If you post an opinion or idea which differs from Ken's, it's likely that you'll invoke harassment from him. This is especially true if the opinion or idea makes Ken look bad...for example, exposing him as a liar.
Ken's main tactics include (but are not limited to):
One of Ken's tactics is to spread lies about the person he has "marked". For instance, if someone is posting to a domestic abuse support group, and Ken doesn't want them posting there, he would claim to have "proof" that the person was a spouse abuser. Or, if a former military person were posting to a veteran's group, Ken would claim to have "proof" that the person was dishonorably discharged from the military, or had been court-martialed. Here is such an example of defamation by Ken, in his own words.
Ken Pangborn will often use others to unknowingly carry out his agenda of harassment. Ken will begin spreading numerous lies about his victim, in an attempt to make others angry and incite them to act out against his victim. An example of such behavior would be if Ken were to flood someone's personal mailbox with anonymous e-mails, then convince that person that his victim was the sender.
Often, Ken will make implied threats of offline attacks and harassment. He does this by posting to a newsgroup which he knows (or believes) will be read by people who are associated with you offline, either by geography or profession. For example, if you are one of Ken's "marks" living in Los Angeles, Ken might respond to one of your posts and crosspost it into the la.general newsgroup, usually after adding or forging in statements which you didn't make. Thereby implying "if you don't keep your mouth shut, I'm going to create unrest for you with your friends and neighbors".
Ken will also threaten to contact employers or other parties, if he is able to ascertain this information. Click here for an example of this.
Ken's defamation efforts have also taken on the form of forgeries in the past. His m.o. usually consists of finding a particularly vile post (regardless of who authored it), replying to it, and altering his reply to make it appear that his victim wrote the post. Example:
If you were to respond to a posting on usenet, most browsers will quote the original post and it will look something like the following:
abuser@rogueisp.org wrote: > This is an abusive posting. > > Thank you.
Ken would alter this in his browser, prior to adding his own inflammatory comments and sending it out, and it would read:
kens.victim@victimsisp.net (John Doe) wrote: > This is an abusive posting. > > Thank you.
Anyone reading Ken's forged reply to the original post, without having read the original post, would then assume that Ken's "mark" authored the original abusive posting, and would then unwittingly jump on the bandwagon against Ken's victim. Ken has done this in the past to foster flamewars against various people, despite the fact that in some cases the real people were not even posting to the newsgroups in question.
Click here for an example of forgery by Ken.
Another tactic of Ken's is email bombing, or the sending of several email messages at one time, usually harassing and threatening in nature. Normally, you can successfully deal with email harassment by simply sending a request to the harasser telling them to cease communicating with you by email. However, keep in mind that Ken Pangborn has absolutely no respect for anyone else's rights to enjoy the internet without being harassed.
Another Pangborn tactic is to organize letter-writing campaigns. These are similar to email bombing, with one significant difference. Instead of sending a barrage of unwanted emails to an individual, they are instead sent to the individual's ISP. When someone disagrees with Ken's opinions, to Ken this is tantamount to a declaration of war. He then bombards his victim's ISP abuse department with unsubstantiated complaints, hoping that the ISP will eventually tire of hearing about it and get rid of the user in question.
As an example, Ken has repeatedly attempted to have these pages taken down. Wherever these pages are published, Ken follows with a barrage of complaints threatening legal action if the pages are not taken down. Needless to say, no legal action has ever been taken.
If Ken disagrees with your opinions, he will usually threaten you with legal action. He's been known to do this in response to someone exposing the truth about him. He will threaten to use his affiliations in the legal community against you. Why does he do this? Most likely it is a bit of megalomania. Ken believes that he is so important that it is against the law to speak out against him.
Ken will try to frighten you off by telling you that you are under investigation by police, your ISP, or both. The worse you expose him for the liar that he is, the louder his threats will become. In my case, Ken was threatening me on a daily basis, for about a year, that I was under investigation by law enforcement and that he was going to use his position in the legal community to have me thrown in prison without a trial. Needless to say, no arrest has occurred.
Sometimes, people who speak out against Ken Pangborn will be assured that there is a "silent majority" of people who are very angry and ready to act on Ken's behalf. Usually, Ken will claim that "all of Usenet" is aligned against his opponent.
To back this up, Ken Pangborn has been known to maintain multiple accounts with different internet service providers. He then uses the alternate accounts to post in support of himself, attacking his enemies and agreeing with himself to create the illusion that several people support his agenda.
Unfortunately for Ken, sometimes when he is posting he forgets which account he is logged in under. Follow this link for an example of Ken embarrassing himself by accidentally referring to himself in the third person.
Ken also likes to invoke a mysterious, shadowy figure whom he will claim is backing him up and verifying his lies. This "one armed man" never comes forward on his own and is never named by Ken.
If these methods of harassment don't succeed in censoring you, Ken has other methods of harassment as well. On one occasion, he posted his victim's social security number to a public newsgroup. On another, while trying to drive a victim off of a father's rights newsgroup, he threatened to get in touch with the individual's ex-wife, and tell her a bunch of lies, if the victim continued to post to the newsgroup. (Ironically the victim in question was not even subscribed to the newsgroup at that time.)
In addition, Ken has various "sock puppets" who can often be found repeating his agenda. Typically, these are people who follow Ken because they don't know any better.
On occasion, Ken Pangborn has resorted to threats of violence to silence his opposition. In December of 1997, he told one of his victims "We'd like to arrange for YOUR rape".