
A Japanese cyber-security expert who defended basic decency was stabbed to death - danso
https://www.thedailybeast.com/a-cyber-security-expert-trolled-the-trolls-then-one-killed-him
======
dasil003
Often times I think we characterize trolls as normal people who just let out
their anti-social side under the cloak of internet anonymity. Probably that is
even true for the majority. But the scary thing we need to address is the
number of isolated and devalued individuals subsisting in modern society, but
without dignity. Under the veneer of societal abundance, the struggle to
survive is replaced with the pursuit of abstract accomplishments (career,
sports, fame, etc). When someone is not successful in these things, it's very
easy to survive but not thrive, and in the absence of real survival pressure
it's too easy to be left alone with ones thoughts and descend into a
depressive downward spiral.

~~~
smrtinsert
The most severe trolls I've had the misfortune of meeting online have actually
been mentally ill and highly sociopathic. Some will look to harm others in
real if they could whether it be socially, economically, or even physically.
Doxxing is entry level stuff for them. I no longer find online gaming fun for
this reason.

~~~
joe_the_user
It is worth mentioning that the mentally ill are (sadly) fairly common in this
society. Historically mentally ill people have not tended to be more dangerous
than average people and it important not to assume that mentally equals
dangerous today.

That said, I think, historically, a substantially part of the reason mentally
people _usually_ are harmless is because they can see their grasp on reality
is shaky. Others have generally not shared their delusions and so no one
validates their desires to lash out at those who they imagine have harmed
them.

The Internet seems to have changed that - communities of people who share
pathological illusions seem to have come together and produced a still small
number of horrendous crimes - the "incel movement" being one very visible
example.

These folks might well in dangerous (to others) gray area between debilitating
insanity and approximate sanity. Pathological enough to embrace problematic
ideas and functional enough act on them.

~~~
GW150914
A lack of insight, denial of the very fact that they are ill is a prominent
feature in a number of mental disorders, most notably schizophrenia. I think
that what you’re saying about people getting together online to share
delusions is a factor, but I don’t think it’s because they used to have a
sense that they were deluded. Rather, they were isolated. Someone who thought
that power lines were controlling their thoughts had very little ability to
spread that belief. They could shout on a street corner, print and pass out
pamphlets, and that was it. Unless you were nuts _and_ rich, you couldn’t
really spread the “word” far.

Now _that_ has changed, and everyone, however disorganized and deprived of
resources, can publish their every thought. People who think they’ve been
“gang stalked” and people who think that the government is behind contrails
all have a megaphone to the world. As a “bonus” they also are able to just
type their delusions into Google and find sites to confirm and expand them.
The same network effect that connects hobbyists and enthusiasts of rare things
around the world does the same for people with delusional frameworks.

It also does the same for Holocaust deniers, and general shitheads.

~~~
joe_the_user
_I think that what you’re saying about people getting together online to share
delusions is a factor, but I don’t think it’s because they used to have a
sense that they were deluded._

It's hard to phrase these things. I wouldn't say people were less confident in
the delusional beliefs. Rather, an isolated delusional person has less general
confidence - the world is "against them" and their relative weakness relative
to the world is fairly evident.

Overall, success at doing horrible things requires some of the same mix that
success at doing constructive things needs; confidence, support, plans and
ideas. The process you describe and we all can see helps in all those things.

------
ezoe
The headline shall be like "A Japanese person was killed by mentally unstable
person". No more than that.

The killer was infamous for spamming abusive words to anybody on the Hatena
Bookmark(an online bookmark service like reddit or HN), among the many abusive
words he used, somehow he always use 低能(teinou, low-intelligence) so he was
called 低能先生(teinou-sensei).

He blamed others for no reason. He probably spamming everybody commented on
popular articles. So he was suspected to have some mental issues.

Everybody immediately reported him for abusing and Hatena ban his accounts as
soon as they found his another accounts.

The victim was a famous blogger. He was an old time "net-watcher"(a person who
find funny people on the internet). He mostly deal with those who
intentionally cause self-flaming on the internet for pageview or pyramid-
scheme.

Once he mentioned about the existence of this infamous abuser, teinou-sensei,
on this "net-watching" blog. He also hosted a event on Fukuoka and it so
happens that this mentally-unstable killer was lived in Fukuoka.

The connection of his "net-watcher" persona and cyber-security expert part of
his life wasn't known beforehand of his death.

You can't get any moral from this incident. It's just there are mentally
unstable people in the world and many abusers on the internet are probably
those people.

------
flyGuyOnTheSly
I am reminded of why Abraham Lincoln decided to stop writing scathing reviews
of his cohorts after one angry target challenged him to a duel which could
have cost him his life. [0]

[0] [http://mentalfloss.com/article/12382/time-abraham-lincoln-
an...](http://mentalfloss.com/article/12382/time-abraham-lincoln-and-
political-rival-almost-dueled-island)

~~~
keeler
Good read. Thanks for posting.

------
781
There are a lot of crazy people in the world. The internet now allows you to
reach and trigger them.

This is not victim blaming, just like police advice to "not show valuable
possessions when walking through the bad part of the city" is neither victim
blaming, nor surrendering of their responsibilities.

~~~
noobermin
I'm not sure I agree with this sentiment either. Crime statistics for violent
crime have fallen dramatically in the US for example, so it's not like the
internet makes us less safe, I think there's a bit of recentism there. It
does, however, change the character of violence and harassment from previous
generations.

~~~
kbenson
Many times actions on the internet are not considered a crime, while those
same actions done in person, would. For example, stalking.

Put another way, the crime statistics may accurately capture what they
measure, but what they measure may not accurately capture the current topic of
discussion.

------
macintux
Almost 30 years ago I was active in online mudding. I managed to antagonize
another young man who became convinced I was quite literally the devil
incarnate.

The particularly scary aspect to this was that he happened to live just a
couple of hours from me. I was quite concerned he would take action on his
belief; I don’t recall what threats he made, but he seemed quite serious.

The internet is a tremendous amplifier for the mundane, the good, and the
evil.

------
paulsutter
The killer turned himself in to police. You see this in old Yakuza movies, the
perpetrator will stand and wait for police after the killing (for example,
"Pale Flower").

Japan has very little crime and a 98% conviction rate, it's so civilized.

> a very pale and thin man with glasses parked his bicycle and walked into a
> police station in Fukuoka City’s Higashi ward carrying a large bag. He told
> the police there, “I’ve killed a man.”

~~~
derefr
> a 98% conviction rate

Quoting wikipedia:

> In Japan, the criminal justice system has a conviction rate that exceeds 99%
> (Note that it includes guilty plea cases.), which has been attributed to low
> prosecutorial budgets impelling understaffed prosecutors to present judges
> with only the most obviously guilty defendants.

This has ripples all the way back through the Japanese criminal-justice
system. The police don't bother to even investigate crimes with merely
circumstantial evidence, because such cases are unlikely to be prosecuted. So
nobody bothers to even report such crimes, and so they're far easier to get
away with and more prevalent.

I wouldn't describe such an environment as particularly "civilized."

~~~
doall
>So nobody bothers to even report such crimes

As a person who knows Japan quite well, this is not true. Even a very light
case like seeing a stranger near a house, Japanese people will often call the
police or go to a koban and request for help. In such case, a police officer
will come to your house, listen to your claim, fill in papers, and will do
some patrolling everyday for several days.

It is not that nobody bothers to report crimes. Japanese people bothers to
report crimes, but it is up to the police department that if they should
accept the damage report and do some further investigation. Of course there
are priorities and because of the lack of resources some crimes won't be taken
seriously when it should have.

~~~
derefr
Oh, sure, people are very willing to report their _suspicion_ of a crime
happening _to someone else_.

But what do you think is, say, the date-rape report rate for Japan vs. any
other country? Something that's already a source of personal shame is hard
enough to report; knowing that no investigation will even be attempted in
response means there's no reason to try to overcome that shame.

(Also, Japan is very willing to respond to any random report by "increasing
patrols" by the low-level police-box staffers who are basically there to make
it look like Something Is Being Done. Look at what reports ever get any
_detectives_ assigned to them, and the statistics will tell a far different
story.)

~~~
doall
> Oh, sure, people are very willing to report their suspicion of a crime
> happening to someone else.

I can say the same thing when you see a stranger entering your property that
such case alone can be a crime in the Japanese law. I have seen Japanese
people reporting such crimes.

> But what do you think is, say, the date-rape report rate for Japan vs. any
> other country? Something that's already a source of personal shame is hard
> enough to report; knowing that no investigation will even be attempted in
> response means there's no reason to try to overcome that shame.

Even in such specific type of crimes that is very difficult to investigate,
some people report to the police. It is up to the police department to accept
the reports and further investigate.

> Look at what reports ever get any detectives assigned to them, and the
> statistics will tell a far different story.

Your claim was that nobody bothers to report, but I oppose to the claim
because I have seen people reporting, and thus I still conclude your claim is
false.

~~~
kbenson
> Your claim was that nobody bothers to report, but I oppose to the claim
> because I have seen people reporting

The claim was that people don't report _crime_ , and you claim to see people
reporting _suspicions_. Even if it weren't just an anecdote, it isn't even
addressing the point accurately.

> thus I still conclude your claim is false.

Neither of you have actually provided anything beyond generalizations and
anecdotes. Any conclusion based on what's been presented so far is
_incredibly_ premature.

~~~
doall
>The claim was that people don't report crime, and you claim to see people
reporting suspicions. > Even if it weren't just an anecdote, it isn't even
addressing the point accurately.

I have addressed the suspicion thing in my second reply to derefr. It is not
just suspicion, but also a crime that is reported.

> Neither of you have actually provided anything beyond generalizations and
> anecdotes. Any conclusion based on what's been presented so far is
> incredibly premature.

I understand your point. Since I know quite well of Japanese people, I don't
think it is premature. To clearly show evidences that everyone can understand
is a different thing and it is also difficult in some context.

To deny the claim "So nobody bothers to even report such crimes", I have to
find just one case and since I know a case I consider it false.

To prove all my claims that I have witnessed, we probably have to go to court
and I consider it nonsense since it isn't realistic.

To prove a customary of Japanese people, it is very difficult and I currently
have no clear evidence that I can show easily, but any Japanese people can
oppose to my claims if it seem wrong.

To back up my claim using other sources, for example, I can tell you a famous
date-drug rape case of Shiori Ito in Japan, which the victim reported to the
police, accepted, investigated, but not prosecuted.

Here is the wiki written about her in Japanese.
[https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/伊藤詩織](https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/伊藤詩織)

~~~
emodendroket
Haven't watched it but there's a lot of buzz around the Ito Shiori BBC
documentary, entitled Japan's Secret Shame:
[https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b8cfcj](https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b8cfcj)

~~~
bachbach
UK and US media have an obsession with the flaws of Japan, and also like to
overlook the monumental difference in crime rates by chalking it up to
fabrication.

~~~
emodendroket
Ok but I mean Japanese people aren't unaware of or unconcerned with these
issues either

~~~
bachbach
True - and why not, it's their backyard to worry about. It's the lack of
introspection in the West that irritates me - any constructive talk
immediately gets deadlocked by flamewars on class and race even if great
arguments and evidence for policy are presented. Government should never be
religion.

I expect Japan runs documentaries on Western countries and their crime too,
only with stronger supporting evidence.

Using 2014 (seems typical) as an illustration.

0.31 per 100k citizens vs 4.88 (US) and 0.92 (UK).

Imagine the scale of conspiracy the Japanese police would have to be involved
in to make us look good. The main issues I've heard of are examples of police
incompetence as a side affect of not having much crime to deal with. This is
like how in South Africa the triage surgeons are really good at solving for
stab and gunshot wounds. It's a positive sign that the Japan police are lax on
recognizing murder and a negative one that the South African ER doctors are
some of the best in the world.

------
dwags
Is there a real solution to combat the hate filled and violent cesspool the
internet has become today?

~~~
drasticmeasures

      Is there a real solution 
      to combat 
      the hate filled and violent cesspool 
      the internet has become today?
    

A possible solution is to outlaw what fundamentally makes the Internet "free"
and "open", destroying much of the good (and bad) things that were built on
those foundations.

Now that the technological Pandora's Box has been open, even such wanton
destruction would require a delicate balance between restricting the tech and
letting its benefits continue to shine through for the continuation of the
state and the society under its umbrella; after all, all states (even allied
ones) exist in competition with each other, and to weaken one's tech could
mean to weaken that state or even ease its death.

I hope someone knows another way to solve the problem or to satisfactorily
ameliorate it.

    
    
      The nukes finally fell --
      but now 
      I can see the stars at night.

~~~
krapp
It doesn't need to be solved or ameliorated. The internet is a reflection of
humanity, and the truest reflection because, out of all other forms of media,
the image it presents isn't entirely manufactured or mediated by corporations
(although they are trying.)

The internet has only become a "cesspool" because it's matured as a platform
and gained enough critical mass that it can accurately reflect the noxious
rat-king that is the human zeitgeist.

But the same platform that shows us the worst of ourselves can also reflect
the best of ourselves, and the same freedom that allows the vile and the
profane allows the creative, intellectual and profound.

The answer isn't to change the web, but to change ourselves. Hate is as much
of a problem as it is on the internet because hate is accepted in the real
world. Censoring the web won't solve that.

Or maybe go all the way in the other direction and have some kind of Psycho-
Pass scenario where AI builds a "crime coefficient" out of a profile of your
online and offline activities and estimates your emotional stability and moral
alignment based on cameras monitoring your irises and skin as you surf the
web, and if your hue gets too red, someone shoots you with a gun.

~~~
drasticmeasures
It is infinitely easier to pass a law than to change humanity.

Personally, I accept the Internet as it is.

~~~
krapp
It's also infinitely easier to let individual sites manage their own content
and moderation as they see fit then to regulate content on the internet as a
whole.

------
msie
That's why I believe it was a mistake for Facebook, Twitter and Google to
require people to use their real identities. How can trollhunters effectively
fight trolls without fear of retaliation in the real world?

------
sesutton
>Should he Okamoto have been more careful? That depends on whether you think
criticism of an internet troll ever merits a death sentence.

This is a weird false dichotomy. Its possible to think someone should be more
careful and still not think they deserve to die. If I saw someone texting
while driving I'd tell them to be more careful but not think they deserved to
die.

~~~
weberc2
Yeah, this sort of thing is commonplace. Suggesting caution is often called
out as “blaming the victim”.

EDIT: as always, I’d love to hear from the downvoters. This seems like a
pretty uncontroversial observation.

~~~
ceejayoz
It _is_ blaming the victim - it comes with the logical conclusion of "if you'd
been more careful this might not have happened".

In some scenarios, it's also effectively saying "make sure someone _else_ is
the one that gets raped/attacked/whatever tonight".

~~~
manfredo
Suggesting caution is not automatically saying everyone who didn't take that
advice derserves what happened to them. Saying "you should wear your seatbelt"
is not the same as "you deserve to get maimed or killed if you don't wear your
seatbelt". Similarly, saying "don't put identifiable info on forums" is not
the same as saying "if you put PII on a public forum you deserve to get
stalked".

~~~
ceejayoz
IMO, you're making the mistake of thinking fault and "deserve" are the same
thing.

A smoker who gets lung cancer doesn't _deserve_ the pain and suffering, but
you can make a good argument they're at least partially _at fault_ for it.

"People should dress conservatively so they don't get raped" doesn't say they
deserved to get raped, but it does _blame_ them to some extent for what
happened by implying some of it is their _fault_.

~~~
manfredo
This line of thinking doesn't seem to hold up to scrutiny. If I say "wear a
helmet when you ride a bike" it is entirely possible that an ensuing accident
is entirely the fault of another party (e.g. getting cut off by a car).
Nonetheless, the rider's injuries will depend greatly on whether or not the
advice was followed. But the fault in either case is entirely that of the
driver that caused the accident.

~~~
ceejayoz
I think it's a mistake to compare an _accident_ and an intentional criminal
act like that.

If you get run down intentionally by someone in a car while biking, and the
first thing I say is "well, you should've worn a helmet", you're going to
correctly call me a douchebag.

~~~
manfredo
Sure. But pointing to this as an example of why someone should wear a helmet
even if they're confident in their riding ability is not in any way shifting
blame to the rider.

Nobody is actually trying to _tell_ the security expert in this story that he
should be more careful - he's dead. People in this thread are pointing out how
this story highlights the importance of safe internet usage practices - much
akin to how one might point to a car collision as a reason to use a helmet.
That is not blaming the victim, that's encouraging others to learn from and
hopefully prevent similar situations.

------
baybal2
And I thought that having somebody whom you beaten in Counterstrike slamming
at your door with baseball bat at 1am was bad enough.

What terrible times we live in

------
some_account
These are people who are so deep into their computer world, they forget there
are real people behind the keyboards.

~~~
CiPHPerCoder
They don't forget, they just don't care.

A lot of people completely lack empathy, and our society hasn't done a good
job at reducing that number.

However, this is kind of a non sequitur for the article.

~~~
lightbyte
Are you and the OP intentionally victim blaming a person who was murdered for
calling out an online troll?

~~~
CiPHPerCoder
I have no idea where you got that interpretation from my comment.

The person who committed the murder is clearly not mentally healthy.

What about this observation puts any amount of blame on the victim?

This murder is sad, and a tragedy for anyone connected to either party.

~~~
lightbyte
The person you are replying to was referring to the murder victim. Since you
didn't specify a subject

>They don't forget, they just don't care.

>A lot of people completely lack empathy, and our society hasn't done a good
job at reducing that number.

Appears to also be referring to the victim. Are you actually talking about the
killer here? If so you should specify that.

~~~
CiPHPerCoder
I was specifically talking about the killer, and I was assuming OP was
responding to the headline and making a general statement about Internet
trolls.

I still don't see how that was confusing, but to anybody who needed a
clarification: There you go.

