) or whatever group you want to offend.

    Sympathy
    Appear to take the same stance as the people you're trying to troll - claim you're as much a fan of Linux as the next man, but... This way you can make all kinds of claims in the sure knowledge that you actually know what you're talking about. A great phrase to use here is "In my experience". Remember to act like all the things you're pointing out are unfortunate but true.

    The common touch
    Always accuse /.ers of being elitist. This is an easy thing to do seeing as a lot of them are. Claim that is their grandmother couldn't use it, then they are just into it to feel better than Joe Sixpack rather than "doing it for the average user". This is always great for working into anti-Linux trolls - attack command-line tools and poorly designed desktops.

    The 31337 touch
    The opposite of the above. Claim that technology or whatever is only for the elite of society and that any attempt to open it up for everyone is wrong, an attack on intellectualism and possibly even dangerous. If people were meant to understand these things then they would, and it's their fault if they're too stupid to learn.

    Contradiction
    Never be afraid to contradict yourself, even in the space of a single sentence. The phrases "I am a top programmer who codes in VB" or "I am a supporter of open source who uses NT at work and 95 at home" will be sure to get a response from some weenie smugly pointing out the contradiction. Confuse the issue more by engaging in contradiction when you are feeding - this will confuse /.ers who will then make even more stupid replies, leaving them even more wide open for response.

    Clues

    If you're feeling brave, give the reader clues that this is an obvious troll. The classic example here is dmg's stock phrase "I am often accused of trolling (whatever that is)", but also feel free to use phrases like "I have not read the article, and I don't know much about XYZ but I feel I must comment". If anyone responds to a troll with these kinds of clues in it, feel free to bask in the glow of knee-jerk /. responses.

    Denial
    If you're unlucky someone will accuse you of being a troll (surely not!) and try and ruin it for you. If you don't want it all to end there, then be sure to counter it by accusing them of being small-minded and petty, saying that it's easier for them to say it's a troll than to accept that people have different opinions. Be sure to say this in the subject line, especially if their subject was the infamous "YHBT. YHL. HAND."

    Claiming credit
    Given that /. has its community of regular trolls (hi guys!), it's only polite to publish your troll on one of the so-called "hidden" forums for all to see and admire. This way, you get to bask in the praise of other trolls, they get to contribute to your's if they want to, and you get an easy way to find the troll later on when you want to check on its progress :)

    As for when to post it, that's a matter of opinion really. You can either post it straight away or leave it will after people start biting. Remember that the troll forum is also frequented by non-trolls, and sometimes you may get a self-declared "troll-buster" try and expose you. But remember, /.ers always post before thinking, and often it doesn't matter at all.

    There is no real current forum at the moment thanks to various spammers hitting the sids, but try trolltalk, the original troll sid started by 80md and osm way back in the day. Generally all postings are done there as an AC, with your name at the end of the post. Include a link to the troll somewhere in the text, which ideally will be directly to the post and its replies - click on the #XX link in the thread to get there.

    Ending the troll
    Sometimes you just get bored with a troll, or people start posting genuinely thoughtful stuff in reply (it does happen). When this happens it might be time to own up to the troll with a helpful "YHBT. YHL. HAND." post. Sometimes people will carry on a discussion of the issue, and if you're really lucky (and it was a great troll) they will completely fail to believe you and carry on arguing. If that happens, pat yourself on the back for writing a great troll :)

    The cheap $3 crack
    Finally, when all else fails and your troll gets moderated down to (-1, Troll) within ten seconds of you posting it, the only honourable thing to do is to accuse the moderators of smoking the cheap $3 crack (again) and give up :(

    Section 2 - Types of troll
    The Maniac
    Probably the most popular kind of troll, the Maniac holds an opinion on something, and won't budge from that opinion no matter what evidence to the contrary is presented. If challenged, the Maniac will simply get more and more agitated and abusive, deriding his opponents as "idiots", "wrong-thinking", "dangerous" and "subversive". Generally the Maniac takes a position that opposes the prevalent /. beliefs, but a similar effect can be achieved by taking a typical /. viewpoint and pushing it to ridiculous extremes.

    Maniacs can be crafted for practically every article /. posts, although some are more obvious targets than others. Civil liberty articles, especially on things like censorship, DMCA, UCITA that really get /.ers riled up, are usually extremely fruitful grounds for a well-crafted maniac. The other obvious type of article is anything which could possibly involve religion, especially evolution :)

    Here are some fruitful avenues to explore:

    The Right-Wing Maniac
    Always popular, the right-wing maniac (RWM) is a God-fearing, gun-toting, flag-waving American, and proud of it. They don't care about the rest of the world, unless it's to "prove" that America is better than everything else, and they cannot stand liberal whining over civil rights. They hate the moral decay of America and want it to revert into a nation of heterosexual, Christian whites like it was meant to be. Woe betide anyone that dares to suggest otherwise.

    Religion
    There are two ways to approach this kind of maniac. The harder to pull off is the militant atheist, but this is quite common amongst /. posters and you would have to be very offensive to get this to work. Of course with religion trolls, the argument can go on for ever once it's started... The more common approach is the Christian fundamentalist. They are ignorant, intolerant and bigoted in the extreme. For them the Bible is the inerrant word of God revealed to man - it contains no flaws and no contradictions. Thus they are strict Creationists - mentions of evolution or cosmology will set them off on vitriolic rants. Flaming denunciations of anyone daring to contradict the "Word of God" are the way to go, and any kind of proof can always be ignored by appealing to "secular humanist brainwashing". And let's not forget, the USA is the greatest nation on Earth because it has the righteous power of Jesus Christ behind it.

    Ideology
    Pick a philosophy, any philosophy. This troll is a troll with a cause - they have found some kind of ideological truth, and are out to expose every other philosophy as a sham. Whether it be libertarianism, objectivism, communism or capitalism, this troll will point out the obvious "flaws" in any other philosophies, whilst spouting dogma about their own. And the best thing is - you don't even need to know that much about what you're spouting - making doctrinaire mistakes will get both sides of the argument flaming you, adding to the fun.

    Software
    This is an old favourite and crops up in many forms, covering the gamut from OS maniacs (Linux zealots, MS-apologists or embittered BSD fanatics), language maniacs (Pascal vs. C, C vs. C++, C++ vs. Java, Perl vs. Python, VB vs. everything), application maniacs(GIMP vs. Photoshop, Netscape vs. IE, vi vs. emacs) and also includes people who complain about how technology should only be for the 31337 hackers.

    Guns
    Americans love their guns, and will always fight passionately for their Constitutionally guarenteed rights to bear arms and shoot people. Even the slightest hint of criticism of this will bring down the wrath of a thousand and one enraged gun-owners on you, so it's always a great point to work into a troll :)

    The Expert
    The Expert is someone who is "savvy" in their particular field, and is perfectly willing to give their opinion on any topic even vauguely related to their field. The Expert is most likely to be from a field which /.ers as a rule despise - the classic example is dumb marketing guy, but try consultants, lawyers, politicians, lobbyists, executives, journalists (just think Jon Katz). With this kind of troll sweeping statements with little content are the norm, along wire dire portents of future catastrophe and dark hints of "insider knowledge".

    Some possible angles to exploit:

    Industry knowledge
    The expert knows the computing industry from the inside - as a long-term pro, they can dispense knowledge knowing that they can "speak for the industry". Their smug self-satisfaction is bound to annoy, as is any suggestion that things aren't the way that /.ers would like it - saying "Linux requires the rock-solid guarantee of a trusted company like Microsoft" or "Apache cannot be trusted for mission-critical enterprise platforms" is guaranteed to get you denials explaining exactly why you're wrong, in excruciating detail.

    Helpful hints
    With their tech-savvy (or law-savvy or whatever) experience, the expert is obviously the best person to point out what's wrong with things or to give out useful "factual" information. In fact this probably works best with lawyer trolls - for all that /.ers protest "IANAL", they certainly seem to think they could be, and any mistakes you make will send them rushing to prove themselves by correcting you.

    Offtopic Trolls
    Not really a "troll" in the strict Jargon File sense of the word, but they certainly should be included here :) This category includes parodies, offtopic weirdness any all kinds of amusing stuff. Not really my area of expertise, this stuff is mainly done by gnarphlager and opensourceman. Thanks to gnarphlager for this section.

    Offtopic trolls, like any other, come in almost as many colours as an iMac, but generally not as cute. But then again, a good offtopic "troll" can affect more people than a repulsive little gumdrop on your desk, because you need to have someone SEE your desk before they can react. Simple? Moreso than even my overblown prose could indicate. Some basic examples:

    The serial troll
    Write a story. Keep expanding it. It doesn't matter what article you post it under, so long as it's high up. If you want people to recognize you, pick a couple themes or symbols, and carry them on throughout the story. Other alternatives include back linking or including the entire story, but adding more each time. Be funny if you want. Or if you don't feel like being funny, just be really weird. Someone will react.

    The random troll
    This has nothing to do with anything. Be it a stream of consciousness rant, or a description of the corner of your desk. Another favorite is a monologue, read as if spoken from any one given entity to another. The more outlandish, the better (a pair of socks talking to a mousepad, for example). If you really wanted to be artsy, work in an actual metaphor or legitimate meaning behind it, but it's not necessary.

    The vaguely related troll
    Start out with a comment about the article. Have a definite opinion of it. Then, after a little while, disintegrate into randomness. All roads eventually can eventually lead to cheese (yum), Natalie Portman, cannibalism, toasters, squirrels, futons, you name it. All it takes is a little bit of creativity. Oh, and feel free to use other trolls' motifs. Open source and all that ;-)

    General tips:

    If it's funny for a fleeting moment, then it's worth posting.
    Puns. Puns are only less vile than mimes, but it's hard to mime on /. So feel free/obligated to litter your offtopic and random bits with puns. Hurt the bastards. And if they're sick enough to laugh at them, then they'll eventually end up here ;-)
    Obscure cultural references and injokes are always good. SOMEONE will get them eventually.
    Several drafts of a serial or random post are common, but true elegance is being able to come up with something on the spot that still makes the top 40 posts (on a post-heavy article)
    Section 3 - Useful trolling links
    The following links contain background information useful for trolls needing quick quotes and "expert" opinions to include.

    General purpose links

    ddi.digital.net/~gandalf/trollfaq.html - How to deal with USENET trolls - learn your enemy :)
    www.don-lindsay-archive.org/skeptic/arguments.ht ml - A List Of Fallacious Arguments - Learn them and use them liberally
    www.altairiv.demon.co.uk/troll/trollfaq.html - USENET troll HOWTO
    www.baiting.org - Baiting.org
    www.fieldingtravel.com/df/index.htm - Fielding's DangerFinder - A guide to what and where's dangerous

    Religious links

    www.godhatesamerica.com/ - God Hates America
    www.chalcedon.edu/creed.html - The Creed of Christian Reconstruction
    www.demonbuster.com - How to cast out your demons and do spiritual warfare
    riceinfo.rice.edu/armadillo/Sciacademy/riggins/t hi ngs.htm - Things Creationists hate
    www.icr.org/ - Institute for Creation Research
    www.xenu.net - Operation Clambake - The fight against Scientology on the net
    www.hom.net/~angels/ - Citizens for the Ten Commandments
    www.bju.edu/rcnbc.html - The difference between Catholics and Christians
    www.geocities.com/prazske00/biblequotes.html - Bible quotes by category

    Political/economy links

    www.aynrand.org - The Ayn Rand Institute
    www.reason.com - Libertarian site
    www.freerepublic.com - Right-wing stuff
    www.jbs.org - Excellent site for all kinds of right-wingery
    www.dack.com/web/bullshit.html - Web economy bullshit generator

    Crackpot science links

    www.fixedearth.com - The Earth Is Not Moving
    www.jir.com/index.htm - The Journal of Irreproducible Results
  • Well, put it this way, we are all running around like raving loonies, not trusting the next person, jumping whenever something happens. We are also giving away freedoms and truths left right and center. I thought this is what the terrorists have set out to do, incite terror in us. This is not a nice world to be currently living in, but what choice do i have?

As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality. -- Albert Einstein

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