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Comment by paxys | Hacker News Reader

There is no easily accessible "black market" for a hack like this. As an average person what is your alternative really? Pick up the phone and call the government of Iran?

It is far more convenient (and safer) to just take the guaranteed ~$10K and move on with your life.

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~10k and a minor hit of publicity. If you’re a security researcher I imagine that this is a solid boost to your reputation.

> Pick up the phone and call the government of Iran?

Would that work? Asking for a friend.

Even if it did, you wouldn’t want to do it. Someone like that can dispatch goons after the deal, to make sure they’ll be the only ones to know the hole.

Have you seen "Burn after reading"?

Yes! I was trying to think of the name of it after making this comment. Thanks.

I've deleted my comment, but will replace it with this interesting discussion:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20651210

It doesn't have to be "easily accessible" to be valuable.

Corporate espionage exists, insider trading exists (and is more common than you might think), there's any number of parties who might pay for insider info (once properly laundered) about Facebook activities.

Why would "the government of Iran" care about what Facebook is up to? Isn't FB banned in Iran?

You forget that intelligence and espionage goes both ways. Iran could use FB in some way to attack the US, just like Russia did, just as it could shield itself from FB.

Russia bought lousy ads and ran some pages like your average boring marketer, hardly an attack.

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