Lawfare hasn’t been the only thing I’ve had to put up with from Team Kimberlin. They also tired to intimidate me with various forms of cyberthuggery. This post about Anonymity and Cowardice ran nine years ago today.

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The use of the term “anonymous coward” to describe someone who posts a comment without using his real name or a known nom de cyber goes back to the early days of Usenet. If Samuel Clemens were to comment here as Mark Twain, he would not be considered an anonymous coward. (Note: Someone using a known nom de cyber (i.e., @BreitbartUnmask) may be a coward but doesn’t really meet the definition of anonymous coward.)

OTOH, these “commenters” are clearly anonymous cowards:The abusive, often obscene, content of the comments submitted under these names compounds the cowardice of the sender(s). He (they) doesn’t (don’t) have the courage to speak openly.

I’ve received around a hundred such “comments” over the past few months. I’ve posted a few of them. Most have been so juvenile that my reaction has been to shake my head and file them away. Some, however, have contained seriously perverted messages that raise concerns about the stability of the sender. They have caused my family to take some additional measures to assure our safety.

There are some really sick weirdo trolls on the Internet.

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Bullies always seem surprised when a victim punches back, and I’ve rarely settled for only twice as hard.