The US is one thing but there is no possible way Israel will stop bombing. They will openly say they will, and continue to do so. It just gives them more breathing room to calculate bigger and more serious strikes. Israel has literally nothing to lose. The US is taking all the heat for any actions in Iran. Israel and Iran are mortal enemies, one can not continue to exist while the other lives, this is how they view it. Iran wants Israel erased, Israel wants Iran erased. This isn't going to stop until one of them suffers catastrophic damage.
I believe from what I have heard and read that Israel will likely only stop if US formally withdraws military support in a sense that they stop supplying weapons (?)
If the war (population displacement / genocide / ethnic cleansing, you can call it however you want to) in Gaza has taught the world something is that the current Israeli regime is visceral and they clearly think they are above any international conventions. Of course they will not stop bombing any of its neighbors until we 1) stop funding and 2) start sanctioning them for their war crimes.
I wonder if regime change could help alleviate the tensions in the region.
Israel has a lot to lose, the question is only how much of the lost will be replaced by american taxpayers' money. They're almost out of anti-air interceptors, the war they started in lebanon is going badly and iran still has tens of thousands of drones left. There's also hamas and hezbollah and more and more of the world is turning against them, be it in proper politics or even mundane stuff like the eurovision.
The strict definition of the Geneva conventions does not include forced displacement but in some parts of the world that is included in the definition of. And legality is a matter of tribunal and none has been held so far.
An interesting perspective I see all over X and reddit is calling these people heroes, but only once the rescue happened. The more tame responses simply state that they are happy everyone was rescued and no military was harmed. Why? Those pilots were flying over Iran illegally, presumably to inflict fatal harm on whichever targets.
My political views are pretty simplistic: whoever initiates violence is the bad guy.
That's problematic here, because neither the US nor Iran are strangers to initiating violence. So a further refinement is necessary, based on a principle that I haven't had to fall back on very often: whoever initiates violence during negotiations is the bad guy.
What are those objectives? Can they be achieved by dropping bombs from the sky?
The US, and the rest of the world, are still waiting to know the answer to the first. Why was this war on a whim needed now? What was so imminent that the ongoing negotiations could not have continued?
The second answer is a definitive no, it's never been except for that one time that ended of WW2 when no one else had nukes.
Not really. I'm simply noting the characteristics of the vehicle as seen in the videos released by the War Department. Are you a fisherman? Usually when I go fishing I take, ya know, fishing gear with me.
Is joining a military that has constantly been engaged in terror a "political view"? I'm not the one killing innocent people, it's just basic humanity to feel justice when murderers are stopped. I'm neither a Democrat nor Republican, this is not a partisan issue. I would vote for any politician that said they were closing down our bases all over the world and sanctioning Israel.
Perhaps the most interesting phenomenon I see, on X and elsewhere, is that there are many people who are actively rooting for Americans to die. It has been very revealing in a "see who your real friends are" kind of way. It's quite different from the GWOT, where a sort of cold indifference was common. This time there's europeans and even some Americans who are anxious to see Americans shot down and killed. This is probably the logical end state of believing that the other team is "literally hitler" for so long, amplified by the newsfeed algorithm.
The current US government (and the millions who voted them in power despite their clear fascistic tendencies) made perfectly clear to the rest of the world that the USA is friends with nobody: we are all supposed to be either enemies or vassals.
You can't have Vance come to Europe and insult all of them and expect us to be friends with you.
I totally get it. Via revealed preference, Europe decided a long time ago that they wanted to outsource continental security to the Americans. For a while, this worked out okay, but after 9/11 and the, shall we say, tepid enthusiasm that the rest of NATO (absent maybe Great Britain) had with supporting the US, the relationship deteriorated to a pretty basic free rider problem. Fast forward to the Ukraine War and it became starkly clear that Europe was not prepared to handle security without relying on the "friends" across the Atlantic. So I guess I'm sorry that it took Vance (and Rubio) coming to Europe to insult your leaders, but if that's what it takes for European nations to take their own security seriously again then so be it, I guess? I acknowledge the relationship strain, but everyone in Europe taking taking charge of their own security is objectively better for all involved, perhaps especially the Americans. Again, I'm sorry that Vance said mean things about your politicians.
Vance said mean things about our soldiers who died in Afghanistan and Iraq, connard.
I am more than forty y.o. and I know the story, I've been there. The story isn't that Europe are freeriders, but that the USA kneecapped any attempt at European strength, for example by using their special relationship with the UK to veto every European defense agreement outside of NATO, because they wanted the EU to always be dependent on the USA.
The current push is also a pure extorsion racket, as provent by the violent threats the US is making against the EU for the crime of rebuilding their continental security with European weapons:
https://subscriber.politicopro.com/article/2026/02/pentagon-...
proving once and for all the the US isn't really pushing for "Europe taking taking charge of their own security" and that you are a liar and a gaslighter.
>after 9/11 and the, shall we say, tepid enthusiasm that the rest of NATO (absent maybe Great Britain) had with supporting the US
See? What can I answer except "Fuck you, fucking asshole".
Sorry to have not sent even more of our soldiers to die into a war that... you now think were very bad mistake, perpetual wars that shouldn't have happened... We tried to tell you and got "cheese-eating surrender monkeys" as an answer. And then you still sent soldiers, and now you say they never mattered.
Why are you surprised we don't want to follow your lead at all now? We should help you in the war with Iran that you won, you need our boats but you don't need them - which is it?
Best I could find on what you're referring to for the Vance insult is this[1]:
>UK opposition politicians accused JD Vance of disrespecting British forces after he said a US stake in Ukraine's economy was a "better security guarantee than 20,000 troops from some random country that hasn't fought a war in 30 or 40 years".
This is just objectively true, sorry.
I was in the GWOT and am familiar with how our NATO "partners" intentionally kneecapped themselves at the expense of supporting the mission and the safety of their own soldiers. This country can't fight at night, this country can go outside the wire, this country can't do convoy ops beyond such and such distance, this country can't.... Can't was the operative word. Sure, point taken that the war was prosecuted over 20 years in a very, very stupid way. That doesn't change the fact that what Vance is saying is true.
That article is pay-walled, but the point of the response from the Americans is that if European Defense vendors wish to maintain access to the (much more lucrative) US market, then US vendors should be able to retain the same access to Europe. How is this not simply fair play amongst "alliance" members? NATO should not be selling NATO technology outside of NATO, so to the extent that the US vetoed (via the UK) foreign military sales to non-NATO members ... yes I support this 100%. This is how a defensive alliance works.
>Why are you surprised we don't want to follow your lead at all now?
I am quite literally asking you to do the opposite for European security. I am tired of my country being the guarantor for security and sovereignty of places that maybe 1 or 2 people at the New York Times could find on a map without googling it, but who then turn around and pretend that the existence of democracy itself is a function of the 82nd being able to seize airfields in that country to stop the Russians. I am tired of Europeans telling me that my country sucks and how GWOT vets are war criminals, on and on, when you guys can't do a proper casevac or figure out CAS without calling daddy. Figure that shit out yourselves, thanks. Happy to help teach, though.
>We should help you in the war with Iran that you won, you need our boats but you don't need them - which is it?
We do not need anything from you. Everyone, with some notable exceptions, in this "alliance" threw a hissy fit about overflights originating from bases across Europe that my country built to keep your country safe from the Soviets. Perhaps we should simply close these bases, and let you all figure out how to deal with IRBMs and the host of other 21st century war tech on your own. To the extent that this WH or anyone in my government is asking for "help", it's probably meant as a troll, given that outside of France there's very little force projection on blue water coming out of the rest of NATO. That was a choice, that those countries made. No one in the American government told, for example, the UK to essentially mothball their Navy. No one in the American government told the Germans to shutdown their reactors like a bunch of fools, making them dependent on Russian gas. You people voted for this, knowing that the Americans are always the backstop if shit hits the fan.
Ironically, the last time I had an argument with a Euro about American military involvement and defense policy I was in London in 2023, and to my surprise the only person coming to my side of the debate was the lone Frenchman. Pity.
> It has been very revealing in a "see who your real friends are" kind of way.
Nah, not really.
If I had 'friends' who went about kidnapping and assassinating leaders, mass murdering little girls, bombing literally hundreds of schools in a month, blowing up civilian bridges and power plants, etc etc etc... I wouldn't need to invoke "the newsfeed algorithm" to explain why people are genuinely happy to see the people committing those atrocities get a tiny taste of what they've been inflicting.
Friends don't let friends commit war crimes. And indeed, from that perspective, America might never have had any real friends. We've just been the biggest bully with the biggest stick, the kid whose parents owned the biggest local news channel and industry.
And frankly, friendship with America doesn't even come with the same perks as it used to. You want Europe to buy all their oil and weapons from the US at inflated prices? You want to stir shit up all over the world and then use the ensuing refugee crisis to bolster far right parties across Europe? You want to have a go at Greenland??
... And then complain that we don't have any "real friends" except Israel any more?! Well shit dude, I wonder why. Spoiler alert: It's not because Hitler comparisons are being amplified by the evil anti-genocide media.
As an American rooting for Iran, I can offer my perspective. My country is occupied by Israel and used to commit the most heinous crimes against humanity that anyone could imagine. I am sick of it. Iran are fighting the very people occupying my government and the occupied government itself. They are on my side, hell they even offered to bomb Palantir! I'm rooting for the end of Zionism and Iran is really my only hope to make that happen.
This situation has been apparent for a long time, so I do not feel sorry for the people who signed up to fight in Israel's proxy military -- a military that was already guilty of mass war crimes prior to being occupied I might add.
It's crazy to watch this site go from 'we can't talk about the Russian/Ukraine conflict' to 'this is why I want American servicemen to die' being a community supported topic. There was literally more push back against being OK with Russian military losses in Ukraine than there is with supporting American deaths. To the point all discussion on that topic was stamped out by moderation here, but this cheering against America (and now pro-American deaths I guess) mixed with offhand usage of phrases like hasbara and other ZOG type dog whistles mixed in is one to two of the most active topics every day. And the majority of pushback just ends up flagged dead so it's not like people are looking for a discussion, just a pushing of propaganda/narrative/antisemitic dog whistles like low effort/low value posts with nothing more than calling someone hasbara (separating out 'evil' propaganda with a non-english term used to identify the jewishness and therefore enhanced evilness of the poster).
Personally the pervious moderation to the change in moderation stance for this topic makes it obvious that HN/YCombinators official position aligns with this and I think their official current position will start to have larger impacts for YCombinator. YCombinator, your position is now aligned with posts on your site justifying the deaths of American service members. Not really a good look.
Iran is occupied by a Shia apartheid government. They mandate Shia religious rules that they enforce with extreme violence and death, often against little girls for not wearing hats correctly. They staff the government and the majority of Iranian industry with Shia apartheid supporters. They recently murdered 3,000 (Apartheid regime number) to 30,000 protesters (broader Iranian civilian claim) in the span of 2 day. Iran is currently importing thugs from the Iraqi Shia PMF to be enforcers of the apartheid (showing this is a Shia occupation government forcing itself on the populace) on the streets of Iran along with inviting occupying enforcers from other surrounding Shia militant organizations. People who claim to be against religious apartheid oppressive states immediately turning positions to support such regimes show that they don't really hold that position for any reason but political expedience.
Okay. My response to this is that this does not reflect reality. There is ample evidence that, of the countries out there, Israel exercises outsized influence and is in many ways a very toxic partner. But occupying? We should be reasonable and precise in how these things are discussed. The IRGC is not on "your side". They would kill you without thinking twice about it, unless you are muslim, and even then they're probably just ask permission. Words on the internet are one thing, but be mindful that active support for Iran is treason.
IRGC is literally on my side, they are literally fighting my enemies. No money to Israel, no anti-BDS laws, no weapons to Israel, no political coverage for Israel, no media propaganda on behalf of Israel. If the IRGC wins decisively, these things will all become a reality.
I have many Muslim friends, they are some of the best people I've ever met in my life. I'm an atheist. Not one has ever had a problem with that.
You expressly stating IRGC is your side, not the Iranian people, is very telling.
IRGC caused more suffering/death, more starving of children, in the Yemeni civil war than Israel has in Gaza. If you care about military caused suffering/death, IRGC has to be on the top of your horrible people list.
IRGC is currently importing Iraqi Shia PMF to be enforcers of the Shia apartheid regime currently occupying Iran, because as a religious occupying apartheid regime they don't have enough organic internal support to draw from Iranians in Iran. If you are against occupation, you are against the unrepresentative Shia Theocratic regime (with many regime members born in Iraq) occupying Iran. Daring to dress like this (as a woman, men can dress as they want) will get you murdered by the Shia occupiers:
IRGC is currently recruiting 11-12 year old to man Shia apartheid enforcement checkpoints across Iran and to act as regime enforcers for future events like when the regime murdered 3000 (regime statistic) to 30,000 (civilian statistic) in two days because those people were tired of being ruled by Shia apartheid occupiers forcing Shia conformity (girls must wear hats or be punished, sometime via rape/murder). Again because as an theocratic apartheid occupying (not popular supported) regime they don't have enough manpower without resorting to children/foreign militia.
That is literally your side? Religious theocracies occupying nations without majority organic consent/support of the people? Segregation/lesser/modesty law treatment for women? Imported foreign militias on the streets to enforce unpopular theocratic oppression? Child soldiers? WTF is wrong with you if that is 'your side'.
First of all, I fully reject Zionist propaganda. It's crystal clear that their mandate is to lie to Americans at all times. Secondly, yes the IRGC is on my side, they are attacking my enemies. The only state in the world to do so.
OK, but what about the points a rando on HN brought up?
The Iraqi PMF posted videos of their arrival and their meeting and stating their commitment to the IRGC, so not propaganda.
The IRGC has gone on state TV talking about recruiting 12 year olds, so not propaganda.
HRW has documented the murder of women from violating dress code, so not proganda.
The IRGC has stated that 3000 Iranian protesters will murdered by them in January, so not propoganda (though their admitted number is in question as being too low).
The Iranian regime/IRGC are very clear they are a repressive theocratic regime for Shia Islam, so not propaganda. The have religious/morality police that enforce Shia rules/requirements, with violations resulting in punishment up to rape/death.
The government/IRGC are made up of Shia regime loyalists. IRGC and the state own large amounts of industry in Iran, and promote loyalist Shia supporters making Iran an apartheid regime favoring Shia and disfavoring those that follow other religions (religion is often tribally based in Iran), so not propaganda.
Iran supported the Houthis in their civil war that resulted in over 200,000 dead children, so Iran is actively spreading war/death unrelated to fighting Israel (Israel was not in control of Yemen's previous government).
Yeah and Saddam Hussein had WMD and unplugged incubators (something Israel actually did), and there were 40 beheaded babies and mass rapes, and Iran murdered 6 million protesters... You'd have to be a complete fool to believe Zionist lies.
I'm completely uninterested in indulging Zionist propaganda. Never again will I take information from any Zionist source. I think I've cited very valid reasons as to why that is.
OK, but what about me a random American poster on HN on my personal points?
You haven't actually posted anything of substance why you won't engage just vague 'I'm not willing to engage discussion even though I want to post on this subject on HN over and over'.
Those are Zionist talking points, not your "personal points". There are lots of Zionists on this site. I probably shouldn't have engaged in this bad faith argument and will rectify that mistake now.
Those are my personal thoughts on the matter, not zionist talking points. I asked you questions you can't answer and now you have to use dishonest tactics and namecalling because you can't respond to them.
FYI more invaders, this time Pakistani militia are now being recruited into Iran to oppress/occupy the Iranian population in service of the occupation theocratic government:
"The roaming of the Islamic Republic's proxies in Iran; entry of "Zainabiyoun" of Pakistan after "Hashd al-Shaabi" of Iraq and "Fatemiyoun" of Afghanistan
Reports of the presence of forces affiliated with the Zainabiyoun Division of Pakistan have been published in various areas of Sistan and Baluchestan province."
Israel is an apartheid regime. Palestinian Israelis are constantly discriminated against and have laws apply differently to them. You could also argue that there’s a significant theocratic element in the Israeli government (resulting from the alliances the corrupt war criminal has had to make to retain power and avoid prosecution). Eretz Yisrael anyone?
I think what a lot of Americans fail to understand is just how galling the rest of the world finds your government’s rank hypocrisy. Your current president and his enablers are mostly considered to be literal madmen. Judging by words, deeds and outcomes it’s hard to defend an opposing view.
'but Israel' isn't a response on the points I raised other than to say you don't actually care about apartheid regimes/points, they are just convenient talking points for you to justify your position.
No offence, but you were banging on about the “Shia apartheid regime” and implied (EDIT: spelling) they are a minority when 95% of Iranians are Shia. There is more apartheid in Israel than Iran.
As for theocratic governments, the region is full of them and the biggest (Saudi Arabia) are supported by the US despite their similar practices of theocratic oppression to the Iranian regime (probably more so in SA than Iran), so please spare me the hypocritical handwringing.
You are wrong 95% of Iranians are not IRCG level Shia, and do not want to be forced to live under Shia rules. Iran assigns someone Shia depending on birth, not depending on the persons actual belief. Like medieval Europe used to do hundreds of years ago. State mandated registering of people at birth does not equal reality. So you believe that assigned/forced religion at birth is just? Is actually representative of people's beliefs?
You are you saying you are OK with Saudi Arabia's behavior then? That is the hypocritical handwringing is am pointing out. The hypocritical people who talked out against Saudi Arabia, against religious favoritism/laws in Israel, people who in the past criticized religion like Rushdie dared to but Iran attempted to murder him for. But things those people now overlook and call Iran their 'ally' in alignment with them.
Is Saudi Arabia good? If not, then how is Iran being the same good? That you can't see I was pointing out the hypocrisy of Iran supporters with my points is wild. They are all things they claim to care about, and would not be accepting of from other nations, but because they like that Iran has attacked the USA/Israel since 1979 they hand waive away as fine. My entire life I was raised with Iranians chanting for death to me as an American (resultantly fundamentally shaping my opinion of Islam), and that policy is what Iranian supporters say supersedes all bad acts Iran commits (excusing Irans regime raping/murdering young girls for not wearing hats, executing by regime numbers 3,000 people on the street over two days, repressive religious theocracy, murder contracts on people like Rushdie who speak negatively about religion).
"Decisively" means something specific in warfare, but you are describing a basket of political objectives that are in many, many ways totally unrelated to what happens on a particular battlefield. This is probably a result of your nascent Palestinianism, which is definitely clouding your ability to coherently observe these global phenomena and adjust your priors accordingly. If the only tool you have is a hammer, then everything looks like zionist conspiracies to you.
Are you implying that it's the jews that are forcing my government to commit war crimes on behalf of Israel? That sounds like an antisemitic conspiracy theory.
> Without Israel, all Western civilisation is toast
Before Israel was established in 1948, was Western civilization toast? Or was it the power of the "western civilization" that conquered and ruled the world for centuries beforehand that allowed the creation of Israel?
This is barely an argument so I'm not going to bother engaging too much but two things, conflating Judaism and Israel is anti-semitic as hell, and ethno-states are bad.
Isn't that war illegal? Doesn't congress need to approve these things?
Speaking of terrorism, only one of the belligerents has been antagonizing both its allies and its enemies recently. Didn't they just snatch another country's head of state? Try a decapitation strike unprompted against Iran? Threaten to invade Canada, Greenland and Cuba? If one regime is using terror to achieve political aims these days...
I said nuclear program and I was correct by a very wide margin:
> The United States again spent more than all of the other nuclear armed states combined: $56.8 billion. China was the second largest spender at $12.5 billion, less than a quarter of U.S. spending. The third largest amount, $10.4 billion, or 10% of the total figure, was spent by the UK.
Russia objectively has the largest nuclear program.
'which car collection is larger, the one with less more expensive cars, or the one with more cars'.
See how that works. The one with more of the 'thing' is the larger. The fact one nation gets more bang for their dollar doesn't change how numbers work.
Yes, Shia Islam does not "embrace martyrdom" in that they do not want to live. I think they handle us murdering them en mass with the utmost grace, maybe that's where you are confused?
They may want to live, but at least some of them are much more willing to die - much more willing to choose to die - than most leaders of most countries.
Absolutely. A big part of the western Ukrainian defense was solely to drain the Russian military apparatus and drain they have. It will take Russia decades to rebuild their fighting force. Now Russia and China are doing it right back to us and the intelligence gained from this conflict is extremely valuable. Come to find out the US has been sitting on ego in its military more than actual might. The previously untouchable machines of war in the sky are now very much touchable. All that's left is for them to sink a battle ship. If Iran can shoot them down, you can bet China can inflict exponentially more harm. Drain our intercept missiles, destroy radars, corrode relationships, etc. At this point, China has the world on a silver platter if they want it.
Russia has rebuilt their military, which was neglected at the beginning of the war. The Russian and Ukrainian armies have adopted to drone warfare, which the rest of the world lags behind.
They haven't rebuilt the manpower. They've lost no less than a few hundred thousand fighting age men over the course of the war. It will take them 20-30 years minimum just for those births to occur and those newborns to make it to military age.
This one immediately makes me want to whip out my credit card. Cute cat sitting at the food bowl waiting for someone to feed it. It's one of the ones listed under "feeders with hungry cats"
Imagine a rack of servers in some countries where global and even that country's law can't really touch them. "cyber gangs" and the like will use those servers as hosting for their malware and activities.
> even that country's law can't really touch them.
Well, that countries law enforcement could always cut off those servers. It's usually either due to corruption or in case of russia political intent that these servers are kept online.
It kind of depends, a lot of the recent ones are in Myanmar where the state is in not much position to enforce much of anything due to the whole civil war thing.
Yes. One of the biggest providers there is just down the street from The Hague and other law enforcement agencies. I suspect there is some back scratching to get easy wins for specific types of crimes. Long story.
There's definitely a separation between the definition and perception. When I watched the video, my first thought was "This device is very cool but I can't imagine myself ever using it". There's hundreds, if not thousands of infinitely more convenient scheduling/productivity tools compared to having what is basically a small raspberry pi in my pocket for manual task entry. There is definitely a market for this, albeit it a very small, niche one. To me this is akin to writing a paper in word compared to pulling out a mini typewriter.
A workshop full of tools is worthless if you never use them.
Modern phones and web browsers are full of weaponized distractions with billions of dollars in forces fighting to steal your attention. To actually be productive, many (most?) people benefit from a device that does less.
It's why reMarkable is vastly superior to eInk Android tablets that do "more". It's why some people have switched to cameras instead of phone cameras and to other analog technologies - be it a paper notebook or what have you.
Fewer tools but fewer distractions beats many tools and push notifications.
I guess it depends on how you like to work. I hate working on devices. I have an iPhone Mini, two laptops, a pc I built, a Remarkable, a work iPad, a TV.
I use 4-5 of these devices for mostly writing comments online and writing various mediums of comedy. I do other creative work on my personal devices but I have found I enjoy doing more with my hands and body as well.
For example, often when I am stuck on writing I go for a walk. I often don’t take my phone and force myself to focus only on the problem at hand. I often take a notebook and write any notes about my conclusions along the walk. Eventually the notes make it back into a computer.
I also enjoy cooking and can use my device to look up recipes or order food online and avoid cooking all together. But I choose to use the stack of throw away desk calendar paper to write down my grocery list and go to the store without my phone. I choose to chop the broccoli and carrots even though I cab buy a bag of pre steamed for less. I even keep a passive grocery list on my phone in reminders app. But I still do the ritual. Not at all because it’s productive.
But what I really enjoy about life and creating is not sitting at a desk by myself hammering the ideas and draining myself reading, reading, reading. And I like to read but a lot of reading these days is distraction and those devices are designed to be distracting. So much that I go out of my way to prevent them from distracting me and keeping me in a sitting position.
With a little device dedicated for productivity I gain the benefits of computing without all the distracting tracking, “use my product!” Side effects.
And do it because you have agency to do it. Living your life with productivity doesn’t mean being an efficiency slave.
At the end of the day I still may be middle/lower class consumer cattle. But at least I am cattle with agency.
My first thought was “I’m glad this has progressed and looking slimmer, this inspires me to investigate building the 4-inch square device of my dreams.”
Roblox has a seemingly impossible to solve problem with child predators. Kids have the oddest talent of being able to stumble into the most unknown, niche games where these people lurk. Roblox now has voice chat as well and you have grown adults talking to teenagers in private, unsupervised and away from parental attention.
Roblox currently has a massive event going on that was hit with a huge controversy. They picked over 1000 games to be advertised and someone accidentally (or not) picked a child romance themed game to put on the list. Without explicitly having sex, people have figured out how to game the system by letting players use emotes to do normal things but really they are intended to role play sexual activities (pushup emote while over another player laying flat on a bed for example). There's a specific term for these games but I can't recall it at the moment. It was called something like "condo games", the genre that refers to these romance games. The people who make these games do it intentionally, some of them make literally dozens/hundreds of these games, all aimed at children. Some of the game developers absolutely need to be investigated by law enforcement. Look up the video on youtube called "How One Developer RUINED Roblox's Biggest Event Overnight" and skip to around 2 minutes and he explains this in detail. This developer made children themed romance games that gained a quarter BILLION plays.
As an adult that does occasionally enjoy some Roblox experiences, there's no problem for me. Stick to the front page, featured stuff and you're fine. The problem is solely with kids/teens going where adults don't realize and getting caught up with this predators.
> you have grown adults talking to teenagers in private, unsupervised and away from parental attention
Sounds like the problem is the lack of parental attention, and like many things, that isn't a problem with a technological solution, but requires parents to actually pay attention to what their children is doing.
If tens of million of people are using a service, statistically at least a few of them are going to be bad actors. The stuff you're describing doesn't really seem much different that any popular internet spaces in the 2000s. People were "cybering" in World of Warcraft. 4chan was raiding habbo hotel and club penguin with Nazi memes. Kids were chatting with strangers on AIM and ventrilo. If anything, these services probably had considerably worse moderation given the language processing rooms we have today.
I'm not seeing any evidence that the bad actors are a proportionally larger problem, or just the fact that more people on the internet. E.g a city with 1 murder out of 100k and another with 100 murders out of 10M are just as safe.
Roblox specifically markets itself to children, and 40% of its playerbase is 13 years old or younger. Therefore, it is reasonable to hold it to a higher standard than other games.
IIuc, the original point/implication of this thread of conversation was more like "there's an unusally high concentration of child predation on Roblox", which, while not invalidating it, is a considerably different problem than "there is more child predation than there ought to be on Roblox".
The former implies that rblx has some attributes that are conducive to child predation, which would be worth teasing apart out of scientific interest, while the latter is a very general problem, as (I dare take this as self-evident) any place that has greater than 0 child predators has more than there ought to be.
> The stuff you're describing doesn't really seem much different that any popular internet spaces in the 2000s
I think there is a big difference to some of the examples they gave, because of the uniquely young age demographics on Roblox. The only example that seems comparable was Club Penguin.
Now, I agree that there is interest in teasing out whether there are problems with Roblox specifically, or if it is just a problem with having an online space with such a high concentration of kids in general. But that high concentration of kids does make it much more of a concern either way.
In those games its more difficult to create a private hangout space or "GTA for kids". Haven't heard of the weird romance thing, but seen my nephew playing a roblox game where the goal is kill as many people wheelchairs as you can. I saw I guess the humor in it because I played San Andreas when I was his age but him mom might have been shocked. Those other games are much more restricted in the possibilities, moderation seems impossible
Roblox has a very young playerbase, even when compared to Minecraft and Fortnite. Roblox is also unique in the sheer quantity of offences that happen on their platform, and that is why they are often singled out.
But this can be a problem wherever kids are online. Discord also has huge problems with child predators. And any platform that caters to children should be held to very high standards of child safety.
The games that I think shouldn't be held to such a high standard are games like World of Warcraft. That game is not targeted at children, has far fewer children players, and therefore it is unreasonable to hold them to as high of a standard as Roblox. (Although they do still have some responsibility to make sure their platform is safe.)
This is a minor take from someone who used to play CoD at a very high level (cash tournaments, wager matches, GB/CMG/UMG front page teams). At least from the perspective of games like Call of Duty and Overwatch, I think at least some chunk of it is that the quality of games is rapidly decreasing and it's killing off the fanbase. I remember back when it seemed like everyone I knew was following the CoD pro scene, watching the streams, tournaments, championships, etc. Nowadays I don't know a single person who still engages with that content and the responses I get from them are that they don't enjoy watching the games anymore. The current CoD (MW2 remastered), there are pro players making commentary and tweeting about how much they hate the games design. The person who is probably the single best known pro CoD player Scump is retiring now and he's said in side comments that it definitely has to do with how bad the game is designed. People seem to be losing confidence in these companies that make the games with the biggest esports scenes. Overwatch 2 now has also received quite a bit of negative press. There's probably a good chunk of anecdotal experiences inside my view but this is my take on things.
I think people are just split up over more games now. Every few years you get a LoL, a PUBG or a Minecraft where it seems like the whole world is playing at once. Then a good chunk of people move on, and there's not always a big thing to move onto. But some people remain. And I think people generally prefer the eSports of the games they know how to play.
Right now off the top of my head there's eSports for Overwatch, CSGO, dota 2, lol, apex, Fortnite, hearthstone, rocket league, pubg, valorant, rocket league, sim racing and countless fighting games.
And those are all still active and updated with new content coming out (except overwatch rip). Sure the market got bigger but it feels like back in 00s and early 10s a games life was shorter and more people tended to play the same thing.
If that was true, you’d see people playing old games. And sometimes you do. Age of Empires 2 is more popular than Age of Empires 4.
Considering the majority of people are still playing new games, that would suggest the newer games are better. You maybe getting old with your friends and no longer have interest in watching esports anymore.
> Considering the majority of people are still playing new games, that would suggest the newer games are better.
Following that logic, mobile games must be much better than non-mobile ones. Surely soon we'll start seeing competitive Candy Crush being played with millions of viewers
This has always been a heated debate. IMO, the whole concept of "ethical hacking" doesn't exist. The whole concept of morals and ethics is nothing but smoke. It's something someone made up one day to get people to not do bad things and in the modern day companies use it to give out terrible bounty rewards.
If I find a high tier vuln and the company isn't giving reasonable bounties, it's going straight onto Zerodium or similar platforms and I won't lose a second of sleep over it.
I enjoyed the beginning of the article because it was actually informative. Once you get to the part where it becomes a blatant smear and misdirection campaign, it loses its interest and credibility. Why does half the entire read just focus on destroying this guys character?
If he actually did get caught with what they say he did, then sure he deserves to go down but it's weird how hyper focused they are on painting this guy as the devil in his personal life. It seems like it's because their isn't any real evidence present to nail this guy. It's all circumstantial and worse, in ways that could very easily be planted/faked.
Having worked in similar environments, I found that most of the features in this article are both believable and typical.
The workplace hostility, the various office personas, the drudgery, humiliation and bureaucracy even the VM that's triple encrypted isn't unusual for even the most benign cybersecurity researcher. Ironically, the lapse in OPSEC isn't either. Time and time again, people who are doing bad things always seem to have a lapse in OPSEC that is routinely double underlined in these types of articles.
And of course, the last typical bit is the Child Sexual Abuse Material being found. Isn't it something that when the NSA/CIA/FBI wants to take someone down they always seem to find CSAM? I'd hazard that this approach is used when the state's most "powerful and prominent police agency" isn't able to decrypt/bypass what they're truly after. Consider the frustrations they encountered with DPR[1]. another commenter quipped, "sprinkle a little CP in there and call it a day". After all, doesn't this fit the MO of the FBI/CIA when you consider the Stonewall investigations[2]? Find something that is absolutely anathema to the public, charge the suspect with that. Not surprised.
Regardless of planted or no - feel sorry for whatever digital forensic examiner had to confirm it was indeed what it was. Not the victim in this scenario, but its an often-overlooked and extremely unpleasant role to confirm this stuff.
When the article revealed the child porn, my first thought was "of course they 'found' child porn." Such a coincidence how tough cases like this always turn up with child porn charges.
"Just sprinkle some child porn on him Johnson, and let's get out of here"
That said, it sounds like they caught him fair and square with actual evidence (the backdoor, the access logs, and the versioning of the leak) and the mistrial was the result of a confused jury.
But they were missing the key piece, which is that he leaked it. Without that, it's all circumstantial. Was he probably the one who leaked it? Yeah, I think it's safe to say that. But that's not where the bar lies in a criminal trial.
I believe possession of unauthorized copies of classified information is already a crime, though I think the possible charges are far less than leaking it.
But, do they need to prove that he leaked it? Surely the backdoor and exfiltrating the data alone would be enough to put him away from a long time, even if he never shared it with anyone.
The jury may only be confused because prosecutors never take their duty to bring exculpatory evidence to light seriously because it would harm their conviction rate and they would rather let an innocent person suffer than have their career affected. We should count all trials where innocent people are found not guilty because of evidence introduced by prosecutors as an exceptional win for the prosecutor. Their job shouldn't be focused on convictions but on delivering justice so this would be a case where justice is served even though they don't convict.
He didn’t deny he had the child porn though did he? Hardly seems like a frame up job if he admits it was there, hidden behind 3 encryption layers. I thought his excuse was someone uploaded it to his server “back in college”.
Even ignoring his troubling sexual history and the chat logs, it sounds pretty legitimate.
Well, he's being charged with having child pornography on his computer. Whether or not he was the one who put it there and used it is debatable.
As someone else noted, it seems statistically unlikely that so many people who the government brings national security cases against are pedophiles.
One of the following must be true: a surprising number of all government workers in intelligence are pedophiles, pedophilia and propensity to leak government secrets are highly correlated, or the government is planting evidence.
I'm not going to discount the mental health correlation possibility, because being crazy enough to work for the government and then ineptly leak classified materials... doesn't bode well for an individual's baseline mental stability.
> Why does half the entire read just focus on destroying this guys character?
Yeah, this was my question reading this piece as well. This article overwhelmingly reads like uncritical character assassination. I think whether the guy was a giant dick to coworkers should be tangential at best, if not outright irrelevant, but definitely not the centerpiece of the story, and yet it is.
You're quite right, and the answer to the original question is "Because the US mainstream media are, knowingly or not, part of the US national security establishment's propaganda wing." But apparently, domestic propaganda is something only $BAD_COUNTRY engages in.
The description of his character is a fascinating part of the story. Keep in mind that this a story, and not (just) an indictment. Showing his character is also critical background for the reader to understand why he allegedly leaked that backup.
If it were just CSAM, then that would be one thing and we could write it off as the government trying to railroad him. But the government also claims to have access to chat logs in chatrooms focused on CSAM, as well as a video of him sexually assaulting an old roommate.
Just because they are focusing on his atypical and undesirable character attributes doesn't mean that it's not a credible work.
Its also - dare i say lacking in creativity. The smear checklist, in order and always the same. Why cant they hire artists to at least invent new and creative crimes.
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