internet
How to best approach dealing with a cybercriminal in a distant country harassing an entire internet community?
<p>For years now, one person has been persistently doing everything they could to make the lives of several administrators/moderators miserable and as a consequence directly and indirectly prevented the normal functioning of the whole internet community these people are responsible for. This person keeps changing usernames and IP addresses, uses VPNs whenever needed and is actively spending money to keep doing what they're doing so any attempt at getting rid of them is futile.</p>
<p>Here's what they have done over the span of a few years:</p>
<ul>
<li>DDoSing several different server whenever there's activity on them. They have already done hundreds of DDoS attacks and keep doing them several times a week.</li>
<li>general harassment of several different people</li>
<li>finding the family members of some of these people and harassing them as well</li>
<li>death threats (not ones that could be taken seriously but this is not necessarily clear to some of the people that received them)</li>
</ul>
<p>Police was contacted in the past but they didn't express much interest in taking any action. This person is located in a relatively faraway country and there's no core member of our community from the same geographical area.</p>
<p>One thing is clear. This person has no life and they get a kick out of what they're doing so they are not going to stop by themselves any time soon.
There's a good few people in our community that are sick of this person and willing to take whatever action is needed for them to stop.</p>
<p>We know this person's full name, location, primary IP address and more, however, it would be difficult to actually prove their real identity to the authorities. It would be easy to retaliate in a similar manner to what we received but that's not what we want to do. We also don't want to flood police departments with complaints in hope that they will finally do something once they get annoyed enough. But if we can we want to use our numerical advantage and finally put a stop to this madness.</p>
<p>The offender is located in Turkey. The affected servers and people are located in several European countries and the USA.</p>
<p>What's the best course of action to take?</p>
<p>I apologize if this question is not fit for this site but I'll take any pointers I can get to help with this situation.</p>

<ul>
<li>You <strong>believe</strong> you know the address.<br />
I write &quot;believe&quot; because this might be yet another level of misdirection or a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/08/10/lawsuit-how-a-quiet-kansas-home-wound-up-with-600-million-ip-addresses-and-a-world-of-trouble/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">systematic error in IP geolocation</a>. But assume that your information is true. There is a state where this happens, with law enforcement agencies.</li>
<li>Is the conduct <strong>criminal</strong> where the perpetrator lives?<br />
Countries interpret the freedom of speech in different ways. In many, it is no crime to use a VPN to disguise the own IP, or to use an alias on the web. But in many countries, the activities you describe would amount to stalking, which can be a crime.</li>
<li>You mention that the police takes little interest.<br />
In many countries, the police prioritize specific, real-world incidents (cars being stolen, drugs being sold) over having to resolve an IP and probably getting nowhere. But it is often possible for the victim to file first a criminal complaint, and then a complaint against the prosecution if the case is not charged.</li>
</ul>
<p>As long as you do not name countries, I cannot get more specific.</p>
