17 ms·

Near, the emulator developer of bsnes, higan, and more, has died

390 points by aquova 5y ago

TazeTSchnitzel 5y ago
Kiwi Farms is the scum of the earth. Sadly it has many victims.
- geofft 5y ago
  This terrifies me: > Near survived that. Many wouldn’t, but Near was strong enough to overcome that level of emotional abuse. But Kiwi Farms is relentless. Not to be defeated in their pursuit of utter emotional and psychological destruction, they went after who Near treasured most: their friends. Doxing some, directly harassing others, and even specifically seeking out suicidal people to target. > That broke Near. [...] > Some of you may be aware of Near’s notoriously paranoid opsec. After getting to know them, it became clear this was a defense mechanism; a product of all the abuse they received over their entire life. Not that I'm doing anything particularly likely to attract the attention of the worst part of the internet (but then, you'd hope that "writing some emulators and going by 'they'" shouldn't either), but, I've thought about it and decided I can deal with people going after me. To some extent, I can be careful about opsec; to some extent, if someone goes after me, I'm all right with that. But what if they go after other people in the name of targeting me? What if they go after my friends, or even my family, who has very little say in what I do? What if my parents, who have never had to care about opsec in their lives and like most people's parents own a house and have their real names on it, get SWATted because some monster on an internet forum hates me? How am I supposed to respond except by deciding, I will not do anything with my life that could attract Kiwi Farms' attention? This is terrorism, and I am terrified.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - Ygg2 5y ago
    Interestingly enough according to Null, the KF operator, Near did try to close that thread, offering $120000 or threathening suicide. It does seem contain pictures that I have no idea how Null could have found it. https://kiwifarms.net/threads/byuu-byuu_nyan-setsunakun0.43056/page-14 https://kiwifarms.net/threads/byuu-byuu_nyan-setsunakun0.430...
  - shitler 5y ago
    Please provide any evidence that anyone from kiwi farms has ever swatted anyone, you quivering little Karen. "What if a Twitter bluecheck literally shoots someone with a gun? This is terrorism." Like sure, if you make things up that involve actual violence and not fee fees being hurt it sounds bad.
- ngcazz 5y ago
  Looked them up. How is it that they aren’t getting prosecuted _right now_?
  - philpem 5y ago
    Good question. Assuming you're US based - Why not write a letter to your representatives, asking them why the police ignore and dismiss online harassment, and why a single US citizen continues to be allowed to operate what is solely a hate site? If legal pressure isn't enough, why not try political pressure?
    - ngcazz 5y ago
      I'm not US-based but I imagine this requires international cooperation in any case
  - treloon 5y ago
    Because nothing they do is illegal?
mmebane 5y ago
It hasn't been confirmed by authorities, but may never be, since almost nobody knew his real full name or exactly where he lived. However, it definitely doesn't look good. :-(
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
jepler 5y ago
[cw: discussion of suicide]
a_t48 5y ago
I'm not really sure what to put here. I never spoke to them personally (except maybe once or twice here on HN) but their work on SNES emulation enabled communities to spring up that improved my life for the better. I'm not going to touch the debate on whether to hold Cloudflare+1776Hosting partially responsible here (I'm sure others will), but I do know that Near physically moved countries to get away from the harassment they were getting. Just be respectful, ok?
- pretentious7 5y ago
  1776 hosting is run by the KF site admin.
BreezyBoats 5y ago
Instead of calling the Police to give Near’s address or employer’s name to organise some help.. this mutual friend (who often met Near for coffee) waits for an hour while listening to the music loop play on the Telegram call (the screen grab at the end). Then the mutual friend composes a calm, meticulous note for Hector to convey. It doesn’t make sense.
- bjt2n3904 5y ago
  When Robin Williams died, people were putting out images with "Genie, you're free" on it. This sort of behavior paints suicide as a valid means of escaping suffering. When "13 Reasons Why" was released, it was criticized for romanticizing suicide as a tool to get people to listen to you "beyond the grave" or have some sort of impact. While nothing has been confirmed by authorities, the behavior in this letter is extremely troubling, and seems to be the manifestation of how our society views suicide. Instead of suicide being understood as a harmful decision that wouldn't be made in a better frame of mind, it's being portrayed as a valid decision -- and attempts at intervention are a violation of the person's autonomy. Or something to that extent. There are other things I want to say and write, but I don't think it's appropriate until an official statement has been released from authorities.
  - to11mtm 5y ago
    > This sort of behavior paints suicide as a valid means of escaping suffering. It's your typical person's way of trying to excuse their own action or lack of inaction, by making a statement that provides them some comfort, rather than face the way that their own inaction/belittling/bullying towards depressed people in their lives, might be part of the problem.
    - bjt2n3904 5y ago
      Perhaps, but the statement is wrong because of how it portrays suicide, not because of the motivations for making it. Furthermore, I believe trying to understand suicide as driven by a single cause is detrimental. Suicide is a complicated issue, and is driven by numerous factors. Trying to reduce any complex issue to a single factor sets anyone who wants to help at a disadvantage, and may contribute to the problem.
philpem 5y ago
I don't really know what to say here. I didn't know them personally, but I saw their work and was truly stunned. Most people don't achieve in their entire lives what Near (aka Byuu) did in their comparatively short one. To say I was impressed is an understatement. I simply don't have the words. What happened, shouldn't have happened. There needs to be a wider discussion of responsibility of hosting providers for the actions of their customers, and especially Cloudflare for shielding illegal acts. But that's a discussion for another day. Tonight, the sky is darker, for the loss of one of its brightest stars.
philpem 5y ago
Posted this on the other thread (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27653450 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27653450), I'll copy it here... I don't really know what to say here. I didn't know them personally, but I saw their work and was truly stunned. Most people don't achieve in their entire lives what Near (aka Byuu) did in their comparatively short one. To say I was impressed is an understatement. I simply don't have the words. What happened, shouldn't have happened. There needs to be a wider discussion of responsibility of hosting providers for the actions of their customers, and especially Cloudflare for shielding illegal acts. But that's a discussion for another day. Tonight, the sky is darker, for the loss of one of its brightest stars.
- umvi 5y ago
  > There needs to be a wider discussion of responsibility of hosting providers for the actions of their customers How about holding the actual bullies accountable instead of shifting accountability to the ISP/Host? What happens in real life (i.e. outside the context of the internet) if bullies harass someone with hate mail until that person commits suicide? Does the blame shift away from the bullies to USPS or FedEx for failing to shield the recipient from the hate mail? I could see a case made against kiwi farms, but cloudflare? They are infrastructure level and should not get in user content moderation imo
  - falcolas 5y ago
    Cloudflare has already proven willing to stop supporting sites based on their content. They’ve opened the doors, so it’s not unreasonable to expect that they could/would/should do it again.
    - philpem 5y ago
      People have been complaining for years about some of the content they shield (KF especially). The site is responsible for at least one previous suicide. Their response is always the same... to forward the complaints onto the abuser for them to laugh at. Cloudflare has only ever intervened in matters like this when the mainstream press has given them an absolute and utter kicking. The sad fact is, when you have your own AS-number and peering agreement, you can do pretty much whatever you like on the Internet. De-peering a few of the worst network abusers and "it's not my problem, I just want the money" merchants would go a long way to improving the internet for the rest of us. This might seem hardline, but it's not without precedent: the precedent is the Internet itself, in its earlier days.
klodolph 5y ago
Near (Byuu) has previously appeared on HN as the author of BSNES, Higan, and other emulators for retro gaming systems. https://bsnes.dev/ https://bsnes.dev/ His work raised the bar for emulator accuracy and the preservation of video games. He was a towering figure in the field, and will be sorely missed. I am unaware of a better source for this information besides this Google doc, at the moment. Near’s Twitter handle is @near_koukai, where you can see his farewell message.
- nfriedly 5y ago
  Clickable: https://twitter.com/near_koukai https://twitter.com/near_koukai
dexwiz 5y ago
Kiwi Farms is vile. I stumbled upon it while researching someone who turned out to be a target of one of their hate campaign. Its a PHP Forum-style site, but with entire sub forums dedicated to small groups and event specific people. Long running topics would be an entire persons hate campaign against them. The members seem to have a strange, self-claimed moral authority. The posts are a mix of records of what they have done to harass people, updates on past targets, ideas for future hate, and justification about why this person deserves it. Overall it was sad for everyone involved. I hope they find some solace in their lives, if only to let their victims find it also.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- philpem 5y ago
  I admire your ability to solely wish solace on them. I'd rather the long arm of the law caught up to them.
  - sterlind 5y ago
    there's not a lot the law can do, unfortunately. doxxing isn't illegal in the US, at least federally, except against people in certain positions [0]. there's a high standard for harassment to be considered illegal. bullying is not illegal. hate speech is not illegal. even if individuals on Kiwi Farms can be prosecuted, it wouldn't take the site down. and to be prosecuted, the prosecutors would have to care. there just aren't the laws.. I'm friends with a few people who have been targeted by Kiwi Farms. Near is far from the only person driven to suicide by overwhelming bullying. it's one reason I keep a low profile - I'm just too scared. 0. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/119 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/119
    - treloon 5y ago
      Pussy lol
    - _delirium 5y ago
user-the-name 5y ago
Kiwi farms needs to end. This is not the first person they have murdered. There is no excuse for anyone who does anything to enable any part of its existence.
ErneX 5y ago
I remembered this article from 2011 about bsnes: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2011/08/accuracy-takes-power-one-mans-3ghz-quest-to-build-a-perfect-snes-emulator/ https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2011/08/accuracy-takes-power-... Tragic loss, RIP.
- user-the-name 5y ago
  It's not a "tragic loss", it is murder. And justice is needed.
  - ErneX 5y ago
    I completely agree.
  - ta2162 5y ago
    What makes it "murder"?
    - falcolas 5y ago
      Do you not consider the targeted harassment by an organized group of people with the premeditated goal of getting them to commit suicide to be homicide? I do.
      - ta2162 5y ago
        That's not the definition of murder though, even if you feel like it is. I know we're in a post-fact world, but you don't get to magically decide what words mean.
        falcolas 5y ago
        And yet people have been convicted of murder for using similar techniques. There’s explicit examples in other comments to this article. Intent matters.
        5y ago
kwthrowaway 5y ago
Mid-time kiwifarms poster here. AMA I guess? Not sure what happened here. Related thread: https://kiwifarms.net/threads/byuu-byuu_nyan-setsunakun0.43056/ https://kiwifarms.net/threads/byuu-byuu_nyan-setsunakun0.430...
umvi 5y ago
RIP https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=near https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=near
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
reiichiroh 5y ago
Oh no! They had posted here in the past.
arthurcolle 5y ago
who is Near?
- ekorz 5y ago
  formerly known as byuu, creator of the emulators bsnes, higan and more. https://near.sh/ https://near.sh/
  - Forge36 5y ago
    Should we be backing up/ mirroring the domain?
SHADDAP 5y ago
IT'S TIME TO OBLITERATE 1776HOSTING AND SEND JOSHUA CONNER MOON TO HELL. MURDERERS.
TheFreim 5y ago
Very sad that they are gone, byuu's work on emulators has been very useful. Weird to hear about things like this and realize that people are real on the other end of the computer. Skimming through, I don't see a reason why they were harassed by Kiwi Farms. I don't get it, what caused that?
- snypher 5y ago
  Kiwi Farms whole deal is to harass people online. I'm not sure they need a reason. A girl set herself on fire due to their harassment in 2013.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - entropicdrifter 5y ago
    She set herself on fire in 2018 after 5 years of harassment over something she did in 2013
- ATsch 5y ago
  You really don't need to do much to catch their ire. It's enough to annoy one wrong person, especially if you're vaguely trans or some other minority.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- wk_end 5y ago
  A nit: it'd be more respectful to use "Near". They really wanted people to call them that and not their old pseudonym. I never personally interacted with Near, but I've been following them and their work since the days of the zsnes forums, back in the mid-00s. I'm a huge fan - not just of their technical achievements or their ideological commitment, but also of the seeming grace with which they carried themselves in the past few years. I don't know if I'll get all the details right, but I'll try. My understanding is that KF chooses to harass people who are marginalized, easy to bully, and on the basis of how dramatic, embarrassing, or "cringe" their response would be. Near was gay, autistic, non-binary, and involved with furry communities (though IIRC they may not have been a furry themselves - not that it matters), which made them an easy target. They were sensitive and struggled with depression - KF knew their harassment would be effective. And Near was a controversial public(ish) figure who'd, in the past, courted a fair amount of scene drama and flame wars (sometimes blamelessly, sometimes not, as I'm sure they'd tell you themselves) that occasionally got very personal. In other words: KF looks to stir shit up, and Near sadly provided an ample amount of shit to stir. No one deserves to be harassed like this, but it feels especially cruel that it was done to someone as remarkable as Near. This is a terrible loss.
gfaure 5y ago
near was the author of higan (https://higan.dev https://higan.dev), a SNES emulator which is at the cutting edge of accuracy and emulation research. If you have even touched in passing the field of Nintendo console emulation, it's quite likely you've heard of them or their creations. I hope https://near.sh https://near.sh continues to stay up as an archive of all that they built over the years. near posted a few words of encouragement when I was wondering whether to start a SNES emulator of my own, which inspired me to build one over the course of a few months. That journey gained me a huge amount of engineering, personal and aesthetic fulfillment. I hope all the people Near/byuu inspired never forget their contributions to the field either. Rest in peace.
leshokunin 5y ago
Near’s contribution to SNES emulation is unequalled, covering perfect dumps of every game possible, the most accurate emulator, and even pushing the envelope on what the SNES could do with HD mode and widescreen support. Such a brilliant hacker, such a loss. Thanks for all the effort.
fermentation 5y ago
Such a sad series of events. When folks bring up why people don't just walk away from the PC when being cyberbullied/harassed online, it is often because we attach so much of our lives to our online identities and internet friends. How can you just walk away from what may be your only social outlet?
- etempleton 5y ago
  And Near was very much a person that lived a large part of their life online. Those who bullied him took away a home and a place where he found connections to people. I hope those involved somehow reflect on what they are doing and realize that there are humans on the other end and change their ways, though a quick check of the forum in question shows members are celebrating this news or putting out conspiracy theories that it is some kind of publicity stunt to promote higan. Truly disheartened and saddened. Be good to people everyone. Even people, dare I say especially the people, you disagree with or dislike. Everyone is going through something you know nothing about.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
nchase 5y ago
The behavior Kiwi Farms encourages seems like it should be illegal. How is this not murder?
- bjt2n3904 5y ago
  In 2017, a Massachusetts woman was convicted of involuntary manslaughter for coaxing her (then) boyfriend to suicide.
  - treloon 5y ago
    Is there any evidence that any member of the Farms did anything like that chick did, or is this a horrible comparison?
- _delirium 5y ago
  This is the most useful review article I've found (for U.S. law), though it's from 2014: "Death By Bullying: A Comparative Culpability Proposal", https://digitalcommons.pace.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1885&context=plr https://digitalcommons.pace.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=... The overall conclusion I get from it is that homicide or manslaughter charges could be brought in principle, but prosecutions are rare, and successful ones even more rare. The article author proposes a legal standard for culpability, but it's not clear it's been adopted by any courts. There are also some examples of lesser charges, like harassment or stalking, but they're also rare. In addition, several states have passed specific criminal bullying and/or cyberbullying laws that might allow easier conviction on a lesser charge, but they haven't been widely tested yet.
- ALittleLight 5y ago
  What did Kiwi Farms do? I tried looking up their comments on him[1] but only sampled some at random rather than reading all of their comments. It certainly seems cruel and mean spirited. Some more recent comments are flippant or celebrating the suicide - but it isn't clear to me that they did anything other than be mean to Near online. Am I missing something? 1 - https://kiwifarms.net/threads/byuu-byuu_nyan-setsunakun0.43056/ https://kiwifarms.net/threads/byuu-byuu_nyan-setsunakun0.430...
Klonoar 5y ago
I'm sure some will disagree, but I'd argue this should be a black bar moment. So many of us grew up in the early-to-late-2000s internet, likely on many of the forums that touched on emulation. Near/byuu's achievements in emulation/game preservation are insane and arguably unmatched, and they also posted here from time[1] to time[2]. So sad to see this all unfold. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=near https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=near
- colanderman 5y ago
  Another vote for black bar. Near was inspirational and a true hacker. @dang, can we get one?
  - LocalH 5y ago
    I second that as well
  - Lord_Nightmare 5y ago
    I second this.
  - andxor 5y ago
    Yes please.
- plerpin 5y ago
  A black bar to commemorate the loss of a dear community member, with their death a warning of the real human cost of online toxicity and intolerance.
hrdwdmrbl 5y ago
The marketplace of ideas has failed. I wish it weren’t true. I loved the concept. Russia killed it. Trolls killed it. Fake news killed it. Click bait killed it. It’s sad and I mourn it. Free speech on the internet isn’t looking too hot. We must demand that platforms do more to police what people can send and post. I don’t envy their position. Perhaps one of the new user-controlled data models will help. Perhaps AI will help. Perhaps only human-moderation will work. I don’t know but I don’t see things getting better.
- Forge36 5y ago
  Moderation feels irrelevant if the host is unwilling out encouraging the behavior. I wonder if they best approach it better DNS blocking. ISPs forced to comply with law, however alternate DNS "get the full internet" are left legal. I want to be careful with opening the door to banning sites/people from the internet. I can't imagine leaving the system in place as-is an acceptable solution.
  - farias0 5y ago
    I have a feeling moderating online speech is a losing game. There will always be platforms such as 4chan and KF willing to provide a space to any kind of speech. Maybe I've become too cynical, but I've come to accept that the only way to not be bullied or harassed online is to not expose yourself too much online, such as through compartmentalizing different aspects of your online social life through different social media accounts. I know this sounds like victim-blaming, but this is not my intention. It's just that maybe we humans were not built to be judged by everyone everywhere. For those that watched the anime Evangelion, there was a nice, forward-thinking discussion about this idea there.
    - xf1cf 5y ago
      > but I've come to accept that the only way to not be bullied or harassed online is to not expose yourself too much online I've been on the internet for almost 30 years. This is something that we've lost in the last decade of people dying to tie their real identity to everything. The wild west internet was actively hostile and you had to be smart about not only what you said, but who you were associating with. This form of "internet bullying" has existed since the dawn of the internet. That doesn't make it any more correct and it's only gotten more vicious with age. Especially because finding exploitable weaknesses is extremely easy when people leave themselves exposed on social media, twitter, discord, etc. We haven't solved it because I don't believe there is an actual solution. You get rid of KF and 4chan, another 10 communities pop up and the most popular one survives. You hit the registars, and they find another. Eventually they'll end up on one of the many registrars located outside the US that could not care any less what is hosted there. The best thing you can do is compartmentalize. The problem is people, for better or worse, tie their entire identity to whatever they do on the internet. This is fraught with danger because it makes you easy to attack. But being easy to attack isn't enough, you have to also have to have shown some weakness they can use as leverage. Near is an unfortunate example of this. KF bullied them mercilessly because they possessed enough exploitable traits to make it profitable. This isn't victim blaming, but unfortunately something we must learn from. Privacy, compartmentalization, and good operational security are the only things that can protect you. Maybe we can return to the internet of psuedonyms and lies that I remember. It was safer then, because no one trusted anyone implicitly and no one was willing to expose weaknesses that could be exploited.
ekianjo 5y ago
Relevant thread on kiwi farms by Byuu/Near before he committed suicide: https://kiwifarms.net/threads/byuu-byuu_nyan-setsunakun0.43056/page-14#post-9313342 https://kiwifarms.net/threads/byuu-byuu_nyan-setsunakun0.430...
golemiprague 5y ago
I don't get it, is it a team of developers who committed suicide or just one person? Also why do they care so much what some forum in the internet write about them? can't they just ignore it? or are they doing some real damage to these people?
razodactyl 5y ago
I only discovered higan a couple days ago. What a loss of talent, especially the loss of someone who dedicated so much time to a passion project with tremendous contribution to the community. Is there a way to keep their home page online?
- superfamicom 5y ago
  I believe the hosting and domains have been taken care of.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
kizer 5y ago
Eccentrics - how many, how eccentric - are a measure of the cultural sophistication of society. Very sad. "KiwiFarms" sounds like a terrible site; would love to see it destroyed, but those people will find somewhere to aggregate. Looking forward to being as eccentric and vulnerable as possible in my own life :D.
- shadowgovt 5y ago
  The sort of folk attracted to Kiwi Farms will find somewhere else to aggregate, but that doesn't mean anyone needs to make it easy for them. Showers always build up mildew, but we still periodically scrub them.
jMyles 5y ago
A substantial portion of the logic unit of my homeschooling relationship with my six-year-old is playing and analyzing the SNES randomizers, which are possible in part because of Near's incredible contributions. Near was not done with this incredible work; it was impressive to see such devotion to accuracy on an ongoing basis. A real loss.
Tarball10 5y ago
https://blog.cloudflare.com/terminating-service-for-8chan/ https://blog.cloudflare.com/terminating-service-for-8chan/ >We just sent notice that we are terminating 8chan as a customer effective at midnight tonight Pacific Time. The rationale is simple: they have proven themselves to be lawless and that lawlessness has caused multiple tragic deaths. >Even if 8chan may not have violated the letter of the law in refusing to moderate their hate-filled community, they have created an environment that revels in violating its spirit. Cloudflare should drop Kiwi Forums as a customer based on this. In fact Kiwi Forums might be worse because it specifically exists to discuss and coordinate harassment, doxing, and stalking of others both online and offline. 8chan was at least ostensibly "just" an anonymous imageboard with a lack of moderation. Kiwi Forums has no justifiable reason to be kept online and Cloudflare's association with it should be kept in mind when chosing to do business with Cloudflare. Same applies to Dreamhost, their domain registrar. No, kicking them off these platforms won't shutdown the site. They'll move to a Russian DDoS protection service like 8chan did. But there's no reason for Cloudflare/Dreamhost to make it easy for Kiwi Forums to exist, or to continue to receive revenue by hosting them.
drag0nite 5y ago
Why has anybody not commented on the bizarre behavior outlined in this tweet? He stayed on the phone for over an hour, while this person was presumably hanging themselves, without trying to help in any way whatsoever? If this story is true, then they didn't intervene during a key time that person could've been saved. Quite frankly, I am not believing this until there's confirmation.
- emodendroket 5y ago
  I'm not sure what you can do in that situation if you don't know where the person lives and they're in a foreign country whose language you don't speak. Who do you even contact?
  - drag0nite 5y ago
    The person who wrote the note said they had coffee with Near in Akihabara on June 9th. That would imply they both are in Japan, so none of that thinking would apply here.
    - acuozzo 5y ago
      > That would imply they both are in Japan … in a world without international travel it would.
      - moralestapia 5y ago
        If you're going to be snarky, at least be intelligent. The probability of two people living in the same place given that they had coffee together is ludicrously higher than the probability of them living in separate countries.
        acuozzo 5y ago
        I did not intend for my reply to be interpreted as snarky. I'm sorry. I tend to be needlessly pedantic and often do a poor job communicating in writing the non-verbal cues I'd couple with my reply in face-to-face conversation to signal that my intent for it is purely informational.
hrdwdmrbl 5y ago
Where about the police in all of this? Isn’t it their responsibility to pursue harassment like this? Aren’t the actions of KF already illegal? It seems to me that society still doesn’t take the internet seriously. We still expect to be scammed on eBay and don’t report it. Scams and fraud are everywhere. Abuse like that is rampant. I’m serious, where are the internet police? Yes it’s going to be hard when the people live in another country but so many times the perpetrators do actually live in the same country and basically live with impunity!
d3nj4l 5y ago
For those who were not aware of their accomplishments, this article by them is a great starting point into the level of detail of higan development: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/04/how-snes-emulators-got-a-few-pixels-from-complete-perfection/ https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/04/how-snes-emulators-go... A monumental loss. I never knew them personally, and generally didn't keep up with development, but they were a truly magical person and didn't deserve this in the slightest.
etempleton 5y ago
I have followed and admired Near for the better part of my life. I feel I know Near even though they didn’t know me. I am extremely saddened by this news.
plerpin 5y ago
"Evil triumphs when good men do nothing."
imode 5y ago
There's a Kiwi Farms user database and IP address dump floating around if you search for certain words. The dump dates to late 2019. byuu/near's thread is as old as 2018. Many of the users use local ISPs, and many of the current users that are commenting in said thread are in that dump. They should be fearing the same things that they inflicted upon the people they targeted, but worse. You kick a hive, be prepared to be stung.
swsieber 5y ago
What would be necessary to bring a lawsuit against KW? Who would do it, and what would the charges be?
aaron695 5y ago
What happened here is Cancel Culture. It's on the other side. But it's the same. The left have driven people to suicide, the left attack people for past posts, the left attack employees and friends. And the left should know better, it's hard to know how to move forward while the left, which for so long had the higher ground, also do this. And by left I mean the people who don't condemn lynch mobs when they think it's doing something they agree with. If you think racists deserve it, you're the same as KiwiFarms.
- badRNG 5y ago
  Not even touching on the false equivalency, this has to be one of the most tone-deaf and upsetting comments I've seen on HN.
  - aaron695 5y ago
    Bringing up "false equivalency" around driving people to suicide is also pretty upsetting. What Kiwifarms has for extremes Twitter makes up for public acceptance. I don't care what the person "Alec Holowaka" was like, behaviour like this (and attacks on his sister) after he killed himself is no "false equivalency" it's a broken world - https://twitter.com/dataracer117/status/1167948513692381190?lang=en https://twitter.com/dataracer117/status/1167948513692381190?... This tragic death is a pattern. It's not a website.
- hoechst 5y ago
  fuck off
Zerverus 5y ago
This is the second loss to the emulation scene by the hands of these people. The incredibly talented author of pcemu - probably the best classic Pc platform emulators, was subjected to a similar campaign of anti trans abuse and harassment (most of it can still be found online) and called it quits. https://pcem-emulator.co.uk/ https://pcem-emulator.co.uk/
- mmebane 5y ago
  There's at least one more: Rachel Bryk, a developer working on the Dolphin GameCube/Wii emulator [1], was driven to suicide back in 2015, likely in part due to transphobia and harassment [2]. [1]: https://dolphin-emu.org/blog/2015/04/25/commemoration-rachel-bryk/ https://dolphin-emu.org/blog/2015/04/25/commemoration-rachel... [2]: https://www.nj.com/monmouth/2015/04/post_18.html https://www.nj.com/monmouth/2015/04/post_18.html
sersi 5y ago
I'll always remember fondly bsnes, near's life work should be celebrated given how much he contributed to emulation accuracy, to preserve such an important part of history for all to experience in the future. It's very sad to hear of his passing and it's even sadder and more infuriating to think that he was driven to suicide. Kiwi Farms is a vile, awful place and encountering it a few years ago changed my perceptions on laws, anonymity and privacy. I didn't expect such an awful place to exist and I wish there were some laws in place to implicate them in the murders they have committed over the years.
brirec 5y ago
@dang, could we get a black bar today please?
traway1121 5y ago
First off, I have nothing but respect for Near/Byuu. I have followed his work for years and enjoyed his blog posts. Their death came as a complete surprise to me and impacted me more than I ever thought something like this would. With that being said, I think there was more going on here than simple bullying-- the weeks/months leading up to their death, Near did a number of things that (in retrospect) make it seem he knew very well he was going to take his life. The KF thread was only 13 pages long and quite "tame". He replied to the thread himself and wasn't really bullied. A lot of the posters on KF seemed to actually respect him. The thread wasn't updated in over two years prior to his death. Although the thread may have impacted him greatly, it doesn't seem like it was the main factor. Shortly before his death he re-licensed all of his software with quite open licenses. The year or two leading up to his death he separated himself from his work quite a bit (made separate standalone domains for each project, abandoned his old online name(s)). This really looks like he knew he was going to take his life over a year ago. We will obviously never know, but it seems like he wanted to take his life and as a bonus, maybe take KF down with him. Obviously some finger pointing at KF is justified, but at the end of the day I think there was more going on here. Near was an incredibly talented and troubled person that didn't (or couldn't) get the help they needed. I think that should be focused on a bit more, especially if we want to prevent things like this from happening again.
- moralestapia 5y ago
  For sure, we will never see the full picture. I personally find the whole situation a bit strange, like ... something about it doesn't make sense. Time clears everything up.
BigsQuickly 5y ago
We really need proof that they're actually dead. A police report, a mention in the local paper would work but something. We don't even know their name to look into the matter, despite being doxxed. Let's first confirm that a person has actually died, then we can take concrete action against Kiwi Farms. Otherwise they will always be able to claim that no suicide even took place.
rkuykendall-com 5y ago
I'm unsure why their last Twitter thread seems to be unlinked everywhere, but here it is for anyone who wants to read their own words: https://twitter.com/near_koukai/status/1408940057235312640 https://twitter.com/near_koukai/status/1408940057235312640
adultSwim 5y ago
This is deeply saddening.

390 points by aquova 5y ago

TazeTSchnitzel 5y ago

Kiwi Farms is the scum of the earth. Sadly it has many victims.

geofft 5y ago
This terrifies me: > Near survived that. Many wouldn’t, but Near was strong enough to overcome that level of emotional abuse. But Kiwi Farms is relentless. Not to be defeated in their pursuit of utter emotional and psychological destruction, they went after who Near treasured most: their friends. Doxing some, directly harassing others, and even specifically seeking out suicidal people to target. > That broke Near. [...] > Some of you may be aware of Near’s notoriously paranoid opsec. After getting to know them, it became clear this was a defense mechanism; a product of all the abuse they received over their entire life. Not that I'm doing anything particularly likely to attract the attention of the worst part of the internet (but then, you'd hope that "writing some emulators and going by 'they'" shouldn't either), but, I've thought about it and decided I can deal with people going after me. To some extent, I can be careful about opsec; to some extent, if someone goes after me, I'm all right with that. But what if they go after other people in the name of targeting me? What if they go after my friends, or even my family, who has very little say in what I do? What if my parents, who have never had to care about opsec in their lives and like most people's parents own a house and have their real names on it, get SWATted because some monster on an internet forum hates me? How am I supposed to respond except by deciding, I will not do anything with my life that could attract Kiwi Farms' attention? This is terrorism, and I am terrified.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- Ygg2 5y ago
  Interestingly enough according to Null, the KF operator, Near did try to close that thread, offering $120000 or threathening suicide. It does seem contain pictures that I have no idea how Null could have found it. https://kiwifarms.net/threads/byuu-byuu_nyan-setsunakun0.43056/page-14 https://kiwifarms.net/threads/byuu-byuu_nyan-setsunakun0.430...
- shitler 5y ago
  Please provide any evidence that anyone from kiwi farms has ever swatted anyone, you quivering little Karen. "What if a Twitter bluecheck literally shoots someone with a gun? This is terrorism." Like sure, if you make things up that involve actual violence and not fee fees being hurt it sounds bad.
ngcazz 5y ago
Looked them up. How is it that they aren’t getting prosecuted _right now_?
- philpem 5y ago
  Good question. Assuming you're US based - Why not write a letter to your representatives, asking them why the police ignore and dismiss online harassment, and why a single US citizen continues to be allowed to operate what is solely a hate site? If legal pressure isn't enough, why not try political pressure?
  - ngcazz 5y ago
    I'm not US-based but I imagine this requires international cooperation in any case
- treloon 5y ago
  Because nothing they do is illegal?

mmebane 5y ago

It hasn't been confirmed by authorities, but may never be, since almost nobody knew his real full name or exactly where he lived. However, it definitely doesn't look good. :-(

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

jepler 5y ago

[cw: discussion of suicide]

a_t48 5y ago

I'm not really sure what to put here. I never spoke to them personally (except maybe once or twice here on HN) but their work on SNES emulation enabled communities to spring up that improved my life for the better. I'm not going to touch the debate on whether to hold Cloudflare+1776Hosting partially responsible here (I'm sure others will), but I do know that Near physically moved countries to get away from the harassment they were getting. Just be respectful, ok?

pretentious7 5y ago
1776 hosting is run by the KF site admin.

BreezyBoats 5y ago

Instead of calling the Police to give Near’s address or employer’s name to organise some help.. this mutual friend (who often met Near for coffee) waits for an hour while listening to the music loop play on the Telegram call (the screen grab at the end). Then the mutual friend composes a calm, meticulous note for Hector to convey. It doesn’t make sense.

bjt2n3904 5y ago
When Robin Williams died, people were putting out images with "Genie, you're free" on it. This sort of behavior paints suicide as a valid means of escaping suffering. When "13 Reasons Why" was released, it was criticized for romanticizing suicide as a tool to get people to listen to you "beyond the grave" or have some sort of impact. While nothing has been confirmed by authorities, the behavior in this letter is extremely troubling, and seems to be the manifestation of how our society views suicide. Instead of suicide being understood as a harmful decision that wouldn't be made in a better frame of mind, it's being portrayed as a valid decision -- and attempts at intervention are a violation of the person's autonomy. Or something to that extent. There are other things I want to say and write, but I don't think it's appropriate until an official statement has been released from authorities.
- to11mtm 5y ago
  > This sort of behavior paints suicide as a valid means of escaping suffering. It's your typical person's way of trying to excuse their own action or lack of inaction, by making a statement that provides them some comfort, rather than face the way that their own inaction/belittling/bullying towards depressed people in their lives, might be part of the problem.
  - bjt2n3904 5y ago
    Perhaps, but the statement is wrong because of how it portrays suicide, not because of the motivations for making it. Furthermore, I believe trying to understand suicide as driven by a single cause is detrimental. Suicide is a complicated issue, and is driven by numerous factors. Trying to reduce any complex issue to a single factor sets anyone who wants to help at a disadvantage, and may contribute to the problem.

philpem 5y ago

I don't really know what to say here. I didn't know them personally, but I saw their work and was truly stunned. Most people don't achieve in their entire lives what Near (aka Byuu) did in their comparatively short one. To say I was impressed is an understatement. I simply don't have the words. What happened, shouldn't have happened. There needs to be a wider discussion of responsibility of hosting providers for the actions of their customers, and especially Cloudflare for shielding illegal acts. But that's a discussion for another day. Tonight, the sky is darker, for the loss of one of its brightest stars.

philpem 5y ago

Posted this on the other thread (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27653450 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27653450), I'll copy it here... I don't really know what to say here. I didn't know them personally, but I saw their work and was truly stunned. Most people don't achieve in their entire lives what Near (aka Byuu) did in their comparatively short one. To say I was impressed is an understatement. I simply don't have the words. What happened, shouldn't have happened. There needs to be a wider discussion of responsibility of hosting providers for the actions of their customers, and especially Cloudflare for shielding illegal acts. But that's a discussion for another day. Tonight, the sky is darker, for the loss of one of its brightest stars.

umvi 5y ago
> There needs to be a wider discussion of responsibility of hosting providers for the actions of their customers How about holding the actual bullies accountable instead of shifting accountability to the ISP/Host? What happens in real life (i.e. outside the context of the internet) if bullies harass someone with hate mail until that person commits suicide? Does the blame shift away from the bullies to USPS or FedEx for failing to shield the recipient from the hate mail? I could see a case made against kiwi farms, but cloudflare? They are infrastructure level and should not get in user content moderation imo
- falcolas 5y ago
  Cloudflare has already proven willing to stop supporting sites based on their content. They’ve opened the doors, so it’s not unreasonable to expect that they could/would/should do it again.
  - philpem 5y ago
    People have been complaining for years about some of the content they shield (KF especially). The site is responsible for at least one previous suicide. Their response is always the same... to forward the complaints onto the abuser for them to laugh at. Cloudflare has only ever intervened in matters like this when the mainstream press has given them an absolute and utter kicking. The sad fact is, when you have your own AS-number and peering agreement, you can do pretty much whatever you like on the Internet. De-peering a few of the worst network abusers and "it's not my problem, I just want the money" merchants would go a long way to improving the internet for the rest of us. This might seem hardline, but it's not without precedent: the precedent is the Internet itself, in its earlier days.

klodolph 5y ago

Near (Byuu) has previously appeared on HN as the author of BSNES, Higan, and other emulators for retro gaming systems. https://bsnes.dev/ https://bsnes.dev/ His work raised the bar for emulator accuracy and the preservation of video games. He was a towering figure in the field, and will be sorely missed. I am unaware of a better source for this information besides this Google doc, at the moment. Near’s Twitter handle is @near_koukai, where you can see his farewell message.

nfriedly 5y ago
Clickable: https://twitter.com/near_koukai https://twitter.com/near_koukai

dexwiz 5y ago

Kiwi Farms is vile. I stumbled upon it while researching someone who turned out to be a target of one of their hate campaign. Its a PHP Forum-style site, but with entire sub forums dedicated to small groups and event specific people. Long running topics would be an entire persons hate campaign against them. The members seem to have a strange, self-claimed moral authority. The posts are a mix of records of what they have done to harass people, updates on past targets, ideas for future hate, and justification about why this person deserves it. Overall it was sad for everyone involved. I hope they find some solace in their lives, if only to let their victims find it also.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
philpem 5y ago
I admire your ability to solely wish solace on them. I'd rather the long arm of the law caught up to them.
- sterlind 5y ago
  there's not a lot the law can do, unfortunately. doxxing isn't illegal in the US, at least federally, except against people in certain positions [0]. there's a high standard for harassment to be considered illegal. bullying is not illegal. hate speech is not illegal. even if individuals on Kiwi Farms can be prosecuted, it wouldn't take the site down. and to be prosecuted, the prosecutors would have to care. there just aren't the laws.. I'm friends with a few people who have been targeted by Kiwi Farms. Near is far from the only person driven to suicide by overwhelming bullying. it's one reason I keep a low profile - I'm just too scared. 0. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/119 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/119
  - treloon 5y ago
    Pussy lol
  - _delirium 5y ago

user-the-name 5y ago

Kiwi farms needs to end. This is not the first person they have murdered. There is no excuse for anyone who does anything to enable any part of its existence.

ErneX 5y ago

I remembered this article from 2011 about bsnes: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2011/08/accuracy-takes-power-one-mans-3ghz-quest-to-build-a-perfect-snes-emulator/ https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2011/08/accuracy-takes-power-... Tragic loss, RIP.

user-the-name 5y ago
It's not a "tragic loss", it is murder. And justice is needed.
- ErneX 5y ago
  I completely agree.
- ta2162 5y ago
  What makes it "murder"?
  - falcolas 5y ago
    Do you not consider the targeted harassment by an organized group of people with the premeditated goal of getting them to commit suicide to be homicide? I do.
    - ta2162 5y ago
      That's not the definition of murder though, even if you feel like it is. I know we're in a post-fact world, but you don't get to magically decide what words mean.
      - falcolas 5y ago
        And yet people have been convicted of murder for using similar techniques. There’s explicit examples in other comments to this article. Intent matters.
        5y ago

kwthrowaway 5y ago

Mid-time kiwifarms poster here. AMA I guess? Not sure what happened here. Related thread: https://kiwifarms.net/threads/byuu-byuu_nyan-setsunakun0.43056/ https://kiwifarms.net/threads/byuu-byuu_nyan-setsunakun0.430...

umvi 5y ago

RIP https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=near https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=near

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

reiichiroh 5y ago

Oh no! They had posted here in the past.

arthurcolle 5y ago

who is Near?

ekorz 5y ago
formerly known as byuu, creator of the emulators bsnes, higan and more. https://near.sh/ https://near.sh/
- Forge36 5y ago
  Should we be backing up/ mirroring the domain?

SHADDAP 5y ago

IT'S TIME TO OBLITERATE 1776HOSTING AND SEND JOSHUA CONNER MOON TO HELL. MURDERERS.

TheFreim 5y ago

Very sad that they are gone, byuu's work on emulators has been very useful. Weird to hear about things like this and realize that people are real on the other end of the computer. Skimming through, I don't see a reason why they were harassed by Kiwi Farms. I don't get it, what caused that?

snypher 5y ago
Kiwi Farms whole deal is to harass people online. I'm not sure they need a reason. A girl set herself on fire due to their harassment in 2013.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- entropicdrifter 5y ago
  She set herself on fire in 2018 after 5 years of harassment over something she did in 2013
ATsch 5y ago
You really don't need to do much to catch their ire. It's enough to annoy one wrong person, especially if you're vaguely trans or some other minority.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
wk_end 5y ago
A nit: it'd be more respectful to use "Near". They really wanted people to call them that and not their old pseudonym. I never personally interacted with Near, but I've been following them and their work since the days of the zsnes forums, back in the mid-00s. I'm a huge fan - not just of their technical achievements or their ideological commitment, but also of the seeming grace with which they carried themselves in the past few years. I don't know if I'll get all the details right, but I'll try. My understanding is that KF chooses to harass people who are marginalized, easy to bully, and on the basis of how dramatic, embarrassing, or "cringe" their response would be. Near was gay, autistic, non-binary, and involved with furry communities (though IIRC they may not have been a furry themselves - not that it matters), which made them an easy target. They were sensitive and struggled with depression - KF knew their harassment would be effective. And Near was a controversial public(ish) figure who'd, in the past, courted a fair amount of scene drama and flame wars (sometimes blamelessly, sometimes not, as I'm sure they'd tell you themselves) that occasionally got very personal. In other words: KF looks to stir shit up, and Near sadly provided an ample amount of shit to stir. No one deserves to be harassed like this, but it feels especially cruel that it was done to someone as remarkable as Near. This is a terrible loss.

gfaure 5y ago

near was the author of higan (https://higan.dev https://higan.dev), a SNES emulator which is at the cutting edge of accuracy and emulation research. If you have even touched in passing the field of Nintendo console emulation, it's quite likely you've heard of them or their creations. I hope https://near.sh https://near.sh continues to stay up as an archive of all that they built over the years. near posted a few words of encouragement when I was wondering whether to start a SNES emulator of my own, which inspired me to build one over the course of a few months. That journey gained me a huge amount of engineering, personal and aesthetic fulfillment. I hope all the people Near/byuu inspired never forget their contributions to the field either. Rest in peace.

leshokunin 5y ago

Near’s contribution to SNES emulation is unequalled, covering perfect dumps of every game possible, the most accurate emulator, and even pushing the envelope on what the SNES could do with HD mode and widescreen support. Such a brilliant hacker, such a loss. Thanks for all the effort.

fermentation 5y ago

Such a sad series of events. When folks bring up why people don't just walk away from the PC when being cyberbullied/harassed online, it is often because we attach so much of our lives to our online identities and internet friends. How can you just walk away from what may be your only social outlet?

etempleton 5y ago
And Near was very much a person that lived a large part of their life online. Those who bullied him took away a home and a place where he found connections to people. I hope those involved somehow reflect on what they are doing and realize that there are humans on the other end and change their ways, though a quick check of the forum in question shows members are celebrating this news or putting out conspiracy theories that it is some kind of publicity stunt to promote higan. Truly disheartened and saddened. Be good to people everyone. Even people, dare I say especially the people, you disagree with or dislike. Everyone is going through something you know nothing about.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

nchase 5y ago

The behavior Kiwi Farms encourages seems like it should be illegal. How is this not murder?

bjt2n3904 5y ago
In 2017, a Massachusetts woman was convicted of involuntary manslaughter for coaxing her (then) boyfriend to suicide.
- treloon 5y ago
  Is there any evidence that any member of the Farms did anything like that chick did, or is this a horrible comparison?
_delirium 5y ago
This is the most useful review article I've found (for U.S. law), though it's from 2014: "Death By Bullying: A Comparative Culpability Proposal", https://digitalcommons.pace.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1885&context=plr https://digitalcommons.pace.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=... The overall conclusion I get from it is that homicide or manslaughter charges could be brought in principle, but prosecutions are rare, and successful ones even more rare. The article author proposes a legal standard for culpability, but it's not clear it's been adopted by any courts. There are also some examples of lesser charges, like harassment or stalking, but they're also rare. In addition, several states have passed specific criminal bullying and/or cyberbullying laws that might allow easier conviction on a lesser charge, but they haven't been widely tested yet.
ALittleLight 5y ago
What did Kiwi Farms do? I tried looking up their comments on him[1] but only sampled some at random rather than reading all of their comments. It certainly seems cruel and mean spirited. Some more recent comments are flippant or celebrating the suicide - but it isn't clear to me that they did anything other than be mean to Near online. Am I missing something? 1 - https://kiwifarms.net/threads/byuu-byuu_nyan-setsunakun0.43056/ https://kiwifarms.net/threads/byuu-byuu_nyan-setsunakun0.430...

Klonoar 5y ago

I'm sure some will disagree, but I'd argue this should be a black bar moment. So many of us grew up in the early-to-late-2000s internet, likely on many of the forums that touched on emulation. Near/byuu's achievements in emulation/game preservation are insane and arguably unmatched, and they also posted here from time[1] to time[2]. So sad to see this all unfold. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=near https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=near

colanderman 5y ago
Another vote for black bar. Near was inspirational and a true hacker. @dang, can we get one?
- LocalH 5y ago
  I second that as well
- Lord_Nightmare 5y ago
  I second this.
- andxor 5y ago
  Yes please.
plerpin 5y ago
A black bar to commemorate the loss of a dear community member, with their death a warning of the real human cost of online toxicity and intolerance.

hrdwdmrbl 5y ago

The marketplace of ideas has failed. I wish it weren’t true. I loved the concept. Russia killed it. Trolls killed it. Fake news killed it. Click bait killed it. It’s sad and I mourn it. Free speech on the internet isn’t looking too hot. We must demand that platforms do more to police what people can send and post. I don’t envy their position. Perhaps one of the new user-controlled data models will help. Perhaps AI will help. Perhaps only human-moderation will work. I don’t know but I don’t see things getting better.

Forge36 5y ago
Moderation feels irrelevant if the host is unwilling out encouraging the behavior. I wonder if they best approach it better DNS blocking. ISPs forced to comply with law, however alternate DNS "get the full internet" are left legal. I want to be careful with opening the door to banning sites/people from the internet. I can't imagine leaving the system in place as-is an acceptable solution.
- farias0 5y ago
  I have a feeling moderating online speech is a losing game. There will always be platforms such as 4chan and KF willing to provide a space to any kind of speech. Maybe I've become too cynical, but I've come to accept that the only way to not be bullied or harassed online is to not expose yourself too much online, such as through compartmentalizing different aspects of your online social life through different social media accounts. I know this sounds like victim-blaming, but this is not my intention. It's just that maybe we humans were not built to be judged by everyone everywhere. For those that watched the anime Evangelion, there was a nice, forward-thinking discussion about this idea there.
  - xf1cf 5y ago
    > but I've come to accept that the only way to not be bullied or harassed online is to not expose yourself too much online I've been on the internet for almost 30 years. This is something that we've lost in the last decade of people dying to tie their real identity to everything. The wild west internet was actively hostile and you had to be smart about not only what you said, but who you were associating with. This form of "internet bullying" has existed since the dawn of the internet. That doesn't make it any more correct and it's only gotten more vicious with age. Especially because finding exploitable weaknesses is extremely easy when people leave themselves exposed on social media, twitter, discord, etc. We haven't solved it because I don't believe there is an actual solution. You get rid of KF and 4chan, another 10 communities pop up and the most popular one survives. You hit the registars, and they find another. Eventually they'll end up on one of the many registrars located outside the US that could not care any less what is hosted there. The best thing you can do is compartmentalize. The problem is people, for better or worse, tie their entire identity to whatever they do on the internet. This is fraught with danger because it makes you easy to attack. But being easy to attack isn't enough, you have to also have to have shown some weakness they can use as leverage. Near is an unfortunate example of this. KF bullied them mercilessly because they possessed enough exploitable traits to make it profitable. This isn't victim blaming, but unfortunately something we must learn from. Privacy, compartmentalization, and good operational security are the only things that can protect you. Maybe we can return to the internet of psuedonyms and lies that I remember. It was safer then, because no one trusted anyone implicitly and no one was willing to expose weaknesses that could be exploited.

ekianjo 5y ago

Relevant thread on kiwi farms by Byuu/Near before he committed suicide: https://kiwifarms.net/threads/byuu-byuu_nyan-setsunakun0.43056/page-14#post-9313342 https://kiwifarms.net/threads/byuu-byuu_nyan-setsunakun0.430...

golemiprague 5y ago

I don't get it, is it a team of developers who committed suicide or just one person? Also why do they care so much what some forum in the internet write about them? can't they just ignore it? or are they doing some real damage to these people?

razodactyl 5y ago

I only discovered higan a couple days ago. What a loss of talent, especially the loss of someone who dedicated so much time to a passion project with tremendous contribution to the community. Is there a way to keep their home page online?

superfamicom 5y ago
I believe the hosting and domains have been taken care of.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

kizer 5y ago

Eccentrics - how many, how eccentric - are a measure of the cultural sophistication of society. Very sad. "KiwiFarms" sounds like a terrible site; would love to see it destroyed, but those people will find somewhere to aggregate. Looking forward to being as eccentric and vulnerable as possible in my own life :D.

shadowgovt 5y ago
The sort of folk attracted to Kiwi Farms will find somewhere else to aggregate, but that doesn't mean anyone needs to make it easy for them. Showers always build up mildew, but we still periodically scrub them.

jMyles 5y ago

A substantial portion of the logic unit of my homeschooling relationship with my six-year-old is playing and analyzing the SNES randomizers, which are possible in part because of Near's incredible contributions. Near was not done with this incredible work; it was impressive to see such devotion to accuracy on an ongoing basis. A real loss.

Tarball10 5y ago

https://blog.cloudflare.com/terminating-service-for-8chan/ https://blog.cloudflare.com/terminating-service-for-8chan/ >We just sent notice that we are terminating 8chan as a customer effective at midnight tonight Pacific Time. The rationale is simple: they have proven themselves to be lawless and that lawlessness has caused multiple tragic deaths. >Even if 8chan may not have violated the letter of the law in refusing to moderate their hate-filled community, they have created an environment that revels in violating its spirit. Cloudflare should drop Kiwi Forums as a customer based on this. In fact Kiwi Forums might be worse because it specifically exists to discuss and coordinate harassment, doxing, and stalking of others both online and offline. 8chan was at least ostensibly "just" an anonymous imageboard with a lack of moderation. Kiwi Forums has no justifiable reason to be kept online and Cloudflare's association with it should be kept in mind when chosing to do business with Cloudflare. Same applies to Dreamhost, their domain registrar. No, kicking them off these platforms won't shutdown the site. They'll move to a Russian DDoS protection service like 8chan did. But there's no reason for Cloudflare/Dreamhost to make it easy for Kiwi Forums to exist, or to continue to receive revenue by hosting them.

drag0nite 5y ago

Why has anybody not commented on the bizarre behavior outlined in this tweet? He stayed on the phone for over an hour, while this person was presumably hanging themselves, without trying to help in any way whatsoever? If this story is true, then they didn't intervene during a key time that person could've been saved. Quite frankly, I am not believing this until there's confirmation.

emodendroket 5y ago
I'm not sure what you can do in that situation if you don't know where the person lives and they're in a foreign country whose language you don't speak. Who do you even contact?
- drag0nite 5y ago
  The person who wrote the note said they had coffee with Near in Akihabara on June 9th. That would imply they both are in Japan, so none of that thinking would apply here.
  - acuozzo 5y ago
    > That would imply they both are in Japan … in a world without international travel it would.
    - moralestapia 5y ago
      If you're going to be snarky, at least be intelligent. The probability of two people living in the same place given that they had coffee together is ludicrously higher than the probability of them living in separate countries.
      - acuozzo 5y ago
        I did not intend for my reply to be interpreted as snarky. I'm sorry. I tend to be needlessly pedantic and often do a poor job communicating in writing the non-verbal cues I'd couple with my reply in face-to-face conversation to signal that my intent for it is purely informational.

hrdwdmrbl 5y ago

Where about the police in all of this? Isn’t it their responsibility to pursue harassment like this? Aren’t the actions of KF already illegal? It seems to me that society still doesn’t take the internet seriously. We still expect to be scammed on eBay and don’t report it. Scams and fraud are everywhere. Abuse like that is rampant. I’m serious, where are the internet police? Yes it’s going to be hard when the people live in another country but so many times the perpetrators do actually live in the same country and basically live with impunity!

d3nj4l 5y ago

For those who were not aware of their accomplishments, this article by them is a great starting point into the level of detail of higan development: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/04/how-snes-emulators-got-a-few-pixels-from-complete-perfection/ https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/04/how-snes-emulators-go... A monumental loss. I never knew them personally, and generally didn't keep up with development, but they were a truly magical person and didn't deserve this in the slightest.

etempleton 5y ago

I have followed and admired Near for the better part of my life. I feel I know Near even though they didn’t know me. I am extremely saddened by this news.

plerpin 5y ago

"Evil triumphs when good men do nothing."

imode 5y ago

There's a Kiwi Farms user database and IP address dump floating around if you search for certain words. The dump dates to late 2019. byuu/near's thread is as old as 2018. Many of the users use local ISPs, and many of the current users that are commenting in said thread are in that dump. They should be fearing the same things that they inflicted upon the people they targeted, but worse. You kick a hive, be prepared to be stung.

swsieber 5y ago

What would be necessary to bring a lawsuit against KW? Who would do it, and what would the charges be?

aaron695 5y ago

What happened here is Cancel Culture. It's on the other side. But it's the same. The left have driven people to suicide, the left attack people for past posts, the left attack employees and friends. And the left should know better, it's hard to know how to move forward while the left, which for so long had the higher ground, also do this. And by left I mean the people who don't condemn lynch mobs when they think it's doing something they agree with. If you think racists deserve it, you're the same as KiwiFarms.

badRNG 5y ago
Not even touching on the false equivalency, this has to be one of the most tone-deaf and upsetting comments I've seen on HN.
- aaron695 5y ago
  Bringing up "false equivalency" around driving people to suicide is also pretty upsetting. What Kiwifarms has for extremes Twitter makes up for public acceptance. I don't care what the person "Alec Holowaka" was like, behaviour like this (and attacks on his sister) after he killed himself is no "false equivalency" it's a broken world - https://twitter.com/dataracer117/status/1167948513692381190?lang=en https://twitter.com/dataracer117/status/1167948513692381190?... This tragic death is a pattern. It's not a website.
hoechst 5y ago
fuck off

Zerverus 5y ago

This is the second loss to the emulation scene by the hands of these people. The incredibly talented author of pcemu - probably the best classic Pc platform emulators, was subjected to a similar campaign of anti trans abuse and harassment (most of it can still be found online) and called it quits. https://pcem-emulator.co.uk/ https://pcem-emulator.co.uk/

mmebane 5y ago
There's at least one more: Rachel Bryk, a developer working on the Dolphin GameCube/Wii emulator [1], was driven to suicide back in 2015, likely in part due to transphobia and harassment [2]. [1]: https://dolphin-emu.org/blog/2015/04/25/commemoration-rachel-bryk/ https://dolphin-emu.org/blog/2015/04/25/commemoration-rachel... [2]: https://www.nj.com/monmouth/2015/04/post_18.html https://www.nj.com/monmouth/2015/04/post_18.html

sersi 5y ago

I'll always remember fondly bsnes, near's life work should be celebrated given how much he contributed to emulation accuracy, to preserve such an important part of history for all to experience in the future. It's very sad to hear of his passing and it's even sadder and more infuriating to think that he was driven to suicide. Kiwi Farms is a vile, awful place and encountering it a few years ago changed my perceptions on laws, anonymity and privacy. I didn't expect such an awful place to exist and I wish there were some laws in place to implicate them in the murders they have committed over the years.

brirec 5y ago

@dang, could we get a black bar today please?

traway1121 5y ago

First off, I have nothing but respect for Near/Byuu. I have followed his work for years and enjoyed his blog posts. Their death came as a complete surprise to me and impacted me more than I ever thought something like this would. With that being said, I think there was more going on here than simple bullying-- the weeks/months leading up to their death, Near did a number of things that (in retrospect) make it seem he knew very well he was going to take his life. The KF thread was only 13 pages long and quite "tame". He replied to the thread himself and wasn't really bullied. A lot of the posters on KF seemed to actually respect him. The thread wasn't updated in over two years prior to his death. Although the thread may have impacted him greatly, it doesn't seem like it was the main factor. Shortly before his death he re-licensed all of his software with quite open licenses. The year or two leading up to his death he separated himself from his work quite a bit (made separate standalone domains for each project, abandoned his old online name(s)). This really looks like he knew he was going to take his life over a year ago. We will obviously never know, but it seems like he wanted to take his life and as a bonus, maybe take KF down with him. Obviously some finger pointing at KF is justified, but at the end of the day I think there was more going on here. Near was an incredibly talented and troubled person that didn't (or couldn't) get the help they needed. I think that should be focused on a bit more, especially if we want to prevent things like this from happening again.

moralestapia 5y ago
For sure, we will never see the full picture. I personally find the whole situation a bit strange, like ... something about it doesn't make sense. Time clears everything up.

BigsQuickly 5y ago

We really need proof that they're actually dead. A police report, a mention in the local paper would work but something. We don't even know their name to look into the matter, despite being doxxed. Let's first confirm that a person has actually died, then we can take concrete action against Kiwi Farms. Otherwise they will always be able to claim that no suicide even took place.

rkuykendall-com 5y ago

I'm unsure why their last Twitter thread seems to be unlinked everywhere, but here it is for anyone who wants to read their own words: https://twitter.com/near_koukai/status/1408940057235312640 https://twitter.com/near_koukai/status/1408940057235312640

adultSwim 5y ago

This is deeply saddening.