Eventually it came down to one telephone bidder against David Lachenmann, a Zurich dealer, who won the painting.
Computers that ran their program, plus this new bit of code, would stop working after a year, though they cheerfully provided three telephone numbers, against the day.
Annecy prosecutor Eric Maillaud said the man was identified and questioned after police cross-checked thousands of telephone records against motorbike licence data.
The sculpture by Ms. Bourgeois, 96, was bought by a European collector on the telephone, competing against three other bidders on Tuesday, the auction house said.
The news prompted an outpouring of furious e-mails and telephone threats against other environmental groups, whose members fear that a broader hate campaign may be building up.
Elected in 2010 after a race against the judge handling his divorce case, the complaints began to pour in and he was accused of making telephone threats against and attorney.
As Internet use wins acceptance among Palestinians, the question of who will provide the service has become a battle in itself, pitting the Palestine Telecommunications Company, the telephone monopoly, against 17 service providers.
And in the palatial glass-walled room overlooking his swimming pool, Vladimir A. Gusinsky, the Russian media magnate, breaks into a grin that stretches from one ear to the cordless telephone plastered against the other.
A deceptive telephone campaign against the former Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa in last month's Los Angeles mayoral primary was the work of a rival campaign, but no laws were broken, the district attorney has found.
Web sites with names like Boycott-hollywood.us and Famousidiot.com are spearheading e-mail and telephone campaigns against stars and, in the case of television performers, the companies that advertise on their shows.
