Controversy Over Violet Blue's Harm Reduction Talk

Weezul writes "The Ada Initiative's Valerie Aurora got Violet Blue's Hackers As A High-Risk Population (29c3 abstract) talk on harm reduction methodology pulled from the Security BSides meeting in San Francisco by claiming it contained rape triggers [ed note: you might not want to visit the main page of the weblog as it contains a few pictures that might be considered NSFW in more conservative places]. It's frankly asinine to object to work around hacker ethics as 'off topic' at such broad hacker conference. Is Appelbaum's 29c3 keynote 'off topic' for asking hackers to work for the 'good guys' rather than military, police, their contractors, Facebook, etc.? Yes, obviously harm reduction is a psychological hack that need not involve a computer, but this holds for 'social engineering' as well. It's simply that hacking isn't nearly as specialized or inaccessible as say theoretical physics. Worse, there is no shortage of terrible technology laws like the CFAA, DMCA, etc. that exist partially because early hackers failed to communicate an ethics that seemed coherent and reasoned to outsiders." The Ada Initiative responds that such talks do more harm than good. It could also be argued that "not working for the bad guys" type talks aren't off-topic, since the hacker community has traditionally cared about things like information freedom.

Comments

Re:What?

[drinkypoo]

By that line of logic, we can't blame fundamentalist groups for pressuring stores into not selling what they don't like with boycotts, or for getting people fined by harassing the FCC.

That's right, you can't blame them. You can attack them on that basis, though, and I suggest that you do. You have to blame the decision-makers. They must be held accountable. That's what's wrong with the fucking world today, there I said it but frankly, I think this time it's true. It's about accountability. Some people make the world better and some people make it worse and we need to reward the former and hold the latter accountable.

Don't be such a quisling, Mr. Poo.

I wish I could remember the login credentials for my five-digit UID, so that I could automatically win dick-sucking contests, too. That's the only reason I can imagine why your insults win you admiration while mine win me downmods.

We blame Valerie Aurora for being a censoring anti-feminist hypocrite.
We blame The Ada Initiative for not immediately firing Valerie Aurora and repudiating her actions.
And we blame the Security BSides people for being spineless.

Great, blame away. But the only people you can blame for a decision are the people who made the decision, because without that there's no such thing as free will and none of us are ever responsible for our actions. As far as I'm concerned, we have no choice but to act as though free will exists whether we believe in it or not.