A Hacker 'Hero' Has Been Banned From Cyber Conferences After Decades Of Inappropriate Behavior (buzzfeed.com)

Several readers share a report: John Draper, a prankster hero to an early generation of hackers, used his status at cybersecurity conferences to arrange private meetings with teenage fans and a reporter where he touched them inappropriately, multiple men have told BuzzFeed News. The allegations are the latest in what has become in recent weeks an explosion of sexual misconduct reports that have roiled a seemingly endless list of industries, from Hollywood to the news media to the Alabama Senate race. As in many of those other cases, Draper's actions were well known to at least a core of people who had regular contact with him. Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak told BuzzFeed News that Steve Jobs once told him that Draper, an early associate, once asked Jobs to sit on Draper's back in the 1970s, an offer Wozniak said Jobs declined as being "out of the ordinary." But in the hacking world, where unusual behavior is accepted and often celebrated, there were few official steps taken to prevent Draper's overtures to unsuspecting fans. Volunteers who worked the annual DEF CON hacking conventions in Las Vegas recalled that one of their responsibilities was to separate Draper from his teenage followers. Draper's behavior drew attention at other conventions as well, where he was a frequent presence. Brandon Creighton, a long-standing volunteer at hacker conferences who was familiar with rumors about Draper, recalled escorting him from a private party after ToorCon in San Diego in 2007, though exactly why was not clear.

Comments

John Draper?

[Anonymous Coward]

moar liek John Raper

Re: John Draper?

[Anonymous Coward]

The one time I wish I had mod points!

Re:John Draper?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Score:0, Funny" is probably the perfect moderation for that post.

Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[OldMugwump]

I don't know exactly what Draper (Cap'n Crunch) is accused of, but I wonder if we (as a society) are crossing into witch hunt territory. Rape is rape, and rapists belong in jail. Flirting, making passes, and asking permission - when the askee is free to say 'no' - isn't criminal. Even if it's kinky.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[93 Escort Wagon]

Some people still don't get it...

The problem is - when the person "asking" is in a position of authority, the person being asked doesn't always "feel free to say 'no'". And often the person "asking" uses their position to imply there will be negative repercussions if the other person does say no, or (as appears to be the case with Roy Moore) to use their position to bully the other person into silence.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[AmiMoJo]

The really shocking part is that they had to assign staff to keep him away from teenagers, but didn't actually ban him or anything.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[Anonymous Coward]

Then charge them with extortion or intimidation.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[HornWumpus]

True. But don't neglect the 'whoring' aspect of it.

People have been trading sex for advancement for all of human history. Whores are _not_ victims, they are co conspirators.

Applies more to Weinstein, Clinton etc than Draper, Moore or Franken.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[chispito]

Flirting, making passes, and asking permission - when the askee is free to say 'no' - isn't criminal. Even if it's kinky.

The summary and TFA make it clear these actions were directed toward teenagers and that he would offer to take them somewhere private for "'energy' exercises or stretches."

It's not a witch hunt if event organizers for years have been trying to prevent unsuspecting people from falling into his traps.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well there you go then. The problem is authority, not the sex. I know which one I'd rather eliminate.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[sinij]

Feminism infantilize women. They are not allowed to make non-approved decisions like focus on children instead of career, formula feed toddlers, sleep with the boss to get a raise, delegate decision making authority to the husband, and so on.

So when any of this happens, feminist like to pretend that it must have been coerced instead of admitting that women have agency of their lives and can make good and bad decisions.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[Train0987]

What position of authority was Draper in?

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like rather than demonize the idol, it's time to empower the admirer.

At no point in time should you feel like you can't say "No". If you're ever in that position, sounds like a great learning experience and wake-up call to figure out how to handle those situations in the future. That's just part of growing up, in large part.

This part is anecdotal, and not meant as validation, just showing what plays in on my thinking:
        I was 20 and at a club. Went alone that night because my friend had a cold and wasn't feeling the loud music. Whatever. Turns out there was a stripping contest that night, and the people I was hanging out with were really pushing for it. Not really something up my alley, but when people also spin it as being "an experience you only need to try once" anyway, it's harder to say no without feeling like a kill joy.
        End result? I hated it, it was embarrassing, and when I was going out to my car, some 50+ year old approached was getting more than a little creepy, but fortunately cars have locks and an engine. Despite the fact that it was a rather garbage experience, I don't hold it against the people who pressured/encouraged me, because at the end of the day, it was still my call. You have to take responsibility for yourself at all times, since you're the only one in control of yourself.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[chispito]

The really shocking part is that they had to assign staff to keep him away from teenagers, but didn't actually ban him or anything.

Yeah, the... fact that it was widely known and they would try to mitigate this stuff is really disturbing. I don't know if it was just being non-confrontational or they thought there was some benefit to having him around that was worth the risk.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[whoever57]

So how would you characterise the actions of the US gymnastics team doctor who told young female team members that he was performing a normal and necessary medical treatment on them?

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[whyyisthissohard]

Some people still don't get it...

Literally EVERYONE understands your opinion, your motivated guess at reality, that you parade as an "argument". What do you propose? Endless witch hunts, or that all males finally be banned from any position of authority over anyone?

And often the person "asking" uses their position

often/quote How do you know? Because this is the narrative that is repeated again and again? Or do you have some kind of running account from surveillance videos that you keep? Because otherwise you're basing your view of reality on hearsay. Here is something a lot of left-leaning people do not want to understand, something they "still don't get": weak people lose in this world and there is nothing you can do to change it. Even if you are a victim, you can not place all the blame on the perpetrator of the crime. You have to look in yourself and find a fault and bolster it against future attacks. Externalizing everything to make it solely a matter of (mob) "justice" is not how you get stronger. So it may be prudent to punish perpetrators, but the victim mindset is NEVER commendable no matter how badly a person suffers. You still have your life to live, get over your troubles and become stronger, or stop living. You aren't special for being a victim, the rules still apply to you, natural law is not suspended. When you have all these supports for the victim mindset the victim becomes further victimized because they are validated for whining and don't seek to strengthen themselves, instead they become paranoid and cry for more authority intervention. How convenient for the establishment that validates these people!

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[Pinky's Brain]

He abused pity and shame to keep people quiet, not authority ... he has none. He's a manipulator.

I have to say the reporter was really dedicated to his craft though, getting on their hands and knees with a naked Draper in the room just for an interview. What did he think was going to happen at that point?

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[whyyisthissohard]

Some people still don't get it...

Literally EVERYONE understands your opinion, your motivated guess at reality, that you parade as an "argument". What do you propose? Endless witch hunts, or that all males finally be banned from any position of authority over anyone?

And often the person "asking" uses their position

often

How do you know? Because this is the narrative that is repeated again and again? Or do you have some kind of running account from surveillance videos that you keep? Because otherwise you're basing your view of reality on hearsay. Here is something a lot of left-leaning people do not want to understand, something they "still don't get": weak people lose in this world and there is nothing you can do to change it. Even if you are a victim, you can not place all the blame on the perpetrator of the crime. You have to look in yourself and find a fault and bolster it against future attacks. Externalizing everything to make it solely a matter of (mob) "justice" is not how you get stronger. So it may be prudent to punish perpetrators, but the victim mindset is NEVER commendable no matter how badly a person suffers. You still have your life to live, get over your troubles and become stronger, or stop living. You aren't special for being a victim, the rules still apply to you, natural law is not suspended. When you have all these supports for the victim mindset the victim becomes further victimized because they are validated for whining and don't seek to strengthen themselves, instead they become paranoid and cry for more authority intervention. How convenient for the establishment that validates these people!

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[s_p_oneil]

Let's see:

1) "teenage fans" - I didn't see a specific age range, but since they didn't specify "young adults", it sounds likely that some of these teens were underage, in which case inappropriate touching would definitely be criminal (unless you're an elected official or running for office in the US).

2) "touched them inappropriately" - Likely if someone reported that, it means he didn't ask first. You could argue that touching equates to "making a pass", but I don't think that argument would hold up in court these days.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[Opportunist]

What kind of authority is he supposedly having? He's no teacher, he's no scout troop leader, he has no way of handing out any kind of repercussions whatsoever, what the hell are you talking about?

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[Anonymous Coward]

Clearly, he was promised candy and kittens and it was not delivered by Draper.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[Opportunist]

Oh c'mon, I can't get that all done before dinner, can't we at least have a quickie?

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[Pinky's Brain]

I think they didn't want some old homo aggressively cruising for teenage dates because it's bad PR even when it's not in and of itself illegal.

"These included him massaging men in public and urging them to come to his or their hotel room for private sessions. In multiple cases in which the men agreed"

It's safe to say most of the men who went along with it and agreed to meet him in his room did it with their eyes wide open, you can assume some level of intelligence and worldliness at a hacker conference. The ones who were terribly naive got a nasty surprise, since draper obviously didn't really grok consent well (though he did understand the concept of stopping, as far as the story goes there was no rape).

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is it that it seems like society gets exponentially more outraged when MEN are the victims, and why is society more likely to believe them? All of the men who have come out to say they experienced these abuses have had their stories questions.

I think it's intrinsic, misogynistic tendencies of those so ingrained to the patriarchy that they don't even realize their biases. Examining those can be uncomfortable. Instead, they'd just as soon spit out some bile about feminism and blame the victims.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[Anonymous Coward]

And a mannazi posting crap like this is offensive to humanity, so we'll mark it as assholes 2 humanity 0. You may think you're being funny, but there are better avenues.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[Anonymous Coward]

You are right, some people still don't get it...

If you can't accept consent you end up with a situation where everyone is a rapist.

I understand you are trying to speak about active coercion, but I can tell you that there is a legitimate fear that non-coercive encounters will be portrayed as such. Add in the fact that any sexual misconduct is often "guilty even when proven innocent", there is a real shitty situation.

I am sorry, but there needs to be an equal emphasis on the ability to say no. Otherwise you are going to be seen as one of the loonies shouting "all men are rapists".

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[s_p_oneil]

"People have been trading sex for advancement for all of human history."

While that is true for plenty of women who start doing it on their own...

"Whores are _not_ victims, they are co conspirators."

Try telling that to the kids and teens who get kidnapped, sold, beaten, drugged, and forced into it. Or, more to the point, try telling that to the parents of some of those kids.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[Anonymous Coward]

Feminism infantilize women.

Jesus Christ you dumb fuck, are you so embittered about your tiny penis and lack of social skills that everything has to be about feminists?

This is a man in his 70s, who made a routine habit of making inappropriate advances to underage teenage boys and the like.

This has nothing to do with feminism, and it has everything to do with an old man who was using his waning piece of celebrity to make inappropriate advances and generally be a creepy old man.

But go ahead, demonstrate how much of a butt-hurt dejected bitter loser you are by making this about feminists. Maybe because you're sad that the creepy old guy never stuck his fingers in your ass? Or maybe you're feeling guilty because he did?

You fucking people who go on an on whining about feminists and SJWs ... you're assholes, plain and simple. And what you're defending is the right to be an asshole. In real life, if you go around talking like that someone is going to break your jaw for you.

Your right to be an asshole isn't something to celebrate.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[cayenne8]

The problem is - when the person "asking" is in a position of authority,

So, in other words, a person should not be able to try to hook up or date anyone below their "strata"?

That sound suspiciously like the caste system and we see how well that works out in place like India, eh?

Look...real aggression is one thing, rape is rape, etc....but geez, the definition of this is going down to ridiculously low levels.

As a guy, we all (mostly) know that hooking up with a lady is a numbers game. You flirt with and make passes, whatever you want to call it, with as many attractive women as you can, and out of that, you'll get hits.

You get rejections too....but hell, is it now that any girl you hit on and get rejected, means this was an "unwanted sexual assault" on her???

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[Anonymous Coward]

Keep you're eye on the ball...what 'power' does this Draper guy have over his 'teenage fans' and especially over Steve Jobs??? The latter 'anecdote' is PURE 'witch hunt' territory as it describes an encounter between 2 people where any 'power dynamic' is entirely unclear. What did Job's 'lose' in refusing? But he kept up a relationship with the guy to get his 'little blue box'. So clearly Job's saw value in maintaining the relationship.

Other descriptions in the article itself are just 'bizarre' not just from Draper but from those who feel they were 'harassed' or as one put it 'it did feel kind of rapey'. WHAT? RAPEY? WTF is that? And who are these 16, 17 year old teenagers going to "Hacker Conferences" in Vegas without supervision? If their parents consider them old enough to go to Vegas on their own then they should be old enough to recognize that a 'weird request' is F'n weird & avoid it...but hey they can get 'alcohol pretty easily' so that's ok right? They are 'old enough' to know how to handle alcohol but not old enough to tell a weirdo to 'go pound sand'.

For crying out loud the reporter in this story was 29! Are you telling me that a 29 year old can't figure out how to handle himself? What was HIS goal? Clearly he felt he'd get something out of this rather than just tell Erickson to go pound sand & then go back & right an article about this 'weird hacker pervert' or whatever.

Now, none of that should be used to suggest there isn't ACTUAL sexual harassment going on in various ways & places (e.g. Weinstein with his EMPLOYEES not 'prospective actors/actresses' who have something they want out of that relationship because they wanted to be 'stars').

Push comes to shove 'inappropriate behavior' isn't 'rapey', it isn't 'harassment' its just f'n impolite & probably 'weird', just walk away & be done with it...bringing something up YEARS later as being 'rapey' is just a witch hunt pure & simple.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[DarkOx]

Some people still don't get it...

lots of people want to please folks in power or folks who are wealthy because they want access to that power and wealth. Sometimes its about sex sometimes its about something else, really irrelevant. What it comes down to is are you willing to sell yourself out or not when an offer is placed on the table. Such is the nature of people and power YOU can't change that with any amount of legislation, awareness, moralizing, etc.

There are lines and we need to be careful about where we draw them. Consent is a matter of degree, there are huge gaps between. "Seems interesting", "I want this person to like me for whatever reasons so I am going to go along with this even though I am uninterested", "I don't want to but it might have negative consequences for me if I don't roll with it", "I don't feel like I have a choice", "I don't actually have a choice", and "oh God oh God deliver me from this".

Personally I think the issue needs to focus on the last two. The rest of those people need to learn to spine up or accept living as sheep.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[Anonymous Coward]

We get it.

Where is the proof?

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[HornWumpus]

That's just your broken perception. Society gets more outraged when women/girls are the 'victims'.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[Hognoxious]

demonstrate how much of a butt-hurt dejected bitter loser you are

I see what you did there.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[Known Nutter]

Hey dumbshit. Sexual assault, sexual abuse, rape, and sexual misconduct in the workplace are not partisan issues. Get that? Your straw man about banning males from positions of authority is retarded. You clearly do not understand the dynamics that play themselves out in abuse situations. You are the classic asshole that blames the victim -- "can't place all of the blame on the perpetrator"?? Seriously, what the fuck dude? Rapists rape. Abusers abuse. Do you think people choose to be victims of rape and abuse? Do you think they choose to place themselves in a "victim mindset"? When your daughter is assaulted, will you blame her? Seriously think about that. She was askin' for it, right?

You sir, are a fucking asshole, and obviously part of the problem. You can politicize anything. You can make robbing an old woman a political talking point -- the old bag shouldn't have been there in the first place, right? She should have been home baking cookies, right?

This type of constant and complete divisiveness will be the downfall of the US.

"...these people." Go fuck yourself.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[misexistentialist]

usually the parents are the ones who sell them

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[HornWumpus]

Pimps are scum, but the vast majority of whores (in the first world), underage or not, are there by their own choice.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[Anonymous Coward]

The trouble is, people spend most of their life interacting with those with whom they have some pre-existing relationship, which means one of them will have something that can be construed as authority over the other. And they tend to fall in love (or lust) with those people. Unless you can override some very basic human drives, simply forbidding such relationships is not a practical solution.

And that's before you get into the issue of accusations of such things (or the threat of accusations) being employed as a weapon, with strongly sexist connotations.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[Anonymous Coward]

Bullshit. Male victims are often mocked. Even boys molested by older women are told they're lucky to get some action.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[Pinky's Brain]

That's a semantic issue. I don't call slaves and people tortured into a mental state where they can't consent whores.

Weinstein's "victims" had agency and gave consent. That's why prostitution should be illegal, so men and women don't get forced into making such choices.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[sinij]

I am fairly sure you are not doing virtue signaling right, how are you going to claim your rightink credit when posting as AC?

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've personally seen what Draper did. This was 20 years ago at XMas Con. Draper was a friend of a friend, and staying in our room. The guy frankly creeped me out and I wasn't very happy with it, but it was only one night, so whatever.

Later that night I went back to the room for something, and found Draper lying on the back of a local hacker I knew. The hacker later described the weird "energy exercise" thing described in the article. The hacker was also tripping on Robitussin at the time, and not in his right mind. He thanked me later for waking him up to what was happening, and was convinced Draper was going to rape him.

Now, I didn't see any rape happen. And nobody in the article exactly described rape. But I sure wouldn't call this particular series of incidents part of a witch hunt either. What Draper did is seriously seriously creepy. I don't know if it is/was illegal, but what he did wasn't right and shouldn't be tolerated.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[Anonymous Coward]

Try telling that to the kids and teens who get kidnapped, sold, beaten, drugged, and forced into it. Or, more to the point, try telling that to the parents of some of those kids.

False equivalence is false.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[Translation Error]

It's important to keep in mind, though, that the lines for behavior that will get you arrested and behavior that will get you sued, fired, shunned, and/or asked to leave and not come back aren't and shouldn't be the same.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, idiot. "Whores" in this context obviously means people who trade sexual favors for undue advantages, not regular prostitutes.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[DarkOx]

Maybe they should not be but the level of hysteria around this issue. combined with "the internet never forgets" now has got to the point where arrested might be the least of your worries.

One minor transgression is enough to get you hounded from your place of employment and essentially blackballed.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[Pinky's Brain]

Draper as far as we know didn't rape anyone and the described behavior while extreme is more on the level of indecent exposure than sexual assault.

Did he cross the line, if we are to believe the stories I'd say so ... but even so I'm also going to blame any adult who goes into his room for a fucking private massage for leading him on. Sometimes victims really do carry some of the blame, consent is not some binary fucking signal.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[Anonymous Coward]

What fucking authority? The same with the Louis CK stuff, while he certainly seems like a creep using the argument that he had "power" because they were fans or he was influential in comedy is a tortured argument.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[Anonymous Coward]

Could you point to any of these cases where that is what happened? Every case I've seen in the news has been somewhere between clearly inappropriate to full-on rape. For some reason geeks seem to have this bizarre terror about being the target of a sexual harassment accusation.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[RightSaidFred99]

They're trying top broaden the definition of power. Same with some of the Louis CK. Because people "look up" to you or even if you're popular/famous/powerful in your field doesn't mean people don't have the choice to say no, or report your behavior. It's a way to absolve people of their responsibilities. And yes, sometimes victims do have responsibilities. If you enable your perpetrator to continue to hurt other people by keeping quiet, especially for money, you are wrong and don't get the "but, but, but... victim blaming!!! Muh victims!!!" card. This halo of sainthood and complete lack of responsibility we seem to be bestowing upon the Sacred Victim is getting way out of hand.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[Anonymous Coward]

I work at a fortune 500 company and have recently been exposed to an incident of this nature. One of the (married male) directors had been messing around with some young intern girl. According to her he had implied (or maybe even directly said) that by messing around with him, he could give her more opportunities for advancement, and was thinking about leaving his wife to be with her. She was sending nudes to his work phone, blah blah blah. Eventually he decided it wasn't working out, told her he wasn't going to leave his wife and cut it off. She was PISSED. She went to HR and told them he raped her, etc. They confiscated his work phone, got the nudes (showed them around and giggled I'm sure,) etc. Eventually they put him on an 'action-plan' and he did some harassment type courses or something and they both signed non-disclosure type shit. He still sits up in his exec spot, she's still on the bottom. They hate each other and go out of the way to avoid each other. Pretty awkward and I'm not really sure who I think is at fault. I don't think he raped her, I don't think he was right in his actions though either. All-in-all, I think they handled it pretty well. Everyone kept their jobs, he got a stern talking to for being an idiot, etc.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[pots]

Is that really what you think is going on here? People who don't agree with this position just can't understand it? Surely everyone would be on board if they could just "get it"?

Allow me to suggest an alternative explanation (just one, of many): a lot of our behavior is dictated by what we fear. Some people are afraid of being exploited in this way, and this is a reasonable fear - it's certainly something which happens a lot, and it can be a bad thing when it does. So their solution is to try to eliminate all possibility of this occurring, by forbidding romantic overtures in any situation where exploitation could possibly happen.

A second group has a different fear: they don't want to die alone. This is also a reasonable fear - it's certainly something which happens a lot, and it is almost without exception very bad indeed. This second group has their own solution - try to maximize romantic opportunities, so that when they finally do meet that special someone their hands won't be tied by some arbitrary restrictions.

I'm not offering a solution here, I just find it appalling at how quick people are to adopt absolutist solutions when they're confronted with difficult or complicated problems. (Human interaction always falls in this category.)

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[Aighearach]

Children are always the victim, it doesn't matter if you claim the child "consented." They didn't.

Victims are not guaranteed to be conspirators. And the accusations in this case, if true, involve victims who were absolutely not "conspirators."

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[Anonymous Coward]

...is it now that any girl you hit on and get rejected, means this was an "unwanted sexual assault" on her???

Yes, yes it is.

Cultures that allow this will become extinct. Perhaps it is for the best.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nonsense nobody should assume they can penetrate me just because we took our clothes off and touched all over each other. Why can't you just act like a normal human being and get explicit consent for each new touch and sexual act. "Hi can i touch your boobs". "ok one finger" "ok two fingers"

I mean doesn't everyone have sex like this?

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[lessthan]

You are absolutely right about hooking up being a numbers game and the number of tries increases the number of successes. However, you have to treat your hook ups as people. Would you want feel forced to have sex? Even if they were very attractive? In your first statement, you went from a very specific type of power imbalance to a spread-out generalization. If a person needs your good will for a reason, it is wrong to express a sexual interest in them. Two examples, if you are their boss or you are being interviewed by a reporter. Both situations place the other person in a position where their job depends your favorable cooperation. This is a specific set of circumstances. (I am assuming that you are evolved enough to know that making unsolicited sexual advances, e.g. sexual comments or uninvited touches, in any circumstance, is wrong) If this were a social strata thing, I couldn't ask out a security guard, simply because I'm an engineer. I can ask the guard out because I have no control over hire/fire decisions on his behalf, despite our social strata being different. The worst I could do, if he said no, would be to make a complaint against him and that could easily turn against me. Now, my boss's boss's boss (I think it is three levels, not really sure) couldn't ask the guard out, not just because my boss-cubed doesn't swing that way, but because he could conceivably have the guard fired. Power imbalance. It is true that at high values and really low values of power imbalance, the right thing to do gets murky, but then you can just fall back on the most basic ethics rule "When in doubt, don't."

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[AmiMoJo]

He had a great deal of influence in the community, due to his living legend status.

The same as other celebrities who do this kind of thing. They use their fame and the offer of access to the circles they move on, as well as the perception that their fame makes them untouchable.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[AmiMoJo]

Are you really trying to suggest that Lewis CK, a successful guy in an industry where who you know is everything, had no power over women at the start of their careers trying to break in?

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[AmiMoJo]

So, in other words, a person should not be able to try to hook up or date anyone below their "strata"?

No, but when they have influence over the prospects of the person want to hook up with they need to be extremely careful to say the least. Imagine if your boss started flirting with you, would you really not expect there to be any negative repercussions to turning them down?

There are other issues here. It's a security conference, an odd one perhaps but still, it's not exactly a venue people go to in order to hook up. And it seems that some of the people he propositioned may have been under 18. What is the age of consent in that state?

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[Aighearach]

No, what it means is that you're not supposed to be trying to "hook up" at work if you have a position of power.

Hook with people you don't work with. Easy!

Reminds me of a friend... in her 20s she kept feeling guilty because she'd have flings with guys at work, who usually held higher positions than her, and then they all kept quitting their jobs and moving to different companies. Why? Because she only wanted to fuck the nice, decent guys! And it was only managers who had enough time to be doing it at work. Nobody ever made any accusations; nobody needed to! They had all had workplace ethics training, they all understood it is unprofessional to have an affair with a person below you in the organization. So they'd end up feeling guilty, or scared for their future aspirations, and quit. It is what decent people were already doing, and what they were already teaching in ethics for people that bothered to learn the ethics rules. That was in the 90s.

Nobody cares what your jobs are, they care about the context; if you're only meeting the person for professional reasons, you do not have permission to hit on them! That is private behavior. If you want to flirt, you need to do it in a social setting, and by that I do not mean "business social" or "team building events" or "drinks with the team after work." Those are not actually social events, they are simply casual work events. They are still work events.

And smart guys know that hitting on every random woman you feel attracted to will only get you a disease. That is not actually how the human mating ritual normally works. At all.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[Applehu Akbar]

Flirting, making passes, and asking permission - when the askee is free to say 'no' - isn't criminal. Even if it's kinky.

Flirting, making passes, a stolen kiss - these are criminal activities if the man making these moves is an unattractive nerd with no social standing.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[Aighearach]

The really shocking part is that they had to assign staff to keep him away from teenagers, but didn't actually ban him or anything.

Yeah, the... fact that it was widely known and they would try to mitigate this stuff is really disturbing. I don't know if it was just being non-confrontational or they thought there was some benefit to having him around that was worth the risk.

Society didn't care, and they would have been fired if they tried to stop it.

Times are changing; people are starting to enforce the rules I was raised to believe were already the rules! It is going to take a long, long time to straighten it all out as a society.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[RightSaidFred99]

Yes. I think that's pretty much what I said, no?

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[Anonymous Coward]

I am fairly sure you are not doing virtue signaling right, how are you going to claim your rightink credit when posting as AC?

Wow, you've really drank the kool-aid haven't you?

If you think not being an asshole is 'virtue signalling', you're pathetic. If you think actually not being a douchebag is done to receive 'right-think credit' (whatever the fuck that is) you're too stupid to live.

So, are you actively engaging in "asshole signalling" to let all of the other assholes know you're one of them? Are you seeking "douchebag credit" for trying to ensure you get rewarded for being a douchebag? Because everything you say is shorthand for "hey, I'm an asshole and me and other assholes like to be dismissive of things while we pretend to be cool", because you're nothing but a whiny punk.

You seem to be quite aggressively suggesting that being neither an asshole or a douchebag is virtuous. I assure you, you're wrong.

So go cry in your pillow and suck your thumb, and hang out with the rest of the assholes and douchebags and whine about how unfair the world is to you.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[AmiMoJo]

The Spacey thing seems to prove otherwise.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[Anonymous Coward]

There are lines and we need to be careful about where we draw them.

I know a lot of people won't want to hear this, and I don't really want to say it, but all those crazy conservative flyover untermenchen call that line "marriage". And if this endless sex hysteria gets any worse, a lot of people will start drawing it there again.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[Lucky_Strikez]

Noooooo, feminazi's and SJW's are a LOUD minority of cunts that should shut up and get over themselves.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[Pinky's Brain]

Damnit, you had me going for a moment :)

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[Lucky_Strikez]

Can we stop the stupid "Thing is thing" thing sometime soon? Along with the "This guy THINGS" Nothing is funny or cool when it's repeated millions of times per day. Especially if it came from Reddit.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[HornWumpus]

What stories are you reading?

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[HornWumpus]

What about the famous actresses the Weinstein 'gave' all those parts to?

They 'earned' those parts the old fashioned way.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[Kielistic]

But you are an asshole..

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[HornWumpus]

Punchline:

LouAnn: Gomer, that wasn't my belly button.

Gomer: Surprise, surprise, surprise! That wasn't my finger either.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[Aighearach]

Nope.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[HornWumpus]

Fire them both. She's a whore, he's a whore bagger who tries to pay with company funds.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[Anonymous Coward]

Accused?

JD has been well known as butt raper Draper for decades.

Go ahead, pretend to be a fanboi, and if you're young he'll put the make on you.

Offer you one of his special energy drinks (potentially laced with MDMA).

Then he'll seriously pressure you to do some exercise, so be ready for the Cruch-up's that come next.

Then you'll know it's not character assassination, it's real.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[HornWumpus]

What they say and what they do are two very different things.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[Thelasko]

As a guy, we all (mostly) know that hooking up with a lady is a numbers game.

Actually, I would argue that a lot of people, particularly the Slashdot crowed, don't know that's how it works. The human interaction protocol isn't well documented. One can't simply RTFM. Even if you could, the rules are constantly changing. Most people are left to figure it out on their own. This leads to a lot of syntax errors, some of which are "awkward", and some of which are considered "misconduct".

Of course, there are individuals who have mastered the rules, and exploit them to their advantage. Those are the individuals we need to be aware of.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[Anonymous Coward]

Whoring?

You Idiot.

JD uses his position as a famous person to intimidate and coerce the unknowing into a compromising position, that they see no way out of, he's an asshole rapist.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[Anonymous Coward]

JD has definitely raped boys, just because you aren't aware of it, don't invalidate all the accusation otherwise.

Take your conservative attitude and go fuck yourself.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[likerice]

I get that, but I honestly don't know the answer to the following:

How do we differentiate between (a) the "asker" using his/her position to make those implications (i.e., did s/he intend those implications) and (b) the "askee" perceiving implications that weren't there or weren't intended?

Does it matter? I had presumed that it does matter because that's generally how society and law operate, i.e., we hold people accountable for their intentions and preserve "strict liability" treatment for a very small and carefully defined class of actions.

If the intentions of the "asker" do not matter or if they're even simply less important than the perceptions or sometimes decades-old recollections of the "askee", then we should change current sexual harassment law and embark on a widespread public education campaign that tells people that the first ask by itself does, in fact, constitute sexual harassment when directed at a person with relatively less power.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[K. S. Kyosuke]

So she slandered him and got away with it? That sounds like about the most illegal thing of all the things that happened there.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[hey!]

Somehow you have a mistaken perception of what Weinstein did. He didn't say, "would you engage in this sexual act in return for a part in this movie," he used deception, surprise, and in some cases force. Technically what he did wasn't solicitation, it ran from assault to rape.

Now as for "whores not being victims", that may be true in Amsterdam where it takes place under the watchful eye of the police and many of the prostitutes are unionized, but if you're frequenting prostitutes here in the US there's a good chance that they are under the violently coercive control of a pimp. For young non-American prostitutes there is a good chance that they are the victims of human trafficking.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[Pinky's Brain]

What "all"? There are none in the story.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[Sumus Semper Una]

lots of people want to please folks in power or folks who are wealthy because they want access to that power and wealth. Sometimes its about sex sometimes its about something else, really irrelevant. What it comes down to is are you willing to sell yourself out or not when an offer is placed on the table.

There are definitely people who want to cozy up to people with power or wealth by being a yes-man or tolerating distasteful things. There are even special words for these people - sycophant, lickspittle, bootlicker, lackey, brown-noser, suck-up - take your pick. Are you suggesting that the people bringing allegations of harassment are mostly sycophants who decided to back out of the implied deal? I honestly can't figure out what else you could mean by that paragraph.

Such is the nature of people and power YOU can't change that with any amount of legislation, awareness, moralizing, etc.

Murder and thievery will also always exist, and no amount of legislation, awareness, moralizing, etc will ever get rid of them. Are you saying that those actions should also carry no penalties? If they should carry penalties, why shouldn't abuse of power/wealth/status carry a penalty?

There are lines and we need to be careful about where we draw them. Consent is a matter of degree, there are huge gaps between. "Seems interesting", "I want this person to like me for whatever reasons so I am going to go along with this even though I am uninterested", "I don't want to but it might have negative consequences for me if I don't roll with it", "I don't feel like I have a choice", "I don't actually have a choice", and "oh God oh God deliver me from this".

Personally I think the issue needs to focus on the last two. The rest of those people need to learn to spine up or accept living as sheep.

Reactions 2 through 4 that you listed are just different ways of wording "peer pressure." I'd love it if people could toughen up against peer pressure and think for themselves more, but if you really think people can just grow a spine and say no to peer pressure that easily then you must be totally mystified by this whole social media craze. People aren't going to suddenly start ignoring peer pressure. And YOU can't change that with any amount of legislation, awareness, moralizing, etc.

Some people still don't get it...

Apparently.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[HornWumpus]

It would be a shame if you ruined your friendship with me...

That's a solicitation, not an assault or rape. Their is a clear implied quid pro quo. The women that didn't 'ruin their friendship with him' are whores.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[AmiMoJo]

For about a week there were multiple stories about him on the front page of every paper and every general news site. Most of them were very negative. He lost his career, even edited out of an up coming movie.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[Sumus Semper Una]

You get rejections too....but hell, is it now that any girl you hit on and get rejected, means this was an "unwanted sexual assault" on her???

A straw man and slippery slope at the same time?! And they said it couldn't be done.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[Anonymous Coward]

Lets play this out.

LCK: want to see...
Victim: umm no
LCK: You'll never work in this industry.
Victim: Umm no you wont after I tell everyone what happened.

And look at that, once the victims come forward all of his stuff is pulled, movies canceled, career down the tube.

So, NO he did not have any actual power over them. They should have DONE THE RIGHT THING RIGHT AWAY. And YES, even if they are "victims" they are WRONG FOR SITTING ON THIS FOR SO LONG AND LETTING IT CONTINUE.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[AmiMoJo]

It's such a ridiculous, outlandish claim, I just wanted to check.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[Anonymous Coward]

And often the person "asking" uses their position

How do you know? Because this is the narrative that is repeated again and again?

Are you serious? Are you asking if being in a position of power/authority biases the outcome??

Yes, it does. If I am in a significant position of authority over someone, whatever I ask of them is AUTOMATICALLY biased. Even if I am not trying to create bias, it is still there.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is grabbing someone's ass by far the most harmful thing in a long list of power-differentiating issues?

On one hand, a big part of being nice is understanding what people don't like and then not doing it. On the other hand, most people aren't very nice

Is it worse to grab someone's ass or to eat a chicken sandwich? Given the choice between having their ass grabbed or being killed and eaten, most people would prefer to have their ass grabbed. So, presumably, that's what a chicken would prefer, too. And the power imbalance between men and women is much less than the power imbalance between humans and chickens.

Of course, you can say, "It's OK to eat chickens because, well, they're chickens." But then you could also say "It's OK to grab women's asses because, well, they're women." Or "It's OK to send Jews to the gas chambers because, well, they're Jews." Or maybe you say "It's OK to eat chickens because chickens are dumb." So is it OK to eat humans who have severe intellectual disability - and are as dumb as chickens?

I mean, I get that it's not nice to grab someone's ass if they don't want it. And I also get that it's not nice to eat a chicken if the chicken doesn't want to be eaten. But when to be nice and when not to be nice? Certainly, the consequences are much more severe for grabbing the ass of a woman who doesn't want her ass grabbed. But that's because women actually have so much more power than chickens.

If the problem is really power imbalance then it really seems like we need to start with giving more power to the chickens.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[hey!]

So, in other words, a person should not be able to try to hook up or date anyone below their "strata"?

Depending on your definition of "'hook up" and "strata" the answer can be yes. For example, if by "hook up" you mean engage in consensual sex, and the strata occupied are "legal juvenile" and "legal adult", the answer is yes. If by "hook up" you mean "engage in some non-consensual sex act" then the answer is "yes" regardless of strata. If by "hook up" you mean "surprise a woman by showing her your dick" the answer is "yes".

People act as if this stuff is incomprehensible. It's not. For the most part it's not even complicated. Rape is wrong. Assault is wrong. Extortion to cover up those things is wrong.

What gets a little complicated is that behavior runs along a spectrum : perfectly polite, rude, legal but scumbaggy, misdemeanor assault, sexual battery, and rape. Often placing a particular act the correct side of a particular line can be tricky. For example it's not clear whether the Al Franken incident is legal but scumbaggy or misdemeanor assault. What Harvey Weinstein did rand along the line between sexual battery and rape, compounded with extortion and tortious interference.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[hey!]

You should never take what a liar says at face value. He wasn't talking about friendship; he was talking about using his enormous power to ruin careers, which in fact he did.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[Boronx]

"Feminism infantilize women."

A movement to give women power over their own lives, such as the ability to decide who they want to screw, is "infantilizing". Slashdot: come for the tech stories, stay for the brain-dead comments. Thanks for coming through.

What the whoring commenters are not factoring in is Weinstein's willingness to destroy the careers of those who wouldn't sleep with him, or especially those who talked about it. It's not just about sleeping with him for the career boost.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[liefer]

I'm one of those people who still dont "get it". I mean i get what you're trying to say, but its slightly more complicated than that. You may or may not realize that men and women don't really have the same criteria for picking mates (in fact, men usually dont pick at all, no matter how much of a stud you think you are.... Women appear to be the sexual selector in the human species, since you have twice as many female ancestors as male ancestors). Women simply do not mate with men that have less power and less resources than them[1][2][3] If we have so little respect for women that we start to believe they are not capable of making decisions for themselves regarding sex (sexual revolution anyone?) then that means that every single male out there who have ever had sex with a female was simply abusing their power to take advantage of women Following that logic, doesn't that mean that a man who cheats on his wife with a very beautiful, young, woman is freed of all guilt? Since he's incapable of making decisions when influenced by her physical appearance? Yes. Yes it does. I hope you see how ridiculous this is As for the negative repercussions... If you, as a man, have ever approached a woman and been rejected you will know there are very real, and very severe, negative social repercussions to that as well. I'd even argue they, in some cases, even outshines the negative repercussions a woman might face when rejecting a man in power 1: Betzig, L. (1989). Causes of conjugal dissolution: A cross-cultural study. 2: Buss, D. M. (1999). Evolutionary psychology: The new science of the mind 3: Trivers, R. (1985). Social evolution.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[HornWumpus]

As opposed to Weinstein? Cosby?

Your perception is broken.

Did Weinstein or Cosby get media support, trying to make it a reveal about their 'heterosexuallity'? Granted that didn't fly, but they tried it.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[Anonymous Coward]

So I guess we lose our telepathic abilities sometime after five years of age?

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[kaatochacha]

Then you are incorrect.
Please tell me how anyone starting in comedy would ever succeed if a currently successful comedian--who is respected - told everyone : "not only is that person not funny, they're kinda bitchy".

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[HornWumpus]

That's not what he said, that's what she said.

Not being a whore, she ruined her friendship with him, but others didn't.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[Anonymous Coward]

Republicans don't give a shit sweetie.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[hey!]

It's not like there's only "rape" and "innocent flirting" and nothing in between. There's a lot of ground in between those, and many lines to be crossed. While there certainly is the potential for a witch hunt, I think it's good to talk about those lines and where they should be drawn.

Unfortunately there's no way of doing that without inviting at least some public hysteria.

One thing I think it's absolutely vital to talk about isn't just the behavior of people like Harvey Weinstein; it's all the people around him, men and women, who enabled him. The scale of his actions was only possible because of an army of people who decided to enable it to get worse because letting him assault, rape and extort was good for their careers. In a way I think those people are morally worse; at least no better. It's one very bad thing to have no control over your impulses, it's another thing to make such a callous calculation with the lives of so many.

I suspect our problem isn't an obsession with sex; it's reverence for power.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[hey!]

Wait, so because *some* women may have engaged in consensual relations, all of the women he assaulted and raped are "whores"?

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[ArylAkamov]

Well if it isn't the penis expert. Tell me, how skilled are you? How many years of experience do you have?

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[HornWumpus]

Pussy for a movie part is a trade. If they traded pussy for parts, they are whores.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[Anonymous Coward]

So what if they were under 18. It would have only been inappropriate if he had some sort of actual power or authority and was taking advantage of it. That's highly unlikely given these were conferences. Government and you moral crusaders need to GTFO of other people's business. Unless he was actually touching people in sexual ways flirting is hardly "inappropriate" sexual behavior. My significant other looked like he was 16 when we hit it off at a conference and I am several years older. He wasn't actually 16, but 21, but I didn't know that. If it wasn't for the fact it was more likely than not he was older than he looked I'd never have asked him on a date- not because I thought it was inappropriate- but because I'm not exactly looking to get entangled with the f'c up legal system. The only reason I thought he was probably- or more likely than not- of legal age was because most conference attendees are. You are the reason millions of peoples lives have been ruined. 2/3s of the people on the sex offender list have NO genuine victim. Pissing in a garbage can that happens to be next to a play ground at 2AM is a typical example of what gets many people on these lists. Lists are dangerous- but stupid people like you never learn. Under your reasoning everybody who hits on a person of a certain age range should be in jail and that is ridicules.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[h4ck7h3p14n37]

I'm still not sure what exactly Louis C.K. did that was so wrong. He asked and they said yes, there was no coercion involved. A lot of people are trying to make him out to be some kind of sick sex freak, but the fact is that some women do like to watch. I have had girls tell me it's a fantasy of theirs.

Claiming later that you felt pressured to say yes is a cop-out and an attempt to avoid personal responsibility. If you didn't like it, fine, but you did say yes. We used to be told, "no means no", now we also have to worry about, "I said yes, but I really wanted to say no"?

I'm starting to get the feeling that some people really do think they should be able to go through life and never have anything unwanted or uncomfortable happen to them. That they should never have to tell someone no, and if you do say yes, but later wish you hadn't, then it was the other person's fault.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, they're not.

Go check any brothel in Netherlands or Germany; despite everything being legal and controlled by the state, local women are rarer than white rhinos; 99% of them are imported chattel slaves from Eastern Europe and elsewhere.

Also, "prostitutes without pimps" is a fantasy; just like cannon fodder sent to front lines (even if signed up voluntarily), mean threats and trained enforcers which administrate vicious punishments are part of the game, otherwise everybody will just desert the first time they get a taste of actual combat.

Like most middle class imbeciles, you seem to equate swingers, porn actresses, crazy girlfriends "experimenting" things, etc with organized prostitution; it's never too late to get that shit out of your head.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[HornWumpus]

Real testable metrics. Is the crowd laughing?

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[amiga3D]

It's a bad idea for anyone in a position of authority to shit where they eat. Bosses should never have anything other than a professional relationship with underlings. It has always been wrong for a Manager to proposition someone who works for him. Outside of that though, people should have some backbone. If you don't feel like being mauled then tell them "No, I don't want to be touched." Unless they're a rapist they'll get the point.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[h4ck7h3p14n37]

I don't think it's ridiculous or outlandish. It was all consensual. They weren't his employees and no quid pro quo took place. Inappropriate is not illegal and it's debatable if the behavior was even inappropriate. Some women like to watch and he asked, he didn't just whip it out.

I'm assuming you're referring to power such as being able to recommend to a club owner that they promote a certain act or that they shouldn't let a particular person on the stage. Did that happen here? Did Louis make any promises or threats? No, he didn't. Did some women possibly assume that they could get ahead if they said yes, or that if they said no they would lose out on gigs? Possibly, but that choice was made by them. If they felt any pressure to say yes, it was self-generated. Saying yes and then later claiming you felt pressured and couldn't say no is just an attempt to avoid personal responsibility for their own choices.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[doom]

The problem is - when the person "asking" is in a position of authority, the person being asked doesn't always "feel free to say 'no'".

Check, but I can't find any mention of Draper actually being in any kind of position of authority. He's a hacker "celebrity", but not any one's boss.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[Anonymous Coward]

Defcon isnt a security conference. its a place to go to drink as much as possible and swing your dick (or vagina) about the things you did and show off. i black out at least once everytime i go

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're pretty fucked gaffot bozo. Worse than a Puritan nazziboo ... or b itchyhoo! What you need is how you bleed and how you feel rights nomans kheel! It's not your responsibilty how the other person make-a-buck --- mebby she wants ta fuck. Duck if you solicit ... explicit ! When in doubt fuxck like a duxck ...and smashface the gaffot blojobber.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep gaffot bitch that's how it works. What kinda dik-dyke pussymill did you grow-up into? Janes jerk-me-off ? Do you believe you have behavioral entitlements ... a kind of affirmative action emotocentric for non-nibbers because like them stupid/violent/lazy bantu you just don't have the smart-guts to butcher your way thru ? Feckin-a gaffot choke on it and lovr-leap to purify the genepool cause men would spit on you.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[Anonymous Coward]

While it seems freakin weird, if you talk to him, he really does think this stuff is exercises and stretches. Maybe he's in denial about this himself. It's not my thing, but I wish everyone happiness. If he can find some young guy to ride around and it makes them both happy, who am I to get in their way?

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[cayenne8]

Someone doesn't want to be hit on, you hit on them, sexual assault.

But, how do you know they don't want you to hit on them, until you hit on them?

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[Pinky's Brain]

Maybe we should just let people declare themselves juvenile and give them a nice badge to indicate it. Having sex with these people would be statutory rape.

That way we can reserve the term adult for people who are able to say "stop, I'm leaving".

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know exactly what Draper (Cap'n Crunch) is accused of, but I wonder if we (as a society) are crossing into witch hunt territory.

Rape is rape, and rapists belong in jail.

Flirting, making passes, and asking permission - when the askee is free to say 'no' - isn't criminal. Even if it's kinky.

So you start by saying that you do not know what is going on but conclude that whatever it is is undeserved. I do not know exactly how smart you are but conclude that it is not very. See what I did there?

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[Dutch Gun]

I'd agree except for people within the same "chain of command", so to speak, because that introduces a power element that can be very damaging to the recipient of these advances.

In the case of Harvey Weinstein, for instance, nearly every potential or aspiring actress in Hollywood is part of his sphere of influence, because he wields great power within her chosen industry. He can literally make or break careers. This is why it's not so easy to decide for the women in question. There's always an implied threat of "I can ruin your career if you reject me."

People need to be very circumspect about propositioning anyone in a position underneath them in any sort of power hierarchy. I'll stop short of saying "never" (it can obviously work out, such as with Bill and Melinda Gates), but I think it's fraught with potential peril.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[drinkypoo]

I don't think it's ridiculous or outlandish.

You're wrong.

It was all consensual.

No, it was not. And really, given that, the rest of your comment is totally irrelevant apologia for nonconsensual sexual acts. You're rapey AF.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[drinkypoo]

I suspect our problem isn't an obsession with sex; it's reverence for power.

It's obviously both. People who say that rape isn't about sex are dumbshits. It's not only about sex, it's about sex and power, but if it weren't at least partly about sex, then it wouldn't involve sex. That's a lot of extra hassle, it's a lot easier to just beat someone up.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[sinij]

You are in the wrong with you believes and you are in the wrong with your behavior. Your infantile behavior and antics are squarely aimed at true believers, since you are not event attempted engaging prior to descending into shrill hysterics. This is why I called it virtue signaling - you are hanging it all out there in all its ugliness, shouting "Look, I am one of you, like me!". However, posting as AC makes this whole exercise pointless. You are not convincing anyone, you are not scoring points for the home team, and you are not endearing yourself to anyone. In other words, you miserably failed again, like you always do, no matter how hard you try.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[Anonymous Coward]

Your right to be an asshole isn't something to celebrate.

They say, while ranting like an asshole.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[Anonymous Coward]

He is known more for his crazy behavior and lack of hygiene. He is a slob and moocher, and not really good at anything including holding down a job. He made an accidental discovery and built some electronics to exploit the discovery. Rigging circuits is not rocket science. He is a combination of Andy Dick and Bling Bling (Bumfights), and anybody that looks up to him is a crazy.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[Obfuscant]

How do we differentiate between (a) the "asker" using his/her position to make those implications (i.e., did s/he intend those implications) and (b) the "askee" perceiving implications that weren't there or weren't intended?

That difficulty is why HR seminars on workplace sexual harassment advise everyone to steer clear of the problem by not asking in the first place. And then, if the issue comes up anyway (because just normal social interaction shows that there is a serious interest/connection possibility), they advise one of the two to change jobs (lateral transfer, shift change, etc) so the "position" isn't an issue anymore.

then we should change current sexual harassment law and embark on a widespread public education campaign that tells people that the first ask by itself does, in fact, constitute sexual harassment when directed at a person with relatively less power.

You're about twenty years too late with that suggestion.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[Anonymous Coward]

You really are fucking scumbag cunt Wumpus, a steaming pile of shit.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[Anonymous Coward]

Noooooo, feminazi's and SJW's are a LOUD minority of cunts that should shut up and get over themselves.

Exactly. Women should be seen and not heard. You get it.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[liefer]

I don't think it's ridiculous or outlandish.

You're wrong.

It was all consensual.

No, it was not. And really, given that, the rest of your comment is totally irrelevant apologia for nonconsensual sexual acts. You're rapey AF.

He may be rapey (i dont think so, but i guess you can make that argument), but at least he has enough respect for women to believe they are actually able to make life choices on their own. You dont seem to share that belief.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[drinkypoo]

He may be rapey (i dont think so, but i guess you can make that argument), but at least he has enough respect for women to believe they are actually able to make life choices on their own.

No, no he does not. They chose to report Louis CK's sexual harassment, and he's arguing against the validity of that choice by lying about whether the activity was consensual (it was not.) They consented to come to his room, not to see his penis. Louis CK made life choices for them by misrepresenting his plans. Come on up and we'll hang out does not imply come on up and I'll whip my dick out whether you want me to or not.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is that you are confusing the dictionary definition of feminism with the actual reality of current day feminism, where you only deserve the benefits of ye-old-feminism if you are a "proper woman", meaning that you believe, parrot, and support only the "correct things" or else the pack turns against you (and tells you that you are suffering from internalized mysoginy for your different opinions).

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[serviscope_minor]

OK question for you:

How large a power imbalance would there have to be before you's agree that a "yes" could be coerced?

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[AmiMoJo]

Multiple women accused him of masturbating in front of them WITHOUT their consent. He admitted it.

Don't take my word for it, here's a couple of sources from different sides of the political spectrum confirming it:

http://www.foxnews.com/enterta...

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/1...

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[AmiMoJo]

He was widely condemned for trying to conflate his abuse with his sexuality. For decades gay people have had problems with people associating their sexuality with perversion, and he decides to come out at the same time as admitting to being a pervert.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[cas2000]

right, and businessmen who don't "ruin their friendship" with the local gangster to avoid having their businesses "accidentally" burn down are firemen.

victim blaming is so much fun.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[cas2000]

I used to sometimes wonder what the combination of severe retardation and tourette's syndrome would look like. now i know, and wish i didn't.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[serviscope_minor]

Society gets more outraged when women/girls are the 'victims'.

Not surprising you've been moddded troll. You've put victims in scre quotes as if to imply they're not victims. since the only thing you metioned is women, it seems you're implying that women are not or cannot be the victims. Not only that, yu're doing it on a story where men are the victims, giving the rather nupleasant overtones that men can be victims and women cannot be.

Yuck.

The dreadfully ironic thing is that it's only the rise of feminism and the willingness of women to speak out which has empowered men to speak out. This i what's interestingly different from previous times. Now it's not just wmen coming forward but male victims can too and they're not villified.

And this is yes another reason why men should be feminists: it benefits men too.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[zifn4b]

Some people still don't get it...

The problem is - when the person "asking" is in a position of authority, the person being asked doesn't always "feel free to say 'no'"

Yes "some people" still don't get it. In the African Savannah, if you are approached by hungry lion that is in a "position of authority", you can't say "no". The problem with people who think as you do is that even in modern society, we are still animals and there are still predators. The predators come in many forms. This has always been the case in nature. You know what happened to all the living things that couldn't make wise decisions regarding predators? They died. You want to know what that's called? It's called Survival of the Fittest and it's why you and I are alive today to have this discussion. If you don't take responsibility for your position in the animal kingdom you won't last. Expecting a hungry lion to adhere to a command such as "stop being a bully" is absurd. We don't live in a perfect world and our safety is threatened by many things that's why we must use good judgment and protect ourselves.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[serviscope_minor]

Huh seems like there's no shortage of apologists for scum on slashdot!

It would be a shame if you ruined your friendship with me... That's a solicitation, not an assault or rape.

No, that's a protection racket.

Their is a clear implied quid pro quo.

Yes, just like a protection racket: give me what I want or lose something like your livelihood.

The women that didn't 'ruin their friendship with him' are whores.

So you think the men who paid off the mafia to avoid getting their business burned down are whores or some equivalent too?

And that's ignoring the times he also used force.

All I can think is that you are desperate to be able to abuse your power like him, and are just waiting until you have any. Gotta fight to keep the field clear and open for when you get some. aaaaaany day now.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[serviscope_minor]

It's obviously both. People who say that rape isn't about sex are dumbshits. It's not only about sex, it's about sex and power, but if it weren't at least partly about sex, then it wouldn't involve sex. That's a lot of extra hassle, it's a lot easier to just beat someone up.

"it's a lot easier to beat people up"

Yes, I'm sure that people into abusing power and humiliating people etc are strict rationalists when it comes to minimising effort. Definitely, because all these people must be 100% rationalists and therefore always work by simple, predictable rules.

I mean if they just wanted to go for the "I am powerful I could take what I want",they would have simply taken all their money instead because that optimizes utility.

IOW: u mad, bro?

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[drinkypoo]

Yes, I'm sure that people into abusing power and humiliating people etc are strict rationalists when it comes to minimising effort.

What's rational about it? I never suggested that anything about it was rational. But people do things for reasons, they don't just fucking happen.

I mean if they just wanted to go for the "I am powerful I could take what I want",they would have simply taken all their money instead because that optimizes utility.

Well, thanks for supporting my point. It's not about just power or control, because there's other ways to exert power and control. It's also about sex.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[serviscope_minor]

What's rational about it? I never suggested that anything about it was rational. But people do things for reasons, they don't just fucking happen.

Yes precisely: you know it's ont rational yet you're STILL trying to reason through the acts of a person rationally even though you know they're not acting rationally.

Add to that you have no idea what their reasons are: you're simply guesing.

Well, thanks for supporting my point. It's not about just power or control, because there's other ways to exert power and control. It's also about sex.

So what you are saying is tht if there are multiple ways to do something then someone you claim is irrational will always pick one and never another?

oookay...

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[Anonymous Coward]

...This guy rapes.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[Cederic]

Someone accuses me of rape, I go straight to the police. Either they're telling the truth, in which case I need to take the punishment, or they're a lying piece of shit that can try and talk their way out of a charge of fraud and/or wasting police time.

Would love to hear the HR response to that - when I was approached in sexual terms by a female underling the HR guidance was, "Well, it's all down to how you feel about the approach."

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[Anonymous Coward]

He abused pity and shame to keep people quiet, not authority ... he has none. He's a manipulator.

+1.

He is a nuisance, a "harasser" perhaps.

He is some weird kind of pervert I don't understand.

He's a terrible guest. For example, if you invite him to stay at your house during a conference, it's very difficult to get him out of it after the conference ends. He will go on about having to sleep on a park bench because he doesn't have a flight home to Florida. He needs to do some more working-from-home or call in favours to get money. Then he will invite teenage boys over to your house for "energy transfer massages." The joke we told was that if you accept one you'll be shitting teeth for a week.

The sad part is, it may well be completely true that he had to sleep on a park bench, and came to the conference without a flight home because his life wherever he normally lives is so empty. I've decided I can't afford to care. That's why he's annoying. He forces you to decide that, and you can't turn back, so your entire community becomes less caring.

Serial targeting of people too young to have figured this out makes him a "predator," I guess. We thought he was respected so we called some people in his age cohort, and they basically said, "haha, no. So sorry, and good luck." But it's not the worst way to learn this hard lesson, that nurturing environments can only be created within a wall, and something has to go outside: foreigners, really poor people, animals that you eat, robot minds, something. You can try to pull more and more inside the wall, but with no emotional wall you will be overwhelmed and fail entirely. Draper is a better way to learn this lesson than a civil war in Bosnia, I'm sure. I would retrospectively count my encounter with him as net-positive on that basis.

It would be a shame if people tried to skip the hard lesson by deciding anyone "weird" or "creepy" was non-human. I see many people doing that, and it disgusts me to see them kicking harmless human beings they don't bother to understand outside the wall, pulling "any animal with a face" inside the wall, because they are desperately trying to deny that the wall exists. This is a path to evil. People brag about being caring, nurturing people as a fundamental part of their identity, sometimes in a zero-sum high-school-social-climber way as "I'm more caring than this other person," not because they've asked themselves hard questions about how to live that way, but because they've shouted those questions down by vilifying the people who are trying harder than they are themselves to project this fake image of total success. These people scare me. I don't want them near me when the revolution comes.

yah, captain crunch goes outside the wall, though. :(

Also the boss-to-direct-report model of sexual harassment doesn't apply here. He doesn't have anything to threaten you with, specifically or implied. I am not sad this story "broke" as it may save some people annoyance, but he's not my top priority to remove from conferences or parties. Getting rid of Appelbaum was far more important. However it's still useful to understand the patterns in how sociopaths operate and why they are so difficult to dislodge, and a look at his behaviour may help with that.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[Anonymous Coward]

> Flirting, making passes, and asking permission - when the askee is free to say 'no' - isn't criminal.

Unless you're in an elevator with Rebecca Watson.

Then it's not only criminal, but merely Tweeting about it critically is criminal...

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[Anonymous Coward]

A power imbalance is never sufficient, there has to be an actual threat for it to be coercion.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Seems interesting", "I want this person to like me for whatever reasons so I am going to go along with this even though I am uninterested", "I don't want to but it might have negative consequences for me if I don't roll with it", "I don't feel like I have a choice", "I don't actually have a choice", and "oh God oh God deliver me from this".

Personally I think the issue needs to focus on the last two. The rest of those people need to learn to spine up or accept living as sheep.

I agree, sorta. I would like two separate projects. When we're censuring the behaviour of one person the last two should be in a special category, if not the exclusive focus.

But we can still find structural solutions to #3 and #4. To find them, I would like to focus on #3A, a scenario with three people instead of two: "I don't want to do this, but if I say yes and my competitor says no, then I can defeat my competitor." I find this threatening in two ways.

  - When I, the third person, approach the "perpetrator," it's not just the perpetrator who's coercing me. It's the perpetrator and the second-person #3A victim together who apply the coercive force to me.

  - There is intense competition within "#1 seems interesting." People spend time and money on makeup, clothes, gyms. They study non-economic but high-status fields in college, practice music, cultivate hobbies. Most of people's lives is devoted to winning this competition. And one of the goals is "loyalty," so #1 is not answered one time but evolves into a relationship where a yes to #3A can also be a no to #1. This can be true even if there's no single human perpetrator, for example my friend's boyfriend is an actor and won't let her post photos of them together or acknowledge their relationship properly because he wants to pass as single while networking.

It's important to retain the sophist shortcuts around "victim-blaming" so maybe the PR campaign for #3A should use some new SJW term-of-art like "secondary victims" or "amplified victims." There are two kinds of "amplified victim"

  - people who said yes to #3A in a zero-sum competitive way, because everyone else was saying yes to #3A, not just in a one-time-bribe or 1:1 blackmail way.

  - People in effectively-abusive relationships because their partners cannot give them a clear yes on #1 because their partners feel a need to say yes to #3A, or at least tease the understood possibility of a #3A yes to get more wholesome non-#3A negotiations started.

Perpetrator-villification can only go so far against #3A before it turns into scapegoating and gets ugly. We need a broader intervention to improve it.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[Anonymous Coward]

Spacey didn't want to come out at all, he famously kept his private life off the table in interviews etc.

The only reason he said "I'm gay" is because he knew that after this very public accusation, men he had hit on in the past were going to be coming out of the woodwork and he knew that there would be no way to plausibly deny it.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[liefer]

He may be rapey (i dont think so, but i guess you can make that argument), but at least he has enough respect for women to believe they are actually able to make life choices on their own.

No, no he does not. They chose to report Louis CK's sexual harassment, and he's arguing against the validity of that choice by lying about whether the activity was consensual (it was not.) They consented to come to his room, not to see his penis. Louis CK made life choices for them by misrepresenting his plans. Come on up and we'll hang out does not imply come on up and I'll whip my dick out whether you want me to or not.

I understand people on this site may not exactly be masters of social interactions, but when a stranger of the opposite sex asks you, late at night, after showing a clear interest in you: "Hey, wanna come back to my place?" then yes, it absolutely implies showing each other your genitalia. If you think otherwise you're an idiot

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[Anonymous Coward]

Lol! I think that video is fake as hell, but clearly his behavior went over the line. Hers is perfectly acceptable, though.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[whyyisthissohard]

Namecalling.
Constantly halting speech broken with much punctuation.
"You clearly do not understand...." (yet no reasoning whatsoever)
More namecalling
Profanity
Complains about strawmen - then proceeds to make strawmen

You don't analyze how you know anything.
You are not a rational-minded person. You are a born and bred witch-hunter 'on steroids'. You become emotional in the face of calm argument. You don't seek solutions, you seek revenge. You are a brainless animal.
This is a very partisan issue.
Real, free, sane human beings vs. subhuman brainwashed consumerist tools.

We need to exterminate you all. Kill you dead. You're nothing but remote controlled beasts. Your fate is sudden death and extirpation. Either your masters will grind you to dust and spread your remains over their fields after they have gotten their way with their inquisition (you will be utterly useless after the automation revolution), or we will stop you before it's too late.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[whyyisthissohard]

Mature behavior from a woman is not "screwing".
It's making meaningful lifelong relationships and starting a family.

RRRRRRRAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH GET IN THE KITCHEN?????????? RRKEJRLSEKRJSEL WTFFFFFFFFFFFFF MYSOGYNIST!!!!!!!!!

Cool off, psychotic liberal drones.

The same standard applies to men for the same exact reasons.

Which is more like an infant:
Playing with a thing and then throwing it away after it bores you
or
Developing skills around a thing so it becomes a tool that serves you in your livelihood

We aren't talking about just any 'thing' here, we are talking about the object of a great deal of our instinctual behavior. Something that factors into our nature on every level. Something that used to factor into our societies, something that was of critical importance to the development of science and everything else. The objects of a stable family.

And then come the war-torn, impoverished, desperate people from which 'liberals' and 'leftists' were crafted. They actually have no idea of freedom like classical liberal philosophers. They just want more stuff and easier living. Because they're animals. So they sacrifice the family so they can slave away to get a bunch of baubles. They're less intelligent than a magpie with a nut-sized brain. Calling them 'animals' is an insult to animals. They're mind-controlled drones that the plutocracy uses as proxies for real human beings to forge an illusion of social consensus. When we stop falling for it and take action ourselves immediately, ignoring these brainless unreasoning "people", and destroy their masters directly, then the world can begin to be free.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[drinkypoo]

I understand people on this site may not exactly be masters of social interactions, but when a stranger of the opposite sex asks you, late at night, after showing a clear interest in you: "Hey, wanna come back to my place?" then yes, it absolutely implies showing each other your genitalia. If you think otherwise you're an idiot

It implies that they would like you to become intimate with them, yes. But going there does not imply consent for any act. You have to negotiate that some other way. If you can do it without words, that's great, more power to you. If you can't, then you have to do it with words. This isn't that complicated.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[liefer]

If you think you have to use words to get consent from a woman to have sex with her, or that its even an option, you're not very successful with women. You're almost certainly a better person than me, good for you, i really do mean that... but im not interested in that. If you want to be very successful in this aspect of life, you have to be willing to sometimes push boundaries which means offending some girls. Calling it sexual harassment is absolutely ridiculous

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[Anonymous Coward]

If she agrees to come back to your place, and you start making out on the couch, then you start unbuttoning her blouse, and she stops you and says, "I really like you but I'm not ready to take that step yet."

What do you do? Plead that she consented to sex by accepting your invitation? What if she just wanted to watch TV with you?

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[drinkypoo]

If you can do it without words, that's great, more power to you. If you can't, then you have to do it with words. This isn't that complicated.

If you think you have to use words to get consent from a woman to have sex with her,

If you think you read that correctly, you're wrong.

or that its even an option, you're not very successful with women.

I've been around the block a couple of times, and I have sometimes negotiated consent in words, and sometimes I haven't had to. It's your job to know the difference.

You're almost certainly a better person than me, good for you, i really do mean that... but im not interested in that.

Then you're a rapey piece of shit, and I really do mean that.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[liefer]

hahaha you panic because your sexual frustration is brought to light. Its okay. I understand.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[HornWumpus]

Wait a second: All gays are perverts, but not a perverts are gays. That's just a fact.

You ignore that he was condemned _after_ the media tried to float the balloon. All the initial releases gave him a pass.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[HornWumpus]

Back onpoint. Not all the victims are, some are co conspirators (aka whores) that are now trying to obscure where their success came from.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[HornWumpus]

'Sleeping your way to the top' does not turn into 'rape victim' on discovery.

He offered something of value for sex.

If he got it, the women ARE whores. It's pretty simple. Co conspirators. Victims are actresses who didn't get the parts, not the hollywood whores who did.

Re:Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here?

[AmiMoJo]

Do you have links to these "initial releases" giving him a pass?

Techbro Ageism

[Anonymous Coward]

He was banned for being old.

End of story.

Creepy dude gets banned from semi public event.

[Anonymous Coward]

Film at 11

Re:Creepy dude gets banned from semi public event.

[Opportunist]

Do we leave the security conference in alphabetical order or by beard length? Or do we have to wait for Stallman to go first?

Re: Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here

[Anonymous Coward]

When they say teenagers I'm assuming we are talking about 18-19 year olds. You have to be +18 to get into these conferences right?

Re:Turning worm

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot to mention social media is the cause.

2005: Nerds are the new cook kids

2006: Facebook opens to the public

2017: Nerds suck

Tech requires social skills now. Nerds aren't welcome anymore.

Hacker 'hero' searches for backdoors in people

[DontBeAMoran]

News at 11.

Re:Hacker 'hero' searches for backdoors in people

[Anonymous Coward]

Guess he Crunched those guts.

Re:Hacker 'hero' searches for backdoors in people

[Pinky's Brain]

Phreaky.

Re:Hacker 'hero' searches for backdoors in people

[whyyisthissohard]

You're an ape

Re: Turning worm

[Anonymous Coward]

Cool brah!
Keep up with your ransomware insurance payments.

Been there - got the masssage

[Anonymous Coward]

Defcon early 2000s when I was 18.

Re:Been there - got the masssage

[Opportunist]

So, is he any good in bed? I planned to go next year.

Re:Been there - got the masssage

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, since he's a top, I'm sure you'll have grand old time with old butt raper Draper.

Re: Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here

[Anonymous Coward]

But was Draper in a position of authority? This is so murky, people seem secretive of what he is accused of. For all we know this may be some rumors spread b innuendo. I hope whoever banned him from these conferences has some real proof of him acting creepy. But then why wasnâ(TM)t he referred to authorities? I agree that if he was knowingly hitting on minors he should be banned and arrested, but then I donâ(TM)t know if thatâ(TM)s what he was doing. What exactly was he doing? Asking adults out shouldnâ(TM)t be grounds for getting banned unless it was being done super excessively and in a lewd manner. He is not a person of authority.

Re:Turning worm

[Opportunist]

Tech still isn't a social matter. Posing and pretending is. And that's what Facebook is about.

Tech is still what it used to be, we just shed the posers when Facebook and the like surfaced. And I guess both sides were happy about it, don't ruin that!

Re: Turning worm

[Anonymous Coward]

Backup storage is insurance against data loss.

Can personally confirm that this has been known

[RevDisk]

For a minimum of a decade or decade and a half. Draper extensively hit on a friend of mine, who at the time was 18 or 19.

Apparently, not all the teenagers were above 18. That's the part not being mentioned. He wasn't exclusively hitting on dudes under 18, but he just wasn't remotely cautious about the age of the folks he was hitting on. Usually people were NOT interested.

Re:Can personally confirm that this has been known

[110010001000]

I don't get it. The age of consent in Nevada is 16. Why would they need to be above 18? I get that the guy was creepy but is hitting on people at conferences illegal?

Re:Can personally confirm that this has been known

[Anonymous Coward]

And what did you and your friend do to report the behavior?

Re:Can personally confirm that this has been known

[Anonymous Coward]

Hahaha oh thank god I'm married now. Women have gone completely nutty.

Re:Can personally confirm that this has been known

[Anonymous Coward]

I was hanging out in the contest area at DEFcon this year, messing with people for fun... Apparently, I was making people uncomfortable because I was acting strangely... I stood still and silent, prominently holding out tickets and waiting for people to take them. When someone took the ticket I wordlessly and briskly walked to another location and did the same thing. Some people thought it was part of a contest. Some people knew I was trolling. It's a freakin hacker convention. Snowflakes can suck it.

lol... captcha on this was "victims"

Re:Can personally confirm that this has been known

[Anonymous Coward]

In the age of new moral puritanism, yes. It is.

Re:Can personally confirm that this has been known

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently, hitting on anybody these days makes you a sexual predator.

Hide out in the Ecuadorian embassy

[jfdavis668]

It worked for another hacker hero.

Re:Hide out in the Ecuadorian embassy

[Khyber]

You mean Assange, the guy who has now been shown to be playing friendly games with Russia against the USA?

Hero my ass.

Re:Hide out in the Ecuadorian embassy

[taustin]

Those who idolized him before mostly idolize him even more now. Those that see that as a problem already hated him.

Re:Hide out in the Ecuadorian embassy

[HornWumpus]

Whoever released the emails IS a hero!

Re:Hide out in the Ecuadorian embassy

[Anonymous Coward]

Ooh look, Wumpus is virtually admitting he is a russian shil.
It takes a sick cunt to stoop to your level, bet youre a kiddie fiddler too, with your defence of sexual assault, including Cheetoh Hitler sounding just like a perpetrator. Sad

Re:Hide out in the Ecuadorian embassy

[Anonymous Coward]

If you have evidence to show that the Russian elites are causing some conspiracy or otherwise acted in any kind of immoral way, feel free to publish that evidence in an effort to promote transparency and accountability to the citizens. In the meantime, Wikileaks has published credible evidence that shows that there was a lot of immoral activity by American elites during the presidential election. Whether Assange has ties to Russia is irrelevant, the important matters are that Wikileaks publishes credible evidence of immorality by the elites. Assange is a hero for his role in exposing this kind of immoral behavior.

Re:Hide out in the Ecuadorian embassy

[HornWumpus]

Seth Rich deserves a posthumous nobel peace prize for keeping the bitch out of office!

Re: Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope.
https://r00tz.org/
https://forum.defcon.org/forum/defcon/past-defcon-content/forum-archives/defcon-22-forum-archive/defcon-22-and-beyond/15170-defcon-kids-rootz-asylum

Corporate sponsors want education outreach.

Brandon Creighton, a long-standing volunteer

[Hognoxious]

Brandon Creighton, a long-standing volunteer

With a name like that he should be a frequent contributor.

Re: Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here

[Opportunist]

Considering the admission fees, I highly doubt that anyone under can go. I mean, can you see "Dad? Can you gimme 3k bucks, I wanna go to a hacker conference".

Re: Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here

[Anonymous Coward]

Defcon has a children's track. An older guy named Winn (really nice guy) helps run it and attempts to keep it clean for the kids (I didn't see Winn there this year, but it was packed). The children's track there is a few years old, I think about 5 years.

I don't know what Dapper looks like and never knew he attended. I'm sure I've seen him there before if he does but just didn't recognize him.

This is nothing new about Draper

[t0qer]

I used to hang out in the #2600 IRC, Drapers panache for young boys was being discussed as far back as 1998 according to my recollection.

Re:This is nothing new about Draper

[Anonymous Coward]

panache: mass noun Flamboyant confidence of style or manner.
penchant: (usually in singular) A strong or habitual liking for something or tendency to do something.

Re:This is nothing new about Draper

[Anonymous Coward]

Child rapist: Someone who is allowed by people in IRC and at Def Con to keep going on as if it's all okay.

Re:This is nothing new about Draper

[Anonymous Coward]

what a sicko!!!!!! even pedophile Trump would blush in this guy's presence!!!!!!!!!!

Re:This is nothing new about Draper

[dave562]

Agreed. I remember it being pretty common knowledge that "Captain Crunch likes little boys" as far back LA 2600 meets in the early to mid-1990s.

That does not make it okay. But this whole "surprise" is not exactly a surprise to anybody who has been around the guy, or involved in the computer underground for any length of time.

Re:This is nothing new about Draper

[Anonymous Coward]

What's a pederast, Walter?

Re: Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here

[the_B0fh]

Adults are not allowed in the kids section, without a kid sponsoring them.

In other words, adults are not allowed in those sections.

Recent kickstarter update

[Anonymous Coward]

Is this story the reason why he posted an update to his autobiography kickstarter that he was on the autism spectrum? Is this the new out for techies? Sorry for my inappropriate behavior, it was the autisms'.

Interesting. Maybe people should stop doing and believing that self-diagnosing is possible. Go see a real doctor if you think you have a medical condition.

Re:Recent kickstarter update

[Anonymous Coward]

It has come to the attention of HR that you are a liability since you have been diagnosed with a medical condition which causes inappropriate behavior in the workplace. You're fired.

Re:Recent kickstarter update

[taustin]

My attorney is glad to hear it. He's an expert in ADA compliance, and he has a boat payment to make.

Re:Recent kickstarter update

[Anonymous Coward]

Good luck with that. You see, you signed an agreement when you were hired, stating that you waive your right to sue the company for any reason, and in the event of your termination that you would be deemed solely at fault. Hope your attorney enjoys the boat you just paid for, because you have no case. Oh and if you try to collect unemployment, you will be denied. Now that you are unemployed, you will never work again, because nobody will hire an unemployed loser with a mental condition. Have a nice death.

Re:Recent kickstarter update

[taustin]

Since the lawsuit will be filed by the federal government (plus, ADA rights can't be signed away), that seems a trivial objection. And the feds need all the good publicity they can get right now.

Maybe two boat payments!

Re: Recent kickstarter update

[Anonymous Coward]

That statement says he has a diagnosis, but got it "late in life". Also, your post clearly shows no understanding of autustic behaviors. It's looking more and more to me like he is a cross between forest gump and rainman in that he is probably pretty enthusiastic or insistent about something he's interested in (wopner to these exercises) and seriously lacking social skills to communicate properly. He's also of an age where there probably wasn't a lot of enlightenment or treatment on these issues and may never have grown any if the self reflection skills that many modern Aspies grow to obtain. Not excusing anything if he did do something sexual. But I haven't really seen any stories that make me think: "This guy is a predator."

I have a stepchild that is on the spectrum (now grown) and I saw how it effected him and his interactions with people. He did sometimes do things that made others uncomfortable, including persistently pursuing my (and others') partnership in various activities. In public scenarios, I've seen outsiders grow uncomfortable from this persistence. I would be terrified if he were accused of anything as a result if these behaviors.

  That being said, I could see how my step son's behaviors could be perceived as pressure, harassment and in some (rarer) cases, even minor aggression. In the end, he can be distracted, but it takes some work.

Also, my stepson is now 29 and has never shown any interest in sex or either gender. He has had a few "accidents" along the way - and more than one in public. He was deeply embarrassed. Again, I can't imagine the horror if something untoward were to be made from that.

I'm not saying this guy didn't do inappropriate things, I'm just struggling with the intent, the power issue (that he didn't have any), the fact that there are no reports of actual sexual contact and the fact that he's on the spectrum. For me, put together, this just doesn't add up.

Re: Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here

[Altus]

If said teenage admirers were under age then it really doesn't matter if he had any formal authority over him or not.

Re: Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here

[NoSleepDemon]

I suppose it is to those men who wish to use virtue signalling as some sort of attempt to win the hearts of the opposite sex. Unfortunately they will gladly be exploited and led on, and never realise that "nice guys aren't".

Re:Turning worm

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't live in the real world, do you?

Social tech bros live in youth communes now. The day of the lone solitary basement dwelling hacker are finished. Nerds don't become millionaires by uploading shareware to a BBS. Manipulative psychopaths become tech billionaires. Nerds get banned from society and die penniless.

Apparently you still believe in nerd supremacy because you have had your head firmly lodged up your ass for decades.

Don't hit on people out of context?

[rsilvergun]

If you're at a hacker convention that is not the appropriate time to hit on a women (or a man). That's why the good Lord made singles bars. You're professional environment is not a dating site. How hard is that to understand?

As for the rest of Utopia thing the Democratic Socialists figured that part out ages ago. The Danes are doing just fine thank you very much.

Re:Don't hit on people out of context?

[RedK]

If you're at a hacker convention that is not the appropriate time to hit on a women (or a man). That's why the good Lord made singles bars. You're professional environment is not a dating site. How hard is that to understand?

There is literally no right or wrong time to meet a significant other. In fact, a convention where people of similar interest gather, is probably a time when you'll meet people, exchange with them, and form bonds. Some of the those bonds could lead to friendships and more. Dating and meeting people is not an activity in and of itself. It happens organically during social activities of all sorts, of which your job, schooling, shopping are all a part of. To try and paint any non-professional bonds that happen in professional settings as wrong is simply to ignore human nature.

That being said, harassment and assault should not be tolerated. But you're saying that flirting, or simply having a nice chat with someone you feel you're connecting with should be banned, which is downright ludicrous.

Re:Don't hit on people out of context?

[Anonymous Coward]

I normally like your posts but
1) A hacker convention is not a professional environment. Please fuck off and stop ruining the scene with this shit.
2) Less important but "You're" means you are "You are professional environment is not a dating site"

Thank you that is all.

Re:Don't hit on people out of context?

[anegg]

A hacker convention is a professional environment? What has happened to the world?

Re:Don't hit on people out of context?

[Anonymous Coward]

Winter is coming = snowflakes are taking over
oh god... it was earth the whole time!

Re:Don't hit on people out of context?

[K. S. Kyosuke]

You're [sic!] professional environment is not a dating site.

Yes, that must be why 40% of people have a workplace romance and a third of them end up married. :-p

Re:Don't hit on people out of context?

[phorm]

"There is literally no right or wrong time to meet a significant other"

Well, I would say that when the potential significant other is an underage fan, there's probably NO right time...

Re:Don't hit on people out of context?

[Anonymous Coward]

Its not difficult to understand, it's just a terrible and repulsive point of view. To demand that people only enjoy sex the way you want them to is, well, fuck you, asshole. Fuck you to hell.

Re:Don't hit on people out of context?

[drinkypoo]

If you're at a hacker convention that is not the appropriate time to hit on a women (or a man).

Tons of people hook up at professional conventions, and they like it that way. Who are you to tell them not to? We're not talking about consensual acts here, try to stay on topic.

Re: Don't hit on people out of context?

[Zero__Kelvin]

Yes, what a great world it would be if being drunk was a prerequisite to meeting and interacting with romantic interests. What could possibly go wrong? How young, inexperienced, and unread must one be not to know that couples meet under all manner of circumstance?

Re: Don't hit on people out of context?

[Zero__Kelvin]

I would have said instead that they don't qualify under any circumstances as a significant other.

Re:Don't hit on people out of context?

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh. I've never gone to a "singles bar". I'm a workaholic. I met my wife years ago at work.

Re:Don't hit on people out of context?

[serviscope_minor]

There is literally no right or wrong time to meet a significant other.

On a pedantic technicality, tha tis true. I practice, no it's no the place to go hitting on people. Perhaps if you get on well, exchange contact details and so on then yeah ask that person on a date or something.

What in practice happens is "theres no right or wrong time to meet a SO" gets translated to "I'll hit on eceryone who's hot and try my luck". There is certainly a wrong time for the latter.

But you're saying that flirting, or simply having a nice chat with someone you feel you're connecting with should be banned,

No he's not. The fact that you don't understand the difference between "hitting on" and "meeting your future SO" leads me to believe you're likely to wind up on the wrong side of these things.

Re:Don't hit on people out of context?

[serviscope_minor]

If you're at a hacker convention that is not the appropriate time to hit on a women (or a man).

Tons of people hook up at professional conventions, and they like it that way. Who are you to tell them not to?

A convention ain't a singles bar though. Yes people make connections and hook up (or more!). That doesn't mean it's a free-for-all for hitting on people. And it matters very much how you do it. If you wait nutil there's a strong connection at the very least, that's hugely different from hitting on randos.

If you wander up to someone and ask "are you freaky in bed" apropos nothing at all, that's something entirely different. Yes that was someone's actually someone's idea of hitting at someone at a tech conference.

Trouble is if there's a gender imbalance, guess whether it's the majority or minority who gets hit on all the time.

Re:Don't hit on people out of context?

[drinkypoo]

If you wander up to someone and ask "are you freaky in bed" apropos nothing at all, that's something entirely different. Yes that was someone's actually someone's idea of hitting at someone at a tech conference.

Just to be clear, I didn't mean to say anything I didn't say. I meant what I said, and I stand by it. I didn't mean anything I didn't say, and I stand by that, too.

Your need to read other things into what I said is a problem with your knee, not what I wrote. I agree with what you wrote, but what you wrote doesn't contradict anything I said.

Re:Don't hit on people out of context?

[serviscope_minor]

No mate, that's bullshit.

Your post is not idependent of the post you were replying to. You omitted a large amount of the gamut of "hitting on" while saying it's OK. I read what you wrote and replied to. And what you wrote was bullshit.

If you meant something else then you should have actually said it, rather than omitting it and hoping I'd figure out what you meant.

You said essentially [sometimes it works] so who are you to tell them that [hitting on] is not OK.

If what you write is not what you mean, it's nt my fault if I read what you wrote.

Re:Don't hit on people out of context?

[whyyisthissohard]

You don't get it.

These people such as you are responding to are not not people, they are drones, machines. They take cues from the media because it's big and "impressive" and they model their thought after this impression. Their human spirit is crushed. The only thing human about them is that they can make human children, but those children only have hope for humanity when some one intervenes and protects them from their parents.

The "sexual harassment" phenomenon is simply a ploy to destroy men's freedom and make sure there is a way to take down any man that displeases the plutocracy.
Men are dangerous. It's men who make Civil War.
Civil war as a huge danger to this system. It's crumbling but the mortar to restore it is en route. We need to rebel very soon or we are all going to become drones, and then destroyed utterly after human labor becomes obsolete to the plutocracy.

Re:Don't hit on people out of context?

[drinkypoo]

Your post is not idependent of the post you were replying to.

That's correct. Let's go back and exhume this thread, since there's apparently a deceased equine that wants some flagellatin'.

Don't hit on people out of context? (Score:3)
by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on 11-17-17 11:52 (#55571803)
If you're at a hacker convention that is not the appropriate time to hit on a women (or a man). That's why the good Lord made singles bars. You're professional environment is not a dating site. How hard is that to understand?

Okay, so there's the comment to which I replied. Here's my reply:

Tons of people hook up at professional conventions, and they like it that way. Who are you to tell them not to? We're not talking about consensual acts here, try to stay on topic.

I took exception to a statement which claimed that a professional event is not an appropriate place to hook up with someone, and I myself pointed out that we're not talking about hookups, we're talking about nonconsensual acts. Now you want to come on like a hard-on and claim that I'm ignoring context when I was talking specifically about context? Put that thing away.

Re:Don't hit on people out of context?

[RedK]

Oh look, the Cultural Marxists and Reeeegressives are flooding the thread, a day late, hoping to get the last word!

On a pedantic technicality, tha tis true. I practice, no it's no the place to go hitting on people. Perhaps if you get on well, exchange contact details and so on then yeah ask that person on a date or something.

"Oh hey charming person, we're really hitting it off, but let's put all this on hold until a time we're not at some kind of event that others have deemed inappropriate for meeting each other"

Always works right ? Trying to artificially put the brakes on to human interactions that are often spur of the moment is a good way to not end up very alone. The other person could change their view of you entirely in that moment, as you come off as lacking confidence or overly prude. Of course, this will depend on every person. A good tip when hitting it off with a person : Stop caring what others think. All that matters is what the person in front of you and yourself think.

No he's not. The fact that you don't understand the difference between "hitting on" and "meeting your future SO" leads me to believe you're likely to wind up on the wrong side of these things.

Because asking people out is literally sexual assault in your mind maybe ? I guess it works if you have that mind set. Too bad that's not how human interactions work. The other person is free to say "No" if they are not interested. Also before you go there, no need to be lewd or indecent, when a simple "Wanna go up to my room for a private chat" or "Wanna go get a bite just the two of us" is perfectly viable way to asking someone out.

These events have been way too lax in the past.

[91degrees]

The celebrity power pretty much keeps these people beyond criticism. The organisers have often been much more concerned with getting big names than caring about the regular attendees' safety.

This might possibly have been prevented by someone taking Draper aside and telling him his behaviour is not acceptable.

Mark Zuckerburg

[Anonymous Coward]

Touched me inappropriately. Fire him! After all I am an anonymous source making a claim so its legit.

Re:Mark Zuckerburg

[Anonymous Coward]

Shut the fuck up, creimer.

Captain Crunch!

[Anonymous Coward]

Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak hanged out with Captain Crunch back in the day. Jobs and Woz even made blue boxes to access long distance service. That is until a buyer pulled out a gun to rob them.

Source: "Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution " by Stephen Levy

Re:Captain Crunch!

[Anonymous Coward]

These days, you can trick AT&T to give you free internet access and free data, with impunity. Data is so cheap, and capacity is so abundant, that nobody really cares about a few freeloading tricksters. The rush of accomplishment at tricking the system is still as intoxicating as ever.

Re: Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here

[Anonymous Coward]

Not at all.Making passes at underage teens is crossing into creep territory. Draper is a creep.

what about the enablers?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is the spotlight not being shone on the organizers who put together these conferences? If this is a well known secret then they are just as much responsible for his actions at their conferences as he is.

It really drives home the current society that we live in. One that routinely prefers short term gains regardless of the long term costs.

Re: what about the enablers?

[junk]

Because rumors are not convictions and with no official reports, there was really nothing to do. Imagine a world where rumors were all that was needed to get you banned from a place. Disinformation campaigns would be so much more powerful. Keeping Draper on a short leash was an effective way of protecting everyone from him without playing judge, jury and executioner in the absence of actual accusations or evidence of wrongdoing.

Re:Perv Franken going down too

[Anonymous Coward]

Down on your mom!

Re:Turning worm

[Anonymous Coward]

What does Facebook have to do with "tech"?

I'm seriously asking.

Draper should run for Senate in Alabama

[Anonymous Coward]

Except he probably believes in evolution so he wouldn't stand a chance.

Rather ironic...

[nuckfuts]

that the whistle is being blown on man who became famous by blowing a whistle.

Disappointing, slashdot

[johannesg]

Could we perhaps do the naming and shaming _after_ a conviction in a court of law? Rather than destroying someone based on nothing but hearsay and rumor?

This is just incredibly disappointing. You are a tech news site; not the judge, jury, and executioner of someone's reputation.

Re:Disappointing, slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

Unlikely in this case because, thankfully, being creepy isn't against the law... Good thing too or half the people here (including me) would find themselves in court.

Captain Crunch is how I knew him

[Trax3001BBS]

With a whistle out of a Captain Crunch cereal box he owned the phone system at the time.

Re:Captain Crunch is how I knew him

[Anonymous Coward]

Except for the fact that John Draper wasn't the first. Draper didn't discover the 2600 tone, and Draper doesn't deserve the moniker of Captain Crunch. But of course Joe Engressia has been dead for ten years, so nobody gives a shit about Engressia who was the true pioneer of phreaking. Draper is just a fucking celebrity poser who is famous for being famous. Fuck John Draper.

Re:Captain Crunch is how I knew him

[Headw1nd]

Fuck John Draper

Trying to be clever with a little subliminal messaging, eh? I'm on to you, John.

Re:Captain Crunch is how I knew him

[Anonymous Coward]

Suck my whistle, I'll give you a prize.

Is Draper a Dem or Repub?

[Anonymous Coward]

I only believe the Dems accusers.

Re:Turning worm

[Opportunist]

Odd. It's not really what I observe. From my position it's still MBAs ripping off everyone else and playing people against each other to keep them occupied.

If you have people skills, what the hell are you doing in tech? There's way more money to be made in management.

Re: Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here

[Anonymous Coward]

Those arenâ(TM)t whores, those are rape victims. Duh!

John Draper

[Anonymous Coward]

The issue with Draper is there are documented cases of his Yoga exercises with boys under the age of consent, 15 years old. This has been well known for many years and even though some of us tried to get the word out, too much hero worship surrounds the guy.

The problem is that when you idolize someone as much as we did (Draper was a member of my group back in the day.) when they ask something weird, you aren't as likely as a kid to say no to your hero. We quickly learned what he was really like...

The guy is just a dirty bum with serious mental issues who has a thing for young guys and doesn't keep the bar above age of consent.

Re:John Draper

[110010001000]

"get the word out"? If you have documented cases of child abuse why didn't you go to the police???

Re:John Draper

[Anonymous Coward]

What's Sting going to do? Nothing, that's what.

Re:John Draper

[110010001000]

Maybe. He did write a song about it called "Don't Stand So Close to Me". He might be an expert.

Re:John Draper

[Anonymous Coward]

Horny teen girl gets wet at the thought of her dad's cock.

Re:John Draper

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't just go to the police with someone's story of what they experienced. That person has to do it, and you aren't going to find many teenage boys willing to go to the police to make a statement.

The police don't give two flying fucks if they have to work for a conviction, they want the low hanging fruit.

Re:John Draper

[110010001000]

"You can't just go to the police with someone's story of what they experienced."

You can't? That is news to me. I didn't know there was some rule like that. But you have documented proof that it happened! Did you even try to go to the police?

Re:John Draper

[Anonymous Coward]

Hearsay isn't evidence.

Re:John Draper

[110010001000]

But you had "documented cases". I don't get it. Why didn't you go to the police? Did you try?

Re:John Draper

[Anonymous Coward]

Documentation is unreliable. Use the source.

Re:John Draper

[110010001000]

Ah I see. So you did nothing. Good job.

Re:John Draper

[taustin]

In fact, in some circumstances, when minors are involved, one can be required to go to the police with nothing but that claim, and face jail time if they don't. Teachers, for example, face brutal punishment if they ignore signs that student is being molested. Doctors, too. Even if the student themselves doesn't actually say something.

Re:John Draper

[Anonymous Coward]

It must be a real bitch living life in black and white, you poor sucker.

Re:John Draper

[serviscope_minor]

Why didn't you go to the police?

The police *always* treat assault victims well.

True story!

Re:John Draper

[Anonymous Coward]

I would get the police's attention by telling them there's a body of a 70-something caucasian male in a hotel room, who appears to have been strangled with a phone cord...

He should run for President

[Anonymous Coward]

known sexual predator and child-abuser reaching the oval office is not unheard of in the US.

Just some non SJW/Catholiban view on sexuality:

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, this is how sexuality and nudity would handled, hadn't it been ruined by Abrahamic religion and SJW terrorism.

Too long in coming

[Anonymous Coward]

His behaviour has been well-known for decades.

What the hell took so long?

Re: Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here

[Anonymous Coward]

Well... a lot of dumb shit DID happen back then...

Re:Turning worm

[Aighearach]

Are these actually the nerds, or just people in careers where nerds would know their names?

Aren't these things that actual nerds would only do in a roleplaying game, but would be too shy to do in person?

Maybe the people whose names become famous are mostly the non-nerds? And the ones like Wozniak who do become famous lead more private lives?

When they show up at a convention and have hordes of teenage groupies, wouldn't a nerd run away? And, doubly so if aroused? If they were going to abuse one of them, they have to run home, send an email, and arrange to meet for coffee! And then sleaze out when nobody is looking.

Maybe it is just that the gamergater neckbeards think playing games makes you a nerd? That's the same as what those engineering majors are doing, right? Touching the computer and sometimes laughing? Same?

whats the point anymore

[Anonymous Coward]

why bother becoming famous or powerful anymore if you cant even grab the occasional dick/pussy now and again.

Re: Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here

[Anonymous Coward]

I've actually enjoyed watching all these super nu-male feminist woman respectors all get outed as degenerates. Deep down we all knew only a born rapist would dedicate their lives to following around women showing everyone how much they care, listen, and believe.

It's like a televangelist who thinks god is the only thing that keeps men from succumbing to the temptation of gay hairy buttsex with poop mess.

Re: Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here

[Anonymous Coward]

Not familiar with the specific case, but if itâ(TM)s what I think it is... thatâ(TM)s at best malpractice and at worst outright rape (sexual contact obtained thru fraud and coercion).

Re:Turning worm

[Anonymous Coward]

Facebook is a tech company which employs brogrammers to code a social media platform.

john draper is infamous for his perverted ways

[NynexNinja]

I started going to cons in the early 1990's and John Draper "Captain Crunch" was always notorious for trying to invite newbie hackers to his hotel room for "meditation" sessions which included massaging and touching and whatever else happened if you allowed it go any further. The guy was always known to be a pervert. Everyone joked about it. He would literally go person-to-person through the crowd and invite whoever he could upstairs for a little one-on-one if you know what i'm sayin. Every con he would show up and do this. The best was at summercon 98 he showed up and did a talk about how everyone owes him thousands of dollars because he is so old school and how he invented the hacker scene. The guy was a fixture at every con. pumpcon, defcon, summercon.

Re:john draper is infamous for his perverted ways

[110010001000]

Massaging and touching are definitely perverted. He must be the first man to ever invite people to his hotel room for such perversion.

Re:john draper is infamous for his perverted ways

[HornWumpus]

Would you ever give a man a foot massage?

Re:john draper is infamous for his perverted ways

[Anonymous Coward]

Would you eat toejam from the feet of Richard Stallman.

Re:john draper is infamous for his perverted ways

[NynexNinja]

it is when he rubs his boner against your back and grabs your balls

Re:john draper is infamous for his perverted ways

[Anonymous Coward]

Be smug all you want, you haven't been in that situation, you have no idea how you would react, JD is very, very good at manipulating people, even to the point that one may not realize what's happening with the guy until it's too late.

You aren't the special snowflake you pretend to be, he's a master manipulator, and creepy as fuck.

Re:john draper is infamous for his perverted ways

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it's after you have his special energy drink unknowingly laced with MDMA, and then you get nearly naked (he insists) and do some Crunch-up's with him.

The main position he put his victims into is on their back, legs and knees next to the ears, and this takes some time, he's very smooth, and slow.

Then he gets between their legs, holding their ankles back, and in one quick movement he's violated you!

Nope, it didn't happen to me, but it was close, and a few years later I heard the sordid details from someone who had succumbed to JD's Svengali like spell.

Besides the RAVEs he was well known at (butt raper Draper), and the Tech circles, he also preyed upon late night DJ's in the Bay Area, that's how I met him in 1980.

Re:john draper is infamous for his perverted ways

[HornWumpus]

EBay!

BuzzFeed?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hahaha, news for the Stalin youth.

Re:Turning worm

[crgrace]

Do you know anything about John Draper? He is practically a nerd archetype.

Re: Turning worm

[Anonymous Coward]

Cool brah, keep hiring contractors to keep up with that.

Your social techs don't understand the backup system. They want to put it all in the cloud.

Re:Turning worm

[Aighearach]

For small enough values of "nerd" and "archetype" it might be possible, but I doubt you can get the values of achetype that small when the root word is arkhos, "king" or "ruler."

Re: Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh gee. Did you copy paste that from YouTube comments?

You can change it

[rsilvergun]

Make an economy where running out of money doesn't mean desperation. These aren't smart people using sexiness to get ahead. They're economically vulnerable. When the left talk about social justice that's what we mean.

Love Police

[h4ck7h3p14n37]

Look out everyone here comes the Love Police!

Re: Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here

[Anonymous Coward]

He said the first world ;)

Re: Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here

[Anonymous Coward]

Salty tears is salty. Reddit life reeeeeeeeeeeeee

Re: Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod up.

You say no and tell someone.

Re: Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here

[Anonymous Coward]

âoeyour tiny penisâ

I know you are a woman after reading that. Itâ(TM)s like they all think the same.

Re: Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here

[Anonymous Coward]

You'd have to drink 3-4 bottles of Tussin to be "out of your mind". Trust me I've tried.

So this friend of a friend of yours volunteered for an "energy exercise" and was sure he was going to be raped? If he was so scared of being raped why was he in the room in the first place? Why was he volunteering to do "energy exercises"? When things got sketchy, why didn't he just leave?

And if you felt like he was a creep wouldn't that mean other people might feel the same? If somebody is as creepy as you say, you don't take them up on their "energy excercise" offer. If You think somebody is a creep You don't goto their room with them and do "energy excercises".

I'm sorry but since you are AC I can't believe you. If what you saw is true then stand up and put your fucking name to it. Don't hide behind AC. If you think what you SAW was wrong; then step up and speak out about it. You are apart of the problem.

Reality is, this situation probably never happened. You story is full of holes. You even stated nothing illegal happened. Just weird shit.

I think your friend wanted to do "energy excercises", and was embarrassed when you walked in. That's my take on the story.

MISTER POTATO-HEAD! MISTER POTATO-HEAD!

[Anonymous Coward]

Back doors are NOT secrets!

Re:MISTER POTATO-HEAD! MISTER POTATO-HEAD!

[Anonymous Coward]

Can you wait here? These guys can get a little nervous...

You're there to hack

[rsilvergun]

not to hit on women. There will be time for that later in bars. The women who want to be hit on will show up at the bars. The ones that don't, wont. Everybody wins.

Re: You're there to hack

[Zero__Kelvin]

So hackers who don't go to bars, male and female alike, are destined to die alone in your world then? How many people have to tell you that you are off base and how many times before you figure out that you don't understand the whole relationship dynamics thing?

Re: You're there to hack

[serviscope_minor]

So hackers who don't go to bars, male and female alike, are destined to die alone in your world then?

You know what, sure why not.

Not going to a common social venue does not give you the right to hit on people at an inappropriate time or place. Your boner is not the king, and the world does not bow down before it.

Re: You're there to hack

[Zero__Kelvin]

First of all this isn't about "inappropriate places", it is about a gathering of like minded people. You are thinking of funerals. Second of all I have no doubt you don't realize this but women are actually attracted to men too. It isn't the one way street you experience daily for many of us.

Re: You're there to hack

[serviscope_minor]

First of all this isn't about "inappropriate places", it is about a gathering of like minded people. ... who are on the whole there to talk about tech stuff. Yeah you might meet your SO there, but it's not the place to just go hitting on people. Sure if you actually have a strong connection, xchange contact details and that sort of thing, or if its someone you already know well, then yes go for it but tread carefully.

If you're treating it like a singles bar and just hitting on people then no it isn't the time or the place.

WTF is the ludicrous equivalence being drawn between "you might meet a partner there" and "anything goes".

You are thinking of funerals. Second of all I have no doubt you don't realize this but women are actually attracted to men too.

OK, so you're talking the line "you don't agree with me therefore you must be stupid". Well, nice to see.

Yes women are attracted to men. No that does NOT mean they want to be hit on all the time at a tech venue. Sometimes, in fact most of the time, they like the men want to talk about tech with any other random conference goer.

It isn't the one way street you experience daily for many of us.

Except it kind of is. Imagine you're at a conference with a strong gender imbalance where gender A is common and gender B is less common. Now lets say both are equally likely to spot someone they want to hit on and both equally likely to hit on someone in those circumstances.

Which group, A, or B do you think will get hit on most?

Now hypotheticals aside, I've been to many tech conferences and witnessed more than enough shitty behaviour which could fall under the general guise of being hit on. In practice it happens to women far more than men though I have witnessed it in both directions.

Interesting thing thoguh, at the last conference I was hanging round a mixed but female dominated group. A few drinks were had and I guess the women in the group felt reasonably comfortable because then all the stories of incredibly skeezy hitting on behaviour (and other) came out. ALL the stories.

Hold fucking shit. I had no idea.

So yeah you might meet your SO, or you might be yet another guy hitting on her in a very long line already and she would rather talk about cool tech and cool hacking.

Re: You're there to hack

[Zero__Kelvin]

I didn't waste my time reading all that .... I read just enough to see that you really have no idea about woman. Guy A walks up and says something and it's creepy behavior because she isn't into him. Guy B, who she is into, walks up and says the same thing and it was cute, or sexy, or what have you. If you ask woman in bars they will also say they deal with a lot of creepy behavior, because just like at the convention there will be a lot of guys she isn't into and a few that she does want to hit on her. End of story.

Re: You're there to hack

[serviscope_minor]

Guy A walks up and says something and it's creepy behavior because she isn't into him. Guy B, who she is into, walks up and says the same thing and it was cute, or sexy, or what have you.

Oh boy. That's not even wrong.

Look, if you're interested in learning, there are a lot of people on the internet who have devoted many column inches to this, and are better writers than me.

http://www.doctornerdlove.com/...

If you ask woman in bars they will also say they deal with a lot of creepy behavior, because just like at the convention there will be a lot of guys she isn't into and a few that she does want to hit on her. End of story.

Er right, so that guy who came up to someone I know in a bar and proffered a drink in his hand, then got very insistent and pushy, then left the drink behing and left---I guess she thought that was incredibly creepy because "she wasn't into him".

You know either that or she didn't feel like getting roofied.

Re: You're there to hack

[Anonymous Coward]

If someone's giving you unwanted attention and you tell them to go away, then they should respect that and go away.

OTOH if your complaint is that you get approached too much (i.e. lots of people find you attractive and want to have sex with you) I can't say I have much sympathy.

Re: You're there to hack

[Zero__Kelvin]

If he left the drink behind and left he was much more likely trying to be nice, accept no for an answer, and show that he wasn't petty enough to take the drink back. If it was the actor she was hit for she would have guzzled that sucker then sucked him and rode him all night. Your friend sounds pretty stuck up if she found the guy "creepy".

Re: You're there to hack

[serviscope_minor]

It's interesting that you seem to know so much about an event you never witnessed and have only heard about second hand.

If he left the drink behind and left he was much more likely trying to be nice,

Or you know, it was roofied and he didn't want to touch it.

trying to be nice, accept no for an answer,

Yesh because being really really really pushy is "being nice". A clue: it's not.

If it was the actor she was hit for she would have guzzled that sucker then sucked him and rode him all night.

It's interesting that you claim to know so much about someone you've never met. Basically your lens is "women are shit" and you bend everything around yourself until that's all you see. You've never met this person. You don't know her. You have no idea what she would do, yet you're assuming that she is guaranteed to do the one thing that would confirm your worst suspicions. that says more about you than her.

Your friend sounds pretty stuck up if she found the guy "creepy".

You know, going up to someone you've never seen met and very insistently trying to get them to drink something you're carrying is very unusual behaviour for humans. Thing is if you act in an unusual way it can come across as creepy because people don't know what other ways you might act unusual in. People not acting in normal ways can range from harmless to very very dangerous.

I also note, you didn't read the link I sent.

Oh fuck I know what's going on! You got called creepy over something (or suspect you did). And rather than find out an uncomfortable truth like you did something that made someone unconfortable and it was your fault, you're blaming women instead up to an including inventing actions for people you've never met.

You have to admit claiming that sommeone you've never met is guaranteed to act in a particular way is a pretty odd claim!

Seriously, read the link (and the links therein). You're not tainted for life, hardly anyone knows, and it doesn't follow you around. If you start reading about why it happened, you will find out why what you did made someone feel creeped out, and more to the point you can avoid making the same mistakes again.

Or, you can keep blaming the world for you not being hot enough, all the while completely ignoring those guys who look like an indside out toad but who are a like some kind of flirting ninja because they are in fact very, very good at reading social cues.

(that's not me by the way, I'm not especially good at reading social cues)

Re: You're there to hack

[Zero__Kelvin]

You aren't good at reading either. I made it quite clear that I have no problems with women, and understand them quite well in the general case, as well as having plenty of experience with the corner cases. When you start believing a few woman can speak for all of them you are sure to be mislead. No matter what some will say, what they like and don't like is not universal. It is always on a case by case basis.

Re: Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, they were his fans? He has zero authority over them. They can choose to ignore him anytime. They can choose no to go with him into the private room woth zero consequences. Not saying they deserve to be treated badly but it's not the same as a workplace thing.

Re: Turning worm

[dougdonovan]

who the hell is john draper ?

Re: Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here

[Anonymous Coward]

No he is not.

Same old shit. History repeats itself

[Anonymous Coward]

America is out of control. Posts like these and the things that are happening in our society is exposing what we are as a whole. Sick.

These are the small battles that give us the feeling of being in power. Disagreeing with such behavior is see as being righteous and when you gather those who are righteous the mob brews.

Re: Turning worm

[PopeRatzo]

who the hell is john draper ?

He's like the granddaddy of the modern nerd. He was the first hacker to be known as "Captain Crunch" and the hacker magazine 2600 is named after his whistle frequency.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re: Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here

[drinkypoo]

Re: Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here (Score:-1)
by Anonymous Coward on 11-17-17 16:19 (#55573729)
[...]
I'm sorry but since you are AC I can't believe you. If what you saw is true then stand up and put your fucking name to it. Don't hide behind AC. If you think what you SAW was wrong; then step up and speak out about it. You are apart of the problem.

You are a hypocritical piece of shit. Please die in a fire.

Re: Turning worm

[Obfuscant]

The magazine "2600" is named after the frequency of the tone used to mark a long-distance trunk circuit as idle. Because there was no DC path on long distance trunks that could be used as a supervisory signal (like was available on the local loop), when one end of the trunk wanted to tell the other end that the line was idle it put a 2600 Hz tone on it.

The "whistle" was not created by "Captain Crunch" the hacker, it was a toy prize included in boxes of Captain Crunch the cereal, from which the hacker took his nym.

The tone was used to disconnect an existing long distance call. Your local end of the trunk knew it was still in use because your local loop was still active. The remote end thought the trunk had gone idle and disconnected the call from that point onward.

When the tone was stopped, the distant end believed it was being asked to initiate a new call and started listening for the DTMF in-band signalling that would route the new call. This was not the same set of tones as a touch-tone phone produced, so a device called a "blue box" was used by the hacker to generate the correct tones.

There were codes used to route the call via specific paths, so one game was to see how many trunks could get involved before the call was completed. Or you could force specific undersea cables to be used.

This was all described in a paper published in the Bell System Journal, intending to inform other Bell technical employees of the internals of the system. Hackers discovered this information and designed a simple tone generator system (the "blue box") to take advantage of it. Bell attempted to scour all the libraries where this journal was shelved to remove that article, and it is hard to find a bound copy from that time period that still has the article in it.

Because it was the local end of the call that maintained the record of called number and time spent on the call, it was usually a toll-free number that the hacker used. The only evidence of the hack would be extremely long calls to toll-free numbers.

If you practiced, you could actually whistle the disconnect tone yourself. It was somewhat fun to walk past someone who was on a long distance call and then whistle 2600 Hz for a few seconds or even less. If they were engrossed in the conversation they wouldn't notice the whistle, but the phone system did. Their next words were usually "hello? Hello? Are you there?"

That is ancient history to most folks these days.

Re: Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here

[Zero__Kelvin]

Perhaps that is your experience, but I am going to go out on a limb and suggest that it is probably more common that they are abducted from their parents, or run away at a young age and are subsequently exploited.

Draper the Raper

[Anonymous Coward]

...

I am impressed

[Anonymous Coward]

...that your friend stayed 18 or 19 for a decade and a half. Most people can't pull off that deception.

But in this age of accusations requiring no proof, why should reality be a problem?

How appropriate. Capture is "amused"

Re: Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here

[cas2000]

I'm not 100% sure he's a rapist but (having met him during one of his visits to Australia in the 90s) I am 100% sure he's an arsehole, and a creepy one too.

Re: Turning worm

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree, words are best represented not by their definition, but by finding the ancient root of half of the word. That you undoubtedly consider yourself intelligent is troublesome.

Ask Slashdot 2003

[Mendy]

https://interviews.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=60754&cid=5736634/

Knew John Draper Back When He Lived In Alameda

[Anonymous Coward]

Must have been back in the 1980s.

I was one of those young men he invited home, to hang out. Mind you, it wasn't just guys; I'd been introduced to John by an intermediary friend, who was a woman, going to Berkeley. John's home was a mecca for the superbright.

While I was there, I remember someone demonstrating a neat hack involving two BART cards, a magnetic read head, a magnetic write head, a 9-volt battery, and some very precise positioning, which, when put all together, could be used to clone BART cards.

I don't mind saying I cautioned John that BART would detect duplicates, that surely every card contained timestamp data and two cards bought at the same machine with the same date and time, in a database, would attract attention ... but my words of wisdom were ignored, and I think John was later charged with selling fake BART tickets.

Around that time in history, I think the California legislature had just passed a law stating that what consenting adults did in the privacy of their own bedroom was their own personal business - and so what John did was and is remains his own business, until such time as someone can prove otherwise.

That having been said, John did ask me to massage his back, and my read on the situation was that John had learned some peculiar habits while he was in prison and was trolling for sexual partners - although it seemed more like human contact - but was still unable to come right out and admit he was gay.

John struck me as a very sensitive man, underneath his tough facade, and I suspect what he really needed a hug. He was insulated by his self-consciousness. That, I think we all can understand.

This was and is not too different from the rest of humanity who are trapped in a similar situation and so I did not think it needed to be exploited for attention and instant fame.

Obviously I am alone in these habits.

I'm not a victim. I'm a consenting adult. I didn't consent. Nothing happened. There's nothing to see. So move along.

Fuck the predators whose main claim to fame is that they were stupid and immature.

Quit acting like women and posturing like victims. My god.

Re:So many of these stories coming to light...

[Anonymous Coward]

> There is a lot of truth to the old saying, "scratch a homosexual, find a paedophile".

No, there's not. There are far more straight pedophiles than gay, and most victims are molested by straight men.

Educate yourself

Re: Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here

[Anonymous Coward]

He is not a sociopath, he's in the spectrum.

Re: Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here

[Anonymous Coward]

ðY'ðY'ðY'ðY'ðY'

Top post

Re: Are we crossing into Witch Hunt territory here

[Anonymous Coward]

It IS exercise to him, and only exercise. I'm not sure he knows how to relate or connect to people beyond tech and exercise.

well

[Anonymous Coward]

JD conman + his friends like the slut Christine Marie + Woz etc, same shit all of them, go now and buy his 'latest' book, he needs ca$h for his meth

Re:well

[Anonymous Coward]

Kevin Mitnick as well long time buddies with Johnny the horny Gropman - maybe fuckbuddies who knows lolz