[jessaustin]

But Silliman made clear on Thursday that the “state-sponsored” nature of the breach would have no bearing on the analysis of materiality.

“From a legal perspective,” he said, “the question . . . ‘is it a state-sponsored attack?’ isn't really relevant in terms of what we're looking at. The question is whether this [had] a material or an adverse effect on the asset we are buying.”

One can see why he didn't want to call "bullshit" publicly, and the news media is required to be dumb, but does anyone with a clue really believe these oh-so-convenient "state actor" attributions? We're supposed to imagine that Russia: 1) wanted what Yahoo had, and 2) wanted to get caught at it. What's the motivation? Did Marissa cut in front of some favored oligarch at the ski lift in Davos or something?

[corecoder]

It really doesn't matter what Verizon believes about who did the breach. Say you want to buy my car, but then it gets destroyed, and I say Superman did it. Whether you believe me or not, it doesn't matter, you still won't buy a destroyed car.

This is somewhat different from Yahoo users' perspective: in their case, as well, the point is not if the breach was state-sponsored, the point is: did it take mass destruction weapons and hundreds of spies coordinated for months, or did it take five minutes and a hairpin?

[oneloop]

Come on...

WikiLeaks drops shit on Clinton, blame Russia.

Mayer does a terrible job, blame Russia.

Who wants to bet that next we'll hear Elizabeth Holmes blaming Russia for her silly Edison machines not working properly.

[jessaustin]

What media conglomerate did China pay off? They used to get blamed for all the magical unavoidable super hacking... well, them and North Korea both.

[gjolund]

After a certain point you can't blame people for robbing you if you keep leaving the door unlocked.