Hacker News Reader

Blackmail as a lawsuit. Have to be careful who you trust these days.

In blackmail, you keep the damaging information secret while you try to get the target to pay. Publicizing it doesn't work, because the whole point is for the target to pay to keep it secret.

So, unless there is something worse that Levandowski would know she knows that would come out if the allegations in the lawsuit were litigated, this is not likely to be “blackmail as lawsuit”.

Best post here and clears it up for me. I just could not figure this out as made no sense. Once out there there is no black mail possible. But if you put some out there to show you are serious it is very effective.

What is unbelievable is how bad this is suggests the rest is off the charts. Well I view this off the charts so the rest thermonuclear.

Or the real blackmail is "pay up or i'll say this under oath in court, which means it can be used against you in other court cases"

This is what I thought, too. I'm glad I'm not the only one. Maybe the nanny is including some damaging information in the lawsuit, but not the most damaging information. She puts in plenty of details to send the message that she has a lot of specific details regarding the real dirt.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com