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It seems unlikely it would be MBS himself pressing the button, but a reason why Saudi intelligence might use his personal account is because Bezos would be far
by caf 7y ago
It seems unlikely it would be MBS himself pressing the button, but a reason why Saudi intelligence might use his personal account is because Bezos would be far more likely to open a video sent from MBS than from some random account.
- lawnchair_larry 7y agoBut the obvious thing to do would be to pick anybody else that Jeff would also talk to and send it from their account instead. Only the most incompetent intelligence agency imaginable would do an op and intentionally attribute it to their own head of state.
- ceejayoz 7y agoIs there reason to believe Bezos regularly corresponds on WhatsApp with other Saudis?
- lawnchair_larry 7y agoWhy would it have to come from another Saudi?
- ceejayoz 7y agoIt has to come from an account a) Bezos trusts enough to read and open attachments from, b) an account Saudi intel has access to, and c) an account that's not gonna go "hey ignore that, I got hacked". That’s likely to be a small set.
- angry_octet 7y agoBingo. They really are the most inept.
- mirimir 7y agoTFA rather implies that MBS is totally full of himself: > One observer said the alleged targeting of Bezos reflected the ‘personality-based’ environment in which the crown prince operates. So it seems plausible that he and his advisers just assumed that they were technical enough to avoid attribution. It does seem that there's more known than suspicious timing: > The Guardian understands a forensic analysis of Bezos’s phone, and the indications that the “hack” began within an infected file from the crown prince’s account, has been reviewed by Agnès Callamard, the UN special rapporteur who investigates extrajudicial killings. It is understood that it is considered credible enough for investigators to be considering a formal approach to Saudi Arabia to ask for an explanation. But then, even if they have conclusive evidence that said file is malware, some third party might have compromised MBS' account.