Vincent Danjean & Debian NXIVM collateral, blackmail risks
17:30 Mon, 13 Oct 2025
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock.
During the high-profile NXIVM prosecution, we heard how women recruited into the cult were required to provide collateral in the form of embarassing information, confessions or signed statements denouncing their own friends and family members.
The collateral was to be used for blackmail. Blackmail is a form of social engineering which is a significant risk area in computer science today.
Vincent Danjean from Debian, who is not the Vincent Danjean at INTERPOL (Debian has too many police rumours) told us that when he was recruited and indoctrinated into the Debian keyring, he was asked to provide private information and write emails denouncing his colleagues and it would be embarassing for him if those emails were shared in future.
He complained about it with an email to the debian-private (leaked) gossip network:
Subject: Re: Retiring as an Application Manager Date: Wed, 28 Nov 2007 11:10:05 +0100 From: Vincent Danjean <vdanjean.ml@free.fr> To: Josip Rodin <joy@entuzijast.net> CC: debian-private@lists.debian.org
Josip Rodin wrote: > On Thu, Nov 22, 2007 at 03:27:01PM +0100, Thomas Viehmann wrote: >>> Well, when was the last non-FD review of the NM system? Full review, >>> tracking a group of candidates from end to end and check the steps? >> How should that be done without making applicant's records essentially >> public? > > Er, easily? For example, have a few non-involved developers review all > existing records, while promising they won't divulge any personal specifics > to anyone. They could report a summary to -private.
When I did the NM process, I knew that I had to give some personal information so that my AM knew me better. I also knew that these mails will be read by FD and DAM. But I knew they will not be public even between other DD. So, I wrote some things about my personal life. I also wrote opinion on other DD (my AM ask me to react to some public claim from theses DD). I do not want that these mails become public (even between DD and even more external people) because I do not remember what I wrote exactly, I do not want to check/rewrite/filter public/private parts, ... These mails have never be intended to be read by people other than the ones that already read them.
In summary, I'm very disappointed with the way to propose to manage very private data of actual DD and even more non DD (ie people rejected by the NM process)
Regards, Vincent
-- Vincent Danjean Adresse: Laboratoire d'Informatique de Grenoble Téléphone: +33 4 76 61 20 11 ENSIMAG - antenne de Montbonnot Fax: +33 4 76 61 20 99 ZIRST 51, avenue Jean Kuntzmann Email: Vincent.Danjean@imag.fr 38330 Montbonnot Saint Martin
FBI Special Agent Michael Lever submitted a twenty-two page arrest warrant for Keith Raniere under seal. It was signed off by a federal judge on Valentine's Day 2018. On page six, Special Agent Lever begins to describe the system of recruiting and collateral:
While avoiding the words "master" and "slave" in the initial recruiting pitch, a master would tell her prospective slave that the prospective slave had an opportunity to join an organization that would change her life. The master then told the prospective slave that, in order to learn more, she had to provide "collateral," which was meant to ensure that the prospective slave would keep what she was about to learn a secret. Collateral consisted of material or information that the prospective slave would not want revealed because it would be ruinous to the prospective slave herself and/or someone close to her.
Remember the Debian Christmas Lynchings from December 2018? The cyberbullies had been keeping a dossier of every mistake made by Dr Norbert Preining in his entire career and they sent it all to him a few days before Christmas to insult him.
Most of the debian-private (leaked gossip network) emails end with something like this (the last words of Frans Pop before the Debian Day Volunteer Suicide):
All mails I ever sent to d-private (and mails quoting them) shall remain private.
So long, FJP
Please see the chronological history of how the Debian harassment and abuse culture evolved. █