Jeffrey Epstein and MIT: FAQs • Hacker News Board

Re: Jeffrey Epstein and MIT: FAQs

#121

Post by jandrese » Fri, Jan 10, 2020, 10:11 PM UTC

perennate wrote: post #68

teachrdan wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would appear to be $50,000 plus $125,000 if I'm reading that last note correctly.

The $60,000 gift in "2005 or 2006" is the only one the report says was deposited into his personal bank account. Because it was not sent to MIT, "this gift ... is not included in the $850,000 in" total donations the report indicates were accepted by MIT. In contrast, the $125,000 is included in the $850,000, as indicated by the breakdown in the table on page 9. Thus, though not stated explicitly, the report indicates…

Usually it means the professor is taking a break from teaching so they can focus on their research. There's no sabbatical police force though, so if the professor wants to hike the AT or backpack across Europe or something that's their prerogative.

Re: Jeffrey Epstein and MIT: FAQs

#122

Post by shadowgovt » Fri, Jan 10, 2020, 10:12 PM UTC

krick wrote: post #67

shadowgovt wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are either of those a risk that's practically worth guarding against for this information? Engineering leaders generally have the skill of choosing the right solution for the problem at hand.

Yes, it is worth it, and, no, this particular engineering leader displays no such skill here. It was somewhat debatable several years ago, when the whole "switch to https" movement just started growing traction, and, yes, there are some questionable moments, as with FTP. But today TLS-by-default is pretty much a standard practice for any public web-page like this, there's no trade off to make here, and it can be argu…

Https works to retrieve the page if one is concerned about that.

Re: Jeffrey Epstein and MIT: FAQs

#123

Post by ehsankia » Fri, Jan 10, 2020, 10:12 PM UTC

Waterluvian wrote: post #89

grey-area wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cctv footage existed, it has now been ‘accidentally deleted’. The chances of this happening on a high profile case are infinitesimally small. So on the contrary the great claim requiring evidence is that this was a completely normal suicide in prison. Where is the evidence this video was deleted by mistake? https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2020/01/10/us/09reuters-peop...

I hear you. But the absence of evidence is not evidence of a crime. You've got your reasoning inverted. "Show me the evidence that there isn't a giant space walrus on the far side of Neptune. Otherwise we must conclude there is one. " I'd like links to sensible aggregate sources and discussion. I don't want to have the discussion here.

So if, for example, a crime happens with 10 witness, and all 10 witness start dying one by one, will you simply say that there is no evidence the crime and forget about it?

In this case, there may not be any bulletproof evidence, but everything around the case that could've gone wrong has gone wrong, to the point where it's no longer statistically plausible to be a mistake. Everything in the system had redundancy yet every part of the system "failed".

There were two guards, yet they were both "asleep". They were supposed to check him every 30m yet they didn't check him for hours exactly when he killed himself. He had attempted suicide yet he wasn't on suicide watch. His cell mate was taken away. All the footage and backup were lost.

I guess the closest evidence so far is that the autopsy shows more homicide than suicide, but that isn't much.

Yes, it is indeed a conspiracy theory at this point, but unlike what the internet will have you believe, "conspiracy" != "crackpot theory".

Re: Jeffrey Epstein and MIT: FAQs

#124

Post by dctoedt » Fri, Jan 10, 2020, 10:13 PM UTC

Waterluvian wrote: post #89

grey-area wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cctv footage existed, it has now been ‘accidentally deleted’. The chances of this happening on a high profile case are infinitesimally small. So on the contrary the great claim requiring evidence is that this was a completely normal suicide in prison. Where is the evidence this video was deleted by mistake? https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2020/01/10/us/09reuters-peop...

I hear you. But the absence of evidence is not evidence of a crime. You've got your reasoning inverted. "Show me the evidence that there isn't a giant space walrus on the far side of Neptune. Otherwise we must conclude there is one. " I'd like links to sensible aggregate sources and discussion. I don't want to have the discussion here.

> Show me the evidence that there isn't a giant space walrus on the far side of Neptune. Otherwise we must conclude there is one.

That's a nice, more-memorable riff on Russell's Teapot [0].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot

Re: Jeffrey Epstein and MIT: FAQs

#125

Post by AlanYx » Fri, Jan 10, 2020, 10:13 PM UTC

gumby wrote: post #75

sxcurry wrote: post #66

1) Negroponte responded: “I know him quite well. The person who is his closest friend is Marvin Minsky, who even visited him in jail. I would take Berlusconi’s money, so why not Jeff.” (By March 2013, Berlusconi, the former Prime Minister of Italy, had been accused of hiring underaged prostitutes and dating underaged girls.) 2)“I’ve also talked to Nicholas [Negroponte] as well who had met him and he also agrees that…

I'm really surprise Marvin visited him in jail. It's not out of character of him (he was really a kind human) but I'm surprised he had that close a relationship. I like Nicholas a lot but some of his remarks do surprise me.

Minsky had been close with Epstein for years. Minsky had even organized two events on Epstein's island, a two day symposium in 2002 (not mentioned in the report) and a full conference in December 2011 (this appears to be mischaracterized as 2012 in the report). I see another poster has commented about Giuffre's allegations.

Re: Jeffrey Epstein and MIT: FAQs

#126

Post by closeparen » Fri, Jan 10, 2020, 10:14 PM UTC

ergothus wrote: post #80

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #20

From the report http://factfindingjan2020.mit.edu/files/MIT-report.pdf Professor Lloyd's dealings look very, very shady: > Professor Lloyd remained friends with Epstein after his conviction in 2008. He visited Epstein at his office in Florida during the period of Epstein’s criminal sentence. Professor Lloyd also visited Epstein’s private island, though for only a few hours for lunch, and he has acknowledged Epstein i…

> Professor Lloyd also visited Epstein’s private island, though for only a few hours for lunch, I live a fairly privileged life as a U.S. West Coast techie...and stopping at a private island for a few hours sounds crazy. Do non-billionaire people (active academics at that) really lead lives like this? `

In my upper-middle-class life, I’ve been an invited guest in some pretty mind-boggling old-money spaces a handful of times. Lots of kids growing up had stories from a week on their crazy rich family friend’s palatial vacation property or mega-yacht. At a highly selective university, the son of a teacher or an accountant might be dating the daughter of a household name CEO.

Those people do sometimes have friends like us & a desire to entertain.

Re: Jeffrey Epstein and MIT: FAQs

#127

Post by mlyle » Fri, Jan 10, 2020, 10:14 PM UTC

sequoia wrote: post #96

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #20

From the report http://factfindingjan2020.mit.edu/files/MIT-report.pdf Professor Lloyd's dealings look very, very shady: > Professor Lloyd remained friends with Epstein after his conviction in 2008. He visited Epstein at his office in Florida during the period of Epstein’s criminal sentence. Professor Lloyd also visited Epstein’s private island, though for only a few hours for lunch, and he has acknowledged Epstein i…

> Professor Lloyd also visited Epstein’s private island, though for only a few hours for lunch Normally one would give the benefit of the doubt, but given the abhorrent acts people were perpetrating or turning a blind eye to in this case, I'm inclined not to. Hence this question of fact: Unless there are credible witnesses attesting to the fact that he spent his few hours on that island eating lunch, the report shoul…

> Normally one would give the benefit of the doubt, but given the abhorrent acts people were perpetrating or turning a blind eye to in this case, I'm inclined not to.

I think this is a dangerous way to look at things... Just because there's a lot of shady people doing awful things, doesn't mean we should tar everyone who associated with the person.

Whatever other things happened with other people doesn't really matter. Instead we should look at the facts for each case (visited Epstein's island where bad things had happened, and accepted money from Epstein in an unusual way).

Re: Jeffrey Epstein and MIT: FAQs

#128

Post by shadowgovt » Fri, Jan 10, 2020, 10:15 PM UTC

alias_neo wrote: post #77

shadowgovt wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are either of those a risk that's practically worth guarding against for this information? Engineering leaders generally have the skill of choosing the right solution for the problem at hand.

The problem is a matter of trust. The information therein is potentially bad for their reputation, and not "signing on the dotted line" leaves scope for them to come out in the future and say "that's not actually what we said, must have been MitMd" (for example). An institution of this calibre should be considered viable to pull off something this obtuse to your average person, and thus should not be given the benefi…

That risk doesn't make any sense when they can also just edit the page content on their end. Are we taking seriously the risk MIT would try and blame editing their own page on some kind of MITM that successfully masked true page content a) consistently b) for 100% of readers c) applied at an attack location in the network that someone had access to that isn't the same someone as controls the TLS-verified content hosting? This smells like rhinoceros-repellent levels of paranoia.

Re: Jeffrey Epstein and MIT: FAQs

#129

Post by ehsankia » Fri, Jan 10, 2020, 10:15 PM UTC

irjustin wrote: post #32

trentnix wrote: post #4

The report is the product of considerable work involving 73 interviews of 59 people and more than 610,000 documents and emails. That's 10,000 documents and emails per person interviewed. How is that even possible?

Likely - not all 610k documents are authored by those 59 people. 59 people are interesting to look at. 610k documents are related to the investigation probably by search/graph. Realistically, not all 610k are read manually.

Also, the interactions span over 15 years.

Re: Jeffrey Epstein and MIT: FAQs

#130

Post by shadowgovt » Fri, Jan 10, 2020, 10:16 PM UTC

akersten wrote: post #71

shadowgovt wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is this an issue?

Aren't you worried that a statement surrounding a person who is the subject of a possible international cover-up, might be a prime candidate for MitM-type tampering? Without HTTPS, how do you know what you're reading hasn't been subtly changed from the real statement MIT put out?

Network effect. Someone making that attack would have to hit near 100% of readers to mask such shenanigans, or readers receiving different versions would discover the hijinks when comparing notes. An attack that far upstream is an attack by an insider who can likely get it into the network behind the TLS encryption anyway.