Deprecated Bloodstained Code in the Linux Kernel
lowendbox.com
lowendbox.com
It's one of the higher profile crimes that's not really related to the technology at all. This is simply about a dude who murdered his wife. But he also happened to be a brilliant programmer writing one of the more advanced filesystems of its time.
Then you get into all of the details. All the steps he took in hiding it. All of the stuff with Russian brides, sex, drugs, and presumably rock and roll.
And how they arrested, tried, and convicted Reiser of the murder without even having direct evidence a murder took place. It's one of my go to examples when people start harping about "circumstantial evidence". Because people often use that term when they want to mean "weak" or "specious". Circumstantial evidence is evidence pertaining to the circumstances of the situation.
Yes, it's a bit circular, but you can't really avoid it as it's literally what it says on the tin. Anything that isn't direct evidence is by definition, circumstantial. And direct evidence is a short list. And often worse than circumstantial evidence. Eyewitness testimony is a form of direct evidence. It is often not that strong because it relies on a person's memory and their senses. Both of which are extremely fallible.
A dead body is direct evidence someone has died. Someone being missing for over a month is circumstantial evidence that they are dead. Reiser insisted that Nina had run off and was in hiding. No one could find her or prove she was dead. He had a vehicle that was bleached down with a missing seat and a bunch of books on "How to get away with murder".
Everything was based on circumstantial evidence.
All of that was what led to his eventual arrest and conviction. He pled down the charges in exchange for showing authorities where the body was.
Only if you assume the author would have actually maintained it in the first place. I'm fairly unconvinced that a guy who puts his mail order bride in charge of the company that released the FS is going to be doing much more work on it.
Said more bluntly - it's an unfinished project of a man who had moved on to other things already. It wasn't valuable enough for someone to pick up. So it's getting removed.
It happens to be particularly spicy that the "Other things" he moved on to were murder/prison, but not really related to the code other than as a "hey - this is a crazy aside" moment.
> [...]
> Meanwhile, Nina’ mother took the children to Russia and refused to return them to the US. They are now prime age for drafting into the Russian armed forces and it’s not implausible to think that they’re fighting in Ukraine.
is this really necessary?