Merkey goes postal yet again

Message ID: 273859
Posted By: heimdal31
Posted On: 2005-06-15 12:02:00
Subject: Re: Merkey goes postal yet again

<< John Does 1 - 200>>

I wonder how many that actually is? I'm willing to bet that there are multiple TFAD ids buried in there that resolve to the same person.

I'm hoping that someone has told PJ.

Also, if you are worried about being on the hitlist and would like to view the page without creating a resolvable hit in the logs, you could use Coral by appending .nyud.net:8090 to the end of the domain. Of course, those logs are also likely subpoenable.

Message ID: 273873
Posted By: walterbyrd
Posted On: 2005-06-15 12:33:00
Subject: Re: Merkey goes postal yet again

Where does Merkey get the idea that saying something disparging is - of itself - grounds for a lawsuit? Or that even a respectful disagreement is grounds for a lawsuit?

As I understand it, the criteras for liable, defamation of character, or slander, is much higher than that. My understanding is that to make such a case, a plantiff would have to prove that the defendant:

1) made verifiably untrue statements
2) did so publically
3) did so knowingly and/or wrecklessly
4) did so with malicious intent
5) made claims that were believed
6) caused specific and quantifiable harm

Those are very high standards. For example, if somebody calls you a jerk, how do you *prove* that you are not? For that matter, how do you prove that you are not gay, or a child molestor, or insane, or a shoplifter?

Also, if I say somebody is "nuts" or "on crack" in an informal way; it is usually not taken to be a litteral statement. Satirists get away with all kinds of disparging remarks; as long as it's obviously satire.

IMO: we need much stronger action against vexatious litigants.

Message ID: 273901
Posted By: heimdal31
Posted On: 2005-06-15 13:38:00
Subject: Finchhaven on Merkey

Merkey's new site lists Finchhaven just after PJ and GL. I did a little poking around and found

www.finchhaven.com/TSCOG/jeff_merkey.html

where Jeff reveals that Merkey phoned him Sunday night and threatened a lawsuit. He may well have contacted PJ as well. The Finchhaven site has some recent e-mails as well as a wealth of historical info and links on Merkey for anyone trying to catch up without a program.

Message ID: 273911
Posted By: ColonelZen
Posted On: 2005-06-15 14:27:00
Subject: LOL Merkey names ip-wars

I guess we've "arrived". Damned if I know where, but we're there!

-- TWZ

Message ID: 273927
Posted By: tech_nix_yoda
Posted On: 2005-06-15 15:01:00
Subject: Letter to Me. Merkey

This is TNY...I forgot my password.

Tis is a post I pu on Me. Merkey's site. If he wants someone to sue he has a mark. This is getting old, and he has called my more harsh and rude name then anyone.

Mr. Merley,

I have in the past disagreed with you on many things. I feel you are a person that takes advantage of other, those you know, those of your race, those that you feel you should be able to steal code from. I have posted on yahoo and gl as tech.nix.yoda. I stand by all my comment, as they are my opinion of your ACTIONS, nothing more. If you wish to add me to your suite please do. I have many folk at Novell and other companies that have contact with lawyer types. I am assuming you are defending yourself.

I stand by my statements as my opinion. If you take the fact that supream court has defined my ability to speak my opinion as free speech as the law of the land, you have no case.

Mr. Merkey, I will not contact a lawyer until you initiate the proceeding. Mr. Merkey, I put you ON NOTICE that all of my posting will not come down. Me. Merkey, My name I Jon Horace and you may contact me via e-mail at tech.nix.yoda@gmail.com to discuss your lack of concern for the laws of the land and how if you go through with this I will leading a counter suit for intimidation, threats, waste of my and the court’s time.

I expect your prompt reply. If you feel the needs to list me, please make John Doe number one, and I would love to be line to finish this farce and defend the freedoms of this country.

Message ID: 273934
Posted By: atul666
Posted On: 2005-06-15 15:17:00
Subject: Re: Merkey and SCO

Merkey was first on my radar when I came across a notice that he'd gotten a patent, which had been assigned to Canopy, back in the Yarro era. Shortly thereafter, he posted his infamous $50k offer to buy the whole Linux kernel. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to put 2 and 2 together and speculate about what's going on. That's what they call "free speech".

During the discussion on LKML about the $50k thing, he repeatedly asserted he was closely cooperating with Darl, Blake, & Co., recounting alleged conversations with them. You can find several of these posts in this thread: http://groups-beta.google.com/group/linux.kernel/browse_thread/thread/4f7ecf1d85 79c1dd/7696967a0edb1a24?q=merkey+darl&rnum=1#7696967a0edb1a24

If Merkey is stupid enough to actually carry out what he's threatening to do, it would be only logical to immediately subpoena Darl, Blake, and friends, in order to get a precise picture of what Merkey's true relationship to them was/is. Either a.) he *was* cooperating with them, in which case he can't exactly sue people for saying so, or b.) he was lying, which won't help his, um, credibility, and he still can't sue people for saying so, since he flat-out said he was doing it, whether it was actually true or not.

Let me offer a prediction: Sometime between now and that ominous June 22nd deadline, we'll see a new MOG article shilling for Merkey and touting these "mega-blockbuster" lawsuits of his. She'll probably mention Wallace again in the article, and portray it as some kind of powerful multi-front legal assault on Linux or something.

Which would probably result in MOG being dragged into the legal morass as well, given her longstanding ties to Merkey, and her fanatical antipathy towards PJ and GL.

Message ID: 273942
Posted By: freecode_99
Posted On: 2005-06-15 15:29:00
Subject: MOG, Merkey, Ho Hum

Same old story, different day to spin it.

Q: Now, what's the difference between the Michael Jackson stoary and the Jeff Merkey story besides the scale of the coverage?

A: Nothing really, they both won't affect you, unless you really want to be affected by it. MOG is priving that as tabloid news goes, she's right up their with the National Enquirer (I'd hate to insult such fine rags as the Weekly World News, which at least knows it's not for real and is laughing all the way to the bank).

Have a nice day. Work calls.

freecode

Message ID: 273947
Posted By: atul666
Posted On: 2005-06-15 15:35:00
Subject: Re: Letter to Me. Merkey

Aww, but *I* wanna be John Doe #1. If I don't at least merit a spot in the top 20, I'll be *very* insulted.

I'm not going to give him any personal info, however, since I want to make him really work for it, and I like the idea of him wasting countless hours of his life on the search.

Message ID: 273948
Posted By: atul666
Posted On: 2005-06-15 15:40:00
Subject: Re: MOG on Merkey

I swear I didn't know there was a MOG story already when I offered a prediction that we'd see one. That wouldn't be playing fair, after all.

It would be truly *fascinating* to put MOG on the stand and ferret out the exact nature of her ties to Merkey.

Message ID: 273968
Posted By: laughing_vergil
Posted On: 2005-06-15 16:28:00
Subject: Response to Merkey - pt 1

My response on merkeylaw.com. Have fun.

I can see a couple of different problems with this form of announcement of the lawsuit:

1) The registration of this site by a church is incredibly problematic under the inurement clause of 501(c)3. Registration of this site by UNAC jeopardizes UNAC's recognition as a church, and J.Merkey's ability to be a director of said church.

2) Posting the 'ceace and desist' demand on a site like this, rather than by post or e-mail, seems problematic. If the case is thrown out (as many comments seem to indicate that it will be), then this public action prior to filing could be construed as defamation, and potentially as blackmail (the 'do what I want or you will have lots of legal expenses and harassment for years' threat of "After this date, you should retain an attorney and prepare for several years of litigation, subpeonas, discovery, depositions, and other legal involvement in your affairs..." seems especially egregious).

3) Several of the claims seem, at best, problematic. To wit:

a. defamation (listed twice): Probably Libel specifically. Defined: A false statement that injures someone's reputation and exposes him to public contempt, hatred, ridicule, or condemnation.

The trick will be (1) showing malicious intent or gross negligence, and (2) showing falsehood. In American law, both must be proven to show libel.

b. civil rights violations: Without seeing claims, I have no idea how any of the commentary I have seen allegedly violates civil rights law.

c. violation of the first amendment right of expressive association: How in the world did any of the defendents keep you from coming together with others to express yourself?!? NOTE: Being kicked off of a website has already been ruled legal, not a violation of first amendment rights, in several districts.

d. tortious interference: This, too, will be interesting. I cannot see how comments on line can result int tortious interference, unless you are referring to the GaDuGi incident. In this case, pointing out legal traps in a proposed business alliance is not tortious interference, especially if the problematic scheme is made public. This is likely to be tossed quickly.

(continued)

Message ID: 273969
Posted By: laughing_vergil
Posted On: 2005-06-15 16:28:00
Subject: Response to Merkey - pt 2

e. conversion: Definition: The unlawful turning or applying the personal goods of another to the use of the taker, or of some other person than the owner; or the unlawful destroying or altering their nature.

It will be interesting to see what goods of yours you claim that these people have taken, altered, used, or destroyed.

f. and g. libel, defamation: See Defamation above.

h: intentional infliction of emotional distress: One requirement is that the defendent's behavior is classed as "extreme and outrageous". Sorry, don't see it. Commentary: "The defendant's conduct must be more than malicious and intentional; and liability does not extend to mere insults, indignities, threats, annoyances, or petty oppressions."

i. fraud: It will be interesting to see the supporting evidence for this claim.

j. negligent misrepresentation: Again, I assume that you will be applying tis to the GaDuGi O/S situation. Easier to prove than fraud, and both require pecuniary interest. It will be interesting to see support for this claim as well, since it usually implies that the plaintiff was damaged by accepting as true statements and representations made by the defendent (the same is true of fraud)

k. identity theft, aiding and abbetting in identity theft: That ought to be interesting. I haven't seen anything in violation of any of the laws covering identity theft yet, but this could of course change.

l. interference with partner relations, and interference with economic gain: Again, I assume GaDuGi O/S as the source of this complaint. This will be difficult to prove, as in both cases, "the outsider must have no legitimate social or economic interest in the contractual relationship".

Even more interesting is the discussion at http://www.bcen.bc.ca/bcerart/Vol2-4/news4-4.htm I came across while looking up definitions. Intrigued, I followed the hint there to http://www.casp.net/stateut.html

Looking at the Utah law, this does not actually appear to be a SLAPP suit under Utah's definitions (although it would be one in other jurisdictions, since it seems to deal with items of public interest). However, the similarity between this and standard SLAPP lawsuits, including the types of complaints and the threat to tie people up in litigation for years is striking. Hmmm.....

Message ID: 274057
Posted By: tech_nix_yoda
Posted On: 2005-06-15 20:57:00
Subject: I am evil

OK, so i went to Jeffy's site posted past posting of threats and broken promises o his board. I am tierd of him thiking he is the bad ass on campus and i am ready to go war on this. This is it, for too long we have suffered this fool, for to long we have let him get away with calling us name, slandering and trying to steal our work and forcing his view of the world down our gullets.

It is time to act! I am spamming a board with messages, but with the truth. With his own words. that is how you do it folks. Let the Jeff of the past take out the Jeff of now. Let logic and reason fly until his head blows up.

Our freedoms are no longer something for one man to abuse cause his feeling and professional rep are (hurt). Jeff did all the damage himself.

Message ID: 274084
Posted By: tech_nix_yoda
Posted On: 2005-06-15 22:48:00
Subject: comments not available as of 10:45

Well, looks like he DDOSed himself.

He has taken down all comments. the sections does not exist.

I claim victory for the night! Tommorow the fight starts anew. Nice to have a successful passive / agressive responce work.

WAR TUX

Message ID: 274085
Posted By: cbdudley7
Posted On: 2005-06-15 22:54:00
Subject: Looks like Jeff has had enough fun..

for one day anyway. Or maybe he is just giving his "Delete" finger a break.

He has disabled reading and posting of comments on his site.

Message ID: 274146
Posted By: infosecgroupie
Posted On: 2005-06-16 10:04:00
Subject: Re: MOG on Merkey

huh..

So that's it. I wondered WTF was going on.

Well, at least I'm in good company...

i_s_g

Message ID: 274157
Posted By: walterbyrd
Posted On: 2005-06-16 10:31:00
Subject: merkey's real motive to find people?

Put together a enemies list for scox?

A list of people to publically harrass, extort, defame, discredit, threaten, etc?

It didn't work that well with PJ, but not knowing what else to do, I guess it may be worth another shot.

Think about it, the claims are far too ridiculous to get anywhere in an actual court-room. And why does merkey want people to connect *him* about getting posts removed? And why slashdot and groklaw?

Message ID: 274160
Posted By: mitmosnar
Posted On: 2005-06-16 10:43:00
Subject: Re: MOG on Merkey

Hey John.

Enjoyed wading through finchhaven last night. Been a while.

I'll bet a lot of other people did too.

Merkey should get into advertising.

Cheers,
Tim R

Message ID: 274163
Posted By: heimdal31
Posted On: 2005-06-16 10:47:00
Subject: Re: MOG on Merkey

<< So that's it. I wondered WTF was going on.>>

Yeah, sorry. I should have e-mailed before posting your site. Oh well, it was for a good cause.

The other Tim R.

Message ID: 274165
Posted By: infosecgroupie
Posted On: 2005-06-16 10:53:00
Subject: Re: MOG on Merkey

>> Yeah, sorry. I should have e-mailed before posting your site. Oh well, it was for a good cause. <<

No worries.

I thought someone somewhere had tipped over a rock or something.

So far I've had three phone calls and three emails from The Esteemed Mr Merkey(tm)...

i_s_g

Message ID: 274167
Posted By: karl_w_lewis
Posted On: 2005-06-16 10:58:00
Subject: Re: MOG on Merkey

>> So far I've had three phone calls and three emails from The Esteemed Mr Merkey(tm)... <<

< ambulance chasing lawyer mode>
Are you feeling as if you are being *harrassed*?
< /aclm>

KWL

Message ID: 274169
Posted By: infosecgroupie
Posted On: 2005-06-16 11:04:00
Subject: Re: MOG on Merkey

>> Are you feeling as if you are being *harrassed*?<<

Actually, his email ending in "...or else." I have taken very much as a plain-and-simple, clearly stated threat.

Screw "harrassed": he's threatened me.

Funny thing is, in some contexts non-specific threats can have far more repercussions than the threatener ever imagined :-)

i_s_g

Message ID: 274174
Posted By: drichards1953
Posted On: 2005-06-16 11:13:00
Subject: Merkey found out he is not loved

Merkey is really about to cause himself considerable trouble. I suspect he has found out that no one like him. He has discovered he is a twisted toad-sucking little twit that no one gives a damn about, except for a wish that he simply go away.

I have little sympathy for him as his rants on the various blog site clearly indicate that if he is not getting treatment for some obvious mental health issues he damn well should be.

If he would really file a case the chances of getting Judge Kimball are rather good. No matter how you cut it, it would not be pretty or nice. Rule 11 would give the court considerable latitude in the filing. There is also the matter of filing against individuals who do not live in Utah, in a Utah court. The same would apply to filing against a business that does not do business in Utah, in a Utah court. It simply is not allowed.

Any one who was notified that Merkey had filed litigation may not have to hire an attorney, but rather review the laws on sites like Findlaw (www.findlaw.com) and real the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, rule 11 in particular. Then file a motion to dismiss.

If you represent yourself you ARE NOT an attorney, you are representing your self "pro se." Mereky seems to allude to being an attorney; I find not such license for him.

This is also assuming that the Clerks at the Federal District Court approve his filing. If it is not in proper form they will kick it back to him. I talked to the Federal Clerks office here and they would not be willing to take a case with 200 John Doe's listed on a pro se filing. A filing is NOT a fishing expedition for defendants!

Mereky needs to stop his crap and get treatment. His rantings on various blog sites along with his continual threats are an indicator that he is a "real and present danger to himself andor others." That is the standard for a court ordered psychological evaluation, and in most states that would be as an in-patient at a state mental facility.

The texts of these Yahoo Message Board posts have been licensed for copying and distribution by the Yahoo Message Board users "heimdal31", "walterbyrd", "heimdal31", "ColonelZen", "tech_nix_yoda", "atul666", "freecode_99", "laughing_vergil", "cbdudley7", "infosecgroupie", "mitmosnar", "karl_w_lewis", "drichards1953" under the following license: License: CCL Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike v2.0.