Online impersonation

[Steven Schveighoffer]

On 5/23/18 1:19 PM, Bastiaan Veelo wrote:
> 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.
>>
> 
> Auch! I presume you are able to conclude this from looking at logs etc,

The IP address is included in the headers of the newsgroup. All of them 
came from the same IP. I have a filter on my thunderbird client to flag 
certain IPs, and his was added to the list recently.

> thanks for letting us know. I wonder if the post in the name of 
> BjarneStroustrup is from the same person.

It was.

> 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.

I would like to see at least an inability to post with the same exact 
handle/name as someone who has an account with that name. Or at least 
put such posts through moderation first.

-Steve