6 ms·
Will you demand compensation from your local authorities because they did not prevent you walking into a dark alley?
by dreen 14y ago
Will you demand compensation from your local authorities because they did not prevent you walking into a dark alley?
- burntsushi 14y agoI'll re-quote the first sentence of my post: > I agree that MtGox shouldn't be doing any kind of refunding in this case. You didn't respond to my central point: blaming the victim.
- Karunamon 14y ago>You didn't respond to my central point: blaming the victim. Your central point is without merit. The "victim" is a victim, not of MtGox, but their own poor decisions.
- dragonwriter 14y ago> Your central point is without merit. The "victim" is a victim, not of MtGox, but their own poor decisions. Their decisions may have made themselves vulnerable to the attack, but (based on the information provided) they are a victim of a third-party that is neither the MtGox nor themselves -- that is, the people that actually used the malware to steal the BTC.
- burntsushi 14y agoI'm not talking about MtGox. The aggressor in this case is the phisher, and the victim is the OP.
- im3w1l 14y agoI want to discuss this in more detail as I see this argument come up now and then. I think we first have to discuss the word blame. What do you actually mean by "blame"? Merriam-Webster: >1 to find fault with : censure <the right to praise or blame a literary work> >2 a : to hold responsible <they blame me for everything> > b : to place responsibility for <blames it on me> Do you agree with this? For the sake of the argument I will assume yes. According to this definition did dreen blame the victim? Yes. dreen claims that the victim acted wrong: Victim should not have ran the applet. Using my powers of intuition [i.e. shout if I am wrong] I assert that dreen considers the victim responsible for securing his bitcoins. A responsibility the victim failed. Hence blame. Now using further powers of intuition, I believe that you, burntsushi, think that blaming the victim is inherently wrong. Interpreted strictly that means that the behaviour of a victim is always flawless, and and a victim always lacks responsibility for bad outcomes. This is in my mind a quite ridiculous view, so I don't think this is what you mean. So what DO you mean? I will consider two possible guesses and discuss them. >The thief acted wrong. Stealing the coins was immoral. -I think we can all agree with this statement. Hence no need to state "you are blaming the victim" so insistently. >But then you shouldn't say "your own fault entirely" -Maybe you are right. Could be argued that everyone gets this anyway. Unsure. >We should pity, not scorn the victim I probably, maybe agree with this. Clearly the victim is in crappy situation and has my sympathies. On the other hand, scorn discourages others from following his example, which could be useful.
- burntsushi 14y ago> Stealing the coins was immoral. -I think we can all agree with this statement. Yes. This is my main point. It's easy to agree with in hindsight. I was insistent because it seemed like the parent completely forgot that there were more than two parties involved in this affair: the OP, MtGox and the phisher. There is a certain attitude among folks that some people who don't properly secure themselves somehow "deserve" what they get. I vehemently disagree with this sentiment, and it is in essence what I was trying to combat. > We should pity, not scorn the victim I probably, maybe agree with this. I am all for calling out the victim's poor security practices as stupid, senseless, etc. But it's another thing entirely to blame the victim for someone stealing from them.
- dreen 14y agoBlaming the victim wasn't my central point, asking for compensation was. Obviously the real, criminal sort of responsibility is on the criminals who perpetrated this, and I very much pity him, just as much as I pity anyone who got mugged. But I still think the victim here shares in the responsibility, because he wasn't careful enough. We're not living in a careless world and we never will.