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He Always Had a Dark Side

mastermind.atavist.com

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Re: He Always Had a Dark Side

#101

Post by omginternets »

mirimir wrote: post #66
myrbergs_army wrote: post #59

Original author of the story here... Just to add that 1. yes, the reporting on Le Roux's childhood is more tentative based on a family source (well backed up by docs and images sent to me). But the fact that the same Le Roux created E4M which formed the basis of TrueCrypt is something I think I've established definitively, company and site registration trails show it very firmly (and PLR himself admits it in court, b…

Aren't you nervous about doxxing someone like that so thoroughly?

Yeah, I'd like to know the answer to this as well.

Do you think their might be repercussions for this? If not, why? If so, how has this affected you?

Re: He Always Had a Dark Side

#102

Post by BinaryIdiot »

unethical_ban wrote: post #90
BinaryIdiot wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's amazing how some authors use thousands of words to deliver such little information. Well how else are you going to make it look like you really worked hard on something if you just give people exactly what they want right up front? /s Seriously this article is bloated as HELL. Edit: did anyone who downvoted me to hell even read the article? It's about 5% information, 95% useless bloat to fill the page. I mean…

I haven't downvoted you, but there's always someone bitching about long-form journalism. It's a non-fiction STORY. Stories aren't technical documents or status reports - they set up atmosphere, build a character, and engage the reader. Notice also that the title of the linked article is not "Paul LeRoux made Truecrypt" - it's not centered around that. It simply has that info in it, and as such is an interest to HN.

> there's always someone bitching about long-form journalism. It's a non-fiction STORY.

I'm fine for long-form journalism if it actually adds them. Reading through this just felt like the author tried to shove filler into it. I just didn't find it compelling or anything.

Give me a good story and I'm fine. Give me something it feels like you wrote explicitly because you get paid by the word and I'm not going to enjoy it as much.

Thanks for replying though. Maybe everyone else just feels differently about this story than me but it's frustrating to get downvoted without a reply saying why.

Re: He Always Had a Dark Side

#103

Post by dang »

ryandrake wrote: post #50

Thank you. It's amazing how some authors use thousands of words to deliver such little information.

That's a seriously unfair thing to say. It's also an artifact of the title having been changed to cherry-pick a single detail, which breaks the HN rules. Though in this case I'm not sure it's worth it to change it back.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11382381 and marked it off-topic.

Re: He Always Had a Dark Side

#104

Post by Kristine1975 »

mikeyouse wrote: post #89
BinaryIdiot wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's amazing how some authors use thousands of words to deliver such little information. Well how else are you going to make it look like you really worked hard on something if you just give people exactly what they want right up front? /s Seriously this article is bloated as HELL. Edit: did anyone who downvoted me to hell even read the article? It's about 5% information, 95% useless bloat to fill the page. I mean…

Fucking hell Welles, just tell us that was the sled's name!

>just tell us that was the sled's name!

It's literally the first word that's said in the movie. Of course at that point you have no idea that it's the sled's name ;-)

Re: He Always Had a Dark Side

#105

Post by tptacek »

mirimir wrote: post #66
myrbergs_army wrote: post #59

Original author of the story here... Just to add that 1. yes, the reporting on Le Roux's childhood is more tentative based on a family source (well backed up by docs and images sent to me). But the fact that the same Le Roux created E4M which formed the basis of TrueCrypt is something I think I've established definitively, company and site registration trails show it very firmly (and PLR himself admits it in court, b…

Aren't you nervous about doxxing someone like that so thoroughly?

Isn't "doxxing people" the actual job of a journalist?

Re: He Always Had a Dark Side

#106

Post by Kristine1975 »

Negative1 wrote: post #48

tl;dr: the article describes the origin of one of the 'masterminds' of the truecrypt collective (the group that programmed truecrypt). It describes how his upbringing led to his viewpoints on privacy, hints at a conspiracy to eliminate public cryptography and talks about something called a 'cryptoparty', which I'm still scratching my head about. The article also hints he may have been involved in the illegal drug and…

>cryptoparty

Possibly this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptoparty

Re: He Always Had a Dark Side

#107

Post by orik »

iheartmemcache wrote: post #70
myrbergs_army wrote: post #59

Original author of the story here... Just to add that 1. yes, the reporting on Le Roux's childhood is more tentative based on a family source (well backed up by docs and images sent to me). But the fact that the same Le Roux created E4M which formed the basis of TrueCrypt is something I think I've established definitively, company and site registration trails show it very firmly (and PLR himself admits it in court, b…

Setup a Patreon. I'll throw in $20 per article for long-form journalism like this. Youtubers who make long-ish videos (i.e., EE's who tear down industrial gear narrating analysis[1]) have recently taken to this model and it's absolutely fantastic. My money goes to support the continued generation of new content, cutting out the middleman. "Pay because it's good" is the best content monetization model yet. [1] Ben fro…

I think Patreon is a tough sell for 'long-format' journalism because there's such a large gap between stories.

Re: He Always Had a Dark Side

#108

Post by Nickoladze »

orik wrote: post #107
iheartmemcache wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Setup a Patreon. I'll throw in $20 per article for long-form journalism like this. Youtubers who make long-ish videos (i.e., EE's who tear down industrial gear narrating analysis[1]) have recently taken to this model and it's absolutely fantastic. My money goes to support the continued generation of new content, cutting out the middleman. "Pay because it's good" is the best content monetization model yet. [1] Ben fro…

I think Patreon is a tough sell for 'long-format' journalism because there's such a large gap between stories.

There's an option to pay per content released instead of monthly.

Re: He Always Had a Dark Side

#109

Post by cbsmith »

beeboop wrote: post #41
j1vms wrote: post #17

Could someone post a one or two paragraph TL;DR for people in here who don't have the time right now to read the entire piece? You can reasonably assume we do already a) know what tcrypt is, and b) know about the discontinuation annoucement almost two years ago. May the upvotes then be with you.

Really the only "big" information presented is that Paul Le Roux, a man arrested recently by the DEA, is very very likely the same person who was the early leader of TrueCrypt. It discuses his background a lot - he was an extremely intelligent child and teenager, who started shady business practices as early as 16 when he was arrested for selling porn. He was rather poor and led a shaky life in his early twenties, an…

s/collaborate/corroborate/

Re: He Always Had a Dark Side

#110

Post by cbsmith »

falsestprophet wrote: post #21
djloche wrote: post #6

>>"He was particularly protective of Le Roux’s birth mother, making me promise not to reveal her name. “Sad and interesting story,” he said. “His real mom’s mom is married to a U.S. Senator.” When I asked him who the Senator was, he said, “That I can’t say, mate. That’ll get me shot.”" This is probably a bigger story.

US Senators generally are not powerful enough to have people shot.

I wouldn't assume it was the US Senator who'd want to have him killed.
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