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Jeff Bezos's phone 'hacked by Saudi crown prince'

theguardian.com

41–50 of 327 posts

Re: Jeff Bezos's phone 'hacked by Saudi crown prince'

#42
post #39

My gut response to this is "bullshit" Not based on the Saudi's not buying zero-day-exploits, but on them using them from the crown prince's account directly against Jeff.

Bezos is presumably savvy enough not to open a WhatsApp message from some random person, and given the Khashoggi situation (employed by the WaPo, which Bezos owns) it's not surprising he'd be on the Saudi's target list to compromise.

Re: Jeff Bezos's phone 'hacked by Saudi crown prince'

#43

So MBS or someone in Saudi intelligence is somehow behind the leak of the photos to the National Enquirer, and the subsequent divorce of the Bezos?

The texts were leaked by the brother of the mistress. https://www.thedailybeast.com/mistress-lauren-sanchezs-broth...

No, that's what The Inquirer and others said as cover. There was no proof of that, and this article from the Guardian goes into those details as well.

Re: Jeff Bezos's phone 'hacked by Saudi crown prince'

#44
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems unlikely it would be MBS himself pressing the button, but a reason why Saudi intelligence might use his personal account is because Bezos would be far more likely to open a video sent from MBS than from some random account.

But the obvious thing to do would be to pick anybody else that Jeff would also talk to and send it from their account instead. Only the most incompetent intelligence agency imaginable would do an op and intentionally attribute it to their own head of state.

Is there reason to believe Bezos regularly corresponds on WhatsApp with other Saudis?

Re: Jeff Bezos's phone 'hacked by Saudi crown prince'

#45

So MBS or someone in Saudi intelligence is somehow behind the leak of the photos to the National Enquirer, and the subsequent divorce of the Bezos?

I guess Khashoggi must have really annoyed MBS. This has now cost the Saudis at least ten times as much goodwill as all anti-Saudi editorials in the Post and everywhere else together. That, or it was a favour to MBS American friends. The other people involved (David Pecker et al) and MBS do share a few friends in the White House, who also seem obsessed with the Washington Post and Bezos himself.

Khashoggi wrote for the Washington Post, so it wouldn’t be a favor for Trump. It would be consistent with his own motivations for murdering Khashoggi.

Re: Jeff Bezos's phone 'hacked by Saudi crown prince'

#46

This sounded plausible until I read the first sentence. Why would MBS be the one executing the attack, and using his personal account to do it?

The Saudi Royal Family simply do not care and walk around with impunity. They thumb their nose at the law and the world order and think they deserve to do whatever they want. This is exactly the same as the Khagoshi execution where overwhelming evidence and implication, but, play naive and put on a big sham investigation. Just how when Russian agents poisoned the Skripals and said they were their to view a church steeple.

Re: Jeff Bezos's phone 'hacked by Saudi crown prince'

#47
post #39

My gut response to this is "bullshit" Not based on the Saudi's not buying zero-day-exploits, but on them using them from the crown prince's account directly against Jeff.

I can see it. The Saudi's control over their own media means that their population will likely never find out, and the ones that do will support the government anyway. Outside of that the rest of the world is in the perfect place to accept whatever lies the Saudi's shrug this off with. Authoritarianism is on a rise and truth is in decline. Trust in media is probably the worst its ever been. Your post proves it. There would be no impact on their foreign policy efforts even if it were true.

Re: Jeff Bezos's phone 'hacked by Saudi crown prince'

#48
post #31

This sounded plausible until I read the first sentence. Why would MBS be the one executing the attack, and using his personal account to do it?

It seems unlikely it would be MBS himself pressing the button, but a reason why Saudi intelligence might use his personal account is because Bezos would be far more likely to open a video sent from MBS than from some random account.

TFA rather implies that MBS is totally full of himself:

> One observer said the alleged targeting of Bezos reflected the ‘personality-based’ environment in which the crown prince operates.

So it seems plausible that he and his advisers just assumed that they were technical enough to avoid attribution.

It does seem that there's more known than suspicious timing:

> The Guardian understands a forensic analysis of Bezos’s phone, and the indications that the “hack” began within an infected file from the crown prince’s account, has been reviewed by Agnès Callamard, the UN special rapporteur who investigates extrajudicial killings. It is understood that it is considered credible enough for investigators to be considering a formal approach to Saudi Arabia to ask for an explanation.

But then, even if they have conclusive evidence that said file is malware, some third party might have compromised MBS' account.

Re: Jeff Bezos's phone 'hacked by Saudi crown prince'

#49
post #13

So MBS or someone in Saudi intelligence is somehow behind the leak of the photos to the National Enquirer, and the subsequent divorce of the Bezos?

The Bezos's are responsible for their actions, and their decision to divorce, but yes, the leak could have been via saudis...

In the end we're all responsible for our own actions - but there are a lot of outside factors that influence us. The leak appears to have been a significant factor. I'm less interested in the fact that infidelity would likely have eventually lead to the divorce (though if it was privately dealt with it may not have) - I'm more curious if the timing was advantageous for MBS. This is all pure speculation, though.

Re: Jeff Bezos's phone 'hacked by Saudi crown prince'

#50
post #27

So MBS or someone in Saudi intelligence is somehow behind the leak of the photos to the National Enquirer, and the subsequent divorce of the Bezos?

Where's the Feds on this? I don't find it comforting that attacks happening on the US's free press go unanswered by law enforcement. We should be indicting MBS.

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