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Still reading it, but so far I don't quite like how the following paragraph could make it easy to find Mike's home, 25-foot walls, sushi restaurant and so on:
by trumbitta2 12y ago
Still reading it, but so far I don't quite like how the following paragraph could make it easy to find Mike's home, 25-foot walls, sushi restaurant and so on:
MIKE LIVES IN Fremont, a trendy district north of Seattle’s downtown that’s known as a haven for alternative types. Even there, though, he doesn’t quite fit in.
Take his apartment: it isn’t one. From the street, a glass door opens onto a concrete retail space with 25-foot high walls. The windows are covered by blinds. Ceiling-mounted halogen tubes cast a low glow that leaves the corners dark. Delicious smells from a neighbouring sushi restaurant occasionaly fill the space, but Mike’s own kitchen is rarely used; obscure electronic components and dismembered gadgets crowd the counters. The floor is covered in random detritus: a single white sock, a piece of fuzzy green string.
- swdunlop 12y agoI thought the same thing. The journalist is very careful to respect the scammer, "Mr. Smith" but is very eager to dump where Mike lives, what mule fingered him, and the only thing protecting either would be the fact that Mr. Smith would be more exposed if he tried to retaliate directly.
- rdl 12y agoI think they're worried about being sued for accusing Mr. Smith and Jennifer of crimes which they haven't been convicted of, whereas Mike Davis just admits to crimes directly (for a good cause, but it certainly seems like he's exposed to some legal risk here, in the US and especially India, although I suspect no prosecutor in the US would go after him, and no jury would convict, because he's doing it for a good reason.)
- mcv 12y ago> I suspect no prosecutor in the US would go after him, and no jury would convict, because he's doing it for a good reason. I wish I could trust the US justice system that much.
- smsm42 12y agoA lot of prosecutors would gladly go after him - they are regularly going for people for self-defense, "crimes" that hurt nobody, and so on, and so forth. And they can very well succeed in selecting a jury that would know nothing except the letter of the law was violated, so the must convict.
- jeorgun 12y agoAs they mention in the link at the end of the post[1], they hid the scammer's name out of fear of UK libel laws. Presumably they're not really concerned about Mike suing them. [1] http://blog.readmatter.com/post/41287969841/when-should-we-hide-a-sources-name http://blog.readmatter.com/post/41287969841/when-should-we-h...
- netghost 12y agoYeah, if you live in Seattle, you can probably find Mike's apartment in a few minutes now.
- saraid216 12y agoYou don't even need to be familiar with Seattle. All you have to do is know how to use Yelp and Streetview.
- Centigonal 12y agoI actually gave this a try -- There are a remarkable number of unmarked retail spaces with > 2 floors and blinded windows near sushi restaurants in Fremont. I'm not condoning the author's lack of discretion, but I was surprised to see that the kind of home Davis has, while unconventional, probably looks rather nondescript from the outside.
- danieldk 12y agoOr, maybe the description is fake. Artistic freedom meets privacy protection.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- eric_arrr 12y agoTo my own slight surprise, as I began reading the article, I realized: I know Mike. Didn't know he was into hunting scammers, though. It's easier to find him than you think, if you know how to access ordinary public records. But if any scammers were to threaten Mike with retaliation, he'd probably say, "come at me, bro." I have to say, in spite of having a lot of respect for Mike, his willingness to expose himself legally is, as we say in the industry, some serious cowboy bullshit.