
Blackmail fail - a3voices
http://gwern.net/Blackmail
======
Eliezer
I would recommend against having dealings with the obviously mentally ill. I'm
not sure in what sense you might be legally liable (for a civil suit) if they
happened to commit suicide a week later and mentioned you in the note. Also,
psychiatrists may be in many cases working off falsified doctrines just like
any other doctor, but also like any other doctor, they really do know
important things layfolk don't. Leave the clearly crazy to the professionals.

Though if this is your _first_ real crazy caller I could understand where the
fascination came from. About... 15 years ago...? I got that email from someone
who insisted that all I really needed to know was the Periodic Table of the
Elements in which all answers were contained. It took me a while to get that
this was not someone I could save by argument.

~~~
gwern
> Though if this is your first real crazy caller I could understand where the
> fascination came from.

You know, thinking about it, I think Jack _is_ the first crazy person I have
seriously dealt with at length on the Internet. Oh, I've seen plenty of crazy
people online - I've laughed at Timecube, I've looked over HN's own resident
Losethos (with a sense of 'there but for the grace of god'), I've watched
other people argue with crazy people - but I think I've either never actually
dealt with them or quickly flipped the bozo bit on them and disengaged. Under
_normal_ situations, on normal topics, I have no reason to talk with them at
length and grandiloquence is unjustified....

At least part of the problem here is that in the crazy mirror land of the
blackmarkets and Bitcoin in general, sanity is hard to distinguish from
insanity, there really are key bits of information random parties can have,
not everyone talks straight, blackmail does payoff, and there really are
hidden millionaires & billionaires walking around in plain sight. (As an
example of the mirrors of insanity, I invite anyone to read the Silk Road 2
forums and parse the SSBD/Inigo/Libertas, the DPR2 key rotation, the Cirrus
announcement, Raoul's quoted message from DPR2, the posts by Defcon, the
'accidental' access to the admin forum, Ormsby's comments, Oracle's
insinuations, the Tormarket quote from the vendor forum, etc etc etc, and
parse it into a single coherent sane narrative. And consider what Satoshi's
estimated fortune is at any moment.)

~~~
tankenmate
I suspect that 'Jack' might be a non-native speaker of English. I get the
feeling that the first language of 'Jack' is probably highly idiomatic and
frequently uses allusion and/or euphamisms. Also using the threat of the
government power, rather than direct force (mafia et alia who more frequently
carry out blackmail), while simultaneously engaging in clearly illegal
behaviour. I would suspect this means this person's origins would be a country
with high levels of government corruption and/or dictatorship. All together I
would hedge that this person came from China (linguistical match, corruption
match, huge population, national interest in Bitcoin), Vietnam, or maybe Laos
or Cambodia. Obviously this is all conjecture of the highest order.

~~~
gwern
> I suspect that 'Jack' might be a non-native speaker of English.

If he is, he's done a hell of a job learning English. I think I'm a very good
writer, but in some respects I don't match Jack, which is impressive for a
native but astounding if he's ESL. Plus he makes references to US things like
referring to MA as being 'east', which suggests he's physically located i the
US, which is more likely if he's a native speaker.

~~~
tankenmate
The reason I think he isn't a native speaker is that the nuance of his words
miss the mark way too often (hence the purple prose); almost like he is
choosing words from a thesaurus rather than from his day to day repertoire.

I say this from the background of having attended a number of international
schools around the globe as a teenager.

------
Crito
_" Forget the complete absence of the evidence I asked for, this seemed like
it was written by someone in the throes of full-blown psychosis or mania or
schizophrenia with meaningless plans to somehow revolutionize the world."_

Realizing that this _actually is_ a distinct possibility is important for
anybody interested in talking with random people on the internet. Mental
illness is prevalent, and there is little keeping the mentally ill off of the
internet.

~~~
Houshalter
Another good reason to stay anonymous and never use your real name online.

~~~
Crito
Absolutely. Before I began divorcing my online identity from my 'real'
identity^, I had several nutters try to reach out and effect my life 'in the
real world'. Dredging through old posts, calling ex-employers, etc. All
because they felt slighted for various absurd reasons.

Normally when you have problems with a person like this, you can go to the
police and get a restraining order. It becomes harder when it is online
because you have to weight the possibility that anything that you do to defend
yourself might get them closer to finding you.

These days I find myself being fairly sensitive to 'craziness', whenever I get
the slightest whiff of it I break off the conversation completely. I'm not a
professional who is trained in how to deal with people with these sort of
problems, so I am not going to attempt it.

^ Technically I was not using my real name, but a pseudonym that was unique
enough to only return results relevant to me when googled. I've since taken to
using names of characters from history or fiction as my pseudonyms, and
picking new ones at least once a year.

~~~
DanBC
> I had several nutters try to reach out and effect my life 'in the real
> world'.

They might not have had any mental illness, and might have just been
unpleasant people.

> These days I find myself being fairly sensitive to 'craziness', whenever I
> get the slightest whiff of it I break off the conversation completely.

I am crazy. I've had treatment for a long term, severe, mental illness, from
specialist mental health service providers. That illness has caused some
admissions to general hospitals. My illness has sometimes affected my posts to
HN. (Although I'm pretty good at setting noprocast when needed).

I know many people who have spent time in mental health hospitals for severe
and enduring mental illness.

I let you know so that you can adjust your filters accordingly.

------
tvladeck
This isn't pretty. Gwern doesn't look good here, messing with someone that was
clearly mentally ill. Even at the end when he breaks this opinion he positions
himself in a smugly superior way, insincerely offering this analysis.

~~~
hoilogoi
I disagree that jack0fnone is mentally ill. I see him as a 14 year old. It's
perfectly understandable that a 14 year old might go through a bitcoin phase,
be awestruck by gwern.net, daydream up these crazy ideas.

Kids go through crazy phases and still mature into stable, reasonable adults.

Edit: To me, the writing style seems very teenager-ish as well, though I don't
have a good baseline for mentally unstable writing.

~~~
hncomment
The delusion that many people are actually one person recurs in mental
illness, there's probably even a name for it.

Coupled with insecurity, it might lead to paranoia and feelings of persecution
by a powerful puppet-master. Here it seems paired with grandiose delusions,
perhaps because the person is otherwise intelligent & high-functioning, or
using drugs which create a sense of invulnerability. Either way, there are
strong indicators of mental illness.

I would put joking (or trolling) as-if-mentally-ill as a second-place
possibility, and teen-daydreams as a third-place possibility. But maybe all
three in different proportions.

------
fiskkastanj
Dear Gwern, I very much appreciate everything you write. Your blog is in my
top 3 quality blogs, nay, if not top 1!

But the posts are long. It's not something I say proudly, but often I read the
first 3 pages but then lose focus and willpower. Maybe it's because English is
my second language, maybe it's because there's so much to do in a day.

Not saying dumb-down. But if say 15% of readings end like they sometimes do
for me, that's a big loss. Both for your reach and for the readers, who like
me fail to get all the good stuff in there.

So as a fan giving feedback: a bit terser would not be wrong. I'm trying, and
I'm using programs that let me 'save' my progress in a long text and get back
after a coffee, but it's sometimes hard.

(Ironically, this is a big-ass 4 paragraph comment, haha)

~~~
gwern
I'm not sure what I can do about that. My posts aren't long (I think) because
I spend a ton of space using sesquidealian and periphastic circumlocutions;
what is there to cut?

~~~
ChristianMarks
Not to mention paralipsis.

------
unclesaamm
Sorry, but you can handle this much better. Aka not engaging. You aren't
sending any message, except trying to show that you're sophisticated enough to
mess with some spammers.

I said this in a comment to you on reddit, but this line was just fluff:
"Hence by backward induction, there is a clear decision-theoretic verdict
against paying you any sum."

~~~
gwern
> I said this in a comment to you on reddit, but this line was just fluff:
> "Hence by backward induction, there is a clear decision-theoretic verdict
> against paying you any sum."

My reply to this off-base criticism:
[http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1thnq3/i_am_not_sat...](http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1thnq3/i_am_not_satoshi_nakamoto_please_stop_trying_to/ce8a4j7)

(At least you got the quote right here.)

------
bobbles
As someone who knows little about encryption or who this gwern guy is, this
was still a fascinating read.

It's like hearing a joke or seeing a 'funny' picture that someone finds
absolutely hilarious but just doesn't affect you in any way. (In that, someone
could have such a different state of mind that it seems almost
incomprehensible)

~~~
hobs
I have seen occasional highly voted posts with write ups on effects of various
drugs. They are generally pretty interesting. Seems like a cool guy to have a
conversation with/have a beer with, I would read through his site a bit more,
you might like it.

------
alecsmart1
Am a little lost. Can someone explain the background of this post? What are
these extortion messages and why is he receiving them for usernames of a site
etc.?

------
sciguy77
I feel like mocking and toying with someone clearly mentally ill is pretty
unethical.

------
dobbsbob
Random fruit cake blackmail is nothing new. I KNOW UR THE PRESIDENT anybody
who's posted on shady forums full of drug addicts will get these laughable bm
attempts. Stringing them along is the worst possible solution just ignore them
and they find a new conspiracy. Now this nutjob will never cease to harrass
Gwern because he knows he will get attention.

------
kybernetikos
The prose is strange enough in some of the earlier messages that I wondered if
there's steganography being used.

Although since it seems like jack is simultaneously trying to blackmail _and_
become a disciple of gwern, I suppose it's more likely that he just wanted to
write something he thought would impress & intrigue him.

------
nullc
Minor pangs of irony seeing Gwern whine about being accused of being Satoshi
while he's been concurrently been stalking and accusing people of being
Satoshi himself. ... complete with a misuse of "we" and claims of secretive
methodologies.

~~~
nullc
Gwern responded unfavorably to a similar comment I made on reddit:
[http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1thnq3/i_am_not_sat...](http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1thnq3/i_am_not_satoshi_nakamoto_please_stop_trying_to/ce882bz?context=3)

------
petepete
> The ransom value decreases over time following exponential decay with a
> half-life of 365/2=182.5 days.

It's obviously someone taking the piss.

------
sbierwagen
Wayback link, since gwern.net is down right now:
[https://web.archive.org/web/20131223023402/http://www.gwern....](https://web.archive.org/web/20131223023402/http://www.gwern.net/Blackmail)

------
jqm
Amusing read.

Not sure I agree w/ the mental illness diagnosis though.

Sounds more like a person (who maybe should lay off the stuff) taking wild
guesses and hoping to score. In his mind - big upside, little effort/downside
risk.

------
ChristianMarks
This sounds familiar:

 _I am but an impoverished writer who barely makes ends meet..._

------
ohJBYZtMrhslkGd
Regarding dead dog, I wonder if this is related:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnfPH6zQbXo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnfPH6zQbXo)

------
Aloha
This guy clearly rode the crazy bus to crazytown.

