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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe con is winding down
Washington PostPresumably, you call the local police or the FBI. You present them with the original document and the translation and let them take it from there. What you presumably do not do is promise for weeks on end that you have definitive proof that someone is stealing millions of dollars from bank accounts and that people need to fly to some remote location so that you can unveil that proof over the course of three days.
The gibberish above is one result of the latter process. Lindell, who has claimed for months and months that he had definitive proof that the 2020 presidential election was stolen by China, pledged to release that information at a cyber symposium that is underway in South Dakota. According to Lindell, someone captured Internet traffic in the days after the election that shows how votes were shifted away from Donald Trump and to President Biden. Instead of simply presenting this evidence to the public, he withheld it, offering $5 million to anyone who can prove that the information isnt legitimate.
Rob Graham, a technologist and author, went to the summit to evaluate what Lindell claims to have. During a breakout session, he and others were provided with access to what Lindells team claims to have obtained. Graham shared what they were given a collection of files that consists of 1) a list of computer internet-protocol addresses and 2) gibberish like that above. Well, technically they were given rich-text format files, some of which were inexplicably converted to hexadecimal encoding. Graham, an expert on Internet data, described the provided material as a bunch of confusing stuff they cant explain, and said that those running the symposium pledged to hand over the real information Tuesday night or Wednesday. Meanwhile, Lindells live stream of the symposium being watched by hundreds of thousands of people on one streaming feed presses on, with the CEO mostly riffing on how toxic the media is. Promotions offer viewers codes for discounts at MyPillow, a useful bit of advertising given that Lindells conspiracy theories have cost his company placement in a number of retailers inventories.
Again, its been the case for months that Lindell has said his cyber experts saw proof of vote hacking in the captured packets of data. It would, presumably, be very easy for those experts to then stand up and quickly walk through what they found and what it means. But this has never happened. Its never even been explained what such evidence would look like. Instead, Lindells relied on lengthy statistical presentations from a guy named Douglas Frank, presentations that are the functional equivalent of a kid reviewing a Jackson Pollock painting: theyre looking at something, to be sure, and picking out patterns and meaning where they can.
msongs
(67,498 posts)live love laugh
(13,221 posts)smb
(3,478 posts)regnaD kciN
(26,045 posts)That's the whole QAnon mentality. Rope people in by tossing out completely nonsensical "breadcrumbs" and telling them to figure it out. Since most people will prefer making out some sort of pattern -- particularly one that fits their preconceived notions -- to just shrugging and saying it looks like gibberish (which, they think, will make them look stupid for not figuring it out), it's no surprise that they'll wind up looking at random characters like the ones you included above, and being convinced they demonstrate that "the steal actually happened!" And nothing you can point out to them will shake that belief, because they've staked their own claim of intelligence to that interpretation, and admitting otherwise would be confessing that they are ignorant and deluded.
Maraya1969
(22,512 posts)so since he lost a lot of money because many companies won't sell his pillows anymore.
Does he just like feeling important? Does he think he looks important because he has this information that no one else has?
I find it really curious.
2naSalit
(86,959 posts)He thinks he looks important because he has made other people think he has information that no one else has.
And, like tfg, he has enough $$ to pay people to tell him what a jenius he is.
catbyte
(34,546 posts)rotted his two remaining brain cells.
To tank a sweet scam like selling those inferior, ridiculously overpriced pillows is just crazy. I do feel bad for his employees, though. I hope they're dusting off their resumes.
Dakota Flint
(219 posts)Pillow man has barely one semi-functioning synapse, let alone an entire brain cell in that vast vacuous burned-out space between its ears. And even then, those poor overworked neurotransmitters don't function as they should.
AZ8theist
(5,535 posts)HE'S COMPLETELY FUCKING INSANE.
Just watch his CNN interview. This is an individual who has lost all ties to reality.
He's a blithering idiot, just like his hero.
BusterMove
(11,996 posts)Pat Colbeck forgot to bring his new presentation that was supposed to show election day servers hooked to the web.
Didn't show shit. (just like in court last year).
Oh and some guy hacked into Mike's election system/wireless network proving it happened Nov 3rd....or something.
What a joke.
bucolic_frolic
(43,505 posts)AZ8theist
(5,535 posts)They are under audit.
I misplaced a decimal point in a deductible expense of $10.32 on my return from 1976.
THEREFORE, I can't release them EVER. NEVERMIND the Russian money laundering. It's not relevant.
thenelm1
(861 posts)after making claims of voter fraud on that network, turns out, is a convicted drug dealer and currently employed as "swing set installer", whatever the hell that is, not to mention that he apparently made the claim based on taking a few math courses in college - a college he dropped out of. Another deadbeat who didn't have the brains or wherewithal to actually complete his college degree. That particular list of the right's "luminaries" is getting very long. Hannity, Limbaugh, Beck, Jones, Lindell, Cawthorne, Kirk, Carlson (a history degree from a no name college - pretty weak given the pedigree) and so on and so forth. Ya gotta wonder how many more of the right's loudmouths are just that - loudmouths with no educational cred worth a plug nickel. Being a loudmouth with a microphone doesn't make one a genius or their opinions any more valid than anyone else's - just a loudmouth with a microphone that lets them trash and make outlandish accusations to an audience about anyone they don't agree with. (Should add that I to graduated from a no name college, but I actually did something useful with my career like in maintaining and developing IT systems for a hospital.)
bluecollar2
(3,622 posts)You have to point the code toward a mirror and then stand on your head.
It's basically telling everyone that the war on Christmas is planned to restart on December 26