211–220 of 380 posts
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Does that make it okay? Do the reasons we find it socially unacceptable in other instances apply to journalists?
Who finds it socially unacceptable? Redditors?
NB: I'm not claiming these rules are good or bad. But it's not like only freaks that are members of The Other have concerns about doxxing.
It seems to be cut off after "The only way out was to spill his secrets."?
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But E4M is not Truecrypt, see the post of jron citing Wikipedia here. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11382303 Paul Le Roux stole E4M source from SecurStar, and TrueCrypt programmers "forked" that source code. So Paul Le Roux surely didn't "write" TrueCrypt as such, isn't the current title here on HN inaccurate? Mods can we please have the real article title "He Always Had a Dark Side" here instead of the curren…
read the article before flaming. The author lays out a very well supported case for concluding that PLR wrote the E4M code then was hired by SecurStar to turn it into a commercial product. Also claims PLR was one of the TrueCrypt programmers, so yes, the title is accurate as far as what the author is claiming in the article.
"Indeed, even today the question of who launched the software remains unanswered. “The origin of TrueCrypt has always been very mysterious,” says Matthew Green".
And also as Mahn writes:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11383392
"The article is unclear as for whether he was still involved with TrueCrypt by the time they got him though. It sounds like he had quite a lot going on to even care for TrueCrypt at that point."
I surely don't dispute that PLR wrote E4M and that TrueCrypt was kind of "fork" of that (see again my older post). But the following product is not the same thing as the original source, just as Marc Andreessen didn't "wrote the Internet Explorer" even if the later was once based on some Mosaic source.
And HN is generally against editorializing the titles to make them more linkbaity. And this one is surely such at the moment.
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Does that make it okay? Do the reasons we find it socially unacceptable in other instances apply to journalists?
Who finds it socially unacceptable? Redditors?
There exist numerous reasons to not love the idea of one's personal information, particularly regarding one's work or home, put out there broadly, particularly when it is attached to information one does not control and/or in a circumstance which would tend to show it to people who do not respect standard middle class norms of detachment. Redditors did not invent concern over this issue. Many of the people with strong concerns about it are demographically dissimilar to the modal Redditor.
Edit to add: It occasionally happens that journalists will transgress upon society's norms in this area and persons sympathetic to the aggrevied parties will transgress back. I have not heard a journalist say, in response to that "OK, fair commentary, wot wot." This often comes up in the context "We have published gun owners' addresses because the public has a right to know who owns guns." "We have published your address because the public has a right to know who writes newspapers."
I feel like I've read that story ~5 times over the years. First Googleable citation: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/07/nyregion/after-pinpointing...
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…
-- The US government
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US Senators generally are not powerful enough to have people shot.
You are assuming the violence would be carried out using senatorial powers. Senators are generally very wealthy people, and it doesn't take that much money to hire someone to kill another person[1]. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contract_killing#Statistics [2] 2: I have to say I was fairly hesitant to search for that data. It's not the kind of thing you want showing up in your search history...
That's a surprisingly low amount. I'd've guessed $100k+ or more.
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To run a BBS you need nothing more than a C64, a 300 bps modem and a phone line. Also, I'm not sure if you know anything about phone phreaking but in the 80s it was pretty much the preferred method of connecting to BBSs internationally.
Yes but from a teenager in Krugersdorp? And South Africa did not have such easy access to the international telephone market. The country was in the middle of economic sanctions at the time - international calls had to be placed through a switchboard with the government run telecom monopoly provider - Telkom. They also cost a literal arm and a leg for a couple minutes and were heavily monitored by the Apartheid regim…
Really ? Honestly, that's even more interesting than the truecrypt/arms dealer story ...
Pictures ?
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By "feel", I meant more what you might feel justified in doing about it. The key "moral rule" for me is to only mess with people who have messed with me. I don't get into third-party stuff, and I have little sympathy for those who do.
So what you're saying is, it would be moral for this guy's murder victims to dox him, but not a reporter? The funny thing with murderers is that they can only really be stopped by third parties.
Anybody can do whatever they want. And they get whatever they get.
My parent question was more about the reporter's OPSEC. That is, the risks that he's taken.