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submitted 1 year ago by red@feddit.de to c/technology@beehaw.org
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[-] narc0tic_bird@beehaw.org 65 points 1 year ago

So they "broke into Reddit" back in February and contacted Reddit in April. After Reddit didn't react they contacted them again a few days ago at this very opportunistic time.

They never specified exactly what kind of data they stole, nor did they prove it by providing samples.

For all we know this story could be entirely made up and they actually have nothing.

But even if they have something, them trying to come across as the good guys in this is so weird to me. No, you're not the good guys. You are criminals.

[-] Stumblinbear@pawb.social 18 points 1 year ago

They may be the bad guys, but they're not necessarily bad guys

[-] Kaldo@kbin.social 11 points 1 year ago

“I believe you find life such a problem because you think there are good people and bad people. You're wrong, of course. There are, always and only, the bad people, but some of them are on opposite sides.”

[-] SHITPOSTING_ACCOUNT@feddit.de 7 points 1 year ago

February? Then I believe they have obtained a full copy of all posts and comments on the site. /s

(For those who don't get the joke: https://github.com/Watchful1/PushshiftDumps - full dumps of all Reddit data up to February exist, and I think archive.org has the March file too)

[-] neo@lemmy.comfysnug.space 35 points 1 year ago

Is it weird that I kind of want both groups to lose out here?

[-] gk99@kbin.social 22 points 1 year ago

The enemy of my enemy is also my enemy.

[-] BLAMM67@beehaw.org 13 points 1 year ago

Maxim 29: The enemy of my enemy is my enemy's enemy. No more. No less.

-The Seventy Maxims of Maximally Effective Mercenaries

[-] Steeve@lemmy.ca 8 points 1 year ago

It's enemies all the way down

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[-] Th4tGuyII@kbin.social 27 points 1 year ago

I want the API changes reverted as much as any other Reddit refugees here, but I can't stand behind this kind of malfeasant extortion.

Not only is it blatantly obvious they're using the API change rhetoric as a means of irritating Reddit into giving them their hush money, it also avts towards delegitimising all protest efforts made by the Subreddits thus far

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[-] totorohno@lemmy.one 16 points 1 year ago

Fuck spez, but this is not the way. Why even ask for money if they don’t expect Reddit to pay? That cheapens their cause.

[-] firebreathingbunny@kbin.social 13 points 1 year ago

Their cause is the money. Everything else is marketing.

[-] redcalcium@c.calciumlabs.com 15 points 1 year ago

Ransomware operators are scum and should not be trusted, let alone paid.

[-] cowvin@kbin.social 8 points 1 year ago

This isn't ransomware. This is standard blackmail.

[-] YMS@kbin.social 5 points 1 year ago

Correct, but done by ransomware operators.

[-] zalack@kbin.social 5 points 1 year ago

Not that this isn't scummy but my understanding is that "ransomware" refers to software that locks a user or organization out of their systems until a fee is paid, generally my encrypting the disk.

This seems like a more traditional "hack" of a system where you get in and download data. Which makes threatening them is traditional blackmail.

[-] red@feddit.de 8 points 1 year ago

The point is that Alphv is an operator of ransomware as a service (RaaS), specifically BlackCat, independent of whether they used ransomware in this specific attack (which it indeed doesn't sound like).

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[-] gds@kbin.social 6 points 1 year ago

Agreed they definitely shouldn’t pay these guys.

unfolds chair

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[-] JWBananas@kbin.social 14 points 1 year ago

john-oliver-cool-sarcastic.gif

Put up or shut up

[-] HisNoodlyServant@beehaw.org 11 points 1 year ago

80gb? That isn't too much but guess if it's internal information and docs could be damaging to a public offering.

[-] heartlessevil@lemmy.one 22 points 1 year ago

For context, based on historical pushshift data:

  • 80gb zipped decompresses to ~1100GB of text data
  • 80gb zipped would only be the most recent ~4 months of comments

They do indicate that the data they have is more valuable though, particularly pointing out how users are being tracked (GDPR alarm bells ringing) or censored.

[-] maynarkh@feddit.nl 8 points 1 year ago

Might be a single weird Bee Movie video meme as well.

[-] bumbly@readit.buzz 11 points 1 year ago

If it hurts the IPO, I'm all for it. My data on reddit is worthless anyway...

[-] Laille@kbin.social 9 points 1 year ago

lol, fuck reddit, but do they expect us to cheer for them when they're holding user data hostage? They can fuck right off too.

[-] nigh7y@lemmy.ml 8 points 1 year ago

Any proof they have what they say they have? If they can't, at the very least, make that bit public, then imma have to call it a bluff.

[-] cultsuperstar@lemmy.ml 8 points 1 year ago

Only $4.5 million? That amount seems kind of low if the data they have is as valuable as they say.

[-] drifty@lemmy.ml 8 points 1 year ago

Can you share the onion link here

[-] Kowowow@lemmy.ca 8 points 1 year ago

Ooh ThE rEdDiT fIlEs I can only hope it's more interesting than the twitter files

[-] Otome-chan@kbin.social 7 points 1 year ago

>reddit fucks over users

>hackers fuck over users

why do this?

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[-] iAmTheTot@kbin.social 6 points 1 year ago

Nah you're not going to catch me rooting for a ransomware attacker

[-] primbin@lemmy.one 6 points 1 year ago

Is there any way to validate these claims?

[-] cowvin@kbin.social 12 points 1 year ago

Usually what happens is that these sorts of blackmailers will leak small, verifiable pieces of data so people know they really got something. We don't see that here, so for now there's no reason to take them seriously yet.

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[-] red@feddit.de 6 points 1 year ago

No. If Reddit would negotiate with them, they'd probably leak small subsets as proof that they have actual data that isn't available publicly. But with no negotiations, there's not really any need for that.

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[-] Rachel@derp.foo 6 points 1 year ago

Is there any information on what kind of data they stole? It’s a public forum with a lot of public data, it makes no sense that they negotiate about data that is already public.

[-] tal@kbin.social 12 points 1 year ago

Well, assuming that this is even directly related to the forum, as opposed to, say, email logs from the Reddit internal email server or something, things that might not be public:

  • Private messages between users.

  • Browsing data. I mean, maybe a user only posts on /r/politics, and that's public, but spends a lot of time browsing /r/femdom or whatever.

  • IP addresses of users. Might be able to associate multiple accounts held by a user.

  • Passwords. While hopefully stored in a salted and hashed format, so they can't be simply trivially obtained, they can still be attacked via dictionary attacks, which is why people are told not to use short and predictable passwords.

  • Email addresses (if a user registered one)

  • Reddit has some private chat feature that I've never used, which I imagine is logged.

[-] redcalcium@c.calciumlabs.com 8 points 1 year ago

Reddit used to be open source and the password was hashed using bcrypt.

[-] cowvin@kbin.social 6 points 1 year ago

Well they mention Github artifacts in that message so it sounds like it's more like they may have obtained source code and that sort of non public stuff.

[-] mobyduck648@beehaw.org 8 points 1 year ago

Their code was open source until 2017 and it’s got progressively more dogshit for the end user since, I suspect if this is real it’s probably a bit juicier.

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[-] BrooklynMan@lemmy.ml 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

lol, ok. i mean, even if this is true (which, eh, maybe it is), I'm not really sure it's worth what they're asking for it. if this threat is genuine, and they follow through, it will certainly be publically embarrassing for spez at a really bad time. but there's zero chance he's going to give in to their demands.

i don't expect the data dump would contain anything particularly juicy, or these demands would have been made months ago. it's just that it would be embarrassing for reddit (and spez) if it happened, particularly right now.

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this post was submitted on 18 Jun 2023
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