7 ms·

Why are the majority of the comments here blaming the victim? This is the death if a person who tried to stand against an overwhelming force. To try and stand

• socceroos 12y ago
  I feel so sorry for this woman! I'm quite unfamiliar with the specifics of the whole Mexican cartel situation, but has there been any international aid or effort to help eradicate this?
  • dannypgh 12y ago
    The movement to legalize drugs works to eradicate making this type of organized violence so profitable.
  • dannypgh 12y ago
    The movement to legalize drugs works to eradicate making this type of organized violence so profitable.
    • eksith 12y ago
      Sadly, they will switch to alternate means of sustenance. Many criminals already have E.G. Money laundering, kidnapping, murder for hire etc... The time to legalize was before it was possible for drug producers to purchase an entire country and impose tyranny upon its citizens. Those already in control will now do anything possible to maintain their profit streams.
      • dllthomas 12y ago
        Likely, but that doesn't mean it's not a step in the right direction. If those "alternate means of sustenance" were lower risk or more profitable, they would be doing it now. Cutting off access to this profit stream will at least slow the rate at which they accumulate power. That doesn't make anything easy, but it stops making it more difficult.
  • dannypgh 12y ago
    The movement to legalize drugs works to eradicate making this type of organized violence so profitable.
• wyager 12y ago
  >Why are the majority of the comments here blaming the victim? I am tired of this sentiment. It is not necessarily incorrect to ascribe partial blame to someone just because they got the short end of the stick in some situation. Being a victim does not automatically preclude one from being at fault. For example, if I jump off a cliff without a parachute, it is clearly reasonable to blame me despite the fact that I am definitively a victim of the situation. In this case, it would be reasonable to ascribe some level of blame to both parties; we ascribe blame to the cartel for murdering people (and clearly most of the blame falls on them), and we also ascribe some measure of blame to the victim for failing to take proper precautions. This is not an affront to the victim's character or a trivialization of their death; it is a recognition of the fact that, with some more preparation, the situation could have turned out much better for the victim. It is important to address these failures so that we might learn from them in the future. Edit: Downvoters, please comment. I am curious what you think about this. In particular, I am curious why it is never appropriate to ascribe blame to a victim of any sort.
  • judk 12y ago
    And much of the blame lies with you and I for not shouldering some of the risk and uniting with her to be a stronger large force against the murderers.
    • wyager 12y ago
      > much of the blame lies with you and I for not shouldering some of the risk and uniting with her How do you figure?
    • AnthonyMouse 12y ago
      > And much of the blame lies with you and I for not shouldering some of the risk and uniting with her to be a stronger large force against the murderers. Someone who can prevent their own misfortune by taking known steps yet doesn't take them is exhibiting behavior deserving of criticism. Finding someone else to blame doesn't change that, so what point are you trying to make by finding even more people to blame?
• legacyfruit 12y ago
  In the epilogue one of his books (maybe "the drowned and the saved"?), Auschwitz survivor Primo Levi describes giving a talk to a group of schoolchildren. One boy asked him to describe the layout of the camp, and then described how he would have escaped if he had been in Auschwitz. Nothing Primo Levi could say would convince the boy that escape was impossible. Now I'm not saying that it was impossible for this citizen journalist to hide her identity, but the comments strike me as having a similar tone. People are simply assuming that her capture and death was preventable, because it is psychologically difficult to face the alternative. Namely, that only by accepting personal risk, was this woman able to stand up to the cartels. Even if the technology to protect her identity existed, maybe a person in this woman's situation would be very unlikely to know about it. Of constructive suggestions are great, although I'm not qualified to judge their technical merit.
  • selimthegrim 12y ago
    Snowden made this point at HOPE X - crypto is not going to obviate having some stones.
    • afarrell 12y ago
      Or spine of steel.
    • jacquesm 12y ago
      And even Snowden is regularly vilified (right here on HN for that matter) for being a coward because he 'ran away instead of facing the consequences'.
      • psykovsky 12y ago
        Oh, he's facing the consequences... maybe not the consequences that certain groups would want him to face, but consequences nonetheless.
  • tn13 12y ago
    It seems that you have reached the heart of the problem. Most of us are miles away from that sort of threat. When the word is out that people are out there looking to murder you, it is immensely stressful. You cant eat or sleep. If I was in her place I would have fled to a different city taking a few days off from work or simply given up the activism to reduce it to a level where the mob would not have bothered that much. Note: Those who think that she could have managed to conceal her identity, why dont you take her work forward ? Whatever she did you too could do it from safety of USA. (Rhetorical challenge of course).
• jfoster 12y ago
  Victim-blaming is bad, but there is also a need for discussion of precautions that might have prevented victims from becoming victims in the first place. I think the answer lies in the tone that is used, as well as acknowledgement that sometimes precautions only become clear after the fact, and that victims who don't choose to take all precautions they could (for whatever reason) are still victims who should not be victims. For example, this lady made what (I think is) a reasonable assumption that a pseudonym was a good enough way of protecting her identity. It wasn't a bad assumption, but because of what happened to her, we should discuss additional precautions so that people like her might fare better in future. Another thing to consider in this discussion is that sometimes people like this lady know that they are taking a big risk, may end up murdered, but bravely proceed to take their actions anyway.
• andsosayallofus 12y ago
  Cognitive dissonance, just-world fallacy and hammers and nails. It's difficult to read a story a soul-crushingly horrible as this and just wallow in the hopeless unjustness of it all. Coping mechanisms kick in. To preserve the comforting world view that people are in charge of their destiny, tragedy is avoidable and the world makes some sense it becomes necessary to demonstrate that the outcome was predictable and avoidable. That the victim failed themselves. With HNs user base that manifests as a critique of information security practices.
  • wyager 12y ago
    >Cognitive dissonance, Please elaborate on this. >just-world fallacy I don't see how anyone here is subscribing to this fallacy. No one thinks the victim's actions warranted her fate. >hammers and nails Crypto would clearly have been more useful in this situation. Sometimes you really do have to hammer in some nails.
• walterobm 12y ago
  This is not about cybersecurity or encryption. This is about a country that has been poisoned by the brutality of drug cartels for decades. While ISIS terrorizes Iraq and Syria. Living in fear has become the norm for Mexico. But cartels cannot be bombed by drones and Mexico cannot be occupied by foreign forces. There are only two choices for those living in Mexico: either flee to the U.S. or accept living in a country where drug cartels yield more power than the government.
  • judk 12y ago
    Why can't mexico be occupied by foreign forces? Because there isn't natural resources for the liberators to pay themselves with?
    • huherto 12y ago
      It is not the case for Mexico. Mexico has plenty of oil reserves. But, the war between cartels is a different phenomena. Not everything revolves around oil.
    • lazaroclapp 12y ago
      We have quite an amount of oil. But that oil will continue to be sold to the U.S. (and others) regardless of what happens with the cartels or to the people of Mexico (Short of a revolution, I suppose). In fact, in recent years, reforms have been passed to make it easier for foreign companies to get involved in oil extraction in Mexico. Given that, there is very little incentive to send an occupation force in order to secure resources. The drug cartels do not currently threaten or terrorize other countries, just the people living in Mexico, so arguments about national security (valid or not) also do not apply. Besides, as terrible as things are right now, does anyone believe having an armed occupation force from another country would be better for the average person living in Mexico? Has that ever turned out well in recent memory? It would just be: 'hey, you know how you get shootings, executions and beheadings? Have some of them drone strikes as well!". I am not saying international pressure cannot be used to help (there is some pressure coming from the European Union, rather the USA, and it has arguably had some impact in the actions of the Mexican government, at least when coupled with internal pressures). Sending an army, however, is probably the last kind of help Mexico needs right now...
• xerophyte12932 12y ago
  >you mock her for not using tor. Ok that doesn't make sense to me. Her murderers weren't Cyber-security experts who tracked her down. They were a group of thugs who kidnapped her, along with other medical personnel. Only after they had her in their clutches did they realize who they had. She was probably going to die anyway, this way the cartel knew who they were killing. So using tor or whatever would only have the minimal effect on her situation
• tzs 12y ago
  > Why are the majority of the comments here blaming the victim? There were few if any comments here blaming the victim at the time you posted, so I must assume it is the comments discussing proper operational security for one in her position that you are misidentifying as blaming the victim. It's important that security failures like this be discussed and analyzed so that others who may find themselves in a similar situation can learn from them so as to be able to fight the bad guys without getting killed. > If you seriously think that lack of cybersecurity is the problem then at least use this to highlight the lack of good easy to use security software Security software, or lack thereof, is probably not the most important thing in this kind of operation. Physical security is more important, namely making sure the bad guys do not get access to the computer you conduct your social media operations from or that you use for communications with your fellow activists. Doing any of your activism from your cell phone, such as accessing your social media from it, is very risky. It means that if the bad guys have some reason to detain you unrelated to your activism they might find out your secret. In many ways, the anti-cartel activists are in a position similar to that of those who are in an underground resistance in a conquered nation, such as the French resistance in WWII. Success in that situation generally involves maintaining a dual life, with the public side being something innocuous and non-threatening to the bad guys, and the private, resistance side kept very separate.
• nailer 12y ago
  Accusing people discussing security of 'victim blaming' is both incorrect and massively unfair. Nobody discussing security endorses murder. Is lack of cyber security 'the' problem? No, it's one problem of many for people taking on cartels. Another is lack of resources for the Mexican government. Do I think the the Mexican government not having enough resources is the cause of the issue? Obviously not. Nobody is saying those things are the cause of the issue, and you're probably smart enough to know that - instead, you've gone on to attack people for attention instead. Flagged.