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No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

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Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#621

Post by doktrin »

petercooper wrote: post #6
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.

I think another interesting thing about these times, compared to when such things may have happened 20+ years ago, is that the photos they've described would cause rather little outrage or attract much beyond a few giggles from the public. Especially if released after their existence is already known about. I think the iCloud leaks of 2014 severely tempered society's salacious demand for more pictures of this nature.

Yeah, AMI really seems to be operating with an outdated world view here, whereas Bezos correctly assessed that the public at large will be more impressed by the act of standing up to a blackmail attempt than they're concerned about his marital fidelity. AMI's going to get dunked hard : being simultaneously amoral and stupid makes them the easiest target in the world.

Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#622

Post by CloudNetworking »

belorn wrote: post #509
CloudNetworking wrote: post #493

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

>>> "Bezos apparently believes that he was hacked" Hacking implies a sophisticated attack. Not saying either government didn't do it. Following paxys line of thought I would however agree that hacking is not the most likely explanation in how the private data was taken. Social engineering is sometimes also described as an "hack" but I doubt that is what Bezos implies with the word.

> Hacking implies a sophisticated attack.

Depends on the audience I guess. The big majority of hacks are not sophisticated at all. There's also so many people that use it without an implication on the grade of sophistication.

But one thing is true, we can't possibly know for certain his intentions by using that word :-) so these are just our opinions for now :-)

Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#623

Post by ineedasername »

mc32 wrote: post #604
ineedasername wrote: post #593

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't claim he doesn't mean what he says literally after he shut down the government quite clearly over a literal wall he wants built. Or has harangued the Justice Department in public over not going after Hillary Clinton as an extension of his "Lock her up" campaign. Or his attempt to literally repeal & replace Obama Care. Regardless of whether you're pro or con on these and all of his other policy statements, i…

I think you’re mixing remarks with his stated policies. Policies they published during the campaign. Remarks are comments. That said, for politicians there is a certain fluidity in meaning. “I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it.”

I don't think you can separate what he says about his policies from the actual policies. They are part of a whole. "fluidity in meaning" is another way of saying they don't mean what they say. That doesn't mean they don't intend what they say to be taken literally. I don't buy the idea that people vote for candidates thinking "I know he/she was just making empty promises." The public may accept that politicians aren't always able to deliver on their promises, but not that the promises themselves were just some vague metaphorical allusion with no real intent behind them.

Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#624

Post by notfromhere »

cstross wrote: post #498
gyaniv wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 w…

They don't just give the Saudi's an unfiltered tap into five eyes surveillance. This is just spreading misinformation

Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#625

Post by gdubs »

cstross wrote: post #498
gyaniv wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 w…

Except Lauren Sanchez is a fairly well known news anchor, and not “some low profile woman”, unless I’m reading you wrong?

Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#626

Post by ncmncm »

cstross wrote: post #515
sgt101 wrote: post #506

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No no no. The UK has laws that facilitate surveillance of its citizens. The UK spying on US citizens in the USA is something that I would put into a risk category two (more??) orders of magnitude above brexit or suez. I'm sorry, but it would be lunatic recklessness, and to what advantage?

UKUSA treaty: goes back to 1945, GCHQ is used by the NSA as a convenient work-around for restrictions on domestic surveillance. This was all documented by James Bamford in his histories of the NSA, "Inside the Puzzle Palace" and "Body of Secrets". (You're looking at the present-day for context, but these agencies run on protocols that have built up over many decades, dating back to the Cold War.)

Hi Charlie! It's getting increasing difficult for fiction to stay ahead of reality.

I would welcome your conjectures on how the spooks controlled Obama. His enduring legacy may be heavy use of the Espionage Act to prosecute whistleblowers, and a radical expansion of "death from the sky", which seem incompatible with his personality, creating a mystery: What leverage did/do the spooks have on him?

Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#627

Post by mcguire »

forgingahead wrote: post #583
mc32 wrote: post #530

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think he’s just implying they have more competence than the FBI in finding alleged missing emails. His comms is very non literal -and people take him literally. His whole campaign was off hand blue collar jokey remarks. Pundits understood him literally, so they failed to understand him at all. His nomination competitors also saw him in this light and ultimately failed. Mostly, J think they failed to understand his…

Why is the HN echo chamber downvoting you? /s

Because what mc32 is doing is a rather cheap rhetorical tactic: asserting that, when Mr. Trump says something I (for the appropriate I) like, he is to be believed, but when he says something unappealing or rediculous, he's joking. It's a relative of the "no true Scotsman".

It's also a bit of a problem for a representative government, since it means you cannot take any of Trump's statements as a forecast of his policies.

Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#628

Post by kall1sto »

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…

Also, naked selfies have somewhat become normal in the smartphone age. It's nothing you can shock anybody with anymore...

Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#629

Post by doktrin »

sobani wrote: post #612
zrail wrote: post #495

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Which of the sample headlines I gave would not cause outrage you think? Maybe the last one will 'only' cause you to lose the respect and thereby business deals of your peers.

Outrage? I doubt it, frankly. Max Mosley was literally filmed in 2008 having a BDSM orgy with hookers dressed up in Nazi regalia and even then the reaction was more muted than not. To the extent there was a public outcry it stemmed entirely from the Nazi themes more than the sexual acts themselves. Personally I give that a pass as well, but understand why it would ruffle feathers.

Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#630

Post by mc32 »

everdev wrote: post #618
mc32 wrote: post #530

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think he’s just implying they have more competence than the FBI in finding alleged missing emails. His comms is very non literal -and people take him literally. His whole campaign was off hand blue collar jokey remarks. Pundits understood him literally, so they failed to understand him at all. His nomination competitors also saw him in this light and ultimately failed. Mostly, J think they failed to understand his…

> His comms is very non literal If that argument held any water we'd have to erase all attempted communication-based crimes: blackmail, libel, bribery, etc. "Yes, my Email said I wanted to blackmail Jeff Bezos, but I wasn't being literal your honor" -> "OK, you're free to go" Sorry, words matter especially when they have consequences and impact people's lives.

Let's put it this way, if he wanted to command the GRU to do some work for him, would he not be better off going though his channels rather than making on off-hand remark in front of an audience?

I'm sure he could use steganography to signal this or that, if need be.

I mean, come on, are you going to say Waters was "threatening" here: "I did not threaten [Trump] constituents and supporters. I do that all the time, but I didn't do that that time," Waters said to laughter from a crowd in Los Angeles."

You have to take context into consideration.

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