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In Depth March 27, 2008, 5:00PM EST

Busting a Rogue Blogger

(page 3 of 3)

Richard Mia

Coarse user comments are a fact of life on the Web. But Frenkel's own posts created a different kind of trouble. Troll Tracker frequently wrote about the Eastern District of Texas, a federal court region regarded by tech firms as a haven for patent trolls. Frenkel referred to it in an October item as "the Banana Republic of East Texas," even as Cisco was defending litigation there. Frenkel later reported that, in a patent suit in the Eastern District, lawyers for a company called ESN appeared to have arranged to have a date altered in a court document, a felony which could lead to disbarment and imprisonment for an attorney. The defendant in the suit: Cisco.

CLOAK AND DAGGER

Within weeks, T. John Ward Jr., one of the two Texas lawyers named by Troll Tracker, filed a petition in court seeking permission to subpoena Google (GOOG)—which hosted the blog at its blogger.com network—for the author's identity. Other efforts were also being made to unmask Frenkel. Another lawyer, who says he doesn't generally agree with Frenkel's views, asked a technically adept colleague to trace Troll Tracker's digital footsteps. "He did a very good job of cloaking himself," the lawyer says. The search found that the blog was hosted on a Google server in Korea, and that the blogger filled out a profile in which he claimed to be from Afghanistan.

Frenkel acknowledged the hunt for his identity in various posts. Winning entries in his haiku contest included one of his own: "Bounty on my head/Hope my parents don't try to/collect the reward." In the end, it wasn't the effort to subpoena Google or Niro's bounty that outed Frenkel (no one has claimed it, Niro says), but an anonymous e-mail. In his Feb. 23 unmasking, Frenkel wrote that the e-mailer "[told] me I better tell everyone who I am (and he clearly knew), or else he would take care of it for me. The clear threat in the e-mail is that he would do it in a way I wouldn't be happy about."

With Frenkel's name public, Ward and fellow Texan Eric M. Albritton have now sued Cisco and Frenkel for defamation, claiming that his reports about altering documents were false. Cisco says it will defend the case. Facing litigation as a result of the rogue blogger in its midst, Cisco in a Mar. 24 blog post chastised some of its employees for "poor judgment," and outlined a new policy. Employees must now state their names and that they work for Cisco if they comment on issues involving the company. In a brief statement issued by Cisco, Frenkel noted that he hoped to resume blogging in the near future. For now though, visitors to Troll Tracker are greeted with a message that reads: "This blog is open to invited readers only."

Links

Rules of the 'Sphere

Some companies take baby steps into the blogosphere. Others, such as Sun Microsystems (SUNW), have plunged in. Sun's Web site tells its 4,000-plus employees who blog: "By speaking directly to the world, without [requiring] management approval, we are accepting higher risks in the interests of higher rewards." Some tips Sun offers: Link to lots of other sites, "Don't tell secrets," and saying something "sucks" is "not only risky but unsubtle."

Orey covers corporations for BusinessWeek .

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