Grimes’ ties to hacking apparently extend beyond a Cyberpunk 2077 cameo. Cybersecurity expert Jackie Singh and Pitchfork report that the electronic pop star (aka Claire Boucher) has admitted to hacking the culture blog Hipster Runoff in an interview with Vanity Fair. She said she coordinated a distributed denial of service attack on the site in 2012 after its anonymous author, Carles, published an allegedly “mean” story, including a photo of her kissing a boyfriend at a party.
At the time, Carles told Motherboard there was evidence of “foul play” on the server, including a hard drive crash and sabotaged backups. Grimes said she and her still anonymous (gaming industry) accomplice “basically blackmail[ed]” Carles to remove the story before they let him restore Hipster Runoff.
The admission could be more than just an interesting anecdote. As Pitchfork explains, DDoS attacks have long been illegal in both the United States and Grimes’ home country of Canada — both nations can sentence perpetrators to up to 10 years in prison. Blackmail has, of course, been illegal for a long time. 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 page under Carles so maybe the story isn’t over yet.
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