It may not be common, but if it happened once, it may happen again. Hence the warning ;)
WTS Archive
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49
Warning: Watchtower computer dept. registers accounts on Ex-JW sites, coerces people to divulge their personal details
by WTS Archive inwe had a bad experience with watchtower trying to infiltrate our forums.
let this story be a warning for all you guys here.
if you value your privacy do not ever send your real contact details to anyone, even if you trust them (because their accounts could be hacked or accessed by their relatives - and yes, this happened to people i know several times already).
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49
Warning: Watchtower computer dept. registers accounts on Ex-JW sites, coerces people to divulge their personal details
by WTS Archive inwe had a bad experience with watchtower trying to infiltrate our forums.
let this story be a warning for all you guys here.
if you value your privacy do not ever send your real contact details to anyone, even if you trust them (because their accounts could be hacked or accessed by their relatives - and yes, this happened to people i know several times already).
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WTS Archive
We had a bad experience with Watchtower trying to infiltrate our forums. Let this story be a warning for all you guys here. If you value your privacy do not EVER send your real contact details to anyone, even if you trust them (because their accounts could be hacked or accessed by their relatives - and yes, this happened to people I know several times already).
Here's a copy of a post I made on Reddit:
TL;DR: Watchtower officials registered several accounts on our forums, tried to coerce people to give them email addresses, then harassed and blackmailed them about their "apostate" activity saying they will go inform their elders. We caught them red-handed.
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So I'm running a polish Ex-JW forums site, with now over 500 users registered. Between discussions about fading, doctrine changes etc. we pride ourselves for releasing all Watchtower's confidential materials - BOE letters, video transmissions, convention videos and so on. This didn't go unnoticed by the polish branch office. 9 months ago they registered two accounts on our forums and wrote private messages to a user they thought is responsible for the leaks. They even were shameless enough to write him again some time later, harassing him. He contacted us and I've checked IP addresses of the accounts he corresponded with in RIPE Database, and lo and behold:
inetnum: 37.128.89.112 - 37.128.89.119 netname: STRAZNICA-Warszawa descr: STRAZNICA - TOWARZYSTWO BIBLIJNE I TRAKTATOWE descr: Warszawska 14 descr: Nadarzyn ... person: Rzezwicki Adrian address: Warszawska 14 address: Nadarzyn 05-830 address: Poland e-mail: [email protected] phone: +48 608 555088"STRAZNICA" is polish legal name that stands for "WATCHTOWER". And Adrian Rzeźwicki is the head of their computer department, himself being a Gilead graduate (I remember him from one of JW Broadcasting videos).
And here's another one:
inetnum: 91.220.88.0 - 91.220.88.255 org-name: Wachttoren-, Bijbel en Traktaatgenootschap Kerkgenootschap ... person: Computer Department address: Wachttoren-, Bijbel- en Tractaatgenootschap address: Noordbargerstraat 77 address: 7812 AA Emmen address: Netherlands e-mail: noc.nl@jw.org phone: +31 591683555This one was, surprisingly, from Netherlands :o.
I got a permission from the user who was they wrote to to publish private messages he received. Here's a rough translation of what they wrote:
Hi, [username here]! Thanks for leaking that letter, ha ha ha! I had a good laugh when I saw that ;D ;D ;D. I wonder why folks at Nadarzyn [polish branch office] want this info? I once was tied to this organization but I woke up... good that there are people like you who are shedding light on the truth!! THANK YOU A LOT!! REGARDS ;)
After a reply, he wrote again:
(...) give me your email if you want, I'll send you a recording from my judicial committee... ha ha ha, that was funny :D. It was a mess! It was set up from the beginning, they wanted to disfellowship me all along, because I've slept with an elder's daughter... they didn't df her, but did disfellowship me!! and the worst part is that my gf broke up with me because I'm disfelloshipped... But I'll show them... I'll write to folks in Nadarzyn demanding they send me my S-77 form, or else... I have some dirt on them 8-). What you were disfellowshipped for? Email me and I'll send you the recording, here's my email: [email protected]
Unfortunately, our user was then caught off guard and actually sent them his real email address.
They've waited few months, probably to cover their tracks and make him forget those private messages, and then they've started to harass him, thinking they've found his read identity:
Hello [username here], or should I say brother [name and surname, congregation name here] because that's your real identity... :) I've sent you a Facebook message but you didn't respond... It's a pity, because I wanted to talk to you.
It was at this point when our user contacted us and we immediately banned that other guy. So he made another account, using a proxy to circumvent the IP ban, and wrote him again:
Hey [name here], What are you doing? You know very well that apostatizing is a serious sin against Jehovah... In Job 13:16 we can read: “For no godless person ['apostate' in polish] may come in before him”. You were mislead by those who lost their faith, and who do apostate work, as said in Isaiah 32:6: “For the senseless one will speak nonsense, And his heart will devise harmful things, To promote apostasy and to speak what is wayward against Jehovah, To cause the hungry one to go unfed And to deprive the thirsty one of something to drink.” Apostates drawed you from Jehovah... and they will leave you with nothing... Apostates have nothing to offer... Think it through... I give you time until Thursday to go before elders and tell them what you do, if you refuse to do it you can be sure I will inform them...
Again, the account was banned, but after few days they've a new one and wrote:
Hi! So...? Did you talk to your elders? Or do you lack courage and want me to contact them?
In the end they've used at least 7 different accounts to harass this fellow, even posting what they thought was his real name and other details publicly (which we promptly deleted). After gathering all necessary details and proof I wrote a public post exposing them, publishing their IPs and details about Rzezwicki (which are publicly available on RIPE db), the head of computer department (who probably was the one writing those messages because he accessed our site all day long, even at 10pm, which indicates it was a person who had full access to the department even after working hours). I also made sure they've read this announcement and how the people reacted to it by redirecting all traffic from their IPs to this one post. And I know they did read it. They never came back after this.
So... what do we make out of it? Just when I thought Watchtower couldn't go lower with their practices, they did. They have no problem with making-up false stories, identifies, misleading and even blackmailing people just to achieve their goals. I abhor them with my whole soul and will keep exposing them as long as I can. They praise themselves that they follow the Bible, but they probably forgot about a couple of verses, like these ones:
(Revelation 21:8) But as for the cowards (...) and all the liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur. This means the second death.
(Psalm 26:4) I do not associate with deceitful men, And I avoid those who hide what they are.
EDIT: Forgot got add one important bit: We will not leave this like that. By registering several accounts on our forums and circumventing our security measures when we banned them they've actually broke the law. We already contacted them using phone numbers in the RIPE db, and then directly to Legal Department. They've basically denied doing any of this. We told them that unless they write us an apology for what happened, we will take this case to court.
And trust us, we will.
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Ever-changing teachings of Jehovah's Witnesses - probably the most comprehensive compendium about Watchtower doctrinal changes
by WTS Archive intwo days ago a new book was released for download, called "ever-changing teachings of jehovah's witnesses".
it was originally written by a polish jw scholar (who never was a jw himself) włodzimierz bednarski, with a help from szymon matusiak, who was a jw and an elder, and is a result of years of labourious work to compile quotes regarding every single doctrine the book describes.
it covers the most important changes in years 1879—2015.
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WTS Archive
Obligatory Stephen Lett JW Broadcasting video:
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Ever-changing teachings of Jehovah's Witnesses - probably the most comprehensive compendium about Watchtower doctrinal changes
by WTS Archive intwo days ago a new book was released for download, called "ever-changing teachings of jehovah's witnesses".
it was originally written by a polish jw scholar (who never was a jw himself) włodzimierz bednarski, with a help from szymon matusiak, who was a jw and an elder, and is a result of years of labourious work to compile quotes regarding every single doctrine the book describes.
it covers the most important changes in years 1879—2015.
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WTS Archive
Thanks @slimboyfat! I've forwarded those to the author.
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Ever-changing teachings of Jehovah's Witnesses - probably the most comprehensive compendium about Watchtower doctrinal changes
by WTS Archive intwo days ago a new book was released for download, called "ever-changing teachings of jehovah's witnesses".
it was originally written by a polish jw scholar (who never was a jw himself) włodzimierz bednarski, with a help from szymon matusiak, who was a jw and an elder, and is a result of years of labourious work to compile quotes regarding every single doctrine the book describes.
it covers the most important changes in years 1879—2015.
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WTS Archive
@slimboyfat
Did they ever change their stance about evolution? If you have any supporting evidence about that let me know, and I'll forward it to the author.
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Ever-changing teachings of Jehovah's Witnesses - probably the most comprehensive compendium about Watchtower doctrinal changes
by WTS Archive intwo days ago a new book was released for download, called "ever-changing teachings of jehovah's witnesses".
it was originally written by a polish jw scholar (who never was a jw himself) włodzimierz bednarski, with a help from szymon matusiak, who was a jw and an elder, and is a result of years of labourious work to compile quotes regarding every single doctrine the book describes.
it covers the most important changes in years 1879—2015.
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WTS Archive
Two days ago a new book was released for download, called "Ever-changing teachings of Jehovah's Witnesses". It was originally written by a Polish JW scholar (who never was a JW himself) Włodzimierz Bednarski, with a help from Szymon Matusiak, who was a JW and an elder, and is a result of years of labourious work to compile quotes regarding every single doctrine the book describes. It covers the most important changes in years 1879—2015. It can be an invaluable resource for talking with still-in relatives and friends, to show them the extent of changes not only in the first years of Bible Students movement, but also those made recently. Especially when they were changing doctrines back-and-forth.
I hope you'll like it!
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WTS Archive
They do make changes silently. It's not very frequent, but I have examples of them doing that. Even in this new WT Library 2015 there are a handful publications that were changed since 2014, with no information from them what specifically did change. -
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WTS Archive
Multilanguage? It says "english" on the disc. Unless it's english + few others that are common in the US. -
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Does anyone have the original copy of the Awake 2015 Jan before it was changed?
by jwfacts injan used a famous scientist to garner misleading support for creation, quoting rama singh as saying "the opposition to evolution goes beyond religious fundamentalism and includes a great many people from educated sections of the population.
2015 jan p.3) whilst the quote is accurate, it misrepresents singh's intention.
singh continues in the same paragraph, "there are several reasons why facts of evolution are not easily comprehensible by the general masses.
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WTS Archive
It's also funny that they forgot to remove the quote from the audio version. Go to the article:
https://www.jw.org/en/publications/magazines/g201501/evolution-vs-creation/
And press play on the audio player below the article title. You can skip to 0:30 sec mark. The quote will still be read, even though it's absent from the article text :).
PS. They did remove it from the polish language editions, but also - except the audio recording, which still contains it.
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2016-01-01 BOE Re: 2016 Memorial and Special Talk
by wifibandit inpdf.
thank you atlantis / wtunderground !.
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WTS Archive
Thanks wifi for the outlines! There are few minor changes in the memorial outline since last year:
- New opening and closing songs: 147 & 149 instead of 8 & 109
- "delivered" (in context of ransom) changed to "rescued"
- the Lord "arrives" changed to the Lord "comes"