Greg's Corner

Off Topic Friday: Reddit gets a vandal banned from the National Parks

The collective hive mind at Reddit assisted in the apprehension of a wanted criminal, but as the saying goes even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in awhile. After infamously accusing the wrong people in the 2013 bombing at the Boston Marathon the armchair sleuths at Reddit finally got one right, except the mystery wasn’t exactly on the same level as say finding D.B. Cooper.

A graffiti artist (read: vandal) was tagging various natural formations in a number of National Parks. The so-called artist was using acrylic paint to display their handiwork in such parks as Yosemite and Death Valley. The vandal in question signed each of their works with the signature of ‘Creepytings’ and some of their work was posted to Redddit. Pictures of the vandalism made it to Reddit where it was spotted by a National Parks official. It only took a quick Google search of the name ‘Creepytings’ to link the vandal to an Instagram account of the same name that had posted pictures of the vandalism in question. The account holder tried to delete their social media account but by then it was too late. The accounts had been linked to one Casey Nocket, aka Creepytings.

Ms. Nocket was recently sentenced for her acts and received a two-year ban from all National Parks and she has to pay an undisclosed fine, but this being the internet that’s not all she had to endure. Some of Reddit’s more anti-social users took it upon themselves to ‘dox’ Ms. Nocket, that is they discovered and made public her personal information such as home address and the like. Even in success Reddit acts like the petulant child of the internet.