Richard Bullis

This article needs moar lulzy Usenet quotes and CP incident details from the FAQ. You can help by adding moar lulzy Usenet quotes and CP incident details from the FAQ.

Hey!

This article isn't lulz just yet, but its coverage can spark a lollercoaster. You can help by reverting people who delete shit, and vandalizing their user pages. See this article on Google? Want to add something? Join us!

Richard S. Bullis, alias RichBull alias Richard the Stupid alias St00pa P00pa was one of the most spectacularly lulzy n00bs ever. He is a testament to how bloody little the internets really changes. You've heard his story thousands of times as it happened over and over again, the same tropes, the same clichés... but there are few individuals whom you almost could put in an encyclopedia under the heading "lulzy n00b". You need someone with some goddamn history. Is 1999 old enough for history? In Internet reckoning, hell yes.

Birth of the Archetypical Ur-Myth

Now, in 1999, there was no Anonymous and exploding vans. There was only the Potentially Pseudonymous and the fucking make money fast spam that everyone still hates. As far as cesspools of the internets go, there was no 4chan, there was only Usenet. People tried to have conversations in middle of massive torrents of pr0n spam. No moderation, just people who tried to cancel spam messages so that people might actually talk about their goddamn Half-Life clans or whatever.

So hither came Richard Bullis. In early 1999, Richard started to post. And post. And post a lot. And sometimes he posted tons. Basically, he helped people with computer problems in a shitty local newsgroup nobody reads, 24hsupport.helpdesk, making the few who read the group even more confused than ever because he didn't know shit about computers or the Internet. (Later on, he went to misc.transport.trucking, where he received similar treatment. Did you know that truck tires can implode?)

To combat the spam, people were automatically tracking the number of posts people made. Richard posted faster and more than many spambots. So obviously, when the bots can't tell apart a spammer and a guy who posts fucktons of messages, he ends up in an automated abuse report with the rest of the evil bad people.

And he started whining, with uncanny knowledge of how the Usenet works.

	“	Who cares who posts how many times? Who cares how much data was sent? Does this damn robot thing know the difference in content of a post?	„
	—Richard Bullis

People tried to point out to him that no, the bots just see a guy who posted shitload of messages, therefore they get reported - post less shit and maybe you won't cause false alarms. And, of course, it's just a bloody bot-generated abuse report. Nothing to worry about. Jeez.

Well, you can easily see where this leads: Richard's freedom of speech is clearly suppressed. Evil guy called Joe Greco is spamming usenet with useless lists of spammers, and he'll track him down and he'll discuss this in alt.config. Then he did all of the usual bloody moronic things, like picking fights with the $cientologists without one of them masks, and then he posted tons of pictures in a anti-spam newgroup because he can do whatever the hell he wants... but regrettably, at that point, his ISP used the Cluestick ('cause hammers hadn't been invented yet).

And you can easily see where that leads.

So where did it lead?

Oh, the usual. He did the puppet show thing. He threatened to sue everyone who made fun of him or hosted mirrors of the website that made fun of him. (Strange that he came up with the "Richard the Stupid" name himself.) He threatened to kill people. He came to news.admin.net-abuse.usenet, whining about alt.usenet.kooks flamage - without considering the fact that a) he was also a little bit of a flamer himself and b) it's not very smart to come begging for help after flooding the newsgroup with binary spam, and c) he did the whining anonymously while attaching his signature.

He said he invented a game similar to Pong. This is quite a feat from someone who not so successfully attempted to use a Javascript alert browser crash trap for people who came to his website from the parody web sites.

He boasted about his military career in 1970 in the US Army Security Agency, while in fact he was in Army service for 86 days and was then "(censored) discharge"'d. The Army won't tell what the censored word is, but you can probably take a guess.

The awful truth

Then, someone dropped the bombshell. Richard Bullis was, in fact, posting stuff in pedophile newsgroups under name "Sandman". Quite an active sick fuck, in fact.

And where it ended?

Hell if anyone knows. The stupidity was catalogued in the Cabal Network Security's CENKOC (Clueless Eternal Newbie Kook of the Century) site. Bullis' website was nuked from orbit for hosting CP. Bullis has been catalogued in Kookpedia. He is still actively posting to the misc.transport.road newsgroups where he remains as clueless as ever. Despite his claim to being a 'professional' trucker, he displays an inability to recall the location of US highways (placing Iowa's Interstate 235 in Dallas, TX, for example). He has been trying to solicit misc.transport.road regulars to post their pages and sites on his servers with no success and has attempted to post his own sites, with limited success, changing formats in a period of days, if not hours. He has apparently come into a great deal of money and is able to travel about the country at will. Bullis remains quiet about his past but gives an occasional hint of his younger years by taking pictures of his old elementary school yard during a school day or reminiscing about a 12 year old Sara Jessica Parker (he claims his family knew her grandmother).

Words to live by

	“	Your messin with the wrong kook.	„
	—Richard Bullis

	“	Jesus loves you, everybody else knows your an ssh	„
	—Richard Bullis

	“	How does my computer know that?	„
	—Richard Bullis

	“	I will sue Mr. Buchanan et al, for no less than $10,000,000 usa in seeking justice to clear my name and for him especially, to lose his privileges on the internet altogether.	„
	—Richard Bullis

	“	I do believe that having photos of naked children is perfectly ok.	„
	—Richard Bullis

	“	No court would convict a person as a pedophile for mere possession.	„
	—Richard Bullis

Links

• The Cabal's Most Unwanted
• Richard Bullis FAQ
• Bolo Bullis in the ASA, 86 days of FAIL
• Bullis Kookpedia entry. Includes alt.usenet.kooks awards and offices held.

Richard Bullis is part of a series on Usenet.

[CollapseExpand]

Basics: Flamewar • Followup • Sock puppets • Spam • Godwin's Law • NO BINARIES • Newsgroups: alt.fan.karl-malden.nose • alt.religion.scientology • alt.suicide.holiday • alt.syntax.tactical • alt.tasteless Lore: Eternal September • Guy Macon's original post • Meow Wars • Raping Little Suzy • Susie Q's Party Game Denizens: B1FF • Darkfalz • David Gerard • Derek Smart • Jai Maharaj • Kelly Martin • Kerry Keane • Kevin L. O'Brien • Kibo • Magoo • Nicholas Morency • Onideus Mad Hatter • Raksha • Ray Gordon • Richard Bullis • Ryan Hawe • Schattie • Sine Nomine • Terryeo • Tom Galloway • Tony Sidaway • Wil Sinclair

Richard Bullis is part of a series on Trolls Visit the Trolls Portal for complete coverage.