Inexplicably this post just disappeared off the very top of HN... Edit: appearing now as flagged.
Users explicably flagged it.
Wasn't showing up as flagged when it disappeared.
It is now, though.
Adrian Lamo has died
131–140 of 248 posts
Re: Adrian Lamo has died
#132Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can't always raise objective facts and remain polite. I disagree. Someone changing their name and identifying as the opposite sex after being arrested (the next day I think?) in a major political scandal makes that pertinent to the history of the situation. Hiding that by pretending the person always was identified as they currently are hides facts about the situation -- are they pertinent, maybe not to the prima…
Please stop.
How will I come to an understanding of why people act in this manner without questioning those who do?
Are you asking in your position as moderator?
Re: Adrian Lamo has died
#133Re: Adrian Lamo has died
#134Earlier quoted context omitted.
So, do you remember when the President of USA had that Apprentice show on TV? To me that's wrong, the President didn't, but Donald Trump did. There's no reason to hide that Trump hasn't always been president, and it's informative to know that he wasn't president at the time he was a TV character in a "game" (?) show. If the name is inconsequential why does anyone care if you refer to the correct historical fact that…
President is a job title, not a name.
You're right, I struggled for a good analogy.
Re: Adrian Lamo has died
#135Earlier quoted context omitted.
But when you're being a snitch, don't snitch out the people that were snitches for you. Manning released the identities of Afghan nationals who helped the counterinsurgency, leading to their deaths at the hands of the Taliban.
[citation needed]
I don't think it is possible to specifically name anyone who actually died because of the leaks.
It's similar to lung cancer deaths caused by smoking cigarettes. No one has ever been able to specifically name someone who died from lung cancer caused by smoking. In every single case, it is possible that the named person is one of the many people each year who die from lung cancers caused by things such radon exposure, asbestos, an unlucky mutation, or air pollution.
We do know that when the Taliban would find out that someone was aiding those who opposed the Taliban, they would go after that person (and often their family, too). So we know that the leaks would have made some people targets who would not have otherwise been targets at the time.
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 to carry out that analysis.
Re: Adrian Lamo has died
#136So, I'm gonna lay it out here as I am having a bad day and don't feel like censoring myself. I'd known Adrian since 1998. He came to 2600 meetings in SF and was a fixture there. In that time, he generally didn't make any friends. While he was gay, he was also stalking a lady at the meetings, and being super creepy about it. Eventually, he left SF and was homeless. He got in trouble for hacking the NYT and making hims…
If you don't mind, I have a question about Adrian that I've wondered about for a while. I first came across his name when I was researching the author of an old AOL hacking program known as Fate X. It was pretty popular on AOL at the time and was written by "Magus". In interviews around 2010, Adrian claimed he went by the handle Magus on AOL, and many people I talked to pointed to him when I was trying to track down…
I can't find any reference to him saying he created Fate X. The Magus handle is most likely purely coincidental.
Re: Adrian Lamo has died
#137Earlier quoted context omitted.
It isn't a question of criticism but of grandiose rhetoric—e.g. equating people who disagree with you with child-haters, and whatnot. One can argue that atrocities demand intense responses and I agree with that. But I also know that on internet forums this has long degraded into garden-variety flamebait, that the discussions it produces are tedious, predictable, and worthless, and that the end state they lead to is h…
Fair enough. I'll find other ways to make my point.
Thank you!
Re: Adrian Lamo has died
#138Re: Adrian Lamo has died
#139Earlier quoted context omitted.
Users have flagged the submission and some of the less humane comments in the thread. That's probably the right outcome, given that there's no way to stop the discussion from being about the events of 8 years ago, but probably no good discussion about them to be had in this context.
Perhaps the link could be changed to a news article rather than the Facebook page? For example: http://www.zdnet.com/article/adrian-lamo-hacker-dies/
That's a good idea. Thanks for pointing it out.
Url changed from https://www.facebook.com/groups/majordomo/permalink/10156204....
Edit: We'll try turning off the flags and seeing if the discussion can do better.
Re: Adrian Lamo has died
#140I'm conflicted about this news. On one hand, he was one of us, and he shared his knowledge. On the other hand, he was a traitor, and he betrayed the trust of a true hero in order to put more unaccountable government power in the hands of people like Donald Trump. Who would have expected that Adrian Lamo would outlive Chelsea Manning? Did he commit suicide — as she nearly did?
Was it ever found out why he did it? I don't know the guy but it just seems like idk, what is there to gain out of this?
He was alarmed that the indiscriminate leaking could provide dangerous to people's lives (which by some accounts, it was)