Diana von Bidder (EVP, Basel) and Debian suicide cluster
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock.
Diana von Bidder is listed on Linked In as a Senior IT Security Consultant for Swiss Post Cybersecurity.
She is a candidate for the EVP in the Basel Stadt parliament.
She takes the name von Bidder from her late husband, Adrian von Bidder who died from a mysterious heart attack. She was previously Diana Senn.
Cybersecurity is a vital topic for Switzerland and social engineering attacks are a significant issue in the realm of cybersecurity.
Organizations like Google, Facebook and LinkedIn could be seen as a very effective social engineering attack against Swiss culture and privacy.
Frans Pop, the Debian Day Volunteer Suicide Victim, had sent at least one of his suicide notes on debian-private gossip network the night before Debian Day. If an organization can get into somebody's head like that, such that decisions about life and death revolve around this software, we could contemplate the possibility that Frans Pop died under the influence of a social engineering culture.
Days later, Mark Shuttleworth himself warned that there is a high risk in this group. Less than a year after Shuttleworth's warning, Adrian von Bidder had this heart attack.
Adrian von Bidder died on the same day that Carla and I got married. Why can't we ask questions about that?
Switzerland reportedly has a higher per-capita ratio of Debian Developers than any other country except perhaps Ireland. Yet according to Shuttleworth's email, many of these people have a loyalty to Debian culture that is above their loyalty to Swiss employers and Swiss law. This dual allegience appears to be a sign that they are under the sway of social engineering or at risk of external influence.
By way of background, in 2006, Adrian and Diana got married. In 2007, the suicide petition to Basel Stadt authorities was signed by A. von Bidder. In August 2010, we had the confirmed suicide of Frans Pop, the warning from Mark Shuttleworth and a sustained period of stress among volunteers in the Debian Developer world. In April 2011, Adrian von Bidder died. It was discussed like a suicide but they told us casually that it could be a heart attack.
There was no comment about whether the couple had any children during the five years of their marriage.
On 28 April 2011, very soon after von Bidder died, Diana modified his blog, adding a new post:
Sadly, I have to make an end to this blog. Adrian - my husband - died on april 17th of a heart attack.
Adrian von Bidder had made various blog posts with critical commentary about the risks of social media and other devious enterprises. Many of his concerns have been proven correct by the passage of time. Yet I feel the manner in which Diana writes "I have to make an end to this blog" has an air of disapproval for Adrian's work. Then again, this must have been a very disturbing time for Diana and on top of that, English may not be her native language so the tone of her comments may not reflect her real thoughts and feelings about the subject.
Some time later, Diana completely erased the blog, removed the DNS entry for blog. and placed a picture on the main page fortytwo.ch.
The picture's metadata tells us it was taken on 20 January 2011 with a Canon EOS 40D, possibly the camera Adrian discussed in some of his blog posts.
We know that other Debian Developers in Switzerland were subject to social engineering attacks involving blackmail and public humiliation. One of those cases was the blackmail of Daniel Baumann. Did Adrian von Bidder receive similar messages in the days before his heart attack?
Did Adrian von Bidder communicate with anybody before his heart attack, for example, leaving a note? In English-speaking countries, all these things are published by the coroner's office. In Switzerland, it is the opposite, evidence is only given to those in close proximity to the deceased. At the time, Diana may not have known about the earlier suicide of Frans Pop. She may not have realized there was the risk of a connection between deaths in a single community. Now the suicide cluster is public knowledge, is it time for a fresh discussion about that?
Most cybersecurity experts around the world believe that transparency is important for education and mitigating risks.
Here is a photo of Diana and Adrian on their wedding day: █
