# The ultimatum came off the site

2026-09-28

ShinyHunters removed the post that gave the FBI a week to delete the May advisory. Reuters says they will not say what happens if the bureau does not comply. The files they already showed reporters are still the files.

Canonical: https://www.fabiocti.com/notes/the-ultimatum-came-off-the-site/
Author: Fabio Correia

Taking the demand down is not returning the archive.

The original post gave the FBI a week to “correct or remove” the May advisory, and dressed that as not-a-ransom. Reuters reported that by Thursday the defiant text was gone, and the group would not comment on what it would do if the victim did not comply with “our kind request.” The pages already handed to a small circle of reporters — addresses, and then medical forms — do not un-hand themselves because the onion edit was deleted.

This is the same move as a negotiator who stops writing the number on the wall and keeps the zip. Silence after a showing is not a retreat. It is a choice to stop telling you the next step.

## What counsel will misread

“They took it down” will get briefed as de-escalation. It is a change in the public channel. The bureau’s incident statement is about FBIJobs.gov and employee PII, with the door still possibly a vendor. The reporters’ pile is a different object, partly checked, not the whole claim. Neither fact is cancelled by a deleted paragraph.

If you are holding a copy of the ultimatum for the file, keep it, with the date. Do not replace it with a screenshot of the empty page and call that the current state of the data. The current state of the data is whatever they already sent, plus whatever they have not sent, plus whoever they send it to next without posting the price.

## If you are the person in a page they already passed around

The leverage is no longer a countdown you can see. It is the document. A call, a foreign service, or a second reporter does not need the leak site to still say “one week.” Assume the shown file remains shown. Do not pay anyone who offers to put the paragraph back or take your name out. There is no site edit that deletes a reporter’s copy.

I still do not treat the blog post as the incident. I also do not treat the deletion of the blog post as the end of it.