Current Events — HabitableZone

Current Events

To "Iranian student"
Robert Shepherd — (archived)

Hi, I'm the system administrator here at the HabitableZone. I read with interest the thread below, both your contributions on the topic as well as the background questions raised about your identity. I agree with the consensus that we should give you the benefit of the doubt, so I'd like to say welcome to the HabitableZone.

To all you Zoners: Since we're going to give "Iranian student" the benefit of the doubt as to his (or her) identity, it behooves us to not to endanger his security with speculation about, and amateur investigation into, his identity. I and the other moderators will reserve the appropriate amount of skepticism and keep an eye on the situation. If you have concerns about "Iranian student" or you come up with information you think is relevant, please communicate with me or the other moderators via private email.

Back to you, "Iranian student": Don't ever be complacent about Internet security. It's good that you're rotating proxies. Individual proxies may become compromised, and it's possible that there are "honeypot" proxies set up to monitor and trap users. Proxies don't have to be physically compromised--it's possible to perform traffic analysis to correlate incoming messages with outgoing messages. However, a big thing in your favor is the relative technical capabilities of the US government and its allies compared to the capabilities and reach of the Iranian government. Your biggest threats are those closest to home, before your data traffic leaves the country. Prudence is called-for, but I hope not paranoia.

To everyone: The purpose of trolling scams is to damage the victim's reputation or to humiliate the victim. But if we go in with our eyes open and choose to take a calculated risk knowing the possibility of deception, the pain is considerably diminished if we're wrong. That happens sometimes, and we'll deal with it. OTOH, the gamble could pay off handsomely; it looks like "Iranian student"'s contribution could be valuable if legitimate. I'm cool with the risk.

Log in or register to post.

The whole thread (53 posts)