No Thank You, Mr. Pecker - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@jeffreypbezos/no-thank-you-mr-pecker-146e3922310f <comment><USER2> It seems like a lot of people are not reading between the lines of this post. Bezos apparently believes that he was hacked by either the US or Saudi government and that now one or both of those governments are using the National Enquirer as an attack dog against him. That accusation is much bigger than any other piece of this story.

EDIT: Here [1] is a reporter from the Washington Post backing that up. The Bezos' camp believes this is a politically motivated attack and the data was acquired by a "government entity" (logically the US or Saudis).

[1] - [https://twitter.com/ndrew_lawrence/status/109371533307931853...](https://twitter.com/ndrew_lawrence/status/1093715333079318530)

<comment><USER3> >"hacked" by either the US or Saudi government

You think the U.S./Saudi government can remotely grab pics from an iPhone?

Apple has disclosed lots of security info saying even they cannot do this. The iPhone/iOS wasn't built in that way.

I think the leak likely comes from someone close to Ms. Sanchez, or she fell victim to a phishing attack (or account recovery hack).

<comment><USER4> Remember the fappening? It doesnt need to be remote grabbing, people just upload their nudes to the icloud. Maybe jeff did as well.

While apple says they are end to end encrypted, I also assume they work with the FBI/whoever to catch owners of illegal content, so they probably would have a way to get the unencrypted content.

<comment><USER5> Photos and files stored in iCloud are not end to end encrypted: [https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT202303](https://support.apple.com/en- gb/HT202303)

<comment><USER4> Oops, I actually looked at that page, but misinterpreted it

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Whatever you think about Jeff, this is the correct way to handle such things. We should all have the same character in such a situation (despite how the situation arose; in this case via an affair). Jeff has MANY other issues of moral disfortitude (we all do to some degree, though not at these scales). However, this particular event is to be applauded and emulated.

<comment><USER7> > this is the correct way to handle such things.

Yes, _with conditions_.

Bezos himself writes, in the article we're discussing:

 _I asked him to prioritise protecting my time since I have other things I prefer to work on and to_ proceed with whatever budget he needed _to pursue the facts in this matter._ \- emphasis mine.

And that:

 _On that point, numerous people have contacted our investigation team about their similar experiences with AMI, and how they needed to capitulate because, for example, their livelihoods were at stake._

Thus making it plain, simple, and obvious, that he recognises that having a net worth up around the US$137 billion[1] mark _has it 's perks_.

1\. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Bezos](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Bezos)

Edit: inconsequential grammar improvement

<comment><USER8> But if humanity as a whole enforced social norms that rewarded blackmail- refusals, then the value of blackmailing would drop so low as to be not worth it and extremely uncommon.

Essentially we could develop a herd immunity to blackmail.

<comment><USER7> The solutions to a great majority of the issues facing us begin with:

 _But if humanity as a whole..._

As far as I've been able to determine, much to my chagrin, in many of the ways that matter most, humanity isn't a coherent whole.

And I've got no idea what to do about it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> > _Well, that got my attention. But not in the way they likely hoped. Any > personal embarrassment AMI could cause me takes a back seat because there's > a much more important matter involved here. If in my position I can't stand > up to this kind of extortion, how many people can?_

Can't remember the last time I've seen a prominent person post the details of a personal extortion attempt out of defiance for all to see.

<comment><USER10> AMI picked the wrong person. Jeff, literally, has tons of money, extremely respected in the business world.

Forget about the embarrassment, if he secretly capitulates to this, then the real blackmail material would be the capitulation, not the photos. Cause if the owner of Washington Post bowed down to blackmail, every article published in the article will be called into question.

And who gives a shit if a billionaire cheated on his wife or sent dick pics. I don't care. Did he murder someone? Did he not divorce his wife by parting with half his fortune?

<comment><USER11> Looking at descriptions of those photos, I honestly don't understand why it's even such a big deal. And I suspect that it's not nearly as big of a deal to Bezos as the blackmailers thought it would be. Perhaps a little projection at play.

<comment><USER10> It's a big deal because buckling to blackmail will hurt his credibility immensely more.

I think AMI was looking forward to either damage WaPo or want JB to relinquish control of it. The game is WaPo, not JB.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Thought experiment: Try taking them at their word for a sec.

 _"...an exploration of Mr. Bezos' judgment... is indeed newsworthy and in the public interest."_

Wonderful! Looking out for my interests! My heroes, fightin' for me against all the bad judgment! So grateful!

But then, if he'll agree to comply with their demands, suddenly it's not newsworthy anymore.

 _" AM agrees not to publish, distribute, share, or describe unpublished texts and photos (the "Unpublished Materials")."_

What?! Sellouts! Traitors! What about the public interest?! All the bad judgment!??!?

So yeah, not only do they blackmail public figures; by their willingness to bury the story they also show that they can't be counted on to hold public figures accountable when the time comes. He's right, real journalists don't act like this. (Not that I ever believed that shit; like I said, it was just a thought experiment.)

All you need is a bit of dirt on them, and you're safe from being exposed. Actually that might be the one thing that made this case different and turned it into a blackmail attempt instead of just another in the thousands of sleaze stories over the years.

<comment><USER13> Yes. When they say it's newsworthy, the only reason they care about that is the legal protection it could offer them if they did publish the photos.

They clearly don't care about using journalism to benefit the public good. They've already admitted to that much when they openly acknowledged they helped bury the Karen McDougal / Trump story. ( [https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/dec/12/national- enq...](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/dec/12/national-enquirer- trump-payments-david-pecker-catch-and-kill) ) If it's important for shareholders to know about a sex scandal involving Bezos, then it's important for voters to know about sex scandal involving Trump.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> "proceed with whatever budget he needed to pursue the facts in this matter"

That's the richest guy in the world saying "I don't give a XXXX what it costs, find out who did it."

It's also the moment in your life when, if you get the result that guys wants, he'll be glad to write you a cheque for $20,000,000 and will be happy to do so and he won't be interested in why the number is that high.

<comment><USER15> That gave me chills, and the phrase, _If you're going to shoot the king, you'd better be goddamned sure you're going to kill him_ flashed through my mind. Well, they missed spectacularly, and now the man who has a rocket company for fun is clearly pissed.

<comment><USER16> You come at the king, you best not miss.

Also, never take notes on a criminal fucking conspiracy ;P

<comment><USER17> It's amazing how many people in Trump's inner circle love quoting mob movies, calling people "rats" and "stoolies" but can't seem to get down even the basics of being a half-decent criminal. I mean, Roger Stone literally told people to lie to Congress via an email.

One can quote mob movies all day but that doesn't make them a smart criminal.

<comment><USER18> I mean, they've lived in an era when being a white collar criminal is basically without legal penalty (as long as you're a white guy). It's really no wonder so many of them are so completely stupid, they would've had nothing to fear if their guy hadn't gotten himself elected.

<comment><USER19> Said another way, the underprosecution of white-collar crime provides an advantage to career criminals.

Go where the cops ain't.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Apparently AMI and David Pecker's non-prosecution agreement for the Michael Cohen stuff is contingent on them not continuing to do crime. So i guess that's out the window now.

[https://twitter.com/nycsouthpaw/status/1093654471157170177](https://twitter.com/nycsouthpaw/status/1093654471157170177)

<comment><USER21> Depends on the analysis I suppose. This one makes it sound unlikely that the agreement will be voided:

[https://twitter.com/renato_mariotti/status/10936583665834229...](https://twitter.com/renato_mariotti/status/1093658366583422978)

<comment><USER22> Only analysis that matters in the end is the judge's. That's why when you're operating with something like that hanging over your head, you should keep your nose clean.

You wouldn't believe the number of people who sidestep trouble with a deal like that, and then go right out and burn it up like idiots. I just don't get it?

<comment><USER23> Perhaps because they haven't had the opportunity to learn that actions sometimes have consequences?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I respect him even more now.

We are all human. Nobody wins this 'moral crusade' that takes up so much airtime.

We should be much more focused on the existential threats that the entire biosphere is dealing with, not the 'dick pics' of the world's richest man. He's just another dude at his core it seems, happens to be founder of Amazon though.

</comment><comment><USER25> Important note: This is written by _Jeff Bezos himself_.

Normally, the Bezos affair story would be gossipy, but this _alleges extortion_ , extraordinarily.

(Also, why is Jeff Bezos using Medium? He owns a newspaper.)

<comment><USER26> > (Also, why is Jeff Bezos using Medium? He owns a newspaper.)

Using his stake in the WaPo to boost a personal rebuttal would be a _tremendous_ ethical lapse.

<comment><USER27> Serious question: What if he bought a full page ad at the market rate? Would that be unethical because he was paying himself (sort of) for that ad?

<comment><USER28> It would be unethical because any media outlet he owns is an inappropriate place to select to air his personal business. Whether or not he pays for it is immaterial.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Having read the whole thing, man Jeff Bezos has a great deal of courage.

It helps to be backed by untold wealth but here is a guy who stands tall in the face of ghastly behaviour and in the face of deep personal embarrassment.

+1 Bezos.

<comment><USER29> I'm going to push back against this characterization as "ghastly personal behavior". For one, it's not clear if he and his wife were already separated, at least at a personal level, before this affair. But this general idea that it's somehow "ghastly" to send a paramour love notes and sexually suggestive pictures is a sad remnant of our puritanical history, and the sooner we rid ourselves of this notion, the better.

<comment><USER30> The status of his marriage is the key thing here. And there's plenty indicating he is very much a classical cheater.

Whatever the right adjective is, I'd definitely pick a negative one.

The way he cheated only makes an already dirty act so much nastier.

<comment><USER31> If they're separated, then the status of their marriage is irrelevant.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> What struck me was how brazen AMI was about the blackmail. Then I realized: they were comoftable doing it that way, putting it in writing, because in nearly every other time they've done this, it worked.

<comment><USER33> I wonder how this appears in their financial filings? I hardly think they have a line item for extortion.

<comment><USER34> They're not asking for money

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Granted, this strategy is _very_ high risk unless you're one of the richest people in the world.

<comment><USER35> The problem I have with most super rich people is that they consider genuine risk far less important than potential embarrassment. E.g. they won't dare taking a stand politically because of the chance that someone will go public with some scandalous nonsense. Bezos on the other hand seems willing to calculate differently. I have to say, this has changed my opinion of him a _lot_ in his favour. On the very remote chance you're reading this Jeff, good on you!

<comment><USER36> I agree.

One thought did occur to me is that he is basically daring AMI to release the pictures. What if he knows the providence of these pictures, knows how they got into AMI hands, and knows that if AMI publish them he can sue them, Gawker (not Buzzfeed) style, into the ground?

<comment><USER37> Gawker style?

<comment><USER38> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bollea_v._Gawker](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bollea_v._Gawker)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> If you ever find yourself with scandalous or incriminating material on someone remember this: Blackmail will always fail in the long run.

It's commonnly known in espionage tradecraft that it's an absolute last resort or totally off limits tool. The risk you take with coercive trade craft are insanely high.

As proven here.

<comment><USER40> And if you are going to do it. For fucks sake, do _not_ put it in writing...

<comment><USER41> Are there any repercussions for accredited lawyers involved in this? Or are they safe if they act purely at the discretion of a client?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Guess where Mr. Pecker is hosting! [https://twitter.com/ryanhuber/status/1093665718464327680](https://twitter.com/ryanhuber/status/1093665718464327680)

<comment><USER43> [https://www.nationalenquirer.com](https://www.nationalenquirer.com) is now down

<comment><USER44> Interestingly up, but responding with 403. Being unfamiliar with AWS' web hosting platform, is there a service that would fall back to denying access if certain sub-modules or instances were pulled?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> This is literally the best thing he could have done. Would love to hear more about other people who have been black-mailed too - perhaps there is something much larger afoot. Hell, if they are this bold about taking on Bezos, potentially the other black-mail-ees are some very influential big hitters (billionaires, politicians, etc).

As others have pointed out, the big story is that he's directly accusing them of political motivation (US and/or Saudi), with them threatening him almost confirming that this is correct. For them to show their hand so badly hints strongly towards some guilt. Digging further seems like the last thing they want, so I think it's what should be done.

Would just like to add - regardless of how embarrassing the photos may or may not be, any "news" agency that publishes them goes straight to the top of my shit list and hopefully everybody elses too. Would be good if there was some organized way to show solidarity against black mail of this kind.

<comment><USER46> I don't agree.

He's taking an ostensibly 'strong stand' \- but he's also furthering the public furor.

Before he was a 'somewhat well known person' but now he's really, really going to be famous, and probably not for the right reasons. And by the way, most people probably don't know how he is yet. That's hard to grasp because _we_ certainly do - but if you walk out your door right now, take a stroll and ask people if they know how 'Jeff Bezos' is, surprisingly fewer people will know who is is than you'd imagine.

You know Maroon 5? They were a 'famous' band with hit albums and singles. But since the lead singers role on 'the Voice' \- their popularity has skyrocketed into mainstream. Listen to Zuck's sister Randy talk about the history of 'The Social Network' film - apparently the film caused a huge upsurge in FB accounts so it was a blessing. But who among us hadn't heard of Maroon 5 before 'The Voice'? Or Facebook before 'The Social Network'. 'We' are not normal folks. Normal folks have a variety of interests that may not include hearing about Maroon 5, or Facebook in it's early years, or Jeff Bezos.

Bezos is entering a new realm of pop culture, the news cycle in a very ugly landscape, and he's opening himself up for trouble.

'The truth' is the first thing lost in the fog of war, and certainly in pop culture war as well.

It might have been a better move to simply shut up about it, or at least be low key. Newsrooms work on the fuel of tidbits of facts, actions, and create narratives - without fuel, these issues just fade in the background because other , more clickworthy stuff is always happening.

Personally, I would have made a public statement through a rep. which possibly included the extortion notes, just for public record, but I wouldn't for a second make it personal or do things in my name, give interviews etc. etc..

Finally, and something that people have not denoted - but this 'scandal' has it's essence partly in sneaky photos - but mostly in the notion that 'Bezos, supposedly family man, was caught cheating on his wife'. I don't know the details of what happened, but this perception can actually be damaging. Even among those who are more liberal on such issues ... the idea of a rich billionaire guy, philandering around with some woman while his wife and kids are at home ... this is a bad image irrespective of what reality is.

The only winners in media storms are those for whom it's a way of life, i.e. 'their only value' \- like newsrooms and media creations like Donald Trump.

I feel Bezos might be getting sucked into a storm he may not be able to get out of.

There are very few things that could risk his tenure as CEO of Amazon, but a wrong turn in the public eye is surprisingly easy, and it could cause trouble. People lose their CEO jobs often not because the board things some real wrongdoing has happened, but because public opinion is just up in a fuss about something.

Edit: If he is making ostensible claims that the US or Saudi's are actively spying on him, this could hurt him. True or not, it just sounds wildly conspicuous and conspiratorial, and it could easily turn into fodder for those who might not want to treat him well. It could also hurt his position among regular business people who might see it as a wild claim, irrespective of what the truth is.

<comment><USER10> I am curious, if you were in Jeff Bezos place what would you do? I mean, what would you do after you get that email from NE lawyer?

<comment><USER46> I said in my post I would probably make a carefully worded statement through a spokesperson for the public record, possibly including the email, and avoid in any way creating something the press or anyone else could buy into as clickbait narrative. Stay out of the public eye entirely, no photos, personal quotes, attacks etc..

Bezos will not win if this blows up. He'll win in the eyes of a few people, and lose in others, and it will only create a stain on his record.

Think of the legacy of Bill and Melinda Gates. It's relatively unscathed.

<comment><USER10> >He'll win in the eyes of a few people, and lose in others, and it will only create a stain on his record.

This will happen even if he does what you said.

> Think of the legacy of Bill and Melinda Gates. It's relatively unscathed.

Yeah, that's because they did not do anything wrong. Here, Jeff cheated on his wife and he is facing the consequences. BTW, Bill gates was very much reviled during the early Microsoft days. People tend to see beyond his past actions due to his tremendously useful social work he has undertaken since he left MS.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> basil-rash Slightly off topic, but does anyone know why this is so low on HN? It has more votes and is more recent than anything except the "How I didn't make a billion dollar company" post, but is at rank 11.

[https://imgur.com/a/bifDABu](https://imgur.com/a/bifDABu)

<comment><USER47> The title isn't something that I would have had any idea what it was about or why I should read it if I hadn't been linked here from a comment thread with a more informative title.

<comment><USER48> Yep. I don't read medium posts as a general principle, and the title meant nothing to me so I skipped right over it. Only saw it in another thread.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> The elite are really the only members of society who can successfully dismantle tabloid media like AMI, see: Peter Theil v. Gawker.

<comment><USER50> perhas because they are also the only ones who would care to do so?

<comment><USER51> and have the means to put up a fight.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> > Bezos Exposes Pecker

HuffPo headline

<comment><USER10> I find this extremely irresponsible. This is a serious issue.

I am beginning to think that this is a conspiracy by AMI to damage Washington Post. If Jeff would have done something as requested by AMI, they would again use that against him and start shouting that WaPo has lost credibility, since Jeff is so easy to blackmail.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> _" I asked him to prioritize protecting my time since I have other things I prefer to work on and to proceed with whatever budget he needed to pursue the facts in this matter."_

Wow!

<comment><USER32> Yeah I know. It's almost just slipped in there as an afterthought, but it tells a story of Bezos saying to AMI: _" I'll spend more money on this than your entire media 'empire' is worth, if that's what it takes... And I'll barely notice the loss."_

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> At some point in the future we will look back at this administration and marvel at the magnitude of criminal activities surrounding this president.

<comment><USER11> I'm afraid that at said point, we will marvel more with the fact that the people at the center of it all got away with it. Remember Nixon, or Iran- Contra?

<comment><USER54> Maybe, maybe not.

The investigations against Trump and his people are already way past the scope of Nixon or Iran-Contra.

Particularly, at the very least, Trump is on the hook for state charges in New York about his Trump foundation. He can't get pardoned by a sympathetic successor.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> I'm not a fan of the guy. He (and all the GAFAs) is killing our public services all over Europe by not paying any taxes (legally, I know, we did this to ourselves).

I think he did good by reacting as he did, though.

However, something is bugging me: how can you be so stupid to make dick pics with a connected device nowadays?

I mean, the fappening happened, so much happened that you cannot ignore the fact that nothing you're doing with an online device is private.

Anyone, any entity with enough cash, can hack into all your devices in a glimpse.

When you're Jeff f __*ing Bezos, you must know better, come on!

</comment><comment><USER56> Given that Jeff Bezos appears to be willing to spend almost unlimited money on this, it'll be interesting to see if a felony investigation happens.

<comment><USER57> Can a DA get some political mileage from prosecuting this?

My guess is yes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> Ronan Farrow tweeted that he and anther journalist were similarly threatened by AMI:

[https://twitter.com/RonanFarrow/status/1093690150448758784](https://twitter.com/RonanFarrow/status/1093690150448758784)

</comment><comment><USER59> This title should probably be changed to something useful. There is no indication of what it might be in the original title.

<comment><USER60> Part of the HN charm is that when there's a story pegged to the front page with a title like this, you can just trust that it's worth a click.

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> Think what you will of Amazon or Jeff Bezos, but his conduct here is heroic. I don't say that lightly.

</comment><comment><USER32> On Gavin de Becker: If you've done some shady stuff, it's hard to imagine a worse person to have investigating and digging into your activities than Gavin de Becker. Here's a excerpt from Gavin's wikipedia entry on just a little of his work over the years. This Bezos issue isn't even his first foray up against a tabloid:

 _Along with the United States Marshals Service, he co-designed the MOSAIC Threat Assessment Systems, which is used to screen threats to Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States, members of United States Congress, and senior officials of the Central Intelligence Agency... De Becker testified in the successful 1994 civil case arising when The Globe tabloid accused an uninvolved man of being the actual assassin of Senator Robert Kennedy. Globe tried to get de Becker 's testimony thrown out by a higher court; however, it was ultimately upheld_[0]

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gavin_de_Becker](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gavin_de_Becker)

</comment><comment><USER62> He seems to be driving his point home in how, when including the email from Dylan Howard, the mobile (cell) number in the text is redacted, but the signature image (containing said number) is left unmodified.

<comment><USER63> probably personal cell # vs business cell #

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> I never thought I'd be rooting for Bezos, but I am.

</comment><comment><USER64> Hiding in all the obvious noise surrounding this case, where Bezos is certainly the nice guy, I can still get Gail Wynand vibes from him. The power he holds is unprecedented.

</comment><comment><USER65> Wonder what the Saudi connection is...

<comment><USER66> The Post, along with the Times, has been pursuing and reporting a story that David Pecker, AMI's CEO, has been working with a Saudi go-between, in part as an effort to expand their business. More importantly, Jamal Khashoggi, who we now know almost beyond a reasonable doubt† was targeted by Mohammad Bin Salman before Saudi assassins murdered him in Turkey (most probably at MBS's behest), was a Post employee.

† _Reports emerged today that there 's apparently audio of MBS himself ruminating over having him murdered._

<comment><USER67> How does that explain Pecker's rage at the WaPo digging into AMI's Saudi connection, though?

Nearly everyone who wants funding at this scale hits up the Saudis. Describing that AMI looked for funding with the Saudi royals doesn't strike me as a particularly significant reveal; Musk did it relatively recently, and he wasn't excoriated for it. How is news that AMI is doing it worthy of a push- all-the-chips-into-the-pot move like AMI pulled?

Now if Bezos' private investigation team is getting close to some kind of Kryptonite like Pecker personally authorized his staff to assist with encouraging Khashoggi to visit the Saudi's Turkish embassy as a favor to the royals to try to ingratiate himself and angle for a funding pitch, then I could understand Pecker's reaction. Even if Pecker and AMI didn't know the Saudi's intent, it would indeed be very awkward for AMI and the Saudis. The other direction this could be going is the Saudis are directing AMI via cut- outs to dissuade any deeper investigation into Khashoggi's death, and miscalculated Bezos' mettle.

I wonder if AMI overplayed the "Bezos cheated in his marriage!1!1" angle, too. If there is more or less a collective shoulder shrug that billionaire POTUS DJT cheated on Melania, I'm not clear what AMI thought the impact would be on Amazon's public opinion that its billionaire founder/leader is doing the same.

This will be interesting to follow.

<comment><USER28> This type of response is quite common when investigating criminal masterminds: Maximum outrage; Blatant denial; Threatening retaliation if the investigation is not halted immediately.

Whether or not Pecker is a criminal mastermind is for the courts to say, but his response does him no favors in the public eye and in the press.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER68> So let me get this straight.. the owner(s) of the _National Enquirer_ are doing this.. because they're worried about what, their journalistic credibility? Seriously? After having published the Enquirer for decades already?

Alternately, maybe some people just like to be bullies.

<comment><USER69> It is possibly due to pressure from Saudi Arabia. MBS was pissed that WP is going after him after killing of Khashoggi. Enquirer (and Pecker) are quite close to MBS, they ran a cover story on him (how awesome he is).

It could be a bigger story than it seems at the moment.

<comment><USER70> Not just a cover story, they created a whole glossy ad free magazine about him and printed 200,000 copies. It's bizarre.

[https://www.thedailybeast.com/trumps-publisher-pal-puts- saud...](https://www.thedailybeast.com/trumps-publisher-pal-puts-saudi- propaganda-magazine-in-us-supermarkets)

> Greeting Americans on newsstands is a high-quality glossy advertisement for > MBS, The New Kingdom. It retails for $13.99, has no ads and its 200,000 > copies can be found in venues ranging from U.S. airports to WalMart, Safeway > and Kroger's—raising questions about the magazine's financing and its > origins. The Saudis say they don't know how it came to be. AMI, which > publishes The National Enquirer, insists it had no outside editorial or > financial assistance, from the Trump administration or otherwise.

<comment><USER69> This made me just realize that MBS might fund Enquirer's legal fights with Bezos which may reduce the possibility of Enquirer's extinction (as everyone is hypothesizing).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER71> NationalEnquirer.com redirects(302) to radaronline.com

Web Archive has snapshots from yesterday (2019/02/07) still showing the National Enquirer website.

<comment><USER72> It just says 403 here in Europe.

</comment></comment><comment><USER73> I look forward to seeing these scumbags becoming a smoking crater.

</comment><comment><USER74> "Middle-aged man has dick, likes sex" shocker!

Kudos to Jeff for standing up to this bullshit.

</comment><comment><USER75> Blackmail is the motivator behind practically all surveillance. It's the essence of spycraft and much of what we call law enforcement. Most of it, as here, doesn't directly involve money, but coercion. Getting something on a judge's son, prosecutor's father, or administrator's husband is as useful as on the target.

Was that decision or contract awarded by merit, or coerced? We can rarely know. This is not academic. Why did Obama ratchet up the war on whistleblowers in the CIA/NSA/DIA, charging them with espionage? We can only speculate.

</comment><comment><USER76> He chose Medium.

@ev is 3 out of 3 (and a podcast pivot).

<comment><USER77> What were the other 2?

<comment><USER76> Twitter and Blogger obviously.

<comment><USER77> Oh I thought he meant Medium got 3/3 epic stories like this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER78> Imho, the best possible response to this kind of situation is to generate thousands of (deep) fakes, with different parameters, and spread them. Then, nobody will know what the real photos were. Also, with this many fakes going around, nobody will really care anymore. And mr. Bezos certainly has the resources to get a team of CGI artists to work on something like this.

<comment><USER79> I get the sense that his response is more about principle and not getting pushed around by some sleazeball hack posing as a journalist than it is about avoiding personal embarrassment. Bezos is secure in his professional life. Whether or not more pictures come out have little bearing on the outcome of his divorce. The biggest concern here is the reaction of his family and friends. The ones closest to him would probably know about the extortion attempt anyway. This is a guy who is worth $140B. That's not normal and has likely made relationships difficult for many years. The people he truly cares about, the ones who are close, have already gotten past the thing that makes him completely different from everyone else in the world. Why would they care about something like sexting and nude pics that make him the same as most people in the world? They don't care. As for everyone else not close to him, I'm sure he learned long ago how to tune out the noise.

</comment></comment><comment><USER80> Now _this_ is Fuck You Money.

<comment><USER81> Well in this case there's no money involved really. It's just a fuck you.

<comment><USER82> The "I asked him to prioritize protecting my time since I have other things I prefer to work on and to proceed with whatever budget he needed to pursue the facts in this matter" part gives off pretty strong "money is no object" vibes haha.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER83> Quoting somebody who posted in the deleted duplicate thread:

"To modify a quote from The Dark Knight:

"Let me get this straight, you think one of the wealthiest and most powerful men in the world, who owns the Washington Post and pays out of his own pocket to send rockets to space, won't stand up for himself so your plan is to blackmail this person?

Good Luck "

</comment><comment><USER84> The right to publish here would be protected under the first amendment. But:

1\. An argument for the news worthiness of these pictures could be made like in the Hulk Hogan v Gawker[1]. This is a delicate balance if a judge decides to let this go to trial. Things could get interesting. Especially given the written email.

2\. Could a criminal case not be made for blackmail under Title 18 [2]? Or is it that now Jeff has published the letter it is no longer considered blackmail as long as they don't publish the picture?

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bollea_v._Gawker](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bollea_v._Gawker)

[2]([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackmail#United_States](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackmail#United_States))

</comment><comment><USER85> Interesting attempt to blackmail someone (who in this case happens to be, you know, the richest man in the world), with information that is generally public already. All that would have been added were a few additional pictures. How much extra public embarrassment is going to come from that?

</comment><comment><USER86> For all the times Hacker News criticizes personal "anecdata", nitpicks the tiniest flaw in methodology, and demands statistical significance for every trivial matter, when it comes to politics they sure are willing to run the gossip mill without an ounce of critical thought.

<comment> naval-gazer This is not anecdotal information.

This is public person directly involved laying down criminal blackmail attempt accusation whose goal was to stop him from investigating the source of the information. If Besoz is lying, Pecker and AMI can sue him for false accusations and win handsome sum of money.

Things that make this interesting case:

Pecker was not worried about himself, because National Enquirer has right to publish pictures they get. He wanted to hide source of the information. That's weird.

Pecker surely is not worried about the wellbeing of some paparazzi or low level information source. Attempted a blackmail and exposing himself to criminal liability means that there is something there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER87> Today's NY Post had fun with this. The cover headline:

"Bezos exposes Pecker"

[1] [https://nypost.com/cover/covers-for-friday- february-8-2019/](https://nypost.com/cover/covers-for-friday-february-8-2019/)

</comment><comment><USER88> _Here's a piece of context: My ownership of the Washington Post is a complexifier for me. It's unavoidable that certain powerful people who experience Washington Post news coverage will wrongly conclude I am their enemy.

President Trump is one of those people, obvious by his many tweets. Also, The Post's essential and unrelenting coverage of the murder of its columnist Jamal Khashoggi is undoubtedly unpopular in certain circles._

Is Bezos implicating Trump himself in this scheme?

<comment><USER89> Bezos essentially got paid by the CIA to buy the WashPost ($600 million contract from the CIA, next thing you know, Bezos buys the paper).

Let's not kid ourselves about his altruism - the purpose of owning a large paper like the Post is political power... this has been true since at least the time of Lord Beaverbrook.

<comment><USER90> I didn't downvote- can you please elaborate more?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER91> With iPhones on both ends, I'm having a hard time believing the "hack" accusation. Apple has learned their lessons from The Fappening debacle, and you you can't as much as sneeze without triggering 2FA if you're accessing stuff from the device not already tied to the user.

More likely this was leaked either by Sanchez herself or by someone who had access to her Apple Photos photostream (such as on e.g. a Mac or a shared iPad) where all of this stuff would pop up unless they were using something like WhatsApp with "save images" setting set to off.

Less sophisticated users probably don't even know this setting exists, and it's on by default.

</comment><comment><USER70> > I prefer to stand up, roll this log over, and see what crawls out.

It's going to be fascinating to see what he uncovers. David Pecker has been playing this extortion game for decades (frequently on behalf of his buddy Don Trump). Now Bezos has given a blank check to drain the swamp.

> To lead my investigation, I retained Gavin de Becker. I've known Mr. de > Becker for twenty years, his expertise in this arena is excellent, and he's > one of the smartest and most capable leaders I know. I asked him to > prioritize protecting my time since I have other things I prefer to work on > and to proceed with whatever budget he needed to pursue the facts in this > matter.

</comment><comment><USER92> I'm impressed he didn't censor out the text that says what the photos contain. The post would have had a similar impact either way I think. Nobody should have to be embarrassed about harm-free personal activities though.

<comment><USER93> Is there anything particularly embarrassing about them? All sounds pretty vanilla to me?

<comment><USER92> If they have no value in causing embarrassment, what value would they have as blackmail material?

There's nothing embarrassing about being naked but I'm sure most people wouldn't want naked photos of themselves made public.

<comment><USER28> If he was a woman, releasing those photos could end his career as a C-level executive at any US corporation.

<comment><USER94> Many more men than women have had their career as C-level executives ended by sexual indiscretions. That's of course because there are many more men than women in C-level executive positions, but your "if he was a woman" is a non sequitur.

<comment><USER93> I feel like there's value in drawing a line between "sexual indiscretion" and harassment/assault. Using the expense account to take your mistress out, paying your strip bar bill with the company card, or banging your consenting coworker on your boss's desk during the Xmas party is sexual indiscretion.

Abusing a position of power to get sexual favours from a coworker is something quite different, and I don't think anyone benefits from conflation of the two.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER95> I have done things in my past that people could and may publicly shame me for. I was worrying TODAY about what I could do to try to avoid a possible future where my research gets derailed from some kind of extortion. It's my understanding that reciprocal altruism can spread easily through a competitive community, but extortion can overcome altruism when information is kept private.

This is Jeff Bezos helping us figure out useful language for standing up to extortion, which is important if we want reciprocal altruism to be a new cultural norm. Transparency is the anti-extortion pattern.

Thank you for your contribution, Jeff!

</comment><comment><USER96> What's kind of weird about this move by National Enquirer is that it seems so poorly thought out. Bezos' "affair" was known to his wife and they parted amicably; sending genital photos is probably the least embarrassing thing you could catch a billionaire doing, and in fact it kind of humanizes him.

In the age of privacy conversations, I can't see how this is supposed to end up positive for the paper. They oversold it here and seem to have opened themselves up to some tough questions in the process.

</comment><comment><USER97> Not surprised the whole mainstream media attacks him recently. This guy doesn't agree with them, so he gets consequences. The left has a vast corrupt media support it. I wonder which one is the next victim of this party. Apple and Walmart have been consistently threatened, and the past year has been Facebook (the left likes FB a lot and even not disclosing some bad things of this company until 2017 ).

<comment><USER98> Uhh are you so deep in your conspiracy theories that you missed the whole fox news complex? There's no left wing equivalent to that.

<comment><USER99> > [...]the whole fox news complex? There's no left wing equivalent to that.

CNN and MSNBC easily fit that bill.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_iXfbxfwDA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_iXfbxfwDA)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgBxfHdb4OU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgBxfHdb4OU)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER100> I'm glad not all tech billionaires are sterile robots

<comment><USER101> Counterpoint: this is likely how a sterile robot would respond to an extortion attempt.

<comment><USER102> Sterile robots don't have naked selfies floating around.

<comment><USER28> One quarter of the first page of Google Images results for "humanoid robots" are unclothed, with unprotected robot surfaces showing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER103> How can any retailer carry AMI's product anymore? There is no longer plausible deniability about their business practices.

</comment><comment><USER104> Someone at the New York Post can die now with the knowledge that their life work is complete: [https://twitter.com/nypost/status/1093723253934309376](https://twitter.com/nypost/status/1093723253934309376)

</comment><comment><USER105> > My lawyers argued that AMI has no right to publish photos since any person > holds the copyright to their own photos, and since the photos in themselves > don't add anything newsworthy.

Wait, is this really true? If it is, then why do wedding photogs claim _they_ have copyright ownership?

</comment><comment><USER106> [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-30/behind- tr...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-30/behind-trump-s- tabloid-king-a-connected-and-flush-hedge-fund)

</comment><comment><USER107> Is this a good place to quote a few lines from The Godfather?

Michael Corleone: My father is no different than any other powerful man,... like a senator or a president.

Kay Adams: You know how naive you sound?

Michael: Why?

Kay Adams: Senators and presidents don't have men killed.

Michael: Who's being naive, Kay?

</comment><comment><USER50> Whatever people say about the social media, their evilness is at least transparent. This kind of "journalism" is another level of evil and reminds me why all traditional media should be distrusted.

</comment><comment> naval-gazer It looks like criminal blackmail attempt. In a normal case Bezos would just forward all evidence to authorities for more investigation and prosecution. He would issue short press release later when the case goes to court.

Because Bezos thinks there is a political angle, and he wants to really find out who is behind this and expose them, this seems to be the best course of action.

The sole reason for this blackmail attempt was to make Bezos to back down and stop trying to find the source of this information. This means someone was worried and it's not just normal paparazzi stuff. Peckers attempt has backfired spectacularly.

With all the publicity, any individual in the government or in some telecom company who might have illegally gained access to those records must be panicking.

If there is foreign involvement, this will become a counterintelligence investigation. If Trump is involved, Mueller will take a look. Pecker has already cooperation agreement with Mueller, so Pecker is in real trouble.

</comment><comment><USER108> Yesterday evening, "NTY, Mr. Pecker" was global headline news, blowing up more so this morning. Why is there still nothing on Google News?

</comment><comment><USER109> Maybe a naive question: But why does Mr. Benzos not go to the police with all that evidence? Why did he choose to publish all this instead?

</comment><comment><USER110> some commentary and backstory by the Seattle Times: [https://www.seattletimes.com/business/jeff-bezos-says- nation...](https://www.seattletimes.com/business/jeff-bezos-says-national- enquirer-is-attempting-to-blackmail-him-with-intimate-photos/)

</comment><comment><USER111> This may someday be adapted into "A Very American Scandal".

</comment><comment><USER112> This entire Bezos/Enquirer saga is complexifying.

</comment><comment><USER113> Looks like Bezos will own the National Enquirer soon.

</comment><comment><USER114> hey mods do you think you could edit the title of this submission to give some idea what it's about or who wrote it?

</comment><comment><USER115> At least no one is threatening to release compromising photos of Trump. That would be horrible.

</comment><comment><USER116> Obligatory blackmail scene from the Dark Knight [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1z6o1GIEsQE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1z6o1GIEsQE)

</comment><comment><USER46> I believe people on this thread are viewing this thing in a specific way, and that there are other ways to consider this.

1) I suggest this is not blackmail in the legal sense. AMI, whatever they are - are not idiots. AMI probably knows better than any company in the world what is going to constitute 'newsworthy' items, at least in the legal sense. To suggest they would do something blatantly illegal and criminal in an email of all things ... I think does not make sense.

They do this sort of thing for a living.

2) This is a back room deal, a pretty normal one. They are asking Bezos to state:

"have no knowledge or basis for suggesting that AMI's coverage was politically motivated or influenced by political forces."

This may actually technically be true. Does Bezos actually have hard evidence of political interference? And how would acquire this? And if he doesn't, what is the cost of merely stating a fact?

If we move out of a moral headspace for a moment and just consider the realpolitik of the situation - it's tantamount to a kind of 'legal blackmail' \- superficially, it's not a bad deal at all.

This is hardball and it's not exactly uncommon in business, it's just of a very personal nature.

3) If those pics are published, the 'courage' of Bezos' ostensible principled stance are not going to be rewarded.

The #1 thing Bezos will be known for, for at least a decade are his 'dick picks' and that he was 'cheating on his wife and kids'.

None of the context will really matter that much, i.e. maybe he was already separated, maybe the 'dick picks' were totally private, nothing to do with work, the woman did not work for him etc..

It _does not matter_.

A dick pick is all anyone will know.

Bezos is famous among us, but he's not really famous among regular people, but this could make could really make him a 'household name' for the wrong reasons.

Remember: the realm of pop culture nobody cares about 'principles'. Images flashing across the screen of a blurred out penis will be 99% of the news type thing.

This is a 'pop culture' war, not a legal war, or a war among public intellectuals or businessmen. This is a 'Buzzfeed war' and Bezos doesn't have any ammunition.

His penis may be seen by billions, almost nobody will read his Medium post.

4) I respect his choice - but - he has a company to worry about. If this blows up, and it starts to affect his 'perceived credibility' \- what is he going to tell his board? He had a 'truce agreement' on the table which seemed ostensibly reasonable (assuming Bezos doesn't have some crazy evidence that he really needs to provide the feds?).

The pragmatic choice would have been to make a truce with his warring entities.

Thankfully, Bezos has billions and ownership etc. and doesn't have a normal CEO-board relationship, as I believe most 'regular boards' would have seen only the realpolitik of the situation and would be aghast that he didn't make an agreement.

So good on him for ostensibly 'doing the right thing' but I feel there is much more to come.

<comment><USER31> > This may actually technically be true. Does Bezos actually have hard > evidence of political interference?

"On December 12, 2018, the U.S. Attorney's Office announced its agreement with A.M.I. "AMI admitted that it made the $150,000 payment in concert with a candidate's presidential campaign," the press release said, so that Karen McDougal wouldn't "publicize damaging allegations about the candidate before the 2016 presidential election."

I mean, it's not exactly an obscure bit of news.

</comment></comment><comment><USER117> Jeff Bezos, if you're reading this:

Do a Playgirl spread, for charity. Spreadeagle.

Defang them.

\</comment><comment>--

Edit:

defang them (pun intended... get it? "fang") by doing Playgirl now, and publishing those sext images alongside. And do it for some great charity.

Everybody will have a huge laugh over it, Jeff will be a hero, and National Enquirer will have nothing to publish.

<comment><USER118> I agree.

Once you've torn them limb from limb, once Pecker is rotting in a jail sell and the only thing the National Enquirer is useful for is recycling them into cup holders; then you walk into Playgirl and do a photo shoot of these exact photos just to make sure they all know it was never about the pictures.

</comment></comment><comment><USER119> Is his "gf" a plant?

</comment><comment><USER120> The title does this post a misservice. This is way, way more interesting than you might think, and I highly recommend following the link and reading the whole thing.

</comment><comment><USER90> Can anyone actually knowledgeable and not just rooting for one side tell me whether it would be illegal for NE to now go ahead and publish the said pics?

As of now, all I read from knowledgeable people is that there is no case- as is shown by the fact that mr bezos chose to make the 'evidence' public. My question is- does there still stay no case if they publish the pictures? Or does that change things? I'm assuming it won't because Mr bezos wouldn't risk publicizing the evidence considering that eventualit

<comment><USER31> Revenge porn laws might be an issue.

But, really, what does he have to be worried about? If they publish them, what's the actual harm to him, now that he's said they exist?

</comment></comment><comment><USER121> Slightly off topic, but the fact that the world's richest man who owns a tech giant chose to publish this on a closed platform like Medium should be worrisome for the future of the open web. On the other hand, this might just be the biggest brand endorsement for Medium till date.

<comment><USER122> Only HN could turn Jeff Bezos publicly outing a company attempting to extort him with naked photos into a threat to the "future of the open web".

<comment><USER121> I mean, he's talking about journalistic standards. Having an open web is crucial for having good journalism on the web.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER123> TLDR?

</comment><comment><USER124> Billionaire uses own newspaper to attack Trump. Billionaire uses own newspaper to attack billionaire using own newspaper to attack Trump.

<comment><USER31> "The nasty newspaper was mean about poor little Donald by reporting on his wrongdoing" does _not_ justify blackmail. In any way. What on earth are you talking about?

</comment></comment><comment><USER125> How can they publish photos which they don't own the copyrights?

<comment><USER126> the paparazzi exist in a 1st amendment gray area. they cover public figures but the newsworthy nature of their salacious stories and gathering tactics are always getting challenged in court.

<comment><USER102> The paparazzi own their photographs though. In copyright, the person who takes the photo owns it.

These photos were stolen.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER127> Am I the only one that thinks if Bezos never lets his personal Mr. Pecker roam beyond his marriage bed that none of this explanation would be needed?

</comment><comment><USER128> I am glad that Jeff Bezos is aggressively going after AMI for their scummy behavior. I was also glad that Peter Thiel aggressively went after Gawker Media for their scummy behavior. Sometimes these badly behaving media outlets need to have a billionaire personally invested in stopping their bad behavior.

<comment><USER129> Gawker didn't try to extort Hulk Hogan or Peter Thiel. The situations aren't comparable.

<comment><USER130> No, they went right ahead and published revenge porn.

<comment><USER50> still i believe most people consider extortion a graver crime

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER131> > If we do not agree to affirmatively publicize that specific lie, they say > they'll publish the photos, and quickly. And there's an associated threat: > They'll keep the photos on hand and publish them in the future if we ever > deviate from that lie.

They never explicitly say that, do they? I'm not enough of a lawyer to know if what they did still counts as extortion/blackmail, but as far as I can see they simply describe the photos, and propose an agreement that would prevent them from publishing the photos. But they never say "Do this or we'll publish the photos" \- perhaps they never intended to publish them in the first place.

<comment><USER132> Yes, they do explicitly say exactly that. Term 3 in Jon Fine's email is "AMI agrees not to publish" and that directly follows term 2, which is Bezos backing off his assertion that AMI is politically motivated in their coverage. And term 6 means they get to keep the blackmail materials.

<comment><USER90> I don't usually put myself in debates on HN but I have always thought of you as a very rational guy so I'm surprised you make this comment-

Situation A: where none of this happened. Ami reserves the right to publish photos. Perfectly legal.

Situation B: Present Offer- I wont publish them. But if you cheat- we go back to situation A.

Plain and simple. I am no lawyer bit everyone I've read today says that basically bezos has no case and his legal allowed him to publicize evidence and comment on 'an ongoing case'\- commentary which can alter the 'case' pretty much means there is no case. The only thing that remains to be seen (or ignored) is when Ami will publish his photos because if they really want to play this game- that's what their next step would be.</comment></comment></comment>


Diversion of face masks meant for Europe - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/03/mask-wars-coronavirus-outbidding-demand <comment><AUTHOR> What do you think about that ?</comment>


Show HN: Clojure for the Brave and True – now free online - <AUTHOR> http://www.braveclojure.com/?updated <comment><USER2> I know the author personally, having worked with him for some time before he left. Brilliant guy. He pretty much brought Clojure into our tech stack :)

<comment><USER3> What was it before ? plain old Java or a totally different infrastructure ?

<comment><USER2> We mostly had a ruby stack. It worked for most stuff albeit being slow. We stayed away from java until clojure came in.

Also starting with elixir - taking inspiration from functional clojure for networking stuff.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> One of the best and most enjoyable ways to get started with Clojure, very well done. The part on setting up emacs was hugely helpful for a VI guy for me who's mucked around with other Lisp editor plugins.

<comment><USER5> How do you feel about developing Clojure in Emacs, as a Vi guy?

I'm also more at home in Vi, but I ended up going with Cursive when I began learning Clojure (and I highly recommend it), but I've always been curious about the Emacs option.

<comment><USER6> Try spacemacs. [https://github.com/syl20bnr/spacemacs/](https://github.com/syl20bnr/spacemacs/)

It's an emacs configuration meant to be a hybrid of the best in emacs and vim. I'm a vim user of several years, and am just beginning to do some clojure development of my own, so I recently made the switch.

There's definitely a learning curve, but it's much, much less involved then learning either emacs or vim on their own. And you get to keep the vim editing style.

A couple of things to get used to:

\- Space for the leader (it's actually great).

\- Escape mostly stops things, but not always. Ctrl-g is a safer option.

\- q closes many popup windows.

\- Using lisp to do everything in the config file (.spacemacs)

The docs are a good place to start. Also C-h will bring up an extensive help menu.

You'll want to add the clojure layer to your .spacemacs, as one of the dotspacemacs-configuration-layers.

<comment><USER5> Thanks, I'll take a look at it

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I bought the pre-release. I hope it starts shipping!~ What a great book. Got me hooked on Clojure. I wish he made a companion book for more advanced use cases. I.e. advanced workflows, testing, project layout etc..

<comment><AUTHOR> I plan on creating more content :) I wrote a blog post with a couple more details ([http://www.flyingmachinestudios.com/programming/brave-and- ne...](http://www.flyingmachinestudios.com/programming/brave-and-new/), fourth paragraph). But yes, I want to cover testing, web development, and more. Right now I'm working on an in-depth explanation of reducers.

edit: also, clojure applied is a good book for what you're talking about

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I bought the book in the prerelease form after reading most of it online because it was so great! I found it better structured than "Joy of Clojure". Definitely a work of love.

An aside, I was a former Raleigh native, and was surprised to see such a Clojure pocket in the area. Made me wish I was still around!

</comment><comment><USER9> Thanks for publishing this gratis!

I've been following along for some months, but put off ordering it because I bought Fogus and Hauser instead.

Now there's a deadline on the 30% discount. I'll make a point this week to refer to "Brave and True" as much as possible.

<comment><USER9> Reporting back to say the print version is infinitely better than the ePub and Web versions.

Thanks again, it's a fun and easy reference work!

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I love when authors make their work available online for free. I usually go through a couple chapters and if I like the book I buy a print copy to support the author (and because I like having the actual book anyway, call me old- fashion)

</comment><comment><USER11> I used this book to get started with Clojure, and I can't imagine learning Clojure any other way. I still refer to it, most recently for multimethods. I used to search the website for updates before they were officially released (like core.async, iirc). Vividly and clearly written, and very funny.

</comment><comment><USER12> I've been looking forward to this update for it seems like months. Clojure for the brave and true helped me understand core.async, can't wait to go through and read it again

</comment><comment><USER13> Hey, this is the book that got me to try clojure out.

I'm curious though what do peoples windows clojure workflows look like, as most tutorials I'm seeing are in mac or *nix

</comment><comment><USER14> This was my first Clojure book and it's quite fantastic for a beginner with no prior Clojure or functional experience.

</comment><comment><USER15> Looks great, bookmarked for later reading.

Can you give us some insights in how successful is the business model of releasing a book free to read and paid at the same time ?

I've seen this trend before and I was always wondered if the authors are satisfied with how much money they get this way.

</comment><comment><USER16> Land of Lisp is another great book... not Clojure per se but an excellent Clojure primer. Includes cartoons, too, which I like.

</comment><comment><USER10> Am I the only one trying to order it and facing the problem that there is no way to select shipping method at checkout?

<comment><USER17> Hi dudul, if you wouldn't mind shooting an email about the error to firstname.lastname@example.com, we should be able to help you out!

Thanks.

<comment><USER10> It eventually worked. Not sure what happened, but after a couple tries I was able to checkout with the shipping option. Thanks, can't wait to receive the book!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Interestingly enough, the page crashes my firefox 100% of the time (linux / firefox 41) but works fine in chrome

</comment><comment><USER19> Just bought the e-book. Really fun read!

</comment><comment><USER20> Gonna go over it this weekend ^^ Good job!

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I'm pretty bummed that this submission is in HN purgatory for some reason, but it's really great to read these nice comments! I'm glad y'all have found the book useful and enjoyable :)

<comment><USER21> > _in HN purgatory for some reason_

It set off the voting ring detector.

We'll reduce the penalty, since the post is probably of interest to the community.

Edit: we also put "Show HN" in the title, since it's your book, it's available to read, and it's a major piece of work.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for the explanation and penalty reduction, you've made my day! I blame overzealous coworkers.</comment></comment></comment>


Regex Parser in C Using Continuation Passing - <AUTHOR> http://www.theiling.de/cnc/date/2017-12-19.html <comment><USER2> > One drawback of the CPS technique in C is its stack usage, especially > because it is quite hard to understand at all what is going on, which makes > it very hard to predict how much stack is used. Usually, I get SIGSEGV from > pointer misuses (typically NULL), but in debugging this program, instead I > got an infinite recursion causing SIGSEGV a couple of times.

I think the key missing drawback that isn't stated here is that even if you fix all of your logical bugs, then unless every function call is tail-call optimized by the compiler, then your parser isn't quite safe for untrusted regular expressions. e.g., A user could write `(((((...a...)))))`, and if you don't guard against it with some hard limit on nesting depth, then you're vulnerable to stack overflows. So let's say you implement nesting limits. What limit should be set? /shrug

This is why I write my regex parsers without recursion and instead use an explicit stack on the heap. It is then a bit easier to more robustly manage nesting limits.

<comment><USER3> Parser(s)? As in more than one? Hopefully you'll ever need to only write one parser (e.g. for Rust) but practically zero since regexs are a solved problem.

<comment><USER4> Regexes can't be used for parsing (e.g. the language of balanced parantheses)

<comment><USER5> I think your parent post referred to using a parser to parse regexes, not using regexes to parse another language.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Why this was flagged?

</comment><comment><USER7> I don't understand what he is talking about. A very simple one-pass recursive regex matcher is trivial to write. I wrote the one for asterisk in 2003. No fancy CPS needed.

[http://asteriskguru.com/archives/asterisk-dev-better- pattern...](http://asteriskguru.com/archives/asterisk-dev-better-pattern- matcher-vt42988.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> Hmm, I have yet to see a trivial implementation for full-featured regex syntax, which was my goal.

The idea was not to parse a simple dialect of regex, but to parse a full- featured dialect, including things like \d, \\), [)] and multi-level (), like (a|(b|c\\)d[e)f])*g|h)+, so, e.g., the simple approach of scanning for the closing ) when you find a ( does not really work. Just for parsing such regexs this requires a recursive scanner, and then, a recursive data structure to store the result of parsing the regexp, and this runs counter to matching at the same time.

The linked code you provide assumes that you can first parse the whole pattern (like '(...)'), interpret that pattern, and then recurse to match it. There do not seem to be test cases in your code for the complex regexs cited above. So I don't think the approach of trivial recursion works with a full-featured standard regex grammar.

<comment><USER7> I see, thanks. But practically such an parser explodes, and should not really be used. A simple one is still linear, and much faster than the current regcomp/regexec overkill.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> For dang or an other mod: This was probably flagged by accident.

</comment><comment><USER9> Do C compilers do tail calls through a pointer?

(How does that work if the target function has a separate entry point for accepting a tail call?)

If you pile up stack frames while matching regex, you will blow up on long matches. Eg. a+ matching string with thousands or millions of a's.

This could be made not to rely on tail call support by using a:

       typedef struct cont {
         void (*fn)(void *data);
         void *data;
       } cont_t;

which is returned from each function. A dispatch loop invokes the tail call by calling fn in the returned structure, passing it data. Needless to say, data can't be the address of some local variable in the function which returns this structure. Obviously, non-tail invocations of the continuations sometimes occur, and those have to be handled differently.

<comment><AUTHOR> gcc generates 'jmp *%eax' (and other computed branch instructions) for this code, so yes, it uses tail-calls for function pointers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Interesting! Does anyone know how much less efficient this is in practice?

<comment><USER2> Typically regex parsing isn't benchmarked thoroughly, so you probably won't get any solid answers to your query. The reason why it isn't benchmarked thoroughly is because it's generally fast enough, and is typically dwarfed by other aspects of the regex compilation phase. (Which in turn varies with the regex engine, and depends on how much analysis it does up front. Some do very little, some do a lot.)

<comment><USER11> This is both a regex parser and a regex matcher, and I believe fao_ meant the matching part.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is very close to logic programming, even down to the use of the return codes for "exception" handling (you can re-re-interpret the "return 0 means exception" as meaning logical negation-as-failure). Compare the Castor C++ logic programming library, which defines logic relations as functions which return true if they bind variables or false if they failed.

The use of continuation passing style is also apropos: compare the LC++ logic programming library which uses CPS to implement lazy streams for query evaluation. In LC++ an "OR" relation is implemented by calling the first argument with the continuation, and then the second argument with the continuation. An "AND" is similar, except it chains the continuations.

My personal interest in this topic is that I believe it should be possible to use continuation passing style and callbacks together to make an evaluation engine which "reorganizes" the C-stack to aid in debugging. It would work like this: the user code would utilize CPS, but the runtime engine, not the user code, has final say over where the continuation actually jumps. By priming the linked-list of continuations + context data the right way, the runtime could "stack the deck" so that when the user functions run, it creates a "fake" callstack that looks like a certain series of operations ran, which in reality may have actually been run a long time ago or may be composed of pieces of different chains of computation. In this way, the engine could communicate to the programmer + debugger a semantically meaningful summary of an otherwise convoluted / too detailed original computation. Or restart a computation which had to be previously abandoned due to needing data that wasn't available yet. I call this technique "stacking the stack" (in analogy to stacking the deck to cheat at a card game).

Also, although your technique of calling the continuation twice as in "return cont(a * a, data) && cont(a _a_ a, data);" is perfectly valid (in fact, this code is also a syntactically valid Castor logic expression), here's another way it could be done: convert the nondeterministic choice into a deterministic one by lifting the information as to which branch is being executed into a variable which can be passed in. It would then look like:

int foo(int * next_part, int a, cont_t cont, data_t * data)

{

      switch (( * next_part)++)

      {

      case 0: return cont(a * a, data);

      case 1: return cont(a * a * a, data);

      default: return 0; // fail when exhausted

      };

}

You're already doing this, sort of, in the regex engine when you do "switch ( * p)". The difference is, there, you're choosing between alternatives based on a concrete property of the input character. If you like, think of the "next_part" variable as an intangible or out-of-band property of the current input. Once you do that, you could even turn all of you "switch ( * p)" statements into "switch (( * next_part)++)" and simply _assume_ *p matched that case (we'll just fail inside the step if it didn't match, and backtrack). Congratulations, now you're doing logic programming!!</comment>


LÖVE 11.0 released - <AUTHOR> https://love2d.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=85051 <comment><USER2> How does this stack up to Godot for 2D?

<comment><USER3> Well it sort of depends on what exactly you mean.

Ease of use? Godot is probably the best in class for that in my opinion, but if you prefer text interfaces over GUIs then Love2D is very good. As far as frameworks go it is extremely simple to get going, well documented, and has plenty (not an over-abundance, but certainly enough) of libraries to make simple or complex games with.

Godot gives you a lot more to work with as far as built in functionality as well. For instance if you don't want to use the Love physics library (it is very heavy for most tasks) you're going to have to write your own collision detection or use a 3rd party library (I recommend Bump).

Performance? I recall seeing a forum post to do with the bunnymark test where Love edged out Godot by a reasonable margin in naive tests. Once Love was optimised then it was impressively fast in comparison, but from what I remember no one tried optimising the Godot implementation.

That is just rendering. I don't know of any comparisons as far as processing speed goes. GDScript has been called slow but it's plenty fast for most use cases. Love2D uses LuaJIT which is probably the fastest dynamic interpreted language there is.

Honestly for 2D I sincerely doubt you're going to hit the limits of either engine, and they're both fantastic.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Review our webapp: AirDropper - <AUTHOR>

Hi everyone! My co-founder and I just finished our second pass at our new app and we were hoping to get some feedback from the HN community.
https://www.airdropper.com
AirDropper is a Dropbox companion app for requesting files from anyone with an email address. You just authorize your Dropbox account, make a request, and we put the file the person uploads into your Dropbox. Everything's secure in transit, we can handle larger files than most email services, and it's really easy for the person sending the file.
To provide some context, I started my own law firm this year, and I immediately ran into some friction in trying to securely get files from clients. Many clients were uncomfortable sending sensitive documents as email attachments. I walked a few clients through signing up with Dropbox and sharing a folder, but that caused a lot of back and forth with creating an account, setting sharing permissions, etc. I talked through the issue with my perennial side-project partner and AirDropper is what we came up with as a solution. We made a "two week" version a little while ago and we got some great feedback, especially from designer friends who need to get files from clients that are too big to email. Today's version incorporates their feedback, along with some improvements we've stumbled into along the way.
What do you think? <comment><USER2> Slick. I can see myself using this frequently.

I have a couple questions/comments:

\- It's not exactly "secure", right? AirDropper has access to my file while it's "in transit" so AirDropper's really only "secure" if I trust AirDropper. You could, for example, be keeping a copy of everyone's files. So who are you, and why should I trust you?

\- When I linked my Dropbox account I just gave you full access to my whole Dropbox. Ugh. Is there a way you can just get access to the directory in question?

These seem like obvious new user questions so you might want to add an FAQ, perhaps.

<comment><AUTHOR> I understand the concern. All traffic from your computer to AirDropper and from AirDropper to Dropbox is SSLed. We actually don't have full access to your Dropbox account, just a sandboxed folder we create called AirDropper. We don't plan on expanding beyond sandbox access. We don't keep any copies of files you send or receive, though we do technically have access to them as long as their stored in the AirDropper folder in your Dropbox. You can deauthorize the app anytime on Dropbox.com.

As far as who's behind AirDropper, my name is Jesse Lamb and my co-founder is Nick Stamas. I'm a Florida attorney that works with tech companies on business formations, contracts, and intellectual property. I also blog at <http://www.notmylawyer.com>, which has been on the front page of HN a few times. Nick is a designer/developer who just moved to NYC. We've known each other our whole lives and we've been on various teams together for the past 6 years. The name of our company is Gruntverk, LLC. We don't have a site for the company yet, but our information is on file with Florida's Division of Corporations.

A FAQ is a great idea, and I really appreciate you bringing these issues up.

Thanks!

<comment><USER2> Thanks a bunch, Jesse -- I really appreciate you taking the time to answer in such detail!

Like I said, it's slick app and I totally see myself using it, so this is just icing on the cake.

<comment><AUTHOR> Of course! Your feedback is gold. Thank you so much for it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I think this is a great idea for me- I work technical support and often have to get large files from customers/ partners who do not have the ability to send them in a secure manner. Also I work on about 4 different computers during the day and it is helpful that it stores into Dropbox by default so that I automatically get the file on each computer that I have that account on. If worried about the secureness of your Dropbox, you can create a free new account that only stores your airdropper folder and share that folder with your primary account. That way no email addy or Dropbox is exposed, only the info. As stated already, if you encrypt the info, there should be little exposure. It is not necessary for everyone, but for someone like me who has to get files securely very often from folks with restricted firewalls, it seems a great solution. The file size would be the only limitation that might require me to find another method- sometimes even 50 MB isn't big enough which is I assume what you've said you have tested up to.

</comment><comment><USER4> I went directly to your site from the link, without reading your post in its entirety and couldn't see the use of this until I read your post and the comments...

I think you need to take the time to explain who would use this and why on your front page a lot better from the beginning. I also don't think the diagrams are descriptive enough, for example I didn't really understand how exactly steps 2 and 3 worked until I read your post in detail.

So in closing ... market this more explicitly to devs/graphic designers/lawyers etc (folks who need to get files from non-technical people) and do a better job of explaining _exactly_ how the product works and it could turn into a nice stream of passive income.

PS: An idea would be to allow your subscribers brand the upload page with their logo and colors then use their domain/subdomain names for it. This would make their clients even more comfortable with uploading sensitive information.

</comment><comment><USER5> Looks good. I like diagram on the front page explaining things, but change the font for the text. It looks a bit sloppy. Also increase the font size a bit to optimize the size for the boxes.

One thing I don't see is a price list. How do you plan on making a business out of this? Monthly subscription on top of dropbox?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback. We haven't built the billing piece yet, but we're planning a freemium model based on number of requests per week.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> <http://www.airdropper.com>

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the clickable link.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Couldn't this work without dropbox? You're limiting your set of potential customers by mandating they use dropbox. You're also missing out on some easy cash for hosting that users would be happy to spend if it meant easy access to files they need. If I can hook up my dropbox... Fine. But if I can access an organized online directory of requested files, by client, date, size, and any parameters I entered at time of request... That'd be pretty sweet. You might be able to take cash that would otherwise go to dropbox.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's true, there might be opportunities beyond just supplementing Dropbox's service. Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Seems like a good, although niche, idea.

Out of curiosity - were the files you needed from clients PDFs that required signatures? That seems to be the primary use case. There are some interesting startups around this area, but I haven't seen someone nail it 100% yet.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, sometimes it's signed documents but I also get client materials that are particularly sensitive.

I've been thinking through the signed documents problem, but I'm not sure the market is ready yet. We've had legislation in the U.S. that legitimizing electronic signature for about a decade, but there's a comfort to a signed physical copy that is hard for people to give up for big contracts. I'm wondering what user affordance will finally break through that mental barrier, but I haven't come up with anything yet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Looks really nice, but as helpful as the four-paned image is, I think it would be really useful if you had a link somewhere to a (semi-)technical overview of what's actually going on.

Like a page of screenshots of the actual service UI and some details as to how everything is set up (for example, I initially thought that the uploader would also need a dropbox acount. After looking again, I'm pretty sure that's not the case).

It just seems rather jarring that the only thing you can do from the home page is give airdropper access to your dropbox.

That said, it looks like an awesome service; I'm sure I'll be using it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Great idea. Yeah, we definitely need to make more obvious that the sender doesn't need a Dropbox account. That's a big value point.

Sceenshots and maybe a screencast is a great idea. I think we'll start with a FAQ since the implementation cost is so much cheaper and go from there.

Thanks for the feedback!

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I genuinely wish you the best, but this does not seem to solve any problem that I can see.

If I want a file from someone, the easiest thing is for me to email him and say "send me file X" and he will reply with file X attached.

If he's hesitant to send file X because it contains sensitive information, he can encrypt it first.

If the file is sensitive, I have to decide whether I trust the person asking for it, but assuming I do, I also have to decide if I trust AirDropper and Dropbox? If I don't, then I encrypt the file anyway, at which point I might as well just email it directly.

<comment><AUTHOR> You make a fair point. I'd say though, putting the important issue of trust aside for a second, it's not that we don't solve any problem, but that we solve a problem for which there are already other solutions. And in practice those solutions have disadvantages.

Taking file encryption as an example, you can certainly encrypt a file before sending it, but that depends on the sophistication of the sender. They may not be familiar with how to encrypt a file. And if they are, it's kind of a hassle dealing with encrypted files on both ends. You have to transmit the password in some separate medium from the file itself, and now you have to decide whether to keep both the encrypted and unencrypted versions. It's friction that our solution obviates.

Likewise, you can send an email attachment for non-sensitive files, but every email provider has differing file size caps. We're still testing the limits of our service, but we've already successfully handled files more than double Gmail's size caps, which are among the highest in the industry. Right now most of the alternatives to attachments require a fair amount of setup for the sender. Ours just requires they visit a page and upload the file.

Coming back to the issue of trust, that's definitely going to be a challenge for us as a company just starting out. If you have any ideas about how we can develop that trust I'd welcome them.

Thanks for the awesome feedback. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> More like a minor point, but I'd like to see that envelope more white-ish, the home page is really beautiful but the envelope takes a little eye-candy from it. :)

Good luck with your project!

</comment><comment><USER12> this is superficial, but that font looks terrible, at least on my screen. honestly, it looks like an amateur's first attempt at making a font. otherwise it's a cool product idea :)

<comment><USER13> Nothing is superficial, we always appreciate feedback. Can you tell me what browser you're using? Most of the site is set in Goudy Bookletter 1911, by The League of Moveable Type. Is this what it looks like in your browser? <http://bit.ly/2oH1TM>

<comment><USER14> Same problem for me:

<http://i.imgur.com/isg5H.png>

Firefox 3.6.8, Windows 7.

Otherwise, great design and idea.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, we're looking into it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I actually gave my dropbox username/password to someone just hours ago to login to my dropbox and upload a couple large files. This is definitely a better way. Thanks!

</comment><comment><USER16> One feature that seems to be missing is allowing recipients (uploaders) to send multiple files.

Currently, uploaders can't use the same request link twice so the requester would need to send 3 requests if they wanted 3 files.

It seems like the solution might be to have a "send another file" link, after the uploader has chosen their first file.

All in all, really slick tool.

Cheers!

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, we need to work on implementing multiple file support really soon. I like the idea of a "send another file" link. Maybe add an "allow multiple files" option to the request form. I'll see if I can convince my co-founder, he's stingy with form elements. :)

Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> My father, an accountant, was talking to me about this very problem a few weeks ago, and I thought it was a good business opportunity. Congrats on taking a shot at it.

One question: Have you given any consideration for sending files the other way - in other words, from you to a less-sophisticated client? That's the other side of this equation.

<comment><AUTHOR> We're definitely considering that once we're satisfied with how the current flow works.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Would it be possible to get a unique url so that I don't have to send an email ? (ex : if I want to send it by GTalk)

<comment><USER13> Yep, there is a checkbox on the form that allows you to skip sending the email. Instead, on the confirmation page, you'll be given a unique URL and a password that you can send however you'd like.

<comment><USER18> Oh I see. It's work but you have a bug and one or two minor "irritant" :

\- If I check the checkbox, I have to input a valid email or I get a something went wrong error. (bug) \- The person received an email even if the checkbox was checked (bug) \- I have to input a description of the file requested (not needed)

<comment><USER13> Thanks, you found our first production bug! Should be fixed now :)

We still will require the file description, because in our opinion, the page that allows someone to upload the file should have some sort of reminder as to what file they are supposed to be uploading is (even if it is very brief).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Just from visiting the site I did not understand what "requesting" is. Would I browse some other dropbox user's filelist and ask him to send me one of the files? Reading above it rather sounds like "Provide a place for someone to upload a file and then find it in your dropbox".

<comment><AUTHOR> I see what you mean. The vocabulary has been tricky for us so far. We'll keep working on it. Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> very nice idea and execution.

might want to make it clearer that the person you're trying to get the file from doesn't need a dropbox account, as that seems to be the big idea behind this.

<comment><AUTHOR> good point, we'll try to make that more obvious. Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> It seems like you will put a lot of bike messengers out of work!

<comment><AUTHOR> Ha, thanks! Yeah, we're hoping to expand so that you can send files too, but we haven't finished thinking through how we can improve that workflow.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Tried this out, very nice seemless integration with my dropbox

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Really slick UI and wonderful idea. But I think you are filling a hole in Dropbox.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. Yeah, we are definitely filling a gap, the same way a Twitter client supplements the Twitter platform or an email program supplements the email protocol. Dropbox has strong potential as a platform player over the next couple of years. It's the best cloud storage system there is, and we're hoping apps like ours and the efforts Dropbox is putting into mobile will make it more useful to more people.

<comment><USER24> I think the meaning was your service becomes obsolete once Dropbox decides to implement a similar function.

(Nice idea by the way.)

<comment><AUTHOR> That's certainly a risk, but it seems like a lot of Dropbox's resources are going into mobile, at least for the time being. We'll see though.</comment></comment></comment></comment>