No Thank You, Mr. Pecker • Hacker News Board

Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#361

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Feb 08, 2019, 7:32 AM UTC

slavik81 wrote: post #270

elliekelly wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It only needs to be “something of value”... often money, but I think most reasonable people can see the potential value of the requested statement from Jeff Bezos. Now if AMI wanted you or I to say those statements I’m not sure how valuable they’d be.

To elaborate, "something of value" is the language from the federal law. Under Washington state law, blackmail explicitly includes demands for services. I would think that the demand for a public statement would qualify, however, I'm not a lawyer, and this case is unusual enough that I would not be confident in my personal interpretation of the law.

[deleted]

Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#362

Post by int_19h » Fri, Feb 08, 2019, 7:32 AM 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…

Looking at descriptions of those photos, I honestly don't understand why it's even such a big deal. And I suspect that it's not nearly as big of a deal to Bezos as the blackmailers thought it would be. Perhaps a little projection at play.

Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#363

Post by kumarvvr » Fri, Feb 08, 2019, 7:33 AM UTC

sonnyblarney wrote: post #354

kumarvvr wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am curious, if you were in Jeff Bezos place what would you do? I mean, what would you do after you get that email from NE lawyer?

I said in my post I would probably make a carefully worded statement through a spokesperson for the public record, possibly including the email, and avoid in any way creating something the press or anyone else could buy into as clickbait narrative. Stay out of the public eye entirely, no photos, personal quotes, attacks etc.. Bezos will not win if this blows up. He'll win in the eyes of a few people, and lose in othe…

>He'll win in the eyes of a few people, and lose in others, and it will only create a stain on his record.

This will happen even if he does what you said.

> Think of the legacy of Bill and Melinda Gates. It's relatively unscathed.

Yeah, that's because they did not do anything wrong. Here, Jeff cheated on his wife and he is facing the consequences. BTW, Bill gates was very much reviled during the early Microsoft days. People tend to see beyond his past actions due to his tremendously useful social work he has undertaken since he left MS.

Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#364

Post by romanovtexas » Fri, Feb 08, 2019, 7:34 AM UTC

buboard wrote: post #178

romanovtexas wrote: post #21

Slightly off topic, but the fact that the world's richest man who owns a tech giant chose to publish this on a closed platform like Medium should be worrisome for the future of the open web. On the other hand, this might just be the biggest brand endorsement for Medium till date.

for all its faults medium is not a closed garden

It has a paywall, forces users to have an account to read the stories published on the platform. It's not a champion of the open web, either.

http://scripting.com/liveblog/users/davewiner/2016/01/20/090...

Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#365

Post by danhak » Fri, Feb 08, 2019, 7:36 AM 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…

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...

Strange times we're living in.

Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#366

Post by kumarvvr » Fri, Feb 08, 2019, 7:39 AM UTC

int_19h wrote: post #362

kumarvvr wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Looking at descriptions of those photos, I honestly don't understand why it's even such a big deal. And I suspect that it's not nearly as big of a deal to Bezos as the blackmailers thought it would be. Perhaps a little projection at play.

It's a big deal because buckling to blackmail will hurt his credibility immensely more.

I think AMI was looking forward to either damage WaPo or want JB to relinquish control of it. The game is WaPo, not JB.

Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#367

Post by m0zg » Fri, Feb 08, 2019, 7:40 AM UTC

With iPhones on both ends, I'm having a hard time believing the "hack" accusation. Apple has learned their lessons from The Fappening debacle, and you you can't as much as sneeze without triggering 2FA if you're accessing stuff from the device not already tied to the user.

More likely this was leaked either by Sanchez herself or by someone who had access to her Apple Photos photostream (such as on e.g. a Mac or a shared iPad) where all of this stuff would pop up unless they were using something like WhatsApp with "save images" setting set to off.

Less sophisticated users probably don't even know this setting exists, and it's on by default.

Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#368

Post by gbear605 » Fri, Feb 08, 2019, 7:40 AM UTC

thecatspaw wrote: post #350

toephu2 wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"hacked" by either the US or Saudi government You think the U.S./Saudi government can remotely grab pics from an iPhone? Apple has disclosed lots of security info saying even they cannot do this. The iPhone/iOS wasn't built in that way. I think the leak likely comes from someone close to Ms. Sanchez, or she fell victim to a phishing attack (or account recovery hack).

Remember the fappening? It doesnt need to be remote grabbing, people just upload their nudes to the icloud. Maybe jeff did as well. While apple says they are end to end encrypted, I also assume they work with the FBI/whoever to catch owners of illegal content, so they probably would have a way to get the unencrypted content.

The “fappening” was done by phishing, not a direct hack on iCloud servers.

Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#369

Post by int_19h » Fri, Feb 08, 2019, 7:41 AM UTC

bayesian_horse wrote: post #240

At some point in the future we will look back at this administration and marvel at the magnitude of criminal activities surrounding this president.

I'm afraid that at said point, we will marvel more with the fact that the people at the center of it all got away with it. Remember Nixon, or Iran-Contra?

Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#370

Post by anxman » Fri, Feb 08, 2019, 7:44 AM UTC

paxys wrote: post #342

kerng wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Blackmail and extortion is 100% against AWS terms of service, so they would be within their rights to discontinue service. I do agree that they gain nothing by doing so.

This kind of defeats the purpose of Probable Cause. AWS would only fight the subpoena if it was overly broad and could materially impact many customers. In this case, I want to see AMI taken down.