Software developer gets $5M judgement against My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell
cnn.com
cnn.com
I especially like these power moves by Lindell and friends -
1) Encrypt one of the files as a test to see who's a bad enough dude to validate the data.
2) Pack / possibly encrypt the largest chunks of data with a tool no one's heard of. Don't provide the tool with the data or say that's what you did, but do include a vague video showing the tool in use.
This data was never meant to be analyzed by anyone taking it seriously. Purely a stunt designed to look good as long as you don't look too close.
My only real question about this is whether Lindell is fully aware of this part of the con or if he actually believes this collection of bits proves anything.
I liked the reported reasoning about file J-15 (Chinese_SourceIP_HEX.txt):
> It contains, according to Mr. Zeidman, only IP addresses and numbers ranking the addresses from high to low. He notes that it is not packet data because it has no packets and no data.
I'm deeply amused by people like Mike who don't realize these people exist. They will scrutinize every corner of something with an electron microscope, especially if the topic is juicy or you're a big enough ass to deserve it.
>signature was done using a completely new laptop computer bought at a store on that day, on the spot, delivered in manufacturer-sealed condition to Andresen.
https://mylegacykit.medium.com/the-craig-wright-may-2016-sig...
8 years of this farce.
The mediator accepted that it was unreasonable to expect contestants to decrypt those files, so they just excluded them from consideration.
Encrypted data is no more proof or evidence than deleted or withheld or never-existed data.
It might as well be an empty file with a note that says there is some data somewhere if you just knew the url to it. That would not constitute data itself, and neither does encrypted data.
An amusing anecdote is that they shared rich text files as hexdumps because "techies like to see things in hex."
You're not supposed to. You're not the target audience Mike is trying to convince.
And when he's proven wrong, it's just more evidence that there's a vast conspiracy by the deep state that's out to get him and the people who believe in the Truth.
Heads he's right, tails you're wrong.
One theory is that the "packet capture" was a disinformation campaign promoted by foreign actors (e.g. Russia) to capitalize on the stolen election narrative that was forming and foment chaos. Imagine a spy approaches Lindell posing as a credible but disgruntled "insider" within the US government, maybe even presenting forged credentials like a badge, government ID, etc. then "leaks" this manufactured data to him. Then Lindell believes he's on a crusade to save the country, and acts like their wind-up toy in the media.
It's more plausible to me that Lindell sincerely believes his narrative and was taken advantage of rather than he's an intentionally malicious character. Or perhaps that's how it started, and he's too embarrassed or hard-headed to admit being fooled. Seems like if that was the case, the NSA or CIA should step in and brief him, then give him a graceful exit in exchange for publicly admitting he was wrong. If Lindell is also compromised by blackmail or extortion, then things get more complicated.
Montgomery has a history of cons. During the war on terror, Montgomery claimed he had software that could decode secret al-Qaeda messages in Al Jazeera broadcasts, faked a bunch of demonstrations, and got contracts for tens of millions out of the Pentagon and CIA before the jig was up.
Montgomery avoids the spotlight but he seemingly rakes it in. Lindell even bought the guy a house.
https://www.wired.com/2009/12/montgomery-2/
https://www.salon.com/2021/09/03/mike-lindell-paid-millions-...
Winning an argument against them is great for scoring sick debate points, but debate points don't matter if Panzers are rolling into Poland.
The horse is dead. This new revelation just further beats that dead horse. And the Lindell fans will continue to act as though the horse is alive because they operate in an alternate reality in which the events of this reality do have no effect.
We need to stop operating in black and white (polarized). Some Lindell fans will indeed stop being fans, some will be less of his fans, etc, etc. It's a continuum.
I'm sure you are see as well as I the current problems of today arising from treating everything as Black or White with no shades in between.
The claim was very specific: Prove this data isn't from the 2020 election. All you had to do was actually include 2020 election data in the set. And right there, the problem becomes much harder.
Hell, you could have just used a dump of 2020 election data and been fine. Just claim it proves your accusations.
And that's probably part of the reason that they worded the challenge like that. Because it's the easiest one to manufacture reasonably well. Yet they still fucked it up.
I still cannot believe how anyone can believe in the competence of anyone in Trump's political sphere after the Four Seasons fiasco. How often does one have to kick themselves square in the dick before people start wondering if they're not the sharpest bulb in the box?
The core of the arbitration decision is that "election data" specifically meant "packet captures of machines related to the election," relying on the fact that pretty much everyone (sans Lindell) understood that that was the kind of data they expected to have. Lindell instead had a tactic of relying on him being the ultimate arbiter of what satisfied "election data" as an ultimate get-out-of-jail-free card (which likely could have run afoul of other good-faith laws, although arbitration didn't analyze that point because they didn't need to go that far).
It's really surreal to remember how unstrange it was at that point. Hair dye dripping down Guiliani's face as spearheaded a blatant lie everyone knew was a lie whilst trying to overturn an election. Just completely insanity all around, and yet, it didn't feel that far off from everything that had preceded it. Just the frog getting a little hotter.
Nah.
But, like, maybe.
Sharpness is relative.
At 40 I'm definitely not as sharp as I was at 20. I mean... Give me a leetcode challenge today, and I'll flunk a lot of them.
I just hope that some kid got their college paid for, by selling this crap to Mike in the first place :D