Wild West 2.0: How to Protect and Restore Your Online Reputation on the Untamed Social Frontier

was being burglarized, in the hope of triggering a violent confronta-

tion between the police and the victim.

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Fortunately, many 911 systems have been upgraded to avoid this

problem, and several attackers have been caught. One attacker was

recently sentenced to five years in jail, and there are other trials

pending.

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Spreading the Attack

Of course, a reputation attack of any kind is harmless if it is hidden;

shouting insults into the wind does nothing but strain the attacker’s

voice. There are as many ways to spread a smear as there are smears,

but the categories described in this section represent some of the

most common methods of attack. They all ...