*I believe that for most of the account's history, it was an "anonymous" account -- but that Zareh unwisely chose to link his YouTube account to his Google Plus account, which retroactively revealed him as the author of his formerly anonymous comments.
City Council Candidate Zareh Sinanyan took the opportunity to clear the air at last Tuesday's City Council meeting against allegations that he was responsible for a large volume of hateful comments on Youtube over a period of several years. You can stream the full meeting if you wish. This exchange begins at approximately 2:51:
related:
- Adam Schiff Withdraws Sinanyan Glendale City Council Endorsement in Light of Allegations
- Sinanyan Scandal Updates & Detailed Responses to His Defenders
- Why It's Unlikely A "Hacker" Was Responsible For the Alleged Sinanyan Comments
- Zareh Sinanyan Defends Himself Against Youtube Comment Allegations
58 comments:
Yikes
I'm not voting for Zareh Sinanyan then.
This is just the tip of the iceberg. Type "Zareh SInanyan'" google along with offensive terms such as cunts & faggot. You will discover a bunch of his homophobic and women hating posts are still cached in the searches. Sorry for the offensive terms in the post, but this is what our candidate for city council wrote. He clearly began deleting after reporters started sniffing, but the comments are showing up in Google cache.
Top Ten Reasons why this is conclusively Zareh:
*And why the GNP editors are so mind numbingly stupid
**And why I hope Zareh continues to deny this, taking the whole ANC down with him!!! Yay!
(1) There is only one person with the name "Zareh Sinanyan" in the United States of America.
(2) Someone under that name posted thousands of comments going back six years.
(3) The comments are time stamped by an indisputable source, a major website.
(4) Someone would need a time machine (back to 2007) to do this as a vast conspiracy to smear Sinanyan in 2013.
(5) *This one's my favorite: Zareh Sinanyan's undenied, indisputable 100% sure Facebook page contains the exact same comments that he posted on Youtube. He called a Muslim a "mongol tatar" on Youtube, and he called a Muslim a "mongol tatar" on Facebook. Etc. Couldn't news sources at least report on the fact that he used the slur, indisputably, conclusively, on his Facebook page? No, they won't, because they continually get scooped by blogs like this, and don't deserve to exist after Tribune leaves bankruptcy!
(6) As soon as reporters started poking around, someone started deleting the comments. That shows both guilt and control of the profile.
(7) Sinanyan had a profile on Lyrics.com with the same username and email address linked.
(8) All of the "friends" in Sinanyan's "Google+ circle" are linked to the offensive profile. All are real people. All are friends with Sinanyan in real life. All are his Facebook friends too. Why would they be friends with an impostor?
(9) Sinanyan identified himself in several offensive posts, stating that he was a "business litigator" and "born in Yerevan." So is Zareh Sinanyan.
(10) Sinanyan changed his offensive profile name's to "Thomas Paine" when the story broke and stupidly changed his personal email name too. Many people got the emails.
And now the bonus round:
(11) Several people have been sitting on this for months. They have everything saved in a computer vault. Websites, pictures, comments, in every imaginable format. They are going to release it in dribs and drabs. They are going to catch Zareh in a lie. They are going to force him to prolong it until he sounds so stupid, and until so do all the people supporting him. They are going to force him to get up at Council and defend saying these things. They are going to take Manoukian down with him for defending Zareh.
(12) Google+ and Youtube logged Zareh's IP address. He commented 1000s of times over the years from his home computer. That is all in Google's logs. If Zareh continues to deny it or calls anyone a liar, some of the people he threatened online may choose to file a police report and get those IP addresses.
You heard it here first. (Great job Scott!!!)
One has to conclude that Zareh Sinanyan is the stupidest person on the planet. Shame on him for subjecting Armenians to this. Shame on him for setting back our progress. Shame on him for staying in the race selfishly while we all suffer. Shame on him for feeding stereotypes that we are temperamental racists. Shame on him for being so classless on this.
Gavin Newsome was caught screwing his best friend's wife. He went to therapy. All is forgiven, and he has a great career. A classy person would go to anger management, state that the goshdarn Turks online baited him, and come back in a few years.
the Dashnaks get out-maneuvered again. dont they get it that the people behind this WANT them to deny it, want them to say its ok?
if zareh denies it, he is calling people liars, ie a blog, a paper, or a person, and therefore either claiming to be defamed or defaming the others by saying they made it up.
that gets everyone into court, where subpoenas can issue and google will have to provide the records. truth is an absolute defense. you imagine this guy denies it, claims to be the victim, and then someone sues, saying, 'you're saying i made this up,' and then that person gets the records?
the dashnaks will be run out of town.
A city can subpoena too.
EDITOR'S NOTE:
I received a tip about the comments on Monday morning via an anonymous e-mail. I know others in Glendale received the same e-mail, and I've had several people contact me this week (before I published my post) asking if I knew about the alleged comments. So I didn't uncover the comments per se, though I am the first person to publish them besides Zareh himself. When I first received the e-mail, I checked and verified that all of the comments were online from the account linked to Sinanyan's name, that all of the timestamps were correct (since some of the posts go back five years), and I verified that all of the information in the screen captures I received was accurate and not Photoshopped. And indeed, all of the comments were publicly available online at Youtube at that time, with that time stamp information, under the name Zareh Sinanyan. I also looked at other comments made by the same account, and there were dozens, maybe hundreds of additional comments, all similarly vulgar. By Monday afternoon the comments started disappearing from YouTube, presumably as Zareh got word that people were poking around his comment history. AIso, I believe that for most of the account's history, it was an "anonymous" account -- but that Zareh unwisely chose to link his YouTube account to his Google Plus account, which retroactively revealed him as the author of the formerly anonymous comments.
Scott Lowe
Tropico Station
What a racist dude! It's over.
Zareh, you have some splainin to do!
HIgh drama coming this tuesday to City Hall.
I heard this was a BIG surprise to those in attendance at yesterday's council meeting. Killing time during the weekly Caruso commendations and the gadflies cueing up for public comment and ...BANG this lands on the dais.Maybe people will start paying attention to what is going on in Glendale.
I can't believe the amount of people who have given these accusations any real merit. What if I took your name and doctored comments on your behalf, passing them out to your neighbors saying you're a thief? What would you do?
These are a fool's attempt to discredit Zareh, who is the right choice for this city.
This is sad, Zareh is giving us Armenians a bad name with such vile and childish/stupid behavior. To think he is an actual lawyer. Hope the ANC will convince him to drop out, or at the very least pull their endorsement as I hear other elected officials such as Krekorian and Garcetti have already done.
In response to the Anonymous comment at 10:53am:
I fully agree with you that it would be terrible if someone doctored comments to incriminate a candidate. I am very concerned about that very possibility when dealing with anonymously sourced information. As a result, I took extensive steps to verify myself that all of the comments in the screen captures I received were accurate with what had been published online over a period of many years. In doing so, I concluded that the images I received were not doctored, that the comments were easily findable, on many sites, and part of a much larger pattern vitriolic comments going back years. Most of the trail of comments is still online in some form. Googling "Zareh Sinanyan" and various obscenities yields many results on many sites going back years.
Additionally, I checked Zareh's Google+ profile (the Youtube account is part of his Google+ Profile), and it list his Google + connections as M Toumajan, Hovanes Manucharyan, Sarkis Jacob Babachanian, and Stepan Boyajian. I checked Zareh's Facebook profile -- the completely official profile through which he comments on his campaign -- and every single one of those people is Facebook friends with Zareh through his official Facebook account.
This fully satisfied me that the Youtube account was the same Zareh Sinanyan and not an impostor or someone with the same name.
respectfully,
Scott
Tropico Station
Scott deserves major credit for doing his own investigation and letting the facts speak for themselves. You can't fool Google's algorithms. The posts were "crawled" by Google a while ago; they have been there for years, and with Zareh's name and profile.
The CV Weekly has covered the story too:
http://www.crescentavalleyweekly.com/news/03/07/2013/gcc-tackles-bus-fare-floats-and-candidate-conduct/
I recognize people are hesitant to believe that Zareh could be so stupid, but this appears to be true.
The most telling perhaps are the reactions from elected officials. I heard several conducted their own investigations and concluded the posts were authentic, and are distancing themselves from Zareh. Makes you wonder if someone is paying the GNP to stay quiet.
I think its time for Mr. Sinanyan to apologize and quit the city council race. Maybe once he has re-established himself and has gone through sensitivity training he can run again.
Another ANC-backed candidate bites the dust. Nice track record guys! Keep up the good work in cranking out "quality" candidates who you think are qualified to lead our community like bozo Zareh here. I only ask that you stop with the "smear campaign" conspiracy theory arguments. Its getting really old .. and pathetic. Nobody is buying it. But nice try!
Why do Zareh's accuser want to remain anonymous? What are they afraid of?
Scott, what are the anonymous informant's motives? Who is he? If he has not done anything illegal, Why does he hide?
Two anonymous comments decrying an anonymous tip, the irony! There are obviously many reasons one would wish to remain anonymous, such as fear of retaliation. The important thing is: is the information accurate? As I've explained at length, based on every bit of evidence I've seen thus far, the information has proven to be correct.
And now we know that the anonymous comments posted on this page March 7, 2013 at 10:51 AM and March 7, 2013 at 10:53 AM were made by one Patrick Bairamian - since the same comments using the same wording were also made on the GNP website under his real name.
I will give my name when the Anonymous e-mailer who first distributed these accusations reveals himself. The reason he remains anonymous is because he is linked to Gatto's operatives.
Not attacking the validity of the article and the information contained therein, we need to put it all in perspective. The comments were vulgar, yes. But I would be hard pressed to find anyone who has not used foul language in the heat of anger, language that they would not be proud of looking back, language that may be offensive to any group. For example, the term "b---ch" could be interpreted to be misogynistic. How many men keep using that, specially against women who are assertive. Many Americans would have probably used and did use similar vulgar language against Arabs after 9-11. How often do we hear racial slurs against Arabs who are perceived as the perpetrators of one of the worst attacks on American soil. The victims of 9/11 were in the thousands. The victims of the Armenian genocide were 1.5 million in 1915. The comments cannot be condoned. I agree. But let's not look at it and say that I would never say something like that if I or my family was a victim of genocide or other ethnic crimes against. The anger behind the words is understandable. The language used was a mistake. But it does not indicate any prejudices against women or the LGBT community. It is against other nations who have committed crimes against Armenians. The comments were made years ago. If he acknowledges his mistake and recognizes that he has learned from it, I will vote for him.
More proof of political operatives: an RSS feed that was google optimized was set up yesterday with the topic "Zareh Sinanyan racist" with a google ranking of number 9 (this RSS feed was found when googling "Zareh Sinanyan"). The RSS feed had no links that functioned. Who set that up?
The RSS feed was taken down today.
Without taking anything away from the skills of the anonymous tipster, it doesn't take a political operative or Sherlock Holmes level detective work to find this stuff. I'm embarrassed I didn't find it myself initially.
Here is a step-by-step accounting of the what led to the tip:
STEP 1: Type candidate's name into search engine; find disturbing information created by candidate's verified account.
There is no step 2.
To Anonymous 03/08 - 10:36am: You have the only compelling defense presented thus far. Though not all of the comments were on genocide related posts, many of them were, and I have sympathy for his feelings if not the language.
Anyone could leave foul messages under the name "Scott Lowe." That doesn't mean that the real Scott Lowe posted anything. Let's not get arrested for hacking into anyone's accounts, but all public e-mail addresses are vulnerable. No one has responded to the RSS Feeder issue. Any computer forensics on these servers that shows that Zareh was hacked into won't surface until after the election.
Yes, anyone could post as me, but that account would not be verifiably linked to my true accounts. Or someone could hack a true account of mine, send a few comments in my name, but not without me realizing it, and certainly not for half a decade while I continued to use the account. As I've explained in some depth, hacking is an unconvincing excuse given the hundreds of comments in a mixture of Armenian and English over a 5-year timespan. Relying on lame, technically unsophisticated excuses will only sway those completely naive about how the internet works and drag this out further.
Fascinating! (sorry, I confess, I love the first Star Trek series, and especially Mr. Spock).
I am happily modifying this comment (which I originally posted to the News Press' article about the matter at hand).
I'm glad to see that a number of people are questioning the reasons for the original tipster's choice of anonymity.
Why would any person who is incensed at the language used want to hide? I wonder whose MO this might be?
It's beyond obvious that campaign season has a little, teeny, tiny, bit to do with it, right Laura Friedman, her supporters, and any other candidates who might jump on this bandwagon?
Scott, thank you for your comments at Anonymous 3/8 10:36. Now that you're so open minded, I would also like to point out that the posts don't show to what Zareh was responding. Sometimes we react to others using bad language by using bad language ourselves. Why isn't there any information about what the videos were about or what others said that may have triggered such dialogue. Also, these posts were years ago. What about Zareh's record of community service. If we were to exclude from politics all politicians who use foul language and or offensive language, we wouldn't have anyone left. Let's judge him on how he handles this and what he has done in our community. Anonymous 3/8 10:36
There is no question that the attempt to portray Zareh as a werewolf: model citizen by day and Internet troll by night may give Laura Friedman a slight advantage. The reality is that the Anonymous informant's calculated leak is not Friedman's style. Gatto operatives have used Google optimized blogs with false information before. Gatto needs to reign his people in and embrace his Armenian constituents If he wants to succeed Schiff someday. Waging this type of cyberwarfare is going to get his people indicted.
Scott forgets that Zareh was an ANC activist and that foreign intelligence agencies such as Turkish intelligence regularly surveill the ANC. Virtually all of these youtube postings originate in Turkey and Azerbeijan. It would be very easy to hijack ANC members email accounts. My prediction is that the Anonymous source will find other pseudoevidence from foreign YouTube postings and use it against other ANC activists.
Who here speaks and acts in real life as they do online? Though these comments he MAY have made are vulgar, I can not in any way sense that the man in real life is anywhere close to that. Being a normal guy, and having done similar things in heated debates online, I can look past this. Accordingly, I look for someone who is truly committed to serving his or her community. And I see that in Zareh.
Certainly, I would not expect someone like Laura Friedman to make a mistake like this, since she's a typical career politician desperate for the limelight. Sinanyan seems to be a single guy that believes in the virtues of public service. I'm still voting for him. But maaan, political games of character assassination are really getting worse day by day in this country. How about you people focus on real issues that effect the community?
"simple" guy, not "single". sorry
Dashnaks, Mongols, Georgians, Azerbaijan... These are his obsessions. I would prefer to be represented by someone who doesn't spend his leisure time grinding axes and spewing rage about issues that have nothing to do with this country, California or the city of Glendale.
Anyone who justifies crimes against humanity and insults the memory of the Genocide victims, deserves no respect. Only recently the dictator of Azerbaijan declared "Our main enemies are the Armenians of the world". In the republics of Azerbaijan and Turkey, people are arrested, tortured, and/or killed for simply speaking about the Armenian Genocide. While these governments silence their own people for speaking their mind, they use western democratic values to export hate and intolerance to the other countries. How many of you will ever tolerate someone who would rape, torture your family members -and insult their memory? Since when massacring people, destroying their churches and semateries have became justifiable act? God forbid your family members are ever harmed by a lunatic. How would you respond to it?
I agree with Anonymous 8:55. I abhore this kind of character assassination where someone takes your own words and uses them to paint you as someone who wrote those words.
To what depths will Laura Friedman sink? I wouldn't be surprised if her next step is to take Sinanyan's racist statements and then exploit them to make Sinanyan look like a racist.
Those who are against Zareh have already made up their mind. Unless they installed spyware on his Zareh's computer that tracks every key stroke, there is no way to prove with a preponderance of evidence that he personally sent any offensive messages. There's also the lack of corroboration in his real life: Zareh has friends fron all ethnic groups and sexual orientations. He is also superbusy and doesn't have time to loiter on Dagestani Al-Qaeda websites flaming people. Scott says the messages have tidbits about his life. Scott, there's this thing called facebook. You can look up that Zareh has four kids, is married to an attorney, likes wildlife, Vietnamese pho is his favorite food for lunch. . .big deal. This may be the weakest "scandal" ever. Friedman needs to just defend her record instead of hoping for some salvation from defeat by a dirty e-mail.
Lets not be judgmental on Zareh- I can not believe our congressman will pull his endorsement without further investigation. Good For Friedman and Najarian to give Zareh a chance to tell his side and prove his innocence. If he is innocent boy !! does he have a case against his accusers. As an Armenian let me tell you please--- all Moslems are not Turks. The Armenian Genocide issue is against Turks and not Moslems.
No one can ever "prove" their innocence. The accuser has to prove his accusations. That's the American idea of "innocent until proven guilty." No one can prove a negative. The Tuesday meeting is not a trial. Even if it were, can you find more biased "judges" than people such as Najarian and Friedman who stand to lose their seats because of the strength of Zareh's campaign? If Zareh shows up with server records showing these entries were from different computers than the one he regularly uses, people who hate his campaign will still question the evidence. This is a city that needs to solve its problems instead of engaging in the Salem Witch trials.
It does not take a brilliant mind to determine that Zareh most likely posted ugly commentary on the internet 5+ years ago. If anything, Zareh is guilty of being a bit too passionate with his feelings. That's not an actionable crime in my book, just a stupid indiscretion of youth. (And yes, he should make a public apology).
I've met Zareh and his wife a number of times. They are kind, decent people. Zareh is EXACTLY the type of candidate the people of Glendale need to elect. Give him the chance to channel that passion to serve the public good.
Scott comment that the Anonymous source can prove that the messages were sent from Zareh's home computer. That means that the Anonymous source is either 1) lying and does not have such evidence or 2) has committed a serious federal felony and is not a credible source of information.
There are only two ways the Anonymous source could get proof of what messages were sent from Zareh's homecomputer 1) he illegally accessed the home computer or 2) he hacked into Zareh's Internet Service Provider's server in violation of federal anti-hacking laws such as 18 USC 1030 et al.
Zareh would not have kept the same computer for over 5 years and its unlikely that the Anonymous Source broke into his house.
That means that the Anonymous Source committed a felony by breaking into the server. The Anonymous Source wants us to believe that the data he illegally extracted is credible. That's like a burglar telling us that he has an object that he says came from Zareh's house. Why should anyone believe a criminal? There is no question that the Anonymous source could fabricate, alter and modify any data extracted from the server. This is also why the Anonymous source is terrified of publicity. He is only one FBI search warrant away from jail.
To Anonymous 3:48-
The allegations in the initial e-mail have nothing to do with linking the comments to a specific computer or IP; the allegations are linked to Sinanyan via his Google account, which he could log into from any computer he had access to. The comments themselves were publicly published and available online and didn’t require any “hacking” to view - they were all freely and openly published online under Mr. Sinanyan’s name. Additionally, the connections between the Youtube account and the Google account were all made using information that Mr. Sinanyan himself had chosen to make public in his various online profiles.
Scott, there's this thing called facebook. You can look up that Zareh has four kids, is married to an attorney, likes wildlife, Vietnamese pho is his favorite food for lunch. . .big deal.
Zareh Sinanyan didn't join Facebook until May 2009. There's that darn time machine problem again!
This is the reason why I dislike politics. There's nothing positive in it. All negative. Someone's life gets ruined without that person having the opportunity to answer. Just look at who has to gain from this and you'll find out all the answers. If those comments are true, then I condemn them 100 percent cause they are rude , and wrong. But due process needs to be given, lets not rush to judgement. And the person that put this cite together and whoever dug out this information really has too much time on there hands.
Response to Scott:
Prior to facebook there was friendster and myspace. We all have all kinds of available data on us on the internet. There were even BBSs. Identity theft also existed back then. There may not be a time machine, but there also isn't a parallel universe either.
Here is an article on how the Turkish military attacked Israeli business websites. Its from a credible media source.
If Israel has a hard time defending itself from attacks, how is Zareh supposed to prevent this?
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/147603
IF ISRAELI SECURITY COMPANIES LOST THEIR PASSWORDS TO TURKISH CYBERWARRIORS, HOW COULD ZAREH PROTECT HIMSELF. Please read Scott.
From the prestigious Israeli newspaper, Haaretz
July 21, 2010
Irked by flotilla raid, Turkish hackers launch cyberwar on Israel
Hackers have circulated user names and passwords belonging to over 100,000 Israelis, including those from major financial corporations, government ministries and data security companies.
A number of leading Israeli information-security companies have been marauded by Turkish hackers.
!Turkish hackers have been circulating user names, e-mail addresses and passwords belonging to more than 100,000 Israelis.! The list happens to include plenty of e-mails from major financial corporations, government ministries and data security companies. The city of Tel Aviv's website (shown below , before being fixed) has also come under attack more than once.
Many of the user names were seized in an attack on Homeless.co.il, a real estate classifieds site. The hackers have been trying to steal Israelis' personal information since the flotilla incident in late May. On the face of it, the information from Homeless may not enable the hackers to do anything more than register a false apartment ad in someone's name. But the catch is that many people use the same user names and passwords for all their accounts, including e-mail, Facebook and financial services such as PayPal.
Among the Gmail, Hotmail and Yahoo e-mail addresses were 17 belonging to Justice Ministry employees, 10 belonging to Bank of Israel employees, as well as a handful of employees at the Interior Ministry, Finance Ministry and Israel Securities Authority.
In the private sector, there were between five and 10 employees from firms such as Bank Hapoalim, Harel Insurance, Clal Insurance, Bank Leumi and Leumi Card. Plenty of high-tech workers were on the list: 54 at software giant Amdocs, 35 at voicemail company Comverse, 25 at ECI Telecom, 24 at HP and 23 at Intel. Not to be left out were information security companies including NICE Systems (19 ) and Check Point (9 ).
MORE FROM HAARETZ.COM
Scott,
Why did you remove the post from MIKE GOTTO supporting Zareh and telling all his friends to vote for him? Although poorly written with some grammatical errors, the comment clearly stated that it was from Mike Gotto. Could it be that someone used his name and posted those comments? Hmm... that's interesting.
There was one obviously false comment made under fake name. If a comment is obviously false or defamatory, I will remove it. However, unlike Youtube, where Zareh is alleged to have commented, the comment section here requires no verification or account and allows anonymous comments. And again, the reason that the Youtube comments are incriminating is not even that they were made under the name of Mr. Sinanyan, it's that they were then linked to his verified accounts.
JUST A MONTH AGO ARMENIAN POLITICIAN WAS VICTIM OF CYBERATTACK
Hackers target Raffi Hovannisian’s website
February 6, 2013 - 17:08 AMT
PanARMENIAN.Net - Armenian presidential candidate, Heritage party leader Raffi Hovannisian’s official website raffi4president.am has been attacked for the second time, the party’s spokesman said.
As Hovsep Khurshudyan told a PanARMENIAN.Net reporter, the site was targeted by an Armenia-based hacker. “The provider the hacker used has been specified. Details will be divulged later,” he said.
It’s noteworthy that the website was first targeted when newly launched, with Azerbaijani hackers suspected in the attack.
Go denver nuggets!!! Sinanyan helleh
What is this world coming too. If our hope is to build a safer, more friendly environment. After listening to the city council meeting this past Tuesday. I have decided that neither the incumbants nor Mr. Sinanyan, deserve to represent us. The City Council for without any proof brining this motion to the floor and wasting everyones time and for Mr. Sinanyan not giving an adequate response. I will be voting the all other candidates.
His State Bar member profile:
http://members.calbar.ca.gov/fal/Member/Detail/217103
FWIW
I'm a little late to this story - a resident/homeowner in Glendale for over a decade and a voter in our recent election and I was not aware of these comments - my bad to be sure. These comments are truly vile and shed light on a very real community issue.
Gay Armenian youth are the unseen victims in our neighborhoods. They grow up in a hostile and homophobic family environment forced to listen to these exact type of comments day in and day out. When they reach adulthood very few are able to come out as gay because most of those who have been brave enough to lead the way have been ostrisized by their families. How can we allow our great city to be run by hate spewing bigots? We are indeed acountable.
Post a Comment