Raptor Services

I've got a little problem - and I'm so fed up with it - I'm going to talk about it publicly.  After all - why should I put up with it and suffer in silence like so many others?

It all started last week when my software demo site got hacked.  No big deal - it happens sometimes for a whole host of reasons - and it was not due to the software on display.  We'll just get that cleared up now.  Unfortunately though, someone saw this as an opportunity for personal gain.

I then received an email from this "someone" notifying me that the site had been hacked, along with a polite request that I reward him with free software for his notification efforts.  Well, I never answer emails such as this immediately - because I want to know who I'm dealing with, and what their real motivation and hidden agendas may be.  After all - the damage could have been done by this very person in order to manipulate the situation to their advantage.  So, I waited.

The next morning it came.  I received an email which was short and straight to the point.  I was accused of being ungrateful, and given a day - otherwise what had been seen on the demo site page source including screenshots would be posted on the joomla.org site.  My initial complaint to the local police yielded feedback that I was yet another of many similar complaints they had recently received.  The pattern of attack was to hack a website, follow-up with the request for a reward, and then threaten the business owner with potentially damaging exposure if they refused.  Now I knew who I was dealing with and what the real agenda was.

This was blackmail and extortion - and I was the victim!!

I've since tried to engage this person in conversation to determine his understanding of how I felt about his threat, and the general theme of his responses have been fixated on how ungrateful I am.  This has nothing to do with my gratitude or the initial request for the "reward" - it's about his subsequent actions - the second email sent by him that contained the threats and consequences of my noncompliance.  That is when it stopped being about rewards and started being about blackmail and extortion.

The power of a blackmailer is that they count on your fear of what they've threatened to disclose publicly.  For some - this may have been criminal activity, some sort of personal indiscretion - or something that they think will personally or professionally embarrass you.  In this case - he has believed that the threat to publicly disclose that my demo site had been hacked would professionally embarrass me and damage my business - and that I'd give him free software not to disclose this.  That just makes me a victim who'll then be blackmailed over and over.  This is the thing with blackmailers - they hold it over your head and keep on extorting whatever they think they can get out of you.  The fact that this person won't even recognize that this is what he's doing is even more disconcerting.  How do you talk rationally to someone who can only see you as ungrateful - who can't even recognize that they've threatened you?  For the most part - you can't talk to these people.  I found my attempts to communicate my feelings only fuelled his anger with me, and in the end I had to break off communication - but things didn't end there.

Now he's bordering on cyberstalking - and has begun sending me emails wanting to know why I don't reply and accusing me of being ungrateful.

I'm sure you're wondering why I don't just give him what he wants.  Well, this goes back to the crux of the problem.  Once you comply with the demands of a blackmailer - regardless of their threats and demands - you become their mark over and over.

Being confronted with this situation - I've asked myself - just what sort of person would do this to me?  I mean - I'm 48 - yep that's right I'm that old - and I live with multiple disabilities - chief of which are epilepsy, major depression and complex regional pain syndrome - the latter being a complication of a grade IV ankle sprain that has also left me with nerve and tendon damage to the leg and foot as well as torn ligaments still evident 10 years on from the original injury and the depression being the result of the pain.  In short - I don't walk very far, can't run to save my life, and regularly re-sprain my ankle or fall over purely because of the structural damage to that ankle.

These are my demons - my daily battle grounds and the daily obstacles I have to combat before, during and after I put in the 18 hours at my keyboard every day taking care of my customers and working on my software.  I work hard, and I do it quietly - without fanfare or grandstanding on forums - because let's face it - I'm busy beating challenges in my daily life that most don't have to deal with.  I do what I do very well because I've rebuilt my life around something that doesn't require me to walk, but I don't need him adding to my burdens.

The stress he has caused me is significant.  Complex regional pain syndrome is a chronic and progressive disease characterised by severe pain worse than that of toothache, childbirth or an amputated finger.  While I am normally able to manage this pain with medications, it is exacerbated by stress - stress being caused by these unwarranted and angry intrusions into my life.  Yes - as I write this yet another hate-filled threatening email to expose that my site was hacked has arrived in my inbox - complete with a date and time by which I must comply with the demands.  This is blackmail and extortion within any definition of the meaning

How does one deal with people such as this?  Well, the options are few - but I have implemented those options.  I've lodged a complaint with the local police where I live,  I've also submitted a more detailed complaint to their computor fraud section and requested that the complaint be forwarded via their international networking channels to the relevant law enforcement agency in the originating country, I've submitted a number of complaints to his ISP, and I've engaged a solicitor for legal advice.  I suspect I will have to lodge further complaints and look at the various legal remedies now that his behaviour is ongoing and escalating.

I've also decided to post this news article - as a way to deny this person the power he thinks he holds over me and to put the situation into its proper context.  People will believe what they want to believe though - and naturally some would find a largely fictitious story built around a simple event far more entertaining and compelling than anything I've got to say.  That's the nature of carrying through on threats - one wants to inflict as much damage and punishment as possible on a noncompliant target such as myself - to "teach them a lesson".

There are certainly lessons here that many can benefit from, and the experience has allowed me to take a very hard look at my personal values, beliefs and my business.  To allow myself to be blackmailed over a hacked software demo site would compromise my integrity as a software developer.  After all - honest software developers notify their customers when security upgrades are released - so they can patch their installations.  I've done this in the past - and will do it in the future when necessary.  I've also formed the opinion that while tokens of gratitude are an acceptable practice in some situations - indiscriminate use of this may in fact encourage the type of situation I'm now confronted with - a reasonable conclusion given the incidence of similar reports to mine.

As to what this means for my business - well, I'm sure this person will go forth and make as many damaging statements as possible - and it's possible he'll damage my business.  However, I'll be here working as usual, and planning for EZ Realty's next upgrade is underway in preparation for the upcoming Joomla 1.6x release - because I choose to believe that the majority of people will be understanding of the situation as a whole.  I believe that they'll look beyond this person's angry claims of my ingratitude and question why he resorted to blackmail and extortion so quickly.