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Comment by Apocryphon | Hacker News Reader

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?

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That was what Bezos's camp has been saying from almost the very beginning. The news here isn't the suspected involvement of the Saudis, the news is that MBS is directly implicated.

And more specifically the potential exploit / vector used.

MBS definitely seems pretty brazen. I could totally buy him doing this - effectively social engineering Bezos - over negative stories about Saudi Arabia in the Washington Post. Who better to persuade Bezos to look at a video?

I'm a little surprised Bezos fell for it. Video-triggered vulnerabilities are pretty rare and not something you'd normally be vigilant about, as are world leaders acting as APTs, but he still should've considered the possibility that a giant, powerful nation his ultra-influential newspaper covered might want to target him and would have the capability to do so.

He could've asked an Amazon security analyst to open the video in a sandboxed system, or could've just done so himself. I guess it just never crossed his mind that the (de facto) ruler of Saudi Arabia would phish him.

Pretty brazen? Don't forget that the WP reported that US intelligence intercepted comms from Saudi officials discussing a plan ordered by MBS to lure Jamal Khashoggi from his home in Virginia and then subsequently had him cut into pieces in an embassy.

Hacking a phone is small potatoes.

Yeah, I was using semi-facetious understatement. He's very brazen for someone in his position.

Thankfully he is loved by the West and is untouchable, goes a long way when you are a maniacally evil despot with a penchant for torture.

Who are the bad guys again? Didn't watch the tele today, they usually tell me.

One of those countries without one of those Banks.

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.

Not only has the US president declared the press the "enemy of the people", he also has a personal vendetta against Jeff Bezos for hurting his feelings. And he's got a personal lackey doing his personal bidding at the head of the DOJ.

If anything, it's more plausible to have been directed by the President (though it probably wasn't) than for any consequences of these actions to come from this administration (which certainly won't happen).

Is that news? It’s well known that MBS is plugging money into tech in order to move away from fossil fuels.

You’re not going to get any investment from Saudi Arabia that doesn’t go through him.

Everyone needs to know that every Softbank round is essentially a Saudi Arabia round.

I thought it was common knowledge... Masa is pretty much MBS's agent.

It’s unlikely any money you take as a founder these days is free from Saudi limited partners

This is why greed is bad.

When a foreign government does something, the legal system is not the appropriate mechanism to enforce international norms.

It lacks both jurisdiction as well as enforceability.

There is no global legal system. We are not a united planet.

You do have a point here, but it doesn’t hold up when the DOJ has such an extensive history of going after other state sponsored hacking.

The DOJ goes after operatives and individuals - not heads of state or states themselves.

According to this story MBS is an operative. If heads of state decide to become operatives, perhaps they should lose any protections that might normally be afforded to them.

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.

Well, MBS certainly has his own reasons to not like the owner of the Washington Post.

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.

Great theory, except for the fact David Pecker was directly involved and more or less admitted it was a favor for Trump which he had been doing for decades.

David Pecker was, IIRC, the guy who also directed the 'catch and kill' with Stormy Daniels just before the 2016 election.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-trumps-fixers-silenced-sto...

While David Pecker was involved in the brokering of the hush money deal with Stormy Daniels, which Michael Cohen eventually made (and prosecuted for), the "catch and kill" payment was made to Karen McDougal, which was another Trump affair.

It is insane to me that Trump is a pariah for the religion crowd

> Definition of pariah. 1 : a member of a low caste of southern India. 2 : one that is despised or rejected : outcast.

I'm not sure I understand your comment

What weight does that hold when MBS actually killed the WaPo journalist? The proof is right in front of us.

What are you talking about? Nobody is refuting that MBS killed Kashoggi. What I'm refuting is that the Bezos hack wasn't a favor to Trump. It clearly was.

Saudi Arabia has a lot of exiles and so far as I know, it's not murdering everyone who criticizes them.

Khashoggi is was not simply a journalist but a member of an influential family with Saudi Arabia [1]. MBS has dealt quite brutally with a variety of his internal opponents without Saudi Arabia. Murdering Khashoggi was something of a statement that MBS wouldn't let his direct opponents escape to other countries to oppose him.

To be clear, the murder was a horrific act by a brutal theocratic regime, I'm not noting these factor to condone it in any way but merely to give background.

[1] For example, this Khashoggi was a relative of Adnan Khashoggi, once know as the world's largest arms dealer.

“Only a little bit murdery” - op

No matter how I try to balance: "these are people who are killers and venally evil in nearly every sense of the word" and "But they are still intelligent and because they aim to maintain their significant power, they have to act in a measured, limited way that still involved logic and allows most 'little people' to go about their business AND we need to understand logic of these things BECAUSE these people influence so much.".

No matter how much I couch and balance my words, there's always someone ready to jump in with the crude simplification. Frick-off, jeesh.

And to further clarify, the Saudis don't murder exiles, in particular, wholesale. They do murder the Houthas and several other groups wholesale.

Relax I was just joking - I get what you’re trying to say

> I guess Khashoggi must have really annoyed MBS

Or MBS massively miscalculated. I can't imagine being Lord Emperor gives you many opportunities for people to tell you you're wrong about stuff

Isn’t it entirely possible that MBS simply had a phone that was easier to hack than Bezos? That was the first thing I thought of.

Also, how much of an amateur hacker would you have to be to launch an attack from your own personal device?

It was a phishing scheme. It probably didn’t happen from his device, but someone signed into his device after cultivating the bezoar relationship.

Well yeah, that’s what Bezos has been saying all along.

The headline is not that interesting, but the bigger news here is the vector used (WhatsApp, Pegasus), and how the exploit message was sent directly from MBS' number soon after they shared contact information.

Wouldn't be surprising if Bezos rolls out Amazon's own messaging platform soon. In some sense Amazon is already half-way of being a social network on its own now - if they add personal feeds and "follow" they would become full blown FB+Instagram+Pinterest and adding messaging would complete the package. "Your margin is my opportunity", and the Zuck's margin is among the largest out there.

Why do they not like Bezo, what has triggered them?

Or someone/group/agency who was able to compromise MBS phone or WhatsApp account.

There are a lot of possibilities here, what a wild story.

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.

I'm surprised this take is so controversial. Bezos didn't deserve to get hacked and exposed like this, but the hack exposed infidelity. The hack didn't plant fully fabricated evidence of infidelity.

I don't think "I would have gotten away with it!" is a compelling argument, but I'm not a Scooby Doo villain.

The comments about timing, malice, financial consequences, etc., are all fair for making a case that the hacks and leaks are scummy, but the Bezos's are in charge of their own relationship, or lack thereof.

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.

No proof to the contrary either, other than a privately contracted forensics firm's assessment. WSJ reported both angles. Both theories are plausible.

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