Verifier

Subpage of anglo-pyramidologist/darryl-l-smith/skeptic-from-britain/comment-trolling/

There has been extensive trolling comment on Dr. Kendrick’s blog, see Comment trolling.

Some of these comments used the names of RationalWiki users, and this had happened before with comments here, so this is an established Darryl Smith behavior. I have always held as a possibility that it was a troll, sowing confusion, but this incident increases confidence in the Ockham’s Razor hypothesis: it’s Darryl all the way. When that happened before, I asked users on RatWiki about it and there was much disruption, all unnecessary. (And those questions were used as evidence of my alleged “massive sock puppetry.”)

The behavior stands out clearly here.

An account, Verifier, appeared on RationalWiki, asking a user if a comment on Dr Kendrick’s blog, using the user’s name, was authentic.

Was this you?
Comment on Malcolm Kendrick’s blog by DuceMoosolini‎ March 14, 2019 at 6:27 pm. Verifier (talk) 19:23, 15 March 2019 (UTC)

No, it wasn’t. I have nothing to do with the cholesterol articles, and I’m not sure why someone picked me to impersonate. Especially since they don’t seem to have said anything under my name that I particularly take exception to that I can see. Weird. DuceMoosoliniYour friendly RW dictator moderator 20:08, 15 March 2019 (UTC)

Thanks. It’s not weird, it is common behavior for certain trolls, has happened to many. If you want to know, I have enabled email. –Verifier (talk) 20:58, 15 March 2019 (UTC)

I tried to notify the commenters that it’s not DuceMoosolini, but stingy log-in and password is annoying like usual. Can someone else do it? –It’s-a me, LeftyGreenMario!(Mod) 21:27, 15 March 2019 (UTC)

Actually, I did that at 21:39 (UTC). Notice that a sysop and a Moderator had seen the edit and were not concerned about the identity of the editor, and did it actually matter? DuceMoosolini had been impersonated!

Because I sometimes follow Recent Changes on RatWiki, and I was extending the page on comment trolling, I mentioned the answer of DM, at 21:33.

Darryl has shown many times that he obsessively watches everything I do, especially this blog. Verifier, with no other edits, was blocked by John66 (logs) at 22:00, 15 March 2019, claiming “Block evasion: Abd Lomax sock)”. Now, that might attract attention because there was no sign of that being me other than what Darryl would think, being obsessed, and some sysops have dinged John66 for being trigger-happy. No other Rat would have noticed that comment, and DuceMoosolini was not upset by it, just puzzled (as I would expect). If DM wanted to know who Verifier was, a way was provided.

So Darryl needed to create a smokescreen, something he has done many times. (I will provide documentation on request from any identified person — including any established RatWiki account –, it’s voluminous).

So after blocking Verifier, John66 explained on that talk page.

The impersonations are being done by Abd ul-Rahman Lomax or a troll related to him, probably Mikemikev. Lomax is a cholesterol and statin denialist who has written about a million words about me on his blog, accusing me of being someone else. It appears I am his latest victim. He has gone after David Gerard, Bongolian and now it is my turn. Lomax has been on the web for the last two weeks (on discord, reddit, Twitter and blogs) trying to stir up a flame war between vegans and low-carbers. The “verifier” account above is Lomax. John66 (talk) 22:03, 15 March 2019 (UTC)

(I have not edited Discord, Reddit, in quite a long time, never Twitter. I can see I will need to look at those. But, of course, John66 is claiming that many other names are actually me. At the same time, the socks claim I have no evidence (in spite of reams of evidence provided — but not “millions of words” — whereas John66 And The Socks provide no evidence at all. What is the evidence that Verifier was me?) Meanwhile, to pin the attack on Malcolm Kendrik, started on Wikipedia by Skeptic from Britain (documented on the page above this) continued with a device Darryl used to create belief that the attack was from fanatic Vegans. In that case, it was quite clever: SfB (under his new name) retired, claiming that he had been outed by Kendrick and others, so when I looked, I found single-comment socks claiming that SfB was a young man with initials MCE. So this was then pointed to as proof that it was correct. Those trolls claimed that MCE was a vegan. In fact, MCE was a Wikipedia user who had argued with SfB.

This was an old pattern for Darryl, create disruption and attack on his enemies, by using socks. He’s got years of practice at it. It has worked many times.

All the accounts listed below were created and immediately edited with blatant disruption, obvious trolling. They lie about what is on this blog, frequently (they may copy a piece, then add a twist. This was done before to spread the idea that I was threatening RatWiki with legal action, that I was accusing users of being Smith socks (when that is confined to a very clear and identified set of socks, rarely more than one active for each brother at a time, but Rats commonly claim I believe all of them are Smith socks. Isn’t he crazy? Hah, hah! Bottom line, this incredibly prolific socking has worked for Darryl many times. It is truly amazing how many wiki users have fallen for it. If a sock says “I am so-and-so, and you can’t stop me,” they believe it and So-and-so is then reblocked indef, pursued, hounded, not just by the original enemy that impersonated him, but others offended by the socking they think was So-and-so. I have seen it happen many times.

  • 22:38, 15 March 2019 User account Verifiers (talk | contribs) was created. Edits at 22:42
    • Blocked by John66 at 22:44: (Ban evasion: Another Abd Lomax sock)
    • Reblocked 22:46 by RWRW to allow talk page access, which would make sense, if this had been done for Verifier, but it was done with an obvious impersonation.
  • 22:53, 15 March 2019 User account Randoms (talk | contribs) was created. Edits at 22:56-57
    • Blocked by John66 at 22:59: (Block evasion: Abd sock)
  • 00:26, 16 March 2019 User account A random guy (talk | contribs) was created. Edits at 00:26-27
    • Dysklyver blocked at 0028: (Trolling talk pages)
  • 00:31, 16 March 2019 User account Journalist (talk | contribs) was created. Edits at 00:33
    • Dysklyver blocked at 00:34: (Trolling talk pages)

108.174.61.164 sole edit 04:48, 16 March, asking the same question of Ikanreed. Claims to be Verifier. Blocked by John66 at 04:57 (Block evasion: Abd Lomax sock)

Of course it was an “obvious sock.” That was the point! (“Message” page titles are a common device for Darryl troll socks. I have never created a page like that. Interesting idea, given how deletions are normally handled. Unless it is revision-hid, the message will remain in logs. But when it is really disruptive, it will often be hidden.)

So who would be creating “obvious Abd socks?” Attention deficient Rats think that I would do this, because they have a cartoon concept of what the “cranks” they profile are like. However, I have over thirty years of high internet activity. They claim I have been banned in many places. Yet I have no history of sock trolling.  In fact, I have only rarely created undisclosed additional accounts (and nearly all of that on RationalWiki, where conditions encourage it, and essentially require it, and I have never used such accounts for trolling (I can think of one edit only, and it was quite useful! (There can be a legitimate purpose for creating an emotional response. It’s rare, but it can arise.) Mostly when I have been blocked or banned, (which is nowhere near as common as they claim), it has been for confronting fascist administration and abuse. (On Wikipedia, successfully! I was successful with two ArbCom cases. Then they shoot the messenger.)

Bongolian is complaining to the wrong person. Because it works, the real sock master will continue. I will create a message to Bongolian and will deliver it. It will not be hostile, and it will point to the evidence I have that shows clearly that Bongolian is not suspected of being a Smith or of comment trolling and that the many claims that I promote this idea on the blog are false. When I do this, I will (as I have before with something like this) verify that the message is from me).

If someone else doesn’t do it, and if I have time, I will inform people who have been impersonated of that fact, which transcends site rules, it’s a human collective responsibility, until and unless someone objects to being notified. Personally, I would want to know about every impersonation! With links, please!!!

What the evidence does show, so far, is that Bongolian (a moderator) believes the Smith lies (as do others, but not all Rats.) So much for rational skepticism and critical thinking. Apparently that’s only to be advocated for other people, not practiced personally or collectively on that wiki.

So John66 appears on Kendrick’s blog.

John66

This is John66 from RationalWiki. Abd Lomax has been impersonating various RationalWiki admins from our website such as DuceMoosolini here. He then “blogs” on the impersonations blaming them on someone else, especially me. He was banned for impersonating people on Wikipedia and now he is doing it again.

How did the impersonation of DuceMoosolini come to light? Not just especially him, but probably entirely him, though it is still possible that some of these were the actual user. This one might be authentic, at least.

He has confused my identity with someone else innocent. I have never edited Wikipedia.

Liar, liar, pants on fire. The above statement is an obvious lie, from many evidences. This is Skeptic from Britain, nothing else makes sense. If anyone else wants to argue that it is not, I will host it and all the evidences can be examined.

I am not a vegan activist.

Right. Skeptic from Britain argued with “MCE” on Wikipedia, then troll socks appeared claiming that SfB was MCE, a vegan activist hating low-carb diets, and then SfB retired, claiming he had been outed. So people were up in arms about MCE until I investigated, recognized Darryl Smith, compared the edit record of the previous Darryl Smith accounts, with Skeptic from Britain and John66, and then corrected the allegations against MCE. He thanked me. He is not a vegan, but had been. His Instagram pages had been outed. Darryl is vicious.

It seems I cannot go a single day now editing RationalWiki without Abd writing thousands of words about every edit I make on his blog, this is not normal behavior. The whole thing is creeping me out. Other admins from RationalWiki have also received much harassment from Abd.

I have harassed nobody on this blog. Accurately documenting what someone has done is not harassment. Consider the article on me on RatWiki. That was written by Darryl, as fulfillment on a threat that if I did not stop documenting the highly disruptive activities of a set of socks — impersonations and single-purpose attack accounts that I connected with the blocked Anglo Pyramidologist sock family, he would make me regret it, all my work would be deleted, etc.

Abd Lomax was banned from RationalWiki and Wikipedia for these sort of issues in the past.

No. That’s highly misleading, continuing the defamation that he put in his article on me. The harassment and massive impersonation socking and high disruption were all Darryl, and always blamed on someone else, such as me, Mikemikev, or before that, Rome Viharo — and many others. There is nothing remotely like this in my past. I have never been banned for impersonations, though a Smith at one point claimed that JzG (Guy Chapman, Wikipedia admin) claimed I was known for it. No examples, no evidence, and while JzG has lied about me, I never saw this one.

Those massive impersonation and attack accounts were linked by steward checkuser, and the trail led to RatWiki, because he’d made some mistakes. This guy has done enormous damage.

If you see any other comments from Lomax on RationalWiki please ignore them or do not publish them. He is trying to start a flame war between people on here and RationalWiki. I have nothing personal against anyone on here, nor does anyone from our website. I do not want to be involved in his petty internet feuds.

Regards. John66

I document what I see, making it accessible to others, and as a journalist, I can go undercover, pretending to be someone else, as is common in journalism, for limited purpose, but socking to create disruption would be completely outside that remit, and lying to defame is utterly beyond the pale, I would be betraying everything I stand for. It is to be condemned even if the cause is supposedly good.

John66 has blocked, claiming they are me, many accounts that are not me, without necessity, and that is getting “involved.” But others have done that and have only received a name mention with mention of the block, because they are not responsible, and all those were blatantly disruptive and they have been mislead by a long series of Darryl Smith socks. If accounts are disruptive, they can be blocked, and it is not necessary to name the alleged sock master. But these accounts actually claim, often, to be me, or use names associated with me. I would, for example, never use a sock name related to cold fusion on RatWiki.

Darryl has used my street address as a sock name, telegraphing that he knew where I lived. My children have received harassing email, insinuating that I’m a pedophile. Other people have been harassed like this by the Smith brothers, a woman lost her job because her son had a blog that exposed Darryl’s brother. Darryl mostly stayed hidden, whereas his brother Oliver was much more visible. But Darryl has also claimed to be paid to write “debunking” material. It was Darryl who created the impersonation socks that created an attack on an enemy on Wikipedia.

Years ago, I was a moderator on the usenet newsgroup soc.religion.islam. I have very rarely called people “liars,” someone is not a liar merely because they are wrong, but there was an author who pretended to be a follower of Rashad Khalifa, who then made many claims that, in some areas of the planet where fanaticism is common, could get someone killed, and he was pretending these things in order to defame those people. So I called him a liar.

I knew Khalifa, and uncovered and documented his errors, and there are followers of me who have hated me for that, (which is how I knew that these claims were not authentic) but impersonation to defame is about as bad as it gets, beyond actually torturing and killing people, and it can cause very serious harm. There is no excuse for it.

Verifier also posted this, it appears, on that DuceMoosolini talk page:

Seems someone doesn’t want comments verified. I do know why this is done, it has a rational purpose within the mind of a maniac. As I wrote, I enabled email so you could ask if you want. Anyone could. Otherwise, thanks anyway for answering. (The flood of socks using imitation names, like “Verifiers,” were not me.) Verifier (talk) 17:02, 17 March 2019 (UTC)

There have been more RatWiki account names that have appeared on Kendrick’s blog, I think, but I’m only one person, whereas Darryl is hundreds. Or so it seems. (actually, part of how I link the accounts is by looking at edit timing. The more active users are, the easier it is to distinguish between a single user and multiple users.

Update

Above, I quoted John66 and mentioned twitter.

Lomax has been on the web for the last two weeks (on discord, reddit, Twitter and blogs) trying to stir up a flame war between vegans and low-carbers. The “verifier” account above is Lomax. John66 (talk) 22:03, 15 March 2019 (UTC)

(I have not edited Discord, Reddit, in quite a long time, never Twitter. I can see I will need to look at those. … [posted 17 Mar @ 23:02].

I have never “tried to stir up a flame war between vegans and low-carbers,” the opposite. There were a series of socks that did that, and they targeted a particular vegan, who had criticized Skeptic from Britain and who was then “outed” as him by socks, and then SfB “retired,” claiming he had been outed, which was then shown as “proof” that this vegan was SfB, all being one more example of Smith using deception to attack enemies. And then above, he claimed that I was those troll socks.

At that point, I had no memory of sending any tweets, and certainly not in the last two weeks! My memory often fails with what is further in the past. So I said I would “look” and I probably did. In any case, Smith will seize on any possible misstatement, even if the error is meaningless in context. So this twitter issue has been mentioned by recent trollsocks, but I did not understand the reference. Today, I noticed that a message was sent to me on reddit weeks ago:

Are You Senile Or A Compulsive Liar?
GlassMI April 6 22:47 UTC

You recently said you’ve never posted on Twitter, yet you have made tweets there. Your earlier tweets were made in January 3 months before you just outright lied in your blog post. https://twitter.com/search?q=abdlomax&src=typd

It may be the case you don’t know the difference between lies and truth given how you compulsively lie all the time

At the time, I did not remember that I had a Twitter account and had used it. However, the substance was that I had not been active on Twitter in the period claimed. GlassMI is a classic trollsock, a throwaway account, no other history (this was a private message, so there is nothing in the profile as I write this), and obviously trolling. The goal of a troll is to enrage. (Sending someone a message “you liar” is never constructive.) It doesn’t work, but this troll does not notice, so wrapped up his he in his own nightmare universe. My trust is in reality itself, not in myself or anything else.

The verifiable reality:

There were four tweets, the only ones on record before my claim, all on January 21. I forgot that I had done that. The tweets were

  • Not in the two weeks preceding John66’s claim, but almost two months before.
  • In content, directly contradictory to what John66 claimed, I claimed that vegans were not involved in the fracas with the low carb community — that Skeptic from Britain had created, and John66 continued on RatWiki.

I tweeted again on March 19, and again on April 2, all in the same line, not doing what John66 claimed, but this was after the mention.

Given what had happened before with Skeptic from Britain, it is likely that troll socks were being created. Finding these can be difficult, but recent intense Reddit activity is revealing many of them. I will compile a page with them. There was previous documentation of comment trolling on the page supra, and the present page was about verification that a comment was an impersonation. This is all Smith sockery, oft-repeated, oft-denied, but very obvious. Could this be Mikemikev?

Well, I don’t say “impossible,” but why would Mikemikev create socks to pursue Smith agendas, in a place where only minor consequence, if any, would fall on the Smiths, and where they could easily negate that impact, by countering the propaganda?

Of course, in fact, what the socks are putting up are what they say when they are clearly themselves, so would it actually matter if the socks were not actually Smith?

Only if the socks add something that creates a twist, like taking something I have written on my blog, and adding a threat to it, or spamming with it on RatWiki, which they have done. Or, heh! Mike has done if they are not outright lying.

But why would Mike do that? He has never treated me as an enemy. And what I know about the Smiths does not depend on him. He knows he can send me an email and I will read it, and check out what he claims, that’s about it. We have the testimony of the Smiths that the offensive mail sent to Dysklyver was Mikemikev. Maybe I’ll ask him. If I get around to it, because Mikemikev is doing nothing like the damage that the Smiths have done and continue.

An email can be spoofed, one has not verified an email until there has been a handshake. So merely because a mail comes from a known address is not, in itself, a proof of identity. Sometimes headers will show more clues. I assume that Dykslyver knows all this.

Leave a Reply