Call me Ishmael

It was the third of times, it was the second time

It was a MOOC, capitalised because of shame and formality. It had happened for three years, but this had happened for two years now. One student, no participant, no thing. For they never studied, or participated, merely posted in the fora insulting the course. Each time I would try to assuage or refute or placate - all things you can do with trolls right? - screw grammar - - - - - ; ! ? 

AND ORTHOGRAPHY

They never changed, they kept going, on and on and on and on and on. 

Then, one reply, they said I'd said but so often i sounded like a motor boat (but but but but but but but but - for those needing some sounds).

I decided I had had enough.

So the coursera fora had a button admins could click to get the student's email. Then i moved over to the coursera tracking data, and got all the IP addresses they had ever collected with. I fed those IP addresses into an IP geolocating tool. All of them came back in a relatively small geographic area. 

Note, at this point, I merely had an email and IP addresses.

So with this area in mind, and the theory this troll was a troll of many bridges and many goats, I opted to do some searches for his email address on other fora. A few good results, and i'd say a clear pattern, but why stop at pattern when modus operandi is available. So I checked these posts, and there was (as fora sometimes do) leave IP records in their posts). And those IP addresses led me to IP addresses from a University. 

Then with some magic, and I won't reveal my tricks, I got a name. 

And when they next appeared on the fora, and another student asked what he meant. I said "oh that's just -NAME- from -UNI-"

Never heard from again

All victories are beautiful, pyrrhic victories don't exist