5 ms·

So if I'm understanding this from a technical perspective, the real story is that this is/has been going on for quite some time, and there's an entire ecosystem

So if I'm understanding this from a technical perspective, the real story is that this is/has been going on for quite some time, and there's an entire ecosystem devoted to it. The general public rarely ever sees behind the curtain, but somebody got greedy in this case and we ended up in a race to the bottom. If true, interesting that such a layered economic structure can exist without much press or public comment -- until something like this happens. Fascinating. Makes you wonder what percent of the total activity these 100+ celebrity invasions represent.

TeMPOraL 12y ago
Well the fact that JenLaw's photos went for the extremely huge amount of $130 suggests that either there's a lot more of it out there, or that the guy who stole them couldn't fence them (per [0] thread). Anyway, you summed up the take-away from the article perfectly. Since this seems to be going on for some time, I wonder how the whole ecosystem kept coordinating this well so far, that it's the first time we hear about such big (but still lousy one) defection. [0] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8260233 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8260233
- DanielBMarkham 12y ago
  Yeah, there's some hard-to-accept math in that story. If JenLaw's photos were worth $130 or so, that means that any photos that any of us have are associated with a market value. And it ain't that much.
  - TeMPOraL 12y ago
    Well, that our photos have a price tag is kind of obvious. Everything has one. But I'm very surprised by the amounts we're talking about. I'd expect JenLaw to be extorted for hundreds of thousands of dollars, or at least those photos going for many $k (and THB, some other celebs have much worse photos/videos in this leak). So them going for $130 implies that either celeb sex tapes are really common/cheap in the darknet, or we have no frikkin' clue what's going on out there.
    - akira2501 12y ago
      Well.. this is a black market with no ability to self-regulate. So, the prices are going to be incredibly low compared to their everyday value; to be a bit crude, these are crackhead prices.
    - hibikir 12y ago
      Anonymous extortion threatening to release something that is trivial to copy is not going to work, because there is nothing to guarantee more money will be requested next week, or that the material will not be released later. As far as selling it, the price cannot be very high, because nobody has that much to gain from being the first with the pictures. It's illegal material after all, so magazines can get in trouble for buying it. Put it in a shady, for-pay site, and with it being illegal material and all, it'd be in a torrent in minutes, so how many times will you really sell it? If it was, say, a presidential candidate doing hard drugs and cheating on his wife with a man, then maybe you could say that the opposition would be willing to pay for the pictures to be released, regardless of how they were obtained: There'd be millions at stake. A naked actress? not so much.
  - pjc50 12y ago
    That sounds about right. There are a lot of photos out there, so the individual value is small.

TeMPOraL 12y ago

Well the fact that JenLaw's photos went for the extremely huge amount of $130 suggests that either there's a lot more of it out there, or that the guy who stole them couldn't fence them (per [0] thread). Anyway, you summed up the take-away from the article perfectly. Since this seems to be going on for some time, I wonder how the whole ecosystem kept coordinating this well so far, that it's the first time we hear about such big (but still lousy one) defection. [0] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8260233 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8260233

DanielBMarkham 12y ago
Yeah, there's some hard-to-accept math in that story. If JenLaw's photos were worth $130 or so, that means that any photos that any of us have are associated with a market value. And it ain't that much.
- TeMPOraL 12y ago
  Well, that our photos have a price tag is kind of obvious. Everything has one. But I'm very surprised by the amounts we're talking about. I'd expect JenLaw to be extorted for hundreds of thousands of dollars, or at least those photos going for many $k (and THB, some other celebs have much worse photos/videos in this leak). So them going for $130 implies that either celeb sex tapes are really common/cheap in the darknet, or we have no frikkin' clue what's going on out there.
  - akira2501 12y ago
    Well.. this is a black market with no ability to self-regulate. So, the prices are going to be incredibly low compared to their everyday value; to be a bit crude, these are crackhead prices.
  - hibikir 12y ago
    Anonymous extortion threatening to release something that is trivial to copy is not going to work, because there is nothing to guarantee more money will be requested next week, or that the material will not be released later. As far as selling it, the price cannot be very high, because nobody has that much to gain from being the first with the pictures. It's illegal material after all, so magazines can get in trouble for buying it. Put it in a shady, for-pay site, and with it being illegal material and all, it'd be in a torrent in minutes, so how many times will you really sell it? If it was, say, a presidential candidate doing hard drugs and cheating on his wife with a man, then maybe you could say that the opposition would be willing to pay for the pictures to be released, regardless of how they were obtained: There'd be millions at stake. A naked actress? not so much.
- pjc50 12y ago
  That sounds about right. There are a lot of photos out there, so the individual value is small.