5 ms·

I Won $5M from the MyPillow Guy and Saved Democracy

45 points by Svip 3y ago

SkyMarshal 3y ago
Why is this flagged? Is it just b/c the forensics performed here were relatively simplistic?
- the_only_law 3y ago
  [flagged]
spacebacon 3y ago
Bring your brooms because it’s a mess. Zack Galifianakis transforms character Marty Huggins to play pillow mogul Mike Lindell in The Campaign 2.
akudha 3y ago
People like Cruz, Graham know precisely what they are doing, they aren’t dumb. This MyPillow guy though - he seems genuinely crazy and dumb. It is kinda sad to see him rant and rave on Faux
HaroldBolt78 3y ago
This sounds terribly amateurish, and even unfair. I have a hard time believing that the 40-50 other software forensics experts didn't recognise ASCII in hex, or bother converting these files even if they didn't. If I understand correctly, he only analysed a tiny proportion of the data. Junk or not, it doesn't disprove that the remaining majority held key evidence. He "determined that nothing in the file was related to the 2020 presidential election". What is "determined" here? It sounds like this was more of a gaming of the system than it was a forensic investigation. There must be an awful lot missing here. Edit: Having read the full report now, I am of the opinion that this was a(n attempted) fraudulent competition by a wealthy moron, exploited by an unscrupulous parasite with the good fortune of misleading arbitrators into a skewed perception of the competition terms that guaranteed his success. Both of them acted disgracefully; this should have been a criminal matter dealing with the fraud, and the other hack shouldn't have a dime to show for it.
- carlmr 3y ago
  All the files were modified post election. The files he did check where all just meaningless lists of IP addresses in RTF documents.
  - jongjong 3y ago
    How can you say that a list of IP addresses is meaningless without investigating who was behind them? There can be a lot of information there. The idea that someone would set up some kind of hacker convention and offer a reward for hundreds of experts to parse through gigabytes of random fake data that they intentionally created sounds beyond insane. What is the motive for that? I didn't even hear about this convention, so it can't be a PR stunt... It's just not believable. If that's where we're at, we might as well believe the majority of conspiracy theories which are less far-fetched than this.
    - carlmr 3y ago
      >What is the motive for that? Isn't that obvious? Create enough smoke to make people believe there's a fire.
  - HaroldBolt78 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - carlmr 3y ago
      There are, but then you have to show in court how you got these files. Which since they were created just before the competition, apparently wasn't possible. Even if someone did all you said and accidentally changed the file modification date, you should have some original data source with an earlier file modification date.
- paulgb 3y ago
  As I read it, his forensics was unsophisticated (who trusts file modified dates on files that have clearly been copied?), but his analysis was enough to give him the confidence to call Lindell’s bluff, which none of the others did. The author thought that Lindell was sending everyone on a wild goose chase with irrelevant data, and Lindell couldn’t defend against that claim in arbitration.
camdenlock 3y ago
> After all, I invented the field of software forensics Stopped there
primitivesuave 3y ago
The case document is especially interesting: https://www.washingtonpost.com/documents/a68b42f4-d5dc-4ff9-b34e-84d52fa3fc32.pdf?itid=lk_inline_manual_11 https://www.washingtonpost.com/documents/a68b42f4-d5dc-4ff9-...
- camdenlock 3y ago
  Thank you for sharing this. Much more interesting than the arrogant slop published in Politico by this Zeidman character.
  - jaclaz 3y ago
    In his words: >After all, I invented the field of software forensics, the science of analyzing software source code for intellectual property infringement or theft. he invented the field, like Mark Twain, he is modest, not everywhere, but in spots. Though, to be fair, this sentence in the actual report is great: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35643126 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35643126 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35643431 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35643431
monero-xmr 3y ago
The most obvious avenues for election fraud are around the edges. Check out Ballot Harvesting https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballot_collection https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballot_collection This lead to a fraud conviction and a subsequent special election in North Carolina https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/30/us/mccrae-dowless-indictment.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/30/us/mccrae-dowless-indictm... Here is a list of real convictions: https://www.congress.gov/116/meeting/house/108824/documents/HHRG-116-JU00-20190129-SD020.pdf https://www.congress.gov/116/meeting/house/108824/documents/... You must realize that a criminal conviction through the slow cogs of justice likely means the problem is 100x larger. But all that said, Trump still lost and there isn’t a widespread coverup. I’m merely pointing out that election fraud does happen and we could do better as a society to make that less possible if we really tried.
babelthuap 3y ago
Mike Lindell got duped by whoever gave him the data but in reality he duped himself by not hiring this guy to QA it. On the other hand, he did end up hiring him by default by placing the bet so...meh. If it were me I would have pursued the proprietary software for the machines which should not be proprietary. It's counting votes. Nothing special about that software. It should be available for anyone to look at. It's impossible to claim there was no voter fraud without seeing that software. I believed Bill Clinton as a kid right up until the point the blue dress was made public. After that nobody believed Bill.

45 points by Svip 3y ago

SkyMarshal 3y ago

Why is this flagged? Is it just b/c the forensics performed here were relatively simplistic?

the_only_law 3y ago
[flagged]

spacebacon 3y ago

Bring your brooms because it’s a mess. Zack Galifianakis transforms character Marty Huggins to play pillow mogul Mike Lindell in The Campaign 2.

akudha 3y ago

People like Cruz, Graham know precisely what they are doing, they aren’t dumb. This MyPillow guy though - he seems genuinely crazy and dumb. It is kinda sad to see him rant and rave on Faux

HaroldBolt78 3y ago

This sounds terribly amateurish, and even unfair. I have a hard time believing that the 40-50 other software forensics experts didn't recognise ASCII in hex, or bother converting these files even if they didn't. If I understand correctly, he only analysed a tiny proportion of the data. Junk or not, it doesn't disprove that the remaining majority held key evidence. He "determined that nothing in the file was related to the 2020 presidential election". What is "determined" here? It sounds like this was more of a gaming of the system than it was a forensic investigation. There must be an awful lot missing here. Edit: Having read the full report now, I am of the opinion that this was a(n attempted) fraudulent competition by a wealthy moron, exploited by an unscrupulous parasite with the good fortune of misleading arbitrators into a skewed perception of the competition terms that guaranteed his success. Both of them acted disgracefully; this should have been a criminal matter dealing with the fraud, and the other hack shouldn't have a dime to show for it.

carlmr 3y ago
All the files were modified post election. The files he did check where all just meaningless lists of IP addresses in RTF documents.
- jongjong 3y ago
  How can you say that a list of IP addresses is meaningless without investigating who was behind them? There can be a lot of information there. The idea that someone would set up some kind of hacker convention and offer a reward for hundreds of experts to parse through gigabytes of random fake data that they intentionally created sounds beyond insane. What is the motive for that? I didn't even hear about this convention, so it can't be a PR stunt... It's just not believable. If that's where we're at, we might as well believe the majority of conspiracy theories which are less far-fetched than this.
  - carlmr 3y ago
    >What is the motive for that? Isn't that obvious? Create enough smoke to make people believe there's a fire.
- HaroldBolt78 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - carlmr 3y ago
    There are, but then you have to show in court how you got these files. Which since they were created just before the competition, apparently wasn't possible. Even if someone did all you said and accidentally changed the file modification date, you should have some original data source with an earlier file modification date.
paulgb 3y ago
As I read it, his forensics was unsophisticated (who trusts file modified dates on files that have clearly been copied?), but his analysis was enough to give him the confidence to call Lindell’s bluff, which none of the others did. The author thought that Lindell was sending everyone on a wild goose chase with irrelevant data, and Lindell couldn’t defend against that claim in arbitration.

camdenlock 3y ago

> After all, I invented the field of software forensics Stopped there

primitivesuave 3y ago

The case document is especially interesting: https://www.washingtonpost.com/documents/a68b42f4-d5dc-4ff9-b34e-84d52fa3fc32.pdf?itid=lk_inline_manual_11 https://www.washingtonpost.com/documents/a68b42f4-d5dc-4ff9-...

camdenlock 3y ago
Thank you for sharing this. Much more interesting than the arrogant slop published in Politico by this Zeidman character.
- jaclaz 3y ago
  In his words: >After all, I invented the field of software forensics, the science of analyzing software source code for intellectual property infringement or theft. he invented the field, like Mark Twain, he is modest, not everywhere, but in spots. Though, to be fair, this sentence in the actual report is great: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35643126 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35643126 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35643431 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35643431

monero-xmr 3y ago

The most obvious avenues for election fraud are around the edges. Check out Ballot Harvesting https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballot_collection https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballot_collection This lead to a fraud conviction and a subsequent special election in North Carolina https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/30/us/mccrae-dowless-indictment.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/30/us/mccrae-dowless-indictm... Here is a list of real convictions: https://www.congress.gov/116/meeting/house/108824/documents/HHRG-116-JU00-20190129-SD020.pdf https://www.congress.gov/116/meeting/house/108824/documents/... You must realize that a criminal conviction through the slow cogs of justice likely means the problem is 100x larger. But all that said, Trump still lost and there isn’t a widespread coverup. I’m merely pointing out that election fraud does happen and we could do better as a society to make that less possible if we really tried.

babelthuap 3y ago

Mike Lindell got duped by whoever gave him the data but in reality he duped himself by not hiring this guy to QA it. On the other hand, he did end up hiring him by default by placing the bet so...meh. If it were me I would have pursued the proprietary software for the machines which should not be proprietary. It's counting votes. Nothing special about that software. It should be available for anyone to look at. It's impossible to claim there was no voter fraud without seeing that software. I believed Bill Clinton as a kid right up until the point the blue dress was made public. After that nobody believed Bill.