Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Chuckeasttom/Archive

Report date February 22 2009, 01:00 (UTC)

 * Suspected sockpuppets


 * Evidence submitted by Crusio (talk)

The above listed editors all edit exclusively the article on Chuck Easttom (created by User:Chuckeasttom). Their edits are highly similar (for example, the following difs:, , , and ). Allmost all of these editors have also edited the talk page of this article with very similar comments. I have been in email contact with Chuck Easttom and it seems rather certain that he is, indeed, User:Chuckeasttom (email can be provided on request). He denies being behind any of these other accounts (email available on request). --Crusio (talk) 01:00, 22 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Comments by accused parties    See Defending yourself against claims.

Yes I have a comment. I made the original article, and used my REAL name to do so. I then even contacted one of the other posters, again using my REAL name. If I had wanted to comitt some fraud then I would not have EVER used my real name. I find this entire charade immensly offensive. And I truly think this is absurd. I have no idea who Tom Daschle, CarlSagansGhosts or whoever else are. I can only say that I am sorry I ever came to wikipedia, it seems to be dominated by some frankly disturbingly obsessive people who have nothing better to than obsess over other people.

Now for you technically challenged people: The complaint itself lists the following IP addresses 192.231.40.130 70.122.233.57 I cannot see the IP for the others

The person making the accusation against me has received personal email from me. He can check that email, view the headers, and he will see my IP address is 206.190.48.188

That should be enough since the accuser has no evidence other than a 'gut feeling' but if that is not enough consider: 1. Why would I have used my real name initially if I wanted to pretend it was not me? 2. Why would I have emailed the accuser with my real email if I wanted to pretend it was not me? 3. Why would I have ADMITTED the original article was by me, if I wanted to pretend it was not me? 4. I have NEVER Posted on the internet other than using my real name. That is why (embaressingly) you can find things on the internet I wish I had not said. In fact wikiquotes has one or two from me I wish I could retract...but that simply supports my claim I don't post anonymously.

Frankly I hope the original article is deleted. Some of the editors have removed truthful content and actually posted false info (for example one of the books they credit me with, I did not write). And frankly I don't feel I wish to be involved with the sort of people I have encountered here so far. Several seem to have nothing better to do than obsess over complete strangers. I would strongly suggest such individuals get a hobby. Surfing wikipedia, cyberstalking strangers is a bit creepy.

If that is not all clear enough: I totally deny that I used ANY login other than my own real name. It is that simple. You can do any "investigation' you like. If your people know how to trace IP's, then my denial will be verified. Either way this is my final comment on this matter. And I STRONGLY urge wikipedia to delete the article and my account, I have no use for this site, or its bizarre behaviors.

FYI Crusio has received emails on me and can run a trace and see that my address is NOT 70.122.233.57. If that accuser has any integrity at all he will check those email headers and verify if they are the same.

And if you go to network solutions you can look up and see http://www.networksolutions.com/whois/results.jsp?ip=70.122.233.57

That address is registered to OrgName:   Road Runner HoldCo LLC OrgID:     RRSW Address:   13241 Woodland Park Road City:      Herndon StateProv: VA PostalCode: 20171 Country:   US It is a LARGE ISP, based out of Viginia. I am in North Texas. So claiming that is me is ridiculous. I suggest you consult someone who understands networks. You are tracing an IP to the last router from an ISP, NOT to the individual machine. I am willing to bet a LOT of people track back to that IP address. It would help if you guys understood something about IP addresses.

You will get the same information from http://www.who.is/whois-ip/ip-address/70.122.233.57/ and other sites. So IF my user posts are registering with the same IP, it just means I am going through the same ISP, which is a nationwide ISP. A more accurate check would be where my emails come from. They track back to an individual. And Crusio has emails from me he can track. Or post the headers for others to track. All my emails come from 206.190.48.188

which traces to http://www.who.is/whois-ip/ip-address/206.190.48.188/ http://www.networksolutions.com/whois/results.jsp?ip=206.190.48.188

Now you will note that this ip is registered in Sunnyvale (Yahoo's headquarters). The point being that IP tracing when going through multiple IP's is useless.

But all this gets solved if you simply delete the article, and my user account. Then I can get on to real live without this harrassment, and you can all get back to stalking and harrassing people on the internet.  I AM STRONGLY URGING WIKIPEDIA TO DELETE THE ARTICLE AND MY ACCOUNT.

But what none of you seem to get is I never denied starting the original article, and doing some editing on it. I even discussed edits with the accuser Crusio. There would be no point by making aliases or "sockpuppets". By the time Crusio accuses me of creating them there where SEVERAL people editing the article, including Crusio ,DoriSmith, Alansohn, ClosedMouth,  and others. And in fact the accuser Crusio made 35 of the last 100 edits..all within a period of less than 48 hours. All this on someone he never heard of before this week...none of you think that is odd? Yes I am just some computer author, I bet most of you never heard of me before this. The accuser Crusio  has made 35 of the edits on the article. Put that in perspective: The alleged 'sock puppets' he accused only did 13 Other edits by people he has NOT accused of being sock puppets = 10 Of those other edits, the second highest to Crusio  is DoriSmith with 4 My own edits (that I have NEVER denied, I admit I started the article) amount to 22, including a couple where I simply tried to blank out the article after I saw it was controverial and seemed to be angering other people. So stopping with just those facts: Crusio  posted more edits than ANYONE else (more than 8 times as many as the other editors he admits are not sock puppets, more than 3 times as many as all the alleged sock puppets put together, and almost double my own edits), all on a person he never heard of before this week. And all within 72 hours. He then accuses that person of 'sock puppetry' AFTER first having used derogorry terms in the editing (refering to my bibliography as 'rather pathetic'), and AFTER having had an email from me wherein I ADMITTED writting the original article. Does that not sound even a little odd to ANYONE? To be frank I do not know who Crusio  is, I don't believe I have ever met him, or (before this week) encountered him online. But how does this NOT look like some personal attack?

Now to the person who traced IP's: thanks, you at least tried to get REAL Evidence. Let me address it: 1. Get a map. Houston is about 5 hours drive from me. I am in FAR north TExas (I am actually a little less than an hour from the Oklahoma state line, you can confirm this by doing a search on my name/address online). Given the time frames of the posts, it would have been impossible for me to have posted both my own edits and the accused sock puppet edits. So you just pretty much exhonorated me of anything coming from Houston. 2. The IP you traced to Collin County College DOES concern me. I teach a few classes there as an adjunct. This makes me wonder if I don't have a student or former student who is not posting either a) they liked my class and think this would be flattering, or b) they got a bad grade and think this would be embaressing. And btw that college is also about 4 hours from Houston.

Frankly I have no idea who those accused sock puppets are. But I would hope NONE of you ever serve on any jury anywhere. You are essentially ready to accuse someone of something based on: 1. Purely circumstantial evidence (someone said the accused sock puppets used similar tags). 2. When the accuser is definately behaving odd. 3. When the accused has been VERY candid and open (I emailed the accuser and discussed the edits, I admit starting the original aticle, as soon as someone mentioned Collin County College, I VOLUNTEERED the information that I adjunct teach there. And they do not list adjuncts anywhere on their website. etc.). In any proceeding the frankness and openness of the accused should come into play. Had I had deceit in mind I would have made the original article with an alias. Right now I am being publically accused of what amounts to fraud on wikipedia, being publically embaressed, all because I was HONEST about what I was doing from day one.

All this confirms my feeling that I don't WANT any article on wikipedia, I dont WANT any account here. I will NOT allow Crusio  to make these spurious accusations and not respond. But when this is done, I hope two things happen: 1. Crusio  has the decency to retract his comments/accusations, and in the future gets a bit less obsessive about total strangers on the internet. 2. The article in question is completely removed, and I never find myself having ANYTHING to do with wikipedia again.

The checkuser here should note that Chuckeasttom's defense, which consists of, and , were both done by 70.122.233.57, who is one of the suspected sockpuppets. Yellowweasel (talk) 02:50, 22 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Comments by other users

Additionally, these diffs: nd  show that Tomdaschle resolves to 192.231.40.130. Yellowweasel (talk) 13:29, 22 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Clerk, patrolling admin and checkuser comments
 * According to our WHOIS tool, 70.122.233.57 geolocates to Houston, Texas, even though its provider is in Virginia like Chuckeasttom/70.122.233.57 says above. (Don't believe me, click here and look at the location).
 * As Yellowweasel points out, both Chuckeasttom and 70.122.233.57 have edited this page acting as the same person, I would say that they are basically confirmed to be the same person.
 * 192.231.40.130 doesn't have any geolocation info, but it is registered to the "Collin County Community College District", a school proxy server located 280 miles from Houston, also in Texas (possible, perhaps unlikely connection).
 * Spinoza007, Reimanshypothesis and Tomdaschle all have behavioral evidence (the diffs provided by the reporter) of using  tags combined with external links, so I would say a high likelihood of relationship.
 * Carlsagansghost is possibly related, this user seems to share the other puppet's habits of advocating the keeping of the article without signing on the talk page.
 * I cannot find any really confirming evidence to link Chuckeasttom to the other puppets, besides the fact that he created a obscure article, and then a bunch of newly registered accounts came out of the woodwork to defend it (which, now that I think of it, sounds pretty damning).
 * Spinoza007, Reimanshypothesis, Tomdaschle and Carlsagansghost all created their accounts within 24 hours of each other, this combined with the other evidence shows a clear connection between them to me. Foxy Loxy  Pounce! 09:23, 22 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Also see http://toolserver.org/~eagle/socks/Chuckeasttom.html for more information. On monday I'll have the bot automatically run these reports and post to a subpage of the cases. Should be very helpful for matching patterns. The green lines are the potential socks, the red lines are the "master/known socks". ——  nix eagle email me 18:02, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

These are all, behaviouraly, so WP:DUCKish that you can hear a chorus of quacks from the other side of the Atlantic. As such, it is interesting that we have such confident denials from the alleged master. His confidence suggests either an elaborate bluff, or a quite extraordinary confidence that the CU results will exonerate him. IME, one can only be that sure of the results if one has made damn sure of covering tracks. Mayalld (talk) 22:44, 22 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Conclusions

✅ Chuckeasttom = Spinoza007 = Reimanshypothesis = Carlsagansghost. It is also that Tomdaschle is involved (seems like a n inappropriate username to me, anyway), due to geography, though not an exact IP match. Dominic·t 19:26, 10 March 2009 (UTC) all confirmed socks are blocked. Mayalld (talk) 07:50, 11 March 2009 (UTC) Mayalld (talk) 07:50, 11 March 2009 (UTC)