As an attorney, I frequently am involved in cases in which the
opposing sides have radically different views of the facts. It
becomes important to determine who is and is not telling the truth.

Anyone who says that they can look someone in the eye and tell if they
are lying is simply wrong. It cannot be done that way. The only way
in which I have had any success is trying to put myself into the shoes
of the party and ask, "OK, believing what they say, what would I do if
I were in that situation?" If the party did not do what I think would
have been the natural thing to do in those circumstances, perhaps the
party is not telling the truth about what actually happened.

Put yourselves in the shoes of someone who has been accused of posting
under false names. And suppose that someone else has discovered that
the IP addresses of the posts were those of your computer. And that
those IP addresses had been following your international travels. And
suppose that you really did not do it.

If it were me, my immediate reaction should be that someone must have
been plotting at great lengths to get me for years. Someone has been
cleverly posting these false posts using my IP address knowing that,
sooner or later, someone else would discover the truth and place the
blame on me. Someone out there has been maniacally working overtime
to ruin me. And they're still loose.

If I were in those shoes, I would consider Hal and Brian merely to be
dupes who fell into the true villain's trap. They innocently became a
part of his devious plot. If it had not been them, sooner or later it
would have been someone else. I would turn over heaven and earth to
find the true villain and put a stop to any more devious plots.

In my mind that would be the natural reaction of anyone. Now, is that
the reaction we are observing?

Stephen Jones