Focus on Metal Detecting: Sock-Puppet "Balenim" et al.

Evil Tekkie Sock Puppet

In recent weeks, there has been another outbreak of tekkie sock-puppets trying to disrupt and deflect discussion on this blog and Heritage Action's. Metal detectorists (like US coineys) garner succour from belonging to a group of like-thinking individuals all focussed on a single aim, hoiking and having pretty bits of the archaeological heritage for themselves in their own personal collections. When it turns out that there are not enough of them able to write coherent thoughts on the issue in response to points made by the preservationists, it seems certain individuals attempt to employ multiple assumed identities to counteract the shortfall. They forget that their computers can be tracked, no matter what measures they attempt to employ to ensure anonymity. Not only the NSA knows all about you.

In the comments to a blog, I spent some time discussing some issues with one such individual who went by the name "Balenim" who was clearly one of these folk. On checking, it turns out that the same person was writing to Heritage Journal under a number of other assumed identities. Some of the comments under some of these assumed identities  (sleepers?) used by this writer were agreeing with the posts on the blog and were intended to lull the moderators of the Heritage Action blog into a false sense of security. Others, on the other hand, were intended to deflect the public discussion on that web resource onto a side-track (a typical deliberate tekkie tactice, rather than a lack of focussed thinking).

But this person's destructive activities went even further, when you look up the ISP number revealed by the tracking software (93.174.93.145), it turns out that the same address has been associated with sabotage on Wikipedia and has had two accounts blocked/disabled there for this (including for "insulting other editors"). This address was also the source of some foul-mouthed comments to a recent news item on a newspaper, and sending death threats to another. The same address is associated with somebody stalking somebody else across several discussion boards.  It is connected in some way with a porn site. More disturbingly, on top of this abusive behaviour, the address figures in a list of people who have been banned from the servers of a discussion group (reported reason: "administrator of boardforus.com who approved of child porn and known hacker"). Nice people these metal detectorists associate themselves with.

 It would seem that the opponents of Heritage Action and PACHI include those that are associated with some pretty nasty folk who quite simply have nothing to say that they could put under their own name, they have to hide themselves, pretending to be somebody else. These fantasy existences seem quite common in UK metal detecting, where very few individuals write to a discussion forum under their own name. A selection of the screen names from the home page of a metal detecting forum near you will illustrate the point:

Allectus, alloverover, oliver, Philthy Phil, Maximuswarks, Danzigman, lord lovell, kopparberg, Tomo, lordofthecoils, Glenfiddich, Fishermansam, Mega B, mrix, Daniel o' Beirnes, coal digger, The Ferret, coinhunteruk, slowsweep, coil, stevieB, Dave, slippery, FUBAR, busterhamer, paul, liamnolan, Jason, janner, ironage, Donington Mudman, Cantiaci, beaubrummell, cord, Fusion, stanslad, Geeza, TDEVON, stargazer, east coast stu, slinky, Verulamium, Machinist, yellow, FisherX, sweepstick, GREGGOWREX, alfaowner, roamingrob, NeverWntdDance

What is it that these people have to say about their hobby, what they do and what they think, that cannot openly be said under their own name? Why can they not use the names on these forums and in discussion here which they use in real, not fantasy, life, the names they use at work? Metal detecting is legal in the UK, there is no need to hide the fact that one is a metal detectorist in the UK, so why all the secrecy?

TAKE A GOOD LOOK at this behaviour, for these are precisely the sort of people the PAS wants to grab more and more millions of public quid to make into the "partners" of the British Museum, archaeological heritage professionals and to whom they want us all to entrust the exploitation of the archaeological record. Take a good look and decide what you think about that as a "policy".