david yates

[Alcon]

I'm inclined to think we were.

At this point, I can't remember the originator of the concern (I think it was Porce, maybe?), but I did do the IP trace and confirmed that the email was being sent from a different place than it was being claimed.

Colin's post is entirely accurate.  I also have leaned toward it being a hoax since the second email, but only brought it up privately with a few people.

[Alcon]

Ben Meyers, after a disappearing act, reappeared in late 2005, around the same time Yates joined the forum. Wouldn't he have had the same IP if he was active from both accounts at the same time if they are the same person? A mod would have caught that one right away.

We don't exactly cross-check IP addresses religiously, to be honest.  And it's not that hard to limit the use of one board account to a free AOL CD account.  I personally doubt it was Ben Meyers myself, but it is possible.  I don't think that part matters, though.

And to be fair to Ben Meyers, he still uses his AIM account, so he was probably just being dishonest about his back-story.  I doubt he was involved in something like this.

[Alcon]

The latest email, sent today, was sent from an AOL account.  That doesn't mean anything, but the timing is suspicious.

I just sent an email to the three email accounts I didn't recognize from the recipients header.  So far, two of them have bounced as undeliverable.  The remaining, belonging to a Robert J. Elliott, is probably an Atlaser I don't know.  That, or there just happens to be someone with his email address.

In other words, yeah, we've been had.

[Alcon]

...and the third one just bounced.  There's really no doubt in my mind anymore.

What a crappy thing to do, and from a person I'd never expect it from.

[Alcon]

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Forgive me if I'm still skeptical, but a reasonable person could have thought of a thousand better ways to accomplish this.

[Alcon]

He also would not lie about sending it to non-Atlas people.

[Alcon]

With all respects everyone, we've been lied to.  We should just move on.  No good is going to come of this.  There's not any way to tell if it really was connected to someone else.  Let's not turn into a lynchmob.

If this gets out of control, I'm going to have to lock it.

[Alcon]

Phil doesn't know.  It was a joke/suspicion.  There's no proof that anyone else was involved in this but "Yates".  Blow it up as much as you would like, Jeff, but what good will it do?