Seeking Soarer - evidence thread

[ifohancroft]

(IANAL)

hope you acknowledge that not a single soul understood this acronym

I swear I am stopping as I am contributing to the dilution of the topic, but:

What's there to understand about it? I ANAL. That's it.

[kelvinhall05]

I don't wanna get into this but I feel like this needs to be said:

I may not agree with some of Eric's views (which for all we know, he may not even hold anymore), but you are the one here personally attacking people.

I really don't see the problem with just reposting his publicly available views (which blatantly attack and disrespect a large amount of people, and this is just one of the many insane posts going after different marginalized groups). But if you really want something a bit more on topic, here's how he handled an open-source group project: https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/nc ... cense.html

Stay far away from this guy.

I just wrote a reply that somehow didn't get posted.

Anyway, I was saying:

I guess I felt like you weren't being on topic and resorting to personal attacks instead of taking the time to argument yourself on why do you feel like it's not worth it or that it is a bad idea.

Anyway, for me, it's not just about the code (or even primarily). Many of us want to find out what happened and make sure (and hope) that he is ok. Finding a way to reach out is the best way to do that. Reaching out anyway, I don't see harm asking if we can use/modify/release the code. Just modifying and releasing it as it is and hoping it won't bite us in the ass for not doing it legally is a bad idea, but at the same time preserving his work and sharing it with others is a way to honour him. As for why his code and not something else - I feel like Muirium explained it well.

My on-topic tl;dr, completely ignoring how I feel about trying to find Soarer or at least figure out what happened to him:

Just wait a few weeks for Shallot to finish their QMK and Via/Vial converters. Will be even easier to configure than Soarer's, as well as be open-source, actually maintained, and the creater has not (and hopefully will not) ghost the project.

[XMIT]

Just wait a few weeks for Shallot to finish their QMK and Via/Vial converters. Will be even easier to configure than Soarer's, as well as be open-source, actually maintained, and the creater has not (and hopefully will not) ghost the project.

I'm still waiting for Round 7, my Spherical Buckling Spring key caps, my Model MF, and my new Beamspring keyboard.

The halls of this forum are littered with the bodies of half done projects.

I'll believe it when I see it. Until then, having explicitly open terms for Soarer's Converter makes it more attractive for me to use in my projects. If and when Shallot delivers, I can look into that as an option as well.

I don't see why these two need to be at odds with one another? A rising tide, after all.

[ifohancroft]

I really don't see the problem with just reposting his publicly available views (which blatantly attack and disrespect a large amount of people, and this is just one of the many insane posts going after different marginalized groups). But if you really want something a bit more on topic, here's how he handled an open-source group project: https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/nc ... cense.html

Stay far away from this guy.

I just wrote a reply that somehow didn't get posted.

Anyway, I was saying:

I guess I felt like you weren't being on topic and resorting to personal attacks instead of taking the time to argument yourself on why do you feel like it's not worth it or that it is a bad idea.

Anyway, for me, it's not just about the code (or even primarily). Many of us want to find out what happened and make sure (and hope) that he is ok. Finding a way to reach out is the best way to do that. Reaching out anyway, I don't see harm asking if we can use/modify/release the code. Just modifying and releasing it as it is and hoping it won't bite us in the ass for not doing it legally is a bad idea, but at the same time preserving his work and sharing it with others is a way to honour him. As for why his code and not something else - I feel like Muirium explained it well.

My on-topic tl;dr, completely ignoring how I feel about trying to find Soarer or at least figure out what happened to him:

Just wait a few weeks for Shallot to finish their QMK and Via/Vial converters. Will be even easier to configure than Soarer's, as well as be open-source, actually maintained, and the creater has not (and hopefully will not) ghost the project.

I am excited about Shallot's project and I was excited to find out about Vial (although I must say I was surprised they forked QMK instead of contributing to the project, but I have no way to know what's happening behind the scenes and maybe they tried to contribute and there was a disagreement that led to the fork) and I am waiting patiently for it. Regardless, I still feel it's worth it preserving Soarer's work and I would like to know what happened to him (once again, I'm hoping he's alive and well)

[esr]

To finish out the collection of evidence, two more things need to happen.

1. We need a documented decompilation procedure for the blobs - that is, the steps used to go from them to source code that can be built back into the blobs. If a judge scrutinizes this record, he will need to be able to satisfy himself that the decompilation pricess does not introduce material into the source that implicates the rights of third parties.

2. Soarer's full name and last known address need to go public. Yes, I understand some people object to this, but we need to make the effort to verify his death and contact his heirs. Not only does the law of both Great Britain and the U.S. permit this, it is effectively required of us in order for his heirs to be able to assert whatever interest they might have in the code. And we need to be seen to have respected their interests!

This is not doxxing, as nobody intends any harm to Soarer or his reputation and the facts create what lawyers call a rebuttable presumption that he is dead. Rather, we wish to honor him and carry forward his work I think it is vanishingly unlikely his heirs will say anything other than "carry on, he clearly would have wanted it that way". But, as I keep pointing out, establishing a public record that demonstrates we tried to do the right thing is the best protection we can have against legal trouble over the decompiled code.

If someone else can produce a cleanroom equivalent of Soarer's source I certainly have no objection to that - I'm taking a whack at solving this problem because I think it's worthwhile, I have the expertise, and Muirium encouraged me to (also, I want to be able to hack the code in the converter attached to my Model F). But I think we need to see actual working code rather than just talk before we give up trying to revive Soarer's.

I'm prepared to do the work required to verify Soarer's death; I have an attorney who can write the sorts of legal instruments that might be required. But I'm presently blocked from proceeding further. People who knew Soarer's meatspace identity and decompiled his code need to step up and do their part.

[jmaynard]

If this thread has taught me anything, a large amount of the praise for Soarer's firmware is people stuck in their ways and who don't want to spend 10 minutes learning how to write a macro in QMK. Soarer's is far from bad, but QMK is much more powerful, open-source, actually maintained in 2021, etc etc etc.

I've been looking hard at QMK for my project. I'm no newbie to programming, even in the embedded environment (I made my living doing embedded systems C for several years). And I'm reasonably sure that making an M122 controller version of QMK will be straightforward, even though it's not a matter of dropping in source files here and there. I'm even thinking of doing the work needed to move it to the Teensy 3.5 and off of the Teensy 2.0++ platform, since the latter's going away some time this year. (My project needs 28 I/O lines, and the 3.5 seems the best answer for that.)

None of that is relevant to my support for this effort. Why? Because preserving older software and keeping it usable is a worthy endeavor, in and of itself. If you don't want to use it, fine. There are plenty of others who do, and it represents a major milestone in keyboard development. That alone is worth doing, completely independently of its value in everyday use.

You can go ahead and cry "cancel culture" for my disdain of someone's disgustingly racist, misogynist, and homophobic views, and you can dismiss them as "irrelevant political views" (they aren't), but if you do that I strongly suggest you read the ncurses link I posted in a previous reply and see how he can't even handle an open-source project maturely (which is precisely what he wants to do here!)

I've known Eric for 30 years or so. I know what he thinks and believes, and how he gets to where he is. Rather than drag this thread even farther off into the weeds by debating real-world politics, I will simply repeat myself: Show us the code. What have you done for the well-being of open source and the users of open source software?

[kelvinhall05]

Just wait a few weeks for Shallot to finish their QMK and Via/Vial converters. Will be even easier to configure than Soarer's, as well as be open-source, actually maintained, and the creater has not (and hopefully will not) ghost the project.

I'll believe it when I see it.

Be patient then. This is someone I know personally who is nearing completion and is actually motivated to finish. Skepticism is always good but it seems all the half-baked projects on this forum have made people expect unfinished crap.

[depletedvespene]

Going after information sent in private messages and trying to contact his friends/family, getting lawyers involved, etc just so you can reverse-engineer some mediocre converter firmware is not respectful or "keeping the project alive" lmao, especially as we have no way of knowing he died or something. It's very, very possible he intentionally logged out of everything and cut all contact, yet clearly nobody here accepts or respects that.

ALSO: "mediocre firmware"? That's probably why is it still so highly valued, despite its latest build being 7 years old, and the name/handle of its author still spoken of in high regard.

If this thread has taught me anything, a large amount of the praise for Soarer's firmware is people stuck in their ways and who don't want to spend 10 minutes learning how to write a macro in QMK. Soarer's is far from bad, but QMK is much more powerful, open-source, actually maintained in 2021, etc etc etc.

I use both, and Soarer is quite different in its approach to QMK (as Muirim noted), making very easy to do some stuff that are mildly difficult in the latter. "Being stuck in one's ways" isn't a good argument here (as would be refusing to migrate from VisiCalc or Quattro to Excel). Also, getting Soarer back on track, and add the few features it does lack, would negate the "actually maintained in 2021" argument and diminish the "much more powerful" one.

[depletedvespene]

(IANAL)

hope you acknowledge that not a single soul understood this acronym

The people who matter did.

[kelvinhall05]

You can go ahead and cry "cancel culture" for my disdain of someone's disgustingly racist, misogynist, and homophobic views, and you can dismiss them as "irrelevant political views" (they aren't), but if you do that I strongly suggest you read the ncurses link I posted in a previous reply and see how he can't even handle an open-source project maturely (which is precisely what he wants to do here!)

I've known Eric for 30 years or so. I know what he thinks and believes, and how he gets to where he is. Rather than drag this thread even farther off into the weeds by debating real-world politics, I will simply repeat myself: Show us the code. What have you done for the well-being of open source and the users of open source software?

I suggest you reread my comment as well as this thread: https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/nc ... cense.html

I'm not one to judge your friendship with him but this alone (completely unrelated to politics!) is a huge red flag and I would not trust him handling Soarer source code if he even managed to acquire it.

[kelvinhall05]

ALSO: "mediocre firmware"? That's probably why is it still so highly valued, despite its latest build being 7 years old, and the name/handle of its author still spoken of in high regard.

If this thread has taught me anything, a large amount of the praise for Soarer's firmware is people stuck in their ways and who don't want to spend 10 minutes learning how to write a macro in QMK. Soarer's is far from bad, but QMK is much more powerful, open-source, actually maintained in 2021, etc etc etc.

I use both, and Soarer is quite different in its approach to QMK (as Muirim noted), making very easy to do some stuff that are mildly difficult in the latter. "Being stuck in one's ways" isn't a good argument here (as would be refusing to migrate from VisiCalc or Quattro to Excel). Also, getting Soarer back on track, and add the few features it does lack, would negate the "actually maintained in 2021" argument and diminish the "much more powerful" one.

Fair. It is very different, but imo it is not objectively superior, especially if you're using QMK with Via or Vial instead of QMK alone which makes reprogramming macros and layouts even easier than Soarer's.

My point is that it is far, far more work (never mind the morality of reverse engineering someone's code who might be dead) to try and get the source for Soarer's and shoehorn more features into it than it is to just wait a couple weeks for Shallot to finish their QMK/Via/Vial converters (or hell even build new firmware from the ground up, but I think that is equally wasteful as this Soarer's thing).

[kelvinhall05]

To finish out the collection of evidence, two more things need to happen.
2. Soarer's full name and last known address need to go public.

This is not doxxing

This is LITERALLY the definition of doxxing. Unbelievable.

Screenshot_20210527_100314.png (26.72 KiB) Viewed 26753 times

[headphone_jack]

Just wait a few weeks for Shallot to finish their QMK and Via/Vial converters. Will be even easier to configure than Soarer's, as well as be open-source, actually maintained, and the creater has not (and hopefully will not) ghost the project.

I'm still waiting for Round 7, my Spherical Buckling Spring key caps, my Model MF, and my new Beamspring keyboard.

The halls of this forum are littered with the bodies of half done projects.

I'll believe it when I see it. Until then, having explicitly open terms for Soarer's Converter makes it more attractive for me to use in my projects. If and when Shallot delivers, I can look into that as an option as well.

I don't see why these two need to be at odds with one another? A rising tide, after all.

I have a prototype of the ADB portion of the converter in hand right now. High quality, cheap, and overall very well done indeed. I think the only thing stopping Shallot would be sudden death, Soarer-style.

For real though, the entire idea is akin to the Star Wars sequels. Instead of beating the shit out of a dead horse for no reason, why not create something new and better that is inspired by the original? Especially when the former involves doxxing someone who, as far as we know, very clearly does not want to be a part of this community anymore. Trust me, if you go through with this, you *will* get sued, and I *will* laugh at you when you do.

[jmaynard]

just wait a couple weeks for Shallot to finish their QMK/Via/Vial converters

Yup. It'll be done Real Soon Now(tm).

Really, why are you trying to squash competition? In the world of open source software more is better.

[depletedvespene]

To finish out the collection of evidence, two more things need to happen.
2. Soarer's full name and last known address need to go public.

This is not doxxing

This is LITERALLY the definition of doxxing. Unbelievable.
Screenshot_20210527_100314.png

That definition is rather lacking, as the malicious intent is not a "typical" but a fundamental part of it.

[ifohancroft]

Just wait a few weeks for Shallot to finish their QMK and Via/Vial converters. Will be even easier to configure than Soarer's, as well as be open-source, actually maintained, and the creater has not (and hopefully will not) ghost the project.

I'm still waiting for Round 7, my Spherical Buckling Spring key caps, my Model MF, and my new Beamspring keyboard.

The halls of this forum are littered with the bodies of half done projects.

I'll believe it when I see it. Until then, having explicitly open terms for Soarer's Converter makes it more attractive for me to use in my projects. If and when Shallot delivers, I can look into that as an option as well.

I don't see why these two need to be at odds with one another? A rising tide, after all.

I have a prototype of the ADB portion of the converter in hand right now. High quality, cheap, and overall very well done indeed. I think the only thing stopping Shallot would be sudden death, Soarer-style.

For real though, the entire idea is akin to the Star Wars sequels. Instead of beating the shit out of a dead horse for no reason, why not create something new and better that is inspired by the original? Especially when the former involves doxxing someone who, as far as we know, very clearly does not want to be a part of this community anymore. Trust me, if you go through with this, you *will* get sued, and I *will* laugh at you when you do.

I feel like at this point I helped dilute the topic too much but also at this point I think the topic is near its end and has served its purpose, so:

Do I know you from somewhere before/outside of Deskthority? Your nickname is sound familiar?

I probably shouldn't have, but I laughed way too hard at the 'Soarer-style' part of your comment

[ntv242ver2]

Ok anyone who support this delusional and ignorant esr dude please disclose your name, phone, and address right now in this thread.
Reminder: this is not doxxing. Nobody intends any harm to you or your reputation. I just want to honor how you go out of your way to support a cunt

[Rayndalf]

This is not doxxing, as nobody intends any harm to Soarer or his reputation and the facts create what lawyers call a rebuttable presumption that he is dead. Rather, we wish to honor him and carry forward his work I think it is vanishingly unlikely his heirs will say anything other than "carry on, he clearly would have wanted it that way". But, as I keep pointing out, establishing a public record that demonstrates we tried to do the right thing is the best protection we can have against legal trouble over the decompiled code.

...

I'm prepared to do the work required to verify Soarer's death; I have an attorney who can write the sorts of legal instruments that might be required. But I'm presently blocked from proceeding further. People who knew Soarer's meatspace identity and decompiled his code need to step up and do their part.

None of this is necessary. Either he's dead or he doesn't care. In my opinion (fuck legal precedent) doxxing somebody is worse than reverse engineering something they freely distributed.

No one owes you Soarer's personal information and I hope no one gives it to you. Transactions in this hobby are based on trust and this is not a compelling season to violate that trust.

I've known Eric for 30 years or so. I know what he thinks and believes, and how he gets to where he is. Rather than drag this thread even farther off into the weeds by debating real-world politics, I will simply repeat myself: Show us the code. What have you done for the well-being of open source and the users of open source software?

So you've known esr forever and you just happened to make your account 3 days ago? What a coincidence.

[depletedvespene]

…
My point is that it is far, far more work (never mind the morality of reverse engineering someone's code who might be dead)

I'll later tell you about the, by far, most infuriating aspect of my 9-to-5 job.

… to try and get the source for Soarer's and shoehorn more features into it than it is to just wait a couple weeks for Shallot to finish their QMK/Via/Vial converters (or hell even build new firmware from the ground up, but I think that is equally wasteful as this Soarer's thing).

"Shoehorn" or "add elegantly"? We can't know just yet. It could be that the source code is a total mess that needs to be redone from scratch, or that is elegantly designed and full of future-proofing and feature-hooks (we... I don't know).

And perhaps some people would prefer a revived Soarer's Converter over a "yet another QMK wrapper" whose quality is still unknown (although a couple pointers in this thread do suggest what it actually is).

[kelvinhall05]

just wait a couple weeks for Shallot to finish their QMK/Via/Vial converters

Yup. It'll be done Real Soon Now(tm).

Really, why are you trying to squash competition? In the world of open source software more is better.

You are completely ignoring what I'm saying and being extremely pessimistic about Shallot's project when you have absolutely no info about it. This is someone I speak to on a daily basis and have helped with the converters themselves. I know they are nearing completion and I guarantee they will be ready for market in a couple weeks.

Also, this is not "squashing competition". This proposed project is ridiculous and I find it disgusting how many people here openly support doxxing someone who might be dead and harassing their friends and family for source code that may not even exist anymore.

[kelvinhall05]

To finish out the collection of evidence, two more things need to happen.
2. Soarer's full name and last known address need to go public.

This is not doxxing

This is LITERALLY the definition of doxxing. Unbelievable.
Screenshot_20210527_100314.png

That definition is rather lacking, as the malicious intent is not a "typical" but a fundamental part of it.

Then what do you consider posting someone's full, legal name and home address on a public forum without their permission?

[shallot]

in short: piss your pants and get banned from a theater

I fucking love your insults mate! I just noticed the 'get banned from a theater' part.

<3

[kelvinhall05]

"Shoehorn" or "add elegantly"? We can't know just yet. It could be that the source code is a total mess that needs to be redone from scratch, or that is elegantly designed and full of future-proofing and feature-hooks (we... I don't know).

And perhaps some people would prefer a revived Soarer's Converter over a "yet another QMK wrapper" whose quality is still unknown (although a couple pointers in this thread do suggest what it actually is).

Yeah, that first part is true. But I highly doubt it will be more elegant of an integration than what Shallot has done with their converters.

I think the problem with QMK is it has this stigma of "modern keyboard, must know how to program, no GUI" and several other things that turn off new users. But with Via and Vial (which I wouldn't brush aside as "yet another QMK wrapper" since they're kinda the standard) it's even easier than Soarer's remapping, as simple as that already is.

Do you have experience with Via?

[esr]

[Many of us want to find out what happened and make sure (and hope) that he is ok.

For what it's worth, even I feel that way, and I never knew Soarer when he was active here.

I only know him through his work and his message history, but I think he was a good man whose memory should be honored. I think we will honor it best by carrying his work forward. It's not in my skillset to do that directly, I'm not enough of an embedded-systems programmer to lead the coding, but I'd like to enable it for others who are qualified.

And if Soarer is found alive, I will join in the celebration.

[jmaynard]

involves doxxing someone who, as far as we know, very clearly does not want to be a part of this community anymore

Mind reader much? That's certainly a possibility. It's also a possibility that Soarer would be here today if he hadn't gotten hit by a London bus (or however he might have met an untimely demise). We don't know and won't until we find out what happened to him.

I do think that, should his RL identity be found, and he turns out to be alive and wanting no part of this community, that we would all respect that and not publish his identity. Only in the case where he has departed this plane of existence is it necessary to publish the fact.

Trust me, if you go through with this, you *will* get sued, and I *will* laugh at you when you do.

Are you a lawyer? I can tell you with 100% certainty that there *is* one intimately involved in this effort.
Or is it that wonderful mind-reading talent you have?
Or are you in possession of relevant facts you're not disclosing?

In my opinion (fuck legal precedent) doxxing somebody is worse than reverse engineering something they freely distributed.

You may not be interested in legal precedent, but legal precedent is interested in you. In particular, that they freely distributed the binary is not in and of itself sufficient to prove they intended to freely distribute the source, or that any source reverse engineered from those binaries should be freely distributed.

So you've known esr forever and you just happened to make your account 3 days ago? What a coincidence.

I came here 3 days ago to put in my two cents on the video script. Then I realized there was relevant expertise on my current project. Then this started up, with plenty of irrelevant Eric-bashing, and friends stick up for other friends.

You are completely ignoring what I'm saying and being extremely pessimistic about Shallot's project when you have absolutely no info about it. This is someone I speak to on a daily basis and have helped with the converters themselves. I know they are nearing completion and I guarantee they will be ready for market in a couple weeks.

Don't get me wrong. If Shallot does produce a usable project, that will be great, and I will happily support his endeavor.

But the road to open source is paved with half-complete projects that never draw the necessary work to finish and make usable. In the absence of a track record, that's the way to bet.

Also, this is not "squashing competition". This proposed project is ridiculous and I find it disgusting how many people here openly support doxxing someone who might be dead and harassing their friends and family for source code that may not even exist anymore.

It is not for you to decide whether a project is so ridiculous that nobody should expend effort on it. After all, it was objectively ridiculous for a Finnish college student to reinvent Unix from scratch just to learn about a task descriptor.

[depletedvespene]

… Especially when the former involves doxxing someone who, as far as we know, very clearly does not want to be a part of this community anymore. Trust me, if you go through with this, you *will* get sued, and I *will* laugh at you when you do.

Let us all remember that the general knowledge over here on DT is that we don't know what happened to Soarer. Therefore, we can NOT claim either that he "very clearly does not want to be a part of this community anymore" or that he "died unexpectedly, and his last words were «Oh, my, who will take care of my lifetime achievement, my converter, now?»".

An effort to clear up this unknown data point is ongoing. It might yield an answer, or not, but until we have one, let us not put words in Soarer's mouth, or attitudes in his mind.

[Rhododendron]

To finish out the collection of evidence, two more things need to happen.
2. Soarer's full name and last known address need to go public.

This is not doxxing

I can't believe it, this is ridiculous. Imagine the poor guy did die unexpectedly or intentionally left the community and you just go ahead and doxx his widow's/family's address. What the fuck. Who do you think you are? This is about a goddamn keyboard converter, don't forget that.

[shallot]

just wait a couple weeks for Shallot to finish their QMK/Via/Vial converters

Yup. It'll be done Real Soon Now(tm).

Really, why are you trying to squash competition? In the world of open source software more is better.

As many people have said in this thread, prototypes for various protocols are in the hands of several people. I am concomitantly releasing the software and physical hardware, because there are plenty of people in this hobby that like to scalp people on what should be a cheap bit of hardware and I don't particularly like the idea of people subverting the purpose of my work (cheap, modern, dynamically remappable and Good converters) by flashing it onto their $40 overpriced garbage before the alternative hardware is available.

I am not doing this because of jumped-up free software ideals, I am doing this because there are a cadre of people selling pisstake 20 minute soldering jobs for absurd profit, lazily flashing bajillion year out of date firmware and taking advantage of people who don't have the knowledge or the time to go anywhere else. Hasu is the only exception to this, and nobody mentions his brilliant converter firmwares because they're too busy idolizing Soarer's. I'm merely taking the time to extend this already solid work so that it has all of those nice quality of life features.

Publishing my code right now for the sake of winning an argument with two dinosaurs fundamentally handicaps the goal of my project, which is to level the playing field in this insane hobby where most people are concerned with making fat dollars off the back of other people's work rather than pursuing keyboard excellence. Of course, I wouldn't expect either of you two to understand this given you've just popped up here out of nowhere preaching your linuxman bollocks.

Pretending like I'm not going to finish is insane, I am doing this entirely out of self-interest because I have no intent of using a Soarer's converter at any point in my life for the exact same reasons I think it's insane to try and resurrect it. This can and is being done a better way - fetishising some old code is just dinosaur thinking, which I'm genuinely not surprised by from certain subsets of this forum, or indeed, linuxmans at all.

Don't get me wrong. If Shallot does produce a usable project, that will be great, and I will happily support his endeavor.

Case in point re: dinosaur thinking. Not all developers are men. Of course, your mate thinks me and my fellow vagowners are out to pin him on sexual harassment suits, so I'm kind of not surprised you'd make this kind of assumption.

[ifohancroft]

[Many of us want to find out what happened and make sure (and hope) that he is ok.

For what it's worth, even I feel that way, and I never knew Soarer when he was active here.

I only know him through his work and his message history, but I think he was a good man whose memory should be honored. I think we will honor it best by carrying his work forward. It's not in my skillset to do that directly, I'm not enough of an embedded-systems programmer to lead the coding, but I'd like to enable it for others who are qualified.

And if Soarer is found alive, I will join in the celebration.

Same (I also don't know him besides from his work and message history, as he has already left by the time I have joined, but he seems to be a cool dude and I feel we owe it to him to honour his work and share it with others.)

[depletedvespene]

This is LITERALLY the definition of doxxing. Unbelievable.
Screenshot_20210527_100314.png

That definition is rather lacking, as the malicious intent is not a "typical" but a fundamental part of it.

Then what do you consider posting someone's full, legal name and home address on a public forum without their permission?

Well, was it done with malicious intent? (in today's day and age, it can be safely presumed so, unless there is evidence to the contrary). Also, if it came to having to identify Soarer, does that NEED to be done in a public forum? And, heck, given that IANAL, I also wonder: does that information NEED to be non-sealed in whatever filing to the court is made?

I would imagine that if Soarer turns out to be alive and well and not wanting to do anything with keyboardery anymore, and he was approached about this, and he answered back "Sod off and don't contact me again!", that would be the end of the matter. I would think even esr would then know better than sharing Soarer's contact information.