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Comment by ttt0 | Hacker News Reader

> I wonder how this "troll" was "traced". Specially trained Twitter-hound? You don't just "trace" people on the internet.

Look up Kurt Eichenwald. He found and sued an anonymous Twitter troll who send him a GIF "you deserve a seizure" in 2017. I'm not sure exactly how, I think the authorities helped him, so Twitter just might've gave them the information.

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So for anyone else that found that completely odd, the whole story is that he sued someone who sent him a DM with a gif that purposefully triggered his epilepsy and caused him to seize. The words "you deserve a seizure" were definitely not the basis of the suit.

Minor correction, it wasn't a DM, it was a public tweet that had him tagged. Then his wife (or him pretending to be his wife) responded to the tweet from Eichenwald's account, that he just had a seizure and that she had called the police.

Good point. That's possible and could've made the things easier. I tend to forget that authorities can request personal information from companies (and that the companies don't mind sharing most of the time).

FTR, it happens ALL... THE... TIME. Court issues subpoena saying give us everything you have on this tweet/message/posting or be held in contempt. Company then responds with all info on account IPs, logins, timestamps, etc. Unless your OPSEC is impeccable, it's usually quite easy to identify a user and only requires the permission of a court.

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