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Adrian Lamo has died

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Re: Adrian Lamo has died

#71

Post by CydeWeys »

VectorLock wrote: post #52
CydeWeys wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I used to agree with this but honestly, the second Manning contacted him, he was complicit with the crime being committed Are you sure this is true? You don't have a duty to report anything just because you become knowledgeable of it. Mere knowledge doesn't make you complicit.

Does that also apply to Manning?

It more so applies to the tens of thousands of people who knew about these various crimes and did nothing.

Snowden is a better example of how to handle responsible disclosure than Manning, however.

Re: Adrian Lamo has died

#72

Post by patorjk »

loggedinmyphone wrote: post #37
amyjess wrote: post #3

Wow. I remember, long before he became famous (I think he went by ill at the time), discovering his Inside-AOL site that delved into the workings of AOL. It was really fascinating to me to find out how so much of it worked (that was the first place I heard of Rainman). I've always loved reading about how complex systems work, and that site was like crack to me. I know that most people here will probably remember him…

He was Magus on aol https://mattmazur.com/2010/06/26/adrian-lamo-aol-files-profi...

That page isn't loading for me, but he was not the Magus behind the famous Fate X AOL prog. I actually talked to that Magus and several of his friends a few years ago [1]. I'd heard Lamo claimed to be Magus, and maybe he went by that handle in some cases, but he was not the author of Fate X.

[1] http://patorjk.com/blog/2012/05/03/cracking-magus-fate-zero-...

Re: Adrian Lamo has died

#73

Post by tzs »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #55

As an aside: didn't Lamo report Bradley Manning, it's surely rewriting history to report otherwise? I didn't recognise the name at first because of this change.

When writing about past well-known events, it is probably best to give both the names people went by at the time and their current names. You need the past names because those will be the names on documents from the time of the event.

Re: Adrian Lamo has died

#74

Post by stochastic_monk »

jemfinch wrote: post #63
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #55

As an aside: didn't Lamo report Bradley Manning, it's surely rewriting history to report otherwise? I didn't recognise the name at first because of this change.

"Chelsea Manning" is the preferred name that refers to the person Lamo reported. "Bradley Manning" is a former, non-preferred name. Nothing about history changes if a different name is used; the same person is referred to either way. That you didn't recognize the person based on the preferred name only indicates that you've paid less attention to the news than you thought you had.

I'm rather surprised someone on hacker news could not have heard about Chelsea Manning in the past few years. (Or even just on the internet, really.)

If you have any interest in artificial intelligence and automation or their effects on society at large, I strongly recommend her Op-Ed in the Times last September [0].

Like her or not, she's a big figure in cybersecurity, freedom of information, and international politics. I thoroughly enjoy and benefit from what she has to say.

[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/13/opinion/chelsea-manning-b...

Re: Adrian Lamo has died

#75

Post by throwaway9063 »

CiPHPerCoder wrote: post #61
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #55

As an aside: didn't Lamo report Bradley Manning, it's surely rewriting history to report otherwise? I didn't recognise the name at first because of this change.

Using a person's name from before they come out as transgender is called deadnaming and is a tactic favored among abusive people. The polite thing to do, regardless of personal politics, is to simply reassociate the person with the name Chelsea Manning and move on with your life.

"Hi, I know this is a thread about someone's passing, and I'm gonna let you finish, but 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.

The polite thing to do is to think and talk the way I'm telling you to and move on with your life, because otherwise, you're a monster."

Re: Adrian Lamo has died

#76

Post by CydeWeys »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #55

As an aside: didn't Lamo report Bradley Manning, it's surely rewriting history to report otherwise? I didn't recognise the name at first because of this change.

A name is a label (think C pointer) to a specific person. So yes, Lamo did report the person now known as Chelsea Manning. It was the person that was reported, not a name. Names in themselves are almost entirely inconsequential.

Re: Adrian Lamo has died

#77

Post by auntienomen »

mmjaa wrote: post #66
elefanten wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Manning is no hero, let's not go overboard. At best, she made a well-intentioned but horribly reckless mistake.

She's a hero if someone says she is, and that's all there is to it. I think she was a brave, selfless person in doing what she did, and I'm glad that the US got its ass handed to it in this way. American military crimes are heinous, and the entire nation is doing nothing effective about it. There are millions of people suffering because the American public are too cowardly to confront their own military. So by sticki…

She also released hundreds of thousands of pages of other documents. I can sympathize with carefully targeted disclosures -- like the Collateral Damage videos -- but there's no way she reviewed all the documents she dumped. Wildly irresponsible.

Re: Adrian Lamo has died

#78

Post by jakear »

mmjaa wrote: post #70
jakear wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People really were put in danger. The Taliban targeted Afgan nationals revealed in the documents to be associating with the US. From a Taliban spokesperson: "We will investigate through our own secret service whether the people mentioned are really spies working for the U.S. If they are U.S. spies, then we know how to punish them." [1] I like freedom of information, but what Manning did was simply irresponsible. Ther…

Hundreds of thousands of innocent people are put in danger, really in harms way, because of the American publics' reticence for reigning in their military masters. You might think that American lives are worth more, but I happen to think that childrens' lives are worth more - of any nation - than any American. Or have you forgotten the innocent children that were murdered in cold blood by Americans', as revealed in t…

Troll somewhere else. If you read even the first line of my comment you’d know I’m talking about protecting Afghan nationals. If you continued reading, you’d see that I agree with leaks exposing the evils committed.

Re: Adrian Lamo has died

#79

Post by VectorLock »

jsmthrowaway wrote: post #26
sgtmas2006 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His family has said that he went dark on social media starting the 18-21st of Feb. He also had issues with substance abuse apparently, but who knows.

He had been involuntarily held more than once, and described his diagnosis of Asperger's to more than one publication. There were questions about the story he told, though, based on records not matching up with his narrative; this, to me, indicated a man not well, who needed help more than anything. I hope he was getting it. That said, I think it's inappropriate to speculate, particularly when the circumstances likel…

You have a good attitude on this; thank you.

Re: Adrian Lamo has died

#80

Post by pbhjpbhj »

CiPHPerCoder wrote: post #61
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #55

As an aside: didn't Lamo report Bradley Manning, it's surely rewriting history to report otherwise? I didn't recognise the name at first because of this change.

Using a person's name from before they come out as transgender is called deadnaming and is a tactic favored among abusive people. The polite thing to do, regardless of personal politics, is to simply reassociate the person with the name Chelsea Manning and move on with your life.

Um, OK and rewriting history is a tactic favoured by fascists.

Now, where did that get us, nowhere.

There was no person of that public identity in existence at the time, doesn't that make it impossible for such a person to have done something. Suppose Chelsea Manning were now to revert to calling himself Bradley (a situation not without precedent), or choose a further name - why should that change how we report factual information about the past?

I don't really understand why objective information gets changed at the behest of personal preference in this way.

Shouldn't it be "Bradley Manning (now called Chelsea)"?

I prefer objective to polite.

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