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James Dolan, co-creator of SecureDrop, has died
- t0mbstone 9y agoAnyone else find it highly suspicious that literally both of the main people involved in building a whistleblower system "killed themselves"?
- ataturk 9y agoNot suspicious at all.
- tptacek 9y agoPeople write these things because on a message board, other human beings are just an abstraction. Please, though, try to remember that to family and friends and even acquaintances, victims of suicide are not abstractions. I don't know James Dolan, but I know other well-known people in the industry who've died, and their families and friends did not take comfort in this kind of fantasizing. Rather, it was deeply upsetting to them.
- smartscience 9y agoFamilies and friends also don't always take comfort in autopsies, organ donation, or having to explain their whereabouts at the time of death. Not saying I disagree with your wider point, but shouldn't our response to death be guided by something more objective than what family and friends might hypothetically want?
- chatmasta 9y ago> something more objective You mean like rampant, baseless speculation with no knowledge of any surrounding facts?
- dbingham 9y agoHealthy suspicion is not baseless speculation. Often conspiracies are only unmasked when someone starts from a position of intuitive suspicion otherwise unsupported by evidence and starts digging. It is only in the digging that evidence is unearthed. The fact that both Aaron Swartz and James Dolan committed suicide does, indeed, smell. In the past, our government has shown itself capable of [grabbing people off the street for mind control experiments](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_MKUltra https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_MKUltra). It has shown itself capable of secretly [infiltrating legitimate political groups](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO) and engaging in all manners of counterintelligence to disrupt them. And those are just the ones we have confirmation of due to the often extraordinarily heroic actions of whistleblowers and activists. I wouldn't put it past parts of our security apparatus to assassinate dissident activists it views as threatening its ability to surveil or prevent leaks. It does not serve us to be overly skeptical of conspiracies like this. Lack of proof is not the same as proof of lack and the only way we can hold our government accountable for shit like this is to keep and open mind and follow stuff up when it smells. Note, that is not the same as arguing that all conspiracies should be uncritically believed. Just that we should be suspicious of stuff like this and support those interested in investigating.
- CiPHPerCoder 9y ago> The fact that both Aaron Swartz and James Dolan committed suicide does, indeed, smell. In the past, our government has shown itself capable of [grabbing people off the street for mind control experiments](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_MKUltra https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_MKUltra). Or maybe it's that there's a high incidence of mental illness among particularly intelligent humans, and even more particularly cryptography/privacy engineers? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Turing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Turing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Len_Sassaman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Len_Sassaman The problem isn't some secret nefarious government mind control program. The problem is that we, as a society, are still very bad at caring for our most vulnerable people. More importantly, the timing here is suspect: Many HN users are just now finding out about his death, and need time to mourn. Bringing up conspiracy theories-- even if they were true-- is poor form.
- martin1975 9y agoIt is, at least on face value. However gathering enough evidence to show some relationship or cause... that's a whole different ballgame that we probably won't get to ever watch.
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- chrisseldo 9y agoWhy is the date of the post "Tomorrow"?
- afrnld 9y agothat's what I was thinking -_-
- merb 9y agomaybe we should call the police?
- matte_black 9y agoIt happened over the holidays. It's over.
- andrewstuart2 9y agoProbably a buggy publishing system that rounds date/time, or something similar. It says "Today" for me. Or a major conspiracy. My money's with Occam's razor, though.
- FigBug 9y agoSays today for me, maybe something to do with timezones?
- Blinks- 9y agoThis one really got to me, my confidence is shot when I see people I really respect struggling and succumbing to the same despair I feel sometimes. On an even darker note, anyone hear anything suspicious about this... ?
- aecorredor 9y agoHang in there man. Even for people who don’t know you, you can still do so much good while you live. There’s a lot of people struggling around the world whose lives would be made better with only a tiny drop of your help/knowledge.
- onewhonknocks 9y agoYou would be missed. Stay strong. If you need to talk please reach out to me or anyone.
- agumonkey 9y agoThe decade feels grim, lots of tension, lots of mayhem. I try not to succomb to the surrounding darkness; not easy at times, nostalgia is strong in me, but I also know that this is transient.
- MattSayar 9y agoThis too shall pass
- hestipod 9y agoI know you mean well but this sort of comment really upsets me because for many of us that means "when we die" as there is no obvious realistic hope. I have been suffering for 15+ years since medical mistakes took my life and future. I have the whole cocktail of physical and mental pain as a result and every day is hell just surviving. I have lost everything including my means to meet even the basic needs of life independently and have fallen in nearly every crack when it comes to assistance as system after system failed me. I have only survived this long due to a large savings at the time of insult and a partial pension from my job. Friends and family have nearly all abandoned me. Despite my efforts haven't been able to "create" a path either. This post is timely as I've been working on a draft for an AskHN last ditch post I intend to make soon to see if anyone has a plan or idea I have not already heard of for someone with so many limits to earn and survive. The things most people think are facts about options just don't work that way in reality. We are fighting the same issues everyone else in life is on TOP of the unimaginable physical and mental pain. Many people are left behind and many systems are broken. My life is filled with seemingly insurmountable barriers...my physical condition, access to needs, finances, age...and ending things is a daily consideration. I don't WANT to die but my wants don't pay the bills nor reduce pain. I have one option to live...start over and compete with every healthy person who is also trying to survive. I don't see how I can... I have never talked to a suicidal person who WANTED to die when you drill down...they just wanted their pain to end (whatever that pain is) and there was no way in this life they could find to do that. For them it did pass...when they did. So that phrase brings me no comfort as intended.
- rsre 9y agoFirst Aaron Swartz, now James Dolan. Sad to see good people like them leave us. Hope they inspire some other wonderful people to follow their steps. EDIT: Well, obviously not all their steps.
- oliv__ 9y agoWell... maybe not all the steps.
- neosavvy 9y agoI'll admit I thought this was a repost from years ago - this is just incredibly similar.
- cantrip 9y agoAnything can be funny given the right person saying it at the appropriate time in the right context Seeing a suicide joke from a person I don't know in the Hacker News thread about the death an individual I respect an hour after it's been released is not my idea of funny.
- hkmurakami 9y agoI see it as a word of caution for the bright eyed. Fighting for your ideals wears on you, and some are more resilient to its demands than others.
- davrosthedalek 9y agoI wonder if the personal trait to see problems and act is because the problems seem bigger or because the "activation threshold" of that person is lower. If the former, I could see that the same trait also makes it more likely that the problems feel overwhelming. Ignorance is bliss.
- hueving 9y agoPeople cope with death in different ways. Avoid taking things strangers say very seriously.
- neosavvy 9y agoI had to research a bit as I recall an identical story about JStor and a computer programmer from a few years ago. http://business.time.com/2013/01/14/mit-orders-review-of-aaron-swartz-suicide-as-soul-searching-begins/ http://business.time.com/2013/01/14/mit-orders-review-of-aar... Seems incredibly similar to this situation and on both accounts this is terribly sad to see.
- zymhan 9y agoGood lord this is chilling. It makes me terribly sad to think about the mental torture some people go through that leads them to such an act.
- gonnadoit05 9y agoSuicide is somewhat like cutting yourself. You cut yourself to cause pain that will numb the other pain you have. In this case, the thought of suicide numbs the other pain you have. Then you keep thinking about suicide more and more, and then one day bam, the thought of suicide just feels too good to not let go and you do it.
- foolinaround 9y agowow, succinct but profound!
- gonnadoit05 9y agoSuicidal thoughts are also like a domino effect or chain reaction. The first thought is fleeting. But as time goes on, another domino falls, and as things aren’t going quite your way, another domino falls, and as isolation takes over, another domino falls, and as anger and resentment builds, another domino falls, and that’s how those suicidal thoughts increase to the point of actually doing it. And once the dominos start falling, faster and faster, it’s very hard to stop it. All of you have had a suicidal thought. But most of you have found a reason to nip it before the dominos truly start to fall.
- maxcan 9y agoCan any of the HN Admins set the title bar to black? IIRC, thats the custom for a "death in the family".
- txsh 9y agoLike with Aaron Swartz “suicide” should be in quotes. I don’t believe in coincidences when the US government is involved.
- zzzcpan 9y agoSuicide is the easiest cover, especially in the U.S. In Russia, for example, suicide is harder to believe, so they instead do assaults, muggings. But yeah, you might be onto something here.
- stuffedBelly 9y agoJust when I clicked https://securedrop.org/ https://securedrop.org/, my company's corporate firewall blocked it. I can't start to imagine how much adversity the world has imposed onto these brave warriors.
- zouhair 9y agoNow we have two suicides of people working in this facet of human right activism. At what number should we start thinking about foul play? There are ways to push people to such extreme acts.
- DanBC 9y agoSuicide is very common. Suicide is more common in people who are male, and who are middle aged. There are also elements of "contagion" around suicde.
- yipopov 9y agoTwo? Who's the other one?
- luhn 9y agoAaron Swartz, the other co-creator of SecureDrop.
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- slg 9y agoOr two people, one being a known sufferer of depression and the other being known a a sufferer of PTSD, decided to kill themselves like an alarming number of people do who suffer from those problems. Maybe instead turning this into a story about government conspiracies and secret plots to kill citizens we try to turn this into a story about getting people with mental health issues the help they need.
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- ShabbosGoy 9y agoIt’s terrible that he served our country and was thrown away. He is a true American and patriot.
- averagewall 9y agoWhat value did he provide for America as a soldier?
- beebmam 9y agoI'm really not familiar with SecureDrop or James Dolan's activism. Does anyone familiar with him want to summarize for me/us?
- mynameisvlad 9y agoThe article itself is a good summary of his work on SecureDrop.
- beebmam 9y agoOkay, I thought there was something more that I didn't know about! Thank you
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- metafour 9y agoDoes anyone know if James had taken a short hiatus between jobs to travel by motorcycle for a while in Southern California? I ran it someone one day at The Rock Store that had worked with Aaron Swartz and a friend and I had a great conversation with him and I’m now wondering whether it was James.
- conorsch 9y agoYes, indeed he did! After leaving FPF, he unplugged for a while, taking a road trip on his bike. He spent a lot of time working on that bike. The road trip was a great excuse to unwind after a lot of stressful security work. He ended up rejoining the industry—good luck stopping that guy from anything—and continued for many years helping other projects. So, yes, it does sound like you were fortunate enough to cross paths with a terribly interesting individual. Cheers, in his honor.
- walterbell 9y agoIn Memorian: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Programmers_who_committed_suicide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Programmers_who_commi...
- jaydestro 9y agoreally horrible, sorry to hear. awful loss for us all.
- averagewall 9y agoIt turns out he helped to invade Iraq. Why doesn't American and global society shun people who cause such devastating destruction? That needlessly led to the deaths of 100's of thousands of people, but nobody blames the perpetrators.
- alvil 9y agothank you for your comment
- petecooper 9y ago>It turns out he helped to invade Iraq. Respectfully, I don't think this is the right thread to bring this up.
- dang 9y agoThat is so cheap, smug, and uncivil a comment as to be a bannable offence on Hacker News. I'm not going to ban you because you've posted good comments as well, but please don't do it again. If I could sentence you to a moment's self-reflection, though, I sure would. Taking the occasion of someone's death to smear him like this is staggering—or would be if it weren't so trivial. One expects nothing better of any internet forum, but please don't drag this one down.
- TheCowboy 9y agoI can't respond to a dead post, but I thought it would be good to note out of respect and contextualize the Iraq experience as something that James Dolan didn't trivialize: "We don’t know why James took his own life; we do know, however, he long suffered from PTSD from his time serving in the Marines during the Iraq War. It was an experience that affected him in multiple ways. He often cited the Iraq War as his inspiration for wanting to help journalists and whistleblowers; it made him realize governments needed to be much more transparent and accountable."
- iblackmirror 9y agoThose that pursue defend and protect the truth will always attacked degraded mocked humiliated by those who the cloak of falsehood allows them to appear righteous . But in the end James Dolan will be recorded and remembered in history with the passing of time as one of the few of honour in a dark twisted false world . He stood bright last ke a light house as storms raged around him for the protection of others .
- myaso 9y agoHeroes die young.
- gonnadoit05 9y agoSo do the hungry, the lost, and the forgotten.
- myaso 9y agoBut there is value compared to these you list. I respect them but I also think they are foolish to disregard their lives. What was once a person becomes rotting meat. Some people will grieve, others will write eulogies, some will will glorify them to serve some agenda, and others who don't care for such things will treat this for what it is probes and sensors that gave one more piece of hard won information that can maybe be somehow utilized -- maybe it's bad to think like this, so it's important to keep going with good humor.
- gonnadoit05 9y agoI think James was all 4, a Hero, Lost, Forgotten, and Hungry.
- quantumofmalice 9y agoSuicide. Hm.
- dang 9y agoFirst, would you please stop posting unsubstantive comments to HN? Second, your insinuation is groundless, uncivil, and gross. Please don't sink to this level if you want to keep commenting here.
- wallace_f 9y agoRespectfully, why is it gross? Why is it gross to question suicides in the case of political dissidents? I think it's necessary. Even if wrong, or baseless, it's a task that needs to be done and I would be afraid to live in a state where it is unacceptable to question such.
- dang 9y agoBecause there's no substantive basis for it, it's merely using someone's death for a cheap hit of excitement. There's nothing politically serious about that—it's just adolescent, and frankly a litmus test of low-quality commenters. Because of that and the other slop that has been posted here, I haven't been this ashamed of an HN thread in quite a while. It pains me that HN would be an example of how low the internet sinks when someone dies. Edit: tptacek said it better than I did btw: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16110384 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16110384
- wallace_f 9y agoAfter MLK's death, conspiracy theorists were disparaged. Turns out, there were, in fact, multiple government conspiracies, going so far as trying to get him killed.
- DoreenMichele 9y agoVery nice tribute. There was another piece* posted to HN today about how psychologically traumatic and life altering it can be to kill someone accidentally under circumstances where you couldn't have predicted it nor prevented it. Veterans are often deeply scarred by their wartime experiences and may not share them in order to protect other people from the horrors of war. My father fought in both WW2 and Vietnam. He died in his late 80s. Only after his death did it occur to me that he told humorous stories about Vietnam, but never spoke of WW2. I infer that if Vietnam was joke worthy in his eyes, WW2 was unspeakable. I wish we had a better track record for helping veterans with the mental health issues that so often grow out of serving their country. * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16105745 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16105745
- varisa 9y agoIs there any more information about this? I can't even find an article which says where he lived.