Yeah, that was a low act, specially if they were hoping to turn a buck from those guys' personal information. But one of the victims said their identities couldn't have been deduced just from their postings, and the suggestion was that Gary must have let that information out some other way. I didn't hear what the outcome of that was, if there was one.

An ex customer of BAs claimed to have all his customers information and freely gave out that information to people to 'prove' that he was in the know??

Sorry LTB, is that a question or a statement?

If it's a question, I don't know the answer. As I understand it someone, supposedly in China, published a blog with the real names of half-a-dozen of Gary's customers with details of their units and their photos taken from Facebook. I didn't see the blog itself, because Gary (quite properly) didn't link to it. But a couple of the men who were exposed were posting to the effect that the writer of the blog could only have got their identities from the hair sellers, and kind of pointing the finger at Gary. Not sure how much actual damage was done, but obviously very shocking and unpleasant for the people concerned.

Who cares. So some dude in China says I wear a rug. What do I care?

What ACTUALLY happened was that 5 people were targeted who DID care, some of whom were high profile people that had specifically stated that they chose not to reveal the fact that they wore replacement hair.
A blog was created that went in to great detail about where they worked, where they lived, what their experiences were and very personal information that each of them had shared (thinking it was confidential and of benefit to the selected members of the forum) was then published, together with links to their Facebook pages and websites.
No reasonable person could condone that type of underhanded spitefulness or not conceive that it might hurt someone.

I feel bad for the guys, but it is everyone's own responsibility to preserve their privacy if they value it, by blanking out photos they post and using an untraceable yahoo account for hairpiece-related stuff. It's hardly rocket science, and everyone knows there are competitors, voyeurs and other kooks on the Internet, and these sites are not private.

Now if Gary was indeed letting slip these guys' identities, so that someone could out them and link their anonymous posts to them, that is a very serious breach.

I'm afraid I don't hold with the notion that its their own faults for not taking adequate precautions.
Nor do I don't think it was a matter of BA letting anything slip.
It was done by someone quite determined to unearth information by using both this, Toplace, & BA's forum.

People had been remiss & relaxed about hiding their identity over the years and also let bits of information slip here & there that could be pieced together.
But the point is, no matter how tightly people guarded themselves, it would always be possible for someone breach that security.
No one else should get the blame but the person who did it.
The real question is why anyone would want to do it?

If I told you Baldrich, that I found out where you work, what your full name is, who your work colleagues are and have seen a picture of you from your company's website, would you accept ANY responsibility if I then turned around and published that information?
Because the truth is I found all that information about you (Baldrich), from one single, distant post you made, several years ago.
From that, and comments contained in your subsequent posts, it took 5 minutes to find out everything else about you.

I should explain that I was going back, looking at the threads that contained the pictures used in the offending blog, and seeing who also regularly posted in those threads or commented on the photos at the time.
That is when I came across your post.

I was doing an investigation on behalf of one of the people mentioned in the blog and had been supplied with the ISP address of the person who later claimed to be the blogger.
Everything I found out, along with information provided from the blogger's website, was passed on to the person I was doing the research for and I've not kept any record of it.
My point is, it takes time and determination to do something like this but not a great deal of skill.

My motivation was an honest one. The blogger's wasn't. It was twisted and malicious. Therefore no one should be held responsible but the culprit.
Just as you (Baldrich) can't be blamed, simply because you made a single oversight, a few years ago.
By your own admissions, you go to great lengths to maintain your privacy and yet you could have just as easily been one of the victims.

It was a statement Baldrich.
From what was claimed by this guy he obtained personal information because he did some work for BA and was freely giving out that info to guys who requested it,who knows maybe that is how the Chinese guy got hold of that information?
Are you serious James?
You might not care, but to the many other wearers they do care and it wasn't just a case of some Chinese guy knowing their personal details but that those details were published on the web for all to see.
Hersute did the guy have links to this and other sites?
Just curious as to how wide his web was spun?

He narrated the wearing & purchase history of his victims, from beginning to current day, quoting their usernames (as well as real ones) on this & BA's forum.
He took text directly from comments made on both these forums quoting the specs of the pieces and problems & plus points they had experienced.
3 of the 5 victims I'd never heard of before (or at least didn't recognise their usernames) presumably because they not made posts since I'd been using the forum (approx 2 years).
Some of these people were customers going back to the days when BA was associated with Toplace.

The most telling thing was that ONLY people who had made it known that they kept their wearing confidential were targeted.
Looking at their old posts, some of them were specifically asked (by other members) whether they kept it a secret or not. Likewise, some of the pictures used in the blog were also specifically asked for in the forum.

Your point is well-made Hersute; I shouldn't have been so sanctimonious.