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What amazed me most from the FBI affidavit[0] was the sheer arrogance of these people. Baugh seriously thought he could make up some story on the spot to explai

What amazed me most from the FBI affidavit[0] was the sheer arrogance of these people. Baugh seriously thought he could make up some story on the spot to explain eBay employees being on the opposite side of the country and the police would just drop it. [0] https://www.scribd.com/document/465728291/FBI-Affidavit-against-eBay-employees-for-harassment https://www.scribd.com/document/465728291/FBI-Affidavit-agai...

sct202 6y ago
Also the gall to make up Samoans to frame as cover for their sloppy operations.
- selimthegrim 6y ago
  They read too much Hunter S Thompson
  - sizzle 6y ago
    Not familiar with the reference, can you please elaborate this is fascinating to say the least.
    - stickfigure 6y ago
      Raoul Duke: I want you to understand that this man at the wheel is my attorney. He's not just some dingbat I found on the strip, man. He's a foreigner. I think he's probably Samoan. But that doesn't matter, though, does it? Are you prejudiced? Hitchhiker: Hell no. Raoul Duke: I didn't think so. Because in spite of his race, this man is very valuable to me. Oh, shit. I forgot about the beer. You want one? Hitchhiker: No. Raoul Duke: How 'bout some ether? Hitchhiker: What? Raoul Duke: Never mind. -- Fear & Loathing In Las Vegas
    - selimthegrim 6y ago
      https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1998-jun-05-ca-56718-story.html https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1998-jun-05-ca-56718...
gwd 6y ago
On April 20, 2019, discussing the Wall Street Journal's coverage of Executive 1, Executive 1 texted to Executive 2, "F[xxx] them. The journal is next on the list after [Victim 1]." Uhh...
- A4ET8a8uTh0 6y ago
  We don't often get to peek behind the courtain, but it is hard not to feel repelled by this.
ghaff 6y ago
The arrogance is pretty amazing. That they didn't cut and run at the first whiff of the victims and police being on to them takes a special kind of delusional chutzpah. One thing I was curious about was how the feds got the data from Apple. I'm guessing because they were eBay-owned phones and eBay gave permission but I don't think it actually says anywhere. [To say nothing of the fact that, for supposed security people, their operational security was... not good. Just more arrogance I guess.]
- haram_masala 6y ago
  I was struck by that too. Somehow the feds obtained WhatsApp messages from Apple. Maybe WhatsApp was getting backed up to iCloud, and that message store isn’t part of the e2e encryption.
  - ghaff 6y ago
    It looks from some of the images that the feds had access to the unlocked phone(s). But, yeah, in my admittedly fairly quick read of the affidavit, it wasn't particularly clear--perhaps deliberately--how exactly the feds gained access to all the messages they're using as evidence. (Assuming the defendants challenge how the FBI obtained that info, IANAL but it may make sense to give as few details as possible at this stage.)
    - techpop10 6y ago
      If I read the affidavit right, there were confidential witnesses who may have shared their WhatsApp screens with investigators.
      - mirimir 6y ago
        I was wondering whether Target Subjects whose names aren't capitalized in the FBI complaint had cooperated. But then, the complaint states that most of them are defendants in the Massachusetts case.
- sizzle 6y ago
anon892143 6y ago
Another insider threat program gone rogue... How many insider threat programs at various firms are really being used to implement systemic discrimination? I thought it was becoming common knowledge many Silicon Valley campuses and other corporations use an IMSI catcher/Stringray to capture personal cellular communications of its employees... https://www.businessinsider.com/ex-tesla-employee-claims-theft-drugs-and-surveillance-at-gigafactory-2018-8 https://www.businessinsider.com/ex-tesla-employee-claims-the... https://www.theverge.com/2017/10/3/16408724/waymo-uber-lewandowski-travis-kalanick https://www.theverge.com/2017/10/3/16408724/waymo-uber-lewan... https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-nuvia-lawsuit/apple-lawsuit-tests-if-an-employee-can-plan-rival-startup-while-on-payroll-idUSKBN1ZK16R https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-nuvia-lawsuit/apple... I am pretty sure none of these people used their corporate issued cell phones... I would not be surprised if ebay hired a firm to park an IMSI catcher machine close enough to the home of these people. The reason they felt secure enough to deny these accusations implies they have all done this before.
- ajzinsbwbs 6y ago
  Lots of my coworkers use their corporate phone as their personal phone. There’s a process for porting your phone number over when you get the corp phone. People do it because it’s simpler to have one phone, or just to save money. I would never do this but I understand why someone with a different background and worldview would.
  - ghaff 6y ago
    Myself and probably most of my coworkers just use our personal phones as company phones. Not sure if you see that as different. Also don't do activities on them that are... criminal.
    - ajzinsbwbs 6y ago
      Suppose I buy an iPhone from Apple, and load up a work profile on it. I need to trust that Apple doesn’t give my personal data to the employer profile, and my employer doesn’t have a zero-day to circumvent those controls. I also need to trust that the phone company (or my VPN) provider doesn’t give my browsing history to my employer. I’m pretty comfortable with all of those assumptions. Now instead suppose my employer gives me an iPhone with a cell plan they are paying for. Now there are more questions - is this a vanilla iPhone or is some kind of tracking software installed on it? Perhaps the phone company will freely give up my browsing history to my employer? I’m a lot less comfortable with this. It feels like my employer has legal authority and technical capability to see a lot of what I’m doing on the phone. Edit: > Also don't do activities on them that are... criminal. I’d not worried that employer would get me in trouble with the government for criminal activity. My behavior is a little more constrained by worries that somebody at company could be analyzing my browsing history for violations of company policy, which in a worst-case scenario could get me terminated or cause me to face civil litigation, especially if I were to do a startup.
nullc 6y ago
What I extracted from that is that corporate security people investigating random members of the public isn't considered weird.
- vorpalhex 6y ago
  It's not that uncommon. You have people making crazy threats (which they probably don't intend to carry out, but it only takes one..) all the time, and the police won't do anything but take a report because frankly, that's all they can do. So you end up at a certain scale having to investigate some of these things yourself.. by hiring probably somewhat sketchy ex-military types.
  - packetslave 6y ago
    Yeah, having a threat intelligence and investigations team is very common for big companies. If nothing else, it's probably safe to assume that someone like Mark Zuckerberg or Larry Page regularly get emails or other messages saying things like "im gunna go to ur house nd kill ur dog and ur hot wife" Law enforcement doesn't have the resources to investigate every one of these, absent a credible threat of it actually happening, so corporate security / executive protection exists to, well, investigate.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - pyuser583 6y ago
      Have you read about Zuckerberg’s personal security? It’s nuts. He’s probably second only to the president in terms of security. Considering the necessary exposure the president has, he might be even more secure.
      - packetslave 6y ago
        I"ve seen Mark's security when he's out and about on campus. They're reasonably discrete about their jobs, given that on any given (pre-Covid) day there were probably hundreds of business and personal visitors on campus. Personal security for CEOs (never mind billionaire CEOs) is hardly anything new. If I were Mark, received the amount of hate/threat messages he does, and had a young daughter, I'd do everything short of hiring the 82nd Airborne to follow me around. https://www.businessinsider.com/how-much-silicon-valley-ceos-spend-on-security-and-protection-2019-5 https://www.businessinsider.com/how-much-silicon-valley-ceos... Taylor Swift once said "I don't have security to look cool. I have security because people want to take me home and chain me to a pipe in their basement." TSwift isn't even a billionaire.
oh_sigh 6y ago
Wow, that was a thrilling read into the mind of a group of psychopaths who all happened to find each other. I wonder how many times similar things like this have happened (maybe even by the same people) but they covered their tracks successfully. One final note - I'm very impressed with the professionalism and skill of the NPD(the local police department of the victims).
mirimir 6y ago
Wow. Sheer arrogance, and absolute stupidity. Or at least, horrible OPSEC. I'm reminded of that 1993 cartoon by Peter Steiner in The New Yorker: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f8/Internet_dog.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f8/Internet_dog....

sct202 6y ago

Also the gall to make up Samoans to frame as cover for their sloppy operations.

selimthegrim 6y ago
They read too much Hunter S Thompson
- sizzle 6y ago
  Not familiar with the reference, can you please elaborate this is fascinating to say the least.
  - stickfigure 6y ago
    Raoul Duke: I want you to understand that this man at the wheel is my attorney. He's not just some dingbat I found on the strip, man. He's a foreigner. I think he's probably Samoan. But that doesn't matter, though, does it? Are you prejudiced? Hitchhiker: Hell no. Raoul Duke: I didn't think so. Because in spite of his race, this man is very valuable to me. Oh, shit. I forgot about the beer. You want one? Hitchhiker: No. Raoul Duke: How 'bout some ether? Hitchhiker: What? Raoul Duke: Never mind. -- Fear & Loathing In Las Vegas
  - selimthegrim 6y ago
    https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1998-jun-05-ca-56718-story.html https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1998-jun-05-ca-56718...

gwd 6y ago

On April 20, 2019, discussing the Wall Street Journal's coverage of Executive 1, Executive 1 texted to Executive 2, "F[xxx] them. The journal is next on the list after [Victim 1]." Uhh...

A4ET8a8uTh0 6y ago
We don't often get to peek behind the courtain, but it is hard not to feel repelled by this.

ghaff 6y ago

The arrogance is pretty amazing. That they didn't cut and run at the first whiff of the victims and police being on to them takes a special kind of delusional chutzpah. One thing I was curious about was how the feds got the data from Apple. I'm guessing because they were eBay-owned phones and eBay gave permission but I don't think it actually says anywhere. [To say nothing of the fact that, for supposed security people, their operational security was... not good. Just more arrogance I guess.]

haram_masala 6y ago
I was struck by that too. Somehow the feds obtained WhatsApp messages from Apple. Maybe WhatsApp was getting backed up to iCloud, and that message store isn’t part of the e2e encryption.
- ghaff 6y ago
  It looks from some of the images that the feds had access to the unlocked phone(s). But, yeah, in my admittedly fairly quick read of the affidavit, it wasn't particularly clear--perhaps deliberately--how exactly the feds gained access to all the messages they're using as evidence. (Assuming the defendants challenge how the FBI obtained that info, IANAL but it may make sense to give as few details as possible at this stage.)
  - techpop10 6y ago
    If I read the affidavit right, there were confidential witnesses who may have shared their WhatsApp screens with investigators.
    - mirimir 6y ago
      I was wondering whether Target Subjects whose names aren't capitalized in the FBI complaint had cooperated. But then, the complaint states that most of them are defendants in the Massachusetts case.
sizzle 6y ago

anon892143 6y ago

Another insider threat program gone rogue... How many insider threat programs at various firms are really being used to implement systemic discrimination? I thought it was becoming common knowledge many Silicon Valley campuses and other corporations use an IMSI catcher/Stringray to capture personal cellular communications of its employees... https://www.businessinsider.com/ex-tesla-employee-claims-theft-drugs-and-surveillance-at-gigafactory-2018-8 https://www.businessinsider.com/ex-tesla-employee-claims-the... https://www.theverge.com/2017/10/3/16408724/waymo-uber-lewandowski-travis-kalanick https://www.theverge.com/2017/10/3/16408724/waymo-uber-lewan... https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-nuvia-lawsuit/apple-lawsuit-tests-if-an-employee-can-plan-rival-startup-while-on-payroll-idUSKBN1ZK16R https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-nuvia-lawsuit/apple... I am pretty sure none of these people used their corporate issued cell phones... I would not be surprised if ebay hired a firm to park an IMSI catcher machine close enough to the home of these people. The reason they felt secure enough to deny these accusations implies they have all done this before.

ajzinsbwbs 6y ago
Lots of my coworkers use their corporate phone as their personal phone. There’s a process for porting your phone number over when you get the corp phone. People do it because it’s simpler to have one phone, or just to save money. I would never do this but I understand why someone with a different background and worldview would.
- ghaff 6y ago
  Myself and probably most of my coworkers just use our personal phones as company phones. Not sure if you see that as different. Also don't do activities on them that are... criminal.
  - ajzinsbwbs 6y ago
    Suppose I buy an iPhone from Apple, and load up a work profile on it. I need to trust that Apple doesn’t give my personal data to the employer profile, and my employer doesn’t have a zero-day to circumvent those controls. I also need to trust that the phone company (or my VPN) provider doesn’t give my browsing history to my employer. I’m pretty comfortable with all of those assumptions. Now instead suppose my employer gives me an iPhone with a cell plan they are paying for. Now there are more questions - is this a vanilla iPhone or is some kind of tracking software installed on it? Perhaps the phone company will freely give up my browsing history to my employer? I’m a lot less comfortable with this. It feels like my employer has legal authority and technical capability to see a lot of what I’m doing on the phone. Edit: > Also don't do activities on them that are... criminal. I’d not worried that employer would get me in trouble with the government for criminal activity. My behavior is a little more constrained by worries that somebody at company could be analyzing my browsing history for violations of company policy, which in a worst-case scenario could get me terminated or cause me to face civil litigation, especially if I were to do a startup.

nullc 6y ago

What I extracted from that is that corporate security people investigating random members of the public isn't considered weird.

vorpalhex 6y ago
It's not that uncommon. You have people making crazy threats (which they probably don't intend to carry out, but it only takes one..) all the time, and the police won't do anything but take a report because frankly, that's all they can do. So you end up at a certain scale having to investigate some of these things yourself.. by hiring probably somewhat sketchy ex-military types.
- packetslave 6y ago
  Yeah, having a threat intelligence and investigations team is very common for big companies. If nothing else, it's probably safe to assume that someone like Mark Zuckerberg or Larry Page regularly get emails or other messages saying things like "im gunna go to ur house nd kill ur dog and ur hot wife" Law enforcement doesn't have the resources to investigate every one of these, absent a credible threat of it actually happening, so corporate security / executive protection exists to, well, investigate.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - pyuser583 6y ago
    Have you read about Zuckerberg’s personal security? It’s nuts. He’s probably second only to the president in terms of security. Considering the necessary exposure the president has, he might be even more secure.
    - packetslave 6y ago
      I"ve seen Mark's security when he's out and about on campus. They're reasonably discrete about their jobs, given that on any given (pre-Covid) day there were probably hundreds of business and personal visitors on campus. Personal security for CEOs (never mind billionaire CEOs) is hardly anything new. If I were Mark, received the amount of hate/threat messages he does, and had a young daughter, I'd do everything short of hiring the 82nd Airborne to follow me around. https://www.businessinsider.com/how-much-silicon-valley-ceos-spend-on-security-and-protection-2019-5 https://www.businessinsider.com/how-much-silicon-valley-ceos... Taylor Swift once said "I don't have security to look cool. I have security because people want to take me home and chain me to a pipe in their basement." TSwift isn't even a billionaire.

oh_sigh 6y ago

Wow, that was a thrilling read into the mind of a group of psychopaths who all happened to find each other. I wonder how many times similar things like this have happened (maybe even by the same people) but they covered their tracks successfully. One final note - I'm very impressed with the professionalism and skill of the NPD(the local police department of the victims).

mirimir 6y ago

Wow. Sheer arrogance, and absolute stupidity. Or at least, horrible OPSEC. I'm reminded of that 1993 cartoon by Peter Steiner in The New Yorker: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f8/Internet_dog.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f8/Internet_dog....