[meteorite-list] "Rounding Up a Posse"

From: David Freeman <dfreeman_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 09:55:51 2004
Message-ID: <3C50C7F7.7030209_at_fascination.com>

Dear Robert and list;
So is this anyone that we know...posse or the hunted?
Best Tucson wishes, Oh, gasp, isn't it about time to update the Tucson
list again?
Dave F.

Robert Verish wrote:

>FROM: LA Times - January 24, 2002 - High Tech Section
>
>"Rounding Up a Posse" - A bad EBay auction experience
>spurs an ad hoc Internet manhunt by ordinary folk,
>who, like frontier vigilantes, find themselves
>skirting the law in their quest for justice.
>
>By CHRISTINE FREY, TIMES STAFF WRITER
>
>The posse dogging an online auction seller seized
>control of his e-mail account, grilled his mother and
>even assumed his identity in a nationwide hunt for a
>man they believe swindled as much as $125,000 from
>buyers through fraudulent Internet auctions.
>
>The members of this squad are not federal agents,
>police detectives or even private investigators. They
>are salespeople and investment advisors and registered
>nurses who say they were bilked online by the
>35-year-old Arizona man and used the Internet to track
>him down.
>
>Like a modern vigilance committee, the 50 or so people
>from Florida to Alaska seized the community-building
>power of the World Wide Web both to prompt and to
>preempt investigation by legitimate law enforcement
>agencies. Although most have never met, members of the
>group swapped information daily on a Web site and
>divided up investigative duties--most of which also
>were carried out online.
>
>Such a rapid, wide-ranging response by ordinary people
>would have been virtually impossible just a decade
>ago, before the Internet gave anyone with a cheap
>dial-up account instant access to e-mail and massive
>public databases.
>
>They are growing increasingly common, particularly in
>the realm of online gaming, where players gang up to
>mete out punishment to miscreants.
>
>But like vigilante gangs of the American frontier, ad
>hoc communities seeking justice on the electronic
>frontier sometimes trample the very laws they seek to
>enforce, as their quest for justice warps into a plot
>for revenge.
>
>[For the complete article, go to <http://www.latimes.com/technology/printedition/la-000006012jan24.story?coll=la%2Dheadlines%2Dpe%2Dtechnology>]
>
>__________________________________________________
>Do You Yahoo!?
>Great stuff seeking new owners in Yahoo! Auctions!
>http://auctions.yahoo.com
>
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>
Received on Thu 24 Jan 2002 09:50:31 PM PST