Bravo Delta Zero? WTF?

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User1983
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Re: Bravo Delta Zero? WTF?

Post by User1983 » Sat Dec 31, 2011 2:07 am

mojo wrote:
Brunner wrote:Sorry, no. The group was shut down about two years ago when Wong disappeared and probably hadn't had anything steady in it for about a year before that.
what a surprise.
Thanks man, obviously I should have just kept my mouth shut.

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Re: Bravo Delta Zero? WTF?

Post by Mike DiCenso » Sat Dec 31, 2011 3:47 am

mojo wrote:
Brunner wrote:Sorry, no. The group was shut down about two years ago when Wong disappeared and probably hadn't had anything steady in it for about a year before that.
what a surprise.
Is there some purpose behind this harassment of Brunner, Mojo? See Gen. Donner's comments, if this is a hoax, it's a pretty damn elaborate one. Also in in stating publicly that he was a former member of this group and giving the information he has, Brunner is running a serious risk of being discovered and harassed by SDN. If he's lying, and this is all made up, then he could face civil libel charges from Wong and several other folks there as well.

So lay off with the attack dog routine.
-Mike

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Re: Bravo Delta Zero? WTF?

Post by Admiral Breetai » Sat Dec 31, 2011 7:08 am

Brunner wrote: Thanks man, obviously I should have just kept my mouth shut.
We appreciate the information Brunner especially considering you fear harassment, believe me we really do.

but can you honestly blame any one for being suspicious?

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Re: Bravo Delta Zero? WTF?

Post by Jedi Master Spock » Tue Jan 03, 2012 1:25 am

I will comment to say three things:

First, it would require a few hours of work to create a good believable hoax screenshot. Why invest that sort of time in creating a hoax? (And why then make a page that says "Bravo Delta Zero" instead of "Bravo Delta Zulu"? The latter is the standard NATO phonetic for BDZ, so I understand how someone would come up with it; but I view the mistake as evidence against the hoax.)

Second, it's not that controversial in the grand scheme of things. All this means is that there was an official group dedicated to coordinating SDN activity on other boards.

The big difference between something like that and the "Other Websites" section here is that ours is in the open.

This isn't as big as previous controversies that erupted with respect to the Saxtonite community, if I recall correctly - the leaked material on the mailing list involving Saxton himself in the lead-up to the AOTC:ICS, for example, is much bigger.

And wasn't there a time that the private moderator sections of SDN got hacked or leaked? I seem to recall hearing about that. This is small potatoes when it comes to incriminating evidence. All it does is help explain why the SDN support squad has been so quick to show up, and why the arguments they offer tend to be so homogenous.

Specific threads tying the identities of Bravo Delta Zulu members to specific other handles on other boards, or posts showing various VS debaters screaming for help when outmatched, could be more embarrassing in nature.

What's more disturbing is that Brunner feels worried about retaliation. It's a little odd to be worried about that sort of thing for the "crime" of exposing the existence of a particular private subforum dedicated to spreading the gospel of Saxton; that is to say, promulgating a particular interpretation of Star Wars and a particular interpretation of Star Trek. It only makes sense when we consider that the SDN community has done equally unreasonable things in the past.

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Re: Bravo Delta Zero? WTF?

Post by mojo » Tue Jan 03, 2012 4:13 am

Mike DiCenso wrote:Is there some purpose behind this harassment of Brunner, Mojo? See Gen. Donner's comments, if this is a hoax, it's a pretty damn elaborate one. Also in in stating publicly that he was a former member of this group and giving the information he has, Brunner is running a serious risk of being discovered and harassed by SDN. If he's lying, and this is all made up, then he could face civil libel charges from Wong and several other folks there as well.

So lay off with the attack dog routine.
-Mike
disagreeing with you is not an 'attack dog routine'. obviously i read the thread before i commented. i'm not swst.

so lay off of me.

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Re: Bravo Delta Zero? WTF?

Post by 2046 » Tue Jan 03, 2012 4:27 am

Jedi Master Spock wrote:I will comment to say three things:

First, it would require a few hours of work to create a good believable hoax screenshot.


Minutes, actually. Sure, you can screencap and then go all Paintbrush with it, but it's trivial to do it in-browser and then cap that. (At least in IE.)
Why invest that sort of time in creating a hoax?
Because we must be made to believe that the hardcore SDN folks are half-lunatic uncivilized internet savages who, like so many village idiots let loose upon the web, should have their access rights revoked the moment they started plotting nefarious attacks and making threats against people over a flippin' sci-fi debate.

Y'know, because nobody here ever thought anything like that before.

Oh, wait . . . ;-)

I mean, sure, this could simply be an effort to rile up the "silliest Trekkists" out of boredom . . . perhaps even a little TK action or somesuch . . . but that's basically like showing a bunch of Jews yet another secret war document purporting to prove Nazi ill-will toward Jews. Ho hum.

If it were a hoax, one would expect that it would be something current, like current secret plans to disrupt SFJ's hosting or hack the board or get a new ICS book written with Saxton and his cronies getting carte blanche to put in whatever BS they choose, along with a secret plot to drug Lucas and get him to sign a new canon statement or something. Boring ancient crap doesn't get attention, except the attention we are now giving it merely to comment that it is boring ancient crap.

No offense intended, Brunner . . . I applaud and approve of your action. It's just Mojo's time of the month.
(And why then make a page that says "Bravo Delta Zero" instead of "Bravo Delta Zulu"? The latter is the standard NATO phonetic for BDZ, so I understand how someone would come up with it; but I view the mistake as evidence against the hoax.)
Given that the whole choice of calling it "BDZ" was based on, well, the BDZ thing, I don't find that slip of the pen particularly troublesome either way.
What's more disturbing is that Brunner feels worried about retaliation.
If he's a semi-old-timer from over there, he saw them at their worst. I'm not aware of any recent evil on their part (haven't been keeping track), but back in the day any Enemy of the State was targeted . . . remember the maps of people's homes being discussed and commented upon, with planning escape routes and so on after knocks at the door? It's just a step from there to some loonie killing a pop star, as it were.

And if he had access to this private forum, one can't help but wonder what other similar things were observed behind the scenes.

That said, though, if that were my rationale I'd hardly be interested in painting a crosshair on myself (if even a dim one given how many members there were) by posting it to a billboard at the Enemy capital. But that depends on how many people were in the forum, my sense of their current activities (i.e. are a lot gone), and so on.

Honestly, therefore, the retaliation part is the worst aspect of the case. But people deal with things differently so I don't necessarily view it as a disqualifier.

But again, it's all a ho-hum thing. And again, as stated a few paragraphs up, no offense intended on that, Brunner.

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Re: Bravo Delta Zero? WTF?

Post by Mike DiCenso » Tue Jan 03, 2012 6:15 am

mojo wrote:disagreeing with you is not an 'attack dog routine'. obviously i read the thread before i commented. i'm not swst.

so lay off of me.
No, that's not what this is about. What it's about is you ripping into someone for no good reason. Yeah, the possibility is this is hoax. But also keep an open mind to the possibility Brunner is actually telling the truth as well. You can tell someone that you don't believe them without being nasty.
-Mike

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Re: Bravo Delta Zero? WTF?

Post by Mike DiCenso » Tue Jan 03, 2012 6:21 am

2046 wrote:But again, it's all a ho-hum thing.

Yeah, by itself it seems "ho-hum", but when you couple it with the larger body of what was going on behind the scenes at SDN. Of course all that assumes that this is for real and not an elaborate SDN or independent troll's hoax.
-Mike

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Re: Bravo Delta Zero? WTF?

Post by User1983 » Tue Jan 03, 2012 3:52 pm

*sigh* Misnaming the page and group is just a stupid mistake on my part. I could never remember if it was Bravo Delta Zulu or Zero. But people will take what they want from this, if they want a hoax, they'll see a hoax.

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Re: Bravo Delta Zero? WTF?

Post by mojo » Tue Jan 03, 2012 11:01 pm

i suppose i could have been more polite in saying 'this whole thing embodies every cliche for a hoax that i know of'. but, see, that in itself sounded pretty aggressively cockish. is there really a nice way to put that? it's not as if i hate this guy brunner or something.

mr. brunner, you seem like a perfectly nice sort of fellow. i bear you no ill will, but your story strikes me as unlikely in the extreme due to several factors, including your inability to describe even one single specific thread or incident and your claim of a hard drive crash that destroyed all evidence that could prove you're telling the truth. the idea that a massive hard drive crash somehow left that one single screen capture just makes it all the more unbelievable and your own admission that you have no idea how that could happen doesn't help. given that you have repeatedly stated that you don't care and that the chances of you producing more evidence are nil, i don't know why i should beat around the bush rather than making a couple of short, direct statements, but what the hell.

is that better, mike?

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Re: Bravo Delta Zero? WTF?

Post by Admiral Breetai » Tue Jan 03, 2012 11:24 pm

wait SDN people actually planned out violence against their critics? This legitimately happened? To the extent that they posted pictures of maps to posters places of residence and the like? actively and openly in their own forum made plots?

come on guys self defense laws in certain parts of the US aren't that Draconian..simply shooting one of these people the moment they try something at your home and screen capping their plots and providing it to a court of law..was never ever considered during the worse of this? by anyone? Everyone ran scared? there was no attempt to fight back? in any capacity? even non violent?

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Re: Bravo Delta Zero? WTF?

Post by User1983 » Wed Jan 04, 2012 1:00 am

More then likely it survived because I just noticed its ln on my photobucket and I transfered it over, as I've been struggling with what to do with the info.

And yes, i don't much remember the threads, three years or so will do that. I do recall a thread where it was discussed to induct Kane Starkiller but Wayne thought he would go off half-cocked and cause trouble.

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Re: Bravo Delta Zero? WTF?

Post by mojo » Wed Jan 04, 2012 4:53 am

that's actually a good point. given evidence of intent to harm, you could KILL someone and spend about an hour explaining your position before being allowed to go about your business.

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Re: Bravo Delta Zero? WTF?

Post by Admiral Breetai » Wed Jan 04, 2012 5:28 am

mojo wrote:that's actually a good point. given evidence of intent to harm, you could KILL someone and spend about an hour explaining your position before being allowed to go about your business.
exactly and the event would also serve to make an example of what would happen should things escalate beyond the net.

4chan does do this too they even hired private investigators to go after that lunatic emo girl that cut the dogs head off

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Re: Bravo Delta Zero? WTF?

Post by Jedi Master Spock » Wed Jan 04, 2012 10:35 am

Admiral Breetai wrote:wait SDN people actually planned out violence against their critics?
Wayne Poe was banned from the Star Wars website for posting an animated video in which a character representing him went violent on caricatured Fandalorians and Karen Traviss. He actually talked about it here while he was trying to defend himself.

There's been fan fiction written fantasizing about certain prominent SDN members performing violent acts on the author of ST-v-SW.net. I can't recall who wrote it, but it is, or was, out there, and 2046 has talked about these sorts of things here.

Graham Kennedy, the author of DITL.org, was harassed personally - they called up his employer, even.

I can't recall who had satellite pictures of their house posted, but I've heard the story too many times from too credible posters here to dismiss it. One of them will probably pipe up with details soon.
come on guys self defense laws in certain parts of the US aren't that Draconian..simply shooting one of these people the moment they try something at your home and screen capping their plots and providing it to a court of law..was never ever considered during the worse of this? by anyone? Everyone ran scared? there was no attempt to fight back? in any capacity? even non violent?
I'm sure that some of what went on was legally actionable. And there were a few legal threats made from time to time. To my knowledge, nobody carried through, but there are probably a number of people in a position to sue Wong and company for libel or slander, according to the laws of some jurisdictions.

There are two reasons, to my knowledge, why SDN wasn't shut down by legal action related to harassment or libel. First is that the Internet was - and to a degree remains - a murky international territory (Kennedy lives in England; Wong in Canada; most VS debaters in the United States), and precedents for suing people over internet bullying were thin on the ground at the time. Second is that a fairly small number of people are involved in the VS debate. It just so happened that of those people, none of them decided to actually take matters to court. As far as I can tell, luck and chutzpah are the only reasons Wong didn't get himself sued. (Unless he has gotten sued, and has just kept quiet about it.)

The whole routine revolved around harassment and ad hominem slanders. First, press for a "real" identity and credentials. If they provide it, you try to throw mud on the credentials (see, for example, all the attacks on Kennedy's education - the man's qualified to teach physics in high school, which is more than the vast majority of VS debaters can claim), harass them personally, post threats, et cetera. If they don't, you claim that they're not willing to stand behind their claims and must not have any qualifications.

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