Talk:Marcus Hutchins

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This article was nominated for deletion on 28 May 2017. The result of the discussion was redirect to WannaCry ransomware attack.

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New York Magazine long-form interview

Delete?

This man has clearly stated he didn't want this kind of publicity in the first place. And even if this tries to go for "completeness", a personal entry on Wikipedia seems overkill. I see no reason to have his name doxxed all around 186.136.14.25 (talk) 23:54, 17 May 2017 (UTC) mc[reply]

~~Absolutely. I've put a request for assistance in at the CSD talk page so that this can be removed quickly.~~ Sorry, ignore that. He's actually come forward himself.^[1] Nonetheless, that fact may be worth disclosing on the article. — Sasuke Sarutobi (talk) 11:40, 18 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

He actually commented on this page on his twitter account, saying that he would prefer it be under his online nickname instead. 88.111.90.73 (talk) 15:29, 19 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Now created move request per subject's request and WP:COMMONNAME. — Sasuke Sarutobi (talk) 15:39, 19 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

**Move**, if we have to vote on it. https://twitter.com/MalwareTechBlog/status/865588083252580353 CiPHPerCoder (talk) 20:37, 19 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

References

^ "'Just doing my bit': The 22yo who blocked the WannaCry cyberattack". ABC News. 2017-05-16. Retrieved 2017-05-18.

Requested move 19 May 2017

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: page moved. (non-admin closure) TonyBallioni (talk) 00:09, 27 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Marcus Hutchins → MalwareTech – Per WP:COMMONNAME and Twitter comment from subject of article (linked in Talk:Marcus Hutchins#Delete? above). — Sasuke Sarutobi (talk) 15:39, 19 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Support --Thibaut120094 (talk) 16:05, 19 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support CiPHPerCoder (talk) 20:37, 19 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

^ Appears to be closer to MTBs wishes (src: https://twitter.com/MalwareTechBlog/status/865588701312819200) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.39.165.228 (talk) 19:09, 19 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Definite support per subject's wishes and WP:COMMONNAME if you really need a policy reason (or WP:IAR) - and then focus on the professional rather than the personal. And really the article is pretty horrible anyways, written more like a tabloid puff piece than an encyclopedia article, but that's beyond the scope of this discussion. ansh 666 20:43, 19 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support --Therandomforest (talk) 22:59, 19 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support --Ethanmayersweet (talk) 00:34, 20 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support -- Romeowth (talk) 22:25, 20 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support per the man's own request EA Swyer ^Talk _{Contributions} 22:27, 20 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support, given the unusual circumstances. also WP:SNOW close? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 08:26, 21 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support -- This is his wish, and after all thats happened I cannot fathom why his wishes should not be followed. Also - WP:IAR and WP:COMMONNAME Jhoke (talk) 23:55, 21 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - under the circumstances, would anyone have any objections to me WP:SNOW closing this as nom? — Sasuke Sarutobi (talk) 11:53, 22 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support -- Epicandrew1220 (talk) 17:12, 22 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. We don't rename biographical articles just because the subject requests it. 'Marcus Hutchins' is his name, 'MalwareTech' is not; and the majority of the sources refer to him by the former, not the latter, so COMMONNAME does not apply. Robofish (talk) 22:52, 22 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
That said, I'm not convinced he's sufficiently notable for an independent article either. Rather than renaming, I'd suggest merging and redirecting to WannaCry ransomware attack, or even outright deletion, as a WP:BLP1E. Robofish (talk) 22:55, 22 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support - I too was doxed, and I know how it feels. Bearian (talk) 00:35, 23 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support - Until last week his only publicly-known name was MalwareTech. Per WP:COMMONNAME, that name should be used because if you search Google News and exclude 2017, you'll find plenty of articles referring to the subject as MalwareTech. Since the doxing event, he's also said that he would rather be known by that name. In fact it may be appropriate to remove his "real" name entirely: "When the name of a private individual has [...] been intentionally concealed, [...] it is often preferable to omit it" WP:BLPNAME. --ChiveFungi (talk) 00:49, 23 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Daily Mail not an acceptable source

He was doxxed by the Daily Mail which is not an acceptable source for Wikipedia. So this page should be removed. 87.102.44.18 (talk) 06:25, 22 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

His identity has also been mentioned in other sources (e.g. The Telegraph), but we are arranging for the page to be moved to his handle (MalwareTech). — Sasuke Sarutobi (talk) 10:22, 22 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, he was doxxed by The Daily Telegraph too. This article should be deleted, or redirected to the article on the WannaCry ransomware attack. Surely WP:BLP1E applies here, and WP:BIO1E too. We should write about the event, not the person; and write conservatively and with regard to the subject's privacy. WP:Do no harm. Are there any reliable sources other than newspaper articles in the last week or two? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 31.73.68.234 (talk) 15:11, 26 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 22 April 2019

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Page moved. (closed by non-admin page mover) -- Dane ^talk 02:00, 1 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

MalwareTech → Marcus Hutchins – After the last move request he was arrested, indicted and plead guilty. In all this news he is referred by his real name. So I believe the reasons for the last move are no longer valid. I think it's time to rename this article back. Alexei Kopylov (talk) 19:19, 22 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Support' In ictu oculi (talk) 09:55, 23 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Conflicting information

The recent wired article [18] has information that conflicts we previous sources. Whole article needs to be reviewed. Vinnieolle (talk) 15:53, 14 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

User:Vinnieolle, can you please point out where specifically the conflicts are? - Indefensible (talk) 05:50, 16 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

As one that added the Wired article, I found no conflicts with prior info. It explains better now known events came to be. --Masem (t) 11:57, 16 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The Wired article makes clear that its source is almost exclusively Marcus himself (and indeed, the article contains a lot of information that no one but Marcus could know). Is Marcus a reliable source about himself? A knowledgeable one, certainly, but also a highly biased one. Should Wikipedia only report information from this article that is verified by another, unbiased source? 2605:A601:AB42:5B00:A165:5704:A201:2FA8 (talk) 21:32, 30 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Again, what information is conflicting? Everything we can corroborate from his statements matches with what is publicly known in timing and release factors. Further, this is after his charges were reduced, so it is reasonable to presume he laid out all the details of developing Kronos and his dealings with "Vinny" to the FBI already, so he's not going to be telling Wired a wildly different story and raise the chance that the FBI would go "hey, that's different now..." and be brought in against. It would be fair to say that if there was something so far out of line in his story to question, but there's nothing like that all. So yes, he's a reliable source for his own story. --Masem (t) 22:11, 30 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I said nothing about conflicting information. I'm pointing out that, ordinarily, Wikipedia doesn't consider information from a source to be the most reliable information about that source. (I can find the specific policy about this if you need – don't know it offhand.) For example. Marcus claims he refused to add certain functionality until Vinny blackmailed him into it. We have only his word for this. Vinny, obviously, isn't going on record about what happened, and the Wired article admits there are no logs of their chats. Maybe it happened exactly as Marcus claims, maybe not. It just seems like usually Wikipedia requires information in its articles to be more verifiable than this. Am I wrong about this? 2605:A601:AB42:5B00:A165:5704:A201:2FA8 (talk) 03:58, 31 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Well, it obviously depends on the situation. We're talking about a person's own experiences which were done with only one other person (and later a second) and certainly not in the public eye. Yes, at this point, all we have is his word on it. Could he be making it up? Quite possibly though obviously his involvement it via the fact he was arrested and convicted is pretty much assured, so the fine details (did he really get all that weed, for example) are iffy. So as long as we are clear where the source is, we're fine with that. What is important is where his story aligns with what we know did happen in the real word: his whitehatting as MalwareTech, how he stopped Wannacry, and after that, that's pretty much all matter of public record. So none of his claims are extraordinary and its the smaller details that do not affect the larger picture that we might doubt but have zero way to validate otherwise, so we just make sure the attribution is clear. Also, the fact Wired (an RS) published this probably means they believe the events are mostly true as well.

If it were, hypothetically, he came out and identified himself as this "Vinny" without any way to justify that, that would be something we could throw doubt into and require a better source than just his word. --Masem (t) 04:19, 31 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I personally agree with you that Marcus's account is plausible, but that doesn't make him a journalistically reliable source about himself. "Making sure the attribution is clear" seems a little like a cop-out. Wikipedia readers trust Wikipedia authors to filter out unreliable sources, given that that's part of Wikipedia editorial policy. And you have to dig pretty deep into the Wired article to find out it's mostly a personal account; requiring readers to do that defeats Wikipedia's purpose of summarization. The situation now is that a Wikipedia reader sees these statements, sees that they're attributed to Wired, and assumes Wired has vetted and verified everything – which, by the very nature of many of the claims, it cannot have. But nothing in the article's current attribution gives Wikipedia readers a hint of this shortcoming; the information is all presented as Fact.

Marcus has a clear self-serving need to stay out of legal trouble. Thus, him identifying himself as Vinny is a whole lot less likely than, say, him embellishing just how much Vinny coerced him into misdeeds. Why would you take him entirely at his word on that score, any more than your hypothetical, equally unsupportable claim? 2605:A601:AB42:5B00:A165:5704:A201:2FA8 (talk) 22:48, 1 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Well, for example, The DOJ confirms that "Vinny" was an accomplice to Hutchins. And based on what the gov't was going to present at the trial [1] it matched other parts, as well as what he had signed on his plea agreement in 2019 which aligns with evidence the FBI had on him.

But, on WP, absent any other details or conflicting information , we trust what a BLP says about themselves. There is nothing in what he says, not already part of what we know, that disagrees with other information out there. The only possible thing that could be at issue are his statements about this "Vinny" which make him more the "mastermind" than "accomplice", but as that person is fully anonymous, there's no BLP issues involved here; it would be different if he was, say, talking thinks about a named person that were potentially harmful and couldn't be corroborated, under WP:BLPSPS). That's nothing like that here, so we're fine. I will, however, go though just to make sure its clear some of the parts are "according to" to be clear in the article. --Masem (t) 00:33, 2 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Great, that will provide a better distinction between corroborated facts and statements about himself. Thanks for reading and responding. 2605:A601:AB42:5B00:A165:5704:A201:2FA8 (talk) 18:10, 2 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

[1] "'Just doing my bit': The 22yo who blocked the WannaCry cyberattack". ABC News. 2017-05-16. Retrieved 2017-05-18.

[1]