Is Countertrolling a Troll The Answer

[JoePCool14]

I can't tell if MMM was banned or if the admins just reset his post count to zero.

A smoking gun has been shared with us that MMM is a sockpuppet of Mike2357. He has therefore been permanently banned.

No idea who Mike2357 is. But thanks for the update. 

Edit: Ok, I see now. I can also why I didn't really know about his previous account. He only posted with it for about one week in 2021.

[CoreySamson]

I can't tell if MMM was banned or if the admins just reset his post count to zero.

A smoking gun has been shared with us that MMM is a sockpuppet of Mike2357. He has therefore been permanently banned.

No idea who Mike2357 is. But thanks for the update. 

Edit: Ok, I see now. I can also why I didn't really know about his previous account. He only posted with it for about one week in 2021.

SafeSpeeder was another of Mike's aliases. I'm a little surprised that MMM is one as well, honestly!

[Rothman]

I can't tell if MMM was banned or if the admins just reset his post count to zero.

A smoking gun has been shared with us that MMM is a sockpuppet of Mike2357. He has therefore been permanently banned.

Holy cow.  Best plot twist ever!

[jmacswimmer]

I can't tell if MMM was banned or if the admins just reset his post count to zero.

A smoking gun has been shared with us that MMM is a sockpuppet of Mike2357. He has therefore been permanently banned.

No idea who Mike2357 is. But thanks for the update. 

Edit: Ok, I see now. I can also why I didn't really know about his previous account. He only posted with it for about one week in 2021.

SafeSpeeder was another of Mike's aliases. I'm a little surprised that MMM is one as well, honestly!

I had actually had this slight suspicion a while ago when MMM, in his infancy, posted something about speeding on the New Jersey Turnpike that sounded awfully familiar to something SafeSpeeder had once said, but then I forgot about it after some of the other stuff like "flip-your-car curves"  and "master of your domain"  took hold. Quite the turn of events this evening!

[Max Rockatansky]

I can't tell if MMM was banned or if the admins just reset his post count to zero.

A smoking gun has been shared with us that MMM is a sockpuppet of Mike2357. He has therefore been permanently banned.

No idea who Mike2357 is. But thanks for the update. 

Edit: Ok, I see now. I can also why I didn't really know about his previous account. He only posted with it for about one week in 2021.

SafeSpeeder was another of Mike's aliases. I'm a little surprised that MMM is one as well, honestly!

There has been chatter about MMM being a sockpuppet for about a month.  A lot of people seem to have thought he was a Marf sock.  Then again, at this point I suspect that all of these are the same person.  Oh well, I guess he turned out to be that George Santos analog after all.

[hbelkins]

I don't remember Mike2357. What was his claim to infamy?

[JoePCool14]

I don't remember Mike2357. What was his claim to infamy?

If you check that profile, there's about 8 pages of postings in just one week. That alone should be a massive red flag. I didn't take the time to really read them, but I imagine they were similar to his stuff under MMM.

[Roadgeekteen]

I can't tell if MMM was banned or if the admins just reset his post count to zero.

A smoking gun has been shared with us that MMM is a sockpuppet of Mike2357. He has therefore been permanently banned.

Who is Mike2357? I checked out his profile and he seemed like MMM? How did he get banned? Can someone explain please to me?

[dlsterner]

Kudos to AARoads's staff!  Great job!  I had a hunch he was a sock puppet as well but saw no concrete evidence.

Just now realized this interesting factoid - the number 2357 (as in Mike2357) is a prime number, as well as a concatenation of the first four prime numbers (2, 3, 5, 7).

Such a prime number is called a "Smarandache—Wellin prime".

And we know MultiDozenMiler was fond of prime numbers

[Roadgeekteen]

Thus ends an era on the forum. It was crazy, wild, and certainly a moment on this forum that I will never forget. I still want some clarification for who Mike is and what got him banned, but it's fine.

[Scott5114]

I can't tell if MMM was banned or if the admins just reset his post count to zero.

A smoking gun has been shared with us that MMM is a sockpuppet of Mike2357. He has therefore been permanently banned.

Who is Mike2357?

He's MMM. Try and keep up, will ya?

[dlsterner]

RGT, if you want some background, here is a sample thread from "Mike2357".

https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=29977.0

Apparently he got banned, and created a sock puppet "Safe Speeder" - again, a sample thread.  I think there was an incident where he used a slur "r*t*rded".  Whether that's what brought the first ban, I don't remember.

https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=30037.0

Banned again after "SafeSpeeder" was determined to be a sock puppet.  The search function can find more threads if you are so inclined.

[Roadgeekteen]

RGT, if you want some background, here is a sample thread from "Mike2357".

https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=29977.0

Apparently he got banned, and created a sock puppet "Safe Speeder" - again, a sample thread.  I think there was an incident where he used a slur "r*t*rded".  Whether that's what brought the first ban, I don't remember.

https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=30037.0

Banned again after "SafeSpeeder" was determined to be a sock puppet.  The search function can find more threads if you are so inclined.

I can see Mike obsess over straight roads! I see now. Wonder how SafeSpeeder got discovered so quickly but MMM stayed around for so long? 

[Max Rockatansky]

RGT, if you want some background, here is a sample thread from "Mike2357".

https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=29977.0

Apparently he got banned, and created a sock puppet "Safe Speeder" - again, a sample thread.  I think there was an incident where he used a slur "r*t*rded".  Whether that's what brought the first ban, I don't remember.

https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=30037.0

Banned again after "SafeSpeeder" was determined to be a sock puppet.  The search function can find more threads if you are so inclined.

I can see Mike obsess over straight roads! I see now. Wonder how SafeSpeeder got discovered so quickly but MMM stayed around for so long?

He didn't, lots of people expressed opinions that he was a Mike/SafeSpeeder sock.  The whole sexy TNG thing was new this round. 

[Roadgeekteen]

RGT, if you want some background, here is a sample thread from "Mike2357".

https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=29977.0

Apparently he got banned, and created a sock puppet "Safe Speeder" - again, a sample thread.  I think there was an incident where he used a slur "r*t*rded".  Whether that's what brought the first ban, I don't remember.

https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=30037.0

Banned again after "SafeSpeeder" was determined to be a sock puppet.  The search function can find more threads if you are so inclined.

I can see Mike obsess over straight roads! I see now. Wonder how SafeSpeeder got discovered so quickly but MMM stayed around for so long?

He didn't, lots of people expressed opinions that he was a Mike/SafeSpeeder sock.  The whole sexy TNG thing was new this round.

Well it took him a while to actually get caught and banned. It seems like there wasn't enough proof for a long time.

[Max Rockatansky]

RGT, if you want some background, here is a sample thread from "Mike2357".

https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=29977.0

Apparently he got banned, and created a sock puppet "Safe Speeder" - again, a sample thread.  I think there was an incident where he used a slur "r*t*rded".  Whether that's what brought the first ban, I don't remember.

https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=30037.0

Banned again after "SafeSpeeder" was determined to be a sock puppet.  The search function can find more threads if you are so inclined.

I can see Mike obsess over straight roads! I see now. Wonder how SafeSpeeder got discovered so quickly but MMM stayed around for so long?

He didn't, lots of people expressed opinions that he was a Mike/SafeSpeeder sock.  The whole sexy TNG thing was new this round.

Well it took him a while to actually get caught and banned. It seems like there wasn't enough proof for a long time.

Here is an early example (excuse the lazy attempt to replicate quote from a locked thread):

"Quote from: jmacswimmer on November 11, 2022, 05:05:21 PM
While we're on the subject, am I the only one that got Mike2357/SafeSpeeder vibes from that quote?

I've had those vibes for a while but for a different reason. I'm not allowed to say what the reason is, however. If you recall things Mike2357 used to say, you might figure it out."

What do think my poll was referencing in the Universe thread?  I always took the "George Santos"  references to be an inference several believed MMM was a sock.

[SkyPesos]

Mike2357/SafeSpeeder/MMM all listed their location as the NYC area. Not like that itself narrows it down much, but something else I noticed, along with what has been mentioned already.

[J N Winkler]

There are stylistic similarities in the posts that sort of stick out in retrospect--for example, both Mike2357 and MultiMillionMiler love "LOL," and tend to get into run-on sentences that turn into overlong paragraphs once they get going.  Mike2357 didn't have "laughable" as his favorite word like MMM did, but perhaps that would have surfaced if he had more time before he flamed out.

We are going to have to watch new member applications carefully for a while.

Well it took him a while to actually get caught and banned. It seems like there wasn't enough proof for a long time.

I don't want to say too much in the open about sources and methods, but generally speaking, a banned forum user with enough intelligence to evade technical countermeasures can last quite a long time under a sockpuppet account, and even ascend to a position of responsibility.  Similarities in post theme, prosodic rhythm, etc. can be enough to form a suspicion (as happened in this case), but often we don't get hard evidence unless there is a failure to cover tracks.

[Scott5114]

I'll add to that it's very hard to make a credible accusation of sockpuppeting without some form of evidence, since the defense both a guilty and an innocent user would give essentially amounts to "No, that's not me."

This is particularly true when the person involved has a common name and lives in a large metro area–there's probably about a dozen people named Mike in the NYC area who like roads, so without something more to go on it's hard to act on it because the risk of a false positive is so great.

Strange things happen, after all–back in the MTR days there were two men active in the community, both with the same first and last name and both from the same state. Amusingly, when one of them started going by a highway designation as his nom-de-plume, the other went by that same highway designation with "Alternate" appended. The mainline is still here on the forum, but I don't think the Alternate ever made the jump over here.

[jeffandnicole]

I don't want to say too much in the open about sources and methods, but generally speaking, a banned forum user with enough intelligence to evade technical countermeasures can last quite a long time under a sockpuppet account, and even ascend to a position of responsibility.  Similarities in post theme, prosodic rhythm, etc. can be enough to form a suspicion (as happened in this case), but often we don't get hard evidence unless there is a failure to cover tracks.

And one thing I would say about MMM and that, between all of his PA Turnpike curves are dangerous and what defined the east coast, he threw in some other stuff that was much more interesting and intelligent in nature.  And then the next post would be about a maximum limit of 67 because it was prime then he'll delete his intelligent posts since his post count reached 2010.

[Roadgeekteen]

I wonder if it would be possible for a sockpuppet to clean up and get respected enough so that getting caught wouldn't get them banned. I'm honestly not sure.

[Scott5114]

I wonder if it would be possible for a sockpuppet to clean up and get respected enough so that getting caught wouldn't get them banned. I'm honestly not sure.

We've had people do it on the same account before. If you looked at some people's posts from 2010 you'd never guess they're the same person.

[hotdogPi]

I will say that I personally made the connection and that a "fatal flaw" was involved. I will not say what that fatal flaw was.

(Mods, you can delete this post if it gives too much away.)

[SectorZ]

I don't even remember MMM's two prior accounts. I guess he got his permanent infamy on his third try.

Now let's just hope he doesn't hold a grudge. He seems to be the type to doxx people and start sending Zodiac killer style letters to our homes but instead of symbols they're just prime numbers.

[Max Rockatansky]

Even if he held a grudge, he probably isn't that savy socially to not make it obvious who he is on another sock puppet attempt.