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OpenAI whistleblower found dead in San Francisco apartment

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Re: OpenAI whistleblower found dead in San Francisco apartment

#241

Post by kstenerud »

aniviacat wrote: post #57
DevX101 wrote: post #20

Anyone who's a whistleblower should compile key docs and put it in a "dead man's switch" service that releases your testimony/docs to multiple news agencies in the event of your untimely demise. The company you're whistle blowing against and their major shareholders should know this exists. Also, regularly post public video attesting to you current mental state.

What would that accomplish? Are you saying they won't kill you because then the documents would be released? So you would never release the documents if they never kill you? Or are you saying you'll do this so the documents are guaranteed to be released, even if you're killed? In that case, why not just publish them right now?

It's more along the lines of: You're going to do things they don't like, but if they kill you (or even if you die by accident), you'll release even MORE damaging material that could harm them to a far greater degree. It doesn't even have to be court-admissible to be damaging.

This is about leverage, and perhaps even bluff. It's never a binary situation, nor are there any guarantees.

Re: OpenAI whistleblower found dead in San Francisco apartment

#243

Post by canoebuilder »

ALittleLight wrote: post #214
neuroelectron wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue is it has to be proven in court. This man was personally responsible for developing web scraping; stealing data from likely copyrighted sources. He would have had communications specifically addressing the legality of his responsibilities, which he was openly questioning his superiors about.

"Stealing data" seems pretty strong. Web scraping is legal. If you put text on the public Internet other people can read it or do statistical processing on it. What do you mean he was "stealing data"? Was he hacking into somewhere?

In a lot of ways, the statistical processing is a novel form of information retrieval. So the issue is somewhat like if 20 years ago Google was indexing the web, then decided to just rehost all the indexed content on their own servers and monetize the views instead linking to the original source of the content.

Re: OpenAI whistleblower found dead in San Francisco apartment

#244

Post by flawn »

XorNot wrote: post #142
DevX101 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I'm a whistleblower in an active case and I end up dead before testifying, I absolutely DO want the general public to speculate about my cause of death.

To what, encourage whistleblowers to not come forward because "everyone knows they'll get killed"? The only benefit of turning it into gossip is to dissuade other whistleblowers, without the inconvenience of actually having to kill anyone.

and if nobody talks about it, no whiszleblower will reveal anything as it seems insignificant. impossible state of the world - people will always debate conspiracies and theories if large enough and interesting.

Re: OpenAI whistleblower found dead in San Francisco apartment

#245

Post by ulfw »

red_trumpet wrote: post #238
bubaumba wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can explain a bit. Russians living in Empire of Evil can see all internet including US and EU news. At the same time 'Putin propaganda' channels are blocked in EU. In EU only one side is available. This creates an information bubble, as intended. Which is a basic crowd control technique used to drive public opinion. In this case to support the war. The result is obvious, EU polls show much stronger support than the…

> Russians living in Empire of Evil can see all internet including US and EU news. That's just not true, e.g. Russia also blocked the German propaganda channel dw.com (Deutsche Welle).

Ah yes calling DW a propaganda channel.

We found the Russian state actor account here.

Re: OpenAI whistleblower found dead in San Francisco apartment

#246

Post by tromp »

adrianmonk wrote: post #201
IAmGraydon wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you give it to anyone? That’s not how a dead man’s switch works.

Isn't it? A dead man's switch is a device that triggers an automatic action upon your death. Information and instructions given to a lawyer fits that definition.

Assuming the instructions are in the form of: if you don't hear from me once in some time period, then release the info. If instead they are instructed to release info when they confirm my death, then you could just be made to disappear and death could never be confirmed.

Re: OpenAI whistleblower found dead in San Francisco apartment

#247

Post by saagarjha »

dang wrote: post #77
fantasticfifty wrote: post #55

[flagged]

Single-purpose accounts aren't allowed on HN, and neither is using the site primarily for political/ideological/national battle. Since this account has been doing those things, I've banned it. Please don't create accounts to break HN's rules with. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

What does "banned" actually mean in this case? It seems like they were able to post non-flagged, non-dead comments in reply?

Re: OpenAI whistleblower found dead in San Francisco apartment

#248

Post by defrost »

saagarjha wrote: post #247
dang wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Single-purpose accounts aren't allowed on HN, and neither is using the site primarily for political/ideological/national battle. Since this account has been doing those things, I've banned it. Please don't create accounts to break HN's rules with. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

What does "banned" actually mean in this case? It seems like they were able to post non-flagged, non-dead comments in reply?

The response to dang's ban comment was posted in under a minute by my recollection (I saw dang's comment in the New Comment feed and by the time I browsed there the response was already in place).

'Ban' means ban but it can take a minute or two to take hold and thanks to a custom backend might still allow responses to ban notices - HN does allow people to talk themselves back from the brink once or twice if they engage and explain their actions and indicate they'll do better etc.

Re: OpenAI whistleblower found dead in San Francisco apartment

#250

Post by mulnz »

typeofhuman wrote: post #104
DevX101 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I'm a whistleblower in an active case and I end up dead before testifying, I absolutely DO want the general public to speculate about my cause of death.

I would also most certainly have a dead man's switch releasing everything I know. I would have given it to an attorney along with a sworn deposition.

Absolutely this. Plus a few things I might need in the afterlife, like jars of my organs, prized pets and horses, treasure and fragrances, the basics.
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