Online impersonation

[Bastiaan Veelo]

On Wednesday, 23 May 2018 at 12:32:50 UTC, Steven Schveighoffer 
wrote:
> I'm just going to warn everyone here that one person is posting 
> as KingJoffrey, VectorThis, Grady Booch, FuckYou, and in this 
> thread he is impersonating 12345swordy, and in others he has 
> impersonated WalterBright as well.
>
> -Steve

Auch! I presume you are able to conclude this from looking at 
logs etc, thanks for letting us know. I wonder if the post in the 
name of BjarneStroustrup is from the same person.

Impersonation is a criminal offense [1] and should not be joked 
with. It is also difficult to prevent in general. Impersonation 
of another forum member is possibly easier to detect. Maybe some 
sort of message signing could be implemented? Even without 
impersonation, individuals posting under multiple identities can 
only have unfair intents (especially in the same thread) and it 
would be nice if the forum could expose this automatically. It is 
a shame that this would require someone's time that could well be 
invested elsewhere, but maybe it's just part of growing pains.

[1] 
https://sharpcriminalattorney.com/internet-crimes/4971/online-impersonation-the-little-brother-of-identity-theft/