Recently some of my accounts were hacked by the Syrian Electronic Army (SEA) because of my work for the revolution in Syria. It has taken me awhile to restore the accounts because I have been in Germany and Poland for a couple of film festivals (Camerimage Film Festival in Poland paid for my flight and hotel in Poland). The hacking of my accounts wasn’t my top priority.
However, the hackers have recently sent me a threatening email that is basically an attempt at extortion or blackmail.
The hackers have made it clear that if I do not give in to their demands they will find creative ways to destroy my reputation by using the information they obtained combined with screenshots of my accounts to fake emails and messages that don’t actually exist.
I find it amusing that they’re going to have to do this since they were disappointed that I had nothing to hide in my email and Facebook accounts. Was discovering a lawsuit I am in the process of filing, a personal matter between Nour Kelze and I, a professional dispute over my upcoming Libya documentary, financial issues, some inside jokes with girls, and my occasionally dirty sense of humor really worth all that effort of hacking me? They made a big show of hacking me and ended up with nothing.
I wouldn’t be surprised if my lack of response to their demands and this post exposing their failures and threatening email to me will provoke them into trying their best to damage my reputation. I don’t fear their faked emails, messages, and whatever else they have planned, and in fact it will be interesting to see how they’re possibly going to follow through on their threats and just how creative they will be considering how boring their posts on my hacked Twitter feed and Facebook page were.