What was he thinking?

[King Chill I]

I have a question for you chill.

sethb was not an accomplice to the spying on NPO. He neither was the spy, nor did he plant the spy. He did not illicit the spy for information, he did not offer to protect the spy, he did not have any information as to who the spy was. All he did was witness not even at request what the spy had produced -- a screenshot of the NPO forums of what was at the time commonly accessible information.

When did it become sethb's duty to police spying on NPO? He had no interest in the NPO and it was not his job to approach them and let them know something they already knew. The NPO had spies. Everybody knows the NPO had spies, they probably still have spies in their alliance.

So knowing all that what makes it sethb's responsibility? Why does he deserve to be attacked for doing what many of us has done. In fact we've done much worse, NPO itself has done much worse. In asking for more material from within NPO to be published in TWiP. Do you not see the utter hypocrisy here? Why should one person be singled out and attacked for something we all have done?

Again, the what about TWiP argument has been beaten to death. Public info is public info.

As for Sethb, if you re-read the logs it wasnt a "hey click this for hot girls....OMG its NPO screenshots", it was "hey want some of them NPO screenshots....Oh yea sure i promise i wont tell".

So he could have always said no thanks.

As could have a lot of others, very true. Again the difference is getting caught. Its either that or you make spying a non-taboo concept.

[CptGodzilla]

It still baffles me as to how one can negotiate deals with an alliance who you will be fighting with your ally.... and not even informing your ally.

[Blacky]

That is also why the arguments of "but BC was actually set up by NPO" also dont really mean much. If you get caught buying weed from an undercover cop it does not exonerate you because he wasnt an actual dealer.

OOC: You need to learn about something called entrapment buddy. If somebody approaches you and offers you some weed and you accept it and it happens to be an undercover police officer you will probably not be convicted of anything.

So yea i agree with you Delta, its not a CB and its about the individual people except our interpretation of what the consequences should be is what differs.

Who defines what is allowed and what isn't? The NPO can not arbitrarily set boundaries that could cause for any of us to be insolated and attacked at their discretion. We say what sethb did was not a crime, but if it is a crime then surely whoever presented the information to mhawk (I believe) and mhawk himself were guilty of the same crime. They did not agree and here we are now.

[wickedj]

It still baffles me as to how one can negotiate deals with an alliance who you will be fighting with your ally.... and not even informing your ally.

The details of what Zilla speaks on

EDIT: page 21 of the linked thread is also read-worthy

Edited June 29, 2009 by wickedj

[Blacky]

personally, i think the first line indicates that this was a lot more than just a random drop, but maybe that's just me

It obviously wasn't a random drop if you had read the backstory they were in communication for some time and spoke about themselves, and their alliances activities at times. That however is not the same thing as actively seeking to obtain the information. It was presented to him and he accepted them. There were conditions to accepting the information, however without ridiculous hypocrisy being involved there should never have been dire consequences such as those the NPO sought to impose on sethb.

Edited June 29, 2009 by Blacky

[Delta1212]

You want to talk from a historical perspective? As i said, everyone does it but only those caught pay for it (thats why you have plausible deniability). Thats how intelligence gathering works.

The CN equivalent of rotting in a foreign jail unrecognized by your gov or being expelled from a country with diplomatic immunity is the process of ZI.

Thats why i never said anything about a CB but only about ZI and thats why countries dont go to war when one of their agents gets caught (and spare me the CN is not RL blah blah blah).

Exactly. You don't imprison the head of state of the country that the spy sent information to, you imprison the spy. Which SethB wasn't.

[King Chill I]

1 - Who defines what is allowed and what isn't? The NPO can not arbitrarily set boundaries that could cause for any of us to be insolated and attacked at their discretion.

2 - We say what sethb did was not a crime, but if it is a crime then surely whoever presented the information to mhawk (I believe) and mhawk himself were guilty of the same crime. They did not agree and here we are now.

1 - As far as i know the taboo about spying as dysfunctional as it was, had been a CN concept for years. NPO was not the only one enforcing this dysfunctional concept, several alliances have gone to war over it, more often then not as Delta pointed out it had to do more with who could and who could not enforce it.

I dont want to go into an ideological discussion here but it has to do with human culture, anthropologists call it ideal text (how things should be) and real text (how things are). Same applies here. Everyone talks big morals and principles but when it comes to it there is a lot of grey area.

2 - As said above thats exactly what I wanted to steer the negotiations towards except too many people were hungry for war.

[Sal Paradise]

Who defines what is allowed and what isn't? The NPO can not arbitrarily set boundaries that could cause for any of us to be insolated and attacked at their discretion.

Ah, but the NPO did! And it worked marvelously. Still works on a great lot of people too, might I add, including, it seems, former members of the Grämlins government.

Edited June 29, 2009 by Sal Paradise

[ChairmanHal]

Then of course you viewed the screenshots from NPO's board in that publication, right?

Save that once information enters the public domain through publication, viewing it can no longer be considered spying.

How that information was obtained for publication however is another matter.

To me real spying in the Planet Bob sense has some black and white but a huge area of gray in between. That is the realm where most of the drama takes place.

Even unsolicited information can be in the gray (or even black) if it was subsequently treated as intelligence subject to OPSEC and not reported to the affected parties. Of course if you don't particularly like the affected parties, you may use it to embarrass them later or hand it off to their enemies. There are cases where that is simply good game management--whether you agree with the ethics or not.

Intelligence work is dirty work here and in RL. Always has been, always will be. I for one just don't see a point in getting squeamish about it.

[King Chill I]

Exactly. You don't imprison the head of state of the country that the spy sent information to, you imprison the spy. Which SethB wasn't.

Correct. Thats why i said ZI of Sethb would be the CN adaptation of that model.

[Blacky]

1 - As far as i know the taboo about spying as dysfunctional as it was, had been a CN concept for years. NPO was not the only one enforcing this dysfunctional concept, several alliances have gone to war over it, more often then not as Delta pointed out it had to do more with who could and who could not enforce it.

You seem to have disregarded my earlier post:

sethb was not an accomplice to the spying on NPO. He neither was the spy, nor did he plant the spy. He did not illicit the spy for information, he did not offer to protect the spy, he did not have any information as to who the spy was. All he did was witness not even at request what the spy had produced -- a screenshot of the NPO forums of what was at the time commonly accessible information

What makes sethb a spy? and if he is a spy how were they not spies?

Ah, but the NPO did! And it worked marvelously. Still works on a great lot of people too, might I add, including, it seems, former members of the Grämlins government.

And they would have gotten away with it, if it wasn't for these meddling kids!

[King Chill I]

You seem to have disregarded my earlier post:

What makes sethb a spy? and if he is a spy how were they not spies?

I didnt. He accepted the info knowing what it was and got caught.

If he hadnt gotten caught it would have been a successful intel op. that took an unnecessary risk for fairly useless info.

EDIT: Here you go....

As for Sethb, if you re-read the logs it wasnt a "hey click this for hot girls....OMG its NPO screenshots", it was "hey want some of them NPO screenshots....Oh yea sure i promise i wont tell".

So he could have always said no thanks.

Edited June 29, 2009 by King Chill I

[Delta1212]

Correct. Thats why i said ZI of Sethb would be the CN adaptation of that model.

A CN adaptation that has nothing to do with what happens in RL (Sethb would not be the spy, which is the person who would be locked up. As in, Sethb would not be locked up). It's a stupid precedent that was only set in the first place to give people an excuse to ZI/attack people and alliances they didn't like and it's not a precedent I follow. If you spy on me, I will kick you out and ZI you. If I masked you wrong and you took information, that's my own fault. If someone gives you access to their account on my boards so you can steal information, then whoever gave you access loses their account and probably gets ZI'd. If you hack my boards... well, then we have some serious problems, but that's about the only case in which the person who received the information gets punished.

Now, if you go around recruiting people to spy on my alliance, then we might have problems because people don't generally try and infiltrate another alliance if they have fuzzy intentions for them.

And another thing while we're on this topic, if you have a leak, I am under no obligation to tell you unless we share a treaty that has an intelligence clause in it. That's the point of the intelligence clause. Now, it might be rude not to inform you, but that's about it.

All of the "ZI this" and "CB that" which gets thrown around only demonstrates a real failure of imagination on the part of most of this game with regard to consequences for actions.

Edit

EDIT: Here you go....

As for Sethb, if you re-read the logs it wasnt a "hey click this for hot girls....OMG its NPO screenshots", it was "hey want some of them NPO screenshots....Oh yea sure i promise i wont tell".

So he could have always said no thanks.

You could say a whole lot of things, but that's not really relevant to the point of whether or not someone else giving you screenshots is a ZIable offense.

Or could I have been ZI'd because I saw the Polar screens (which said nothing of any attack on me and were therefore not a personal security issue)?

Edited June 29, 2009 by Delta1212

[Doitzel]

Again, the what about TWiP argument has been beaten to death. Public info is public info.

As for Sethb, if you re-read the logs it wasnt a "hey click this for hot girls....OMG its NPO screenshots", it was "hey want some of them NPO screenshots....Oh yea sure i promise i wont tell".

So he could have always said no thanks.

As could have a lot of others, very true. Again the difference is getting caught. Its either that or you make spying a non-taboo concept.

Curiosity killed the cat -- and it serves him damn right!

???

I'm sorry, I just don't see how you can support demands from the NPO for punishment of a crime that the NPO itself has been caught committing time and again without ever facing punishment. Your high-minded hair-splitting countered the opinion of almost your entire alliance and could have brought the game to its knees. Do you have any regrets?

[King Srqt]

I didnt. He accepted the info knowing what it was and got caught.

If he hadnt gotten caught it would have been a successful intel op. that took an unnecessary risk for fairly useless info.

EDIT: Here you go....

and NPO admitted to accepting information too so why did they have the right to declare war over something they condoned?

It is only wrong if you get caught does not really fly.

Edited June 29, 2009 by KingSrqt

[Neo Uruk]

It is only wrong if you get caught does not really fly.

And it never should.

[King Chill I]

A CN adaptation that has nothing to do with what happens in RL (Sethb would not be the spy, which is the person who would be locked up. As in, Sethb would not be locked up). It's a stupid precedent that was only set in the first place to give people an excuse to ZI/attack people and alliances they didn't like and it's not a precedent I follow. If you spy on me, I will kick you out and ZI you. If I masked you wrong and you took information, that's my own fault. If someone gives you access to their account on my boards so you can steal information, then whoever gave you access loses their account and probably gets ZI'd. If you hack my boards... well, then we have some serious problems, but that's about the only case in which the person who received the information gets punished.

Now, if you go around recruiting people to spy on my alliance, then we might have problems because people don't generally try and infiltrate another alliance if they have fuzzy intentions for them.

And another thing while we're on this topic, if you have a leak, I am under no obligation to tell you unless we share a treaty that has an intelligence clause in it. That's the point of the intelligence clause. Now, it might be rude not to inform you, but that's about it.

Again there is a degree of adaptation. We are getting very abstract here but id compare Sethb to a diplomat caught of foreign soil accepting secrets. Usually they get arrested and expelled.

In CN you add the twist of ZI. But again this is all because im allowing with a certain degree of adaptation due to a differing degree of costs and benefits of a game.

As for what i'd do in a similar situation, if you look at my response to allegations that Gre would attack Soldier because of a supposed spying incident you will see that what i said and did was word for word what you described above.

@Elyat, the game was never at risk. As much as this incident was stupid and caused by stupidity (on both sides) an eventual confrontation was inevitable and everyone could see it coming a mile away (since March). For my own view of how it would play out and how it would affect the interests of my alliance and allies it was just not the right time and not good enough of a reason. If you have ever read anything anyone from Gre has said, there was no chance in hell we would have allowed "our side" to lose, it just came at a very high cost.

So yea i have several regrets but very few of the ones you'd like me to have.

[King Chill I]

and NPO admitted to accepting information too so why did they have the right to declare war over something they condoned?

It is only wrong if you get caught does not really fly.

I already answered that. My point was that TPF would have to give up their source.

[Delta1212]

@Elyat, the game was never at risk. As much as this incident was stupid and caused by stupidity (on both sides) an eventual confrontation was inevitable and everyone could see it coming a mile away (since March). For my own view of how it would play out and how it would affect the interests of my alliance and allies it was just not the right time and not good enough of a reason. If you have ever read anything anyone from Gre has said, there was no chance in hell we would have allowed "our side" to lose, it just came at a very high cost.

So yea i have several regrets but very few of the ones you'd like me to have.

Yes, but we disagreed and were going in with or without you. If we lost, then you didn't really have much chance at any future wars, and Grämlins appearing to back out very nearly tore the coalition apart before it got off the ground. How exactly were you planning on winning with half your coalition dead before you got the war you wanted?

[Neo Uruk]

Yes, but we disagreed and were going in with or without you. If we lost, then you didn't really have much chance at any future wars, and Grämlins appearing to back out very nearly tore the coalition apart before it got off the ground. How exactly were you planning on winning with half your coalition dead before you got the war you wanted?

He would quite obviously use his allies in the- Wait, no, they're dead.

[Doitzel]

Yes, but we disagreed and were going in with or without you. If we lost, then you didn't really have much chance at any future wars, and Grämlins appearing to back out very nearly tore the coalition apart before it got off the ground. How exactly were you planning on winning with half your coalition dead before you got the war you wanted?

Precisely. This is what I don't understand.

[Bob Janova]

I have a question. What made you think this thread was a good idea?

[Sal Paradise]

My point was that TPF would have to give up their source.

When you guys pretend you didn't know what you were getting into when you joined the Continuum, I know you're lying because you couldn't possibly be so naive. Then I read things like this, and I'm wholly confused.

Edited June 29, 2009 by Sal Paradise

[King Srqt]

I have a question. What made you think this thread was a good idea?

that was my question...thief

[King Chill I]

Yes, but we disagreed and were going in with or without you. If we lost, then you didn't really have much chance at any future wars, and Grämlins appearing to back out very nearly tore the coalition apart before it got off the ground. How exactly were you planning on winning with half your coalition dead before you got the war you wanted?

Little known fact, I had already said that if it came to that id get out of the way and let someone else take over for Gre. However, i was hoping it wouldnt come to that and that negotiations would lead to at least a postponement of the conflict.

Of course i had never anticipated that NPO had gotten as incompetent as it turned out to be.