The more I have read about this, the more disgusted I am. This company generally, and the CEO personally, took all sorts of shortcuts to build this thing.
The CEO stated that he didn't want to have any ex military submarine experts as part of the team, because they were "uninspiring" and "50 year old white guys", and he'd rather have young college grads who are inspiring. The real reason: the college grads were simply cheaper. He didn't want to pay the ex military experts. That's it.
The CEO lied to CBS news in their CBS Sunday morning report and told them that Boeing and University of Washington consulted with them on the design of the submersible. Both organizations told the NY Post today that they had no involvement with it. So that was a fucking lie. All he did was use the UW lab after hours.
The use of a Logitech PS3 style controller to navigate the vehicle...what the actual fuck.
Because this was a submersible in international waters, there are virtually no regulations. That needs to change. If the UN needs to draft a treaty for countries to ratify to regulate these things in international waters, then that's what needs to happen.
Djokkum, did you see that Beehaw just defederated with us?
Edit: I just saw your post about the bot signups a few days ago. I think this was the driving force behind the defederating. But it sounds like you already have resolved the issue with removals and captcha. Beehaw said in their post that admins can email them to discuss, so maybe you can persuade them to refederate us since you've taken countermeasures against the bots?