I have received a long-winded, weasely, vague threat from someone demanding that I confirm receipt of his fuzzy undefined accusation. This is that confirmation.
Hi, id: 2026-08-26-02:05:21:987t
I’m reaching out directly in connection with content posted on your channel. I’ve found content that appears to originate from work I created, and I wanted to get in touch with you first before making any decision to raise the matter through the platform’s formal process.
I haven’t submitted a report at the moment. Before moving forward, I’d like to hear what you have to say and better understand your position about the use of this material.
When I hear back from you, I can give you the specific information regarding the material and explain what concerns me regarding the content I’ve noticed. If there’s additional context or an explanation from your side, I’ll take any relevant context into account.
My first preference is to address the situation directly and see if we can resolve it without using the platform’s formal process. From my perspective offers both of us enough opportunity to consider the matter before taking additional action.
If we can’t find a reasonable way forward, I may then consider raising the matter formally and including the appropriate information for consideration through the platform’s review process.
Before anything further, please confirm that you’ve seen my communication and are prepared to discuss the matter. When I hear from you, I’ll provide the information I’ve identified so we can determine how best to proceed.
Thank you for reading this. Hopefully we can work this out directly.
All the best.
I dread the moment he explains what the fuck he wants to complain about, because if this is an example of his circuitous writing style, it’s going to be painful to read. I think he thinks he’s a lawyer, a bad lawyer, who can’t be forthright.
I’ll let you know when he manages to shake the soggy cornmeal out of his head and tells me what he thinks I’ve plagiarized, since that’s what he’s actually accusing me of.
Looks like spam to me. Best not to reply.
Yeah, that’s why I replied publicly here. No way was I going to respond directly to an email with a weird address.
All this time, I didn’t even know the author of this blog is really called ” id: 2026-08-26-02:05:21:987t”. I wouldn’t say you received that from “someone”, but from “something”. It hasn’t even gone to the bother that typical global spam scams do of trying to parse a name out of an email address they have got hold of.
That’s the kind of scam that leaves me wondering exactly what the angle is. Something like: get one or two out of thousands of marks to reply, then initiate a conversation that leads to an “investment opportunity”?
Or maybe those clowns from the Secular Coalition have outsourced their harassment to a (rather stupid) AI?
Whatever.
This is the “platform’s formal process.”
PZ Myers and Ed Brayton are listed as the owners of Freethoughtblogs, so who else is the ultimate authority?
As the first comment has already pointed out, this looks like spam from a scammer.
Who is “Hi, id: 2026-08-26-02:05:21:987t” anyway. This sort of looks like an internet address.
You may have just met your first AI malware.
I’ve already run across one on the internet as part of a fake ad.
“Who is “Hi, id: 2026-08-26-02:05:21:987t” anyway. This sort of looks like an internet address.”
No, it’s a date and time, in almost ISO 8601 format (that T should be between date and time, not at the end.).
@5: I will amuse myself with the thought of someone trying to sic the shade of Ed Brayton on PZ. I like to think that Ed would be amused, too.
It is probably that “flame-bait” that you posted on February 29th of this year. I’m sure that if you tell them you’ll take down all of your February 29th posts they’ll happily go away. [May as well match them for nonsense.]
I once noticed a scam in my spam folder: Had one of my old passwords as the subject. Apparently the guy thought he could blackmail me for viewing a furry art site and was demanding $5,000 to buy his silence. I deleted it and changed my password to something stronger.
I skipped reading the gibberish sent to PZ, but I imagine there are a category of blackmailers who don’t know anything about their spam victims and just send vague threats, hoping that one of them will panic and reveal their shame. Once read a Reddit story where someone tried to blackmail a family member without naming what the “crime” was, leaving her confused, since she couldn’t think of any shameful secret she had. Turns out the would-be blackmailer was the last person in the family to know that she was openly lesbian and got a divorce for toying with everyone up until the big “reveal” at Thanksgiving.
I, too, thought “spam” with Monty Python ringing in my head. I sometimes get spam where the name of the sender is me. Seems that spammers have better things to do than improve their spam.