It's new to me:

[Ben Zimmer]

On Fri, Jun 17, 2011 at 2:07 PM, Wilson Gray wrote:
>
> "Anonymous hacker-group LulzSec has begun to harness the power of the
> crowd in their latest _griefing_ attempts."

Back in Jan. '05, Grant Barrett defined "griefer" as 'an online game
player who willfully and habitually disrupts game play' (with cites
back to '00):

http://www.doubletongued.org/index.php/dictionary/griefer/

As Paul McFedries notes, it's been generalized to 'a person who causes
mischief or disruption online':

http://www.wordspy.com/words/griefer.asp

--bgz

--
Ben Zimmer
http://benzimmer.com/

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org