
eBay’s Critics Faced an Extreme Case of an Old Silicon Valley Habit - sharemywin
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/27/technology/ebay-silicon-valley-security-reputation.html
======
KenanSulayman
> She had met a man on Match.com who claimed to work in construction in San
> Jose, Calif., and he had convinced her to send him a topless photo. He was
> threatening to email the photo to the entire company if she did not pay him
> $10,000.

> With her permission, Mr. Sullivan’s team took over her account and
> redirected her extortionist to a payment scheme that they knew would reveal
> his identity. They determined he was a former Google intern living in
> Nigeria.

> Mr. Sullivan’s team hired Nigerian contractors to confront him. He confessed
> and surrendered access to his computer and online accounts, which showed he
> was extorting female executives across Silicon Valley. Investigators were
> able to destroy the nude photos and warned his victims not to pay.

...

> a former Google intern living in Nigeria

> hired Nigerian contractors to confront him

All of this is both insane and fascinating..

~~~
mikestew
_> hired Nigerian contractors to confront him_

I assume by "contractor", it is not meant that they called up WiPro for
someone who can knock out a nice PHP website in a week. OTOH, I wouldn't want
to mess with anyone that has to deal with PHP week after week.

~~~
Melkor765
I understood "contractor" in this usage to mean mercenary.

------
Scoundreller
> Mr. Sullivan learned that lesson as a security executive at eBay in 2006.
> Romanian fraudsters were running rampant on eBay, and Romanian authorities
> refused to address the problem. It was only after Mr. Sullivan’s team shut
> off eBay access to all of Romania — with a message blaming eBay’s shuttering
> on Romanian law enforcement’s refusal to pursue online criminals — that
> Romanian police took action.

Haha, I remember an article that quoted an anonymous Ebay employee maybe 10
years ago where they said something like « What do they want us to do, go to
Romania in our green EBay jumpsuits and confront them? »

But it sounds like tech companies do just that!

~~~
ocdtrekkie
Multinational tech companies are now more powerful than many smaller
governments. They can, and do, impact who ends up in charge of many such
governments, at the end of the day.

10 years ago, no politician would've gotten stressed out over a statement from
a tech company executive. Now many are worried about keeping close contact
with them.

~~~
1996
And it's a good thing. It helps keeping bad people on a good behavior.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
If you trust politicians less than tech company executives, sure. But tech
company executives are by and large pretty shady people.

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pbreit
This Wired article goes into more detail. Stranger than fiction.

[https://www.wired.com/story/ebay-employees-charged-
cyberstal...](https://www.wired.com/story/ebay-employees-charged-
cyberstalking-harassment-campaign/)

------
afwaller
Completely insane behavior. How do you wake up one day at a corporate
environment and think any of this is OK?

~~~
PragmaticPulp
People who think bad behavior is okay tend to cluster together. The people who
objected likely were selected out over time, either by leaving for more
ethical companies or being pushed out for non-compliance.

Over time, the bad actors would become surrounded by other bad actors. It
becomes a bubble, or an echo chamber.

~~~
duxup
>tend to cluster together.

Yeah that is seems to happen informally too. Often I don't think it even
requires people being pushed out or even knowing what everyone's views on
things are, it just happens.

I worked with a guy who had some interesting views, I suspected he was a
casual sort of racist (turned out to be way more than that) but obviously I
wasn't going to probe this guy's opinions and I avoided him beyond work
related topics and such. He never said anything overtly racist and I really
didn't think much of it other than not wanting to be around him.

Then over time as his team was built ... similar folks with similar views. It
wasn't some planned cabal or anything, I don't think they were in a conference
room talking about recruiting racists ... it's just that people who were less
comfortable tended to want to work elsewhere and those who liked him worked
with him and like gravity things sort of just worked out that way.

Then finally he did something monumentally stupid (some text in code ... in a
customer environment).

There's some further investigation and yeah some emails are found involving
this guy's team and suddenly they're all gone.

In my example it wasn't even that anyone was pushed out for differing views or
etc .... they just chose to be elsewhere before they even knew what that guy
really thought, and folks with similar views / ok with that guy got closer.

And it might have also been less a racism vibe that people picked up on as
much as 'this guy seems like he'd do something unpredictable / is not
trustworthy'.

~~~
mistrial9
super non-helpful comment deleted -- instead, be good to each other, and I
will try also

~~~
duxup
I gotta be honest and say that I'm not at all sure what you're saying. Clearly
there is a very general common theme here about bigotry... but beyond that I'm
not sure how your comment is connected to mine.

For the record I'm not in Virginia ... I'm not sure what that or "East Asian
companies" has to do with it.

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napolux
There's nothing funny about this. Oh, one thing is really funny. They bought
the mask and the book on Amazon ;)

------
steventhedev
On the one hand I can look at what he did and say that his intent was good and
he protected those women and protected his company. However, Mr. Sullivan is
clearly taking the law into his own hands (even if that law is in another
country).

If you look at this as a business deciding that they want to move forward a
business deal elsewhere in the world, they would run afoul of the FCPA if they
decided to bribe someone to further that business deal. But it seems that
hiring PMCs to intimidate and threaten people is permitted. Perhaps the time
has come for legislation to cover this particular practice.

~~~
jstarfish
> However, Mr. Sullivan is clearly taking the law into his own hands (even if
> that law is in another country)

FTA: "Romanian authorities refused to address the problem."

Law is a social construct. If the law does not or will not address _material_
interpersonal harm, taking matters into your own hands is less being a
vigilante than it is creative problem-solving.

~~~
steventhedev
That's the type of behavior I would applaud. If a country is not handling law
enforcement to your satisfaction, then simply don't do business there.

My issue is with an American company literally furthering their business
interests by hiring foreign actors to intimidate and threaten. The relevant
quote from the article:

"Mr. Sullivan’s team hired Nigerian contractors to confront him."

------
haltingproblem
This article give me the impression that eBay is going to get off scot free in
this whole episode. Did the scummy-6 not use eBay's resources in service of
its corporate goals to harass/intimidate/terrorize the small-business couple?
The operating motto for corporate rule-breaking is "while 1; do-nasty-shit;
catch me if you can; oh you did; sorry-bye; goto do-nasty-shit;".

------
mschuster91
> It was only after Mr. Sullivan’s team shut off eBay access to all of Romania
> — with a message blaming eBay’s shuttering on Romanian law enforcement’s
> refusal to pursue online criminals — that Romanian police took action.

Jeez. While I get the frustration that eBay had with fraudsters, this is _yet
another_ case (after Amazon trying to extort France in the corona conflict, or
Uber and AirBnB ignoring local court orders) of a major US tech company to
outright crap on national sovereignity of an European country.

How can us Europeans protect against this kind of moves? Especially with the
current US President being someone who would retaliate for anything that he
gets complained about?

~~~
SpicyLemonZest
American companies regularly fight with the American government too. There was
a story a while back, for example, where the FBI demanded that Apple unlock a
mass shooter's phone and Apple refused. If you want companies that consider
themselves subservient to the government, you'll probably need to build your
own, because Americans just don't think that way.

~~~
mschuster91
There is one thing to argue with politicians, that's fine. Ignoring courts
however? That is unacceptable in any case as long as the court is not in a
banana republic (i.e. truly independent).

~~~
catalogia
Which part of Ebay refusing to do business in Romania is "ignoring courts"?

~~~
mturmon
The grandparent comment (not the story) said some words about US companies not
considering themselves "subservient to the government", and the child comment
(the one you replied to) said "but these companies have to obey the courts."

I'd say the GP comment over-reached by implying that a US company is not
ultimately subject to US law. In principle, the companies _do_ have to obey
the courts, although in practice, there are multiple ways for companies to
contest the power of a single court.

~~~
catalogia
If appealing to a higher court is what is meant by "ignoring courts and being
a banana republic", that doesn't make much sense to me. What's the purpose of
having higher courts to appeal to if not so that people or companies can do
exactly that? To me, "ignoring a court" is contempt of court, and courts have
mechanisms available to them to deal with it. It's the sort of thing people
get tossed into prison for. Appealing things to higher courts is not contempt
of court.

But I don't see how any of this relates to a merchant refusing to do business
in a country that neglects to prosecute thieves and scammers. I assume it's
somehow meant to relate to that, since the conversation is threaded that way,
but I can't work out the connection.

