Quote:
Originally Posted by CalTran
I can't help but feel like this report is somewhat backfiring on FIRST. While I do agree that it has been a vital process and do applaud them for releasing every detail about it, it appears to have created a rift in the FIRST community; splitting people into people who want to move past this at god speed, and a group who, and rightfully so, still attempting to cope with what they've faced. This second group, as exemplified by posts from some of the most esteemed members of the community, is a group most of us will never understand, and hopefully never will have to understand. A sweep of both Worlds and a CCA is, or at least should, be every teams goal, and a once in a lifetime event. To have been so close, and have everything seem to have been ripped away by a single person would be devastating to me. I would never be able to find it in my heart to forgive that individual.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that these teams will need time to cope with what happened, and that the rest of the FIRST community should give them ample time to heal at their own pace. When they're ready to forgive and maybe even forget, that is the time we can all look back at this.
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I have a lot of goals with FIRST, but sweeping the competition merely in search of being the highest scoring team over and over is rarely one of them. It's welcome when it happens but I can't loose sight that this is about overcoming adversity. Those other awards at the end are not merely second, third, forth, etc.
I'm not sure how discussing moving forward harms the people that experienced this. There's nothing that can be done to undo this situation. Perhaps award them additional championship winners but that's beyond my ability to offer.
We do not have the logs to determine how far back that particular individual's attack vector was actually used (or whether they were the only exploiter of it). So the other people that almost certainly were denied beyond the Einstein teams will never know how or why.
We do not know if or when anyone used a deauth attack vector anywhere because again there are no logs.
We do not know how many times a robot made it to a championship or even highly ranked with a technical problem that might be caught with more frequent examination, better tools, or more time to look. How many of those teams were denied on the premise that the top level teams are more effectively mitigating those issues? Only to discover these issues remain at the top of the ranks. No disrespect can be placed on any team as this has been the nature of the competition for a good long time. Equal playing field and equal expectation of common issues.
I'm not rushing them, and I don't think anyone else is either, to forget their pain that would be totally unacceptable. I'm merely pointing out that their pain can't stop the world and their pain can't be a good reason to ignore the direction FIRST has clearly chosen for handling the identity of this team or it's members.
This is a tragic consequence, but the pain of tragedy is often the crushingly simple fact that you carry on and no matter how many times you talk about it will still be a tragedy.
If anyone can find a more suitable memorial for this I'll be happy to contribute but not at the expense of loosing the value of the report or subjecting future teams to a closely related situation.