Daniel Brandt helping the Wikipedians Do No Harm

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Re: Daniel Brandt helping the Wikipedians Do No Harm

Post by Daniel Brandt » Wed May 30, 2018 9:37 pm

ericbarbour wrote:Agreed. Watch your step, Daniel: some weird shit is happening on Wikipediocracy. Tarantino has been behaving more like a Wikipedia admin sockpuppet than a researcher lately.

When tarantino and I were doxing ED for over a year, we communicated by email several times a week. But "there was no there there," to quote Gertrude Stein. I got no sense of an identifiable online personality, only terse doxing data in little snippets, spread out over time. He could have been more than one person, or perhaps even a bot fed by a committee of researchers in a back room somewhere.

Jake/Somey is also a good researcher and is also still unidentified, and he actually has a personality. But he is too anti-Russia these days for my tastes.

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Re: Daniel Brandt helping the Wikipedians Do No Harm

Post by ericbarbour » Wed May 30, 2018 11:46 pm

Daniel Brandt wrote:He could have been more than one person, or perhaps even a bot fed by a committee of researchers in a back room somewhere.

I am beginning to suspect similarly. Someone who interacted with tarantino later asked me "is that two different people?"

Jake/Somey is also a good researcher and is also still unidentified, and he actually has a personality. But he is too anti-Russia these days for my tastes.

Remember that when WO started in 2012, Somey openly offered that his real name is James Somers, he lives in Omaha, and is a retired US government employee. Also that he followed the DC punk-rock scene in the 1980s. Never could verify any of that. If he was a gubbmint employee, his criticism of Russia would not surprise too much.

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Re: Daniel Brandt helping the Wikipedians Do No Harm

Post by Daniel Brandt » Thu May 31, 2018 12:58 am

ericbarbour wrote:Remember that when WO started in 2012, Somey openly offered that his real name is James Somers, he lives in Omaha, and is a retired US government employee. Also that he followed the DC punk-rock scene in the 1980s. Never could verify any of that. If he was a gubbmint employee, his criticism of Russia would not surprise too much.

I'm glad you mentioned that. I have a vague recollection that when he sort of introduced himself to me, back in the Wikipedia Review days it must have been, he mentioned that he was formerly employed by the National Security Agency as some sort of low-level paper pusher. I believe he also mentioned at some point that he was involved with developing a Windows-compatible product that he offered for sale.

I wish I was better at keeping careful records. His NSA reference found its own dedicated brain cell in the back of my head somewhere, and that's all I can say. I thought about bringing this up, but until you offered your information I was too unsure of myself and was going to let it pass.

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Re: Daniel Brandt helping the Wikipedians Do No Harm

Post by Flip Flopped » Sat Jun 02, 2018 12:43 am

Daniel Brandt wrote:
ericbarbour wrote:Remember that when WO started in 2012, Somey openly offered that his real name is James Somers, he lives in Omaha, and is a retired US government employee. Also that he followed the DC punk-rock scene in the 1980s. Never could verify any of that. If he was a gubbmint employee, his criticism of Russia would not surprise too much.

I'm glad you mentioned that. I have a vague recollection that when he sort of introduced himself to me, back in the Wikipedia Review days it must have been, he mentioned that he was formerly employed by the National Security Agency as some sort of low-level paper pusher. I believe he also mentioned at some point that he was involved with developing a Windows-compatible product that he offered for sale.

I wish I was better at keeping careful records. His NSA reference found its own dedicated brain cell in the back of my head somewhere, and that's all I can say. I thought about bringing this up, but until you offered your information I was too unsure of myself and was going to let it pass.
Strelnikov has a blog named "Wikipedia Sucks (and So Do Its Critics)." Information on who is who tends to show up there.

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Re: Daniel Brandt helping the Wikipedians Do No Harm

Post by Flip Flopped » Sat Jun 02, 2018 2:21 am

Daniel Brandt wrote:
ericbarbour wrote:Agreed. Watch your step, Daniel: some weird shit is happening on Wikipediocracy. Tarantino has been behaving more like a Wikipedia admin sockpuppet than a researcher lately.

When tarantino and I were doxing ED for over a year, we communicated by email several times a week. But "there was no there there," to quote Gertrude Stein. I got no sense of an identifiable online personality, only terse doxing data in little snippets, spread out over time. He could have been more than one person, or perhaps even a bot fed by a committee of researchers in a back room somewhere.

Jake/Somey is also a good researcher and is also still unidentified, and he actually has a personality. But he is too anti-Russia these days for my tastes.
If you look in the Wikipediocracy archives you might notice that Vigilant and tarantino had an extended period during which they would riff off of each other in posts, often using pictures/gifs or inside jokes ("Pleased to meet you, hope you know my name," "Whoo whoo.") It was the only time that tarantino appeared to have a personality. I think Wikipediocracy might now have a policy that all staff have to tell whoever is in charge their identity, but I might be thinking back to when WO first started.

Tarantino contacting Tarc about un-banning you makes sense given how things have gone on that forum. The staff don't want to piss off unnecessarily anyone who will post. Also makes sense that tarantino is relatively new as staff and might be bending over backward to try to accommodate as many posters as possible.

It never made sense to me that you were banned on WO. I never knew what led up to that.

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Re: Daniel Brandt helping the Wikipedians Do No Harm

Post by Kumioko » Mon Jun 04, 2018 6:55 pm

There is no policy requiring it but its encouraged and the majority do post their identities. There are some exceptions though especially for those who started off as anonymous editors.
#BbbGate

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Re: Daniel Brandt helping the Wikipedians Do No Harm

Post by ericbarbour » Mon Jun 04, 2018 9:12 pm

Daniel Brandt wrote:
ericbarbour wrote:Remember that when WO started in 2012, Somey openly offered that his real name is James Somers, he lives in Omaha, and is a retired US government employee. Also that he followed the DC punk-rock scene in the 1980s. Never could verify any of that. If he was a gubbmint employee, his criticism of Russia would not surprise too much.
I'm glad you mentioned that. I have a vague recollection that when he sort of introduced himself to me, back in the Wikipedia Review days it must have been, he mentioned that he was formerly employed by the National Security Agency as some sort of low-level paper pusher.

The NSA is such a joke these days. I seriously have to wonder about the sanity of anyone willing to make a "career" working for that insanely paranoid Cold War leftover. They have employee jokes like "I had to skip lunch today because I forgot to sign the proper NDA for eating food" and worse. Their history has been one long incompetent security leak, with occasional shitstorms of Bamford and Drake and Snowden etc. OF COURSE it would not surprise me if they had some kind of "mole" working for the Wikimedia Foundation. I could see Jimbo giving them the passwords to the servers, in return for some slush-fund money.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... -star-trek

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Re: Daniel Brandt helping the Wikipedians Do No Harm

Post by Flip Flopped » Tue Jun 05, 2018 12:41 am

ericbarbour wrote:
Daniel Brandt wrote:
ericbarbour wrote:Remember that when WO started in 2012, Somey openly offered that his real name is James Somers, he lives in Omaha, and is a retired US government employee. Also that he followed the DC punk-rock scene in the 1980s. Never could verify any of that. If he was a gubbmint employee, his criticism of Russia would not surprise too much.
I'm glad you mentioned that. I have a vague recollection that when he sort of introduced himself to me, back in the Wikipedia Review days it must have been, he mentioned that he was formerly employed by the National Security Agency as some sort of low-level paper pusher.

The NSA is such a joke these days. I seriously have to wonder about the sanity of anyone willing to make a "career" working for that insanely paranoid Cold War leftover. They have employee jokes like "I had to skip lunch today because I forgot to sign the proper NDA for eating food" and worse. Their history has been one long incompetent security leak, with occasional shitstorms of Bamford and Drake and Snowden etc. OF COURSE it would not surprise me if they had some kind of "mole" working for the Wikimedia Foundation. I could see Jimbo giving them the passwords to the servers, in return for some slush-fund money.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... -star-trek
And the NSA's damned consultants. Sounds like they take any Tom, Dick, or Harry, not unlike the WMF.

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Re: Daniel Brandt helping the Wikipedians Do No Harm

Post by ericbarbour » Wed Jun 06, 2018 9:00 pm

The recent result of an FOIA request: a collection of NSA "motivational" posters. Plenty of lol here.
http://www.governmentattic.org/28docs/N ... 0s-60s.pdf

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