10 ms·

Audacity fork creator steps down. Claims his life is in danger

198 points by pelagicAustral 5y ago

bawolff 5y ago
Does anyone have a tl;dr as to wtf is going on? How does something like this escalate to this level?
- boomboomsubban 5y ago
  Audacity gets forked, forker puts up vote for new name with a joke option, forker regrets decision, trolls go to war over memory of Boaty McBoatface.
- elevaet 5y ago
  Agreed, this is completely baffling. Either I'm missing something in the story, or my model of how the world works is broken.
- kapp_in_life 5y ago
  Name for a fork of audacity was polled, 4chan trolls/raiders voted for sneedacity[0][1] won, maintainer chose to use a different name instead, 4chan trolls were unhappy and escalated their efforts. [0] https://github.com/tenacityteam/tenacity/issues/33 https://github.com/tenacityteam/tenacity/issues/33 (now deleted) [1] https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/sneeds-feed-and-seed https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/sneeds-feed-and-seed
  - senectus1 5y ago
    now this makes sense. (I'm not saying it's good or right, just that it 's now understandable how this bizarre situation happened) 4Chan is the devil you think you know but don't really.
- pelagicAustral 5y ago
  This is hard to understand, I think... mainly because not many people are fond of sites like 4chan and so the culture in there is quite particular, even changing dramatically from one board to another... What happened, beyond the fact that Audacity's maintainers decided to include some telemetry and made some changes to the PA, was that the community around Audacity reacted with anger, and some people called for a fork to be made. A developer took the call and forked the project. They assembled a team and unfortunately, now is when the actual shit storm begins, they came up with the idea of asking the community on Github to vote for a new name for the fork... Word of this got to 4chan's /g/ (technology) board and they decided to participate with the name 'Sneedacity' (which refers to a meme you can find by searching 'Sneed feed and seed'). They eventually won the vote but the maintainer, realizing this was obviously a piss-take by 4chan decided it was reasonable not to rename the fork. This should've been the end of it, but because this is the internet what on most cases would've been the correct cause of action became a direct inflammatory action against the /g/ board. From here on there was numerous threads created on 4chan that more or less meme'd around with Audacity's fork new maintainer. At the moment, there's about 10 threads each one with around 300-odd replies (due to bump limitation). Most of them are quite satirical and at the most perverse and abusive but there is a distinct lack of 'calls for action' which further exacerbated people on 4chan, since there are several claims of this kind made on Github. Personally I did went through every thread and there is an open debate over the fact that at least part of the new Audacity (fork) team seemed to have been posting self-doxing statements... Because posts on 4chan are anonymous it is virtually impossible to confirm this... Either way, I'm sure this has been quite an unpleasant experience to the developer that forked Audacity. Its a classic prank going out of control because some people are just likely to push things to the limit, specially if they can do so in total impunity.
shadowgovt 5y ago
When all is said and done, in this era moreso than ever, interpersonal concerns influence software decisions at least as much as technical concerns.
- immibis 5y ago
  Software has always been a social thing. Everything is. What use would Linux be if people didn't write Linux programs? What use would Audacity be if sound was conventionally stored on tapes? What use would Audacity be if there was a better free alternative?
ohazi 5y ago
I say this as someone who has used Audacity and Musescore for years, and who has been subscribed to Tantacrul's Youtube channel since before he got involved with Musescore because I thought his UI/UX rants were hilariously good. I've been trying to follow this story as closely as I could manage, but even I don't understand what the fuck is going on anymore.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- db48x 5y ago
  They are hilariously good. No matter what else happens, those videos are worth watching.
  - philpem 5y ago
    They may have been funny when they were released - but his relentless shilling for muse has made it very clear what the purpose of them was. Dunk on the competition, to big up Muse and his own profile. They're (IMHO) unwatchable when you follow the money trail and realise what they are, and always were: thinly veiled shills.
    - db48x 5y ago
      Even if that was true (and you have no evidence of it), nothing he said in those videos was wrong. And his video about MuseScore was not very complimentary; he called it a “dog’s dinner”. But to address the wider point, the same complaint could be made about anything anyone ever wrote anything for money. Since some works written for money have lasting merit, the mere fact that something was written for money should not count against it.
    - modulusshift 5y ago
      He made the Sibelius one before he'd ever used MuseScore, did the MuseScore one before Dorico/Finale because of popular demand even though he'd never used MuseScore before that, and then eventually got hired onto the MuseScore team because of the strength of his critique, and proceeded to lead the effort to fix all of the issues he brought up in that video. He made the Dorico video no more than a couple months after joining the MuseScore team, and a couple months before becoming Product Manager there. The Finale video seems unlikely to come out now, honestly. So, only the Dorico video is even possible to be a shill. Also, oh my goodness if he made YouTube videos to raise his personal profile, as opposed to all the other YouTubers who make videos anonymously?!?
tomrod 5y ago
Weird. Why does 4chan care about this?
- Ygg2 5y ago
  Same as always. For the lulz. Edit: Upon closer inspection, it seems cookiengineer had a vote for fork name. And Sneedacity won. After deleting that option 4chan went on a frenzy.
  - dathinab 5y ago
    Yes, but also because someone instigated them to do so. Maybe the person just did so out of a random thought of finding it funny, or maybe because of personal dislikes or maybe because of other reason. Let's not forget people which go to extrems "for the lulz" tend also be easy to be used if you are lucky (i.e. just need to pitch the right idea to the right person in a "innocent" way, through it also comes at a considerable risk for you because you can never be sure who they end up harassing in the end).
    - DevKoala 5y ago
      Correct. The posters in 4chan are often manipulated by propaganda into these extremes behaviors. There is tons of threads in 4chan itself detailing how this happens.
      - teawrecks 5y ago
        Have any examples of said threads? Sounds interesting.
        DevKoala 5y ago
        If I run into one re-paste of the threads that details these practices I will link it. The threads in 4chan disappear within days from their official archive. There is also a long term archive hosted by a third party, but apparently you cannot trust it. I honestly try to not visit the place, except when I want to pick up unknown crypto tokens that will get pumped. Like I said, the site is full of propaganda and sometimes it messes up with your perception of reality.
owlbynight 5y ago
There need to be harsh, harsh penalties for showing up uninvited to someone's house based on something that's happened or been said on the Internet. This is little kid shit and they either need to learn or have their toys taken away so they can't keep doing it.
- shadowgovt 5y ago
  Step 1 is catching them, and it's the nature of this sort of attack that doing so is deceptively hard. This kind of harassment is basically a flash-mob.
  - jbluepolarbear 5y ago
    Pretty easy if they’re dumb enough to bring their phone with them.
    - SilverRed 5y ago
      I don't believe that phone based tracking is nearly as easy as people make it out to be. Just because the data exists, doesn't mean it is easy to process. Someone would have to spend tens of hours at least digging through data and unless its a serious crime, its just not worth it.
      - jbluepolarbear 5y ago
        Not tracking, identifying. I have a T-Mobile cell booster and it automatically connects to any compatible phone and will start using cell over WiFi. I could let the authorities know that and they can tell T-Mobile to fork over all the cell data for that booster.
      - swiley 5y ago
        Not only that but it can be hard to even get legal access to. I know someone who was shot and the cops weren't able to get access to the location data needed to catch the other guy.
      - 5y ago
risky_opinions 5y ago
Not posting this under my main account for reasons, but 4chan harassed me for developing software too. They're a bunch of anonymous assholes that have nothing better to do. Their commentary was degrading and demoralizing. They thankfully didn't find me in real life, but I pulled down all social media to avoid them. Edit: I want to say one more thing. Sometimes people defend 4chan and say stuff like "that's just how they are", "they don't really mean it", or "you have to understand their community". But places like 4chan do real, measurable harm to people. Just recently, Near/Byuu (SNES emulation) took their life after relentless doxxing and harassment. It wasn't 4chan, but these communities all harbor the same type of anonymity-enabled "for the lulz" harassment that brings out the worst in people.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- SilverRed 5y ago
  I have to say I usually find the /g/ antics to be funny but they certainly cross the line from jokes to genuinely harassing someone to what the OP post is describing which is horrific.
- numpad0 5y ago
  Is there the wall of shame/hall of fame pages for 4chan-related doxxing incidents? Are those greentexts the only content they share? In 2000s there used to be external wikis for ops done in a local BBS in my country, and those used to summarize timelines and key informations that led to development. They were probably doing for their own fun but were also useful for defending side.
  - SilverRed 5y ago
    I don't think there is anything organized but the stuff ends up in youtube "documentaries" and similar. Well known incidents like the reddit boston bomber incident get remembered and turned in to memes.
  - deathlight 5y ago
    There was a young teen girl who was bullied into killing herself which she did by drinking bleach (a quite horrific way to die). I don't remember how much of a hand the 4channers had in the actual bullying but after her death she was relentlessly mocked and made into a snide and pitiless meme that has thankfully died out by now. There has been a long slew of young girls (and some boys) who have been tricked into sending explicit photos and have had their lives ruined over it in connection with 4chan and sites like it.
fito 5y ago
The kind of people who hang around 4chan is fucked up; I've always said that.
- neom 5y ago
  4chan is still a bit of a black box to me. I mean, I guess that's the point? I am pretty curious who these people are, mostly how old they are. I occasionally go rummage through it to see if it's still 4chan, and it always is. 4chan is one of the few places/things on the internet that makes me genuinely uncomfortable.
  - SilverRed 5y ago
    4chan mostly is an interesting place because of how extremely toxic everyone is to each other but how little their insults mean to you because everyone is anon. The problem is when they start targeting real individuals and posting their personal info. It goes from jokes to real harm very quickly. But I'm not sure its really any worse than mainstream social media. Witch hunts start on all of the large platforms. WhatsApp and Facebook are responsible for countless literal witch hunts where the accused were killed or brutally beaten. 4chan seems tame in comparison.
    - neom 5y ago
      That's a good perspective, and a light I hadn't considered it in. The discomfort I have with 4chan is pretty similar to my discomfort with twitter, facebook, et autres. I guess with 4chan there is perceivably less accountability in the event of the harmful situations similar to your description, but I have zero real basis for that belief.
- young_unixer 5y ago
  People are fucked up, 4chan is just fucked up in the direction opposite from everyone else.
- imtemplain 5y ago
  oof this normoid discussion kills me
sillysaurusx 5y ago
Am I the only one who would just … walk outside and talk to the 4channers who showed up? Probably offer them a cig and a meme. I’ve been thinking of tweeting my home address, so this is a relevant concern. What do you even do when someone comes to your house, other than listen to them? It could also be true that they did something a lot less friendly, like “bang on the windows and run away laughing.” That would be unsettling to experience, particularly at night. This is a sad situation. Their Internet notoriety is the source of the problem, one way or another, and they felt like they couldn’t continue. I respect that; family is #1.
- willhinsa 5y ago
  It could very likely not be 4channers who show up at your house, but a SWAT team looking to take you out for holding someone hostage. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Wichita_swatting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Wichita_swatting
  - applefangirl 5y ago
    Or more they may send pizza deliveries and subscribe you too every mailing list known to man. Don’t post your address. Use a PO BOX if you must.
    - sillysaurusx 5y ago
      Yeah, that's a good point. But I mean, on the other hand, free pizza. Actually, this is a good example. There have been ~two high profile swatting incidents resulting in death. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swatting#Injuries_or_deaths_due_to_swatting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swatting#Injuries_or_deaths_du... Dying in a car crash is a lot higher probability for most of us, but the question is whether publishing one's address would raise the probability significantly. I'm not sure it would. And it's hard to think of what else people can do, other than, as you say, subscribe you to a bunch of fetish mailing lists that I'd probably get a kick out of anyway.
      - 5y ago
obviouslynotme 5y ago
I pulled up the /g/ thread this dev linked and edited out the inevitable 4chan lingo. >TLDR for newpeople >audacity added telemetry >some webdev with no C/C++ experience named cookieperson created a fork to remove botnet >he hosted a vote for a new name of the project to avoid trademark issues >/g/ elected Seedacity >he freaked out, deleted the poll and created a new one >sneed studio is now leading > https://github.com/temporary-audacity/audacity/issues/33#issuecomment-874352189(go https://github.com/temporary-audacity/audacity/issues/33#iss... vote) >he freaked out and started deleting all msg about people complaining >/g/ anons forked and crated a new project Seedacity >it got on the AUR >some transgenger complained Sneed means Special Needs (aka a slang for retards) >AUR guys freaked out and deleted the AUR pkg My opinion is that this guy did a poll. 4chan did what it does and spammed it with votes for a name they knew the guy wouldn't like. He cancelled the poll and got in a slap fight with 4chan. Now they are making their own fork. >As the first people were literally arriving at my place of living, where they knocked on my doors and windows to scare us, I am hereby officially stepping down as a maintainer of this project. He is also claiming that people from 4chan are knocking on his doors and windows and has contacted the police.
- salawat 5y ago
  >Sneed is short for special needs, i.e. retards ...Okay. I could be totally wrong here, but I was fairly certain the Sneed thing came out of a Simpson's joke w.r.t. Sneed's Seed and Feed, formerly Chuck's. This would quite frankly be the first time I've heard the Sneed->"special needs"->retards connection, which to be frank, is nowhere near direct enough for what I know of memes with a Channic origin. Not that I'm an expert on the subject matter.
  - TMWNN 5y ago
    >...Okay. I could be totally wrong here, but I was fairly certain the Sneed thing came out of a Simpson's joke w.r.t. Sneed's Seed and Feed, formerly Chuck's. Correct. Sneed is 100% from "Sneed's Seed and Feed / Formerly Chuck's".
personjerry 5y ago
The absurdity is that these trolls clearly found Audacity useful. But because of them not knowing when to stop, they're going to end up with a much shittier product, possibly having just killed the future of Audacity, without the support of real devs like this one. After all, what serious developer would continue working on this knowing this project is going to endanger their life? "Congratulations, you played yourself"
- pjc50 5y ago
  They're not interested in making the world better.
- bingidingi 5y ago
  they can’t play themselves because their only goal is chaotic harm
- smoldesu 5y ago
  I'm pretty sure most of them pirate Ableton Live.
throwaway9389 5y ago
OK, so who knows of any completely anonymous alternatives to Github? Something blockchain based perhaps?
- SilverRed 5y ago
  You can use github anon. Like everything, its a pain in the ass and you have to carefully analyze everything you do online to avoid linking personalities.
- Solnezio 5y ago
  what? Just use a different username and change the email you use in the commits to the github email (@users.noreply.github.com)... (should be "git config --global user.email 12345+foobar@users.noreply.github.com")
  - throwaway9389 5y ago
    Sure, like another comment said though it is easy to mess up and reveal your identity for all commits in one swoop. I know there is GitMask [1] but it's not open source or decentralized. https://www.gitmask.com/ https://www.gitmask.com/
    - E39M5S62 5y ago
      It looks like it's open source to me - https://github.com/AnalogJ/gitmask https://github.com/AnalogJ/gitmask
carrolldunham 5y ago
I think these topics keep getting flagged because there's no evidence that any of this is actually happening.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
smoldesu 5y ago
All I'll say is that Cookie also provoked the trolls by changing his Github bio to some of their comments [0]. There's no right side here, but if you're ever put in a position where the majority of your users disagree with the way you're handling a project, it's probably best to step down rather than confronting them. That kind of democracy is what keeps open source development viable. [0] https://archive.is/ZqK2T https://archive.is/ZqK2T
- pseudalopex 5y ago
  What makes you think they would have stopped the ongoing harassment if the maintainer just hadn't quoted them? Yielding to 4chan trolls could be prudent. It isn't democracy.
yissp 5y ago
It's like the Boaty McBoatface debacle. Lesson learned, don't ask the internet to name things.
bingidingi 5y ago
what can be done about these chan sites? can they be further deplatformed or are they all hosted in safe havens now? just last week I was reading about how the bsnes creator was driven to suicide
kurofune 5y ago
>This site is the most disgusting place in the whole world, and I think all the people that are active in /g/ should get put in jail and be ashamed of themselves for making the world a worse place than it already is. >They are cyber terrorists, not cringe cancel kiddos. I sympathize with his case but this post seems a delusional, hyperbolic rant that will make his harassers target him with renewed fervor. They are trying to get on his nerves, he should go to the police and stop seething on the internet cause he's giving them plenty of what they really want.
- emerged 5y ago
  Seriously I don’t know how people fail to realize they feed off this type of response. It’s like trying to fight a vampire by throwing your blood at them.
  - edly 5y ago
    If you have suggestions, I'd love to hear them. Your logic is living proof that we still don't take the very real harm 4chan can do seriously. We laughed at "POOL'S CLOSED" and cheered with Operation Payback because it was fun, but now that 4chan is long dead and what remains is this. If you want examples other than 4chan, look around. The state of several first-world countries (you probably live in one of them) is the result of threat ignorance.
    - areeh 5y ago
      The grandparent they are agreeing with: "They are trying to get on his nerves, he should go to the police and stop seething on the internet cause he's giving them plenty of what they really want." seems to suggest trying to make repercussions happen without feeding a harasser with reactions. That doesn't seem to be ignoring the threat, just trying to deal with it more effectively.
- szszrk 5y ago
  So people should just shut up and get beaten, but less? That's exactly what is wrong with "our" attitude and he is right on this one.
ezoe 5y ago
So, the moral of the story is, to develop a free software, avoid living in a place where 4chan thugs can physically harass you. So basically, avoid English speaking countries. Or get enough capital to hire the armed security who guard your house 24 hours a day.
- Erwin 5y ago
  He seems to live in Germany, near Heidelberg (as the German federal police, BKA, of Heidelberg are investigating). The town has a large university, and used to have one of the largest US Military presences in Germany though I think they've all withdrawn now.
imtemplain 5y ago
Why are redditors swindled so easily? The author's story keeps changing constantly and there are dozens of clues that show that the author is trolling and making a point on how easy it is to claim victimhood nowadays.
failwhaleshark 5y ago
I don't understand how noise from worthless losers on "social" media translates into a threat to life. I just shrug and keep doing what I'm doing. Their hell is their lives. I don't need to get involved.
- seszett 5y ago
  Well, the person says people showed up with knives at their home and physically harmed them. I'd say this qualifies as a threat to life, and shrugging is unlikely to work in this situation.
  - failwhaleshark 5y ago
    If it is true, then they were stupid by making themselves a victim by putting too much information online and weren't equipped to handle themselves. Apropos, Mao did have a saying that is inconveniently true: Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun If you cannot defend your person, then you cannot defend your speech. 1. Don't put personal information online. 2. Always be able to physically defend yourself. The police can't be everywhere and can't help you in the 5-45 seconds a situation comes and goes. Knives, OC pepper spray, and/or guns.. or be a defenseless victim/statistic. 3. Stand-up to insecure bullies. Ignore narcissists.
    - seszett 5y ago
      It's pretty simplistic to just call a victim stupid because they didn't hide their whole life in the case that someone in the future might use information to attack them. It's also absurd to ask a regular person living in a country like Germany to be ready at all times to defend themselves using knives or guns.
      - failwhaleshark 5y ago
        Enough with the victimology tropes of "all victims are pure, helpless angels beyond reproach and responsibility." > It's pretty simplistic to just call a victim stupid People should be held accountable when they don't take reasonable measures to ensure their own security. You don't post your social security number, bank password, address, or birthdate online. You don't leave your car running with the keys in the ignition. You don't leave valuables in plain sight in a car. Such would be stupid vulnerabilities they created and that would be their own fault. > It's also absurd to ask a regular person living in a country like Germany to be ready at all times to defend themselves using knives or guns. It doesn't matter who or where you are, it's always personal responsibility. When the balloon goes up, you're on your own. The police cannot help you in the 5 to 45 seconds that it's over. So you're either prepared (internal locus-of-control), or it sucks to be you (external locus-of-control ... praying, tea leaves, wishing, utopian fantasies). "This is this." - https://youtu.be/6J1Blggu5IU https://youtu.be/6J1Blggu5IU
Thorentis 5y ago
Conspiracy: Muse Group posted some anonymous posts on 4chan, hoping this type of response would result, in order to stop the fork from succeeding.
sschueller 5y ago
Why is this post flagged? I don't see if violating HN guidelines.

Does anyone have a tl;dr as to wtf is going on? How does something like this escalate to this level?

boomboomsubban 5y ago
Audacity gets forked, forker puts up vote for new name with a joke option, forker regrets decision, trolls go to war over memory of Boaty McBoatface.
elevaet 5y ago
Agreed, this is completely baffling. Either I'm missing something in the story, or my model of how the world works is broken.
kapp_in_life 5y ago
Name for a fork of audacity was polled, 4chan trolls/raiders voted for sneedacity[0][1] won, maintainer chose to use a different name instead, 4chan trolls were unhappy and escalated their efforts. [0] https://github.com/tenacityteam/tenacity/issues/33 https://github.com/tenacityteam/tenacity/issues/33 (now deleted) [1] https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/sneeds-feed-and-seed https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/sneeds-feed-and-seed
- senectus1 5y ago
  now this makes sense. (I'm not saying it's good or right, just that it 's now understandable how this bizarre situation happened) 4Chan is the devil you think you know but don't really.
pelagicAustral 5y ago
This is hard to understand, I think... mainly because not many people are fond of sites like 4chan and so the culture in there is quite particular, even changing dramatically from one board to another... What happened, beyond the fact that Audacity's maintainers decided to include some telemetry and made some changes to the PA, was that the community around Audacity reacted with anger, and some people called for a fork to be made. A developer took the call and forked the project. They assembled a team and unfortunately, now is when the actual shit storm begins, they came up with the idea of asking the community on Github to vote for a new name for the fork... Word of this got to 4chan's /g/ (technology) board and they decided to participate with the name 'Sneedacity' (which refers to a meme you can find by searching 'Sneed feed and seed'). They eventually won the vote but the maintainer, realizing this was obviously a piss-take by 4chan decided it was reasonable not to rename the fork. This should've been the end of it, but because this is the internet what on most cases would've been the correct cause of action became a direct inflammatory action against the /g/ board. From here on there was numerous threads created on 4chan that more or less meme'd around with Audacity's fork new maintainer. At the moment, there's about 10 threads each one with around 300-odd replies (due to bump limitation). Most of them are quite satirical and at the most perverse and abusive but there is a distinct lack of 'calls for action' which further exacerbated people on 4chan, since there are several claims of this kind made on Github. Personally I did went through every thread and there is an open debate over the fact that at least part of the new Audacity (fork) team seemed to have been posting self-doxing statements... Because posts on 4chan are anonymous it is virtually impossible to confirm this... Either way, I'm sure this has been quite an unpleasant experience to the developer that forked Audacity. Its a classic prank going out of control because some people are just likely to push things to the limit, specially if they can do so in total impunity.

When all is said and done, in this era moreso than ever, interpersonal concerns influence software decisions at least as much as technical concerns.

immibis 5y ago
Software has always been a social thing. Everything is. What use would Linux be if people didn't write Linux programs? What use would Audacity be if sound was conventionally stored on tapes? What use would Audacity be if there was a better free alternative?

ohazi 5y ago

I say this as someone who has used Audacity and Musescore for years, and who has been subscribed to Tantacrul's Youtube channel since before he got involved with Musescore because I thought his UI/UX rants were hilariously good. I've been trying to follow this story as closely as I could manage, but even I don't understand what the fuck is going on anymore.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
db48x 5y ago
They are hilariously good. No matter what else happens, those videos are worth watching.
- philpem 5y ago
  They may have been funny when they were released - but his relentless shilling for muse has made it very clear what the purpose of them was. Dunk on the competition, to big up Muse and his own profile. They're (IMHO) unwatchable when you follow the money trail and realise what they are, and always were: thinly veiled shills.
  - db48x 5y ago
    Even if that was true (and you have no evidence of it), nothing he said in those videos was wrong. And his video about MuseScore was not very complimentary; he called it a “dog’s dinner”. But to address the wider point, the same complaint could be made about anything anyone ever wrote anything for money. Since some works written for money have lasting merit, the mere fact that something was written for money should not count against it.
  - modulusshift 5y ago
    He made the Sibelius one before he'd ever used MuseScore, did the MuseScore one before Dorico/Finale because of popular demand even though he'd never used MuseScore before that, and then eventually got hired onto the MuseScore team because of the strength of his critique, and proceeded to lead the effort to fix all of the issues he brought up in that video. He made the Dorico video no more than a couple months after joining the MuseScore team, and a couple months before becoming Product Manager there. The Finale video seems unlikely to come out now, honestly. So, only the Dorico video is even possible to be a shill. Also, oh my goodness if he made YouTube videos to raise his personal profile, as opposed to all the other YouTubers who make videos anonymously?!?

tomrod 5y ago

Weird. Why does 4chan care about this?

Ygg2 5y ago
Same as always. For the lulz. Edit: Upon closer inspection, it seems cookiengineer had a vote for fork name. And Sneedacity won. After deleting that option 4chan went on a frenzy.
- dathinab 5y ago
  Yes, but also because someone instigated them to do so. Maybe the person just did so out of a random thought of finding it funny, or maybe because of personal dislikes or maybe because of other reason. Let's not forget people which go to extrems "for the lulz" tend also be easy to be used if you are lucky (i.e. just need to pitch the right idea to the right person in a "innocent" way, through it also comes at a considerable risk for you because you can never be sure who they end up harassing in the end).
  - DevKoala 5y ago
    Correct. The posters in 4chan are often manipulated by propaganda into these extremes behaviors. There is tons of threads in 4chan itself detailing how this happens.
    - teawrecks 5y ago
      Have any examples of said threads? Sounds interesting.
      - DevKoala 5y ago
        If I run into one re-paste of the threads that details these practices I will link it. The threads in 4chan disappear within days from their official archive. There is also a long term archive hosted by a third party, but apparently you cannot trust it. I honestly try to not visit the place, except when I want to pick up unknown crypto tokens that will get pumped. Like I said, the site is full of propaganda and sometimes it messes up with your perception of reality.

owlbynight 5y ago

There need to be harsh, harsh penalties for showing up uninvited to someone's house based on something that's happened or been said on the Internet. This is little kid shit and they either need to learn or have their toys taken away so they can't keep doing it.

shadowgovt 5y ago
Step 1 is catching them, and it's the nature of this sort of attack that doing so is deceptively hard. This kind of harassment is basically a flash-mob.
- jbluepolarbear 5y ago
  Pretty easy if they’re dumb enough to bring their phone with them.
  - SilverRed 5y ago
    I don't believe that phone based tracking is nearly as easy as people make it out to be. Just because the data exists, doesn't mean it is easy to process. Someone would have to spend tens of hours at least digging through data and unless its a serious crime, its just not worth it.
    - jbluepolarbear 5y ago
      Not tracking, identifying. I have a T-Mobile cell booster and it automatically connects to any compatible phone and will start using cell over WiFi. I could let the authorities know that and they can tell T-Mobile to fork over all the cell data for that booster.
    - swiley 5y ago
      Not only that but it can be hard to even get legal access to. I know someone who was shot and the cops weren't able to get access to the location data needed to catch the other guy.
    - 5y ago

risky_opinions 5y ago

Not posting this under my main account for reasons, but 4chan harassed me for developing software too. They're a bunch of anonymous assholes that have nothing better to do. Their commentary was degrading and demoralizing. They thankfully didn't find me in real life, but I pulled down all social media to avoid them. Edit: I want to say one more thing. Sometimes people defend 4chan and say stuff like "that's just how they are", "they don't really mean it", or "you have to understand their community". But places like 4chan do real, measurable harm to people. Just recently, Near/Byuu (SNES emulation) took their life after relentless doxxing and harassment. It wasn't 4chan, but these communities all harbor the same type of anonymity-enabled "for the lulz" harassment that brings out the worst in people.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
SilverRed 5y ago
I have to say I usually find the /g/ antics to be funny but they certainly cross the line from jokes to genuinely harassing someone to what the OP post is describing which is horrific.
numpad0 5y ago
Is there the wall of shame/hall of fame pages for 4chan-related doxxing incidents? Are those greentexts the only content they share? In 2000s there used to be external wikis for ops done in a local BBS in my country, and those used to summarize timelines and key informations that led to development. They were probably doing for their own fun but were also useful for defending side.
- SilverRed 5y ago
  I don't think there is anything organized but the stuff ends up in youtube "documentaries" and similar. Well known incidents like the reddit boston bomber incident get remembered and turned in to memes.
- deathlight 5y ago
  There was a young teen girl who was bullied into killing herself which she did by drinking bleach (a quite horrific way to die). I don't remember how much of a hand the 4channers had in the actual bullying but after her death she was relentlessly mocked and made into a snide and pitiless meme that has thankfully died out by now. There has been a long slew of young girls (and some boys) who have been tricked into sending explicit photos and have had their lives ruined over it in connection with 4chan and sites like it.

fito 5y ago

The kind of people who hang around 4chan is fucked up; I've always said that.

neom 5y ago
4chan is still a bit of a black box to me. I mean, I guess that's the point? I am pretty curious who these people are, mostly how old they are. I occasionally go rummage through it to see if it's still 4chan, and it always is. 4chan is one of the few places/things on the internet that makes me genuinely uncomfortable.
- SilverRed 5y ago
  4chan mostly is an interesting place because of how extremely toxic everyone is to each other but how little their insults mean to you because everyone is anon. The problem is when they start targeting real individuals and posting their personal info. It goes from jokes to real harm very quickly. But I'm not sure its really any worse than mainstream social media. Witch hunts start on all of the large platforms. WhatsApp and Facebook are responsible for countless literal witch hunts where the accused were killed or brutally beaten. 4chan seems tame in comparison.
  - neom 5y ago
    That's a good perspective, and a light I hadn't considered it in. The discomfort I have with 4chan is pretty similar to my discomfort with twitter, facebook, et autres. I guess with 4chan there is perceivably less accountability in the event of the harmful situations similar to your description, but I have zero real basis for that belief.
young_unixer 5y ago
People are fucked up, 4chan is just fucked up in the direction opposite from everyone else.
imtemplain 5y ago
oof this normoid discussion kills me

sillysaurusx 5y ago

Am I the only one who would just … walk outside and talk to the 4channers who showed up? Probably offer them a cig and a meme. I’ve been thinking of tweeting my home address, so this is a relevant concern. What do you even do when someone comes to your house, other than listen to them? It could also be true that they did something a lot less friendly, like “bang on the windows and run away laughing.” That would be unsettling to experience, particularly at night. This is a sad situation. Their Internet notoriety is the source of the problem, one way or another, and they felt like they couldn’t continue. I respect that; family is #1.

willhinsa 5y ago
It could very likely not be 4channers who show up at your house, but a SWAT team looking to take you out for holding someone hostage. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Wichita_swatting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Wichita_swatting
- applefangirl 5y ago
  Or more they may send pizza deliveries and subscribe you too every mailing list known to man. Don’t post your address. Use a PO BOX if you must.
  - sillysaurusx 5y ago
    Yeah, that's a good point. But I mean, on the other hand, free pizza. Actually, this is a good example. There have been ~two high profile swatting incidents resulting in death. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swatting#Injuries_or_deaths_due_to_swatting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swatting#Injuries_or_deaths_du... Dying in a car crash is a lot higher probability for most of us, but the question is whether publishing one's address would raise the probability significantly. I'm not sure it would. And it's hard to think of what else people can do, other than, as you say, subscribe you to a bunch of fetish mailing lists that I'd probably get a kick out of anyway.
    - 5y ago

obviouslynotme 5y ago

I pulled up the /g/ thread this dev linked and edited out the inevitable 4chan lingo. >TLDR for newpeople >audacity added telemetry >some webdev with no C/C++ experience named cookieperson created a fork to remove botnet >he hosted a vote for a new name of the project to avoid trademark issues >/g/ elected Seedacity >he freaked out, deleted the poll and created a new one >sneed studio is now leading > https://github.com/temporary-audacity/audacity/issues/33#issuecomment-874352189(go https://github.com/temporary-audacity/audacity/issues/33#iss... vote) >he freaked out and started deleting all msg about people complaining >/g/ anons forked and crated a new project Seedacity >it got on the AUR >some transgenger complained Sneed means Special Needs (aka a slang for retards) >AUR guys freaked out and deleted the AUR pkg My opinion is that this guy did a poll. 4chan did what it does and spammed it with votes for a name they knew the guy wouldn't like. He cancelled the poll and got in a slap fight with 4chan. Now they are making their own fork. >As the first people were literally arriving at my place of living, where they knocked on my doors and windows to scare us, I am hereby officially stepping down as a maintainer of this project. He is also claiming that people from 4chan are knocking on his doors and windows and has contacted the police.

salawat 5y ago
>Sneed is short for special needs, i.e. retards ...Okay. I could be totally wrong here, but I was fairly certain the Sneed thing came out of a Simpson's joke w.r.t. Sneed's Seed and Feed, formerly Chuck's. This would quite frankly be the first time I've heard the Sneed->"special needs"->retards connection, which to be frank, is nowhere near direct enough for what I know of memes with a Channic origin. Not that I'm an expert on the subject matter.
- TMWNN 5y ago
  >...Okay. I could be totally wrong here, but I was fairly certain the Sneed thing came out of a Simpson's joke w.r.t. Sneed's Seed and Feed, formerly Chuck's. Correct. Sneed is 100% from "Sneed's Seed and Feed / Formerly Chuck's".

personjerry 5y ago

The absurdity is that these trolls clearly found Audacity useful. But because of them not knowing when to stop, they're going to end up with a much shittier product, possibly having just killed the future of Audacity, without the support of real devs like this one. After all, what serious developer would continue working on this knowing this project is going to endanger their life? "Congratulations, you played yourself"

pjc50 5y ago
They're not interested in making the world better.
bingidingi 5y ago
they can’t play themselves because their only goal is chaotic harm
smoldesu 5y ago
I'm pretty sure most of them pirate Ableton Live.

throwaway9389 5y ago

OK, so who knows of any completely anonymous alternatives to Github? Something blockchain based perhaps?

SilverRed 5y ago
You can use github anon. Like everything, its a pain in the ass and you have to carefully analyze everything you do online to avoid linking personalities.
Solnezio 5y ago
what? Just use a different username and change the email you use in the commits to the github email (@users.noreply.github.com)... (should be "git config --global user.email 12345+foobar@users.noreply.github.com")
- throwaway9389 5y ago
  Sure, like another comment said though it is easy to mess up and reveal your identity for all commits in one swoop. I know there is GitMask [1] but it's not open source or decentralized. https://www.gitmask.com/ https://www.gitmask.com/
  - E39M5S62 5y ago
    It looks like it's open source to me - https://github.com/AnalogJ/gitmask https://github.com/AnalogJ/gitmask

carrolldunham 5y ago

I think these topics keep getting flagged because there's no evidence that any of this is actually happening.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

smoldesu 5y ago

All I'll say is that Cookie also provoked the trolls by changing his Github bio to some of their comments [0]. There's no right side here, but if you're ever put in a position where the majority of your users disagree with the way you're handling a project, it's probably best to step down rather than confronting them. That kind of democracy is what keeps open source development viable. [0] https://archive.is/ZqK2T https://archive.is/ZqK2T

pseudalopex 5y ago
What makes you think they would have stopped the ongoing harassment if the maintainer just hadn't quoted them? Yielding to 4chan trolls could be prudent. It isn't democracy.

yissp 5y ago

It's like the Boaty McBoatface debacle. Lesson learned, don't ask the internet to name things.

bingidingi 5y ago

what can be done about these chan sites? can they be further deplatformed or are they all hosted in safe havens now? just last week I was reading about how the bsnes creator was driven to suicide

kurofune 5y ago

>This site is the most disgusting place in the whole world, and I think all the people that are active in /g/ should get put in jail and be ashamed of themselves for making the world a worse place than it already is. >They are cyber terrorists, not cringe cancel kiddos. I sympathize with his case but this post seems a delusional, hyperbolic rant that will make his harassers target him with renewed fervor. They are trying to get on his nerves, he should go to the police and stop seething on the internet cause he's giving them plenty of what they really want.

emerged 5y ago
Seriously I don’t know how people fail to realize they feed off this type of response. It’s like trying to fight a vampire by throwing your blood at them.
- edly 5y ago
  If you have suggestions, I'd love to hear them. Your logic is living proof that we still don't take the very real harm 4chan can do seriously. We laughed at "POOL'S CLOSED" and cheered with Operation Payback because it was fun, but now that 4chan is long dead and what remains is this. If you want examples other than 4chan, look around. The state of several first-world countries (you probably live in one of them) is the result of threat ignorance.
  - areeh 5y ago
    The grandparent they are agreeing with: "They are trying to get on his nerves, he should go to the police and stop seething on the internet cause he's giving them plenty of what they really want." seems to suggest trying to make repercussions happen without feeding a harasser with reactions. That doesn't seem to be ignoring the threat, just trying to deal with it more effectively.
szszrk 5y ago
So people should just shut up and get beaten, but less? That's exactly what is wrong with "our" attitude and he is right on this one.

ezoe 5y ago

So, the moral of the story is, to develop a free software, avoid living in a place where 4chan thugs can physically harass you. So basically, avoid English speaking countries. Or get enough capital to hire the armed security who guard your house 24 hours a day.

Erwin 5y ago
He seems to live in Germany, near Heidelberg (as the German federal police, BKA, of Heidelberg are investigating). The town has a large university, and used to have one of the largest US Military presences in Germany though I think they've all withdrawn now.

imtemplain 5y ago

Why are redditors swindled so easily? The author's story keeps changing constantly and there are dozens of clues that show that the author is trolling and making a point on how easy it is to claim victimhood nowadays.

failwhaleshark 5y ago

I don't understand how noise from worthless losers on "social" media translates into a threat to life. I just shrug and keep doing what I'm doing. Their hell is their lives. I don't need to get involved.

seszett 5y ago
Well, the person says people showed up with knives at their home and physically harmed them. I'd say this qualifies as a threat to life, and shrugging is unlikely to work in this situation.
- failwhaleshark 5y ago
  If it is true, then they were stupid by making themselves a victim by putting too much information online and weren't equipped to handle themselves. Apropos, Mao did have a saying that is inconveniently true: Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun If you cannot defend your person, then you cannot defend your speech. 1. Don't put personal information online. 2. Always be able to physically defend yourself. The police can't be everywhere and can't help you in the 5-45 seconds a situation comes and goes. Knives, OC pepper spray, and/or guns.. or be a defenseless victim/statistic. 3. Stand-up to insecure bullies. Ignore narcissists.
  - seszett 5y ago
    It's pretty simplistic to just call a victim stupid because they didn't hide their whole life in the case that someone in the future might use information to attack them. It's also absurd to ask a regular person living in a country like Germany to be ready at all times to defend themselves using knives or guns.
    - failwhaleshark 5y ago
      Enough with the victimology tropes of "all victims are pure, helpless angels beyond reproach and responsibility." > It's pretty simplistic to just call a victim stupid People should be held accountable when they don't take reasonable measures to ensure their own security. You don't post your social security number, bank password, address, or birthdate online. You don't leave your car running with the keys in the ignition. You don't leave valuables in plain sight in a car. Such would be stupid vulnerabilities they created and that would be their own fault. > It's also absurd to ask a regular person living in a country like Germany to be ready at all times to defend themselves using knives or guns. It doesn't matter who or where you are, it's always personal responsibility. When the balloon goes up, you're on your own. The police cannot help you in the 5 to 45 seconds that it's over. So you're either prepared (internal locus-of-control), or it sucks to be you (external locus-of-control ... praying, tea leaves, wishing, utopian fantasies). "This is this." - https://youtu.be/6J1Blggu5IU https://youtu.be/6J1Blggu5IU

Thorentis 5y ago

Conspiracy: Muse Group posted some anonymous posts on 4chan, hoping this type of response would result, in order to stop the fork from succeeding.

sschueller 5y ago

Why is this post flagged? I don't see if violating HN guidelines.