[liberationtech] Avaaz, is this for real?

Sat May 5 19:19:51 PDT 2012

See my prior response to Eric on specific concerns he raised and my
questions.

Doing my best to translate,

-Brant

On May 5, 2012, at 3:19 PM, Joanne Michele <sabzbrach at gmail.com> wrote:

Brant Olson joined yesterday but hasn't provided any information or
addressed specific concerns, as far as I know. I did get a response from
him on Twitter on a related question, so he must be paying attention.

On Sat, May 5, 2012 at 5:55 PM, Yvette Alberdingkthijm
<yvette at witness.org>wrote:

> I am just the messenger here…:) Will suggest that they should join, if
> someone has not already.
>
> Thanks,
>
> 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 5, 2012, at 5:51 PM, Marcin de Kaminski wrote:
>
> 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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>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>>  *+1-857-891-4244 |** jilliancyork.com | @jilliancyork *
>>>
>>> "We must not be afraid of dreaming the seemingly impossible if we want
>>> the seemingly impossible to become a reality" - *Vaclav Havel*
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
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