Lee Odess On Dealing With Demons, Being Hurt By "His Parents, A Family Member", Vows "An Army Of People Working Overtime" Against IPVM

I am now and forever convinced you are such a jerk John.

Now, how about that pending Hanwa test?

Man this whole thing unfolded real quick.

I have been legit bullied in my life, from elementary school through into adulthood, so I find it hard to sympathize with Janet or Lee. Yeah I've already said the comment John made probably should not have been made, but damn, for it to spawn all this?

To me, this also is starting to reek of "white knight" to me. All these dudes coming to the aide of the hurt attractive woman.

I wonder if John had made such a comment about me, would Lee or anyone else be rushing to my rescue?

It's one thing to address the issue of the comment. But to take it to this level just seems insane to me.

Competition will only make IPVM stronger!

Hey Lee! What are your next five moves?

1. Moderator of his own site.

2. Moderator of his own opinions.

3. Moderator of his own bias.

4. Moderator of his own mistakes.

5. The Art of Cancel Culture.

When did our society become a bunch of thin-skinned wimps? It’s sad that most can’t take criticism, anymore. We have developed a society of wimps that can only call out bullies versus fixing their own deficiencies. If I did a crappy job at XYZ and someone called me out, I’d take the opportunity to look in the mirror and fix what I did at XYZ so that I don’t repeat it at ABC. The deflection and lack of accountability by crying bully is becoming to common place.

I respect Lee Odess, but starting a new platform is hard. In order to challenge the original platform, he will need a significant number of influential community members (maybe some employees?) to switch over.

But I am a fan of competition. If competition forces IPVM to improve, then that's a win. Or if Lee's platform gets just as good at testing and reporting, but without the petty controversies, maybe I'd switch over (if I could stand the boredom :P).

Purchasing hardware for testing is expensive and takes additional purchases (switches, cabling, cameras, work bench, ladders, etc) that will quickly add up to a lot of money. How is that purchasing funded? Then you still need software, and VMS's licensing can add up quickly as well. Servers to run everything aren't cheap if you want it to be stable. Where are these going to be installed at and how do you pay to keep them running for an extended test?

I use my house as a personal workbench/demo/playground/whatever and even then these costs add up. None of this factors in labor or salaries either!

Two other things from the exchange. We should all have Lee's self-confidence, he said to me:

This is an industry fed up and not willing to stay silent anymore to your cyber bullying and tactics.

turn a corner to being a reputable resource leading the industry and stop it

I am well aware, for many years, that IPVM has many detractors and that my name is a swear word among many executives. But for Lee to declare an industry as a whole shows a lack of understanding of 'an industry'. SIA, sure, but the industry is much bigger...

Lee alleges that I feel 'empowered by all the citations' but that was me responding to him about IPVM not being a reputable resource, where I noted:

In your most recent email, you declare "turn a corner to being a reputable resource leading the industry and stop it". However, IPVM is the industry's most cited resource (NYTimes, WSJ, WaPo, CNN, Reuters, etc., et.c) and it's not close (SIA, The Inside, all other industry publications together have fewer citations than us). Surely you are free not to like us but, by the common understanding of reputable, IPVM clearly is that. Thus, you likely have some other definition of reputable and I would welcome you sharing what it is so we can understand what specifically we have done that is not in line with that.

Lee's response:

Oh John. So sad. It’s even worse than I thought.

JH,

Why do we need to know about your conversation with Lee or janet?

Is he allowed to raise an army? What is the pay scale, benefits? How do I earn a rank and promotion? Can I get USAA coverage if I sign up?

I do have some experience but my Sergeant did not fair as well...

UPDATE:

Lee Odess has now blocked me on LinkedIn:

Now, Odess can continue to attack my parents and lead his anti-IPVM Army without me seeing it.

I would call this high school level tactics but I feel that would be unfair to high school students.

Rather hypocritical. So instead of beating you and taking the higher road, he joined you in making personal attacks and even bringing your family into it. I would have had much more respect for him if he would have taken the higher road. Now, he sounds like an angry millennial and cancel culture fan claiming bullying. Hard to make a point when you are stooping as low as the person you are claiming wronged someone.

This doesn't surprise me. John has long penned deliberately inflammatory and personally-directed "hit pieces" here, none of which I find professional or ethical. If you want to talk about bullying, IPVM's journalism style most assuredly fits that description in many cases. Frequently individuals within an organization are targeted for a microscopic examination of their lives and systematically picked apart, then posted publicly for tarring and feathering in the name of "transparency".

When John receives flak however, all of the sudden it's unacceptable. A fairly benign slight (seriously, if you find what Lee wrote to be highly offensive you should probably just get off the internet) is suddenly an unethical personal attack against him and his family. You would think John's folks were stalked on social media and threatened with death the way he's written it. If ever there was a scenario that epitomized hypocrisy in outrage culture, this is it. John expects the industry to have a thick skin when he's on the attack but not vice versa.

I've long complained about this aspect of the site and honestly, I have zero sympathy for John. You want to be a rabble rouser you should expect return fire. This kind of pathetic bickering masquerading as news is not what I pay a subscription for.

John,

I think you are a massive jerk and I wouldn't have it any other way!

My initial interest in IPVM is because you weren't compromised the way so much of the US Security trade press is, thanks to its reliance on advertisers. The CEO of one of the software vendors with whom we do business is a prolific liar and his utterly dishonest press releases get run verbatim and without question in trade mags, sucking in new customers who may take it (and the ubiquitous tradeshow awards) at face value.

In a world where online reviews are treated like an SEO exercise it's refreshing to have someone else providing real world assessment such that buyers can make informed choices rather than rolling the dice and taking a chance on vendor scruples.

Keep it up.

P.S. I'm kinda a jerk too.

Lee just sent me another unsolicited email:

Also, yesterday, he expanded his bully campaign, saying he stayed at a Holiday Inn read an article, applied it to me, calling out Machiavellianism, psychopathy, sadism, and narcissism:

Thanks for sharing all that John. If I see anything from him on LinkedIn, Twitter etc., I'll be sure to forward it to you so you can add it to your file which I trust you've titled "Crazy stuff from Lee". I have such a file on a similar situation in my own experience. The guy goes on the attack almost on schedule to the day once a year (he's due again in October) but its all bluster, he never follows through on the "rolling billboards driving past all our customer sites" (these will supposedly advertise what a fraud & thief we are) or one of my personal favorites "all of my (his) famous friends with a lot of money will come after you (me)". Still waiting to fill my autograph book with those famous signatures! I'm sure your Lee Odess will be the same.

Someone posted a new thread suggesting: John Honovich And Lee Odess Public Zoom Debate...

Copying my response there below:

Sigh...

Lee has repeatedly invited / challenged me to be on his YouTube channel, e.g., saying that I put my powers to evil and that I am 'puffy chest and smart' behind my 'keyboard':

Lee is not criticizing in good faith, given his ongoing ad hominem attacks, what would a conversation like that be, Lee asks "Why are you such a [bully | narcissist | sadist | psychopath]? and then I need to defend myself while he yells at me.

He's been looking for this for months, e.g. back in March:

I get it. He has a YouTube channel, virtually no one watches it and as he has tasted this week that attacking me is his best way to get attention.

Instead of participating in Lee's stunts, I am going to focus on continuing building IPVM.

This conversation has officially jumped the shark. When I read anything on it now, the theme from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly plays in my mind.

I have no skin in this game, let me start with that. On the surface this looks like another BS "look at me" attempt by one party with intent to dishonor and steal credence from another. If someone thinks they can do a better job than IPVM then just do it. No need for the hoopla and song and dance. The drama alone has gone too far, If you turn this into anything other than what John said, which was very specific, then shame on you. If you want to be a hero and save the world, quit your current job and join the Red Cross or become a missionary, otherwise people like me have zero tolerance for those simply seeking attention at the expense of others. If you want to be drama laden then move to Hollywood and become an actor. This attention seeking behavior has become more contagious then COVID-19. John, just keep doing what you do. Why am I posting undisclosed? Because way too many of you need to move to Hollywood.

Lee Odess and Group 337 are done. He and his few co-workers have now got jobs at Latch.