Grimes claims responsibility for 2012 hack of culture blog Hipster Runoff
Grimes’ connections to hacking extend beyond a Cyberpunk 2077 cameo, apparently. Cybersecurity expert Jackie Singh and Pitchfork report the electropop star (aka Claire Boucher) confessed to hacking the culture blog Hipster Runoff in a Vanity Fair interview. She said she coordinated a distributed denial of service attack against the site in 2012 after its anonymous author Carles posted an allegedly “mean” story including a photo of her kissing a friend at a party.
At the time, Carles told Motherboard there was evidence of “foul play” on the server, including a disk crash and sabotaged backups. Grimes said she and her fellow, still-anonymous perpetrator (from the games industry) “basically blackmail[ed]” Carles into removing the story before they would let him restore Hipster Runoff.
The admission might be more than just an interesting anecdote. As Pitchfork explains, DDoS attacks have long been illegal in both the US and Grimes’ home country of Canada — both nations can sentence culprits to as many as 10 years in prison. Blackmail, of course, has been illegal for longer. Law enforcement could theoretically charge Boucher and her accomplice based on the interview. Current Hipster Runoff owner Trevor McFedries has asked Twitter followers if anyone has a backup of the site under Carles, so the story might not be over yet.
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