UPDATE: The judgments I made in this post were based on a hoax perpetrated by David Lange aka Aussie Dave. Unfortunately, I didn’t detect that he was playing me and I published a fraudulent identity Lange had created. Thankfully though, after he published a post bragging about the deception, an ace researcher uncovered Lange’s real identity which I posted about here.
For those who have a long memory here, one of my earliest prolonged blogging battles was with a far-right wing Islamophobic Australian-Israeli blogger who used the pseudonym, Aussie Dave and wrote an especially putrid blog, Israellycool. Originally, I went head to head with him over his Jewish blogging contest which he organized under the sponsorship of the Jerusalem Post. In taking him to task for the far right wing nature of the vast majority of the blogs nominated, I earned his eternal enmity. He’s now organizing a new version of the contest, the Pro-Israel Blog-Off, for only the farthest right of pro-Israel blogs. To ensure the Zionist ideological kashrut of the project, the judges include the CEO of the pro-Israel media advocacy group, Honest Reporting (“Honest” should be in square quotes) and “the Embassy of Israel in Dublin.” Don’t ask how an entire embassy can judge a blogging contest. The nominees are a very veritable hate-fest of the right-wing Anglo-Israeli blog world including CIF Watch, Elders of Ziyon, My Right Word, etc.
Ever since the days of his first contest, he’s taken every chance he could to attempt (invariably unsuccessfully) to shame, embarrass, humiliate or insult me. I won’t go into the specifics since they’re so puerile and sophomoric. Davey has threatened to sue me and warned me that he was a lawyer. But somehow, being the bully he is, he talked a good game never following through. I’ve always wondered why he refused to reveal his real identity, especially since he’d published my home address, phone number and my wife’s employer name and work phone at his blog. It seemed especially hypocritical under the circumstances.
Now, due to a sloppy error on his part (thanks to an eagle-eyed Israeli who finds him as repellant as I, who caught it), Aussie Dave has exposed his real identity. And since I believe that hypocrites deserve their comeuppance and that their dark secrets deserve to see the light, I’m exposing him for what and who he is: David Loeb, 23 Rashi Street Beit-Shemesh, Israel. In his Facebook profile he notes some sort of affiliation with Virgin Megastores, which may mean he works there. If anyone knows, I’d like to find out.
Commenters note that Loeb has featured a picture of a U.S. basketball player for his profile photo which makes that as fake as the rest of him and his blog is. He also might’ve considered that featuring his blog’s URL in his Facebook profile would be another dead giveaway to his real identity.
The last straw that determined my decision to expose him was his feeble attempt to link me to a couple from my home city sharing my last name, who were charged with welfare fraud. Loeb hoped at the very least that the cheat might be my brother or some other close relative. It’s bad enough when they implicate me personally in their scummy revenge fantasies. But when they attempt to ensnare innocent family members, that goes too far.
So Dave, I’m throwing you the coming out party you so richly deserve. Enjoy your moment the sun. Now that you’ve been outed you won’t have any more protection than the rest of us, who blog under our own name, have. I daren’t believe it will make you any more responsible or any less bilious. You and leopards, after all, cannot change your spots.
NOTE ABOUT CHANGES TO COMMENTING: I’ve been innundated by spam lately and disappointed that the Akismet anti-spam plugin, which had been doing a great job, began to perform so shoddily. I’ve implemented a new system that requires commenters to check boxes before their comment is sent to the queue. I didn’t want to implement a Captcha plugin because I thought that was too intrusive. I hope this is a reasonable compromise. If you find anything hinky about the changes or the way the new plugin works, let me know.
that photo looks like Laker basketball player Jordan Farmar, who was playing basketball in Israel while NBA lockout was going on, don’t if he came back to US..
Just checked out the profile myself (was wondering if he’d outed himself or if someone else had done it) and noticed that he only has one friend, meaning the profile is likely new. Is it possible that it’s a fake?
Interesting that Jilian C. York is here, doesn’t she work for the EFF? Don’t they care about the privacy of bloggers? The photo is of a basketball player, so that’s fake. The profile is fake. This is misinformation, and not the first time Silverstein has been totally wrong in his attempts to “out” anonymous pro-Israel activists.
Too bad, fella. Loeb outed himself by featuring his own Facebook profile in a screenshot he published on his website. So if the profile is fake he’s promoting his own fake profile at his own blog. Now don’t you feel like a fool for claiming such shtus & trying to get us to believe it? And if the photograph is of a basketball player, then it’s Loeb who chose to feature the photograph. Though I’d be interested to hear which basketball player you claim it is.
Are you seriously attempting to argue that Jillian York or EFF should care about David Loeb’s privacy when he’s exposed my family’s home address & phone as well as my wife’s employer & her work phone? You wouldn’t be trying to argue something so hypocritical, would you?
It’s Jordan Farmar: https://encrypted.google.com/search?q=jordan+farbar+poker&hl=en&client=firefox-a&hs=cDC&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&prmd=imvnso&source=lnms&tbm=isch&ei=rSH8TsDkLeSnsQLGqeHwCg&sa=X&oi=mode_link&ct=mode&cd=2&ved=0CAkQ_AUoAQ&biw=1320&bih=729
where did he promote his fake profile on his blog? where did he expose your family’s home address/phone and wife’s employer/phone?
If you follow the links in my post and view them carefully you’ll find an answer to your first question. As for exposing the other information, I don’t have the cheyshek to go through his blog or my own to dredge that up again. It’s there and he’s acknowledged it is & refused to remove it.
The photo is an uncanny resemblance to professional basketball player, Jordan Farmer. I immediately thought it looked like Farmar, and my google image search seems to confirm it, at least to my eyes.
Yeah, you’re right. Loeb is smart enough to use a fake photo, but not smart enough to cut his own FB profile name & photo out of screenshots he publishes at his own blog.
“Exposing” someone who called you names?
Are you 12? Get over yourself.
Sorry to be late on the uptake there, I had loaded the page before the comments were posted. Was trying to be helpful, not antagonistic 🙂
My name is David Loeb and I live in Bet-Shemesh.
I take a very dim view of your libel of me and unless you remove all it immediately I intend to take legal advice with a view to suing you for defamation.
I look forward to hearing from you or your lawyer. You don’t intimidate me. Not one bit.
I not sure I see the purpose of having head-on confrontations with these various people…
Threats by comment or e-mail do not constitute a writ and have no legal force.
To be effective, Mr Leob must be able to make a civil damages claim under the laws of the United States and Washington State in particular. Until he can find a US attorney recognised by the Washington Satte bar who is willing to serve Prof. Silverstein with a writ, or at least write a formal warning letter, this threat can be safely ignored.
One of the reasons why threatening comments have no legal force, is that it’s impossible to tell if the commentator really is who he claims to be.
In any case, it’s a jolly expensive business and one of Sir Richard Branson’s baseline employees would be ill-advised to enter the libel courts, unless the boss is willing to commit his millions and his company’s reputation to helping him, of course.
the profile picture is of Jordan Farmer, former player of Maccabi Tel-Aviv. Now in New-Jersey
Stalkers can be accidentlaly outed by the lists of information they compile on their intended victim, if a phisher’s malware runs over the list and thinks it’s a list of the stalker’s friends, who might send him money if he were in dire straits, or even Madrid.
http://medawarscornflakes.blogspot.com/2011/12/stalkers-and-malware.html
It appears that this was a set up, which doesn’t do any favours to the those who thought this would discredit Richard Silverstein’s reporting and journalism.
Any media that one can edit themselves, like social networks, is not a good source for confirming an identity. Facebook, has it’s fair share of fake profiles.
Granted that Richard should have checked and confirmed ‘Loeb’s’ identity through more credible means than Facebook, but bearing in mind the two were in a fight any serious media will ignore this as little more than a response to juvenile baiting.
As such those who claim that richard Silverstein’s credibility is damaged are indulging in wishful thinking, because this episode can be put down to an emotional response between two bloggers at loggerheads. In such circumstances, it’s entirely plausible that feelings take precedence over critical analysing as happened here.
It doesn’t detract from Richard’s fine work and I don’t for a minute believe his credibility will suffer or that the MSM will take him any the less seriously. All the MSM giants, and top journalists have been involved in seriousl bloopers.
To err is human. Keep up the good work Richard. Wiki Leaks of Israel indeed! Ht tip cij 🙂
It would be nice if you update the post and link to the better hit…