Anyone who's a whistleblower should compile key docs and put it in a "dead man's switch" service that releases your testimony/docs to multiple news agencies in the event of your untimely demise. The company you're whistle blowing against and their major shareholders should know this exists. Also, regularly post public video attesting to you current mental state.
In the case of the US, you cannot make your selection wide enough. For optimal security, get it to both local news organizations and serious European press agencies.
The US news media do not have independent editorial boards. Several titles are actually from the same house. Corporate ownership, and professionals going to the dark side via https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elite_capture are just some other risks.
Even if it gets published, your story can be suppressed by the way the media house deals with it. Also, there are many ways to silence news that is inconvenient or doesn't fit belief schemes, good example https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42387549
> much ink was spilled showing how no European paper would take on a corporation strong government support
Could you provide some examples of this? I know it's possible in the UK to get a court order to prevent media coverage, but I didn't know that was the case in other European countries.
I was thinking of the Wirecard scandal in Germany. The regulators responded to concerns by silencing silencing critics of the company.
I read either "defamation" or "libel" somewhere, but this article says:
[German regulators] banned investors from betting against Wirecard shares for two months, the first such restriction on an individual company in German stock market history. That was quickly followed by a criminal complaint against two Financial Times journalists who had reported the whistleblower allegations about the payments company.
It's very naive to believe in 'European press'. To get the idea check Ukrainian war coverage. What you'll see first is how single sided it is. This cannot be a coincidence. It can be only a result of total control. I respected 'The Guardians' before, but after eyes opening it appears to be the most brainwashing and manipulative there. Very professionally done, must admit. The problem isn't just that war, it's likely everything and I have no easy way to check for example what really happened in Afghan war. Did US really won like Biden said?
> It's very naive to believe in 'European press'. To get the idea check Ukrainian war coverage. What you'll see first is how single sided it is.
This is such a wild take from my POV, a person in the EU.
Have you considered the possibility that the nearest imperialist power beginning to violently invade Europe again is likely to trigger a common reaction?
This is one of those rare cases in modern history where there is a clear right vs. wrong. What exactly do you expect the news to talk about that is less “single sided?”
I can explain a bit. Russians living in Empire of Evil can see all internet including US and EU news. At the same time 'Putin propaganda' channels are blocked in EU. In EU only one side is available. This creates an information bubble, as intended. Which is a basic crowd control technique used to drive public opinion. In this case to support the war. The result is obvious, EU polls show much stronger support than the rest of the world. Even though media claims most of the world is against Putin, if you look at the map it's only minority, NATO and a few allies. In some EU countries it's even a crime look through the bubble's wall. Most don't realize it even exists. They accept the arguments from their politicians. Like it's a business opportunity, or it's a cheap way to harm Putin. The price for that is hundreds of thousands of human lives on both sides. Which is generally considered as ok, as those are Russians and Ukrainians, not us. Actually media doesn't talk much about it.
Hahahaha, what? Most of western news sources are blocked in russia after they published Bucha reports. They are literally jailing people for mentioning it on personal vk pages and such.
> At the same time 'Putin propaganda' channels are blocked in EU.
I don't think that's true. You can find a lot of that online, with or without commentary. There are even European comentators siding with adjecent views. Though it doesn't leak into European public media too much (although some of its more absurdist concepts sadly do).
It's just that "the other side of the story" is something that vast majority of Europeans are repulsed by because of its intrinsic idiocy, blatant disingenuity and evilness. Some of the European countries that got out from under russian influence remember it from the times of poverty and oppression. That's where the part of the opinion bias on that subject between Europe and the rest of the world comes from. Firsthand expeirience with russia. Supporting Ukraine is both helping Ukraine with their current russian expeirience and possibly a hope of saving all future Europeans from having russian expeirience ever again.
DW is literally the only German state owned media, financed directly by tax money. And they don't even have a German broadcast anymore.
Compare this to the other German public broadcasting (ARD and ZDF), who are financed by their own (obligatory) dues ("Rundfunkbeitrag"), which is set by politics, but cannot be easily taken away from them.
Every single developed country today touting moral rights has its foundation in those "wrongs". Its citizens gleefully consuming the resources those "wrongs" have created, so they can preach morality online.
It is the nature of life itself to "kill and perform violence", children and otherwise. "The strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must".
Death is, as of now, life's only mechanism for iteration in its process of endless prototyping.
Every marvel that humankind has produced has its roots in extreme violence. From the creation of Ancient Greece to the creation of the United States, children had to die horrible deaths so that these things could come to be.
Anyone can make arbitrary claims about what's right and what's wrong. The only way to prove such a claim is through victory, and all victory is violence against the loser.
Thanks for summarizing so eloquently what is WRONG with the precept that might equals right.
If she floats she's a witch, if she drowns she must have been innocent is the flip side fallacy, but what you just outlined amounts to: "i am bad on purpose, what are YOU gonna do about it?"
I am disgusted that this is still proferred as a valid moral philosophical principle.
No. A thousand times no.
The answer is A SYSTEM.
The answer to bully predator logic is human society and systematic thought.
This provides the capability to resist such base immorality as you and historical predators have proposed.
That SYSTEM that enables modern enligtened society is called "monopoly on violence".
There's no way out of violence, your system needs to be founded on it.
And I wouldn't say that the what previous poster described is akin to witch trials. It's rather akin to painting the bullseye labelled "right" after taking the shot and hitting something other than your foot. And that was what all human cultures were doing since the beginning of time. Recent western trend to paint the bullseye labelled "wrong" at their hit is novel but equally disingenious.
> I am disgusted that this is still proferred as a valid moral philosophical principle.
Can you explain what makes it invalid besides the fact that you and me don't like it?
There are no "valid" or "invalid" moral principles, there is no objectively correct morality, nor does the idea even make sense. Morals are historically contingent social phenomena. Over different times and even over different cultures today, they vary dramatically. Everyone has them, and they all think they are right. That quickly reduces all discussion in cases like this to ornate versions of "you're wrong" and "no, YOU'RE wrong."
It is better to be precise here. Validity could be a different measure than correct. It might very well be like you reserve the latter for some ethereal mathematical property, free of axioms, to which type you want to cast "validity in the domain of morality", which then has to pass the type checker for mathematical expressions.
In Philosophy and Ethics you strive to improve your understanding, in this case in the domain of human social groups. Some ideas just have better reasoning than others.
To say no idea is good, because your type checker rejects any program you bring up is an exercise in futility.
"might makes right" is a justification for abuse of other people. Abusing other people might be understood as using other people while taking away their freedom. If you think people should rather be owned than free, go pitch that.
I emphasize: it would be your pitch. There is no hiding behind a compiler here.
On topic: "might makes right" prevails in societies where people have limited rights and therefore need to cope with abuse. There is a reinforcing mechanism in such sado-societies, where sufferers are to normalize that, thereby keeping the system in place.
For example the Russian society did never escape to freedom, which is a tragedy. But I think every person has an obligation to do his best in matters of ethics, not just sitting like a slave and complain about how you are the real victim while doing nothing.
A society is a collective expression of the individuals.
All that is fine and good, but it comes down to your personal and non-universal moral intuition that suffering, abuse , etc. are bad. You make that an axiom and then judge moral systems based on that, using that axiom to build beautiful towers of “reasoning” (rationalization). We both feel that way because of the time and place we grew up, not because it is correct compared to the Ancient Greek or Piraha moral systems. That’s why you have to take discussions like this in a non-moralistic direction, because there’s no grounds for agreement on that basis.
> non-universal moral intuition that suffering, abuse , etc. are bad.
You say it perhaps a bit weird, but imho you are stating that there do not exist universal moral values, which is a very non-universal stance.
> not because it is correct compared to the Ancient Greek or Piraha moral systems
- Well, the beauty is that we can make progress.
- If X can only register that system A an B are morally equal, because both systems are a system, then X misses some fundamental human abilities. That X is dangerous, because for X there is nothing wrong with Auschwitz.
- Also, a good question would be if one would like to exchange their moral beliefs for the Greek moral system. If not, why have a preference for a moral belief if they are all equal.
Not saying this is you, but I think the main fallacy people run into is that they are aware of shortcomings in their moral acting. Some might excuse themself with relativism -> nihilism, but that is not what a strong person does. Most of us are hypocrite some of the time, but it doesn't mean you have to blame your moral intuition.
> You say it perhaps a bit weird, but imho you are stating that there do not exist universal moral values, which is a very non-universal stance.
It’s an observation, and a very old one. Darius of Persia famously made a very similar observation in Herodotus.
> Well, the beauty is that we can make progress.
There is no such thing as progress in this realm.
> - If X can only register that system A an B are morally equal, because both systems are a system, then X misses some fundamental human abilities. That X is dangerous, because for X there is nothing wrong with Auschwitz.
No, the point is that there is no basis of comparison, not in moral terms. Of course you and I feel that way, living when and where we did. There are no “fundamental human abilities” being missed, this is just the same argument that “we feel this is wrong, so it’s bad and dangerous.
> - Also, a good question would be if one would like to exchange their moral beliefs for the Greek moral system. If not, why have a preference for a moral belief if they are all equal.
Of course not. Morals are almost entirely socialized. Nobody reasons themselves into a moral system and they cannot reason themselves out of one. It’s an integral part of their identity.
> Not saying this is you, but I think the main fallacy people run into is that they are aware of shortcomings in their moral acting. Some might excuse themself with relativism -> nihilism, but that is not what a strong person does. Most of us are hypocrite some of the time, but it doesn't mean you have to blame your moral intuition.
I do my best to follow my moral intuitions, and I am sometimes a hypocrite, but the point is moral intuitions are socialized into you and contingent on your milieu, so when you’re discussing these issues with other people who did not share the same socialization, moral arguments lose all their force because they don’t have the same intuitions. So we have to find some other grounds to make our point.
> What you'll see first is how single sided it is. This cannot be a coincidence.
It’s not a coincidence. Russia invaded a European country and for the first time since WW2 we are in what is essentially war time. You may not know this, but Russia has long been a bully. Every year we have a democratic meeting called Folkemødet here in Denmark. It’s where the political top and our media meets the public for several days. When I went there Russian bombers violated our Airspace during a practice run of nuclear bombing the event. Now they are in an active war with a European country and they are threatening the rest of us with total war basically every other day.
Of course it’s one sided. Russia has chosen to become an enemy of Europe and we will be lucky if we can avoid a direct conflict with them. We are already seeing attacks on our infrastructure both digital and physical around in the EU. We’ve seen assassinations carried out inside our countries, and things aren’t looking to improve any time soon.
What “sides” is it you think there are? If Russia didn’t want to be an enemy of Europe they could withdraw their forces and stop being at war with our neighbours.
I don't think it's that simple. Imagine that you have nonpublic information that would be harmful to party A.
* Enemies and competitors of A now have an incentive to kill you.
* If the info about A would move the market, someone who would like to profit from knowing the direction and timing now has an incentive to kill you.
* Risks about trustworthiness of this "service". What if the information is released accidentally. What if it's a honeypot for a hedge fund, spy agency, or a "fixer" service.
* You've potentially just flagged yourself as a more imminent threat to A.
* Attacks against loved ones seems to have been a thing. And doesn't trigger your deadman's switch.
Are you saying they won't kill you because then the documents would be released? So you would never release the documents if they never kill you?
Or are you saying you'll do this so the documents are guaranteed to be released, even if you're killed? In that case, why not just publish them right now?
The scenario I described is to ensure the whistleblower being alive or dead has minimal change in impact to the company. If there's a pending case that could wipe billions off a company's market cap and 1 person is a key witness in the outcome...well lots of powerful people now have an incentive if that witness were no longer around.
Why not just publish immediately? Publishing immediately likely violates NDA and could be prosecuted if you're not compelled to testify under oath. This is what Edward Snowden did and he's persona non grata from the US for the rest of his life.
If the information is going to be released in full though, and I'm a murderous executive, then why not kill you immediately?
(1) How do you prove you have a deadman switch? How do you prove it functions correctly?
(2) How do you prove it contains any more material then you've already shown you have?
(3) Since you're going to testify anyway, what's the benefit in leaving you alive when your story can discredited after the fact, and apparently it is trivially easy to get away with an untraceable murder?
which leads to (4): if the point is to "send a message" then killing you later is kind of pointless. Let the deadman switch trigger and send a message to everyone else - it won't save you.
People concoct scenarios where they're like "oh but I'll record a tape saying 'I didn't kill myself'" as though thats a unique thing and not something every deranged person does anyway, including Australia's racist politician (who's very much still alive, being awful).
The world doesn't work like a TV storyline, but good news for you the only reason everyone's like "are they killing whistleblowers?" is because you're all bored and want to feel clever on the internet (while handily pushing the much more useful narrative: through no specific actions, don't become a whistleblower because there's an untraceable, unprovable service which has definitely killed every dead whistleblower you heard of. Please ignore all the alive ones who kind of had their lives ruined by the process but didn't die and are thus boring to talk about).
> The scenario I described is to ensure the whistleblower being alive or dead has minimal change in impact to the company.
That may not be enough to keep you alive though. Assuming there is minimal difference in the impact to the company, potential killers may want to get revenge. The difference also may not be that minimal. IANAL, but it wouldn't surprise me if evidence released that way would be easier for the defendant to block from being used in the courtroom.
It's more along the lines of: You're going to do things they don't like, but if they kill you (or even if you die by accident), you'll release even MORE damaging material that could harm them to a far greater degree. It doesn't even have to be court-admissible to be damaging.
This is about leverage, and perhaps even bluff. It's never a binary situation, nor are there any guarantees.
I use deadmansswitch.net - it sends you an email to verify that you are still alive, but you can also use a Telegram bot. In this case I have it set to send a passphrase to an encrypted file with all of my information to trusted individuals.
If your enemy knows how your switch works it is more feasible to disable it. In this case taking control of either that service or your email should do the trick.
I run that service, and, so far, no issues. It's definitely not secure against server takeover, but it's much easier than making your own switch reliable.
All that stuff looks fun, but I'm utterly terrified at the idea of it malfunctioning. Like, in a false-positive way. And, as a professional deformation, I guess, it is basically an axiom for me that any automation will malfunction at some point for some ridiculously stupid and obvious-in-the-hindsight reason I absolutely cannot predict right now.
I mean, seriously, it isn't a laughable idea that a bomb that will explode unless you poke some button every 24 h might eventually explode even though you weren't incapacitated and dutifully pressed that button. I'm not even considering the case that you might have been temporarily incapacitated. People wouldn't call you paranoid if you say that carrying such bomb is a stupid idea.
I totally see where you're coming from, and I agree—this project definitely isn't fool-proof. But honestly, it feels like the best option for making sure you're really gone while keeping privacy in mind.
As technology advances, we will develop more effective means of determining whether someone is truly deceased, for e.g. something like Neuralink could provide significantly improved methods for verifying actual death.
They were whistleblowers related to Boeing manufacturing and quality control.
Boeing manufacturing is also the source of the persistent Boeing problems and issues that goes back to before the MCAS catastrophic incidents and has continued after MCAS was fixed.
Airbus has deeply integrated R&D and manufacturing hubs where the R&D engineers and scientists can just walk a few minutes and they will be inside the factory halls manufacturing the parts they designs.
Meanwhile Boeing has separated and placed their manufacturing plants in the US states where they can get most federal and state tax benefits for job creation.
> Airbus has deeply integrated R&D and manufacturing hubs where the R&D engineers and scientists can just walk a few minutes and they will be inside the factory halls manufacturing the parts they designs.
This is not true. Airbus has a history of competition between French and Germany parts. The assembly plants are spread in France, Germany, UK, Spain, Italy. No such things as deeply integrated R&D and manufacturing hubs.
Boeing crisis makes Airbus look better. Airbus itself isn’t renown for efficiency.
Correct me if I'm wrong but all he was whiltleblowing is that OpenAI trained on copyrighted content, which is completely normal and expected although its legality is yet to be determined.
You also want to record a dying declaration and include it with the DMS if you’re afraid for your life. They can carry weight in court even if you’re mot available for cross examination.
Or they could just write a blog post and give interviews explaining their objections. Which this guy did. Why do you think there is some extra secret information he was withholding?
It would likely be safer to write a service and have interdependent relationships between redundant hosting systems in different jurisdictions without direct connections because that way you can protect against single points of failure (eg. compromised hosts, payment systems, regulators, network providers).
I would be surprised if this isn't a thing yet on Ethereum or some other well known distributed processing crypto platform.
This is one of the most actionable and sound comments on this post. If interested, I always recommend the book “The Gulag Archpielago” because of all the repression examples and how to protect oneself. I wish you would speak with the other commenter who studied whistleblowers for 20 years.
