The Emulation scene lost one of it's most important members 2 days ago

[DynamiteCop 2,087]

6 minutes ago, Saucer said:

For some reason I went down the rabbit hole and here's a recap if anyone's interested.

 

For reference, Kiwifarms is a rightwing message board where they post about the misadventures of "lulcows" in and around the gaming community like Chris-Chan, Wu, and Movie Bob. 

 

- Someone on Kiwifarms started a thread about Near in 2018. It's pretty mild by Kiwifarms standards and only had 250 posts before yesterday.

 

- It hasn't been confirmed that he's dead.

 

- He was deeply mentally ill. 

 

- He was against "SWJ identity politics in software development" but when Trump was elected he became vehemently anti-Trump online. 

 

- Later he defended a manga collector in the Midwest who was arrested and convicted of possessing three mangas that depicted underage sex. He argued that such material should be legal because they can help pedophiles control their impulses. That caused people to call him a pedophile apologist and a pedophile. (He later changed his position when he learned that such material is used by pedophiles to groom children.)

 

- Later, due to loneliness, he fell in with the trans and furry communities and claimed he pretended to be a furry to fit in. I'm not sure about the trans thing. I think he moved past that too.

 

- He then becamse seen in some circles as a trans-furry SWJ pedo, and above all he hated being called a pedo.  

 

- Last year he posted in the Kiwifarms thread about himself and said Kiwifarm was right about him being a drama queen, he explained to them why he fell in with the trans-furry community, and basically said he's trying to be a better person. Posters responded well to him and he was surprised. (Keep in mind this was such a low-trafficed thread that this exchange between everyonoe was 10-15 posts in total). Then people stopped posting in the thread for a few months, some more minor drama with him happened, and posters went back to criticizing him. 

 

- He was obsessed with the Kiwifarms thread and thought it was ruining his life even though he knew it was an irrational to think that. A few days ago he contacted the owner of Kiwifarms, Joshua Moon and said he was going to commit suicide if the Joshua didn't take down the Kiwifarms thread about him. He then offered Joshua his life savings of $120,000 if he would delete it. He also said his politics are actually centrist and he promised not to post about anything online again except to announce emulator releases.

 

At this point it's almost impossible to do a neutral recap of what happened next so here's the exchange between the two:

 

  Hide contents

[Message 1]

 

I can't do this anymore.

 

 

I've tried therapy, I've tried every anti-depressant available in Japan, I've erased my entire internet presence back in July. I've tried everything, but nothing works. I can't stop having panic attacks. I can't stop feeling humiliated. I can't stop spending every hour of my life worrying about what your users are going to do next to me or my friends both onsite and off. It's been a three-year nightmare for me.

 

 

I know I'm different, but I've tried my best to be a good person. To learn from my mistakes and not repeat them. To help others wherever I could. But I've always been ridiculed for being different. It's been a constant my entire life. It's unbearable.

 

 

I can't live like this any more, it has wrecked my entire life. I really can't explain why this hurts me so deeply, and I know it's irrational. I can only tell you that I can't handle this anymore. "byuu" is all I have. I have no real-life friends, no identity off the internet, this is it. There's no other reason for my being but to try and emulate game consoles for people. I put my entire life into this.

 

 

So I'll give you the choice.

 

 

If you'll take down my thread, I'll offer you my entire life's savings: $120,000 USD, as much of that as you want, however you want it. I'll further offer you my services as a 20-year software engineer, free of charge. I've done my best the past three years to better myself and make changes for every point criticized there. I'm not involved with the fandom or non-binary scene and haven't been for years, I was just desperate to fit in somewhere. My politics are centrist and kept to myself, my social media accounts are all long-gone. You won't hear of me again, I'll just post emulator releases and that's it, absolutely no internet presence otherwise, on my word. And I'll keep going to therapy to try to get past this. This is me just outright begging you with everything I have. Please give me the chance to get through this. You won, a thousand times over already.

 

 

If not, then I'll reply with my dox: a scan of my passport, a recent photo, and proof that it's mine, for confirmation. And then I'll hang myself. I live alone, I've tested my setup with a slipknot on a solid climbing rope over a door frame, I've spent weeks doing my research on this, it works. I can nearly pass out with little effort or discomfort, the carotid arteries are easily compressible. A kick stool should be all that's needed. It won't fail, but if it were to, I live on the 14th floor and have a balcony. On my reputation and honor, having had no history of ever threatening this nor of being untruthful in my 20+ years online, I give you my word that I'm serious. You can post this e-mail if you choose. I won't make a big fuss about it online though, don't worry. It doesn't matter anymore.

 

 

I really tried to avoid getting to this point, but every day has been worse than the last for too long now. Those two weeks were the only time in the past few years where I felt any happiness at all. So it's up to you. Let me know what you decide please, or if you want anything else from me.

 

 

~ byuu

 

 

[Message 2]

 

 

You're putting me in a very uncomfortable position.  The smartest thing 

 

for me to do is simply ignore your email, but I generally try to be nice 

to people.

 

Every word that I say in reply to you will eventually be used against 

 

me.  If I help you, I've censored my website and my users may be upset. 

  If I don't help you, I could be under investigation due to your 

actions.  Even if my users don't care, accepting money as you've offered 

could be a violation of some extortion laws.  I will have to consult at 

least one of my attorneys regarding the criminality of this issue no 

matter what.

 

Though in follow-up, why does this small discussion thread bother you so 

 

much?  If you're in Japan, taking medication, and making enough money to 

have $120,000 in liquidity laying around, what does the Kiwi Farms 

deprive you of to make it worth that much money or your life?  I don't 

see anyone on the thread talking about hurting you, so I don't 

understand what you mean by "what they'll do next".

 

[Message 3]

 

 

Well, first, thank you for replying.

 

 

I understand all of that. I know the risk it places you under. You have my word that none of this leaves here. We can switch to a secure chat like Signal if you want. Username Near: (XXX) XXX-XXXX.

 

 

I know full well about Google's "exploitative removal practices" and the risk it places you on.

 

I can send it via anonymized Bitcoin. I have zero intention to do anything to undo this if I were to send you money. Feel free to consult with an attorney if you want, I'll sign a legally binding agreement with my legal name that it's not in any way tied to anything that could get you in trouble. I'm a US citizen as well.

 

As best I can tell, I have RSD as a result of ADHD, particularly bad.

 

https://www.additudemag.com/rejection-sensitive-dysphoria-and-adhd/

 

I really can't tell you why it makes me so miserable. I don't understand it either.

 

I've been to so many therapists, watched every video, talked to so many people, it just doesn't help.

 

When the thread went up in May 2018 it was a little humiliating at first but nothing major.

 

But then people started showing up in servers I was in accusing me of pedophilia. It's difficult to be called something so horrendous. But still, I just ignored it completely. In February 2020, someone claiming to be from your site posted a dox list on Pastebin of several of my friends to 4chan's /emugen/ board. I lost one of my best online friends of ten years to that. https://twitter.com/talarubi if you must know. Yes yes I know, trans furry etc. I doubt you'd sympathize but the relationship meant a lot to me. She got so upset by having her personal information revealed that she blamed me and we haven't spoken since. In July 2020, Basil and Retrocrab on your board were trying to make a thread on another emulator developer, Arisotura, because of me, while she was suicidal. I know, again, trans, again, I don't expect you to care about these people. But they were my friends and they spent years helping me with my software. And then when Jacob, the dumbass that he was, tried to help me, he got on your bad side and someone named Ritter doxed him in January 2021. I haven't heard from him since either and I don't even know if he's okay or not. He's not my friend, but, I didn't want this to happen to him.

 

None of this ever happened to me before. People didn't target other people like this because of my actions.

 

 

I've always internalized the blame for the actions of others. I feel responsible for this. Every day I wonder when it's going to start up again, who they're going to bother next. If they're going to get my dox. If they're going to harass my employer. If they're going to convince others I'm attracted to kids or animals or whatever other horrifically disgusting things they think is funny to say. It's not, man. I'm a real person.

 

 

Call me out on what I did, I'll own that. I owned it on your site in February 2020. I know I'm weird, pathetic, and so on. But I don't deserve this. I don't know if you realize this or not, but your users go after us offsite when they want to provoke reactions out of us. It's not just the thread. People A-log all the time. I have quite a few and that site is like their vindication and validation that I am a deserving target of this.

 

 

The money doesn't mean anything to me. It doesn't make me happy. I can't take it with me so I may as well offer it first as a last resort.

 

 

[Message 4]

 

 

The only SSRI to do anything was Zoloft, but it caused me really terrible tinnitus and I can't take it.

 

The rest of it does nothing. Nortriptyline, Lexapro, Mirtazapine, Anafranil, Intuniv, it helped a little, but it doesn't do anything anymore. I also have OCD and I think that it makes me obsess over things like this. I can't stop myself from thinking about it and worrying about the "what ifs."

 

[Message 5]

 

 

You realize I can only control what's on the site, right? I can't 

 

control archives, pastbins, doxbin, etc.

 

https://web.archive.org/web/2020*/https://kiwifarms.net/threads/byuu-byuu_nyan-setsunakun0.43056/

 

 

https://archive.is/https://kiwifarms.net/threads/byuu-byuu_nyan-setsunakun0.43056/*

 

 

What would you do if the thread was removed but then it was simply 

 

restored on a different site (i.e. Encyclopedia Dramatica or one of the 

competitors to the forum)?  That's not unlikely.

 

[Message 6]

 

 

I know that. And I know I can't touch Denis' archive.is stuff. I'm hopeful it's obscure enough to be forgotten.

 

 

I don't know what else to do. I'm out of ideas and hope. It's a risk. If it happens, it happens, and I'll have to consider what to do then.

 

 

I completely deleted my entire social media internet presence a year ago, so I am desperately hoping people will forget about me and move on.

 

 

I never wanted any of this online "fame" or attention. I just wanted to release my software and it kind of grew out of control. By the time I realized the negative consequences it was too late to put that genie back in the bottle. All I can do is stay off the internet as much as possible and hope they grow bored.

 

 

Well, here. Do with this as you will. I want to hold off on the name before you decide because I don't want to risk being interrupted. If I do this I won't disclose it and I'll delete this e-mail. I don't want to be remembered that way anyway. It's not going to bring me any comfort to bother anyone else at this point. I just need this to stop.

 

 

[Message 7]

 

 

Also, your site has a reach that none of those other places can ever get even close to.

 

 

You really have the #1 website on the entire internet for this sort of thing.

 

 

[Message 8]

 

 

I dunno homie, I have to contact a lawyer about the suicide threat 

 

anyways but you should expect my answer to be no in general.

 

- It sets a bad precedent.

 

- The money isn't worth dealing with the fallout if problems come up.

- I'd feel bad taking your entire savings.

- There's probably legal issues in accepting it anyways.

- How do I even report this income? Am I going to get a 1099-NEC?

 

Be realistic; my hands are tied.

 

 

The pros is basically that I have a down-payment on a house I'm looking 

 

for, but that's something I'd get anyways just working hard on keeping 

the community going and growing my podcast -- especially if crypto ever 

goes back up.  I'm really not that materialistic, and I fear the wrath 

of God (Mark 8:36).

 

I feel like you're being genuine.  There's a fear here that you're just 

 

trying to prank me to show people "look, Josh just wants money", but 

it's one of the small subsets of concerns at play here.

 

So hear me out: Send me your resume, I'll make you a counter offer.

 

 

[Message 9]

 

 

It is absolutely not in my best interest to ever tell anyone about this for any reason. It exposes me to the fact that I've funded your site, which would instantly eviscerate my own reputation in my circles. It may put me at legal risk in the event your site ever does get in legal trouble. And it risks a Streisand effect if people find out we did this and then they'll want their money from mirroring the content elsewhere. In no way is it a good idea for me to ever, ever speak of this to another person. Frankly, just me offering this already puts me at risk. If you were to just drop this e-mail you could wreck my reputation instantly. I only sent this e-mail because I am for real serious. If it helps you with sincerity, proof it's my rope.

 

 

As far as precedent, it's your site so you could claim any reason you want, or just not say anything. It's up to you.

 

 

You certainly don't *have* to take all of the money, or any of it. But I'll give you whatever you want. I get something out of it so there's no reason for you to feel bad. Take what you're comfortable taking.

 

You would have to claim it as either 1099-NEC or Form 1040 (capital gains) to steer clear of the IRS, yes.

I have a US lawyer as well who I could have talk with your lawer. Brandon Huffman from Odin Law. Obviously I have not said anything to him about this, but in general I trust him with anything and he could help us work this out.

 

I can send you money any way you like. Bitcoin, Paypal, bank transfer, you name it, I'll figure it out.

 

The one thing I just want to say upfront is that if we do this, I would like to send it in increments. Say $1000 a month or so. Would that be agreeable? There's the risk to me if I send you the entire thing and then you keep the thread anyway. Understandably we're both a bit suspicious of one another, but I want to be straight with you.

 

Tell me how I can ease your concerns and I will do so.

 

 

Tell me how I can demonstrate my sincerity and I will do so.

 

 

I'm not really materialistic either. Money doesn't bring happiness.

 

 

I don't really have a resume put together but in general:

 

 

I've been employed professionally as a software engineer since 2004. I've been programming since I was 14.

 

I'm an expert with C, C++, PHP, SQL, etc.

The emulators I've written were bsnes, higan, and ares.

I've emulated every game system from the NES to the N64/PlayStation. Software is here: https://ares.dev/

The website runs my own HTTP server (underneath nginx for HTTPS.)

higan is notable enough for Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higan_(emulator)

I'm an expert reverse engineer: I contributed to emulating Stephen Hawking's voice machine onto a Raspberry Pi. https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/The-Silicon-Valley-quest-to-preserve-Stephen-12759775.php (search "higan") or http://web.archive.org/web/20180829151131/http://www.hawking.org.uk/the-computer.html (search "byuu")

I'm good with algorithms and have implemented things like elliptic curve cryptography (Ed25519), Reed-Solomon error correction, Diffie-Hellman key exchange, induced sorting via suffix arrays, and other concepts.

The emulator abstraction layer I created went on to become RetroArch, which is the most well-known emulation software out there right now.

I think that's about it for a resume, but feel free to ask any additional questions.

 

[Message 10]

 

 

As an alternative, I own a registered business and I can hire you as my employee for whatever purpose.

 

Attached is my business article of incorporation. Might be a little tricky to set up but I'm sure it's entirely doable.

 

> you should expect my answer to be no in general.

 

 

All I can do is pray.

 

 

[Message 11]

 

 

Honestly thinking more about it, I guess it doesn't matter if you were to renege. I'll send as much as you want at a time, if we went that route. My bank has a transfer limit of 100,000 yen a day so at the very least it will take 4 months to send you everything I have. There's nothing I can do about that.

 

 

To clarify a bit more on my professional career, I worked for a Fortune 500 company for 12 years handling EDI orders. I wrote the software that ran our web portals, coded business logic EDI maps to interface with their systems, lots of SOAP/REST/DBA/VM management work.

 

 

I'm in Japan because a company here reached out to me to recruit me to reverse engineer hardware. They pay me really well for it so it was hard to say no. I've been at my current job for 3 years now.

 

 

I'm not saying I would be some kind of savant for any development tasks you had, but I'm professionally competent and I learn quickly. I'm certain I could be of assistance, or barring that, I could find people who are.

 

 

I know a whole lot employees who work at Google, Microsoft, Amazon, etc. Most emulator developers are coding savants and I am on good terms with almost all of them. So I'm confident I could achieve almost anything with favors.

 

 

________________________________________

 

 

From: byuu <byuu@byuu.org>

 

To: Null <null@kiwifarms.net>

Date: June-27-2021 3:12 AM

 

I'm sorry but I'm out of time. I presume your lawyer said not to speak to me anyway.

 

 

I've posted my dox sans last name to Twitter. I decided against sending it to you directly because I don't want anyone to be able to reach me in time. You can end up with horrific brain damage that way. I have given my passport scan to a trusted friend who will post it anonymously in a few hours, so that you guys can confirm it's legitimate. Look for news in the Arakawa ward of Tokyo in a few days.

 

 

I released my last software build under the most permissive license possible.

 

 

I've already taken several codiene and intuniv to crash my blood pressure, and now I'm getting myself as drunk as I can. This is really going to suck. But oh well, a few minutes and I'll finally be free of this.

 

 

I really would have given you the money, and you really could have saved my life with the smallest gesture of kindness. Justify it however you want, this one is on you. I hope the forum thread is worth it.

 

 

I would advise you against posting this e-mail thread as you did pseudo-implicate yourself being willing to consider the idea. But do whatever you want, it doesn't matter. I'm not going to release it on my end.

 

 

See you Josh.

 

 

________________________________________

 

 

From: Null <null@kiwifarms.net>

 

To: byuu <byuu@byuu.org>

Date: June-27-2021 12:18 PM

 

I will not be extorted.

 

Or if you want to read the Google Docs version: https://docs.google.com/document/d/13mLbaiW5zUkihAHQrGkD_HdD_wWoNMvAD36zHnI93BU/edit

 

Good God.

So basically the guy was a lunatic just as I thought and couldn't control himself to back away from the only things which were causing him harm. 

 

I'll say it again. 

 

[54212 432]

1 minute ago, DynamiteCop said:

So basically the guy was a lunatic just as I thought and couldn't control himself to back away from the only things which were causing him harm. 

 

I'll say it again. 

 

 

I would say he was/is deeply mentally ill and the owner of Kiwifarms is a godawful person. To even consider taking the money, to even consider using him as slave labor, to not simply delete the thread as an act of mercy. 

 

 

[Mr. Impossible 411]

2 hours ago, DynamiteCop said:

Good. You guys are a bunch of sensitive pussies who virtue signal about a bunch of shit you couldn't give less of a damn about IRL.

 

150,000 people die every day, the amount of fakery which spews out of you guys is f****** ridiculous.

I don't even know who the fuck this person is, nor do I care honestly. However that's not the point that was being made.

 

Maybe if you were intelligent enough to parse more than one line of thought simultaneously you wouldn't be such an insecure bigot. Constantly flaunting your inferiority complex wrapped in a 10 year's idea of hyper masculinity. 

[DynamiteCop 2,087]

23 minutes ago, Mr. Impossible said:

I don't even know who the fuck this person is, nor do I care honestly. However that's not the point that was being made.

 

Maybe if you were intelligent enough to parse more than one line of thought simultaneously you wouldn't be such an insecure bigot. Constantly flaunting your inferiority complex wrapped in a 10 year's idea of hyper masculinity. 

Your first mistake was thinking that I actually care. I nailed this situation to a T, and I equally don't care about it.

 

You guys made it out like this guy was being hunted, it was nothing of the sort. Dude just had no self control and wouldn't walk away; the one thing which would have remedied the entire issue. 

[Mr. Impossible 411]

2 minutes ago, DynamiteCop said:

Your first mistake was thinking that I actually care. I nailed this situation to a T, and I equally don't care about it.

 

You guys made it out like this guy was being hunted, it was nothing of the sort. Dude just had no self control and wouldn't walk away; the one thing which would have remedied the entire issue. 

No one said you cared. I said you're stupid and incapable of any sort of critical or dynamic thought, and your comeback was stupid and narrowminded. 

 

lol " I nailed this situation to a T" 

 

Jesus, it's fucking scary that someone so dumb actually thinks they're smart. It's like a stack of kids in a trench coat pretending to be an adult or something. You're not fooling anyone bro. 

[DynamiteCop 2,087]

10 minutes ago, Mr. Impossible said:

No one said you cared. I said you're stupid and incapable of any sort of critical or dynamic thought, and your comeback was stupid and narrowminded. 

 

lol " I nailed this situation to a T" 

 

Jesus, it's fucking scary that someone so dumb actually thinks they're smart. It's like a stack of kids in a trench coat pretending to be an adult or something. You're not fooling anyone bro. 

I'm incapable of critical thinking, and yet I dissected this situation immediately while you twats rambled on about a bunch of nonsense.

 

Here's a pro tip. Kill yourself. 

[Mr. Impossible 411]

Hey guys, I'm just gonna keep posting an unrelated decade old tweet that lacks any sort of credibility or context and might not even reflect the author's current stance over and over again because I'm so clever and tough. lol If you're over the age of 13, something went really wrong in your development. 

[Cooke 2,033]

3 hours ago, bhytre said:

Wait how many killed themselves?

They 

[Mr. Impossible 411]

4 minutes ago, DynamiteCop said:

I'm incapable of critical thinking, and yet I dissected this situation immediately while you twats rambled on about a bunch of nonsense.

 

Here's a pro tip. Kill yourself. 

I know you're too stupid to probably get this, but I'll raise you one. Give me your family's contact information. Give me your bosses phone number and email. Give me your full name. I'll call and harass them, I'll show them the racist, stupid shit you say on here. I'll threaten them and stuff and I'll get about a dozen other people or more to do the same. 

 

I mean that is the same thing as you telling me to kill myself on this contained platform according to you, I assume you wouldn't have a problem with that.  

[Mr. Impossible 411]

2 minutes ago, Cooke said:

They 

lol DC jr over here couldn 't wait to discuss that part. 

Edited June 30, 2021 by Mr. Impossible

[Cooke 2,033]

 it's sad anyone committs suicide,  don't make a permanent solution to a temporary problem. Cyber bullies are just neckbeards in a basement that have miserable lives. Remember that and their words have no meaning. 

[The Mother Fucker 26]

3 hours ago, Twinblade said:

social media is toxic. Deleting my FB was one of the best decisions i've made.

Was Facebook really that bad?  I still have my FB account since 2005, only friends and family members I friend on there.

 

The toxicity of social media is Twitter and to a lesser extent Youtube.

[Mr. Impossible 411]

1 minute ago, The Mother Fucker said:

Was Facebook really that bad?  I still have my FB account since 2005, only friends and family members I friend on there.

 

The toxicity of social media is Twitter and to a lesser extent Youtube.

Toxic is a relative term. While FB is more family friendly, it's still a problem. The amount of times someone told me something utterly idiotic that they read on FB and thought was valid isn't a joke. 

[Cooke 2,033]

14 minutes ago, The Mother Fucker said:

Was Facebook really that bad?  I still have my FB account since 2005, only friends and family members I friend on there.

 

The toxicity of social media is Twitter and to a lesser extent Youtube.

The world would be a better place if these entities ceased to exist 

 

Twitter 

Facebook 

Fox News 

CNN 

MSNBC 

YouTube 

Instagram 

Snapchat 

Tiktok 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Mr. Impossible 411]

40 minutes ago, Cooke said:

The world would be a better place if these entities ceased to exist 

 

Twitter 

Facebook 

Fox News 

CNN 

MSNBC 

YouTube 

Instagram 

Snapchat 

Tiktok 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

lol who would tell you how to think then? 

[Cooke 2,033]

30 minutes ago, Mr. Impossible said:

lol who would tell you how to think then? 

As opposed to what to think.. 

[Mr. Impossible 411]

8 minutes ago, Cooke said:

As opposed to what to think.. 

lol the former is worse actually. If you can think for yourself, it doesn't matter what someone tells you to think. Part of your problem. I can watch FOX all day and know everything they are saying it bullshit. 

Edited June 30, 2021 by Mr. Impossible

[Cooke 2,033]

1 minute ago, Mr. Impossible said:

lol the former is worse actually. If you can think for yourself, it doesn't matter what someone tells you to think. Part of your problem. 

Actually you are dead wrong. If you don't know how to think then what you think is just regurgitation. You don't know how to think critically, you talk like an indoctrinated toddler. 

[Mr. Impossible 411]

1 hour ago, Cooke said:

Actually you are dead wrong. If you don't know how to think then what you think is just regurgitation. You don't know how to think critically, you talk like an indoctrinated toddler. 

Yes, that is why I said the "former", genius.  Referring to "how to think" and said "think for yourself despite what you're told". You're not remotely clever enough to be condescending to anyone. 

[102020393023445948594 2,223]

yeah that's some shit. I think trannies are gross but they're free to do what they want and should live in peace

 

Kiwi Farms should be held accountable