Ex-Ashley Madison CTO Threatens Libel Suit Against Journalist

An anonymous reader writes: Security reporter Brian Krebs, who has been instrumental in breaking news about the Ashley Madison hack, is now being threatened by the website's former CTO with a libel suit. Contained in the leaked data was a series of emails from the ex-CTO, Raja Bhatia, to the CEO of Ashley Madison's parent company. In the emails, Bhatia noted a security hole in a competing website, saying that he downloaded their user database and was capable of modifying and exposing it. After reporting on these emails, Krebs received a letter from Bhatia's lawyer (PDF) saying the post was libelous and defamatory. They demanded a retraction, which Krebs is thus far unwilling to do.

Comments

Re:Uh, okay

[Anonymous Coward]

How's that working for ya, Hillary!?

Just fine, it's being determined she did nothing illegal. Not sure we can say the same about this Ashley Madison guy yet.

OMFG!

BWAAAA HAAAAH HAAAAA HAAAAA!!!

LMAO - at you.

Holy crap! There's someone who actually seems to believe Hillary! did nothing wrong.

Next, I'll find a unicorn.

And no, it HASN'T "been determined she did nothing illegal", you credulous simp. The DoJ saying she can delete emails doesn't mean having classified material on HER server wasn't a felony.

Re:Uh, okay

[HiThere]

Actually, what he was was "it's being determined that she did no wrong", which is a true statement, even though I believe she committed a crime. (I'm not sure, it depends on exactly how several different laws are written, as there are several possible crimes involved, and IANAL, so she might, technically, not have been in violation.)

In any case, this was in response to the question "How's that working out for you", to which the correct answer would be "It's being a minor scandal that's being swept under the carpet." Most people seem to care more about other aspects, so it doesn't seem to be doing her as much damage as it should, and the decision has clearly been not to prosecute. To me this is clearly an example of how the rich and powerful are subject to different laws than the rest of us.

FWIW, I haven't decided who I'm going to vote for, but it certainly won't be any Republican that I've heard. If it looks close I may even vote for the Democratic candidate, though maybe not, since Obama has been such a total failure. (As would reasonably have been predicted from his position in the Senate overseeing the intelligence community.)