ExxonMobil's Alleged Hack-for-Hire Campaign Targeting Climate Activists • Hacker News Board

Re: ExxonMobil's Alleged Hack-for-Hire Campaign Targeting Climate Activists

#31

Post by artificialLimbs » Fri, Dec 06, 2024, 5:29 PM UTC

jl6 wrote: post #30

vegetablepotpie wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We are essentially all complicit. With statements like these it’s important to take into account proportionality and scale. Whereas a member of the public may have been aware of climate change after James Hanson’s congressional testimony in 1988, ExxonMobil had its own climate research division in the ‘70s and knew about the dangers of climate change at-least ten years prior [1]. They sat on these findings and in t…

I am aware, and that behavior is despicable, but I still don’t believe that this puts all the responsibility for climate change on oil companies generally or Exxon specifically. The public at large have known for centuries that burning fossil fuels creates locally systemically significant pollution, and we do it anyway. We have known for decades now that it creates globally systemically significant pollution, and sti…

And what is the replacement to power and heat and cool people if those companies were shuttered?

Re: ExxonMobil's Alleged Hack-for-Hire Campaign Targeting Climate Activists

#32

Post by maeil » Fri, Dec 06, 2024, 5:33 PM UTC

jl6 wrote: post #19

If proven, this should be harshly punishable under existing aiding and abetting laws. On the underlying matter of oil companies being responsible for climate change… the law and the morality is far less clear. We are essentially all complicit.

> We are essentially all complicit

Empty statement that shirks responsibility when some are complicit orders of magnitudes more than others. Even among those not directly involved in fossil fuel industries. This matters. In Nazi Germany, someone working at a screw factory, some of whose screws ended up in military devices, was also complicit. Yet the morality is clear - they weren't sent to Nuremberg whereas others were, for good reason. Even though the war would have been near impossible with no screws available.

Re: ExxonMobil's Alleged Hack-for-Hire Campaign Targeting Climate Activists

#33

Post by SpicyLemonZest » Fri, Dec 06, 2024, 5:33 PM UTC

sofixa wrote: post #3

This kind of actions (alongside Chevron's treatment of Danziger for his work against their pollution in Ecuador) is why: * high level executives must have personal responsibility. They get paid the big bucks, they should get all the responsibility that comes with it. Jail a few of the egregious human rights abusers/negligent killers, and this kind of thing will be taken seriously. Why does a Muillenburg get to walk a…

This seems like a confused analysis. As Enron and FTX both show well, personal criminal responsibility for high level executives and a "corporate death penalty" already exist and get used when circumstances warrant. The decision to use them is just made through a structured system of laws and penalties, rather than a subjective sense of which executives you feel are bad.

Re: ExxonMobil's Alleged Hack-for-Hire Campaign Targeting Climate Activists

#34

Post by Wololooo » Fri, Dec 06, 2024, 5:35 PM UTC

jl6 wrote: post #30

vegetablepotpie wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We are essentially all complicit. With statements like these it’s important to take into account proportionality and scale. Whereas a member of the public may have been aware of climate change after James Hanson’s congressional testimony in 1988, ExxonMobil had its own climate research division in the ‘70s and knew about the dangers of climate change at-least ten years prior [1]. They sat on these findings and in t…

I am aware, and that behavior is despicable, but I still don’t believe that this puts all the responsibility for climate change on oil companies generally or Exxon specifically. The public at large have known for centuries that burning fossil fuels creates locally systemically significant pollution, and we do it anyway. We have known for decades now that it creates globally systemically significant pollution, and sti…

> I am aware, and that behavior is despicable, but I still don’t believe that this puts all the responsibility for climate change on oil companies generally or Exxon specifically.

They should pay, they knew what they were selling and were misleading people now we are in a critical situation because of their actions. Individuals can do only so much and most of the people don't even really grasp and understand the implications of their actions, but gets appalled when they do...

You can turn the problem in all directions, the manipulation of public opinion to freeze any attempt at reversing climate change is actually a crime against humanity...

Re: ExxonMobil's Alleged Hack-for-Hire Campaign Targeting Climate Activists

#35

Post by triceratops » Fri, Dec 06, 2024, 5:35 PM UTC

jl6 wrote: post #30

vegetablepotpie wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We are essentially all complicit. With statements like these it’s important to take into account proportionality and scale. Whereas a member of the public may have been aware of climate change after James Hanson’s congressional testimony in 1988, ExxonMobil had its own climate research division in the ‘70s and knew about the dangers of climate change at-least ten years prior [1]. They sat on these findings and in t…

I am aware, and that behavior is despicable, but I still don’t believe that this puts all the responsibility for climate change on oil companies generally or Exxon specifically. The public at large have known for centuries that burning fossil fuels creates locally systemically significant pollution, and we do it anyway. We have known for decades now that it creates globally systemically significant pollution, and sti…

I'd have much more sympathy for this point of view if Exxon and co had loudly shouted about the dangers of climate change from the rooftops and the public at large still ignored them.

They did the opposite of that, in fact, and continue to do. So I have no sympathy for any oil companies if they ever face any punishment. A vanishingly unlikely prospect by the way.

Re: ExxonMobil's Alleged Hack-for-Hire Campaign Targeting Climate Activists

#36

Post by gruez » Fri, Dec 06, 2024, 5:40 PM UTC

jl6 wrote: post #30

vegetablepotpie wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We are essentially all complicit. With statements like these it’s important to take into account proportionality and scale. Whereas a member of the public may have been aware of climate change after James Hanson’s congressional testimony in 1988, ExxonMobil had its own climate research division in the ‘70s and knew about the dangers of climate change at-least ten years prior [1]. They sat on these findings and in t…

I am aware, and that behavior is despicable, but I still don’t believe that this puts all the responsibility for climate change on oil companies generally or Exxon specifically. The public at large have known for centuries that burning fossil fuels creates locally systemically significant pollution, and we do it anyway. We have known for decades now that it creates globally systemically significant pollution, and sti…

>The government maybe? Whoever gets them, will they shut them down? No, they’ll keep those wells pumping, under some new brand name, because the demand for oil is systemic.

Not to mention a bunch of the biggest oil companies are already government owned:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_oil_and_gas_co...

top companies in the list are Sinopec, China National Petroleum Corporation, and Saudi Aramco, all state owned.

Re: ExxonMobil's Alleged Hack-for-Hire Campaign Targeting Climate Activists

#37

Post by gruez » Fri, Dec 06, 2024, 5:44 PM UTC

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #33

sofixa wrote: post #3

This kind of actions (alongside Chevron's treatment of Danziger for his work against their pollution in Ecuador) is why: * high level executives must have personal responsibility. They get paid the big bucks, they should get all the responsibility that comes with it. Jail a few of the egregious human rights abusers/negligent killers, and this kind of thing will be taken seriously. Why does a Muillenburg get to walk a…

This seems like a confused analysis. As Enron and FTX both show well, personal criminal responsibility for high level executives and a "corporate death penalty" already exist and get used when circumstances warrant. The decision to use them is just made through a structured system of laws and penalties, rather than a subjective sense of which executives you feel are bad.

>As Enron and FTX both show well, personal criminal responsibility for high level executives and a "corporate death penalty" already exist and get used when circumstances warrant.

Hardly. Enron and FTX fell because they were insolvent, not because a "corporate death penalty" was levied on them.

Re: ExxonMobil's Alleged Hack-for-Hire Campaign Targeting Climate Activists

#38

Post by michaelt » Fri, Dec 06, 2024, 5:54 PM UTC

tmpz22 wrote: post #15

holmesworcester wrote: post #10

My organization Fight for the Future was targeted by the same hacking-for-hire operation while working on net neutrality protections. It was really interesting because at the time the conclusion of our security consultants was that the attack was just random commercially-motivated prospecting. Then the Citizen Lab Dark Basin report came out years later and it was clear they were after our internal comms, so they coul…

Any reason you can’t dump an air gapped archive and put it on a physical device in a deposit box? Best of both worlds should you truly need to access it. Or are depositions also a concern? Funny enough I just did a business law presentation on Comcast Corp v FCC (2010). Thanks for doing what you could for Net Neutrality

Nah, the value of having access to 3-month-old e-mails is that they're indexed in gmail, so if someone asks how much we paid for that widget 18 months ago you can get the original quotes in an instant.

Whereas if the data is in a bank vault, you ask the same question and the reply is "IDK, I think it was about $50-100?"

Re: ExxonMobil's Alleged Hack-for-Hire Campaign Targeting Climate Activists

#39

Post by jl6 » Fri, Dec 06, 2024, 6:04 PM UTC

maeil wrote: post #32

jl6 wrote: post #19

If proven, this should be harshly punishable under existing aiding and abetting laws. On the underlying matter of oil companies being responsible for climate change… the law and the morality is far less clear. We are essentially all complicit.

> We are essentially all complicit Empty statement that shirks responsibility when some are complicit orders of magnitudes more than others. Even among those not directly involved in fossil fuel industries. This matters. In Nazi Germany, someone working at a screw factory, some of whose screws ended up in military devices, was also complicit. Yet the morality is clear - they weren't sent to Nuremberg whereas others w…

Where do you think Exxon sits on the giving-orders to just-following-orders to just-making-screws spectrum? And where do people buying oil products sit?

Re: ExxonMobil's Alleged Hack-for-Hire Campaign Targeting Climate Activists

#40

Post by SpicyLemonZest » Fri, Dec 06, 2024, 6:13 PM UTC

gruez wrote: post #37

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems like a confused analysis. As Enron and FTX both show well, personal criminal responsibility for high level executives and a "corporate death penalty" already exist and get used when circumstances warrant. The decision to use them is just made through a structured system of laws and penalties, rather than a subjective sense of which executives you feel are bad.

>As Enron and FTX both show well, personal criminal responsibility for high level executives and a "corporate death penalty" already exist and get used when circumstances warrant. Hardly. Enron and FTX fell because they were insolvent, not because a "corporate death penalty" was levied on them.

Purdue, then, although a "corporate death penalty" executed in response to non-government-induced insolvency still seems relevant to me. The biggest proximate effect of shutting down a company is that all its employees become unemployed, so it's not something you'd generally want to do when there are other options on the table.