Adrian and I met back in '97. He always struck me as ahead of his time, and was someone who opened my eyes to what "information security" actually was: The man's natural ability to find his way into places he shouldn't be - physical or electronic, was simply uncanny and I have never before spoken with or known of anyone like him.
Adrian Lamo has died
211–220 of 248 posts
Re: Adrian Lamo has died
#212Earlier quoted context omitted.
I only had a couple run-ins with him online, but this doesn't surprise me at all. I've been an administrator on the English Wikipedia for over a decade now, and used to have a bit of a high profile on there. He would privately contact me occasionally trying to get me to make questionable edits to Wikipedia on his behalf. He came off as smarmy, manipulative, and his messages would occasionally veer into oddly sexual,…
This is interesting, CydeWeys is a well known, respected and long time administrator of Wikipedia.
And for what it's worth, I've never given in and made questionable edits for anyone, not even Adrian.
I will say, though, that being the target of social engineering by someone you know is renowned for being good at social engineering is an interesting experience. You almost can't help yourself even though you know better.
Re: Adrian Lamo has died
#213Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't know specifically in Manning's case, but yes, in general in the US, knowledge that a crime is about to be, is being, or has been committed can make you an accomplice and expose you to criminal liability. In not all cases will knowledge alone necessarily be enough to convict you, but that doesn't mean a prosecutor might not try. An ex-con should probably not take the chance that a prosecutor will ignore prior…
Lamo talked to Manning under the guise of being a journalist. Here's what Glenn Greenwald wrote in 2011, after WIRED published the full logs between Lamo and Manning (it must be pointed out that Greenwald was one of the loudest critics of WIRED and its editors, but I use this link since it quotes from the logs): https://www.salon.com/2011/07/14/wired_7/ > MANNING: uhm, trying to keep a low profile for now though, jus…
Yes, this is it exactly. Keeping sources confidential is the norm for reporters in the US. Some have spent time in prison for refusing to reveal sources. Judith Miller, for example.
Re: Adrian Lamo has died
#214Sorry, this story isn't very interesting, but it really stuck with me nonetheless, and I wanted to share. Adrian had a passing romance with a friend of mine, and thus ended up traveling through the city I grew up in. This was long before Chelsea Manning, etc. I was a super shy, rather awkward teenage girl. I suppose the teenage part has changed.. but I digress. I loved the idea of mischief, but at the same time, I wa…
Nice story, the kind that makes HN worth it
I sadly can't believe anything I read on the internet and I view this with suspicion for some reason...
Re: Adrian Lamo has died
#215Earlier quoted context omitted.
> unless you adopt my preferred method of reasoning on this tangential, hot-button topic that I haven't even given you a chance to properly discuss, you're an abusive person. You're literally putting words in my mouth there. I said that was a tactic favored among abusive people. That's not an accusation, that's an observable fact about how abusive people behave. I choose my words carefully, y'know.
You know who else does that? Abusive people. I'm not saying you're an abusive person, but that is definitely behavior shared by abusive people. It's just an observable fact. I chose these words very carefully so you know I am not accusing you of being abusive, just associating you with abusive behavior.
> You know who else does that?
Who else does what, exactly? I can't follow what "that" is supposed to refer to.
Re: Adrian Lamo has died
#216The directors cut of his documentary voiced by Kevin Spacey, and featuring Woz and Kevin Rose is available on public Bittorrent sites:
Re: Adrian Lamo has died
#217Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Lamo screwed Manning big time, but when he did, none of us who knew him were surprised. He was never a happy person, and never friendly to anyone I knew. I think his folks threw him out of the house in his teens. > Kind of a tragic figure, but also not really someone you could ever trust or even invite to parties. When anyone dies, it's sad. But with Adrian, he had already basically removed himself from the groups…
I seriously wonder how anyone can equate Adrian with Aaron. Aaron contributed to RSS, Creative Commons, and Markdown. Aaron's story is by far the more tragic to me.
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Re: Adrian Lamo has died
#218Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nice story, the kind that makes HN worth it
I sadly can't believe anything I read on the internet and I view this with suspicion for some reason...
Was it the awkward wording as I attempted to make it as location-detail-free as possible? ;)
(tbf, I wouldn't believe a random story on the internet from an account created that day either.. ah well.)
Re: Adrian Lamo has died
#219Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think that Adrian did it out of a sense of rightness. He did it because he had no choice. Adrian was basically suspicious that he was being monitored by the FBI (he had just come out of a judgement where he was prohibited from using computers, so this is not an unreasonable thing to believe), so it was either say nothing and get two people in trouble or say something and keep it to just one. Simply put, as mu…
I 100% disagree with you. Plus Manning was wreckless (my own perspective, which is hardly unique). Source: I’ve known Adrian personally for decades.
Fair enough. I have only had a few conversations with Adrian myself, and I never broached the subject.
Re: Adrian Lamo has died
#220Earlier quoted context omitted.
No. I'm not saying that at all. You seem to have forgotten that you wrote this. > The best we can do is, as with lung cancer, is think about it statistically. Compare the people exposed in the leaks to similarly situated people who were not mentioned, and see if the former had a statistically significant higher death rate from Taliban attacks for themselves or their families. > I don't know if the data is available t…
Well, the data not being available doesn't necessarily mean that people weren't killed, either. I think you're both making valid points and the truth is somewhere in the middle. Yes, with certain kinds of leaks, there are potential risks to people that should be taken into account, by carefully selecting, and redacting when appropriate, the material to be leaked (which Manning didn't begin to do, nor allow anyone els…
> Well, the data not being available doesn't necessarily mean that people weren't killed, either.
I generally reject arguments of this form, because:
1. In the absence of real data, they are essentially just fear mongering.
2. It violates the general principle of innocent until proven guilty, because we are assuming Chelsea Manning is guilty of getting people killed without evidence that this is the case.
3. Accepting arguments of this form puts a strong incentive on those in charge to classify everything so that they can always rely on uncertainty to fuel fear. In some sense this incentive is the root cause of everything we are discussing.
> That's not necessarily a good argument against leaking at all, in my opinion, though many consider it so.
That's definitely not a good arguments against leaking at all. The much more interesting question in my mind is: in a situation where people might have been hurt or killed because of a leak is it right to be critical of the leaker in stead of focusing on the contents of the leak. Personally I (somewhat predictably) would say no. For the reasons above, and also because, Chelsea Manning exposed plenty of instances where people definitely were hurt and killed (in a situation where the leak contained lower stakes information, my opinion might be different).