Bloggers' Hall of Shame: Shame on you, Loretta Serrano!

On May 20, 2006, Loretta Serrano, owner of the domain misfitting.com, posted the names, birth dates, and location of two minor children who are complete strangers to her. Ms. Serrano's public revelations also identified other adult family members, related to the children, citing their respective birth dates in addition. Why?

It was a premeditated act of retribution motivated by a fervent desire to humiliate a selected individual who participates on a forum that collectively criticizes Loretta Serrano’s online behavior and opinions. None of the persons listed in her vindictive announcement has ever posted or commented about Loretta Serrano. The casualties of this flagrant act, in all probability, are not even aware of her existence. Ms. Serrano didn’t simply post the statistics on her own Weblog, misfitting.com, but went a step further by duplicating the message at Usenet newsgroups. The following is a description of Usenet:

"Usenet is a worldwide network of newsgroups (also called forums or message boards) covering an estimated 40,000 (and growing) different topics. Users can post anything they care to, and often do so anonymously. The sexually explicit content on Usenet newsgroups is often more extreme than that on adult-oriented Web sites.

Moreover, sexually explicit Usenet newsgroups are conduits for advertising adult-oriented Web sites and can provide their users with a mechanism to swap sexually explicit material. Some Internet service providers carry a full line of Usenet newsgroups."

http://tinyurl.com/phfh4

The personal data Loretta Serrano aired in public on Usenet remains in the environment described above to this day, for the entire Internet world to see, by virtue of the archiving process utilized by newsgroups . Ms. Serrano has since removed a portion of the information from her own blog, but her malignant handiwork continues to be exposed to a much broader and diverse audience.

No apology was issued. Remorse was never expressed. Instead, Loretta Serrano chose to castigate the mother of the minor children, through an interloper, on a blog that was designed to vilify her prey with the following remarks:

5/24/06 - "First, let me tell you this: nobody, I mean NOBODY paid for (or offered to pay for) the information about your kids. The info is openly available around. Genealogy."

"What makes you think you are more important than anyone else?"

The comments were most likely intended to clarify a bounty, which had been previously offered in Newsgroups:

"I am going to sweeten the pot: $200 REWARD on the real Identiy of "Axxxx Rxxxxxx/Axxxx Nxxxxx/Axxxx Nxxxxxx/et al." Or more. Depending on who wants to ante up. I have the $$ - and some." -Posted by Loretta Serrano a.k.a. RetzQ - Oct 08, 09:16 am. (alt.fan.bob-larson)

Another message posted on Usenet combined with a threat:

"This is just fighting fire with fire. If Lxxx Nxxxxxx wants this removed, she knows what to do. I might be able to get rid of it before it caches to another newsgroup. I can easily remove it from here and my blog if she takes down the Kennel. The ball is in her court. Otherwise, there are more people in there whose real names we know and who risk the same exposure." -Posted by Loretta Serrano a.k.a. RetzQ on 05-21-2006, 10:55 AM

Note: The recipient of Loretta's hostility does NOT own the above referenced forum, called the "Kennel" and has no control over its management. Ms. Serrano knows it!

She also comprehends how newsgroups operate as evidenced by the following reprimand to a Usenet poster who is also the object of Ms. Serrano's perpetual scorn:

“If you didn't want an audience, you shouldn't be posting on a news group where the comments are public for all the world to see and are never deleted except by the authors. Even then, they are archived in other news group sites. Oops. Now your stupidity is here for all to see FOREVER.” –Posted by Loretta Serrano a.k.a. RetzQ on 05-20-2006, 09:27 PM