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Freenode co-opted to promote ICO scam

3 points by ryanlol 8y ago

detaro 8y ago
Given you've chosen to editorialize the title (which HN asks you not to do), it seems you agree with the spammers position. Could you explain? For me, the spamwave was the first I heard of it, so freenode doesn't appear to be very successful in the "promoting" the supposedly do, and the delivery method makes the criticism fairly hard to take seriously without looking into it much: Why should I listen to them?
- ryanlol 8y ago
  Most of the content of this blog post is promotional content for the cryptocurrency scheme, the actual "denial" of involvement takes up probably less than 10% of the text. The author of the blog post is heavily involved in the cryptocurrency scheme she is promoting. (Which makes sense, given it's her employer behind it!) Andrew Lee (Christels boss at LTM), who controls a majority of the votes for freenode is one of the people behind handshake. I think it's fair to say freenode has been co-opted, after all, since the acquisition, they've suddenly started posting promotional materials for a cryptocurrency scheme operated by their new owners. It's odd they couldn't find a staff member who isn't involved in the handshake cryptocurrency scheme to write this blog post. Any FOSS projects affiliated with freenode should be seriously concerned about this.
  - rapnie 8y ago
    Thanks for the info! Enlightening and indeed.. worrying.
  - detaro 8y ago
    Again, this is the first time I see freenode post anything related to this (did I miss anything earlier?), and in this post I'd say one paragraph is unnecessarily promotional, the rest seems fair to include (given that if they didn't mention something, they'd immediately be blasted for hiding it). Despite there being a bunch of occasions where they could have promoted it already. The "coin drop" thing seems kind of bad, but I'll wait and see how they handle it, as with anything related to the acquisition. It's relatively easy to jump for us when necessary, see little reason for now. Gotta say, I'm biased against actors that forced me and friends to spend noticeable time on spam defense for our channels in the past few days, and started with truly disgusting methods (assuming it's the same).
  - jdm4 8y ago
    It seems to me that it's more likely you're one of those people behind spamming Freenode.
    - ryanlol 8y ago
      Luckily, claims like this should be easy enough to prove :)

3 points by ryanlol 8y ago

Given you've chosen to editorialize the title (which HN asks you not to do), it seems you agree with the spammers position. Could you explain? For me, the spamwave was the first I heard of it, so freenode doesn't appear to be very successful in the "promoting" the supposedly do, and the delivery method makes the criticism fairly hard to take seriously without looking into it much: Why should I listen to them?

ryanlol 8y ago
Most of the content of this blog post is promotional content for the cryptocurrency scheme, the actual "denial" of involvement takes up probably less than 10% of the text. The author of the blog post is heavily involved in the cryptocurrency scheme she is promoting. (Which makes sense, given it's her employer behind it!) Andrew Lee (Christels boss at LTM), who controls a majority of the votes for freenode is one of the people behind handshake. I think it's fair to say freenode has been co-opted, after all, since the acquisition, they've suddenly started posting promotional materials for a cryptocurrency scheme operated by their new owners. It's odd they couldn't find a staff member who isn't involved in the handshake cryptocurrency scheme to write this blog post. Any FOSS projects affiliated with freenode should be seriously concerned about this.
- rapnie 8y ago
  Thanks for the info! Enlightening and indeed.. worrying.
- detaro 8y ago
  Again, this is the first time I see freenode post anything related to this (did I miss anything earlier?), and in this post I'd say one paragraph is unnecessarily promotional, the rest seems fair to include (given that if they didn't mention something, they'd immediately be blasted for hiding it). Despite there being a bunch of occasions where they could have promoted it already. The "coin drop" thing seems kind of bad, but I'll wait and see how they handle it, as with anything related to the acquisition. It's relatively easy to jump for us when necessary, see little reason for now. Gotta say, I'm biased against actors that forced me and friends to spend noticeable time on spam defense for our channels in the past few days, and started with truly disgusting methods (assuming it's the same).
- jdm4 8y ago
  It seems to me that it's more likely you're one of those people behind spamming Freenode.
  - ryanlol 8y ago
    Luckily, claims like this should be easy enough to prove :)