[HN Gopher] Edward Snowden ousts a scammer during live stream [v...
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Edward Snowden ousts a scammer during live stream [video]
Author : sakopov
Score : 269 points
Date : 2021-05-01 15:17 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.youtube.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.youtube.com)
| ratsmack wrote:
| >After Snowden's appearance, one of Tulsiani's "millionaires,"
| Angelo Mylonakis, suggested "legal action" unless Snowden
| publicly apologized for his criticism.
|
| Some people just don't get that presenting factual information
| showing the unsavory history of some person is not criticism nor
| is it illegal.
| bellyfullofbac wrote:
| Hah, "legal action". The response to that should be "You want
| to sue me? Go ahead an line up in the queue over there, behind
| 'The United States of America'.".
| Jaygles wrote:
| They could very well fully understand. The business of
| confidence men and scammers is optics. They only need to appear
| legitimate to certain people to pull off their scams.
|
| The play is obvious here. For anyone on the fence after hearing
| Snowden, hearing someone even just suggest that what Snowden
| said was false to the point of illegality may re-convince them
| enough to be scammed.
|
| The people who fall for these scams hold cold hard facts as
| similar worth to baseless claims.
| dethos wrote:
| This gentleman deserves all the respect in the world.
| whereis wrote:
| OT, but does anyone know how much bitcoin, ethereum, and/or other
| cryptocurrencies Snowden is holding?
| Ariez wrote:
| No idea, but he does for some reason promote ZCash instead of
| Monero, and won't even speak of Monero, which is certainly odd.
| ilaksh wrote:
| Maybe some people are taking advantage of the anonymity of
| Monero for illegitimate means.
|
| He might not really be against anonymous digital money, but
| he does have a reputation to protect. So maybe he has to draw
| the line somewhere.
|
| Or maybe he doesn't want to draw attention to Monero because
| he wants to protect it's utility.
| sbam wrote:
| >Maybe some people are taking advantage of the anonymity of
| Monero for illegitimate means.
|
| Zcash focuses on anonymity too.
| ddoubleU wrote:
| Though, from what I remember, zcash does not have full
| anonymity across all transactions, meaning that if you do
| sent anon one, you are visibly standing out from the
| other transactions (though if it's untraceable, it might
| not be a problem?). Compared to monero where all txs are
| anonymous.
|
| Something along these lines
| crescentfresh wrote:
| This was on a zoom call for "Private Investment Club", headed by
| the fellow on the stage.
|
| Here are guest speakers they have featured/will be featuring:
| https://privateinvestmentclub.com/speakers/
|
| > Grant Cardone, Edward Snowden, Kevin Hart, Sunil Tulsiani,
| Gerry Dee, Michele Romanow, Kevin Harrington, Brian Tracy, Robert
| G Allen, Jack Canfield, Cora Cristobal, Robert Kiyosaki
|
| Private Investment Club calls these people "Team Members".
| 13415 wrote:
| I was wondering how anyone could trust a "Private Investment
| Club" that cannot afford a technician who can fix the audio. I
| mean, this sounded like a crappy room mic picking up the audio
| from the speakers instead of a direct signal. Somebody should
| buy them a $100 mixer from Behringer or something like that.
| ForOldHack wrote:
| Behringer 4 channels for audio, are even cheaper. He could
| get one for a cup of iced coffee.
| ksaj wrote:
| I use a Eurorack and a small mixer from Behringer, and can
| confirm. They're cheap but surprisingly good.
|
| There are a lot of people that would instantly improve
| their online productions if they only went to a music store
| instead of a computer store to buy their audio gear.
| nceqs3 wrote:
| How does anybody fall for these scams? Also any celeb who
| speaks there should be shamed. Particularly Kevin Hart.
| akudha wrote:
| They didn't fall for it, they are probably paid for their
| appearance. Those hundreds of products that celebrities
| endorse, how many really use them and like them? Like Dave
| Chapelle said "coke and pepsi - can't even tell the
| difference, all I know is pepsi paid me recently, so I
| endorse them"
| nceqs3 wrote:
| I was talking about the people who attend the conferences.
| I get that the celebs are paid.
| nkrisc wrote:
| The same reason people fall for Nigerian prince scams:
| their judgement is clouded by greed or desperation.
|
| When you're not greedy nor desperate and have no reason
| to get rich quickly, it's very easy to see these scams
| for what they are. When you need or want to get rich
| quickly, you want to believe it's real.
| birdyrooster wrote:
| Particularly because he's trying to scuttle reparations for
| ADOS with do-for-selferism with "save your money and you can
| overcome the racial wealth gap" when he's getting checks from
| these scum suckers...
|
| Kevin preaching do-for-self:
| https://www.cinemablend.com/news/2563837/kevin-hart-has-a-
| me...
| durnygbur wrote:
| Why anything real estate related, especially coming from Northern
| America, looks and smells so dodgy? Even right now I'm getting
| spam emails "You'll learn how to help homeowners in default &
| start collecting checks" while never having been even marginally
| interested in the topic.
| notacoward wrote:
| Because real estate is a key part of what distinguishes the
| haves from the have-nots. Get on the right side of the real
| estate world, as a landlord or lender, and you can make a lot
| of money for little effort (there is risk but Americans always
| think risk doesn't apply to them). Get on the wrong side, as a
| renter or borrower, and it's easy to get into a hole that it's
| hard to climb out of. In between are things like house flipping
| which involve aspects of both buying and selling but often also
| involve some deception such as cutting corners on
| "improvements" so the house looks good for sale but quickly
| falls apart. Rotten concrete, leaky roofs, that kind of thing.
| One favorite in my own town is to cut down a lot of trees to
| make room for a McMansion, then _bury them on the property_
| where they cause all sorts of problems from a few years to
| forever.
|
| Real estate in the US is too profitable to be anything but a
| grifters' game, and everyone else is well advised to keep their
| interactions to a minimum.
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| Burying construction debris is popular, too: https://old.redd
| it.com/r/legaladvice/comments/mmbe4t/georgia...
| durnygbur wrote:
| The top grifter had simultanously become president and got
| banned on Twitter. Seriously Americans, please chill on your
| real estate investments.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > The top grifter had simultanously became president and
| got banned on Twitter.
|
| Well, "simultaneously" usually doesn't apply to events that
| take place nearly four years apart, but otherwise, true.
| kshacker wrote:
| Probably meant on the lines of EGOT (life) rather than
| grand slam (same year)
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _real estate is a key part of what distinguishes the haves
| from the have-nots_
|
| It's actually the American middle class that has the largest
| fraction of its assets in real estate. The myth that real
| estate delineates the haves and have notes is, in my opinion,
| the reason these get-rich-quick schemes work. It's the
| irrational factor that lets a grifter gloss over the asset's
| intrinsically sub-par returns, gargantuan fees and
| unnecessary complexity.
|
| Speaking anecdotally, the very rich ($100+ million) I know
| tend to be lightly invested or uninvested in real estate. To
| the degree they own it, it's mortgaged to finance a better-
| returning asset. They have real estate exposure, but that's
| more commonly through the lending channel versus asset side.
| (Or through an operating business, _e.g._ a hotel.)
| notacoward wrote:
| They also have a very large part of their _debt_ in real
| estate. It 's part of the problem.
|
| Median net worth in the US is $121K. Median home price is
| $301K. The middle class doesn't _own_ most of the real
| estate in the US. Lenders do, which was kind of my point.
| novok wrote:
| TBH when I look into real estate investment, it seems like a
| lot more effort for not as much return as putting my money
| into VTI and %5 into crypto. Being a flipper or a landlord is
| a part time or full time job on it's own.
| thedudeabides5 wrote:
| Legend.
| ksaj wrote:
| I still remember Sunil hitting the news when he got caught, so I
| was a little surprised when I first heard he was doing this and
| trying to bring Snowden into it. If anything, I quite expected it
| to blow up spectacularly, and wasn't left disappointed.
|
| At least here in Canada, pretty much everybody who's ever heard
| of Sunil know he's a scammer. Even on sight. I guess he's preying
| on those who don't remember or are too young to remember.
| not1ofU wrote:
| Posted one day ago... boooo
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26987074
| gus_massa wrote:
| Here usually the idea is to link previous post only when they
| have a lot of discussion, or some small but very important
| discussion.
|
| It sucks when you post something and someone else post it again
| and get more traction, but it's difficult to avoid. The
| alternative is to block the post forever, that is also bad. The
| mods are trying to do something about it, but I guess it will
| not be soon, you probably have to wait a few years ...
|
| (It seams easy, but it's a hard problem. The easy checks
| probably have very bad corner cases, and in these cases they
| make the changes slowly, very slowly. Don't hold your breath.)
| ilaksh wrote:
| If it's posted multiple times within a certain window then
| the original poster could be awarded the points. With maybe
| some minor bonus for the person who revived it (or used their
| network to promote it or whatever _coincidentally_ made it
| wildly more successful).
| not1ofU wrote:
| Thank you both for responding. It was more or less a tounge
| in cheek "boo", which is why I responded with the simpsons
| quote instead of deleting after downvotes. In fairness, a
| better worded title might have improved my submission.
| gus_massa wrote:
| IIRC, from a recent comment by dang, during the first 8
| hours the reposts are merged and the upvotes go to the
| first submitter. But from time to time the mods make
| changes without warning, so in the future it may 4 hours,
| or 12 hours, or whatever.
| not1ofU wrote:
| no sir, they're saying "buuurns..."
| foobarbaz33 wrote:
| This is so satisfying.
| thecrash wrote:
| It's just awesome what a keen sense Snowden has for this kind of
| operation. He has an intuitive understanding that information is
| only one component of power - the other is the spectacle of how
| you present it.
|
| Blowing the whistle is not effective when you simply publish a
| blog post somewhere. It requires theatrics to establish
| credibility, interest, and to reach the right audience in a way
| that can't be ignored.
| ObserverNeutral wrote:
| This is maybe his first time when such tactic will be
| successful (maybe...we don't know if he managed to convince
| people to divest/not invest)
|
| The first time he did it, well it was not effective.
|
| It's not like people were not informed enough about war crimes.
| The Abu Grahib dossier had come out 3-4 years earlier.
|
| People perceive this sort of stuff as far away, don't want to
| look at it or just simply block out the information because
| they want to believe whatever they want to believe.
|
| Whistleblowing is ineffective to change the way a system
| operates. It solely make the system cover up better, and
| achieves the goal of having some heads roll (more often than
| not the responsible people for security and info
| compartmentization)
| jf wrote:
| The interesting part of this video starts at 7:50
| cyberlab wrote:
| Yes, here's the timestamp URL:
|
| https://youtu.be/Hv3UC4lz3oQ?t=468
| tpoacher wrote:
| And here is the odysee link for those of us who do not like
| to be FLoCed by Google with the "watches Snowden" tag.
|
| https://odysee.com/@mario:38/edward_snowden_pic:4
| cyberlab wrote:
| Only learning now that that site is built using a thing
| called LBRY[0]. What a fascinating thing to learn about. I
| should have known about it earlier. Might build a few
| things with this...
|
| [0] https://lbry.com/faq/what-is-lbry
| foresto wrote:
| Also, enabling the subtitles helped me understand the terrible
| audio.
| crescentfresh wrote:
| The chat devolved into a series of "well I'm out", which I take
| to mean "I will not be investing in this".
| sodality2 wrote:
| 7:15 for more backstory
| meken wrote:
| This is weird on so many levels.
|
| - The article Snowden linked is public. Presumably people already
| know about it?
|
| - I don't know about the details of the case, but the host wasn't
| found guilty. That seems relevant.
|
| - Snowden joined the conference just to call this guy out? Seems
| like a strange thing to do. Why not just not join the conference?
|
| Why did Snowden do this?
| polytely wrote:
| I mean if you want to prevent people from being scammed you
| should do it at the conference itself right? plus it is way
| more fun.
| meken wrote:
| I guess I'm missing the part which indicates this is
| obviously a scam.
|
| I don't know why people are attending this conference, but
| could anyone actually be getting value out of it?
|
| If so, then it just depends whether you find this conference
| ethically defensible, or not. Seems like people could differ
| on that.
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| > _could anyone actually be getting value out of it?_
|
| Of course, the scammers running this are absolutely getting
| value out of it.
| ev1 wrote:
| If you've had friends involved or lost to Ponzi, HYIP, or
| MLM, as soon as you see "investment club" and the guy in a
| gaudy cheap suit, with logos like these? You know. It's a
| nearly-reflexive gut feeling.
| meken wrote:
| Ah, that might explain my ignorance. I've never heard the
| term "investment club" before today. I just assumed it's
| legit.
| ev1 wrote:
| There _are_ legitimate investment clubs, intended to
| spread risk or do a larger group buy or similar, but the
| legitimate ones are almost 100% chance not containing
| showboating arsewaffles that make fun of poor people and
| telling them that 's why they're still poor if they can't
| come up with the money to give to a scammer. The meetings
| are often much less boring and procedural, or otherwise
| it's teenagers learning finance with small amounts being
| held by a non-minor trustee.
|
| Think of it as the difference between a group of people
| with a formal contract and meetings for investment
| splitting in a conference room vs
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCcwn6bGUtU
|
| It's extremely obvious which category this article's
| meeting falls into once you know about those two
| categories. I've had a bunch of friends fall into the MLM
| world (which will keep telling you it's not a pyramid
| scheme), and every single presentation or meeting they've
| ever seen, talked about, or been to has either been
| mindnumbingly cringe and unprofessionally fraudulent
| slides with false income numbers (upline-held ones) or
| cult-like scam screaming and money worship (corporate
| ones).
| M2Ys4U wrote:
| > I guess I'm missing the part which indicates this is
| obviously a scam.
|
| The host was really pressuring people to pay to join, even
| when his prospective customers didn't have the money:
|
| >Before Snowden joined, Tulsiani was trying to sell $47
| tickets to a "VIP" session of the conference. While
| pitching the VIP session, Tulsiani repeatedly said, "If
| there was a gun to your head saying you have to find [the
| money]...you'll find it," included as a response to an
| audience member who said in the group chat that she
| couldn't afford the entry fee.
|
| That's not _necessarily_ a scam, but it sure is a massively
| unethical business model.
| drenvuk wrote:
| I don't understand why you're ok with dying on this hill.
|
| He's a scammer. If you had actually watched the video and
| listened to the explanations by Snowden and looked up the
| court case that you're saying the scammer was not guilty in
| but WAS FOUND GUILTY then you would either delete your
| comments or edit them to say you're wrong.
|
| Many times these things aren't black and white. This is one
| case where it is. Please don't defend obvious scams. Don't
| give any gap for them to somehow convince people that
| they're on the up and up because those victim will be hurt.
|
| Snowden is using his name and appearance to out this guy
| and I'm very ok with that.
| meken wrote:
| Ah, you're right. Turns out he was found guilty. My
| mistake.
|
| I would edit the comment, but it doesn't look like I can
| now.
| mattigames wrote:
| My skepticism is not towards this scammer actually
| providing value, but more towards the likelihood of you
| being the scammer and trying to defend it on a public
| platform.
| not1ofU wrote:
| more context -> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uxWjgrr3BA
| mattigames wrote:
| > - The article Snowden linked is public. Presumably people
| already know about it?
|
| Information being public doesn't mean the people in the call
| know about it
|
| > Snowden joined the conference just to call this guy out?
| Seems like a strange thing to do. Why not just not join the
| conference?
|
| Because some people have a strong aversion against scammers and
| use anything in their means to oust them, including using any
| fame they may have.
| systemvoltage wrote:
| In the preface leading to the final blow, Snowden says it is
| his personal and professional obligation to call this guy out.
| I think the reasons are pretty obvious.
| nobodyandproud wrote:
| The guy has a strong sense of ethics. I continue to be
| impressed.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > The guy has a strong sense of ethics. I continue to be
| impressed.
|
| That seems to be the case in general, but I have to say in
| this case it doesn't really require that to decide to take
| the opportunity to slam dunk on someone when you discover
| _you've_ been scammed into agreeing to be a speaker for
| their scam. A fairly normal degree of personal desire for
| retaliation would suffice.
| IG_Semmelweiss wrote:
| Does it?
|
| Seems like hollywood has for ages turned a blind eye to a
| lot of these issues.
|
| I think it takes more than a fairly average
| predisposition to honesty, to go out out there, and yell
| fraud when you see fraud.
|
| Take this event as an example. If it was so easy to call
| people out, then you would hear it far more often. Here
| is a single case, and made it to the top of HN.
| nobodyandproud wrote:
| That's fair, but normally people either bow out at the
| last second; or alert the authorities (not sure if it
| applies here).
|
| Maybe I'm more impressed by his hands-on approach to
| calling someone out.
|
| Either way, color me impressed.
| lern_too_spel wrote:
| Has Snowden ever issued a correction for what he claimed
| PRISM was?
|
| Compare his claim (https://youtu.be/h1-Y3IzVqdw) to the
| program actually described in his documents
| (https://theweek.com/articles/463395/nsa-prism-leak-much-
| less...). In that video, he also makes the pants on fire
| claim that he, as a Sharepoint admin, had the authority to
| wiretap anybody in America without a court order.
|
| To be fair to Snowden, I have no doubt that he actually
| believed it. He read some documents on the Sharepoint
| server he administered that he didn't understand and jumped
| to wild nightmarish conclusions; however, he has stopped
| making any claims about PRISM (and only ever brings up
| phone metadata now), so he appears to know that what he
| claimed was wrong, but I have yet to see him issue a mea
| culpa.
| Craighead wrote:
| Snowden is a hypocrite whi is the living incarnation of the
| holier than thou fallacy
| 0xdde wrote:
| That's a big presumption. You think the scheme was anything
| other than a scam and that anyone still unaware deserved to be
| separated form their money?
| ramphastidae wrote:
| > I don't know about the details of the case, but the host
| wasn't found guilty.
|
| That's not what I see:
|
| > On June 7, 2017, Mr. Tulsiani pled guilty to unregistered
| trading and breaching an OSC cease trade order in connection
| with an investment scheme involving the Private Investment
| Club, which targeted Ontario investors.
| https://finance.yahoo.com/news/osc-investor-alert-sunil-tuls...
|
| > Why did Snowden do this?
|
| Did you watch the video? He explains exactly why.
| meken wrote:
| Ah, you're right. My mistake.
|
| I was going off the article Snowden put up saying the guy was
| "named", so I assumed he wasn't actually found guilty, just
| accused.
| kerng wrote:
| I'd imagine Snowden is not interested to support/invest in
| someone/something related to a person who has been banned from
| trading securities for life by the Ontario Securities
| Commission, and thinks other should be aware if it before
| investing also. Wish more famous people would use their status
| to protect others.
| [deleted]
| believeinskills wrote:
| For What?
| tyingq wrote:
| Backstory: https://www.vice.com/en/article/epndnz/the-bizarre-
| case-of-s...
|
| Including this gem:
|
| _" After Snowden's abrupt exit from the interview, Tulsiani
| paused the meeting for several minutes, during which a hot mic
| led to an exclamation of a "wasted fucking day" and someone
| ordering a medium iced coffee over an intercom. "_
| nzmsv wrote:
| Alternative explanation: Snowden is getting ready for another
| important announcement and defeated a cardboard cutout of a
| scammer in order to increase his media exposure.
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(page generated 2021-05-01 23:03 UTC)