As some of you know, I'm an attorney whose firm has taken an interest in the recent happenings around reddit. I just wanted to give you guys a quick update as to how this weekend's DDOS attack against voat could effect things.

I can't go into too much detail because this is an ongoing matter, but it's been pointed out here any number of times that reddit itself is behind the recent DDOS attacks, and while I can't exactly confirm that it's true (our investigation is ongoing) I can say that, based on our information, it's looking very much like what many of you predicted is the case.

This is a very bad development for reddit. Orchestrating a DDOS attack is a legal offenses at the federal level, both criminally and civilly. The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) is the applicable law (18 U.S.C. §1030).

This means a criminal prosecution for Pao and other reddit executives is likely. Jail time for "white collar" criminals is pretty rare, but given Pao's recent history with (seemingly) frivolous lawsuits and her husbands' troubles, it isn't impossible. They are not exactly going to be believable witnesses, any way!

But for even more than simply the CFAA violation. There's also "conspiracy to commit" for the planning of the DDOS attack as well as potentially RICO charges. (Maybe reddit as a criminal organization in nature seems a little far fetched right now, but only if you don't know the whole story.)

Many have suggested that SRS and other SJWs are behind the attacks, and that somehow that gives reddit some legal cover, but it probably won't stand up in court. Close ties between reddit and these groups could be easily proven (as Im sure you guys know) and it shouldn't be very hard to show that these organizations were acting at the behest of, and for the benefit of, reddit. Our investigators hope to be able to show exactly how the influence/money changes hands between these groups.

So stay tuned. I can't give you a timeframe, sadly, but hopefully in the next few weeks we'll have something concrete on this.

It should be interesting to see how lon it takes for this thread to be deleted, BTW. Don't expect it to stay up.