Horse News: Seaquestria Fest Exposing Everything, Scapegoats To Hide Ineptitude

Seaquestria Fest Exposing Everything, Scapegoats To Hide Ineptitude

Seaquestria Fest is exposing everything!

Seaquestria Fest (or SQF) is a hippogriff fandom convention in the middle of nowhere, Ocean City, Maryland. Attempting to capitalize on the open wound left in Maryland by BronyCon's departure, this upstart con decided it'd be a good idea to host their event over 100 miles from the nearest major international airport. That was just the first sign of their ineptitude. The most recent is their exposure of the details of every staff, vendor, panelist, volunteer, musician, etc. application via open Google Document links.

Personal information has been selectively obscured.

We at Horse News were first informed of this particular problem when a member of our Discord server applied to host a panel, whereupon they were shook to discover that after submitting their application they were presented with an open Google Doc link to every other application.

Original video on YouTube

Not much was heard about it up until after HarmonyCon, when Vida found out about it and made a video, wherein he bragged that he found an open Google Drive link to all the personal information. He was simply able to make a copy of everything with just the single, unsecured link. Predictably, Twitter erupted in rage against Vida and Seaquestria Fest.

Was probably the hacker known as 4chan.

Even knowing it was an open Google Doc link that leaked the information, SQF began publicly claiming they were "'hacked' by a disgruntled ex-staffer." Even when presented the evidence that this was a public link that anybody could find and access, they still denied any wrongdoing and placed it all on the head of some anonymous ne'er-do-well. Right, and Vermin Supreme is going to become president and institute his Free Pony Platform.

The truth is the only people who know who gave Vida the link to the Google Drive folder are Vida and whoever this mysterious leaker is. But SQF is on the case, and has involved "the authorities," who I am sure have nothing better to do than to waste their time trying to figure out what smooth-brained individual left a folder unsecured (hint: it wasn't Vida).

But then SQF figured out who it wanted to blame for everything: Their former head of security, Retro. Out of nowhere, the guy who hadn't done any work for the con since May of 2019 received a message from BABSCon saying his services were no longer needed because SQF had informed them that he was "somehow involved in the SeaquestriaFest [sic] data breach." Not only was he let go from staff, but they also banned him from even being a con attendee.

About a week later, Retro received another message, this time from Lunar Solis Corp., informing him his access to the staff BronyCon Slack server was suspended for "inappropriate use of information."

Cons he is worried may follow suit and ban him with no evidence have been blurred out.

So who is this fall guy? In addition to being excited to work con ops at BABSCon this year, his convention credentials include everything listed above. He's been part of BronyCon staff since 2013 and has worked at a number of other cons. So why would he now, out of nowhere, begin jeopardizing something he apparently enjoys doing? Or was it even him to begin with?

All the names are white, MarbleArcher's comment has no timestamp

All names have role colors, there is no comment from MarbleArcher

Retro provided some evidence that he may indeed not be the leaker. If you look closely at Vida's video above (at 1:00), he uses a certain screenshot. Retro also happened to have screenshots of the same time period, which look very different from the one posted in the video. He told us he has never shared these with anyone ever. In his, the names are all color coded with the user's roles as you would expect them to be on Discord. In Vida's screenshot, the names appear to have been re-written and the message from MarbleArcher doesn't have a timestamp (in fact, the message doesn't even exist in Retro's version at all).

So who's lying? More and more it appears SQF may be stretching the truth in order to save face after their huge fuck-up. But they are forcing Retro to pay the price with no provided evidence that he actually is the source of the leaks. Until that evidence surfaces or someone comes forward as the leaker, it's probably advisable to remain very skeptical of everything in this little fiasco. The truth will eventually out.

Oh, and as for SQF? At least one of their con-chairs, MarbleArcher, is now a documented liar according to the recent leaks. You see, when all that racism drama was erupting on Twitter, somebody asked her if SQF was going to ban any of the people involved. She vehemently denied anybody had been banned or they indeed even had a ban list. Really?