this post was submitted on 05 Feb 2026
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We need to be careful in how we view the latest batch from the files. They contain lots of names of people who were not involved in the least. Bilbo Baggins and Punxsutawney Phil are in there. Lots of celebrities are in there simply because they're referenced in an email, while they had no contact with Epstein knowledge of what was happening.
And if we're too aggressive in how we react to people's names popping up in searches, it gives cover to those who were complicit.
The bash 3.1-beta1 reference manual is in the Epstein files.
https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00315849.pdf
One of the commenters on the site did point out that it's a defamation lawsuit waiting to happen.
Though defamation requires the claim to be both a lie, and made publicly (and have caused "legally redressable injury", whatever that means, IANAL). The tool needs to be run locally, and specifically tells you that it's searching by name and that others with the same name will be found in the results, and that's why it gives the context and lists where in the files it came up.
So the tool itself most likely isn't defamatory, but anyone that uses is better be damn sure that they have the correct person if they start publicly talking or writing about what it finds.
From a distance, it's very hard to tell if it's two consenting hobbits or if one is a child. It's easy for them to find themselves on the list, poor Bilbo.
And how old even in a child hobbit? 60?
I believe they reach adulthood in their mid to late thirties. Merry and Pippin are technically in the equivalent of their late teens when they head off with Frodo in FotR