February 5–12, 1998

city beat

Tickle fetish queen Terri DiSisto admits to having done a "Kuwait" on the Drexel student, employing "Internet weapons of mass destruction," causing him to lose Web sites and Internet accounts. She's intimated that such harassment will continue.

Tickle Me Terri

An Internet relationship gone bad is no laughing matter to a Drexel student caught in a web of deceit.

By Deborah Scoblionkov

Is Bill Clinton ticklish?

Somebody wants to know.

This past weekend, at least one e-mail message (and possibly hundreds) was sent to the President of the United States (president@whitehouse.gov) soliciting video tapes of young men being tickled. It was one of tens of thousands of such e-mails sent out to computer users throughout the world, which appeared to come from an address at Drexel University.

Like many unsolicited e-mails that make their way into computer users' mailboxes, the return address was forged using "Stealth" software, which hides the sender's true identity. Unlike most junk e-mails (or spam as it is commonly known) this message was not hawking questionable commercial services or porn.

The message did implicate a notorious tickling fetishist, Terri DiSisto. DiSisto, a.k.a. "Territickle," has been spamming Internet newsgroups for two years offering young guys cash and/or new computers in exchange for videos of them being tickled.

DiSisto's appeals usually include the following information: "My name is Terri. I am a female college student in the Boston, Massachusetts area that is a total TICKLING FREAK. As a hobby… one that costs me A LOT of money… I maintain a personal collection of amateur videos featuring guys being tickled (usually for 30 or 60 minutes) by a girlfriend, good girl friend, girl friends, or even guy friends. I am not a business, video trader, or porn solicitor. My interest is in TICKLING."

DiSisto insists that her obsession with tickling is not sexual, but merely a fetish that has helped to make her a "celebrated Internet personnage [sic]."

While there is scant real-life confirmation that any of the personal information she provides is true (no major Boston college has a student named Terri DiSisto), there is evidence that DiSisto lives in New York. Her claim to have amassed a collection of more than 140 such videos, for which she has paid tens of thousands of dollars, does appear to be valid. Samples of her videos show young, shirtless and sockless men tied up and tickled with audio that consists of screaming howls of hysterical laughter.

DiSisto's methods of soliciting her videos—persistent spamming of newsgroups that attract young high school and college students, like rec.music.phish and alt.uk.teens—have generated many complaints from the Internet community. Often, the complainers have been e-mail bombed (sent hundreds of messages that fill their computer) in retaliation. This has earned DiSisto the wrath of vigilant spam fighters, one of whom, Rich "Captain Blade" Tietjens, has called for an "Internet Death Penalty" on DiSisto because of her "abusive" behavior on the Internet.

"Terri DiSisto has engaged in behavior that can charitably be termed sociopathic," Tietjens, a computer technician, comments. "She has threatened [e-] mailbombs, either conducted denial of service attacks or had them conducted on her behalf, stolen services, threatened frivolous litigation, and…"

Despite the fact that she flouts the standards of acceptable Internet behavior (a.k.a. "netiquette"), DiSisto insists that she, herself, has done nothing "illegal." She does, however, admit to having been "nasty" in regards to Drexel University.

This is not the first time that DiSisto has targeted Drexel for her mischievous actions. Last year, Drexel President Constantine Papadakis' e-mail box was hit with an e-mail bomb, which was forged to implicate a student with whom DiSisto had an online relationship. The 18-year-old student (who wishes to remain anonymous) had provided DiSisto with videos and technical expertise with her now-defunct Web site, www.tickling.com. In recent months, their friendship soured.

DiSisto admits to having done a "Kuwait" on the student, employing "Internet weapons of mass destruction," causing him to lose Web sites and Internet accounts. In recent online discussions with DiSisto, she has intimated that such harassment will continue and that the Drexel student's e-mail address is being used as the return address on hundreds of thousands of bulk e-mails promoting such services as pornographic Web sites and water purification systems.

Phil Terranova, senior vice president of university relations for Drexel, is aware of the situation and offers no comment except to acknowledge that the university is "cooperating with investigative authorities."

According to an auto-responder letter from the White House, President Clinton has received more than 2.3 million e-mail messages from individuals since June 1993. Although he hasn't personally replied to the tickling offer, DiSisto claims that she has no interest in watching him being tickled—he's not her type. She likes her victims under 23 years. Nonetheless, in light of Clinton's current troubles, perhaps he'd pass on the offer to Vice President Al Gore.