Ross Armstrong = Richard Nixon

Posted by Ryan Jerz 07/26/2007. Permalink | Shortlink | Tweet it!

I’ll save the clichéd jokes—you all know them. I keep trying to figure out the best way to out the next anonymous Internet personality, and it’ll inevitably not live up the the hype I’ve assigned it in my own mind. The problem is, why should I move on when the first one keeps doing stupid stuff to give the story legs?

Just two days ago, Ross Armstrong made an important announcement (first post). That announcement: he’s done and moving on. I think he originally announced that he was wrapping up, like, a year ago. But it finally happened. In that post, his true identity was acknowledged, but not, you know, directly. He just pointed us to the new, personal site of Nevada Up North.

The whole thing is fitting. Think of it, and him, like this:

  • Guy starts blog
  • Guy happens to be quite the young, brown-shirt-wearing activist
  • Guy wants to be totally unaccountable for whatever crap he pulls
  • Guy weasels out of challenges to his honesty and truthfulness
  • (Guy is a Boy scout, to boot)
  • Guy uses position in a political party to attempt to shut someone else down
  • No worries, guy is unaccountable, remember?
  • Wait, guy isn’t unaccountable?—dude he tried to shut down finds out who guy is and outs his punk ass
  • Guy acts like a weasel (again) and never admits that he’s been owned
  • Guy hosts a presidential candidate at his house
  • Guy makes a big deal about how he’s going away
  • Guy posts that he is moving on and links to new site with real name
  • Two days later, guy attempts to delete all evidence of his scumbaggery
  • Guy maybe enjoys law school (remains to be seen)
  • Guy runs for office (I can’t wait!)

The thing that sucks for Ross is that he either wasn’t technically savvy enough or smart enough to buy a domain and register it as private. Then he could have access to the entire thing, like the robots.txt file and .htaccess and all the stuff that other anonymous bloggers use to cover tracks. Instead, Einstein used Blogger which is owned by that one company that leads, like, the universe in searching for stuff, so their interest lies in making everything they touch searchable for eternity, and they cache their pages. Henceforth, the attempted cover-up is nary a cover-up at all. Genius thought he’d skate. So far, his cover up leaves behind only 807 pages of information on him. G. Gordon Liddy, he’s not.

Here’s some advice, Ross. Keep a really low profile in law school. You aren’t smart enough not to.

Update

I am not responsible for the new Nevada Up North. But I wish I could meet who is.

Ryan JerzRyan Jerz is an all-around good guy who shoots photos and video, builds websites, and works in athletics at the University of Nevada, Reno. He received a Masters Degree in 2007 from the University of Nevada, Reno's Reynolds School of Journalism.

Comments

Mike Jamieson wrote:

This continuing campaign is not gaining you anything, Ryan. Except perhaps the satisfaction that google searches for Ross will forever bring your particular grievance and characterization up for everyone to read.

And, because he really is a good person (and there’s no doubts about that, btw), I hope you eventually take this off the record. After it’s out
of your system, of course, and you have regained
some perspective.

Certainly your friends have given you some reality testing on this?

Jul 30, 04:07 PM

Ryan Jerz wrote:

What “perspective” am I lacking? The whole thing that’s going on here is about accountability. He tried to pull his stunt while hiding behind anonymity, and that is something I absolutely can not stand. Take a look at this link if you’re at all unclear about how I feel in that regard. The past year or so has done a great deal in shaping my “perspective” on the matter. From the Cobb Gobbler to your buddy Ross, I’ve seen ugly, ugly actions done in the name of some ideal they hold up.

Furthermore, I don’t just run around outing people for fun (although it is fun). I save these great moments for people who have personally attacked me while, again, hoping to avoid accountability. The next one I do will be similar. I wish you could understand the damage anonymous posters do to the credibility of blogs, but you’re choosing to defend a guy you know personally, and one that I will not agree with you on. Sorry.

Jul 30, 08:57 PM

Commenting is closed for this article.