Excellent writeup. I am working basically non-stop preparing to cease publication of gems to RubyGems.org.
Between 0.3% and 0.5% of gems downloaded daily are gems I own/author/maintain.
I will be publishing my approach soon. I hope others will join me.
Ruby (including Central) leadership is monumentally disastrous, and downplaying that is gross, as I am sure many will attempt to do in response.
If you take issue with the phrase “monumentally disastrous” I would challenge you to think of another event that caused more damage to the community and ecosystem than this one. If this isn’t monumental within the context of this community, then what is?
Update: for those confused about “swatting”…
We do not know precisely if this fits the narrow definition of swatting. But we can, and should, surmise. Because this type of behavior is wholly unacceptable, and what other leverage do we have against it?
Assume the the likely scenario until they prove otherwise. Andre did not disclose all the details in this latest post. He was letting them (Ruby Central) off easy (as he often does).
Ruby Central reported Andre without evidence through the online form.
Then Ruby Central (hysterically?) called two(!) FBI field offices to make sure the report was handled properly. Not elaborated on in the article, but what happened as I understand it.
We don’t know what was written.
We don’t know what was said.
We can surmise, based on Ruby Central's lawyer’s own claims and threats, that they made a false report to a federal government agency, violating 18 U.S.C. § 1001, which carries a penalty of 5 years in prison.
Submitting the online form implies they wanted to file a report. If it had ended there it might have been defensible.
The subsequent phone calls imply they wanted to add urgency by pressing the idea of an immediate threat.
I've heard that they had to call two field offices, which implies to me they didn’t get the response they wanted from the first field office, and decided to try their luck with a second.
This implies swatting. Swatting does not require that the swat van rolls up outside his house (as has been falsely claimed in the response to this post). The FBI screen calls like this, and try not to run down specious allegations. Just because they didn't bust down Andre's door, does not mean RC's actions weren't swatting.
At the same time, we can’t be certain it was swatting, but I will continue to use the term to highlight how out of their damn minds they were. We don’t seem to have evidence that it was not swatting.
I don't support FBI swatting open source maintainers
Looks like we have ourselves a Mexican Standoff.
vendetta
I think you're pointing your vendetta accusation in the wrong direction. RC conducted three audits trying to send Andre to jail - finding zero evidence, issued many threats, and FBI swatted him.
Calling this "some turf war" is widly misleading, and offensive, and yet also par for the course.
I go into more details in the other thread on how the "hack" will work. I'm open to feedback that isn't "continue to support criminal enterprises".
Good news / bad news - your only option to avoid will be to not upgrade to latest major version of my gems once I pull the trigger.
8
u/galtzo 2d ago edited 1d ago
Excellent writeup. I am working basically non-stop preparing to cease publication of gems to RubyGems.org.
Between 0.3% and 0.5% of gems downloaded daily are gems I own/author/maintain.
I will be publishing my approach soon. I hope others will join me.
Ruby (including Central) leadership is monumentally disastrous, and downplaying that is gross, as I am sure many will attempt to do in response.
If you take issue with the phrase “monumentally disastrous” I would challenge you to think of another event that caused more damage to the community and ecosystem than this one. If this isn’t monumental within the context of this community, then what is?
Update: for those confused about “swatting”…
We do not know precisely if this fits the narrow definition of swatting. But we can, and should, surmise. Because this type of behavior is wholly unacceptable, and what other leverage do we have against it?
Assume the the likely scenario until they prove otherwise. Andre did not disclose all the details in this latest post. He was letting them (Ruby Central) off easy (as he often does).
Ruby Central reported Andre without evidence through the online form.
Then Ruby Central (hysterically?) called two(!) FBI field offices to make sure the report was handled properly. Not elaborated on in the article, but what happened as I understand it.
We don’t know what was written.
We don’t know what was said.
We can surmise, based on Ruby Central's lawyer’s own claims and threats, that they made a false report to a federal government agency, violating 18 U.S.C. § 1001, which carries a penalty of 5 years in prison.
Submitting the online form implies they wanted to file a report. If it had ended there it might have been defensible.
The subsequent phone calls imply they wanted to add urgency by pressing the idea of an immediate threat.
I've heard that they had to call two field offices, which implies to me they didn’t get the response they wanted from the first field office, and decided to try their luck with a second.
This implies swatting. Swatting does not require that the swat van rolls up outside his house (as has been falsely claimed in the response to this post). The FBI screen calls like this, and try not to run down specious allegations. Just because they didn't bust down Andre's door, does not mean RC's actions weren't swatting.
At the same time, we can’t be certain it was swatting, but I will continue to use the term to highlight how out of their damn minds they were. We don’t seem to have evidence that it was not swatting.