Near, the emulator developer of bsnes, higan, and more, has died

https://twitter.com/marcan42/status/1409176583433179137

by aquova • 5 years ago

390 127 5 years ago

twitter.com

TazeTSchnitzel• 5 years ago

Kiwi Farms is the scum of the earth. Sadly it has many victims.

geofft• 5 years ago

This terrifies me:

Near survived that. Many wouldn’t, but Near was strong enough to overcome that level of emotional abuse. But Kiwi Farms is relentless. Not to be defeated in their pursuit of utter emotional and psychological destruction, they went after who Near treasured most: their friends. Doxing some, directly harassing others, and even specifically seeking out suicidal people to target.
That broke Near.

[...]

Some of you may be aware of Near’s notoriously paranoid opsec. After getting to know them, it became clear this was a defense mechanism; a product of all the abuse they received over their entire life.

Not that I'm doing anything particularly likely to attract the attention of the worst part of the internet (but then, you'd hope that "writing some emulators and going by 'they'" shouldn't either), but, I've thought about it and decided I can deal with people going after me. To some extent, I can be careful about opsec; to some extent, if someone goes after me, I'm all right with that.

But what if they go after other people in the name of targeting me? What if they go after my friends, or even my family, who has very little say in what I do? What if my parents, who have never had to care about opsec in their lives and like most people's parents own a house and have their real names on it, get SWATted because some monster on an internet forum hates me?

How am I supposed to respond except by deciding, I will not do anything with my life that could attract Kiwi Farms' attention?

This is terrorism, and I am terrified.

ngcazz2• 5 years ago

Looked them up. How is it that they aren’t getting prosecuted _right now_?

philpem6• 5 years ago

Good question. Assuming you're US based - Why not write a letter to your representatives, asking them why the police ignore and dismiss online harassment, and why a single US citizen continues to be allowed to operate what is solely a hate site?

If legal pressure isn't enough, why not try political pressure?

mmebane2• 5 years ago

It hasn't been confirmed by authorities, but may never be, since almost nobody knew his real full name or exactly where he lived. However, it definitely doesn't look good. :-(

jepler• 5 years ago

[cw: discussion of suicide]

a_t48• 5 years ago

I'm not really sure what to put here. I never spoke to them personally (except maybe once or twice here on HN) but their work on SNES emulation enabled communities to spring up that improved my life for the better. I'm not going to touch the debate on whether to hold Cloudflare+1776Hosting partially responsible here (I'm sure others will), but I do know that Near physically moved countries to get away from the harassment they were getting.

Just be respectful, ok?

pretentious72• 5 years ago

1776 hosting is run by the KF site admin.

philpem6• 5 years ago

I don't really know what to say here. I didn't know them personally, but I saw their work and was truly stunned. Most people don't achieve in their entire lives what Near (aka Byuu) did in their comparatively short one. To say I was impressed is an understatement. I simply don't have the words.

What happened, shouldn't have happened. There needs to be a wider discussion of responsibility of hosting providers for the actions of their customers, and especially Cloudflare for shielding illegal acts. But that's a discussion for another day.

Tonight, the sky is darker, for the loss of one of its brightest stars.

philpem6• 5 years ago

Posted this on the other thread (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27653450), I'll copy it here...

Tonight, the sky is darker, for the loss of one of its brightest stars.

umvi2• 5 years ago

There needs to be a wider discussion of responsibility of hosting providers for the actions of their customers

How about holding the actual bullies accountable instead of shifting accountability to the ISP/Host? What happens in real life (i.e. outside the context of the internet) if bullies harass someone with hate mail until that person commits suicide? Does the blame shift away from the bullies to USPS or FedEx for failing to shield the recipient from the hate mail?

I could see a case made against kiwi farms, but cloudflare? They are infrastructure level and should not get in user content moderation imo

to11mtm• 5 years ago

One challenge that may be perceived is that while 'eggshell rule' exists [0], any wrongful death case involves a jury of people, a decent portion of which would rather not think about the damages their own bad actions towards others have caused.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eggshell_skull

falcolas7• 5 years ago

Cloudflare has already proven willing to stop supporting sites based on their content.

They’ve opened the doors, so it’s not unreasonable to expect that they could/would/should do it again.

philpem6• 5 years ago

I absolutely agree with making the bullies accountable, and making the networks accountable should only be in addition to that.

The guy who runs the site is a US citizen. If the police don't give a damn (which seems to be the case)... why aren't US citizens writing to their representatives about this?

user-the-name4• 5 years ago

The aim here is to stop the people who bully others to suicide. That is what is important. Kiwifarms is self hosted, there is no host to complain to.

yourapostasy• 5 years ago

Most people don't achieve in their entire lives what Near (aka Byuu) did in their comparatively short one.

I'm astonished that someone with this caliber of attention to detail and proven track record to deliver was not already in at least an internship program. Would have definitely earned at least a closer scrutiny from me and I would have pulled strings to accommodate their special needs if that closer look held up.

KF depravity, if practiced upon a puppy with mapped-over harassment as say, constant yelling or similar behavior, if documented, would net the perps with harsher consequences than the nada they will get. An individual's character is measured by how they behave when no one is watching. A civilization's strength is measured by how it behaves when its weakest members are preyed upon.

nrook• 5 years ago

I had a mathematics teacher in high school who had a line about the Romans: "The biggest impact the Romans had on mathematics was killing Archimedes."

The biggest impact Matthew Prince, CEO of Cloudflare, had on the technology community is killing Near and so many others by standing behind these sites. This is the principle for which he stands.

klodolph• 5 years ago

Near (Byuu) has previously appeared on HN as the author of BSNES, Higan, and other emulators for retro gaming systems.

https://bsnes.dev/

His work raised the bar for emulator accuracy and the preservation of video games. He was a towering figure in the field, and will be sorely missed.

I am unaware of a better source for this information besides this Google doc, at the moment. Near’s Twitter handle is @near_koukai, where you can see his farewell message.

nfriedly• 5 years ago

Clickable: https://twitter.com/near_koukai

dexwiz• 5 years ago

Kiwi Farms is vile. I stumbled upon it while researching someone who turned out to be a target of one of their hate campaign. Its a PHP Forum-style site, but with entire sub forums dedicated to small groups and event specific people. Long running topics would be an entire persons hate campaign against them.

The members seem to have a strange, self-claimed moral authority. The posts are a mix of records of what they have done to harass people, updates on past targets, ideas for future hate, and justification about why this person deserves it. Overall it was sad for everyone involved. I hope they find some solace in their lives, if only to let their victims find it also.

philpem6• 5 years ago

I admire your ability to solely wish solace on them. I'd rather the long arm of the law caught up to them.

sterlind2• 5 years ago

there's not a lot the law can do, unfortunately. doxxing isn't illegal in the US, at least federally, except against people in certain positions [0]. there's a high standard for harassment to be considered illegal. bullying is not illegal. hate speech is not illegal. even if individuals on Kiwi Farms can be prosecuted, it wouldn't take the site down. and to be prosecuted, the prosecutors would have to care. there just aren't the laws..

I'm friends with a few people who have been targeted by Kiwi Farms. Near is far from the only person driven to suicide by overwhelming bullying. it's one reason I keep a low profile - I'm just too scared.

0. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/119

_etyf2• 5 years ago

The members seem to have a strange, self-claimed moral authority. The posts are a mix of records of what they have done to harass people, updates on past targets, ideas for future hate, and justification about why this person deserves it.

Sounds a lot like Twitter.

user-the-name4• 5 years ago

Sounds nothing at all like Twitter. These are people who cheer when they drive someone to suicide. Do not diminish their utter depravity by comparing them to something far less extreme.

papreclip• 5 years ago

The biggest difference is that you're thinking about a very nasty 0.1% of twitter that use the platform to harass, whereas harassment is the primary purpose of this site.

user-the-name4• 5 years ago

Kiwi farms needs to end. This is not the first person they have murdered. There is no excuse for anyone who does anything to enable any part of its existence.

ErneX2• 5 years ago

I remembered this article from 2011 about bsnes:

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2011/08/accuracy-takes-power-...

Tragic loss, RIP.

user-the-name4• 5 years ago

It's not a "tragic loss", it is murder. And justice is needed.

ErneX2• 5 years ago

I completely agree.

ta21624• 5 years ago

What makes it "murder"?

umvi2• 5 years ago

RIP https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=near

reiichiroh• 5 years ago

Oh no! They had posted here in the past.

arthurcolle• 5 years ago

who is Near?

ekorz• 5 years ago

formerly known as byuu, creator of the emulators bsnes, higan and more. https://near.sh/

Forge362• 5 years ago

Should we be backing up/ mirroring the domain?

TheFreim• 5 years ago

Very sad that they are gone, byuu's work on emulators has been very useful. Weird to hear about things like this and realize that people are real on the other end of the computer.

Skimming through, I don't see a reason why they were harassed by Kiwi Farms. I don't get it, what caused that?

snypher• 5 years ago

Kiwi Farms whole deal is to harass people online. I'm not sure they need a reason. A girl set herself on fire due to their harassment in 2013.

entropicdrifter2• 5 years ago

She set herself on fire in 2018 after 5 years of harassment over something she did in 2013

ATsch3• 5 years ago

You really don't need to do much to catch their ire. It's enough to annoy one wrong person, especially if you're vaguely trans or some other minority.

wk_end• 5 years ago

A nit: it'd be more respectful to use "Near". They really wanted people to call them that and not their old pseudonym.

I never personally interacted with Near, but I've been following them and their work since the days of the zsnes forums, back in the mid-00s. I'm a huge fan - not just of their technical achievements or their ideological commitment, but also of the seeming grace with which they carried themselves in the past few years. I don't know if I'll get all the details right, but I'll try.

My understanding is that KF chooses to harass people who are marginalized, easy to bully, and on the basis of how dramatic, embarrassing, or "cringe" their response would be. Near was gay, autistic, non-binary, and involved with furry communities (though IIRC they may not have been a furry themselves - not that it matters), which made them an easy target. They were sensitive and struggled with depression - KF knew their harassment would be effective. And Near was a controversial public(ish) figure who'd, in the past, courted a fair amount of scene drama and flame wars (sometimes blamelessly, sometimes not, as I'm sure they'd tell you themselves) that occasionally got very personal. In other words: KF looks to stir shit up, and Near sadly provided an ample amount of shit to stir.

No one deserves to be harassed like this, but it feels especially cruel that it was done to someone as remarkable as Near. This is a terrible loss.

jbuhbjlnjbn• 5 years ago

I think you are wrong. Apparently "near" was another pseudonym to seperate their console hacking and different social interests. Near mentined it in some post.

thrwn_frthr_awy• 5 years ago

There isn't a reason because that is what Kiwi Farms does–they harass, dox, and troll relentlessly. This is not the first suicide Kiwi Farms has been responsible for.

falcolas7• 5 years ago

From reddit discussions, it appears that it was triggered by some political posts Near put up (and since took down/stopped posting) close to a decade ago.

KF apparently didn’t like the posts, and set them up as a virtually permanent target.

So stupid.

chalupa-man• 5 years ago

They were on the autism spectrum, and had written about feeling emotionally sensitive and easily overwhelmed. Unfortunately, that's all it takes for bullies who just want to have an impact on someone -- knowing you're vulnerable to it. Then they came out as non-binary and made some political posts, which elevated it to hatred for many of those bullies.

gfaure• 5 years ago

near was the author of higan (https://higan.dev), a SNES emulator which is at the cutting edge of accuracy and emulation research. If you have even touched in passing the field of Nintendo console emulation, it's quite likely you've heard of them or their creations. I hope https://near.sh continues to stay up as an archive of all that they built over the years.

near posted a few words of encouragement when I was wondering whether to start a SNES emulator of my own, which inspired me to build one over the course of a few months. That journey gained me a huge amount of engineering, personal and aesthetic fulfillment.

I hope all the people Near/byuu inspired never forget their contributions to the field either. Rest in peace.

tetrisgm• 5 years ago

Near’s contribution to SNES emulation is unequalled, covering perfect dumps of every game possible, the most accurate emulator, and even pushing the envelope on what the SNES could do with HD mode and widescreen support. Such a brilliant hacker, such a loss. Thanks for all the effort.

fermentation• 5 years ago

Such a sad series of events. When folks bring up why people don't just walk away from the PC when being cyberbullied/harassed online, it is often because we attach so much of our lives to our online identities and internet friends. How can you just walk away from what may be your only social outlet?

etempleton2• 5 years ago

And Near was very much a person that lived a large part of their life online. Those who bullied him took away a home and a place where he found connections to people. I hope those involved somehow reflect on what they are doing and realize that there are humans on the other end and change their ways, though a quick check of the forum in question shows members are celebrating this news or putting out conspiracy theories that it is some kind of publicity stunt to promote higan.

Truly disheartened and saddened. Be good to people everyone. Even people, dare I say especially the people, you disagree with or dislike. Everyone is going through something you know nothing about.

nchase• 5 years ago

The behavior Kiwi Farms encourages seems like it should be illegal. How is this not murder?

bjt2n3904• 5 years ago

In 2017, a Massachusetts woman was convicted of involuntary manslaughter for coaxing her (then) boyfriend to suicide.

_delirium2• 5 years ago

This is the most useful review article I've found (for U.S. law), though it's from 2014: "Death By Bullying: A Comparative Culpability Proposal", https://digitalcommons.pace.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=...

The overall conclusion I get from it is that homicide or manslaughter charges could be brought in principle, but prosecutions are rare, and successful ones even more rare. The article author proposes a legal standard for culpability, but it's not clear it's been adopted by any courts. There are also some examples of lesser charges, like harassment or stalking, but they're also rare. In addition, several states have passed specific criminal bullying and/or cyberbullying laws that might allow easier conviction on a lesser charge, but they haven't been widely tested yet.

ALittleLight3• 5 years ago

What did Kiwi Farms do? I tried looking up their comments on him[1] but only sampled some at random rather than reading all of their comments. It certainly seems cruel and mean spirited. Some more recent comments are flippant or celebrating the suicide - but it isn't clear to me that they did anything other than be mean to Near online.

Am I missing something?

1 - https://kiwifarms.net/threads/byuu-byuu_nyan-setsunakun0.430...

enby1• 5 years ago

KF exists solely for harassment, doxxing, etc. They generally hate furries, LGBTQ+, streamers, "e-girls", really anyone.

They'll try to get you fired, call your boss, harass your workplace with fake reviews about you until you get fired, etc.

kbenson3• 5 years ago

There's a lot implied in the doc linked from twitter, if not spelled out. Particularly troubling is the alleged targeting of friends and family.

That said, it's one side, and not even from the source, but from someone's interpretation/understanding of what happened to the source, so I'm being careful to not assume much. The quick-take might be the correct take in this case, but that doesn't mean I'm comfortable with using it.

GPerson4• 5 years ago

Is being cruel and flippantly celebrating a suicide not condemnable enough?

Klonoar• 5 years ago

I'm sure some will disagree, but I'd argue this should be a black bar moment.

So many of us grew up in the early-to-late-2000s internet, likely on many of the forums that touched on emulation. Near/byuu's achievements in emulation/game preservation are insane and arguably unmatched, and they also posted here from time[1] to time[2].

So sad to see this all unfold.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=near

colanderman• 5 years ago

Another vote for black bar. Near was inspirational and a true hacker. @dang, can we get one?

LocalH• 5 years ago

I second that as well

Lord_Nightmare• 5 years ago

I second this.

andxor• 5 years ago

Yes please.

plerpin2• 5 years ago

A black bar to commemorate the loss of a dear community member, with their death a warning of the real human cost of online toxicity and intolerance.

hrdwdmrbl2• 5 years ago

The marketplace of ideas has failed. I wish it weren’t true. I loved the concept. Russia killed it. Trolls killed it. Fake news killed it. Click bait killed it. It’s sad and I mourn it. Free speech on the internet isn’t looking too hot. We must demand that platforms do more to police what people can send and post. I don’t envy their position. Perhaps one of the new user-controlled data models will help. Perhaps AI will help. Perhaps only human-moderation will work. I don’t know but I don’t see things getting better.

Forge362• 5 years ago

Moderation feels irrelevant if the host is unwilling out encouraging the behavior. I wonder if they best approach it better DNS blocking. ISPs forced to comply with law, however alternate DNS "get the full internet" are left legal. I want to be careful with opening the door to banning sites/people from the internet. I can't imagine leaving the system in place as-is an acceptable solution.

farias02• 5 years ago

I have a feeling moderating online speech is a losing game. There will always be platforms such as 4chan and KF willing to provide a space to any kind of speech. Maybe I've become too cynical, but I've come to accept that the only way to not be bullied or harassed online is to not expose yourself too much online, such as through compartmentalizing different aspects of your online social life through different social media accounts.

I know this sounds like victim-blaming, but this is not my intention. It's just that maybe we humans were not built to be judged by everyone everywhere. For those that watched the anime Evangelion, there was a nice, forward-thinking discussion about this idea there.

ATsch3• 5 years ago

I wouldn't say it has failed, but succeeded. The framing of the "marketplace of ideas" has really always been about paving over power dynamics and justify continuing harm by appealing to something external. In your marketplace of ideas, the hundreds of abstract individuals that are hararassers are equally as valid as one abstract individual just trying to live their life. It's working as intended.

badRNG• 5 years ago

It might be more accurate to say that the marketplace of ideas isn't all it's cracked up to be. It has failed to be the utopian dream some hoped it would.

razodactyl• 5 years ago

I only discovered higan a couple days ago.

What a loss of talent, especially the loss of someone who dedicated so much time to a passion project with tremendous contribution to the community.

Is there a way to keep their home page online?

superfamicom• 5 years ago

I believe the hosting and domains have been taken care of.

kizer• 5 years ago

Eccentrics - how many, how eccentric - are a measure of the cultural sophistication of society. Very sad. "KiwiFarms" sounds like a terrible site; would love to see it destroyed, but those people will find somewhere to aggregate. Looking forward to being as eccentric and vulnerable as possible in my own life :D.

shadowgovt2• 5 years ago

The sort of folk attracted to Kiwi Farms will find somewhere else to aggregate, but that doesn't mean anyone needs to make it easy for them.

Showers always build up mildew, but we still periodically scrub them.

jMyles• 5 years ago

A substantial portion of the logic unit of my homeschooling relationship with my six-year-old is playing and analyzing the SNES randomizers, which are possible in part because of Near's incredible contributions.

Near was not done with this incredible work; it was impressive to see such devotion to accuracy on an ongoing basis.

A real loss.

Tarball10• 5 years ago

https://blog.cloudflare.com/terminating-service-for-8chan/

We just sent notice that we are terminating 8chan as a customer effective at midnight tonight Pacific Time. The rationale is simple: they have proven themselves to be lawless and that lawlessness has caused multiple tragic deaths.
Even if 8chan may not have violated the letter of the law in refusing to moderate their hate-filled community, they have created an environment that revels in violating its spirit.

Cloudflare should drop Kiwi Forums as a customer based on this. In fact Kiwi Forums might be worse because it specifically exists to discuss and coordinate harassment, doxing, and stalking of others both online and offline. 8chan was at least ostensibly "just" an anonymous imageboard with a lack of moderation. Kiwi Forums has no justifiable reason to be kept online and Cloudflare's association with it should be kept in mind when chosing to do business with Cloudflare.

Same applies to Dreamhost, their domain registrar. No, kicking them off these platforms won't shutdown the site. They'll move to a Russian DDoS protection service like 8chan did. But there's no reason for Cloudflare/Dreamhost to make it easy for Kiwi Forums to exist, or to continue to receive revenue by hosting them.

hrdwdmrbl2• 5 years ago

Where about the police in all of this? Isn’t it their responsibility to pursue harassment like this? Aren’t the actions of KF already illegal? It seems to me that society still doesn’t take the internet seriously. We still expect to be scammed on eBay and don’t report it. Scams and fraud are everywhere. Abuse like that is rampant. I’m serious, where are the internet police? Yes it’s going to be hard when the people live in another country but so many times the perpetrators do actually live in the same country and basically live with impunity!

d3nj4l• 5 years ago

For those who were not aware of their accomplishments, this article by them is a great starting point into the level of detail of higan development: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/04/how-snes-emulators-go...

A monumental loss. I never knew them personally, and generally didn't keep up with development, but they were a truly magical person and didn't deserve this in the slightest.

etempleton2• 5 years ago

I have followed and admired Near for the better part of my life. I feel I know Near even though they didn’t know me. I am extremely saddened by this news.

plerpin2• 5 years ago

"Evil triumphs when good men do nothing."

swsieber• 5 years ago

What would be necessary to bring a lawsuit against KW? Who would do it, and what would the charges be?

Zerverus• 5 years ago

This is the second loss to the emulation scene by the hands of these people.

The incredibly talented author of pcemu - probably the best classic Pc platform emulators, was subjected to a similar campaign of anti trans abuse and harassment (most of it can still be found online) and called it quits.

https://pcem-emulator.co.uk/

mmebane2• 5 years ago

There's at least one more: Rachel Bryk, a developer working on the Dolphin GameCube/Wii emulator [1], was driven to suicide back in 2015, likely in part due to transphobia and harassment [2].

[1] https://dolphin-emu.org/blog/2015/04/25/commemoration-rachel... [2]: https://www.nj.com/monmouth/2015/04/post_18.html

sersi• 5 years ago

I'll always remember fondly bsnes, near's life work should be celebrated given how much he contributed to emulation accuracy, to preserve such an important part of history for all to experience in the future. It's very sad to hear of his passing and it's even sadder and more infuriating to think that he was driven to suicide.

Kiwi Farms is a vile, awful place and encountering it a few years ago changed my perceptions on laws, anonymity and privacy. I didn't expect such an awful place to exist and I wish there were some laws in place to implicate them in the murders they have committed over the years.

brirec• 5 years ago

@dang, could we get a black bar today please?

BigsQuickly• 5 years ago

We really need proof that they're actually dead. A police report, a mention in the local paper would work but something. We don't even know their name to look into the matter, despite being doxxed. Let's first confirm that a person has actually died, then we can take concrete action against Kiwi Farms. Otherwise they will always be able to claim that no suicide even took place.

rkuykendall-com• 5 years ago

I'm unsure why their last Twitter thread seems to be unlinked everywhere, but here it is for anyone who wants to read their own words:

https://twitter.com/near_koukai/status/1408940057235312640

adultSwim• 5 years ago

This is deeply saddening.

Near, the emulator developer of bsnes, higan, and more, has died

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