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Reddit impacted by Alphv ransomware group

82 points by _dev_urandom 3y ago

sschueller 3y ago
If this is true that would be a big nail in the reddit coffin. r/pics voted to continue with the strike by only allowing posts of pictures of John Oliver. I can see other subs starting such things as well and even if you change out the mods you will have your hands full of people making protest posts. Somehow I have the feeling some future ML models will have a tendancy to render people that look odly like John Oliver
- tjalfi 3y ago
  > r/pics voted to continue with the strike by only allowing posts of pictures of John Oliver. I can see other subs starting such things as well and even if you change out the mods you will have your hands full of people making protest posts. Several other subs are also doing similar things. • r/art is running a John Oliver poll. • r/evilbuildings is running a John Oliver poll. • r/gifs passed a similar rule. • r/iPhone is voting on a similar rule for Tim Cook.
Sunspark 3y ago
If true, this is interesting. As a knowledge repository, having an archive of it would be fascinating. The size seems small to me. Only 80 gigabytes? What happened to all the video and images that Reddit hosts? Not everything is imgur or other sites. That said, 4.5 million is too much that they are asking. It's only data not IP or trade secrets as far as I know. I think they certainly could get 500k for the deletion. I would hope that they would donate some of that VC pocket change to worthy causes.
- throwaway462910 3y ago
  Given the mentions of confidential data, secrets about censorship, and GitHub artifacts, I would assume that public posts/comments aren't part of it? (if it is actually true)
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- duskwuff 3y ago
  > What happened to all the video and images that Reddit hosts? Even just the text of comments and submissions is >>80GB per month. I wouldn't be surprised if the "leak" deliberately excluded this data in favor of more interesting nonpublic data, though.
  - tetris11 3y ago
    > Even just the text of comments and submissions is >>80GB per month. Surely that can't be true after compression?
    - duskwuff 3y ago
      Not 80 GB/mo, but they're still pretty huge after compression. Zstd compressed comments and submissions for Feb 2023 were ~34 GB.
x86x87 3y ago
Big if true. I would not be surprised if the whole api shenenigans will bring a lot more to the surface that will accelerate the death of reddit. Sad, but also unsurprising.
- mandmandam 3y ago
  Possibly very big indeed. It seems from the tone that even Aplhv don't fully know what they have; then again, they are asking for a decent chunk of dough.
  - x86x87 3y ago
    Hah. They probably know. This sounds like data that shows how reddit operates / source code, not the actual post/images available on the website.
    - mandmandam 3y ago
      Oh sure, 80 GB isn't gonna go too far in the way of images and stuff. However! I remember when the technology sub was caught censoring certain keywords. I remember when video of Hilary being carried out of the 9/11 ceremony was censored. I remember when people posting the maxwellhill theory were shadowbanned, etc. The code that did things like that might be real interesting to analyze.
      - predictabl3 3y ago
        You should relink the maxwellhill theory thread in this comment too. I generally am wary of conspiracies, but dang, I can't believe I forgot about that one! Edit: maybe I shouldn't have read that. If any of that is true, and there's even a hint of truth that aswartz found it and that's why we no longer have him here, I'm already getting upset thinking about it. I still remember exactly where I was standing when I read that Aaron was gone, and am still surprised it didn't send me into more of a spiral.
        3y ago
jarym 3y ago
I wonder how the employees of Reddit (I assume they have stock) feel about all this and their leaders handling of the situation. I’d imagine total despair and frustration right now is quite high. Do they think their CEO is holding Reddit back or taking it forward?

82 points by _dev_urandom 3y ago

If this is true that would be a big nail in the reddit coffin. r/pics voted to continue with the strike by only allowing posts of pictures of John Oliver. I can see other subs starting such things as well and even if you change out the mods you will have your hands full of people making protest posts. Somehow I have the feeling some future ML models will have a tendancy to render people that look odly like John Oliver

tjalfi 3y ago
> r/pics voted to continue with the strike by only allowing posts of pictures of John Oliver. I can see other subs starting such things as well and even if you change out the mods you will have your hands full of people making protest posts. Several other subs are also doing similar things. • r/art is running a John Oliver poll. • r/evilbuildings is running a John Oliver poll. • r/gifs passed a similar rule. • r/iPhone is voting on a similar rule for Tim Cook.

Sunspark 3y ago

If true, this is interesting. As a knowledge repository, having an archive of it would be fascinating. The size seems small to me. Only 80 gigabytes? What happened to all the video and images that Reddit hosts? Not everything is imgur or other sites. That said, 4.5 million is too much that they are asking. It's only data not IP or trade secrets as far as I know. I think they certainly could get 500k for the deletion. I would hope that they would donate some of that VC pocket change to worthy causes.

throwaway462910 3y ago
Given the mentions of confidential data, secrets about censorship, and GitHub artifacts, I would assume that public posts/comments aren't part of it? (if it is actually true)
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
duskwuff 3y ago
> What happened to all the video and images that Reddit hosts? Even just the text of comments and submissions is >>80GB per month. I wouldn't be surprised if the "leak" deliberately excluded this data in favor of more interesting nonpublic data, though.
- tetris11 3y ago
  > Even just the text of comments and submissions is >>80GB per month. Surely that can't be true after compression?
  - duskwuff 3y ago
    Not 80 GB/mo, but they're still pretty huge after compression. Zstd compressed comments and submissions for Feb 2023 were ~34 GB.

x86x87 3y ago

Big if true. I would not be surprised if the whole api shenenigans will bring a lot more to the surface that will accelerate the death of reddit. Sad, but also unsurprising.

mandmandam 3y ago
Possibly very big indeed. It seems from the tone that even Aplhv don't fully know what they have; then again, they are asking for a decent chunk of dough.
- x86x87 3y ago
  Hah. They probably know. This sounds like data that shows how reddit operates / source code, not the actual post/images available on the website.
  - mandmandam 3y ago
    Oh sure, 80 GB isn't gonna go too far in the way of images and stuff. However! I remember when the technology sub was caught censoring certain keywords. I remember when video of Hilary being carried out of the 9/11 ceremony was censored. I remember when people posting the maxwellhill theory were shadowbanned, etc. The code that did things like that might be real interesting to analyze.
    - predictabl3 3y ago
      You should relink the maxwellhill theory thread in this comment too. I generally am wary of conspiracies, but dang, I can't believe I forgot about that one! Edit: maybe I shouldn't have read that. If any of that is true, and there's even a hint of truth that aswartz found it and that's why we no longer have him here, I'm already getting upset thinking about it. I still remember exactly where I was standing when I read that Aaron was gone, and am still surprised it didn't send me into more of a spiral.
      - 3y ago

jarym 3y ago

I wonder how the employees of Reddit (I assume they have stock) feel about all this and their leaders handling of the situation. I’d imagine total despair and frustration right now is quite high. Do they think their CEO is holding Reddit back or taking it forward?