CoJ Case 056

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Chamber of Justice
Cases


DB vs Kadrol Hauen and Fallitar was the fifty-sixth case tried by the Chamber of Justice. The sitting Justicar was Jac Cotelin, the Left Hand of Justice was Turel Sorenn, and the Right Hand of Justice was Dacien Victae.

Basic Case Information

Defendants Name

Charges

  • Count 1 - Cloning - Plea of Not Guilty
  • Count 2 - False Statements - Plea of Not Guilty
  • Count 3 - 2x Cheating - Plea of Not Guilty

Verdict

  • GUILTY ON ALL COUNTS

Sentence

  • Removal of Fallitar dossier
  • Three rank demotion to Proselyte
  • Letter of Reprimand
  • 6 month Strict Probation followed by 6 month General Probation
  • Disqualification of society participation for Q1 2017

Related News Posts

Members of the Dark Jedi Brotherhood

The Chamber of Justice has convened and issued a verdict in the pending case of DB v. Kadrol Hauen and Fallitar. The case involved a charge of cloning, a charge of false statements, and two charges of cheating. The Chamber has issued a detailed verdict and Justicar Opinion for the case which can be found in the PDF file linked below. Please note that the written opinion is generally found on the page after announcement of the verdict.

The verdict was as follows:

Case #056 - DB v. Kadrol Hauen & Fallitar - Opinion PDF

  • Count 1 - Cloning - Plea of Not Guilty
  • Count 2 - False Statements - Plea of Not Guilty
  • Count 3 - 2x Cheating - Plea of Not Guilty
  • Verdict - GUILTY ON ALL COUNTS

Punishment: Removal of Fallitar Dossier and loss of all awards and honors thereof; Demotion of Kadrol Hauen by three ranks; Letter of Reprimand; Strict Probation for 6 months followed by 6 months General Probation; Disqualification from Society participation for Q1 2017

Signed and sealed in Justice,

Jac Ae-Sequiera Cotelin

Justicar and High Protector of the Dark Jedi Brotherhood

Justicar's Opinion

Facts:

Kadrol Hauen joined the DJB on October 29, 2016. Fallitar joined shortly thereafter on November 16, 2016. Immediately upon the creation of the Fallitar dossier, the DJB website generated a “Shared IP Conflict” email, informing the Chamber of Justice and certain members of the Dark Council that Fallitar and Kadrol Hauen had logged into the website from the same IP address. As is standard practice, the then-Right Hand of Justice, Adept Montresor, emailed both Kadrol Hauen and Fallitar.

Fallitar did not respond to Montresor’s email, but Kadrol Hauen promptly replied: “Oh, sorry about that. It was my friend. I told him how fun it was to be part of DJB, so he wanted to create an account. If you wish, I will tell him to use his own device from now on.” Satisfied by the explanation, Montresor noted the relationship in the DJB database and closed the investigation.

The two continued to share various IP addresses, but did not arouse further suspicion until December 2016, when Kadrol Hauen graded and closed-out a competition called “Spider Solitaire”. Kadrol Hauen organized and ran the Spider Solitaire competition, which required subscribers to submit their highest scores on the Spider Solitaire flash game.

See: https://www.darkjedibrotherhood.com/competitions/11609

Fallitar won the competition. All submissions, except for Fallitar’s, contained screenshots as proof. The submission by Fallitar did not contain a screenshot and stated only “I got 1174”. Fallitar’s unsubstantiated entry was four points higher than the second place entry, and was not submitted until the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th place entries were all recorded.

Furthermore, at 11:57am (DJB time) on December 20, 2016, Kadrol Hauen logged out of the DJB website from the IP address “54.165.206.13”. One minute later, at 11:58am, Fallitar logged into the website from the exact same IP address. Fallitar’s unsubstantiated Spider Solitaire entry was then immediately created at 11:58am before Fallitar logged out, still using the “54.165.206.13” IP address. Kadrol Hauen promptly logged back into the website at 11:59am, also from “54.165.206.13”.

Only a few days later, Fallitar organized a new competition called “One with the Force”, which required subscribers to identify the names and most famous Star Wars roles of recently-passed celebrities based on clues provided in the competition’s private details.

See: https://www.darkjedibrotherhood.com/competitions/11686

The competition was scheduled to run until January 5, 2017, but Fallitar closed the competition early on January 3, 2017, and granted first place to Kadrol Hauen. Upon the competition closing, the DJB website generated an email notifying subscribers, the clan summit, and certain Dark Council members of the competition results. Shortly thereafter, Fallitar responded to the automated closing message using the email listed on the Fallitar dossier; however, the “real name” assigned to Fallitar’s email was identical to the real name assigned to the email listed on the Kadrol Hauen dossier. The email purportedly sent by Fallitar stated:

“I have closed this competition early due to the fact that I will not have the time to be online over a vacation.

Sorry for any and all inconvenience this may have had.”

The DJB website’s IP logs show that Kadrol Hauen logged out of the website at 5:47pm on January 3, 2017, from “54.209.113.88”. Fallitar immediately logged in, also at 5:47pm, from the same IP address. Exactly ten minutes later, at 5:57pm, Fallitar closed-out the “One with the Force” competition. Fallitar then logged out of the website, from IP address “52.91.151.43”, at 6:00pm and Kadrol immediately logged in from the same IP address.

Analysis:

The Chamber of Justice takes very seriously its role in preventing cloning within the Brotherhood. Cloned accounts can too easily be used to destroy the competitive environment on which we are built, and therefore active anti-clone measures are important. That said, we often have little more than the good word of our members to initially go by when evaluating potential clone issues. While protecting against cloning is important, we do not want to scare away potential members or scuttle recruitment by forcing new member to prove themselves a different person from the outset. Often a statement of a relationship is enough for us to close our initial inquiry.

A cloning case brought by the Chamber of Justice, then, often depends on a great deal of circumstantial evidence. Absent an admission from the member, a conviction is based on odd patterns of behavior or suspicious activity. That is, the Chamber of Justice looks to what are the typical “Badges of Cloning” that frequently appear in these cases. Those are as follows:

- Members share the same IP address.

- IP address sharing does not vary.

- Members log in and out of the website from one dossier to another quickly or always near the same time.

- One dossier appears to have “dominance” over the other dossier.

- One member wins the competitions of the other member.

- Common speaking traits or other characteristics.

- Members do not appear separately on communication channels.

- Other connections that may appear between the dossiers.

No one badge listed above is sufficient to convict a member of cloning. But when several of the badges appear, suspicion is aroused and the Chamber begins to investigate.

In this case, there are several badges that show that the dossiers are mere clones:

1. The dossiers share IP addresses and that sharing does not waver.

2. The dossiers logged in and out of the website in quick succession, often within minutes.

3. The Kadrol dossier is obviously dominant over the Fallitar dossier, being the only one of the two that generally responds to communications.

4. The dossiers won competitions run by each other under questionable circumstances.

5. The email addresses for both dossiers show a connection to the same person.

The evidence presented to the Justicar shows substantial evidence that these dossiers meet multiple badges of cloning and are indeed clones. That said, the evidence is still circumstantial and is subject to some doubt.

The Left Hand of Justice did a very admirable job in this matter of arguing for the member(s), countering each of the possible cloning badges with a reasonable explanation of each. The competition submissions and administration, while obviously questionable and suspicious, did not break any rules and are not outside the realm of possible actions by new members. The logging in and out, while not entirely believable, could be explained by the “friends” using the same computer to connect, which is what they have claimed. A possible explanation could even be offered for why the email addresses were connected: Fallitar was allegedly concerned about his school email address getting spammed and was claimed to have used Kadrol’s account to avoid that risk.

In the end, while I was initially convinced by the weight of the evidence, the Left Hand convinced me that there may be some honesty to the Defendant's story. To that end, I asked the Left Hand if he had independently heard from Fallitar, or if only Kadrol had responded. Indeed, no communication had been received from Fallitar. The Left Hand sent a final email three days ago asking that Fallitar contact him from an email address that was not associated with Kadrol. There was no response. The lack of response is convincing.

Ultimately, the circumstantial evidence carries the day. The Kadrol dossier displays nearly all of the typical traits of a dominant dossier and member having created a second dossier to bolster the first. The badges of cloning having been established through the evidence, and with no independent verification from the alleged second member, I must find that the dossiers are clones. Having done so, it is without question that the member is also guilty of the charges for false statements and cheating.

The punishment is harsh, but it is necessary to combat this type of infringement of our rules. My hope is that Kadrol will continue as an active member of the Brotherhood from this point forward. While this is a large black mark on his record, the Brotherhood is a forgiving and understanding place. Learning from this, rather than quitting because of this, is the better choice.

Based on the foregoing, I find the Defendant(s) GUILTY. The Right Hand of Justice, Master at Arms, Voice and Fist are directed to carry out the punishment as described above.

Signed and sealed in Justice,

Jac Ae-Sequiera Cotelin

Justicar and High Protector of the Dark Jedi Brotherhood