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Rob Ford's Toronto

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SFO said:
Deep down in my pitch black heart I feel a sliver of doubt that Massoudi has cancer.
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You aren't the only one, but I figure it's better to just assume that he does, because lying about having cancer would be so supremely shitty that I don't want to think about it.
 
jml said:
I find the Massoudi Vice story highly dubious. It sounds like during the time the story is alleged to have happened, the crack video was on a cell phone in a pencil case. It would be odd if they had it hosted anywhere accessible.
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Agreed.

I assigned just about zero credibility to the Massoudi/hacker story as soon as I saw that inveterate troll/desperate attention-seeker ManüvSteele claimed to be at the center of it. The "proof" was easily-faked screenshots, and this:
Vice story said:
VICE exhaustively compared the emails allegedly from Massoudi with public notes and comments Massoudi left on his Facebook profile. Both were rife with grammatical errors, poor spelling, and had a similar tendency to overuse elipses.
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...which wud also be vry easyt to fake... all u have 2 do is look at sumones writing nd copy it... n e fool cld do this nd put 2gether a log of fake emailz nd sum sort of fake ncrypted filez... then use that 2 bait vice magazine, duh...

Vice was contacted by an "anonymous source", which I firmly believe was ManuvTroll, err... Steel. Why would the drug-dealing gun-runners register a site under the name "goonies"? They're smart enough to hide themselves on the street when they want, so we're supposed to believe that they suddenly lose all their smarts as soon as they get online?

Indeed, why throw it up on the internet at all? It's a supremely valuable bit of information; you can guard a USB stick or a phone with a gun, but once something is online, you've lost all control of it. I realise that the people who had the video are gun-runners & drug dealers and not the protagonists of the movie Hackers, but this is basic stuff and in this day & age, it's simply not plausible that they wouldn't have access to someone who could advise them on this stuff if they needed the advice badly enough.

Franks2000inchTV said:
I was at a superbowl party where someone claimed they knew a guy who made the whole thing up and sold the story to vice magazine. It could be bullshit, but he seemed to believe it and it was in the context of "I know this guy who does all kinds of crazy stuff to cause shit" (i.e. not in a Rob Ford context) so it would be a weird specific thing to lie about at a superbowl party, months after the initial story.

I honestly doubt that the hacker story is real, and it hardly seems likely that the guys with the video were sophisticated enough to set up a digital hosting service with password protection.

Remember, they got in touch with the press by calling them (not by email) and in every case they showed the video by bringing the phone and playing it for them.

I don't think they were exactly Internet wizards.
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They don't have to be internet wizards; they just have to know someone who is moderately clued-up to tell them not to put this thing online. Chances are they never did. Based on the available information, I'm far more willing to put credence in a third-hand drunken story: I reckon that the guy at the Superbowl party was telling a true story about a habitual BS'er (see ManüvSteele bit above).

As for contacting reporters exclusively by phone and showing the video on a phone: it's about control. Sometimes I call people when I want to get a response in real-time and not leave an email hanging out there in the ether. I have zero street cred, but it's basic common sense: if I had a video like that - something the whole city would want to see and that might be worth six figures - I wouldn't let it out of my hand when showing it to someone.

I'm willing to be corrected, but I give this Ford story 0 crack rocks out of a possible 5 manila envelopes. Unless anyone has anything to contradict what I've said here, I'd say we should consign the hacker story to the dustbin of Ford history. It's not that I don't think Massoudi is a total snake in the grass - he's certainly an inveterate liar, as you'd have to be if you worked for Ford in any media-facing role - but this story just doesn't pass the sniff test.

Edit: so Massoudi has cancer? Damn. I certainly wish him a full & speedy recovery; no-one deserves that. He's a young dude, too. Although I admit I did feel a bloom of guilt for smack-talking him just now, I stand by what I said about him needing to be a liar to be Ford's mouthpiece. I don't think it's incompatible to wish for someone's political failure even while you sincerely hope for their good health. Get well soon, Amin.
 
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SecretSquirrel said:
I assigned just about zero credibility to the Massoudi/hacker story as soon as I saw that inveterate troll/desperate attention-seeker ManüvSteele claimed to be at the center of it. The "proof" was easily-faked screenshots
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Plus when ManuvSteele got on the board for awhile it was almost ludicrously obvious from his responses that his main goal was to string people along and toy with them. That was my read on it anyway.
 
It's telling that no other media organization followed up on the Vice story or even reported it second hand. Looks bad on them trying to go legit.
 
Dubster said:
It's telling that no other media organization followed up on the Vice story or even reported it second hand. Looks bad on them trying to go legit.
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YUP. You can bet a few reporters did some sniffing around, with a story this potentially huge. Guess it didn't pass the smell test with them either.
 
basic said:
Here is the final list in the Ford Pool. The pool is closed at this point, however if you posted previously and your date is not on here, I'll update based on the honour system. We have 107 entries!
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I think mine got lost in the "deletion event". Could you put me down for March 21? Thanks.

Just so I don't feel like a cheater I've copied Schmilsson's idea and found the google cache:

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Fm3HNeCl0xAJ:urbantoronto.ca/forum/printthread.php%3Ft%3D14268%26pp%3D40%26page%3D1212+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ca
 
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OSS 117 said:
I think the relevant detail is that Massoudi THOUGHT he was dealing with someone who could get the crack video, not whether or not they actually had access to it. In terms of his being a willing tool of the Fords' various malfeasances, that's all that really matters. He didn't get it, so it doesn't matter if he was being strung along by a prankster or not.
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I suppose this is possible, but it still seems unlikely; Massoudi is certainly clever enough to realise that deleting one copy of the crack video on some web storage service wouldn't make an ounce of difference to Team Ford. I also think he's smart enough not to send out a load of e-mails which would clearly document him conspiring to commit an illegal act (the hacking).
 
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SecretSquirrel said:
I suppose this is possible, but it still seems unlikely; Massoudi is certainly clever enough to realise that deleting one copy of the crack video on some web storage service wouldn't make an ounce of difference to Team Ford.
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I wouldn't assume that, but that's all I'll say about him given his current situation.
 
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