His fake name is “Earl Drudge”, an anagram of “Drug Dealer”. In early March 2014, he used some social engineering techniques and fake US federal documents to be granted full access to Chris’ servers. After missing the opportunity and a failed retaliation attempt, he posted sensitive personal information of Chris’ onto a site where not only can it never be removed, if it’s attempted to be removed becomes promoted.
He agreed to talk with Chris directly and have it recorded for this show.
We realize that this crosses the line of “feeding the trolls” or giving attention to “bad guys”, but we feel it relevant for our industry. Our lives and work are completely online and we’re all highly susceptible to types of hacks and identity theft. It should go without saying that you should not try to be a hero here: if you visit EarlDrudge’s site(s), try to expose his identity, or try to snoop around on him, you might actually put yourself in a position where you yourself might be vulnerable to being attacked. We advise you to simply listen.
Update since the recording (from Chris) : I was able to talk with Media Temple directly only hours after this conversation. One good end result is that they have changed their policy of how/when/what documents can be approved in which to grant access and who can do that. The retaliation attempt (“honeypot”) was verified to have been done by Media Temple. They were trying to catch the bad guy for me, and while I wish there was better communication about that, it’s nice to know they were trying to fight back on my behalf.
