Former eBay employee gets 18 months in prison for cyberstalking campaign | Hacker News Reader

Former eBay employee gets 18 months in prison for cyberstalking campaign

reuters.com

166 pointstomcam77 comments

Impressive how they managed to nail seven underlings for doing it (five plead guilty; two went to trial[0]) but not CEO Devin Wenig for ordering[1] it, instead giving him a $57 million golden parachute straight into GM's Cruise. I wonder if Wenig being CEO of Thomson Reuters Markets from 2008 to 2011 has any effect on the way Reuters reports on this eBay scandal: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devin_Wenig

[0]: https://www.justice.gov/usao-ma/pr/two-former-ebay-executive...

[1]: https://news.bloomberglaw.com/white-collar-and-criminal-law/...

"While there’s no suggestion in court papers that Wenig knew of the plot, prosecutors say his angry emails triggered the scheme, and they play a central role in the narrative spelled out by the government.

"Take her down," Wenig is alleged to have written in response to a post by the blogger."

That would be the smoking gun, but who's alleging it? Article didn't say.

"Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest? With a sword, ideally."

Appropriate quote, love the edit

The same thought occurred. And, even if prosecutors correctly thought that this was a waste of time to take to trial, GM saying nope "nothing here" doesn't, shall we say, impress me.

Yikes, maybe now is a good time to short GM.

I don't really think he does much harm to GM as a board member but personally I like to think I wouldn't have swept it under a rug myself were I in a position to do otherwise.

Is that even a smoking gun? Surely that one text message is not enough to prove that he meant "harass and cyberstalk her" rather than "sue her for libel" or some other non-criminal action.

I just know from my big Corp training manual that things like “crush” and “take down” should never be in corporate communication for legal reasons.

From a “reasonable” perspective, there are two possibilities, both of which implicate the ceo.

1. “Take her down” was enough information, in which case he is at fault.

2. It wasn’t enough information, in which case further discussion was had offline.

I am convinced beyond reasonable doubt that there is no option: 3. The employees thought it was enough information incorrectly and began a criminal conspiracy because they’re just so eager to please.

But enough information for what?

Let’s say they had previous conversations about how to handle hostile media.

Ideas included raising concerns with editors, pulling advertising, raising concerns with platforms/ISPs about “disinformation”, suing for libel, etc.

So yes the CEO is implicated. He’s clearly in the decision chain - no doubt about it. But there’s nothing here about how much was deferred to subordinates.

I guess that falls into the category of “offline discussion” - but that doesn’t mean anything nefarious.

There are plenty of legal interpretations of "take her down." E.g., file a hard-hitting lawsuit.

I will give the CEO the benefit of the doubt that he did not mean: "Take a half-dozen people and engage in a massive, obsessive, batshit-crazy online and real-world cross-state harassment campaign."

You don't think it could have come out over coffee one day?

I have to assume there was no evidence of that, or else he'd be charged too.

Well, no evidence and benefit of the doubt are separate concepts. You can say that no record was made of it, and that it probably happened.

If there is no evidence what exactly are you giving benefit of the doubt for?

"... but who is alleging it? Article didn't say."

Initially the Government alleged it.

The Government secured criminal convictions. Now the Steiners' lawyers are alleging it in a civil case. Wenig is a named defendant.

https://www.scapicchiolaw.com/pdf/Steiner.pdf

See pages 15 and 19.

Rich people don't go to jail.

Mostly because rich people can pay someone else to mail cockroaches to their enemies instead of getting their own hands dirty.

Damn, how do I get in to the cockroach mailing business, that sounds like a good gig.

Join a corp hierarchy and be a pleaser.

You can make a lot of money. Dubia roaches for reptiles seemed in a bit of a shortage a few months ago.

Dubias (where legal) won't breed outside of captivity, so you don't have to worry about escapees.

"Rich people don't go to jail" is a tautology masquerading as cynicism. In a world where nothing happens unless it's paid for, then it follows that more happens when there is more money involved. This includes criminal defense, where more money means more defensive moves which, in general, means a better defense.

For the record, I think this is a strong argument for a world where things happen despite you not paying for them, and to level the playing field (spending) in a few key areas, like legal defense and political speech. Imagine if even rich people were forced to use the public defender; you would see an immediate improvement in their quality!

Rich people are doing eachother favors, nothing that poor people do without connections. Nothing else can help as much though good defense helps as well but even that comes with favors between prosecutors, attorneys and other officials. If the tree shakes off money there is a way around to take. In few circumstances it doesn’t work out..

The "former eBay employee" was pretty high up in eBay security operations and also a former police Captain and they don't come cheap. He's less rich than the CEO but can definitely afford more than the paltry $15,000 fine.

I have felt for awhile that all societies fees/fines should be tied to income/asset level.

“Less rich” - probably about as rich as every FAANG employee reading this.

Definitely a different tier than OP’s “rich don’t go to jail” communicated imo.

Rich people do go to jail. These are just some of the bigger, more famous fish -

John Kapoor, Bernie Ebbers, Scott Sullivan, Jeff Skilling, Martin Grass, John and Timothy Rigas, Bernie Madoff, Michael Milken, Richard Scrushy, Joseph Nacchio, Martha Stewart, Ivan Boesky, Jordan Belfort, Sanjay Kumar, Allen Stanford, Raj Rajaratnam, Walter Forbes, Eddie Antar, Dennis Kozlowski, Sam Waksal, Alfred Taubman, Russell Wasendorf, Samuel Israel III, Stewart Parnell, Chris Collins, Kareem Serageldin, Andrew Fastow, Charles Keating, Martin Shkreli, Barry Minkow, Michael Steinberg, Phil Spector, Bill Cosby, Michael Avenatti, Harvey Weinstein, Suge Knight, Jeffrey Epstein, Ken Lay (escaped prison by dying)

To this list you can add hundreds of bankers from the Savings & Loan crisis that went to prison, and a large number of famous embezzlement cases involving large sums (eg John Doorly, Sujata Sachdeva, Melissa King, Omino Siddiqui).

It's too bad the Obama Admin intentionally chose not to pursue almost any prosecutions after the most recent financial crisis, or you could probably staple many more names to this list. One of the greatest avoid-jail corporate hand-outs in US history, representing hyper corruption at the highest levels.

I assume you're being downvoted for the claim about Obama, so here's a source:

> The Untouchables: How the Obama administration protected Wall Street from prosecutions

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jan/23/untouc...

Not because of the Obama (or Trump or the number of other presidents who have protected the wealthy). The number of famous names is easily matched by the conviction rulings in any given city by those of modest or minimal means.

Sure, but the number of famous people in the world is a tiny fraction of the number of people of modest or minimal means.

For the number of rich people (1%-ers) who go to jail to be similar to the number of poor people who go to jail, every rich person in the US would have to go to jail, simply because there are, by definition, 99x as many non-1%-ers.

> the number of famous people in the world is a tiny fraction of the number of people of modest or minimal means.

That's related to the point I was making, absolute numbers or specific cases are irrelevant. The percentage of convictions (versus cases brought) when categorized by tax bracket, is the second most influential indicator of conviction probability (after proof).

I agree, it's harder to convict rich people (mostly because it's far too easy to convict poor people).

But that's a lot different from the original claim "rich people don't go to jail."

It's like Bridgegate. The way these people become powerful is by being smart enough to both delegate crime and never write anything down about it.

Former director of homeland security Janet Napolitano has actually stated that she avoided e-mails, and did everything in-person of via phone calls (presumably to avoid documenting her actions and motives).

Very common for high level officials. Or low level officials for that matter.

There was scandal in a city I lived in. It turned out city council members were turning off their cell phones and actually talking face to face during council meeting bathroom breaks.

The press was ticked, because they were used to accessing the SMS messages.

The council members pushed back hard - nasty blog posts were written - and the press ended up looking a little silly and spoiled.

"It is the curse of kings to be attended By slaves that take their humors for a warrant"

I've been following this a little. I grew up near the Massachusetts town where this occurred (Its a pretty non-descript suburban town).

So that fact that a big company and high up executives decided to target a very home spun news letter, is just crazy. Its like something went off the rails.

Ars has pretty good coverage.

The harassment was bizarre and threatening: sending roaches and pig masks is just the wierd start: Sending a book on "how to survive the loss of a spouse" is really dark.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/06/ebay-execs-sent-...

more recent:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/07/lawsuit-ebay-tri...

> a book on "how to survive the loss of a spouse" is really dark

That's evidence in some states....

Anyone got a link to the newsletter?

I'm really curious what the eBay execs found so offensive.

Based on the name it would be:

https://www.ecommercebytes.com

it still contains the authors names on the posts and on the about page.

Thanks. If they wrote anything controversial, they must have deleted it. Most of the posts related to eBay are of the "According to Bloomberg..." variety. No hard hitting journalism to be found here.

The comments below each article are indeed salty about eBay, but no more so than your typical eBay seller on the official forums.

I have no idea what got the execs so riled up. There's gotta be something more to this story.

It's stalking and harassment incidents like these that I'm reminded of any time someone tells me they've got nothing to hide.

That's the anti-privacy propaganda working.

More likely it's just people being foolish.

any time someone tells me they've got nothing to hide.

Has anyone ever actually uttered that particular strawman argument to you? I think it may be the second most commonly used one.

It's used all the time everywhere. From the CCP surveillance, to forced police searches, to normalizing lack of privacy in apartment living, the examples are endless.

Yes. It happens a lot when pointing out privacy consciousness to a layman. Not that I do that often, but when I do, it's the overwhelmingly disproportionate response. Only followed by something about being worth it for the convenience.

The answer that shuts people up real quick is to ask if you can post their banking records on facebook, or to ask them for their credit card number and the three digits on the back.

If you are feeling particularly bold, you can always ask them to remove their pants.

People who claim they have nothing to hide just don't realize how much they hide on an active basis.

Not a strawman at all, it's a very common attitude if you are not on HN or in a similar bubble. I heard it in person (verbatim, actually) about 5 days ago.

my mother, my best friend, multiple co-workers and ex girlfriends. Even one person who grew up under the Warsaw Pact, and defected. He would say it, even when he did have something to hide, because he knew that the powers that be could always use something against you. Also known as CYA.

I believe Stalin said "Show me the man, I'll show you the crime."

If this person grew up under that legacy, he knew that they could take anything and use it to incriminate you, if they wanted you gone.

But that doesn't mean you have to help them.

fascinating rebuttal, so because you - a random account - didn't notice it before, it must be a strawman argument.

I don't really understand the utility of going that direction? Like, are you advocating for something in particular such as anti-privacy measures or are really just independently unaware that people would say something while that's fascinating enough to you that it would be a fictional argument that you feel undermine "pro-privacy" talking points

Its just hard to see why it would bother you enough to invalidate it

Happened to me too, and those who told me practically handled it as a conscious tradeoff. They give up some privacy, whatever, they're not doing anything extraordinary, and they reap some benefits.

Must have heard it dozens of times by now. Many on Hacker News.

Interestingly, I can't tell if you mean the stalkers should have less privacy or the stalkees should have more privacy (so they don't get targeted for stalking).

Privacy is a tool. Its benefits can help or harm.

So the executives who ordered this are getting away with this?

They claim not to have known about the harassment and stalking.

Which is a reminder: If you are going to do unethical things, make sure you can prove that your bosses ordered it. Otherwise, in addition to being a rat, you will likely twist in the wind.

"Let's take this offline"

"Just to recap our conversation earlier..."

take the notes, conspicuously, and accompanied by several "come again please, i'm taking notes" if over the phone, ostensibly to make sure that you're doing it to carry the Leader's order in all the glorious details. Kind of James Comey or North Korea style. Years ago, an acquaintance, a former captain of Soviet Army who served at the place pretty intense even during the peace time, had some funny stories how such habit saved his bacon on various occasions and it made me remember that advice.

Yes. Take notes, then send them back via email or some other mechanism that can be discovered later.

I once worked on a startup founded by lawyers and they would do this all the time. Never put things in writing that they might be flexible on later. I hated that part.

Follow up with an email (or message or whatever the medium is) confirming the agreed-upon outcome of the offline discussion? This is good practice anyway, summarising what was said over an hour long discussion can often reveal people came away with very different interpretation of what was agreed upon

Yup, always note your concerns and objections via email and make sure to CC the appropriate people.

It's their job to know

Yes. Even though they were "implicated in some of the text messages captured by the FBI":

Defendant Devin Wenig, then Chief Executive Officer of eBay, and Defendant Steven Wymer, then Senior Vice President and Chief Communications Officer of eBay, consistently tracked EcommerceBytes' reporting, and became increasingly enraged by what they perceived as the Steiners' negative coverage of eBay and the upper echelons of the corporation.

"Natick couple terrorized in eBay pig-mask campaign sue auction giant"

https://www.universalhub.com/2021/natick-couple-terrorized-e...

Yes there's a separate set of laws for the wealthy corporate class.

more detail: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/26/technology/ebay-cockroach...

https://www.wired.com/story/ebay-employees-charged-cyberstal...

I barely have enough time in a week to keep up with emails and meetings, without crashing exhausted at the end of every day. I can't imagine having time in my schedule to travel across the country, send live cockroaches over mail, plan to plant GPS trackers on vehicles, etc.

I have to work on my time management!

Recently my bosses boyfriend got busted via apple messages on his computer for having an entirely separate life AND kids with another woman. He even gave them both the same pet names!

She was traumatized but once she dumped him and was able to laugh about it she was very surprised at how he had the time to keep up both lives. He would even go with them each to visit their families on separate weekends, when he told the other girlfriend he was traveling for work. Helped them both install furniture, do chores around the houses, volunteer coached one of the kid's basketball teams.

My biggest takeaway was "why the heck would anyone ever want to do that, and how would they have enough time?"

Who wants to follow up to see what this guy gets after 18 months of prison for keeping his mouth shut?

> Philip Cooke, a retired police captain in Santa Clara, California

I wonder if such behavior is common for police in Santa Clara... Maybe he just did what he's been doing before, but this time without "qualified immunity" shielding him.

> disturbing packages, including live cockroaches.

I'm bearish on ordering insects to help your garden.

But if you truly find this disturbing try it out, it won't be cockroaches (unless you want an expensive meal for your chickens), but its kinda fun and the package will not be 'disturbing' even if it has creepy crawlies. Some will be eggs and some might be live.

If you have no garden needing attack insects, mealworms can be used in cooking.

Ah the c level got away with it....for now. Most likely these office bullies will be subject to diverse forms of stalking in prison. Prison is a different set of rules, can't hide behind corporate procedures and helpers. Maybe if they have a horrible experience while incarcerated, they might wanna get back at the CEO.

I have read about this case years ago and have forgotten about it, very surprised that this took so long.

"a retired police captain"

Way too lenient.

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