@Confused
Thank you for telling me the contents of the “personal” message -
unfortunately knightmare did not send that to me at all.
But that is of a piece with the misinformation and deceit being propagated
by what seems to be an army of fake accounts.
I originally drafted this in reply to @ConoRZ - I was not clear to whom
his message was addressed, but I guessed that it was one of the mods.
Again oblique claims had been made about messages to be sent or
disclosures that were to be made. I doubt that any thing came of that.
I have always thought that security is best achieved through what one
can call right thinking. And a useful path to that is by looking at what
one may call the madness of crowds, and the history of scams.
There are certain behaviours that seem to me to mark out some con and
scam artists. You can see these markers evident in everything from the
Rosicrucians, to QAnon, taking in the Priory of Sion on the way.
One is the suggestion that they have knowledge that they want to
keep hidden from you, but the noble scammer will share with you,
(Sometimes for free, but usually at a cost). It doesn’t matter if the
knowledge is really hidden - the scammer will tell you it is.
Another feature is the use of unsubstantiated claims that there are
efforts to silence the scammer. Sometimes they will produce “evidence”
of this - more often, the claim by itself is enough.
Often, there will be a claim that the scammer has particular skills or
special knowledge. Again, this is rarely backed by anything, but the simple
assertion is enough to make it so.
Sometimes scammer will make claims about things they have done - usually
in secret, so that they cannot be produced in evidence. Again, the claim
by itself is sufficient to bolster the mystery surrounding scammer, and
to enhance the purported special skills or knowledge.
And then there is confirmation from others that scammer is who they
say they are, or that they have done special things. Those others may be
part of the con, or dupes, or the scammer under another name. On the
internet it’s trivially easy to generate other personas to fill this
role. Often the confirmation comes in the form of messages apparently
sent or received, or reports from some 3rd party.
I have no idea if x0 is the real deal. Every aspect of their behaviour
makes me think that they are a scheister of the highest order.
I listened to the first link that was posted, and it did not seem to me
to be a good introduction to Qubes, as I said at the time. Nor did it
seem consistent with someone who had 10 years experience with Qubes.
What we have seen so far, from a team of $1M 1337 h4x0r Xen wizards,
is a shaky video showing a window in the installer being dragged
about until the progress bar stops. That looks like a known issue,
where the progress bar appears to halt, but the installer continues
in the background. Maybe the wizards have found something else - it’s
impossible to say, on the basis of that video.
It’s not the first time we’ve seen shaky videos purporting to undermine
Qubes with major hacks. Last time there was almost nothing underlying the
grandiose claims. Perhaps this time things will be different.
By their fruits shall ye know them.
I never presume to speak for the Qubes team.
When I comment in the Forum or in the mailing lists I speak for myself.
