[liberationtech] Avaaz, is this for real?

Sat May 5 14:51:40 PDT 2012

Thank you, Yvette. 

That statement still does not explain why the donation is needed (since their system could stand the attack). 

Marcin 

Yvette Alberdingkthijm <yvette at witness.org> skrev:

Hi all,

Ricken Patel, who heads up Avaaz, asked me to post this on this list (as I brought the discussion to his attention) and here is what he said:

It's a statement quoting the CEO of our hosting company. Would you mind posting it to that discussion or asking someone to? I'm not part of it - 

https://secure.avaaz.org/act/media.php?press_id=321

YAT 

Yvette J. Alberdingk Thijm

Executive Director
WITNESS
80 Hanson Place
Brooklyn, NY 11217
phone: + 1(718) 783 2271

europe: +31 619031122
mobile: + 1 (347) 210 0152

skype: yvette-a or witnessyvette
email: yvette at witness.org
twitter: @yvettethijm, @witnessorg, #video4change
blog: blog.witness.org

When elephants fight, the grass suffers

On May 4, 2012, at 10:33 PM, Erik Sundelof wrote:

I do not know any background of this nor am I in any way linked to the issue/concern at hand, but some general projection rules here are needed. Especially since I have started to see random numbers thrown around which is contraproductive in any way, shape or form.

Throwing out $500k as a result of 35k donations is just unfounded. Just for clarity here do check my background as far as donation flows and crowdsourcing.

I really personally want the discussion about the issue/concern at hand to stay away from splitting hairs and throwing random numbers around. It is not constructive and also will defocus the discussion from what it should be all about.

Apologies if I come across as too direct but let us together keep the discussion on-point and fair, as well as staying clear from thowing arbitrary and unfounded statements around.

Erik

http://sundelof.com

Sent from my iPad

On May 4, 2012, at 5:39 PM, Shaun Wilde <s.wilde.libtech at gmail.com> wrote:

Was clarifying Okhin's musing about what their goal of 35k$ was for. Their goal is 35,000 donations.  Likely to the tune of... who knows. $500,000? If we're wondering what they'd do with 35k$, an even more interesting brainstorm is what they'll do with 500k$. Hard to know without knowing anything about the attack--except that it was massive.
-sw

On Sat, May 5, 2012 at 12:24 AM, Jillian C. York <jilliancyork at gmail.com> wrote:

Unless those 33,000 individual donations were less than $1 each, I don't really see what you're getting at.

On Sat, May 5, 2012 at 2:15 AM, Shaun Wilde <s.wilde.libtech at gmail.com> wrote:

Clarification. That's 33,000 individual donations. Not $33k. That should get them started.
-sw

On Fri, May 4, 2012 at 6:52 PM, Dave Karpf <davekarpf at gmail.com> wrote:
Agreed that that's what makes it importantly different. This wasn't the Comm department responding to reporters, it was an active fundraising ask.

I'm withholding judgment for the moment, but sincerely hope the Avaaz folks will be more open with the tech experts on this list. At the moment, this looks a LOT like a crass fundraising ploy. If so, I personally would lose a lot of respect for the org.

DK

Sent from my iPad

On May 4, 2012, at 6:36 PM, Okhin <okhin at okhin.fr> wrote:

> On Fri, 4 May 2012 15:48:35 -0400
> Sahar Massachi <Sahar at brandeis.edu> wrote:
>
>> I'm a bit concerned about all the muttering about Avaaz's sensationalism.
>>
>> Please correct me if I'm misunderstanding something, but the following
>> scenario seems pretty plausible to me:
>>
>> The Avaaz site comes under some sort of attack. The tech team at Avaaz
>> gives a quick "idiots guide" to what's going on to their communications
>> team, and then goes back to trying to deal with the problem. The
>> communications team has a partially confused understanding of exactly
>> what's going on, but tries to deal with the situation as best they can.
>> When technically minded journalists want to talk to Avaaz, the
>> communications staff doesn't want to bother their still-hard-at-work tech
>> team, so they give unsatisfying, vague, and unhelpful replies to these
>> journalists".
>>
>> Am I missing something?
>>
>
> Yeah, they started a funding campaign to fight the attack and, while
> the attack has stopped (according to their claim), it's still open and
> their goal is 35k$ (and they're at 33k$)for what?
> https://secure.avaaz.org/en/massive_attack_on_avaaz_a/?fp
>
> Next time I've got a spam bot raiding my corporate network, I'll ask this amount of money to my boss. Just to see he's face.
>
> Okhin
>
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