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It's frustrating that I frequently get comments on my site from people who are mad about the use of "they" instead of he or she to describe unknown individuals.

The reason I use "they" in these cases has everything to do with the fact that I've been wrong on gender assumptions previously, and that attempting to divine someone's orientations from what they say or post is a fool's errand.

More to the point, a surprising (to me, anyway) number of English-speaking cybercriminals are born with one gender but identify with another. Some are transitioning to another gender, and some have already taken that step.

Also, for the kind of investigations I do, someone's gender is usually the least useful or interesting aspect of who they are in real life, because they are often involved in some crazy illegal stuff.

meyca

@briankrebs Bots? Probably with the goal to kill people's time so they don't do useful things.