You called it a "wild conspiracy theory". You're using "conspiracy theory" as a thought terminating cliche, which is intellectual dishonesty.
> "absolutely nothing to back [..] up [the theory]"
More intellectual dishonesty. The Saudis had the means, the motive, the opportunity and the disposition, as demonstrated by their murderous tendencies. The House of Saud are a family of thugs who are known to conspire to murder journalists. It's entirely rational to consider the strong probability that they've also conspired to blackmail people.
It is incontrovertibly nothing more than a wild conspiracy theory at this point;
- A remote access no-hands zero day iPhone rootkit.
- An international plot to expose an affair
- A plot potentially involving the President of the United States in cahoots with the National Enquirer to expose the richest man in the world
- A blackmail attempt to cover it all up
- Perfectly executed parallel construction to account for the source of the photos
Last week the President was accused of clandestinely exploiting the intelligence apparatus of the United States to steal Bezos' photos. Now that we know (the only actual evidence that we've seen -- in this case statements from the brother himself and AMI) that the photos were provided by the brother, a new theory emerges that this was merely parallel construction after the affair was exposed through spying by the Saudis.
To reach that conclusion, you would have to (1) have evidence that the Saudi's contacted AMI to give them the lead, (2) have evidence of the zero-day on the iPhone, and (3) be able to link some sort of network activity back to Saudi Arabia carrying the exfiltrated data. ('AMI was tipped off', 'by the Saudi's, 'after they spied on Bezos by exploiting his phone' are three separate facts which each need supporting evidence).
Instead... You use the words "means", "motive", "opportunity" in a colloquial which is at odds with their meaning in a court of law. "I think this guy doesn't like that guy" is true of an untold number of people in Bezos' orbit, including his ex-wife.
"I think this guy can remote root international iPhones at the click of a mouse" is not means" - it's utter speculation. Anyone* who knew Bezos was having an affair with Sanchez would be in the exact same position to approach the brother and ask for kompromat.
I don't know what you are claiming is the evidence of "opportunity" in this case?
I certainly don't support Saudi Arabia, and I'm looking forward to the day where there's no one left to buy their oil and they sink back into the desert. It is absolute fact that Saudi Arabia has murdered and blackmailed in pursuit of their political goals.
But you have literally nothing but a cute story and a blog post of a guy who said trust me because I have high confidence that they hacked Bezos' phone to give AMI the lead on his affair other than "Saudi Arabia bad".
You have not come even remotely close to substantiating any sort of claim, other than to basically say that it's not impossible that it was them. I actually agree that it's not impossible that agents of Saudi Arabia remotely accessed Bezos' iPhone using a no-hands zero day to root his iPhone, discover the affair, and then call someone at AMI to tell them to track down the girl's brother to get a copy of the texts. It's not impossible but there's also no evidence that any of us has seen it actually happened. I think that's pretty much the definition of a conspiracy theory right there! The correct response, IMO, is absolute skepticism, and to wait for evidence to be presented.
Or at the very least, a general description of the sort of evidence which allegedly has been found?
And I really think you should cut it out with the ad hominem. There's nothing dishonest about my skepticism, and I am not insulting you, just your utter lack of an cohesive argument.
> "absolutely nothing to back [..] up [the theory]"
More intellectual dishonesty. The Saudis had the means, the motive, the opportunity and the disposition, as demonstrated by their murderous tendencies. The House of Saud are a family of thugs who are known to conspire to murder journalists. It's entirely rational to consider the strong probability that they've also conspired to blackmail people.