‘Twas the Night Before Christmas (for Health Care Reform)

Twas the night before Christmas, and up on the Hill
Every Senator toiled on a new Health Care Bill
“It’s obstruction!” cried Reid, who had the seniority,
Though he couldn’t quite grasp that he had the majority.

The staffers were tired — McCaskill forlorn,
“We’re working so hard, that we’ll miss Christmas morn!”
(But then so will soldiers still stuck in Iraq,
Even Washington picked Christmas Day to attack.)

When out on the steps, there appeared Secret Service
Pelosi choked up! Howard Dean became nervous!
They turned to their aides, who then turned on the news
Where Wolf Blitzer confirmed that this wasn’t a ruse.

The cameras they focused, the booms they were lowered
The prompter lit up — and the President glowered
He adjusted his tie, then he tapped on the mic.
“Testing, one, two. That’s the volume I like.”

“I know you’re all wond’ring when this bill will pass,
Will the GOP block it? Will Bayh show some class?
Well I’m here to assure you, our mission is clear:
The promise I made I’ll deliver this year!”

“Now Durbin! Now Feingold! Now Franken and Kerry!
Pay Nelson a jillion! Make Lieberman hairy!
My vacation’s on hold, so there’s no time to stall!
Do whatever it takes to give health care to all!”

“We’re trying our damnedest,” said Christopher Dodd
And each Dem agreed with a quick silent nod.
“We’ve gathered each vote we could possibly muster,
To stop the Republicans’ planned filibuster!”

The President smiled at them all through the screen
As though he were with them observing the scene.
He waved at his friends from both ACORN and NOW
Then he turned and he walked off the stage — with a bow.

With renewed vim and vigor, the Senate debated
“We’ve sixty votes now, we should be elated!
All that’s left is to send the damn thing on its way
To Barack’s Oval Office,” said Dan Inouye

“But the people don’t trust it,” cried Claire from Missouri.
“They’re protesting my office! It’s making me worry!
They claim that the bill was put through in a rush!”
“We don’t say the R-word!” Reid cautioned her. “Hush!”

The GOP meanwhile took all the abuses
From reporters and bloggers who made lame excuses.
“They’re mean,” said Contessa. “They’re just like the Grinch,
To make everyone else stay and work like a moensch.”

And so they worked on, through the days and the nights
Talking policies, budgets, entitlements, rights.
The bill grew too big for a person to lift.
So Pelosi renamed it “America’s Gift.”

It was one thousand pages — an encyclopedia!
Of course, no one read it, not even the media.
It was hobbled and weakened, with no real reform.
But government health care would be the new norm.

Now to take Clement’s poem and twist it just so
For political poking is wrong — this I know.
So I hope you’ll forgive me my holiday fun.
(And that, Mister Burris, is how it is done.)

Nicholas’ Cage – A Christmas Story

No, not the actor — see the apostrophe and the variant spelling?

Nearly fifteen years ago, “Nicholas’ Cage” became one of my first published short stories — a dark and disturbing vision of a Christmas staple. This is my first attempt at a reading of one of my works, just in time for the holidays.

Help Truth Spread

Others are starting to see the truth about YouTube user LoganSperman2. Help truth spread.

JeremyandFriends / Anakinboy10 Falsely Claim Perverted Justice Status

Also reference this earlier posting for deeper background information.

YouTube Pedophiles: One Down, More to Go

Gary Wolchesky doubts his capture.

Last week saw the arrest of Middletown, New Jersey pedophile Gary Wolchesky, written up here in the Asbury Park Press.

The story is that Wolchesky made the “mistake” of admitting in a video on YouTube that he was a pedophile, which supposedly made things easier for the police. What isn’t stated is that Wolchesky made his video in early 2008 — and now, in October of 2009, he’s arrested. That’s a little over a year for evidence gathering, and one has to trust that the police have acquired what they need.

Wolchesky (oh, let’s just call him inmate #3221842, shall we?) was profiled in an article of mine back in January of 2008 (reprinted here) when he was still using the monker myidisphat — a YouTube account that was administratively banned the day after publication when the Xbox Live community found Gary using a recording of his Halo game console being used to spell out “I (heart) Little Boys” out of pieces of digital debris.

Wolchesky talks of how easy it is to get little boys to spend the night with him.

They Did It On Purpose

I was skirting the north edge of Little Rock, Arkansas, just rounding the bend on Interstate 40 past the I-430 exit. It was almost 8:00am, and I was on my cell phone talking with my New York editor because I’d just heard that an explosion had occurred in the World Trade Center. He was on the roof of his building, looking at it. I remember he thought it was perhaps some sort of boiler explosion — very few details had made it out just yet — and we both considered that perhaps it was an airplane accident, like the one that had happened before involving the Empire State Building.

I made it into work shortly thereafter, just in time for the news that a second plane had hit the south tower. Later that day, a video of that particular attack taken from street level, would impact me in a way I’ll never forget.

The milling crowd was looking up at the north tower, worried about the flames and smoke and the people inside. At this point, it was a tragedy — an airplane full of people slamming into a crowded center of business. And then the second plane came into the frame, and the screams started to go up. As the nose of the jet kissed the building, one woman near the camera summed up the events with concise, horrified clarity: “Oh my God. They did it on purpose.”

My office was hosting VIP visitors that day, New Yorkers who had flown in the night before. We tried in vain to conduct business, but it was impossible. Reports of the attack continued to come in over the television and Internet: the attack on the Pentagon, the Pennsylvania crash of United Flight 93. The evacuations.

I stepped outside later that afternoon and stared out into a clear, cloudless blue sky, completely devoid of aircraft for the first time in my memory. I felt it should have been a grey day. There should have been a drizzle. It wasn’t right that the sun should be shining, that the cerulean dome of the world should be so bright, when a half-a-continent away — suddenly as close as a neighbor — a demon-fueled wall of smoke and dust was choking the friends I had never met as they hunkered over cell phones, desperate for it to ring, to be the loved one they hadn’t seen for six century-spanning hours, to deliver the message that they were still there, still alive.

It’s eight years later, today. I’m still not over it, still mad at the animals who perpetrated this attack, still frustrated that our government has yet to put our collective hands around the collective throat of these men so that we can squeeze it shut. But even when we do, I’ll still never be over what happened.

I still cry when I see the images, when I hear the recordings of the emergency calls, when I watch the towers crumble and the firefighters, policemen, and first responders rush headlong into death in an effort to save one more, just one more.

And I fear. I fear that it’s been forgotten, by too many people.

And maybe it has.

But not by me.

Never by me.

SUMMARY OF THE ACTIVITIES OF OHIO-BASED BOYCHAT MEMBER ANAKINBOY10 AKA YOUTUBE USERNAME LOGANSPERMAN2

(The documentation below was submitted to the Ohio Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force on June 12, 2009. This public version has been modified to remove some of the actual names. — R.J. Carter)

INTRODUCTION

The following is a summary of the Toledo, Ohio-based activities of a pedophile CP production and distribution ring centered around BoyChat member and pedophile Anakinboy10 aka YouTube username LoganSperman2.

BACKGROUND

Two years ago, Troy Riser (then-YouTube username ‘troyriser’) and others posted a series of videos—known as ‘vlogs’ on YouTube— exposing and publicizing the attempts of an online pedophile ring calling itself ‘The YouTube Vigilantes’ or ‘YTV’ to gain influence over a children’s video-making group called Young Tubers United, which is in turn ran by YT user ‘Jesari’ a now-14- year-old boy whose first name is Jesse, along with his father. The membership of Young Tubers United numbered thousands of children, at one point, and made several feature ‘kid collaboration’ videos garnering millions of views. There was talk of corporate sponsorship. A separate website distinct from YouTube was established. This separate Young Tubers United website contained a Frapper map holding the physical and email addresses of hundreds of children, who would supply this information—along with photographs—to show support for this kids’ group. Videos made by Troy Riser and others questioned the purpose of such a website and the gathering of personal information. Later, an attempt was made to establish a chat forum with nonexistent safeguards, allowing real-time interaction between the YTU children and anonymous adults. The forum was in place for a short time before YouTube username ‘Logansperman2’ ordered Charles Daigley, the YTU site webmaster, to remove it due to the unfavorable publicity the forum was generating. A screencap of the YTU homepage, shown below.

The YouTube Vigilantes (YTV) claimed (and still claim) to be a group of concerned adults who ‘fight haters’ and ‘help children.’ The following YouTube users are the central members of the YTV, although there are several—perhaps dozens—more:

• Logansperman2: identity unknown; claims to be a teenager although an analysis of ‘Logan’s’ voice captured from a YTU site snapvine call by audio engineer [engineer's name] of [company, city, state], determined that ‘Logan’ is an adult using voice changer or audio editing software to make his voice sound like that of a child. A visual analysis by YT user ‘HeyItsFey, a former police artist, of one of Logan’s videos and several of his photographs demonstrates a clumsy attempt at ‘head-on-body’ Photoshop manipulation. The audio file containing ‘Logan’s’ voice has been attached to this or subsequent emails. Logansperman2 is, in all probability, Ohio pedophile Anakinboy10.

• TBD1000: [given name], a software engineer and metrics expert from [country].

• Irish282: [given name], a refurbisher of musical instruments from [city, state].

• Dynacatlovesme: [given name, state]

• Th3C0br4: name unknown. First name possibly ‘Iain’.

• Other known pedophiles with direct or peripheral involvement in the Young Tubers United group include BoyChat member ‘Santi’ (YT user Santi101), BoyMoment member BigCD, whose real name is [actual name] of [city, state], BoyChat member ‘Slvrspun’ (YT user ‘Silvrspn’ whose real name is [actual name], of [country]), BoyChat member ‘Oldtimer’ (YT user ‘Oldtuber’), former YT user TobrianHorde, BoyChat webmaster ‘DylanThomas’, whose real name is John Schillaci, formerly on the FBI’s Most Wanted list and currently serving life in prison.

The following screen capture shows the purported PM exchange between BoyChat member Santi (YT username Santi101) with Jesse (last name unknown; former YT user Jesari and current owner of YT channel ‘Youngtubersunited2’)

THE JAKERISER CHANNEL

On January 15, 2008, pedophiles created a YouTube channel featuring Troy Riser’s then 14-year-old son, Jacob.

The JakeRiser YouTube channel contained Jacob Riser’s photographs pulled from his boxing gym web page, his full name, address, school, the names of his mother and sister, the route he used to go to school, and other detailed information. Troy Riser was told by the JakeRiser channel’s creator, later determined to be [actual name] (an exposed BoyChat pedophile , former YT user ‘kwclark’ and current YT user ‘SmugMugg’, of [city, state]), to shut down his ‘troyriser’ channel or other channels would go up featuring his teenage daughter, Maggie. The FBI was notified regarding child endangerment and interstate transmission of a threat (Agent [agent's name], [email address]@ic.fbi.gov ) and numerous complaints were submitted to YouTube. Once the JakeRiser channel went down, however, another one—JakeRiser2—took its place, along with the LoriRiser channel, this time featuring Troy Riser’s ex-wife.

['SmugMugg'] closed all of his JakeRiser and LoriRiser channels once FBI involvement became known. After several months, he reopened a new YT channel, SmugMugg.

THE-TRADES EDITORIAL

On January 28, 2008, in response to the then-ongoing extortion attempts against Troy Riser, Riser’s longtime friend and writing collaborator R.J. Carter wrote and posted an editorial at The- Trades.com, a commercial website reviewing pop culture and entertainment trends. The article was entitled “YouTube: Pedophile Playground”. The-Trades.com, like most commercial sites, captures and keeps detailed visitor records. This data was used to identify ['SmugMugg'] as the pedophile primarily responsible for the JakeRiser channels, and captured the IPs of several of the posters responding to the article, and as a later source for the IPs of the article’s readers. (Refer to Appendix A for complete article text.)

The-Trades.com later removed the article after a letter was sent to The-Trades publisher threatening legal action on behalf of one [given name], who operates YouTube account Irish282. [Given name], strongly suspected of being an online predator, was/is an adult agent for the YTU video-making group, and regularly files DMCA notifications on its behalf. The letter, signed ‘ytu’ was sent from the email address of ytu@youngtubers.com. The profile for this account, created by the Frappr mapping utility linked to the website, displays a supposed photograph of the owner, shown below, which matches images used in videos created by YouTube username LoganSperman2, represented as himself. (Refer to Appendix B.) The email headers showed the complaint email was sent from IP address 69.221.15.155, resolving to Toledo, Ohio.

LoganSperman2 has a documented history of asking children to dance for him on video:

THE JRADEN LETTER

The article was then reposted as a WordPress blog (http://therjcarter.wordpress.com/youtube-pedophile-playground) where it quickly received a dissenting post from a user signing as JRaden (http://therjcarter.wordpress.com/youtube-pedophileplayground#comment-4. (Refer to Appendix C for full text.)

JRaden’s response followed several of the regular talking points utilized by YouTube user LoganSperman2, employing many (if not most) of Logan’s stylistic mannerisms and ticks. The IP address 70.226.117.128 extracted from this email resolved to the Toledo, OH server.

The JRaden posting also left behind an email address, Jeremy75000@hotmail.com. A quick search showed this to be the same email address used to register the YouTube channel, JeremyAndFriends.

JEREMYANDFRIENDS

The JeremyAndFriends channel’s main featured video is a solicitation for donations for a new web camera. The video features an obvious editing cut when the subject speaks the email address, demonstrating that the video itself has—in all probability—been culled from the Internet. More importantly, the video description bar includes the Jeremy75000@hotmail.com address as a point of contact—the same email address used by ‘jraden’.

The ‘Help Me I Need Money’ video is posted throughout the Internet. Note the advertisement for a custom video.

A query was sent to the Jeremy75000@hotmail.com email address, asking the channel’s owner how funds might be delivered. The following response was received:

Please note the email exchange between our operative and the owner of the ‘Jeremyandfriends’ YouTube channel can be viewed in its entirety by accessing the original Live.com email account used to initiate the exchange, as follows:

********@domain.tld

password: ********

The IP can be stripped from the ‘jeremy’ emails, furnishing solid independent evidence.

Additionally, note the difference in writing styles between JRaden’s WordPress comment versus his email.

ANAKINBOY10

Note the AnakinBoy10@gmail.com email address used to accept donations via payoneer for JeremyAndFriends ‘camera fund’. Anakinboy10 happens to be a member of BoyChat:

Anakinboy10 has a web presence under that username going back at least six years. His focus is the distribution of boy-related images and videos. On one of his accounts, he gives his age at 30.

In the following exchange, Anakinboy10 is promoting a site called ‘boymodels’:

The Anakinboy10 email address is also the point of contact for payment for videos sold through http://www.boymodels.tk , which has been ‘temporarily’ shut down.

In lieu of the boymodels website, Anakinboy10 established a video gallery at http://www.freewebs.com/videogallery2/.

EVIDENCE OF CHILD PORNOGRAPHY PRODUCTION & DISTRIBUTION

Because the ‘gallery’ has been extensively scrubbed since its existence and connection to YT user Logansperman2 was established, the original is presented in screencaps, as follows. The overly long html page has been sectioned for inclusion here:

Of urgent interest is the line at the bottom advertising ‘kids and teens available for modeling’, now expunged from the freewebs page. An example of his advertising for this aspect of his business is below:

Important: As the above advertisement demonstrates, Anakinboy10’s advertised ‘products and services’ include ‘custom’ videos of children, which in turn implies the actual production of child pornography, child exploitation, prostitution, and sexual assault.

THE MONEY TRAIL

It turns out the preferred method of payment for Anakinboy10’s operation is Amazon gift certificates, thus hiding the money trail. In all probability, the gift certificates are used to buy products from Amazon, which are then in turn sold on eBay or other online outlet.

THE IP TRAIL CONTINUED

By means of his ‘Acme Cleaning Services’ blog, our operative (known as ‘Rez’) captured two postings by the man known as LoganSperman2 — one on http://pub37.bravenet.com/forum/3141133667/fetch/633508 — and derived two additional IP addresses, both of which resolve to the Toledo, Ohio Internet cluster:

70.226.119.45

70.226.102.158

The following table documents the connections made from LoganSperman2 to JeremyandFriends to Anakinboy10, with IP addresses that all track to the Toledo, OH Internet node.

Table 1: IP by Identity, History

YTU		LoganSperman2		Jeremy75000
Trades Formmail	69.221.15.155	Bravenet Posting	70.226.119.45	Word press Posting	70.226.117.128
		Rez #2	70.226.102.158	Email Response	99.190.0.126
		ACME Blog	99.190.10.68	Email Feb 9	99.190.13.193
				Email Feb 12	99.190.13.193

CONCLUSION

A well-organized, tightly networked group of Internet-savvy online predators has executed a plan to ingratiate themselves with a children’s video collaboration group on YouTube for the long-term purpose of producing and distributing soft- and hardcore child pornography. Over the past few years, these men (and perhaps a few women) have attempted to establish a pedophile-friendly chat forum under the auspices of that kids’ group, and used support for that group’s website to amass the names, email addresses, physical location, and photographs and videos of hundreds of those children. One of the central figures of this pedophile ring is BoyChat member Anakinboy10, who is—in all probability—YouTube username ‘Logansperman2’, a pedophile proven to be a grown man presenting as a teenager online and who has constructed an elaborate persona using faked kid videos and a well-developed, fully realized teenage boy persona. The focus of all of this online pedophile activity invariably resolves to IP addresses in Toledo, Ohio.

The threat to children here is immediate, real, and ongoing. It is vitally important the identities of those children being used to make Anakinboy10’s ‘custom’ videos be found out immediately, as well as those children being groomed for such a role.

Amazing Spider-Man #600: The Undoing of One More Day?

The wait is very short now for Amazing Spider-Man #600. And while Peter Parker battles the Dark Avengers, Aunt May Parker is gearing up to wed J. Jonah Jameson’s long-lost father!

But what I want to focus on is the advertisement for #600 currently running in Amazing Spider-Man: The design is one of a wedding invitation, partially obscured by Spidey’s mask. You can just read that you’re being invited to the wedding of… “…son” to “…rker” on the special date.

Now, the assumption is, naturally, that the invite is for “Jonah Jameson” to “May Parker.” But what if it’s not? Have you ever seen a wedding invitation? It’s very, very poor taste — in fact, almost unheard of — to put the groom’s name before the bride’s. That leads me — and many others to believe that what we’re seeing is actually a hint of a wedding between “Mary Jane Watson” to “Peter Parker.”

If that’s true,  it’s about time!

Michael Jackson: De Mortuis Nil Nisi Bonum

Isn’t it funny how, once you die, people go out of their way to remember the best bits of your life? I touch on this in my latest editorial for The-Trades.com.

What I find particularly ghoulish is the circus created by fans, and the giddy reactions of those who “won tickets” to the “funereal event of the century.”

Television Cancelled on Account of Rain

Recently I had the opportunity to do something I’d always wanted to do: upgrade from cable to satellite television. Ah, the pure joy of increasing my channels from scores that I never watched to hundreds that I’ll never watch. But now the satellite dish pulling in those signals is attached to my house, so it’s inherently sexier. And because I was consolidating all my AT&T services (or so I thought), I went with DirecTV.

I should have gone with Uverse. I know that now. It’s what’s driving my Internet, after all. But DirecTV had a longer track record, and besides that I figured I had a 30 day “buyer’s remorse” policy to fall back on if I changed my mind — that’s what my cable provider told me, anyway, when I cancelled their service and they realized they couldn’t get me back as a customer right away.

I’d seen the commercials put out by the cable industry, by the way, about loss of satellite signals during inclement weather. But I’d had a dish back in the old PrimeStar days, and it took Hurricane Fran to create a signal loss, so I figured I was fairly safe. And, come on, we all know how commercials exaggerate their positions to make their opponents look bad. If satellite dish service really experienced the kind of signal loss cable was portraying, theyd’ have been out of business in a year!

Or two years. See, that’s the life of a DirecTV contract. And that 30 days “buyer’s remorse” policy only exists in the mind of the cable representative trying to woo you back.

So on Saturday, I had the DirecTV guy come out and install a DVR and two additional receivers. Now I have to go out and pay for more phone jacks to be installed in the house, because it “relies” on that for billing. (Don’t tell anyone, but I haven’t hooked them up yet, and I got a bill, no problem.) I also have to buy a new television, because until I do I can no longer utilize my DVD player, as there’s nowhere to hook it up to the television while the DVR unit is attached. (Like I needed an excuse to go out and by a bigger and better TV?)

Two days later, it rained. It wasn’t a hurricane. It was barely a thunderstorm. It was just a solid, summer soaker that kept one indoors while things got wet and muddy.

It was a quiet time inside. The DirecTV satellite dish gave me nothing to watch, because it couldn’t pick up a signal through the water. No sports. No music. No news. No HBO/Encore/Showtime movies free for three months. Just a big blue bar that declared I was enjoying a “Loss of Signal” due to weather. I opened the laptop and watched a DVD on it (because I couldn’t do that on my TV without getting behind it and rewiring things, knowing I’d have to undo it all again later). I also checked my email via the wireless connection to my Uverse box — a connection that didn’t seem to even notice that it was raining outside.

It was shortly after that we discovered that there was no 30 day “buyer’s remorse” policy. (Read your contracts, boys and girls.) Not only that, but the customer service person was surprised and shocked that we were dissatisfied — we were the first people ever to be so! And we’d better not even think about trying to get out of the contract by not paying our bill as others had attempted in the past. (Which confused me — if no one in the history of DirecTV had been dissatisfied, why would they try to get out of their contract by non-payment? But, he felt compelled to bring that point up, so I let him.)

Yesterday, I pondered whether it was worth the nearly $500 buyout to cancel my contract. I tried to instead focus on making the favorites list easier to use for family members, getting a splitter box so that the DVD player could run in tandem with the DVR, and maybe — just maybe — acclimating myself to DirecTV and hunkering down for another year and 358 days.

That was yesterday.

Today it’s raining.

Time to break out the board games.

– update 7/16/2009 –

Finally broke down and sent the receivers back, accepting that it was going to cost me $440 in cancellation fees. Today I learned that, because they had my debit card on file from when I paid the initial installation fees over the phone, they had direct-debited my checking account for this amount without my authorization, sending me over my limit (thanks to my local bank letting me fix this without a fee).  I’d been waiting the paper bill to arrive in the mail so I could move the funds from savings to checking when I paid them. This action on DirecTV’s part was just the sewer icing on the urinal cake for me – I’ll never go to their service again, and I’ll recommend against them to anyone I know who’s thinking of making a move in their direction. — R.J.