Today I will be badging everyone who donated (except for those who told us not to). When you donated, you were asked to enter your Voat username in the description box. If you did not do this for whatever reason, and still wish to receive your donor badge, please wait 24 hours and then if your donor badge is not visible on your profile page, send an email to [email protected] and mention your donation transaction ID and your Voat username. Since the badging process is currently not automated, I will be spending a large chunk of this Sunday on this task.
I would like to use this opportunity to THANK YOU all who donated as your donations are what keeps Voat online and what keeps us motivated to fight our way forward. I wish I could say thank you to each and every one of you personally, but the number of people who donated it just too big to manage.
Anyways, I hope to be able to make another announcement soon with more information on our monthly operating costs. I'd love to do an ama-type thing with Putt and answer any questions you guys may have, but I can't promise anything at this point.
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SaneGoatiSwear ago
Atko you say "question everything"
so i question
three(edit did i say three things? lol wow like i'm ever concise) NINE things:why won't you and putt show us timestamped photos of yourselves with newspapers from today and my username written on the paper? i think it'd put a lot of goats' fears to rest.
can we talk about the warrant canary? a lot of goats feel that it's just not enough (incomplete), and that it needs it's own place with a full dead man's switch ( a page linked next to the about section, requiring to you to press a button once a month or the page disappears).
where's @puttitout, @atko? and what happened this past month and a half?
what's going on with the silence? some goats have some crazy theories about what's going on.
is there a code commit on the voat code that is not showing on the source on git?
have you sold vote?
are there agents with you now?
has @puttitout given up, @atko?
and finally, are you @technician90 ?
Atko ago
Sigh. No, we haven't sold Voat and I don't plan to ever do anything which affects the users without first talking to you guys. The canary is as good as it gets. I don't want to implement a dead man switch as I can't guarantee that I will be able to maintain it. I don't work full time on Voat and I'm on the road a lot, sometimes without internet access for days. Our current canary is manual, if it stops showing up in our announcements, it means that we are under surveillance. Also, Canary Watch project is shutting down and the whole Warrant Canary idea seems to be pointless as it doesn't really work in practice. Where's Puttitout? I spoke with him shortly yesterday and I don't have a definite answer to what he's been up to, but I would say that something like this applies to him as well. That should answer your #3 and #4.
Code commit that is not showing on Github? There might be more than one. We don't always push our code changes to Git, sometimes small adjustments are made and committed much later. Also, what guarantee do you have that Voat source code visible on Gitlab is the same code that is running on our servers?
There are no agents with me now, and I have not been talking to any government agencies, ever.
And #8 - I hope not, but it would not surprise me, given the fact that we never made a dime and that he poured countless hours.
All in all, you need to make sure never to post any personally identifiable information on Voat or anywhere else online, if you want to stay anonymous. The internet is a dark mess with tracking beacons almost on every single website. Stay smart, and be your own privacy guard. We do everything we can to protect Voat and its data, but how do you know your ISP is not ratting you out?
My words and Putts words is all you have, but never rely on anyone to protect your privacy. Stay vigilant and do your part to protect yourself.
Also no, I am not /u/technician90.
SaneGoatiSwear ago
correct. so far all i have are words, and words can be as empty as your pockets.
i appreciate this response. it's the first attempt at meaningful contact by the admins of voat in 1 month and a few days.
i'm sad to hear about the warrant canary. while i agree that warrant canaries haven't made the rounds and become solid in law yet, i don't agree they're on their way out. i think they're just getting solidified, and if more sites would take the time to make serious complete and dead manned ones, i think it would start to solidify more. instead major sites are dropping their canaries, and getting gagged, and free speech is limited now nearly across the entire internet. that said, we still have indicator species, and they're all screaming that voat's going down. please be aware, as you are in switzerland where voat is a hate site, and your incorporated in the u.s., (please correct me if i'm wrong on these two points) giving the 5 eyes easy access, know that your statements on the warrant canary sound to us like you don't care about free speech, and that the warrant canary is a placation, not a work in progress meant to be completed.
so on the record, and as your official response: you, @atko on behalf of whatever dev team you won't tell us about is left:
are refusing to prove you are alive and well? please answer
have not sold voat. check.
don't "plan on" doing things which effect users. code changes affect users. do you notify all goats upon a change? no. what does this statement have to do with my questions?
won't be transparent with us regarding admins, employees, nor finances? please respond.
won't give us pictures with timestamps with a newspaper with today's date with my username written on it in your hand? why not, atif? please respond.
are saying that at any given time voat's code may be open source or closed source and we've no way to check? there may be malicious code there now, and we aren't allowed to know? please confirm.
are saying something about protecting yourself on the internet? this is an inch from non-sequitur, atko.
you are claiming you (not haven't been gagged) but that you have never talked to agencies ever. how about judges? received any warrants or gags or injunctions or super-injunctions?? we can only believe this as far as we can throw all the whales, as these days our legal system is corrupt as fuck, and you may well very much be compelled to lie as far as we know. your actions and lackthereof are what prove these claims, not the claims themselves.
and finally, you're stating you have no idea where @puttitout is and that "it would not surprise" you if he gave up?!?!?!!?!?!?!?!
final question that i completely forgot, if you've time to answer it: are you bringing back the legal subs you've censored? i don't ness. want them back, but i actually believe in free speech. you clearly stated it was a temporary measure. what say you, now? request for comment.
oh i see you've edited your comment before i was able to respond. yes, you are saying you are not @technician90. fair enough, thank you for that response. now for the rest of 'em.
HarveyHarveyJones ago
I always have moments in my life when i keep asking the same questions over and over with no response or answer. More times than not, i actually knew the answer the whole time... I just couldn't accept it because it was an answer i didn't want/like. I see a lot of users here thinking any theory about atko or puttitout or even voat itself being compromised is just crazy. The other half seems concerned. Then there's a few who are absolutely worried, such as yourself. I myself, am worried as well. Even if it's not even close to what the theories have been, something is definitely up. Stay vigilant.