No Thank You, Mr. Pecker • Hacker News Board

Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#571

Post by ubermonkey » Fri, Feb 08, 2019, 2:14 PM UTC

kumarvvr wrote: post #181

danso wrote: post #4

> Well, that got my attention. But not in the way they likely hoped. Any personal embarrassment AMI could cause me takes a back seat because there’s a much more important matter involved here. If in my position I can’t stand up to this kind of extortion, how many people can? Can’t remember the last time I’ve seen a prominent person post the details of a personal extortion attempt out of defiance for all to see.

AMI picked the wrong person. Jeff, literally, has tons of money, extremely respected in the business world. Forget about the embarrassment, if he secretly capitulates to this, then the real blackmail material would be the capitulation, not the photos. Cause if the owner of Washington Post bowed down to blackmail, every article published in the article will be called into question. And who gives a shit if a billionair…

The whole affair reminds me of nothing so much as that scene in "The Dark Knight" that ends with Lucius Fox saying ". . . and your plan is to blackmail this person? Good luck."

Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#572

Post by jki275 » Fri, Feb 08, 2019, 2:15 PM UTC

throwaway0292 wrote: post #481

samstave wrote: post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the CEO and Founder of AWS can be easily hacked by Saudis then what does that mean for the rest of silicon valley in general and 99% of YC funded startups who rely on AWS?

And that's why there's demand for private, on-premise cloud. Hip startup don't care about your data. Some boring companies do.

Sort of destroys the entire definition of "cloud", doesn't it?

Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#573

Post by JeremyBanks » Fri, Feb 08, 2019, 2:15 PM UTC

koolba wrote: post #563

JeremyBanks wrote: post #559

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you miss the part where Russia was actually listening and did what he said, and he had reason to know it? His "joke" was deliberate treason.

And that's why the Russians took a time machine to four months before that joke (July 2016) to hack Podesta's emails (March 2016) right?

He didn't ask them for Podesta's emails, he asked them for Clinton's, and they got right on it: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/13/us/politics/trump-russia-...

Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#574

Post by ncmncm » Fri, Feb 08, 2019, 2:15 PM UTC

ethbro wrote: post #479

buboard wrote: post #464

Earlier quoted context omitted.

indeed, however the evidence looks too amateurish for a state-sponsored attack.

Watergate wasn't exactly a professional job. Or the Saudi murder of Jamal Khashoggi. Government dirty tricks rarely involve their A team, because when doing something illegal loyalty is even more important than competence.

The ones with self respect decline.

Cf. "Who will rid me of this troublesome priest?"

Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#575

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Feb 08, 2019, 2:17 PM UTC

koolba wrote: post #563

JeremyBanks wrote: post #559

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you miss the part where Russia was actually listening and did what he said, and he had reason to know it? His "joke" was deliberate treason.

And that's why the Russians took a time machine to four months before that joke (July 2016) to hack Podesta's emails (March 2016) right?

[deleted]

Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#576

Post by jki275 » Fri, Feb 08, 2019, 2:17 PM UTC

willvarfar wrote: post #402

jjeaff wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They won't publish them. But I'll guarantee you they will anonymously leak out on the internet. There is no way to prove they are the only people with these photos. (and they of course aren't the only ones)

Can Bezos get a US court to impound the photos? Something akin to the UK 'super injunction'? That would make being caught leaking the photos perjury. The stakes are so high that AMI might well not dare to do that. Its easy to imagine that Bezos, whatever he is saying publicly, is also getting excellent legal consul privately and that two can play at the games that AMI is so infamous for.

He could get an injunction. That would make leaking them contempt of court, not perjury, and the stakes aren't particularly high for that.

Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#577

Post by Symmetry » Fri, Feb 08, 2019, 2:18 PM UTC

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…

Apparently Bezos's mistress's password is in haveibeenpwned.com so this very likely didn't require a government entity.

https://blog.erratasec.com/2019/02/how-bezos-dick-pics-might...

Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#578

Post by jki275 » Fri, Feb 08, 2019, 2:18 PM UTC

kerng wrote: post #245

optimiz3 wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon could pull a CloudFlare and knock them off the internet as nationalenquirer.com seems to be hosted on AWS. My guess is Amazon/Bezos already has multiple backups of the Enquirer's digital assets for forensic purposes. https://twitter.com/ryanhuber/status/1093665718464327680

I'm not sure if you are joking, but that's exactly what they should not be doing. They also can't just go poke around their customer's data. That would be very unwise...

They could easily fire them as a customer. They shouldn't look at the data though.

Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#579

Post by auiya » Fri, Feb 08, 2019, 2:19 PM UTC

jorblumesea wrote: post #299

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…

House of Saud, maybe, they are dumb enough to think this would work. Given their inept handling of the Khashoggi I wouldn't be surprised. I doubt anyone in the US intelligence profession would think Bezos would call off the WaPo because of some scandalous photos. "Just blackmail the richest man on the planet, that will totally work!"

> the richest man on the planet

That we know of. The money coffers owned by the house of Saud run way deeper than many realize.

Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#580

Post by mc32 » Fri, Feb 08, 2019, 2:20 PM UTC

azeotropic wrote: post #503

preommr wrote: post #477

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea, just look at how well thought out the Khashoggi murder was.

Well Kashoggi is dead and MBS got away with it. Moreover, MBS's enemies know know what he's willing to do, and what he can get away with, and may be frightened into compliance. From MBS's perspective this sounds like a success.

It's a cruder version of poisoning your turncoats with Pu. While hard to prove, it has an unmistakable signature that says, "anyone lese want to try"?