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No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

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Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#491

Post by jstanley »

loeg wrote: post #262
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As Bezos states in his post, he already gets tons of crap from Trump and other idiots that he uses WaPo for personal ends (mainly because these other amoral characters couldn't believe themselves owning a newspaper and not using it as a personal propaganda outlet). He's wise to post this on a neutral platform and not give his enemies any more ammunition.

Sure, I don't think leaning on WaPo would have helped him here (and I did not suggest that). Plenty of other papers he doesn't own publish random letters to the editor.

But what's the advantage of that over a Medium post?

Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#492

Post by rsynnott »

fxfan wrote: post #448

Can anyone actually knowledgeable and not just rooting for one side tell me whether it would be illegal for NE to now go ahead and publish the said pics? As of now, all I read from knowledgeable people is that there is no case- as is shown by the fact that mr bezos chose to make the 'evidence' public. My question is- does there still stay no case if they publish the pictures? Or does that change things? I'm assuming…

Revenge porn laws might be an issue.

But, really, what does he have to be worried about? If they publish them, what's the actual harm to him, now that he's said they exist?

Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#493

Post by CloudNetworking »

belorn wrote: post #489
bryanrasmussen wrote: post #461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand, isn't a government entity someone who can get the texts off his mistress' phone?

- '

Nobody said they've used sophisticated attacks to get their hands into that data, though.

Why would a Government agency risk burning a zero day if they can just pay that lady or blackmail her with something else?

Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#494

Post by rsynnott »

sonnyblarney wrote: post #374

I believe people on this thread are viewing this thing in a specific way, and that there are other ways to consider this. 1) I suggest this is not blackmail in the legal sense. AMI, whatever they are - are not idiots. AMI probably knows better than any company in the world what is going to constitute 'newsworthy' items, at least in the legal sense. To suggest they would do something blatantly illegal and criminal in…

> This may actually technically be true. Does Bezos actually have hard evidence of political interference?

"On December 12, 2018, the U.S. Attorney’s Office announced its agreement with A.M.I. "AMI admitted that it made the $150,000 payment in concert with a candidate’s presidential campaign," the press release said, so that Karen McDougal wouldn't "publicize damaging allegations about the candidate before the 2016 presidential election."

I mean, it's not exactly an obscure bit of news.

Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#495

Post by zrail »

sobani wrote: post #441
bitexploder wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100% — Let’s be realistic. Between two consenting adults is there anything non-violent that is truly that weird? We have a few pleasure bits attached to our bodies. Some people get excited by objects (fetishes). When you step back a level, the window dressing becomes laughably irrelevant. You’ve seen my dick? Oh no. You saw me courting another female? Private, but oh, the horror.... it’s just so silly in the scheme o…

> is there anything non-violent that is truly that weird? Weird and outrageous things I can think of that people have consented to: - 'playing' with excrement (Gross! this is what the owner of Whole Foods thinks of basic hygiene) - master slave play (Misogynist Bezos ordered this woman to ...) - cuckolding (haha Bezos isn't enough of a man to satisfy his girlfriend himself)

None of those are weird or outrageous if all participants are enthusiastically consenting adults.

Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#497

Post by yhoneycomb »

slg wrote: post #285

It seems like a lot of people are not reading between the lines of this post. Bezos apparently believes that he was hacked by either the US or Saudi government and that now one or both of those governments are using the National Enquirer as an attack dog against him. That accusation is much bigger than any other piece of this story. EDIT: Here [1] is a reporter from the Washington Post backing that up. The Bezos' cam…

> Here is a reporter from the Washington Post backing that up.

You mean, the newspaper that Bezos owns is backing his story?

Color me surprised.

Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#498

Post by cstross »

gyaniv wrote: post #421
slg wrote: post #285

It seems like a lot of people are not reading between the lines of this post. Bezos apparently believes that he was hacked by either the US or Saudi government and that now one or both of those governments are using the National Enquirer as an attack dog against him. That accusation is much bigger than any other piece of this story. EDIT: Here [1] is a reporter from the Washington Post backing that up. The Bezos' cam…

I really doubt that it was done by a US government entity. Trump is the president and all, but to hack and release (by a third party) the personal information if a citizen (not suspected or related to any crime) seems to me to be something that even Trump or his supporters can't do, the intelligence agencies just wouldn't do it in my opinion. The Saudis seem like a much more likely party to do it in my opinion, mostl…

Nuh-huh.

What happens is something approximately like this:

Saudi military intelligence puts through a request via appropriate channels to the Five Eyes for a tap on some low-profile woman's phone, claiming it's necessary in pursuit of a counter-terrorism objective. This ends up with GCHQ rather than NSA (NSA spies on Brits, Brits spy on Americans, they work at adjacent desks and share info: this is the traditional work-around for laws banning domestic spying) who happily hand over the contents of a foreign POIs phone to an allied intel agency.

Nobody at any senior level has a clue what's going on under cover of surveillance: stuff like this happens thousands of times a day. Meanwhile, the Saudi officer in charge of the kompromat on Bezos now has the dodgy photos off his girlfriend's phone ...

If GCHQ doesn't work, route through some other allied SIGINT agency with cooperation via NSA, preferably in a country where the Khashoggi thing is just another "foreigners doing horrible things to each other" back page story and nobody has a clue about Jeff Bezos' divorce.

TLDR: the global war on terror has given us a global hairball of inter-tangled intelligence sharing arrangements, and these can be manipulated for pleasure and profit by any sufficiently corrupt party who is plugged in to it.

Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#499

Post by pjc50 »

danhak wrote: post #365
slg wrote: post #285

It seems like a lot of people are not reading between the lines of this post. Bezos apparently believes that he was hacked by either the US or Saudi government and that now one or both of those governments are using the National Enquirer as an attack dog against him. That accusation is much bigger than any other piece of this story. EDIT: Here [1] is a reporter from the Washington Post backing that up. The Bezos' cam…

It really puts this tweet from POTUS last month in a crazy new context: "So sorry to hear the news about Jeff Bozo being taken down by a competitor whose reporting, I understand, is far more accurate than the reporting in his lobbyist newspaper, the Amazon Washington Post. Hopefully the paper will soon be placed in better & more responsible hands!" https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/10846274519830732... Stran…

Trump has been making transparent threats on Twitter since before getting elected. Until now they've been pretty empty threats.

Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#500

Post by SideburnsOfDoom »

rsynnott wrote: post #468
cm2187 wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Just blackmail the richest man on the planet, that will totally work!" Given the number of people and media who seem to be convinced without a doubt that Trump is being blackmailed by Russia...

Generally people who think that think that Trump is being blackmailed with something _criminal_ (while the pee tape got a lot of attention, it's actually one of the less dangerous parts of that dossier from Trump's point of view). There's nothing criminal about taking a photo of your genitals.

I would disagree with that, a significant number of people think that Mr Trump is dependant on their _money_ and is ashamed to admit it, more than anything else.

It's a fact that Mr Trump has been bankrupt six times. It's a fact that he has not shown his tax returns. His business dealing with Russia are under investigation.

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