"Only the Germans would invent Schadenfreude..."

There is this assumption that there's no word in English to match the German term schadenfruede, "malicious satisfaction in the misfortunes of others." This popular notion has been repeated often in the popular press and even shows up in Dictionary.com's "usage" segment.

I'm happy to report that such a popular notion is wrong. Schadenfreude is a late-comer to our shores. The correct English term is epicaricacy, and it means exactly the same thing.

Identity theft.

I have been the victim of identity theft.

If you go to my old website, http://www.halcyon.com/elf, you'll see a single directory, and in it a redirect to another website. That is not me. Whoever it is, they took the old alt.sex FAQ and reproduced it precisely, registered my name with Yahoo to get my email address, and used that to get a domain name registry. And he's using it to sell porn. Bad porn, at that.

All of this would have gone unnoticed but for one detail: they had the earnest chutzpah to email catherine yronwode, the original volunteer who took over hosting the FAQ when I left halcyon, demanding that she take down "his copyrighted material!"

The faq is available under the OSDL (now called the Free Documentation License)!

I'm seething right now, but this man has made a mistake: I have done business as Elf Sternberg, and I will have notarized affidavits from two publishers stating that I am and have always been Elf M. Sternberg, official maintainer of the alt.sex FAQ. And I may not be rich, but I can afford a lawyer when I need one.

What was this guy thinking, anyway?

Cutting off their air supply

I have contacted my lawyer and she is going to recommend some identity theft specialists. I have discovered, unfortunately, that they're based in Ontario so punitive damages may be difficult to come by, but I can at least alert the authorities that this charlatan is running around.

Both of the services I've dealt with have been wonderful. Their hosting service took one look at the contact information and said, "Yep, that's not valid contact information," and boom, down goes the website. My old contact at halcyon said, "So that's not you?" and boom, down went the redirector.

Actually, what he said was, "When you first got your account I sent you email saying that it was wonderful to have you back. You never responded. I thought that was weird." It's so nice to know that folks out there are actually helpful and understand the value of a good reputation.

Apparently, they spent over $200 US on the account just for the redirector. I have to wonder if my name is really worth that much money. This is just too weird to contemplate.

But, like many other problems in my life, it's not so much solved as closed up in a little box where it can do little harm. Now I just have to find this bastard and squeeze the pecuniary life out of him.