Reddit Migration @kbin.social ReclamationCrafts @kbin.social 1y ago

Hackers demand $4.5 million and API price reversal from Reddit | Engadget

www.engadget.com Hackers demand $4.5 million and API price reversal from Reddit | Engadget

Ransomware gang BlackCat is likely behind a February attack on the company..

37 comments

This is probably going to lead to the media accusing the protesters of being hackers.
- Yea that's my takeaway here. To the point given how u/spez has behaved it wouldn't surprise me if he hired these guys to 'hack' him specifically to smear protests.
  
  Then again I'm paranoid so what do I know?
  
  The hack happened in February, long before the protests.
  
  The timing is pretty convenient.
  
  /u/spez isn't trying to win a popularity contest, he is trying to maximize his $$$ from the upcoming IPO. Even if it succeeded in smearing protestors, a self-hack isn't going to help him there at all. In fact quite the opposite, since it saddles Reddit investors with more potential liabilities.
- The hacker named 4chan will probably take the hit on mainstream media
  
  Could also be the Chinese hacker "Lm Fao"
  
  Young People Translate Emojis For The British Secret Service
- Good. Hope more attacks on their infrastructure keep happening.
- The moderators specifically.
- Agreed, this is not helpful.
File that under "things that will never happen." Reddit is not going to reverse course. Period. So the data will be released and that will be the end of it.
- I don't think that will be the end of reddit, a lot of platform that had data breaches is still there (with a lot worse reputation, but still there).
  
  May be one more decline factor.
  
  I think "end of it" refers to this particular situation, not of Reddit as a whole. Reddit may die from the API changes, but it will have nothing to do with this hack.
  
  I didn't say that it would be the end of Reddit.
  
  I said that would be the end of it. As in, the end discussion around releasing this hacked data.
  
  It doesn't have to be the end of reddit, remember, myspace is still a thing
They'll not roll back the api pricing

Our data will be what is leaked.

I don't see how this helps anything.
- Agreed. Hell I don't think they'll even cough up 4.5m either.
Fuck u/spez
At this point, the resignation of Steve Huffman would be the only thing to have me consider potentially coming back.
- why? The monolithic nature of Reddit is pretty much the problem; u/spez malice and incompetence is only a symptom.
If nothing of consequence is released, I'll pay a little more credence to the theories that this is an inside job meant to discredit the opposition. If OTOH the data does show a disturbing level of detail being collected on users, and it exposes Reddit's secret shadowbanning and deboosting of folks it doesn't like, it's going to empower the resistance like nothing else that's happened yet. Spez is arguably in the self own business but this would take it to brand new heights.

People HATE that deboosting shit. People HATE the idea that the corps track this data to try and get inside your head and see how you think and act, so they can better influence it to their own ends. And right now, it's no longer really about an app as it is, it's all about meta. This will be gasoline on the fire.
- People HATE that deboosting shit. People HATE the idea that the corps track this data to try and get inside your head and see how you think and act, so they can better influence it to their own ends. And right now, it's no longer really about an app as it is, it's all about meta. This will be gasoline on the fire.
  
  TicTok is still very popular
This will get very interesting.
BlackCat announced it would delete the information if Reddit gives it $4.5 million and reverses API price increases.

Now, unlike Christian Selig asking for $10 million to essentially sell Apollo to Reddit, this actually is a threat. Let's see what Steve Huffman's response to this is...
Seeing this has made me curious, are there any cases like this where a hacker/hacker group has demanded millions of dollars to not leak info, and the company being blackmailed has actually paid out?

I feel like every once and a while you see a headline about hackers “demanding” x amount of money, and it never seems its going to work, but it must have worked at some point for so many people to try it, right?
- You don’t hear about the times it worked. That’s kind of the point of blackmail.
- Why would you see a headline about them paying out? The entire point is to pay so that nobody knows it happened.

37 comments