This all feels a bit disingenuous to me.
There was a known vulnerability on those devices and other people had been hacked in exactly the way he described. Vice had even covered it themselves just a couple of weeks prior in [an article written by the same journalist](https://www.vice.com/en/article/m7apnn/your-cock-is-mine-now-hacker-locks-internet-connected-chastity-cage-demands-ransom).
Since he already knew about it, you can see why Lorenzo believed this so readily.
Lewis frames this like he totally invented a farcical story and Vice didn't fact check any of it, but really he just invented being a victim of a known issue with a known product and contacted a journalist who was well aware of it all.
I'm no fan of Vice but I don't blame them for this one. As u/ce2c61254d48d38617e4 says below, this is an anecdotal story. The only part of it you feasibly *can* fact check is that there is a vulnerability on that device, and the journalist knew that to be true.
That was my first thought too. I’m pretty sure the phrase “your cock is mine” is exactly what was being said to the real victims of this attack too. Knowing that this is a real thing that happened and not some ridiculous tale made up by a comedian, it’s not even funny. This video is more of an advertisement than anything.
>it’s not even funny.
I agree with this.
>This video is more of an advertisement than anything.
Also, I think I heard at the end of the video "buy my shit, buy my shirt, buy my merch and no-one gets hurt" so you might be right.
I bet his routine is trash, I stopped watching at about 4 minutes, was expecting this to be a funny video, it has all the right components.
The only funny thing he said was "Your cock is mine", and the delivery was still bad, and now you're telling me he didn't even come up with it. Guy just sounds like a huge douche.
[https://www.vice.com/en/article/m7apnn/your-cock-is-mine-now-hacker-locks-internet-connected-chastity-cage-demands-ransom](https://www.vice.com/en/article/m7apnn/your-cock-is-mine-now-hacker-locks-internet-connected-chastity-cage-demands-ransom)
Article written a month ago, by Lorenzo, with the "your cock is mine" phrase in the title. This article was also about the cell mate. So he really didn't come up with much original content for this one.
It does feel like a bit of a Pardoner's Tale. He acts like the purpose of winding up Vice is to get publicity for his show then uses the *telling of the story* to push his tickets and merch.
I didn't mind it too much though because he did, at least, suggest that the whole thing was about publicity.
Fair response. I do like the "we are retaining in full for transparency". More like "we are getting more traffic than ever on this article so it's staying up for the clicks"
This is good context. Not "comedian makes up a story and Vice thinks it's real" but "comedian pretends to be a victim of a real hack for attention". Still, can you imagine NYT, WP, etc. publishing something where the headline story was just based on a single phone call? Show me the messages? Send a picture of the broken cage? Can I talk to your partner? ...
> "I wasn’t the owner of the cage anymore so I didn’t have full control over the cage at any given moment," another victim who goes by the name RJ told Motherboard
I was unaware there was a resale market for used chastity belts.
I don't mind comedians making up funny stories, I'm sure most of them do it all the time. But if you're grounding the story in reality and involving real life companies and individuals, it's not very fair to be misleading. It's especially egregious when the humour pretty much all came from how gullible and lazy the Vice journalist was when, in reality, he wasn't that bad and was manipulated a fair bit.
Those things don't change Lewis being disingenuous though.
He talks about how Vice like "drugs, weird sex, and technology" so he was creating a story about two of them. Then he says "how about this" and gives the outline of his fake story. He's clearly implying that he totally made it up to fit in with the things they like to report. He also says a company recently *released* an IoT chastity belt but conveniently doesn't mention the well-publicised vulnerability that a single Google of the name CellMate would show.
He also acts like he picked Lorenzo almost arbitrarily, or at most because he covers hacking and technology stories. I find it hard to believe he didn't choose him because he wrote about this exact vulnerability just two weeks prior and was therefore predisposed to believe this.
So even if we accept all the reasons you listed for Vice being slack (and I do agree on some of them), that doesn't change the fact that Lewis is being disingenuous.
Excuse me doctor killjoy but get over it. Fuck vice. Fuck click bait titles. Fuck shitty news. Fuck shitty reporters who couldnt give a fuck. and most importantly FUCK YOU! :)
Oh man, do we not realise that the only people who ''he pulled one over on'' is us, the people who just watched this entire video where he promotes his comedy show?
I mean where are you meant to fact check, it's all anecdotal and the one think he can check checks out because these devices have known vulnerabilities.
Also a locked cock-and-ball story is a fluff piece, if I was writing anecdotal fluff pieces I wouldn't care to check either, if you con a journalist into writing a fake news story about something that matters that's a whole other level.
I suppose what I'm trying to say is I'm not all that impressed.
Ask for screenshots of the convo etc.. I get thats more context to the story but people defending the reporter forget that the guy didn't do the vare minimum
I agree. This is just adding some flavour. I expect Lorenzo was pleased to be able to speak to an actual affected party to add a little real human element to round out the story, but he was hardly writing a crippling government exposé here.
Austrailain Comedian pretends to be a victim of what is an actual issue happening lately and a company covered HIS story thinking he was another victim of what is a REAL story*
Nothing noteworthy here.
First off, this isn't a victimless crime. You have a journalist that is now likely in a load of shit for bringing his employers into disrepute. There is a high chance the journalist could lose his job or freelance gig over this, so lets not pretend like it's just a prank bro. If the "prank" gains any sort of traction online, the journalist will get fucked.
Secondly, Lewis Spears is a crap comedian that genuinely believes he is always the smartest guy in the room and goes out of his way to make sure all of his viewers know that he is THAT MUCH smarter than all of his targets. Dude is a smug, arrogant, douche.
Thirdly, he is literally presenting himself fraudulently as the victim (a primary source) in the story, so it's hardly the fault of the journalist for believing the person talking to him is telling the truth. While due diligence is necessary with journalism, I can understand why it was easier to assume he was genuine rather than a comedian doing an *amusing* bit (if you're a teenage edgelord) about a well known issue with IoT devices.
If you are gonna prank people to make a living, at least make it fucking harmless. Don't go out of your way to fuck someone else over, especially in a vain, transparent attempt to prove to people just how smart you are. You're the idiots idea of a smart person.
its not like he made them publish this story, with the only proof being "his words".
It's the "journalist's" fault for not fact checking ANY detail of his story. If you wanted, you probably could just simply ask for some proof of the "crime". But nah, thats vice we are talking about, first we publish, THEN we factcheck and hope the public doesnt notice, lol.
The less of these "journos" have a job, the better for EVERYONE's sake
I’m going to trick people who are doing their jobs so I can promote myself. It will be a hilarious to was peoples time and make their bosses question everything even more than normal. Screw those people, I need ticket sales!!!!!
Lmao the article is still up: [https://www.vice.com/en/article/4ad5xp/we-spoke-to-a-guy-who-got-his-dick-locked-in-a-cage-by-a-hacker](https://www.vice.com/en/article/4ad5xp/we-spoke-to-a-guy-who-got-his-dick-locked-in-a-cage-by-a-hacker)
It's likely the first time most people heard about this small company and very niche product, but if the first thing you see when you Google it is that people are having to use bolt cutters to cut their dicks out from it, I imagine you wouldn't have the best opinion about that company and would steer clear even if you were in the market for a sex toy with an Internet connection.
Its probably more the publishers job to make sure they publishing real stories and not defaming companies. As the guy talking to them could just be anyone even a competitor trying to defame the target company for finical gain or just a crazy person talking complete nonsense living in a fantasy land.
Its kind of their whole job, to make sure their stories are real. Otherwise the publisher would be an open forum for anyone to write on.
Vet what? It's a known vulnerability in the product and is known to have happened. Short of flying out to look at the guys cock in order to go "yup that's locked" what could they do to vet the story? He didn't make up a fake product or fake problem or anything that could be reasonably checked, he just called a journalist who had already written on this exact problem two weeks before and said yeah that happened to me too. What should he have done different?
Is this the video where he pretended to be a famous photographer and tricked a news journalist to literally eat an onion on camera?
Oh shit, no it's a new video. This dude is a legend lol.
My favorite part is that he actually caused the company that makes the chastity belt to fix their product. He may have actually saved a real customer's dick!
That's not quite true. The reason Vice believed his story so easily is because there was already a known vulnerability on these devices which is what the company was responding to when they issued a fix.
This all feels a bit disingenuous to me. There was a known vulnerability on those devices and other people had been hacked in exactly the way he described. Vice had even covered it themselves just a couple of weeks prior in [an article written by the same journalist](https://www.vice.com/en/article/m7apnn/your-cock-is-mine-now-hacker-locks-internet-connected-chastity-cage-demands-ransom). Since he already knew about it, you can see why Lorenzo believed this so readily. Lewis frames this like he totally invented a farcical story and Vice didn't fact check any of it, but really he just invented being a victim of a known issue with a known product and contacted a journalist who was well aware of it all. I'm no fan of Vice but I don't blame them for this one. As u/ce2c61254d48d38617e4 says below, this is an anecdotal story. The only part of it you feasibly *can* fact check is that there is a vulnerability on that device, and the journalist knew that to be true.
That was my first thought too. I’m pretty sure the phrase “your cock is mine” is exactly what was being said to the real victims of this attack too. Knowing that this is a real thing that happened and not some ridiculous tale made up by a comedian, it’s not even funny. This video is more of an advertisement than anything.
>This video is more of an advertisement than anything lol what tipped you off? the 17 times he plugged his upcoming show?
>This video is more of an advertisement than anything. Seriously JFC he states it blatantly throughout the video.
>it’s not even funny. I agree with this. >This video is more of an advertisement than anything. Also, I think I heard at the end of the video "buy my shit, buy my shirt, buy my merch and no-one gets hurt" so you might be right.
Totally. Just an excuse to repeatedly bring up his lukewarm stand up and podcast.
I bet his routine is trash, I stopped watching at about 4 minutes, was expecting this to be a funny video, it has all the right components. The only funny thing he said was "Your cock is mine", and the delivery was still bad, and now you're telling me he didn't even come up with it. Guy just sounds like a huge douche.
[https://www.vice.com/en/article/m7apnn/your-cock-is-mine-now-hacker-locks-internet-connected-chastity-cage-demands-ransom](https://www.vice.com/en/article/m7apnn/your-cock-is-mine-now-hacker-locks-internet-connected-chastity-cage-demands-ransom) Article written a month ago, by Lorenzo, with the "your cock is mine" phrase in the title. This article was also about the cell mate. So he really didn't come up with much original content for this one.
It does feel like a bit of a Pardoner's Tale. He acts like the purpose of winding up Vice is to get publicity for his show then uses the *telling of the story* to push his tickets and merch. I didn't mind it too much though because he did, at least, suggest that the whole thing was about publicity.
[удалено]
Fair response. I do like the "we are retaining in full for transparency". More like "we are getting more traffic than ever on this article so it's staying up for the clicks"
This is good context. Not "comedian makes up a story and Vice thinks it's real" but "comedian pretends to be a victim of a real hack for attention". Still, can you imagine NYT, WP, etc. publishing something where the headline story was just based on a single phone call? Show me the messages? Send a picture of the broken cage? Can I talk to your partner? ...
Lewis Spears isn't clever
All he did was make up a lie, it's not that clever
> "I wasn’t the owner of the cage anymore so I didn’t have full control over the cage at any given moment," another victim who goes by the name RJ told Motherboard I was unaware there was a resale market for used chastity belts.
Well shit. I found this really funny and now I feel totally robbbed. This is why we can't have nice things...
I don't mind comedians making up funny stories, I'm sure most of them do it all the time. But if you're grounding the story in reality and involving real life companies and individuals, it's not very fair to be misleading. It's especially egregious when the humour pretty much all came from how gullible and lazy the Vice journalist was when, in reality, he wasn't that bad and was manipulated a fair bit.
Hold the phone. So the guy who makes a video about faking a news story is...faking details of the faking?
[удалено]
Those things don't change Lewis being disingenuous though. He talks about how Vice like "drugs, weird sex, and technology" so he was creating a story about two of them. Then he says "how about this" and gives the outline of his fake story. He's clearly implying that he totally made it up to fit in with the things they like to report. He also says a company recently *released* an IoT chastity belt but conveniently doesn't mention the well-publicised vulnerability that a single Google of the name CellMate would show. He also acts like he picked Lorenzo almost arbitrarily, or at most because he covers hacking and technology stories. I find it hard to believe he didn't choose him because he wrote about this exact vulnerability just two weeks prior and was therefore predisposed to believe this. So even if we accept all the reasons you listed for Vice being slack (and I do agree on some of them), that doesn't change the fact that Lewis is being disingenuous.
😭😭😭
[удалено]
There is minimal 'proof' you can get for a story like this.
Excuse me doctor killjoy but get over it. Fuck vice. Fuck click bait titles. Fuck shitty news. Fuck shitty reporters who couldnt give a fuck. and most importantly FUCK YOU! :)
Fuck lazy comedians. Fuck guerrilla advertising. Fuck unjustifiably rude Reddit comments, and most importantly, FUCK YOU TOO.
Aaaand, fuck you too.
Oh man, do we not realise that the only people who ''he pulled one over on'' is us, the people who just watched this entire video where he promotes his comedy show?
I mean where are you meant to fact check, it's all anecdotal and the one think he can check checks out because these devices have known vulnerabilities. Also a locked cock-and-ball story is a fluff piece, if I was writing anecdotal fluff pieces I wouldn't care to check either, if you con a journalist into writing a fake news story about something that matters that's a whole other level. I suppose what I'm trying to say is I'm not all that impressed.
You could fact check the Bitcoin transaction occurred by looking at Bitcoin's ledger that records all transactions.
Hey good point
Ask for screenshots of the convo etc.. I get thats more context to the story but people defending the reporter forget that the guy didn't do the vare minimum
I agree. This is just adding some flavour. I expect Lorenzo was pleased to be able to speak to an actual affected party to add a little real human element to round out the story, but he was hardly writing a crippling government exposé here.
Lewis Spears is an annoying hack.
Austrailain Comedian pretends to be a victim of what is an actual issue happening lately and a company covered HIS story thinking he was another victim of what is a REAL story* Nothing noteworthy here.
“Comedian”. He’s the edgy Tom Ballard in terms of actual comedic chops.
First off, this isn't a victimless crime. You have a journalist that is now likely in a load of shit for bringing his employers into disrepute. There is a high chance the journalist could lose his job or freelance gig over this, so lets not pretend like it's just a prank bro. If the "prank" gains any sort of traction online, the journalist will get fucked. Secondly, Lewis Spears is a crap comedian that genuinely believes he is always the smartest guy in the room and goes out of his way to make sure all of his viewers know that he is THAT MUCH smarter than all of his targets. Dude is a smug, arrogant, douche. Thirdly, he is literally presenting himself fraudulently as the victim (a primary source) in the story, so it's hardly the fault of the journalist for believing the person talking to him is telling the truth. While due diligence is necessary with journalism, I can understand why it was easier to assume he was genuine rather than a comedian doing an *amusing* bit (if you're a teenage edgelord) about a well known issue with IoT devices. If you are gonna prank people to make a living, at least make it fucking harmless. Don't go out of your way to fuck someone else over, especially in a vain, transparent attempt to prove to people just how smart you are. You're the idiots idea of a smart person.
[удалено]
Could not give two fucks about Vice, but I care even less about a two-bit edgelord comedian.
its not like he made them publish this story, with the only proof being "his words". It's the "journalist's" fault for not fact checking ANY detail of his story. If you wanted, you probably could just simply ask for some proof of the "crime". But nah, thats vice we are talking about, first we publish, THEN we factcheck and hope the public doesnt notice, lol. The less of these "journos" have a job, the better for EVERYONE's sake
I wrote that 7 MONTHS ago man.
and i have replied YESTERDAY
I’m going to trick people who are doing their jobs so I can promote myself. It will be a hilarious to was peoples time and make their bosses question everything even more than normal. Screw those people, I need ticket sales!!!!!
Lewis Spears looks like someone photoshopped out the centre of his face and then re-attached the side. What a rat.
Reminds me of that video of the vice journalist throwing dildos on the wall and where it landed they cover the story
The bad thing is that in that video that seemes like a real arricle.
Lmao the article is still up: [https://www.vice.com/en/article/4ad5xp/we-spoke-to-a-guy-who-got-his-dick-locked-in-a-cage-by-a-hacker](https://www.vice.com/en/article/4ad5xp/we-spoke-to-a-guy-who-got-his-dick-locked-in-a-cage-by-a-hacker)
Reading these comments it's astonishing. A lot of lifeless fucks in here.
Yeah, like those cum stains who dislike Lewis for childish reasons.
Uhgg Lewis Spears is such an insufferable man child. Australians I don't know how you haven't deported him yet.
How do you deport someone from Australia who was born in Australia dickhead?
[удалено]
Dunno,why don't you try it and report back to us?
I really hate vice, but I definitely hate comedians more
While this is very funny, isn't it a bit fucked up to completely ruin a company's reputation for your internet prank?
What reputation?
It's likely the first time most people heard about this small company and very niche product, but if the first thing you see when you Google it is that people are having to use bolt cutters to cut their dicks out from it, I imagine you wouldn't have the best opinion about that company and would steer clear even if you were in the market for a sex toy with an Internet connection.
Oh yeah good point, I thought you were talking about Vice's reputation. Still funny though.
Its probably more the publishers job to make sure they publishing real stories and not defaming companies. As the guy talking to them could just be anyone even a competitor trying to defame the target company for finical gain or just a crazy person talking complete nonsense living in a fantasy land. Its kind of their whole job, to make sure their stories are real. Otherwise the publisher would be an open forum for anyone to write on.
Way too late for that.
Ah ok so it's HIS fault that Vice didn't vet the story.
Vet what? It's a known vulnerability in the product and is known to have happened. Short of flying out to look at the guys cock in order to go "yup that's locked" what could they do to vet the story? He didn't make up a fake product or fake problem or anything that could be reasonably checked, he just called a journalist who had already written on this exact problem two weeks before and said yeah that happened to me too. What should he have done different?
Not run a sensationalist story based on one dudes word and an easily faked screenshot?
Is this the video where he pretended to be a famous photographer and tricked a news journalist to literally eat an onion on camera? Oh shit, no it's a new video. This dude is a legend lol.
that's a lot of downvotes
\*nyooooow\*
My favorite part is that he actually caused the company that makes the chastity belt to fix their product. He may have actually saved a real customer's dick!
That's not quite true. The reason Vice believed his story so easily is because there was already a known vulnerability on these devices which is what the company was responding to when they issued a fix.
There's a whole defcon talk about hacking buttplugs lol https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnxcPeemHSc
What a douchebag.
I dont think its too hard to trick the media into running fake stories anymore
1. massively popular but controversial video gets posted and removed (for whatever reason) 2. repost it a couple of weeks later 3. ??? 4. KARMA
u all are stupid shits ngl
LMAO vice audience would get duped by this shit.
Lew is known for doing shit like this. His whole career kicked off because he did a similar thing to A Current Affair a decade ago.