Slashdot Mirror


Chelsea Manning Archivist Excludes Hacktivist Jailed By Carmen Ortiz From Aaron Swartz Day (huffingtonpost.com)

New submitter Danngggg writes: As you may recall from Slashdot last year, alleged Anonymous hacktivist Martin Gottesfeld has been imprisoned without bail since federal agents arrested him on board a Disney Cruise ship in February of 2016 to face hacking charges brought by controversial former U.S. attorney Carmen Ortiz. Though he's the only activist after Aaron Swartz to face a felony CFAA indictment from Ortiz, apparently Aaron Swartz Day organizer and Chelsea Manning archivist Lisa Rein don't want to include Gottesfeld in the festivities this year. So, he has taken to Huffington Post to argue that his story should be told this November 4th and, perhaps with a sense of irony, to publish some potentially scandalous Signal messages allegedly sent by Rein to his wife revealing what seems to be disdain for hacking in general and Anonymous in particular. Indeed, Rein seems to borrow from the movie Mean Girls in her contemptuous rejection of Mrs. Gottesfeld's appeals on behalf of her embattled husband. What does the Slashdot crowd have to say about whether Gottesfeld's story belongs at Aaron Swartz Day as well as Rein's alleged attitude towards his significant other?

"One might think that my voice would be welcomed at Aaron Swartz Day given all that the late internet/freedom of information activist and I share in common," writes Gottesfeld. "For starters, we were both indicted under the same controversial federal law, the CFAA, by the same Boston U.S. Attorney's Office and indeed under the tenure of the same notorious U.S. Attorney, Carmen Ortiz. Both of us have been persecuted for doing the moral thing; Aaron for trying to make taxpayer-funded research available to the general public and me for stopping the torture of an innocent child."

53 of 124 comments (clear)

  1. Who the hell are these people? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The summary is awful. It drops all of these vague names, without explaining who any of these people are, what they've done, and why they're relevant. I'm not going to google all of these names. The summary should tell us who they are.

    1. Re:Who the hell are these people? by fredrated · · Score: 1, Funny

      ^ mental illness spotted.

    2. Re:Who the hell are these people? by Luthair · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Ditto, Googling Martin Gottesfield suggests he arranged a DDoS of a hospital "for protest" which affected their ability to see patients and perform research. Pretty big difference from Aaron Swartz was involved in.

    3. Re:Who the hell are these people? by schnell · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Here would be a good few places for a Slashdot "editor" to start:

      • What is "Aaron Swartz Day?" I have heard of Aaron Swartz but I've never heard of his "day" before. What is it? I even clicked through to the website and still can't figure out what it is.
      • What is a "Chelsea Manning Archivist?"
      • Why do they have a vote on who is included in "Aaron Swartz Day?"
      • I see who indicted him and that they are clearly "controversial" and "notorious," but why? What got him in trouble? Did he do the same thing as Chelsea Manning? Does it benefit the general public in the same way?
      • Is this a big deal? Is somebody being excluded from a major event that has wide-ranging impacts or is this someone just wanting to glom onto an event celebrating someone else? Or is it even an event that anyone cares about?
      • Can someone explain the "torture of an innocent child" thing? Did he actually use a computer to stop a child from being tortured? There's no context given here.
      • "Mean Girls?" Why? What?
      • Also, WHAAAAAAAAAT?
      --
      "95% of all Slashdot .sig quotes are incorrect or completely fabricated." -Benjamin Franklin
    4. Re:Who the hell are these people? by stephanruby · · Score: 4, Informative

      Aaron Swartz was a guy who made digital scientific journals accessible to the public by routing the requests through his University. Aaron Swartz was then arrested and told by a prosecutor that he was going to spend the rest of his life in prison thanks to a new crazy hacking law that had been recently enacted. So then Aaron Swartz killed himself a few days afterward.

      Chelsea Manning (formerly Bradly Manning, hopefully, you know who that is) was pardoned by President Obama as one of his last act in office. Chelsea and some other person decided to create a day to celebrate the sacrifice and the injustice that occurred to Aaron Swartz. To my knowledge, there is no trademark on Aaron Swartz. "Aaron Swartz Day" is just a construct. Anybody is free to create their own day and call it whatever they want. But Chelsea Manning may have an easier time promoting that day because she's already pretty famous (or infamous) with the community that thinks that Aaron Swartz was treated unfairly.

      Then there is this guy, Gottesfeld, who organized and led a Denial Of Service attack with 4chan against the external network of a Boston hospital during one of its major fundraising drive. His reasoning was that the critical infrastructure would be on an internal network and wouldn't be affected by a Denial of Service attack, but that the fundraising efforts of the hospital would get stalled because of that and that perhaps, the Boston hospital would bow to his pressure, stop the psychological treatment of a child and return her to her parents.

      The reason he hated the hospital in question is because with the help of a judge, the hospital forcefully removed a sick child, Justina Pelletier, from her parents and the hospital thought that the parents were (the mother especially was) inducing the symptoms in the child. For a more neutral opinion on that original case, please see this: http://www.harpocratesspeaks.c...

    5. Re:Who the hell are these people? by stephanruby · · Score: 2

      Oops, I hit the submit button prematurely. Hopefully, I was able to explain the gist of the story.

      Basically, I am with Chelsea Manning on that one because I have no idea if Gottesfeld is a hero or not. Part of the problem is that the hospital can't release any information about the child in question because of HIPAA restrictions and the parents are free to tell their side of the story without the hospital being able to defend itself.

      In essence, that's why there was a gag order by the judge in the first place. It was to prevent the parents from speaking out since the hospital wouldn't be able to defend itself against their charges.

    6. Re:Who the hell are these people? by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 1

      The problem for Gottesfeld is that the headline “Hacked A Children’s Hospital” has such terrible optics that most people will not read past it to the details of the story. This is undoubtedly why the Swartz Day organizers didn’t want to include him in the observance.

    7. Re:Who the hell are these people? by Dare+nMc · · Score: 1

      > Chelsea Manning was pardoned by President Obama

      Her sentence was commuted by Obama, big difference from a pardon.

    8. Re:Who the hell are these people? by I'm+New+Around+Here · · Score: 1

      Oh come on moderators, it was a joke.

      --
      If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
    9. Re:Who the hell are these people? by Dog-Cow · · Score: 1, Informative

      Its sentence.

    10. Re:Who the hell are these people? by stephanruby · · Score: 1

      Thanks. My mistake.

    11. Re:Who the hell are these people? by stephanruby · · Score: 1

      Yes, that's it. Taking someone's child away is taboo (even if you say you know better than the parents and that's why you're taking that child away) and there was a knee-jerk reaction against that. But attacking a hospital is also taboo (even if the guy assumed it wouldn't cause any harm, I don't think he could have known that for sure) and there was a knee-jerk counter-reaction against his reaction.

      If you ask me, he should have approached the pro-Aaron Schwartz community by asking for due process, not necessarily freedom. "Due process" is something that a number of people would be willing to back, even if no one thinks that he is as harmless as Aaron Schwartz was.

      Of course, his girlfriend should continue to call him a hero when she's lobbying Fox News, conservative radio, etc. because President Trump might just be crazy enough to take his side and get him released. But he/she/she really does need to frame his argument differently depending on who they're expecting the help from.

  2. What a confusing summary! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    I've read the summary several times, and I have no idea what it's about. It's very muddled and all over the place.

    1. Re:What a confusing summary! by Desler · · Score: 1

      Some guy is attention whoring that he doesn’t get special mention on a day meant to celebrate someone else.

    2. Re: What a confusing summary! by hawkeyeMI · · Score: 2

      I'm glad it wasn't just me. I had to reread the title 3x before I had a vague idea what the hell it was even trying to say.

      --
      Error 404 - Sig Not Found
    3. Re:What a confusing summary! by slashrio · · Score: 1

      And he is right if other people in comparable situations will be mentioned as well.

      --
      "Trump!!", the new Godwin.
    4. Re:What a confusing summary! by Desler · · Score: 1

      No he’s not. He’s not owed being mentioned at all.

    5. Re:What a confusing summary! by Desler · · Score: 1

      Neither does Aaron Swartz

      Except the event is about Aaron Swartz not this attention whore trying to glom onto Aaron’s notoriety.

    6. Re:What a confusing summary! by sheramil · · Score: 1

      Defending the torture of children at TLA blacksites means you are worth mentioning Desler, but for the wrong reasons. Pray that your employer does not find out your personal feelings towards torture.

      Unless you work for, say, the DMV.

  3. Why doesn't Lisa Rein care? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Maybe because Gottesfield is trying to latch on to somebody else's publicity.

  4. She's evil . . . by PolygamousRanchKid+ · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Let's be frank. Carmen Ortiz is evil. I mean, like, Uzbek Evil.

    She is a frightening Clintonista who should have no contact with any government agencies.

    The Democratic Party will re-emerge . . . after they purge the Clintonistas who are still ruling.

    It will be a pleasant experience to see the Democrats return to being a party for the common people, and rethink their base values.

    Bernie Sanders gave them a kick, but it is up to them to follow through.

    --
    Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
    1. Re:She's evil . . . by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Confirmation troll, a troll pretending to be an opposing viewpoint while actually emphasizing the main points troll #1 wants to make.

      Reminds me of @TEN_GOP, a fake Russian troll group pretending to be the Tennessee GOP trying to divide Americans by polarizing them to the extremes. Comments from @TEN_GOP were often followed by counter comments that expressed disgust while actually saying pretty much the same stuff in a different way.

      https://www.buzzfeed.com/kevincollier/americans-helped-spread-an-alleged-russian-gop-accounts?utm_term=.ad3vJ2pwO#.rpd37ZJ5v

      Russia is a rogue state and needs regime change. Putin is out of control.

    2. Re:She's evil . . . by Hal_Porter · · Score: 2

      It will be a pleasant experience to see the Democrats return to being a party for the common people, and rethink their base values.

      If you look at the Labour Party in the UK after the Blairites got purged it was taken over by identitarian types who think the common people are sexist racists oppressors who need to be replaced with morally pure third worlders who'll vote for them. And old school Marxists like Corbyn.

      I could see something similar happening to the Democrats in the US.

      --
      echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
    3. Re:She's evil . . . by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 1

      Not gonna happen. They purged the Berniebots from their party. It's all corporate interests now, with a heaping helping of identity politics. Instead of learning from the Trump election, they've blamed it all on the dirty foreigners and are not going to make any changes. They still deplore the working class and wish to replace them with a flood of immigrants, legal or illegal.

      --
      Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
  5. Re:You Misspelled "Bradley" by slashrio · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Bradley Manning was a hero, exposing the war crimes of the war criminals in Washington DC.
    So yes, it matters what Chelsea thinks.
    And your opinion is totally irrelevant.

    --
    "Trump!!", the new Godwin.
  6. Ah, from HuffPost... by CharlesAKAChuck · · Score: 1

    ...which automatically means "Nothing here but whining." How the hell did this make it onto the front page?

  7. So, organize his own rememberance day by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    A title with 5 different people???

    #1 Chelsea Manning
    #2 [Unnamed] Archivist
    #3 [Unnamed] Hacktivist
    #4 Carmen Ortiz
    #5 Aaron Swartz

    And the primary actor in this story isn't named, its person #2!!

    So the headline should read: "Lisa Rein does not include Martin Gottesfeld for a remembrance day she's organizing".

    And so what? So why doesn't he organize his own remembrance day? Instead of trying to attach his name to Rein's Aaron day?? At least that way the Slashdot headline would be simpler! Nothing stopping him doing his own Aaron remembrance day, putting his own speeches out on Twitter or whatever.

  8. wha? by cascadingstylesheet · · Score: 4, Funny

    The headline is utter word salad.

    I guess Slashdot has finally gone with the AI story generation for real.

    1. Re:wha? by mishehu · · Score: 1

      I was going to go with "All green of skin... 800 centuries ago, their bodily fluids include the birth of half-breeds. For the fundamental truth self-determination of the cosmos, for dark is the suede that mows like a harvest.", if you ACK ACK my ACK ACK.

  9. Related Troll by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    "Russia organized 2 sides of a Texas protest and encouraged 'both sides to battle in the streets"
    http://www.businessinsider.com/russia-trolls-senate-intelligence-committee-hearing-2017-11

    "Russian actors organized both anti-Islam and pro-Islam protests in the same location at the same time on May 21, 2016, using separate Facebook pages operated from a so-called troll farm in St. Petersburg, the Senate Intelligence Committee disclosed on Wednesday."

    "A Facebook page named Heart of Texas, whose link to Russia was first reported by Business Insider, organized a rally at noon on May 21 at the Islamic Da'wah Center in Houston to "Stop Islamization of Texas." The account paid to promote the event, which was viewed by about 12,000 people, said the committee's chairman, Sen. Richard Burr. Another Russia-linked account, United Muslims of America, organized a counterprotest — a "Save Islamic Knowledge" rally."

    It's always obvious how you trolls troll your own troll comments.

  10. Re:Pronouns and subject order.. by retchdog · · Score: 1

    he probably dropped out because he thought it was jewish cultural marxist indoctrination.

    --
    "They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
  11. Re:You Misspelled "Bradley" by ScentCone · · Score: 2, Insightful

    No, Manning wasn't a hero. He was a guy who said he was unhappy at his chosen career, and was in drama-queen mode. In order to scratch that drama itch, he casually spread around untold thousands of classified documents without any critical thought or any ethical attempt to point out any sort of incorrect behavior. He was simply dumping sensitive information for the sake of personal attention, and he didn't care or even know what he was dishing out. Moron, traitor, liar, etc ... not hero, at all.

    --
    Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
  12. Re:You Misspelled "Bradley" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    He did not expose any war crimes. He just showed the ignorant masses that people get killed in war. War is legalized murder and wide scale property destruction. The only thing that matters to the soldiers is killing their enemies before they kill you by any means necessary so you can go home. Soldiers don't start wars they are just the ones tasked to carry out the orders of those who actually start the war. The only "war crime" I can think of is the US politicians making the military fight with one hand tied behind their backs. The US has the most expensive and powerful military on the planet and the feckless politicians is it's biggest enemy. If you want to win a war you need to keep destroying the enemy until they surrender unconditionally. Just look at what happened to Japan and Germany.

  13. Re: You Misspelled "Bradley" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Opinions differ. If you believe you hold the corner on truth and most others would agree with your complete condemnation; you have given up on critical thinking.

  14. Re:You Misspelled "Bradley" by slashrio · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Crime 1:
    The US politicians had sent their army to Iraq based on a pack of lies, and they knew it.

    Crime 2:
    Shooting journalists at war time.

    Crime 3:
    Shooting at people helping the wounded.

    Patriotic & Heroic:
    Exposing crimes 2 & 3.

    --
    "Trump!!", the new Godwin.
  15. Re:You Misspelled "Bradley" by slashrio · · Score: 1

    His sexual orientation problem and his problem with the military (based on political lies) misbehaving are two separate, independent things.

    --
    "Trump!!", the new Godwin.
  16. Re:You Misspelled "Bradley" by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

    He did not expose any war crimes.

    False. Any other lies you want debunked?

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  17. I Might've Cared by RobotRunAmok · · Score: 3, Insightful

    ...but the summary is incomprehensible.

  18. Re:You Misspelled "Bradley" by 91degrees · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Wikileaks exposed the war crimes. Chelsea (then Bradley) Manning just leaked a load of information with no idea what was included.

    I don't care what she thinks. Doing the right thing doesn't count for much if you do it my accident.

  19. Subject-verb agreement by Hognoxious · · Score: 2

    Chelsea Manning archivist Lisa Rein don't want to include Gottesfeld

    I doesn't even know who her are.

    --
    Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
  20. Background: Justina Pelletier medical dispute by spth · · Score: 5, Informative

    Apparently, there is a sick girl (Justina Pelletier, J). She got differnet diagnoyses from Tufts University School of Medicine (T), and Boston Children's Hospital (B).
    Parents wanted to have her treated according to diagnosis from T, but Massachusetts Department of Children and Families requested removing her from her parents custody and have her treated according to diagnosis from B. The case went to court, first ruling agreed with the request, second ruling a year later didn't. So J got separated from her parentes and trated according to diagnosis from B for a year, then was with her parents again (and, I assume treated according to diagnosis from T).
    A lot of people apparently had strong opinions on this matter, including Martin Gottesfeld.

    Martin Gottesfeld did a DDOS attack on the website of B during an online donation drive. He was initally prosecuted for it by Carmen Ortiz' office, which also prosecuted Aaron Swartz. Carmen Ortiz stepped down from office in January 2017, the Martin Gottesfeld case will probably go on trial in January 2018.

    Some more details, and lots and lots of opinions can be found on the web.

    Philipp

  21. New submitter Danngggg by Hognoxious · · Score: 2

    Let's hope he becomes a former submitter really quickly.

    --
    Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    1. Re:New submitter Danngggg by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      You notice that this "submitter" is only a "submitter" and not a "commenter"? All this person's submissions are about Martin Gottesfeld, and all of them do a terrible job explaining just what the hell they're about.

      If someone's paying some PR firm to splatter this dogshit onto Slashdot and other aggregators, they should fire that firm. They're doing a terrible job. (Save your money, Martin.)

  22. Re:You Misspelled "Bradley" by I'm+New+Around+Here · · Score: 3, Informative

    Crime 1:

    The US politicians had sent their army to Iraq based on a pack of lies, and they knew it. .

    Crime 1A. You think the reason for invading Iraq mattered. It didn't. We didn't need any more of a reason than what Saddam Hussein provided.

    This is because we were still "at war" with Iraq from the previous round of hostilities. That round ended with a 'cease fire' agreement, not a peace treaty saying the war was over. Part of that cease fire agreement was that Saddam wouldn't be an asshole. He was an asshole, many times over. So, in accordance with the cease fire agreement that Saddam violated, we went back into Iraq and removed him from power.

    No crime was committed by our invasion, as it was specifically spelled out in the cease fire that it would happen is Saddam did certain things, which he did.

    --
    If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
  23. Re: They’re all fags by Dread_ed · · Score: 1

    If you believe in sin, then you know that all humans are sin-filled degenerates. Especially yourself, for calling out the sins of someone else when you are so riddled with it. You have a rotting and fetid black soul with no redeeming qualities, and while you wallow there in your own festering putrescence, you have the unmitigated gall to point to someone else and say "Hey, you smell bad."

    Do you think your God will deal lightly with you for making a mockery of Him? He is powerful, so much so that He removed the penalties of sin for all mankind. And here you are, bringing it up, that thing that only God can remove, making an issue of it when God has told you that ALL sin is against God, not against man.

    You do realize that when you judge others for what you consider sins you are, in essence, telling God that you are more important than He is. Furthermore, you are, for lack of a better analogy, shitting in Jesus's mouth while He was on the cross. He worked really hard to remove the penalty for sin, and here you are, pointing our that he didn't do a good enough job, because sin is still an issue with you, even though Jesus has said it is no longer one with Him.

    If you are going to buy into the whole idea of sin, you should really consider what that means in the context of where the concept actually came from. If you don't, you end up looking like a silly self-righteous fool with no regard for the God you profess to believe in; laughable on one level, and detestable on many others.

    --
    When the only tool you have is a claw hammer every problem starts to look like the back of someone's skull.
  24. Re:You Misspelled "Bradley" by Dog-Cow · · Score: 1

    Those relatives are probably dead already. And they probably didn't know what wikileaks is, nor would have cared if you told them.

  25. Re:You Misspelled "Bradley" by slashrio · · Score: 1

    In the nineteenhundreds the English had taken Kuwait from the Iraqis by illegal force.
    Saddam just took it back and we just repeated the crime of the English.
    We are nothing more than a bunch of war-loving criminals.
    We will use just about every excuse possible to have our military burn the weapons produced by the military industrial complex and paid by the people, no matter what the casualties are, as long as they are not American, except if we can blame someone else. Then even that doesn't matter.
    We are despicable criminals to the bone.

    --
    "Trump!!", the new Godwin.
  26. Re:You Misspelled "Bradley" by 91degrees · · Score: 1

    Manning gave wikileaks a vast chunk of information with no possible way of knowing the content. Wikileaks did the actual work.

  27. Re:You Misspelled "Bradley" by I'm+New+Around+Here · · Score: 1

    Welcome to the human race, pal.

    Everything you lament there has been done by every group of people since time began. The only difference is the Europeans globalized it, whereas the armies of Alexander, Rome, the Mongol Horde stayed mainly in EuroAsia, and the smaller warlords were confined to attacking their neighbors.

    I wish the US acted differently. But I don't see the point in condemning the US for acting like everyone else.

    --
    If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
  28. Re:You Misspelled "Bradley" by slashrio · · Score: 1

    Yes, I see, everybody is doing it so it is ok.
    There is a little bit of a difference in scale in which the US is doing it and, let's say, China is doing it in Myanmar or so.

    --
    "Trump!!", the new Godwin.
  29. Re:You Misspelled "Bradley" by alexgieg · · Score: 1

    If you want to win a war you need to keep destroying the enemy until they surrender unconditionally. Just look at what happened to Japan and Germany.

    You're not very well versed in either History of War or Theory of War, are you? You're taking two examples of 3rd generation warfare and uncritically thinking their example applies to 4th generation warfare, without even knowing there's a difference.

    Here's a suggestion then: go read some Carl von Clausewitz and, for a more recent take, some William Lind, and come back once you understand war on the strategic rather than merely tactical level, okay?

    --
    Conservatism: (n.) love of the existing evils. Liberalism: (n.) desire to substitute new evils for the existing ones.
  30. Re:You Misspelled "Bradley" by I'm+New+Around+Here · · Score: 1

    I didn't say it was OK, I said that "I wish the US acted differently." What I am also saying is that you are criticizing one country for something that many countries have done and still do. Why do you give other countries a pass? Why do you only condemn a certain country of group of countries?

    --
    If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
  31. Re:You Misspelled "Bradley" by slashrio · · Score: 1

    I just mentioned the scale of the violations by the US, didn't I?

    --
    "Trump!!", the new Godwin.