Pizzagate repository just got censored by github - Backup links + Updated info

dantheman (73) · 8 years ago

Steemit needs to find a way to host github on the blockchain! What would happen if github were to start censoring cryptocurrency projects?

I am VERY surprised that github is involved in any kind of censorship considering they are mostly a hosting company!

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barrydutton (74) · 8 years ago

I don't understand all this IT crypto stuff like most of you but I understand censorship and freedom and the theft of civil liberties as a human being and then as an activist being targeted. Keep up the good work!

#Canadastan

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officialfuzzy (75) · 8 years ago (edited)

Those who listen to bb hangouts would have heard me say this about 8 weeks ago! Talk to xeroc about it. I remember he was interested in the idea when I approached him about it because I felt he was the perfect one to consider launching it.

I already had a name for it -- "gitchain". Initial distribution goes out to github accounts that leave github and move to gitchain along with all their personal work. ;)

If you think about this...the fact is that most devs initially joining would be people interested in blockchain tech and the perfect demographic to both learn and document graphene codebase. It fixes the achilles heel of bitshares and steem.

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tuck-fheman (74) · 8 years ago

You're like the goatee on the chin of the blockchain. What would we do without you?

You should change your nick to chainfuzz. ;)

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officialfuzzy (75) · 8 years ago

If only i could grow real levels of facial hair. :/

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officialfuzzy (75) · 8 years ago

Im glaf your ass is back to steemin baby. Contact me on steemit.chat sometime man!

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ausbitbank (73) · 8 years ago

That would be amazing , a system that could do this and automatically handle all the large file storage via IPFS etc would be huge! Especially combined with the trust/reputation network and currency aspects of Steem drools ..

BTW github gave no notification or explanation that I can see so far, I only noticed because I was actively trying to merge some updates this morning..

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2 votes

barrydutton (74) · 8 years ago

I hope you do not mind this here, but I had hoped this would bring you a timely laugh LOL --- https://steemit.com/funny/@barrydutton/meme-of-the-day-matthew-mcconaughey-on-the-eve-of-the-hardfork

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solomon-adekale (49) · 8 years ago

This surprised me too... Very disturbing

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lukestokes (75) · 8 years ago

I'm curious, is Gizmodo part of the conspiracy as well? I've read through some of this stuff, and it all seems pretty ridiculous to me. Could there be some truth to it? Sure. Has anyone shown hard, irrefutable evidence beyond just coincidence? Not that I've yet seen.

I seems to me many involved who are looking for the "truth" seem to forget the nature of humanity to believe a lot of really stupid shit. Humans like to make connections. Our brains enjoy making sense of things and putting the pieces together to find meaning (even if no real meaning is there). Books like Thinking, Fast and Slow explain how this works with System 1 and System 2 thinking.

The "proof" that people are backing up and that is getting censored... I dunno. I remain highly skeptical. Seems to me, if it's not true, some people are getting their lives pretty messed up by an army of internet wanna-be private investigators. Some people are getting doxed. When reddit shuts down a community for doxing, is that censorship or is that protecting privacy and enforcing rules of a community?

What concerns me most is how some people will react emotionally to my comment there. The tribalism "us" verses "them" will kick in once again. They will think I'm part of the "sheeple" for not seeing through all government controlled narrative. From my perspective, I see a growing group of people with faulty epistemologies. Their mechanisms for determining truth are flawed (as are mine).

I'm all about free speech, finding the truth, and not censoring whistleblowers. At the same time, I'm all about shutting down abusive people and abusive action which hurt innocent people. The pizzagate seems too much like The Satanic Panic of 1980's and 1990's.

If you think this is all real, please give this Rational Wiki a read: http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Satanic_Panic

Keep an open mind. Stay skeptical of your skepticism.

Correlation is not causation.

Coincidence is not evidence.

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11 votes

ausbitbank (73) · 8 years ago

I upvoted because I respect your opinion, but I disagree completely and you clearly haven't researched a lot of the material if you believe what you're saying. I've been saying this stuff for at least 10 years, this isn't a recent "satanic panic" no matter how people will try to spin it.

(Btw that link is broken, and I remember its content from years ago anyway - the whole site is kinda condescending misinformed bullshit tbh)

I'm definitely not endorsing violence, and I don't want to see the "us vs them" mentality come up more. I see lots of emotional reactions on both sides, I'm going to do my best to not engage mostly - I hope people remember this is a touchy complicated issue that means different things to different people and getting sidetracked with arguments is pointless 99% of the time.

There's always the mute button.

Keep an open mind. Stay skeptical of your skepticism.

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lukestokes (75) · 8 years ago

Thank you for the thoughtful comment. Which link is broken? I just clicked both of the links I included and they worked fine for me.

As for "condescending misinformed bullshit" do you mean Rational Wiki? I agree, the tone is often very condescending, but I have yet to find much bullshit. The sources listed and things I've looked into seem to be rather well supported on the topics I've dug into. For most of my life I was a Christian and even worked in Christian ministry for 6 years. I spent many years discrediting information and information sources I didn't ideologically agree with, but it wasn't until I started learning more about epistemology and logical fallacies that I was able to really evaluate truth claims effectively and let go of some perspectives I had that were not well supported by real evidence.

The satanic panic is not recent, for sure. As the Rational Wiki page talks about, it started in the 70's and was really big in the 80's and 90's but got throughly debunked as those who started much of the stories admitted and/or were proven as liars. Again, you (and I, to some degree) may not like the tone of Rational Wiki, but it's a genetic fallacy to judge the source of the argument instead of the argument itself.

Also, to be clear, I'm not arguing that sex trafficking and child pedophile rings aren't real. They are horrible and despicable. I commend those who work to expose them and protect the innocent. At the same time, I understand how destructive false accusations can be. I care about justice and it is a terrible perversion of it to see innocent people falsely excused. If a large group of people on the Internet are convinced beyond a reasonable doubt these people are criminals, I have yet to see that supporting evidence in this case. There may be some perversions, some questionable social media posts, etc... but is that what passes as hard evidence in this case?

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ausbitbank (73) · 8 years ago (edited)

Rational wiki is still not working for me, but my comment was based on pretty much everything else I'd read on that site in the past. "Professional" skeptics organisations have become a place for everyone to agree with the mainstream view and pat each other on the back about how smart they are for doing it.

Most are an echo chamber, and not "skeptics" at all.

Screenshot of the site still failing right now :

"The satanic panic" is a misframing in itself..

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officialfuzzy (75) · 8 years ago

Agreed. This is a psyop wotith more than one layer.

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lukestokes (75) · 8 years ago

Huh. I wonder what that squid proxy error is about. I assume that's an error on their side not with a proxy you're using? Odd.

Mass hysteria is a thing. I did a post recently about an historical example.

What I'm hoping for is for people to demand evidence and not pretend to know things they don't yet know. As for echo chambers, I see that far more often in conspiracy theory communities. It's fun and exciting and I get that, but rational skeptics take a different approach and enjoy not only being corrected when their evidence isn't well supported by also correcting others. It's not a place where echo chambers do well, but is a place where "citation needed" matters. If the arguments are well supported, they move on to other things.

Some people like going against the mainstream view because it's just part of their personality. That doesn't mean they are right or that their opinions are well supported. It doesn't mean they are wrong either. It comes down to good epistemology and what can be demonstrated as rational, logical, and supported by good evidence.

Either way, thanks for letting me share my opinion in your comments.

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jeliotghost (32) · 8 years ago

I would also consider myself a rational skeptic but i'm afraid your comments don't hold to that standard.

The only thing you have said that conforms to a true rational skeptic is "Could there be some truth to it? Sure". And yet from that point on you completely disavow that exact sentiment by declaring that even public talk of the possibility should be censored. That is not the view of any rational skeptic. If something could be true than it should be investigated until it can no longer be true.

For now i am speaking very broadly regarding any mystery criminal or natural. The only things that should not be investigated are those things that have been proven false. If something has been truly proven false it does not require gullibility or skepticism to believe but simply rationality. Before i go any further into any possible evidence lets first establish that rationality deems this a plausible case to pursue. Is human trafficking real? Yes. Is Child Trafficking real? Yes. ... Is it a big money business? Yes. Do people buy children for illegal activities including sex? Yes ... is it expensive? Yes. Is it easy to make the required connections to do so? No. Could one acquire a child for the purposes of illegal sex without having either large amounts of money or influence? Highly unlikely ... With this rational we must assume that the propagators of child sex trafficking are by and large rich and or influential. Are rich and influential people often on TV or otherwise in the public eye? YES... Has this been established through prior examples? Yes. Many extremely rich, famouse and influential people have gone to jail for human trafficking and illegal sex with minors.

With this established reality, if you are still "skeptical" that child trafficking takes place in this country and that rich and influential people are involved, then you are NOT a skeptical you are irrational.

The question is not, is this going on nor is the question do famous people take part in hideous crimes agains humanity. These cannot be the questions for anyone rational. These are facts. The only question that remains is who? We'll get back to that.

You then compare this the Satanic Panic. This is not a fair comparison and if truly compared would again implicate anyone who agrees with the main stream media as gullible and not discerning. The Satanic Panic was a wide spread vague idea that was largely propagated by the main stream media NOT CONSPIRACY THEORISTS and had no specific culprit. this left parents feeling scared and alone and they accused lots of people all over the country. This was also a wide spread and vague time period with no specific beginning or end so it is debatable weather or not anyone was convicted due to the Satanic Panic. You can trace when the term Satanic Panic was coined but it was coined AFTER the phenomenon had started and the start of the panic was a slow boil not a specific insolent. People have in fact been convicted in this country of abducting children and abusing, torturing and killing them. Some of these people were doing this during the Satanic Panic

That is NOT what is happening hear. PizzaGate has a specific starting incident that connect to specific culprits. I hear you and i don't disagree that it could turn into a broader wich hunt if we aren't careful but lets not act like that is happening before it is. Their are specific culprits and sufficient evidence not just for investigation but for possible arrest. The Podestas bear a more than STRIKING resemblance to two police composites of two men seen at the scene of a kidnapping. It is established that a friend of theirs Clement Freud lived 1/3 of a mile (walking distance) away from the abduction point. Clement Freud has also been accused of pedophila and kidnapping on other completely unrelated cases. AND sources do say he was lending his home to the Podestas at the time of the abduction.

If they were not rich and influential you know as a rational person this would be plenty of evidence for at least a formal questioning and a full investigation into their whereabouts at the time.

Maybe the rest of PIZZAGATE is a bunch of circumstantial crap and as a rational skeptic myself all we can say so far is that MOST of it is circumstantial. You can't say it's bull shit nor can you say it's totally proof. Either one is an irrational thing to say. The only fact of the matter is that this citizen investigation did put two men near a kidnapping and they DO look like the men eye witnesses saw at the scene of the crime. I don't care who they are. That is plenty for real investigators to take over and stop making the citizens that took it this far. If they come out the other end clean and clear then great. but you can't say as a rational person that their is no evidence against and and they should not AT LEAST be questioned by authorities. AND they shouldn't be offended by that. If i was near the scene of a crime and looked EXACTLY like the police sketch and they brought me in, i would happily answer their questions and provide my alibi.

Truly rational skeptics don't go around saying. "t all seems pretty ridiculous to me." Why? because they are rich? Because they are powerful? Remove the whole internet phenomenon of PIZZAGATE from your brain for a second and tell me. What about John and Tony pedestal being pedophiles or possibly just making money of the trade of human trafficking is "ridiculous" ? Please tell me. I AM NOT SAYING IT IS PROVEN. of course not. These are allegations and i for one would not want them burned at the stake without a trial. I just want two men that match the eye witness accounts and have access to the scene of the crime to answer some questions. There is NOTHING irrational about that. Being a skeptic does not in any way mean you hault an investigation simply because their isn't conclusive proof yet.

If you are a skeptic then you shouldn't be convinced yet. I'm not convinced yet but again if you are a rational human let alone a rational skeptic you should also doubt the main stream media. They have more to loose than some bloggers or even a poor possibly innocent pizza shop owner. And I don't mean to make fun of him if he is innocent. I just mean to say that if you back up a little and really look at the whole picture, the main stream media has already picked a side and they cannot afford to be proven wrong to any degree. The public faith is already hanging by a string and if this gets blown open all of MSM is going down hard.

Any rational skeptic looks not just at evidence but motive and strategy. Its a chess game and i think you know that. Just play me a hypothetical. What would you do if this were real and you were in charge of the news and you were guilty. Now compare that to what they are doing and I doubt you will see any disparity. Again. THAT IS NOT PROOF. I know that. but a true skeptic is equal opportunity and skeptical of all sides until the facts are no longer subject to opinion. Saying this is for sure true is not rational but saying its "ridiculous" is not based in fact and is not also rational.

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4 votes

tuck-fheman (74) · 8 years ago (edited)

I'm curious, is Gizmodo part of the conspiracy as well?

I did hear once that Github was like a dungeon full of script kiddiez ... but that's not the same I guess. ;)

EDIT : Doh, I read "Github", you wrote Gizmodo and completely screwed up my joke. thanks a lot! =b ;)

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lukestokes (75) · 8 years ago

Sorry for killing your joke. :)

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officialfuzzy (75) · 8 years ago (edited)

Correlation though IS enough to permit scei tific inquiry. Most "pizzagaters" are doin this free of charge because they care about the subject so much. If our system was willing to investigate i stead of simply taking the word of the restaraunt owner as all required to refute these claims, then u wouldnt have to worry about pizzagaters because they would be watching netflix while those paid to look at this stuff dig in. Instead we are told not to even look?

Remember though correlation != causation, it is rarely not enough to dig deeper. U see, because when something correlates over MULTIPLE attempts at the same study, it usually is considered worth looking at.

What I HEAR from otherwise intelligent and upstanding peoole is that they prefer to put "pizzagaters" in a place where its unpopular to even say "hey guys and gals all these thi gs add up to something...lets look and discuss it openly so we can find the truth."

Luke i must say this is a place where there is much more than you might think.

Look up laura silsbey and watch this:

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lukestokes (75) · 8 years ago

I agree, correlation does lead interesting follow up. I think most decent people care about protecting innocent people, but good intentions don't prevent things from getting out of hand. There might be more there, but again, much of what I've seen is sketchy in terms of actual "evidence." I don't think Hillary is a good person (heck, I think few if any people government are), so it doesn't surprise me to hear she has connections with all kinds of shady people. As for Laura Silsby and Jorge Puello Torres, that's some interesting stuff right there. I'm a little confused how it's connected to the pizza place though.

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ura-soul (75) · 8 years ago

not surprising, i literally just posted of how i am being censored in youtube comments just talking about 'fake news': https://steemit.com/technology/@ura-soul/censored-yet-again-on-g-google-s-control-grid-is-anti-free-speech

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8 votes

ausbitbank (73) · 8 years ago

Great post, both the outright censorship and the self-censorship and group-think are getting out of control on social media already :o/

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ura-soul (75) · 8 years ago

well, actually... control is the problem, not the solution.. the mind control programs are hidden in even the most 'right on' thoughts! ;)

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richq11 (72) · 8 years ago

I don't know about alternative hosting but Gab.ai is a good source that doesn't censor. people are talking about it on there as well...it's important that lines of free communication stay open. I saw pictures of the "attacker" yesterday and he is so obviously a plant. he looks like a DNC employee. Titus is good, I sent him some info about the Clinton/Laura Silsby connection emails. The establishment is trying to dry up sources of information is hopes that this will just go away.

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fulltimegeek (67) · 8 years ago (edited)

Cloning one of your repos as I type this. Thanks for the link and the work you're doing. Also, thanks for sharing this on Steemit -- where whistleblowers are at home.

Now, let's get back to saving some children.

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8 votes

crowman (54) · 8 years ago

I will clone too and see if my friend can host it on his site. Great idea

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ausbitbank (73) · 8 years ago

Thankyou Sir, the more copies the better :)
I like that tagline too did you just think of that then ?
Could be worth developing some branding around for promoting steemit to researchers..

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2 votes

fulltimegeek (67) · 8 years ago

Thank you as well. Yes, the tagline is a @fulltimegeek original. It was inspired by the work you and @titusfrost are doing. Whistleblower might be a stretch, but I believe it fits.

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5 votes

ausbitbank (73) · 8 years ago

I think we could appeal more to the whistleblower crowd (seeking anonymity above everything else) if we make it more obvious people can choose to create accounts for crypto via https://anon.steem.network/ instead of handing over email/mobile ..

Following you back now btw :)

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5 votes

ballinconscious (65) · 8 years ago

Censorship suck, control by the powers at be is in the work once again. Seem like it happen infinitely through out the times.

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barrydutton (74) · 8 years ago

Keep up the good work. Honestly.

Thank you.

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cryptogee (75) · 8 years ago

Well bloody done! I don't have the technological know-how to help you, however I salute you, we need people like you!

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5 votes

http://github.com/peterhendrick/steggin

peterjhendrick (44) · 8 years ago (edited)

Thank You @ausbitbank!!

I went through the entire thing file by file. Very good work here!

I would very much love it if you could gpg sign your files though. I trust you as an author of content. I would love if I could verify your content with an author signature.

I could fake your git commits and hack your repo if I put enough time and resources into it. If you were to give a gpg signature of the .zip file with each major update, I can be sure that it is from you. It defends against any and all man-in-the-middle attacks.

I have a project where I do this myself. It can be done in one command before committing.

"shasum -a 256 yourZipFile.zip > SHASUM && gpg -b SHASUM && git add SHASUM SHASUM.sig && git commit -m "added pgp signature" && git push"

I outline the verification steps in the README in this project:

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ausbitbank (73) · 8 years ago (edited)

Theres a few issues with that approach.. I don't actually work with the zip files normally, those are generated on the git repo's. I tried zipping up the files locally but I end up with different file hashes to what ends up being generated on the sites...

I do understand why this is important and I've been looking into a way to autogenerate index pages in html for each folder of evidence, I think it would be more suited to this sort of project to have those include the shasum's of each file and sign the index files instead... This way we'd have a unique checksum for every single file in the repo, without needing to sign everything with gpg individually (only the indexes with updated files)..

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peterjhendrick (44) · 8 years ago (edited)

Yeah, I was worried the remote repos would produce a different hash.

But you mention an interesting idea. I wonder if I could write a bash or python script that would iterate over every file in a given folder, calculate it's hash, then append the hash into a SHASUM text file. If you had that, you could just run the script and then sign the SHASUM file. Then downloaders could compare file hashes individually.

Glad you're thinking about it and understand its importance. I would just hate it if the repo were hacked and some horrible things were put into it in order to incriminate those who are just trying to be honest investigators.

If I can get around to that script, I'll drop you a link so you can use it. Great work so far ausbitbank.

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ausbitbank (73) · 8 years ago

Found a way to do it for now https://steemit.com/pizzagate/@ausbitbank/pizzagate-git-repo-updated-now-includes-file-hashes-and-pgp-signature

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