Sock Puppet False Alarm

Back in April Patterico caught Michael Hiltzik using sock puppets to defend himself. He’s back with a post implying that Glenn Greenwald has sock puppets called Ellison, Sam Mathews, Wilson, Ryan and Thomas Ellers who all post from the same IP address and defend Greenwald. Patterico believes that this will bring “this douchebag down”. Not so fast.

Greenwald has responded by stating that he only posts under his own name and implying that his partner had left the comments defending him. This seems likely to be true, since the writing style of Ellison and co is different from Greenwald’s and Greenwald is forthright in defending himself with comments under his own name.

Greenwald’s partner’s use of multiple pseudonyms does not seem to be sock puppetry either. It would only be sock puppetry if Ellison, say, backed up Sam Mathews, but each pseudonym seems to have been used on a different blog.

Update:Patterico offers more evidence :

Greenwald (and nobody else) used one IP address to make five comments on my site on July 13. He (and nobody else) used the same one to make 2 comments on Villainous Company. “Ryan” used that IP address to post 3 comments at Riehl World View. And “Ellison” posted a comment using that IP address at Ace’s. And “Thomas Ellers” posted numerous comments using that IP address at Q&O.

Greenwald (and nobody else) used a second IP address to post 3 comments on my site on July 12. He used the same IP address to post as himself at Confederate Yankee. And that same IP address was used by “Wilson” at Jeff Goldstein’s site.

Greenwald’s defense makes things interesting. But there are at least two separate IP addresses that were shared by him and his sycophants. That makes it trickier for him to explain.

This isn’t even slightly hard to explain. Ryan, Ellison and Ellers posted on July 13 or later. Wilson posted on July 12. The two IP addresses are dynamic ones from the same ISP in Rio. All that happened was that the IP address for Greenwald’s household changed on July 13, as sometimes happens with dynamic IP addresses.

Greenwald’s partner defended him using several different pseudonyms (not sock puppets). This is not going bring Greenwald down, no matter how much Patterico wishes.

More Update Patterico has a long post where he tries to make up for the weakness of his argument by including lots of pictures of sockpuppets. Needless to say, despite being well aware of them, Patterico avoids mentioning Greenwald’s partner’s posts as Ellison and Wilson supporting Greenwald on Greenwald’s blog. Tellingly, he does mention that Ellers didn’t comment at Greenwald’s:

It’s the weirdest thing; Ellers has an amazing familiarity with Greenwald’s blog and with David S.’s history as a commenter . . . yet if Ellers ever commented on Greenwald’s blog, I can’t find any evidence of it. I assume that if any of his defenders can, they’ll let me know.

Comments

#1 Thers
August 2, 2006

How many posts does Patterico need after announcing he is “done here”?

Six.
#2 Patterico
August 2, 2006

Seven and counting. I was done when Tim was making absolutely no sense and just arguing to argue, but then I got interested in some of his “evidence” — although his arguments from that evidence have been obtuse at all times.

But in the midst of a discussion about a guy who deleted comments right when it looked like they might provide evidence against him, it’s interesting to hear from a guy who deleted his whole blog rather than provide evidence of some wild claims he was making.
#3 Patterico
August 2, 2006

“Gee Patterico, there are two comments from David in this thread. One has missing apostrophes, one does not. Somehow the one with the apostrophes has escaped your attention. Weird.”

Maybe they were written by different people. We really have no idea because we know nothing about the IP addresses. You’re simply making desperate assumptions to support your increasingly unlikely case.
#4 Thers
August 2, 2006

it’s interesting to hear from a guy who deleted his whole blog rather than provide evidence of some wild claims he was making.

Really! Fascinating.

And what claims would those be…?

It never has occurred to you that you may not know what you are talking about, has it?
#5 Tim Lambert
August 2, 2006

Anono, you have it backwards. For your theory to work his partner would have had to have used it at mu.nu. And if there is another post by Ellison there Google doesn’t know about it. Nor am I “defensive or irritated” about this. My opinion, based on my experience in sock puppet detecting, is that the comments were likely left by Greenwald’s partner.
#6 Tim Lambert
August 2, 2006

Patterico, Greenwald’s comments have not been deleted. They are still available and I have links to them in my comments above. If your theory is that he tried to delete them to cover up some incriminating evidence, then you should find this evidence and present it. Otherwise your theory falls flat on its face.

I don’t know the IP addresses for those two David comments. I have something better. Matching IP addresses would just show that they were posted from the same household. They were posted from the same Blogger account which is stronger evidence that they were written by the same person.
#7 Enlightened
August 2, 2006

You have yet to prove that Greenwald’s partner was even home during the posted times in question.

If you cannot prove the boyfriend was there when the “sock puppet” post/s were recorded, how can you ever prove it was not Greenwald?

You do know that Greenwald posted during those same time frames? So we know he was home.

And of course Greenwald has never said it was his boy friend. He said it came from his “house”.

So, unless and until you can prove someone other than Greenwald was home at the times in question, your theory is all speculation.

Now, Patterico et al, can prove Greenwald was home, and that the IP’s were the same, and Greenwald admits it came from his home, and the sytax matches Greenwald, yet Greenwald never once said it was his boyfriend, and has not once said his boyfriend was home at the time, and the “evidence” goes away when the heat turns up -

If you can’t connect those dots, then at least prove your case beyond a reasonable doubt by getting the boyfriend to cop to the whole thing and prove he was even home that night.
#8 Thers
August 2, 2006

If you can’t connect those dots, then at least prove your case beyond a reasonable doubt by getting the boyfriend to cop to the whole thing and prove he was even home that night.

Indeed. Why, the only remaining mystery in this case is the bizarre refusal of the Brazilian authorities to issue any subpoenas. Who’s pulling their strings, I’d like to know.
#9 Patterico
August 2, 2006

“They were posted from the same Blogger account which is stronger evidence that they were written by the same person.”

And the connection to Greenwald is . . .?

“My opinion, based on my experience in sock puppet detecting . . .”

Tim Lambert, Sock Puppet Detective. Here’s my card.

I got a whole post on this, Timmie my boy. Tons of stuff you never addressed. You ever want to address it, be my guest. I have comments.

Thers,

Your blog still exists???

There was never any controversy about IP addresses of commenters on your blog?????????????

Why, I stand corrected. Unless you’re not being honest with us . . .
#10 Thers
August 2, 2006

There was never any controversy about IP addresses of commenters on your blog?????????????

Sigh…

The “IP address controversy” was nonsense. But then I suppose you believe the fairytale that I “ran around the internet” using a disgusting comment I made up myself about my infant daughter to smear someone else and his commenters.

As a matter of fact, what I said at the time was this: “Upon final thought I do think it was one of his commenters who said it, but that’s not reflective of anything or anyone beyond the fact that whoever said it is a sick little bastard who deserves scorn. And I have no desire to think about this any further.”

Is this the “outrageous claim” you allege I made?

I was never entirely clear on why it made any difference if I supplied an IP address to prove a point about a matter I considered closed and said didn’t matter and blamed nobody but the poster of the comment for anyway. But if that made it easier for you to reason out how a friend of yours didn’t deliberately break a public pledge he’d just made, hey, good for you. Friendship is a beautiful thing.

The hilarious punchline is that when I did get an actual threat to my family on my new blog, a threat based on the personal information your pal had solicited and then posted, Blogger told me they wouldn’t release the IP without a subpoena! Isn’t that just too funny?

A rundown of what actually happened is here, and then here.

Your claim to know “the real reason” I deleted my own blog is perfectly obnoxious.

Tim, I’m sorry to take up your space here on an unrelated issue, but Patterico brought it up. I’ll leave it at this post.
#11 word warrior
August 2, 2006

pttrc sms lk bg ntcs t m. m n th prcss f shttng dwn prtn wsdm nd hpfll pjms md. n nfrmtn y cn gv m bt pttrc (prvt ml s bst) wld b mst pprctd. thnks. ww
#12 random_guy
August 2, 2006

Bloody hell, Patterico, are you still going on about this? No higher compliment could be paid to Greenwald than to have nutcases like you obsess over him 24/7. It means he’s getting under your skin, which is what he does best.
#13 Tim Lambert
August 3, 2006

Enlightened, I don’t have to prove that GG’s partner was home at the time. If you could prove he wasn’t then that would be something. But you can’t.

Patterico, David is Brazilian, supports Greenwald and has the same name as Greenwald’s partner. This is stronger evidence than you have for your claim that Ellensburg is a sock (there you just have a *similar* name).

I’ve addressed all the significant arguments in your post.

Now, you claimed that there was something incriminating in Greenwald’s comments. When are you going to tell us what that is? Never, I except.

Thers, thanks for the info. I’m not surprised to find out that Patterico doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
#14 Enlightened
August 3, 2006

Tim – No problem! You can continue to support unsubstantiated claims by a known liar about a intangible “other”, as opposed to suppporting evidence that points to the only person known to be in the house and on the computer that night –

I guess it was the old “ghost in the machine”.

BTW – Thers is about as reliable as – oh never mind.
#15 Dano
August 3, 2006

Shorter Enlightened:

“Pardon, me, but I’m the captain of this Swift Boat!”

Best,

D
#16 Nikki
August 3, 2006

Jesus god, is this debate still going on???
#17 ellersburgwhoresonellis
August 11, 2006

Following a link to here a couple weeks late, so probably no one will ever see this comment.

Tim, are you off!!! It seems like your big defense of Greenwald is to assume – ignoring a good deal of evidence – that the sock puppets came from Greenwald’s boyfriend. So what if they did? Let’s assume you’re right. They’re still SOCK PUPPETS (i.e.: identities designed to give a deceptive appearance of being entirely separate individuals, when they are not), being employed by Greenwald-and-hubby for lame defenses of Greenwald. LOL

And: Greenwald still had to be in on it! Remember that absurd, yet well-documented moment in all this where one of the sock-puppets had to “send an e-mail” to Greenwald to get Greenwald’s answer to some charge….and duly received Greenwald’s e-mail, which the sock puppet then re-posted. In other words, GREENWALD PARTICIPATED in charade e-mail exchanges with his husband’s sock puppets – under your theory. Your theory makes Greenwald no less dishonest and worthy of contempt. Great “defense” of him, Tim!
#18 tigtog
August 12, 2006

Yawn. As if Greenwald couldn’t have been away from home at an office or on a business trip when he answered an email question.

To assume that he did know, or even should have known, that the person asking him a question was posting on a blog using a pseudonym? If my husband displayed that level of control-freak entitlement to knowledge of my online habits I’d be very tempted to kick him to the curb.

Does your partner know you post under a pseudonym that includes “whoreson”? If not, why not?
#19 Patrick Frey Chases Socks | Patrick Frey WATCH!
November 12, 2012

[...] they take the evidence, assemble it, and then try to translate it into a crime. It seems that this obsessive behavior also carries over to his “blogging hobby”. Share this:TwitterFacebookLike this:LikeBe [...]