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Brian Dunning lawsuit

John Nowak said:
Dunning's been convicted of a crime with no gray side to it, nothing to justify it ethically. This isn't like helping someone evade being deported; it's not even breaking federal laws in part because you believe those laws are unjust. It's not deceiving someone with the object of proving they can be deceived and revealing the con as soon as possible. Based on the conviction, Dunning stole from Ebay affiliates because he wanted money and he could.
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I tend to agree. I'm a web application security analyst by trade, and I just don't see how it's possible that Dunning didn't know what he was doing was wrong. And indeed, he's admitted as much. I've read enough of the FBI reports and other filings in the case to confirm this without just going on blog posts.

That said, I do think some of the reporting on this is going way over the top. I think it's a huge fallacy to draw wider conclusions about "problems with skepticism" over this, as some seem to.

It's human nature - people don't want to believe their close friends have done wrong. Add to that the fact that the technology surrounding this case is hard to understand, obfuscating the issue for many. Does that make those who want to support Dunning terrible skeptics or bad people who should be shunned?

No, it just means they are his friends and they are flawed humans like everyone else. They are suffering the ill effects of cognitive dissonance and biases like we all do from time to time.

Nobody is a "perfect" skeptic on every single topic. We should give people a chance to grow and get better.
 
krelnik said:
One inaccuracy I just noticed: Rebecca strongly implies that anyone who supports Dunning in any way should be ashamed of themselves, we should all publicly renounce him, etc.
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I really don't have a problem with friends supporting him as a friend. I would do the same for a friend - "Sure your honor, I know he drove drunk and ran over a baby carriage, but it was a mistake, and he's really a great guy".
 
krelnik said:
Corporations have shareholders who expect to earn a profit by investing. Ebay is traded on NASDAQ.
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Not only that, but what about the employees? I'm sorry, we'll have to let you go. We can only afford your position if revenue is $5 million, but since we only made $4.9 million....

Yep, no individual victims at all. :cool:
 
krelnik said:
One inaccuracy I just noticed: Rebecca strongly implies that anyone who supports Dunning in any way should be ashamed of themselves, we should all publicly renounce him, etc. She even implies that skeptics who say nothing public about the case are wrong in some way. Of course the presumption is she's abiding by that.
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This.

Look, I'm not disputing the facts of the case. What I'm against is the demonisation and ostracism. The Two Minutes Hate. He's a bad person and if you don't agree, you're a bad person too.
 
arthwollipot said:
This.

Look, I'm not disputing the facts of the case. What I'm against is the demonisation and ostracism. The Two Minutes Hate. He's a bad person and if you don't agree, you're a bad person too.
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... I think people would forgive more readily if the apology was an actual apology. You can't forgive someone who did nothing wrong, and who was just a victim of circumstance, doing what everyone else did, not really all that bad, not actually hurting anyone, etc, etc, etc.
 
arthwollipot said:
Please do not patronise me. I am as capable of reading as you are.
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The evidence in this thread suggests otherwise. ;)

Like I said, because I am not joining in the Dunning-hate, I am now presumably just as bad a he is. I am clearly a fraud-supporter. Or Hitler, it's hard to tell.
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:rolleyes:

Sorry if my opinions don't please you. I believe that the good he has done for the community over the years more than outweighs any harm he has done to it. He broke the law, and he is paying for it. That doesn't make him a demon.

I don't know why I'm even bothering to say this. The community as a whole has made up its collective mind that he is anathema with no possibility of redemption. Personally, I believe in second chances.

Since it is clearly an unpopular move to refrain from the collective hate, this is all I will say on the subject.
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That's a whole bunch of pure, passive-aggressive whining right there isn't it? "Excuuuuse me for not thinking he's, like, Hitler!" Yeah, because that's what everyone's saying. FFS.

Nice moving of the goalposts too. You went from "I don't know all the facts but Rebecca is unreliable therefore #teamDunning", to "well I don't wanna demonize him, he's not nearly as bad as Hitler, enjoy your two minute hate you sheeple". Yeah, no. Ironic that you whine about Rebecca's tone but engage in the exact same kind of rhetoric, isn't it.

Dunning is a greedy and fraudulent POS liar who posted a self-serving and blatantly manipulative and insincere nonpology, this is amply supported by evidence, and his sentencing was lenient. That he's not a mass murderer is simply an irrelevant non-sequitur.
 
RemieV said:
... I think people would forgive more readily if the apology was an actual apology. You can't forgive someone who did nothing wrong, and who was just a victim of circumstance, doing what everyone else did, not really all that bad, not actually hurting anyone, etc, etc, etc.
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Yeah, almost everything he said seemed geared toward basically saying "I am a good guy and what I did wasn't that bad." It was also dishonest, for example, in claiming that he never ripped off any individuals. That he threw in a conciliatory 'it was wrong of me' (paraphrasing) isn't sufficient to make the whole thing come off like a sincere apology.

I'm definitely not arguing that anyone who disagrees with me is a bad person who should be ostracized though.
 
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RemieV said:
... I think people would forgive more readily if the apology was an actual apology. You can't forgive someone who did nothing wrong, and who was just a victim of circumstance, doing what everyone else did, not really all that bad, not actually hurting anyone, etc, etc, etc.
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PR is not that hard, but you sometimes have to be able to set the ego aside. He'd have been better if he admitted he was wrong and that he looks forward to returning to his life and podcast and other projects after serving his time. Maybe something about learning from the experience and growing as a human, but don't try to whitewash it with lame excuses.

I'm sort of hoping his podcast continues with a different voice. His just grates on my nerves. Almost as bad as Rebecca.
 
A lot of people seem to be complaining that he hasn't apologised in any way for doing this. Would it help if he used the word "sorry" or "apologise" in any of his public statements? How far would that go in redeeming him in your eyes?
 
arthwollipot said:
A lot of people seem to be complaining that he hasn't apologised in any way for doing this. Would it help if he used the word "sorry" or "apologise" in any of his public statements? How far would that go in redeeming him in your eyes?
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I don't care one way or the other. He doesn't owe me an apology. It would be nice for his friends and fans (of which I am neither) for him to acknowledge that he pulled a scam because he wanted money, without any qualifiers like other people were doing it too, I didn't harm any individuals, etc.
 
RemieV said:
A message from Dunning with more detail on the cookie-stuffing scheme, and advice to eBay to fix their affiliate program.

http://www.briandunning.com/fix_ebay.html
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In his first message he claimed that no "individuals were affected." "The only victim was eBay."

But he is apparently also claiming that eBay was and (for the most part) still is complicit with it, encouraged it and generally hasn't been interested in stopping it.

So why would eBay be so accepting of people victimizing them if they were truly the victim. Maybe I'm missing something, but these messages seem incompatible.

Another point of confusion: was it 200k-300k or was over 5 million?

arthwollipot said:
A lot of people seem to be complaining that he hasn't apologised in any way for doing this. Would it help if he used the word "sorry" or "apologise" in any of his public statements? How far would that go in redeeming him in your eyes?
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He has nothing to do with me, but as far as my irrelevant opinion goes, I would think higher of him if he stopped claiming that no individuals were affected. I don't care particularly about the word "sorry" being used.
 
RemieV said:
A message from Dunning with more detail on the cookie-stuffing scheme, and advice to eBay to fix their affiliate program.

http://www.briandunning.com/fix_ebay.html
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The Central Scrutinizer said:
He still doesn't get it.
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hardindr said:
Just bizarre...
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Wow ... and in that he's claiming to have made less than $140,000 from his cookie stuffing. An outright lie.

He's just digging himself a bigger hole.

Let's put the mechanics of it to one side, and ebay's position as well.

A simple question for Brian -

If someone had clicked on my ebay affiliate link to buy a product, then later visited a site with your widget before going back to buy the product they learned about from me - who would have gotten the affiliate commission?

Me, who directed them to the product, or your company?
 
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