Bezos Selfie Controversy Triggers Alarm for Billionaires Worldwide
bloomberg.com
bloomberg.com
It's the same spyware, which Saudi Arabia used to break into Khashoggi's friend's iPhone[2], leading to his killing:
"Abdulaziz first spoke publicly about his contact with Khashoggi last month after researchers at the University of Toronto's Citizen Lab reported his phone had been hacked by military-grade spyware. According to Bill Marczak, a research fellow at the Citizen Lab, the software was the invention of an Israeli firm named NSO Group, and deployed at the behest of the Saudi Arabian government."
I think Jeff Bezos mentioned Saudi Arabia in his post so many times not accidentally.
And nobody should be surprised, if the 33 year-old crown prince made such an order after The Washington Post led the most negative coverage of his country in decades following the assassination of its contributor.
[1] https://citizenlab.ca/2018/10/the-kingdom-came-to-canada-how...
[2] https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/12/middleeast/khashoggi-phone-ma...
While on a trip to Monaco in 2017 I picked up a local magazine and found this ad in it: https://imgur.com/a/kB5veJO
Quite amusing.
I wonder how many companies rely on in-house exploit research and what would be the turnaround related to buying from 3rd parties.
That and he owns a newspaper.
Mark Twain said "never pick a fight with a man who buys ink by the barrel" (might have butchered that quote).
I like to think I'm not a complete idiot around computers. I know a bit about networks and security and risk management -- probably well above the average person on this planet. Yet I'm realistic enough to realize that Bezos likely knows a lot more than me in these areas. And even he can slip up, or get taken, apparently.
I used to think that being knowledgeable about technology and careful in how I use it was enough. I'm gradually coming around to realize that it's more like radiation: there is no completely safe level of exposure.
The story is not that a rich person was gotten -- all else being equal, that's bound to happen just by pure chance. The story is that Bezos understands computer/network security as well as we should expect from anyone on the planet, and he was still gotten.
Like facebook or whatsapp. I would pay monthly if they would stop aggregating and analyzing my every move. Hell, even for amazon, i know that if I buy anything, even look at anything, it gets thrown into my profile and aggregated. I dont even dare to use anything by Google... It may be paranoid, but all these models and their fitting of conditional expectations will force me to conform eventually.
For me, machine learning, especually with these data, in health, insurance, credit and career are seriously scary prospects. Maybe because i am a statistician...
I have money, but there is just no way to escape the profiling. My hope is that when the consequences hit the billionaires, perhaps there will be market for privacy concious services.
I used to be so positive about technology. Now i feel like tech companies and start ups just try to bs and deceive us. Almost no one is honest about what is collected, and privacy statements have become meaningless catch all allowences...
If it ever backfires, like here, lets be clear that amazon, facebook, google and co have only themselves to blame for their despicable and exploitative behavior
I am oversimplifying a bit, but, maybe, some years from now, it simply wouldn't matter if people saw you naked online. Wonder if in Europe cultures where is common to have naked scenes in TV all the time it matter as much.
We should be more concerned about the lives of average people.
Are you suggesting that if a billionaire was, say, kidnapped, you would have less sympathy than if an average person was kidnapped?
That's like saying "You advocate against drinking and driving, but you yourself have alcohol in your house and own a car so you could drink and drive and that makes you a hypocrite". That's dumb.
However there are other actors who are both unethical and have nothing to lose who most likely are taking advantage of these devices..
There's no reason a voice-activated app couldn't play music from my network-attached storage if it could parse the commands.
Aside from being this being foolish, realize that women don’t want dick pics.
A better reaction is, who cares about nudes shared discretely between consenting adults? Leaking them will accomplish nothing.
I'm not a fan of bezos but in this case his response has been spot on.
But let’s look at this for what it is. It isn’t Jeff’s position that he doesn’t care if they are leaked, or that leaking them will accomplish nothing. He very much wants them to stay private and he’s doubling down on legal efforts to try and ensure that outcome. It’s just that his ego is larger than his shame, and he’s damn near biologically incapable of rolling over when another powerful man is attacking him, and that’s his best play given the cards on the table. My take is that having his dick pick posted online would be moderately shameful, but losing to Mr. Pecker, particularly in front of his new love interest, especially when the subject matter being used against him is essentially peacocking for said love interest, would be the ultimate shame.
Make no mistake - these calm, collected responses are purely strategic, and not at all reflective of the full scope of his true demeanor.
It’s the same thing with Thiel taking down Gawker. Whether you think Gawker was in the wrong or not, Thiel wasn’t motivated by charity or righteousness. He simply wanted to bury his enemy and spit on his grave.
That said, reading about Gawker conduct over the years, if somebody's grave deserved to be spit on, its theirs. They operated for years under the model "we can do anything we want and you don't have enough money to sue us". Until Thiel did.
They occasionally do, in my experience. It's really simple: if they ask for one, oblige if you care to. If they don't ask, don't send one. The last six or seven women I've been romantically / sexually intimate with have all asked outright as part of a general back and forth. That's without me ever initiating or pushing that. All pretty normal women as well, none of them were especially kinky or into fringe sexual experimentation; a few were quite shy and still wanted to do it. Anecdotal of course, however I doubt I just happened to meet so many in a row that were interested in that. Rather, I'd bet it's not uncommon with the majority of women under a certain age today (maybe under ~40-45, women that have spent a large part of their adult lives in the selfie era). Especially once you've established enough trust and intimacy. If you're physically apart for any meaningful length of time, that also changes the context. I've done long distance relationships a couple of times and that has always considerably increased the demand for selfies.
This is more a funny generalization to use in a joke about the differences between men and women than it is a true statement. And shaming such tame sexual behavior between consenting adults comes off as prudish.
And maybe you're different than everyone else, but I suspect a lot (maybe even the majority) of adults have taken nude/semi-nude selfies. Probably more women than men, but still.
The poorer you are the more untouchable you are. Who's going to blackmail the bum around the corner.
There's always going to be someone who has an objectively worse life than someone else, so maybe we shouldn't have sympathy for anyone?
"You got raped? Stop complaining, there's a lot worse stuff happening in Yemen you insensitive clod!"