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Businesses Security The Courts

Former EBay Security Director To Plead Guilty To Cyberstalking (bloomberg.com) 16

Former eBay security director Jim Baugh will plead guilty to running a bizarre 2019 cyberstalking campaign against a couple who ran a website critical of the company, Bloomberg reported Tuesday, citing a person familiar with the matter. From a report: Baugh had been scheduled to face trial in late May. In a court filing on Tuesday, his defense attorney, William Fick, asked a federal judge in Boston to allow Baugh to change his plea via videoconference. Five other former eBay employees have already admitted to roles in a cross-country campaign designed to intimidate Ina and David Steiner of Natick, Mass. Several were expected to testify against Baugh. Another eBay employee, former global resiliency director David Harville is scheduled to face trial in May. Ina Steiner's reporting about eBay on the couple's site eCommerce Bytes upset the company's then-Chief Executive Officer Devin Wenig, whose compensation package she revealed. "Take her down," Wenig texted his then-communications chief Steve Wymer, according to prosecutors.
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Former EBay Security Director To Plead Guilty To Cyberstalking

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  • by Virtucon ( 127420 ) on Tuesday April 19, 2022 @02:32PM (#62460066)

    These guys went out of their way to punish a couple of critics. They didn't deserve the treatment but these former eBay employees need to go to jail for a while.
    It's also refreshing to see a prosecution going after execs instead of letting eBay pay off a fine or something.

    I'm also curious why Wymer wasn't indicted.

    • Yeah, this is pretty much like watergate, but on a corporate level. It makes you wonder how they ever thought it was ok.

      • Yeah, this is pretty much like watergate, but on a corporate level. It makes you wonder how they ever thought it was ok.

        Because just like watergate, they probably do this kind of crap all the time.

    • Re:Good (Score:4, Insightful)

      by hey! ( 33014 ) on Tuesday April 19, 2022 @03:50PM (#62460290) Homepage Journal

      "Went out of their way" is an extreme understatement; they coordinated a campaign of threats and intimidation, including flying across the country to vandalize the victims' home. What's weird was that what set it off was a rather run-of-the-mill criticism of excessive executive compensation, which was just pointing out something that was public knowledge. It's not like they were about to expose the executive leadership's secret baby-eating cult.

      For that matter, the behavior *was* shockingly cult-like.

      I can't wait to see the result of the civil lawsuit. The CEO left with a 57 million dollar severance package, I reckon the Steiners should get at least that much.

  • by Midnight_Falcon ( 2432802 ) on Tuesday April 19, 2022 @02:39PM (#62460098)
    This could totally be made into a mockumentary or a miniseries in the style of Better Call Saul etc, because the tactics this guy used screams of someone who has watched too many movies, played too many video games despite the fact he was previously worked with the FBI. Sending people funeral wreaths for trashing eBay? Bloody pig masks?

    It was stranger than fiction, and also shows what idiocy passes for "Security" roles at these companies -- they like to hire shady people. That makes sense because of the amount of shady products like fake art prints, fake watches etc on eBay at any time.

    • by hey! ( 33014 ) on Tuesday April 19, 2022 @04:49PM (#62460434) Homepage Journal

      The mastermind of the scheme was James Baugh, eBay's "Director of Safety and Security", and as you guessed, he made his subordinates watch clips from crime movies.

      He claims to be a former FBI agent, but overall this effort did a really bad job of covering its tracks. They sent stupidly employees without training to trail the targets' car, and of course they got the license plate, leading to a car rental paid for with a company credit card. Calls to the vendors sending the harassing shipments were stonewalled by the vendors, but soon the investigators would have called with a court order and the payments would have been tracked to eBay.

      Two of the participants were former *police captains*. If you'd asked them *hypothetically* how you'd investigate something like they could easily have told you. Now they're convicted felons.

  • If a person or a company is well known, that are not going to be universally loved.
    If you think you are going to be universally loved, and not have people who think you are the Devil, then you have some extra issues, probably on the Narcissism scale.
    The best one can do, is try to clear up any misinformation that the detractors may be stating, and address to improve the factual failing they have pointed out. Don't make it personal, because then you become the bad guy to even more people, who may not have car

    • Making it personal and getting into a fully legal shouting match trading insults just makes you look petty.

      The problem at hand is acting like the devil they are, not just making it personal.

    • by hey! ( 33014 )

      eBay has an entire department dedicated to taking things personally, which reports to the CEO. He sent them an email ordering them to "take her down" -- that's a direct quote. What do you think he expected they were going to do in response to that? Write a well-researched rebuttal?

  • by PseudoThink ( 576121 ) on Tuesday April 19, 2022 @03:02PM (#62460174)
    The show where the corporate security director abuses his power and crosses all sorts of ethical boundaries to protect the company agenda. Hackers? Tron? Mr. Robot? Westworld? Devs? I forget.
    • Ford Motor Company...

  • This is the kind of thing that make conspiracy lunatics seem sane. I would not be surprised if it happened all the time in eastern cultures where they care more about face with a capital F. But we have a culture of free press where such activity is not just likely to come to light, but where it will be heavily punished.

    This guy probably started out small and every time he got away with something he raised the stakes. By the time he realized how deep he was in he didn't realize his goose was cooked long

  • So many employees giving bad name to eBay.

A physicist is an atom's way of knowing about atoms. -- George Wald

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