For the longest time, I have been struggling with whether or not to post this, because the last thing I want to do with an obsessive online stalker is to give him more attention, but it’s really gone on for far too long and I refuse to be a passive victim. Since February of this year, someone going by Gregory Leroy and/or Weaver who supposedly resides in Texas has been harassing me (and other females too, it seems) online and the local cyber unit of the police along with his web host have been of no help. His latest actions involve buying the domain of my first name and last name (eleachang.com) and optimizing it so to have it take over my Google search results.
To start from the beginning, Gregory apparently found me via the footer credits for Women 2.0, a nonprofit organization that I used to do web maintenance work for, and for some reason became fixated. I couldn’t make heads or tails of his nonsensical first email message (included at the end of the post) and ignored it, but he persisted by continually sending me messages through email in addition to social networking sites, like LinkedIn and then Twitter, though he clearly realized at some point that I blocked him (which also kept me from noticing all the tweets he was trying to send my way for awhile) and eventually ended up deleting the majority of his posts.
All the while, I had been hoping that he would simply move on, since he seemed more mentally unbalanced than malicious, but once he set up the domain under my name, the comments he included in the source code (along with the whole site itself) were unnerving:
I’m not going to leave this [source] up! We must never let in-essence.org be anything less than the essence of in-essence.org. That means that we must 404 eleachang.com so nobody else can 200 it! Does that make any sense? (Well, we can also 403 it and 302 a list of hip and useful subdomains)
And since we can put HTML in our Forbidden 403…
not yet Elea, its unforbidden 4now — I get to nudge you at least once
- elea
PLEASE REMEMBER, I’M AN ARTIST AND I’M SENSITIVE
And also remember, I play around with all types of people and or.ganizations
Finally, after Gregory sent along a screenshot of eleachang.com rising in my Google search results, I broke my silence and responded.
Gregory,
I am not sure who you are or why you keep sending me messages through various mediums. I am even more unsure as to why you’ve bought the domain of my name. When I blocked you on Twitter, it should have been clear that I would rather not correspond with you.
Whatever your aim is with these actions, please stop. I will not respond to future correspondences, but I will be pursuing further legal action as necessary.
Elea
This seemed to get through to him:
Elea I’m very sorry for bothering you and I promise this is my last message to you. Please understand that I never wanted you to feel uncomfortable and I am sorry about taking your domain. I will send you the transfer code soon, if you would like. I just wanted to be your friend from Austin and I realize I did a poor job of introducing myself. Don’t hate me for being a weirdo.
Weaver
However, the domain is still up right now, he still comes to comment on my blog posts, and he continued working on the SEO of eleachang.com to get it to become the top result under my name. I shouldn’t be surprised though, as he seems also to be a pathological liar, judging by the way he liked to make up stories about me. So now I’m exposing his actions and asking you all for suggestions regarding what my next steps should be. Online stalking may still be a murky area legally, but I should not have to feel powerless.
First email correspondence:
http://www.google.com/search?q=essence-of.org
http://or.ganization.orgINVENTIONS (-of elea)
sidetext ? itty bit of text on the side — enough to read on the edge
gradient pink background in a new direction? DIAGONAL !!!!!! Ok thats what blew me away and made me do this
the best her had the worst link. it was littlest and 256 kb of random return
the link her had the link in
the home page of the web developer with the wordpress (i was in the middle of my mu-press pro never public distro, after all I am unpress.wordpress.com lol)and the women2 page always looks good even in tiny text as RSS 2.0 in Mail.app (which is how I get it)
http://anme.gif.png.url-of.com/anme.jpg
my anime animated jpg gif.png x-generic imagae
http://or.ganization.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/lol.m4a
so you will never be forgotten in the noetic age
(i am so scared of twitter after angie said it was like dodgeball on her oldest twitter)
– weaver
p.s.
essence-of.* is for you. check out the irony (john steward mill). Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
I owe Stanford so much love. If I ever went to a w2.0, I would want to +1 with Ms. Protege after all they did while I was writing SNOMED ontology software!Thanks for being
p.p.s.
If you made custom stationary… with a business plan !!!p.p.p.s
Tell me if anything I post should be unposted — some of my jokes are hard to get, but the Women 2.0 are at the edge and so important for me to follow. (sex toy startup was the best in branding and koollage is best in breading)*
*in my opinion.http://gregoryleroy.com
http://www.linkedin.com/in/xhtml(i was suppose to make this email perfect but I’m in the middle of interviewing with frog design and I have to tell you first before they see or.ganization.org. So, don’t save this — i’m going to edit it later. version 1.0
Tagged: onlineharrassment, stalking
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Whoa, pretty scary there Elea! I even put my name as “your friend” because I don’t want him following my internet presence. I see that he took down the site, so hopefully it’s a sign of things to come. Something like this was one of the reasons my sister pretty much abandoned her online presence (myspace/flickr). Quite sad.
- Your Friend
Um, Elea, just noticed this. The code on eleachang.com now reads:
apparently, Joe Schmo thinks you’re slandering his “good” name. This is creepy and that email made no sense. Aside from the obvious suggestion of getting the police on the case, I would suggest some bigger guns. I bet there are one or two federal organizations out there devoted to online privacy and the prevention of such harassment. I’ll look into it and let you know what I find. In the meantime… invest in a firearm? ;]
oops, forgot to exclude the tags. The source reads as such:
(begin comment tag)
slander
——-
A type of defamation. Slander is an untruthful oral (spoken) statement about a person that harms the person’s reputation or standing in the community. Because slander is a tort (a civil wrong), the injured person can bring a lawsuit against the person who made the false statement. If the statement is made via broadcast media — for example, over the radio or on TV — it is considered libel, rather than slander, because the statement has the potential to reach a very wide audience.
defamation
———-
A false statement that injures someone’s reputation and exposes him to public contempt, hatred, ridicule, or condemnation. If the false statement is published in print or through broadcast media, such as radio or TV, it is called libel. If it is only spoken, it is called slander.
libel
—–
An untruthful statement about a person, published in writing or through broadcast media, that injures the person’s reputation or standing in the community. Because libel is a tort (a civil wrong), the injured person can bring a lawsuit against the person who made the false statement. Libel is a form of defamation , as is slander (an untruthful statement that is spoken, but not published in writing or broadcast through the media).
(end comment tag)
This guy’s a freak. Nothing he says makes any sense. I don’t get it. The most I can figure is he is either really pissed at you over something you have no idea about, he is really jealous of your web skills, or both.
Oh, and to The Freak Show: slander, defamation, libel… They all have to be UNTRUE. This is all the truth here and you have so much as admitted that to Elea so you’d never get anywhere with any kind of slander, defamation, or libel charges. Give it up.
E — I agree with bats, get you a gun for some extra protection. Beyond that and trying to keep the cops on his tail, and just ignoring this guy to the best of your ability, I personally don’t have any advice. He’s clearly unhinged though, most likely some stupid kid who is just trying to get his kicks, thinks it’s funny to harass people. Oh, but as you already are, be sure to document everything.
Holy shit. I know this guy was harassing you before, but I didn’t know things have escalated to such a extent.
I’ve blocked him on Twitter as well because of some strange replies he’s made to me. (And referencing your userID too.)
And all that crap on the site right now? There is no slander or defamation involved in this situation. It is the case of outright bullying – albeit with the victim having the guts and the balls to stand up for herself. (;
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Hopefully you’ll know who I am via my email, but he won’t. Like your first commenter, I don’t wish him to locate me.
Go to the police. I was stalked/harrassed for 3 years before I found the courage to. I broke in the end when my stalker found what he *thought& was my address via WHOIS and threatened my life and that of my family.
Ugh, sorry, I never saw your comment before because it was in the spam queue! I actually did go to the police, but they pretty much took down the information and then left it at that. The good news is, he has removed himself from my Google results and stopped contacting me since this post.