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The Truth About the WikiLeaks C.I.A. Cache
- whatgoodisaroad 10y agoPerhaps a better title would be "The Truth About NYT's Level of Scrutiny toward Wikileaks Tweets".
- mmaunder 10y agoI've found that journos rely on sources to essentially write their story for them and many clearly know nothing about the subject they're covering. I don't think they realize this is the reason many people don't get their news from main stream media anymore. Because you can just read the source's blog and twitter feed. So in this case a journo is frustrated that a source who they should have been able to echo, and call that news, has their own agenda.
- n72 10y agoYou should maybe check out who @zeynep is before you suggest she knows nothing about this subject.
- dtornabene 10y agoseconded. amazing that comments like parent are bright and shiny.
- oasisbob 10y agoRead in the context of criticism to The Guardian's recent Whatsapp article, I think the motivation for this NYT article start to make more sense: http://technosociology.org/?page_id=1687 http://technosociology.org/?page_id=1687
- justaguyonline 10y agoOr maybe, "The Truth About the Media's Persistent Vulnerability to Convenient Misinformation" I mean: We're still dealing with climate change denialism after years of the media allowing false equivalence to obscure the overwhelming scientific consensus around it. Major news organizations will run headlines based straight off the contents of tweets by wikileaks inspite of their repeated false claims in the past like with the "leaks" post-coup in Turkey, or Assange's statements about the Panama papers It's stuff like this that give me, someone who believes fake news are just articles about things that didn't happen published by news organizations that don't exist on social media, major trust issues with American media today (and don't even get me started on British media)
- hackuser 10y ago> after years of the media allowing false equivalence to obscure the overwhelming scientific consensus around it Grouping all "media" together isn't meaningful; it's like saying "all programmers are lazy". It doesn't provide information that helps identify and solve a problem. Some specific news outlets, especially Fox and the WSJ, actively promote climate denial.
- justaguyonline 10y agoI understand what you're saying and agree about Fox and WSJ, but the fact is for years all major media corporations gave airtime to "opposing arguments" made by Think Tank talking heads on global warming despite the universal scientific agreement on it. That's what I mean by false equivalence and that's the attitude, and not purposeful misinformation by some outlets, that's the problem. Yes, mainstream media has gotten better about that topic in particular, but in general journalists still go for the easier "stories" that can be portrayed as competing sides, or simple narratives in general rather than what would actually inform people about the world.
- hackuser 10y ago> in general journalists still go for the easier "stories" that can be portrayed as competing sides, or simple narratives in general rather than what would actually inform people about the world. Journalists, AFAIK, are supposed to avoid inserting their own judgement, give the reader the information (including opinions of different sides), and let the reader make their own decisions. We can say that journalists should present "facts", but who says what the facts are? In the end, it comes down to expressed judgments by humans. That being said, that can be taken to too much of an extreme, as it has been with climate change. I don't need opposing opinions about whether the Sun will rise tomorrow.
- norikki 10y agoThe problem with this article isnt that the NYT fails to take responisbility for their poor reporting, it's the implication that "there's nothing to see here folks, wikileaks is just paper tiger" as depicted in the accompanying image. The tweet doesnt matter, the illegal domestic spying operations do.
- willstrafach 10y ago> the illegal domestic spying operations do. There is zero evidence of this within the leak.
- norikki 10y agoYes, obviously no one is going to jail for it, but it's still illegal in that it blatently violates the 4th amendment of the US constitution.
- revelation 10y agoI love how the NYT turns their own ignorance of technology into some condemnation of WikiLeaks. That tweet is perfectly fine. What exactly do they believe "bypass" to mean? Of course their own misstep here is only referred to as "a honest misunderstanding" of the generic "press". The article then goes on to explain what should have been researched from the beginning and delivers the brilliant sentence This should not come as a surprise. Right. Here is the salient excerpt from the WikiLeaks release linked in the tweet (!): These techniques permit the CIA to bypass the encryption of WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram, Wiebo, Confide and Cloackman by hacking the "smart" phones that they run on and collecting audio and message traffic before encryption is applied. You turned a tweet into a press article, didn't bother to read the referred article and then have the audacity to depict that as some sort of deliberate misinformation campaign in yet another article instead of simply admitting you rushed for the clicks. On the upside, it is now much clearer that it's maybe not only WL that is in the business of misinformation..
- keknloller 10y agoNo, no, no. The illuminated authorities on HN will tell you otherwise. "Running misinformation is part of Wikileaks' job." - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13812218 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13812218
- dogma1138 10y agoNot really, having a rootkit on a device allows you to bypass anything this is a given. Wikileaks tweets are also quite demagogic and are tailored for maximum effect, these "techniques" do not actually allow the CIA to bypass the encryption, bypassing the encryption is a whole other thing completely what it does is allow the CIA to read anything on the phone and use any of it's hardware sensors. Overall the problem with this leak specifically it that there is so far nothing damning, this is exactly the toolkit a modern intelligence agency should have, in fact this is likely to kiddy stuff not the rogue nation targeting kinetic payloads. What it doesn't show is who these tools target, if Wikileaks to be believed the NSA only targets journalists and human rights activists whilst in reality this isn't the case. Unlike the NSA the CIA is also not interested in mass surveillance, the CIA produces intelligence analysis primarily revolving around humint sources and targets, which means that their operations tend to be much more targeted a SIGINT agency which relies on bulk data collection.
- rfrank 10y agoNYT defends its source of leaked information on Trump's White House, regardless of what they do. More news at 11.
- AnimalMuppet 10y agoOff topic: Maybe I'm too cynical, but whenever I see an article titled "The Truth About X", I immediately expect that it contains someone's crackpot theory about X, rather than anything resembling truth.
- wamsachel 10y agoYep, a school teacher doesn't need to harp to their students about how they're hearing the truth. Whereas a church pastor frequently brings it up
- zaphar 10y agoPithy statement there. But I would hope a school teacher would harp on it, and further, that they would explain just why it is the truth. Part of their job is taking students to detect and evaluate the truth of something.
- edge17 10y agoNot sure if this is the right place to post this, but is there some place where one can read a description of the exploits? On the surface, Whatsapp, Signal, etc being compromised can mean either they are individually compromised or the platform they're on is somehow compromised, or something else... in my experience journalists have the incentive to just pick the headline that is the most sensational rather than the most informative.
- duskwuff 10y agoGenerally speaking, most of the "exploits" I've seen so far have fallen into the mundane category of "if you have full access to the computer/device, you can inject code into target applications to exfiltrate information". This is more of a demonstration of the platform's security than of any specific application -- if you can get the user to run code, all bets are off. For what it's worth, iOS has come out of this looking very safe. The CIA is essentially riding on the coattails of jailbreaks, which have been getting increasingly rare.
- hackuser 10y agoThe point of the article is that there are no exploits and those apps aren't mentioned by the leaked data. The leaked data merely says that if you gain full access to someone's phone then you can see what the user sees, which would include their Whatsapp and Signal messages. > in my experience journalists have the incentive to just pick the headline that is the most sensational rather than the most informative. Considering what the article actually says, it seems this author and publication didn't do that.
- hrodriguez 10y ago> Device and information insecurity, overzealous surveillance by governments — these are real concerns that call for real attention. I'm looking forward to The NY Time's Zeynep Tufekci's real discussion about Operating Systems that spy on us, collect our data and share that data; tracking across the internet; lack of security updates on phones; a tie-in with PRISM (allowing the NSA unfettered access to company databases) and anything else her top-notch "security researchers" turn up. Maybe she can add a few words about the lack of oversight, transparency and accountability our tech & phone companies enjoy for the privilege of cooperating with certain government agencies. Let's get your "sources" to add a few words about backroom deals that circumvent The Constitution and the laws of this land too. It's a big topic with many players. Be careful though, Mrs Tufekci. This kind of real news will get you into hot water with your masters. I'm sure she'll get to it after another hit-piece on Wikileaks for actually bringing this discussion to the table instead of trying to kill it. That is, once she gets over her political biases (which are sprinkled throughout the article) and does some real journalism. Security and Privacy are issues that need "real attention" and not something that gets tacked on at the end of an article and forgotten. *edit: word
- norikki 10y agoThis is standard operating procedure at propaganda outlets like NYT/Washington Post Et Al. It's called "burying the lead". When the crux of an issue is buried as a footnote in the last paragraph. The controlled media will quibble over symantics of a Tweet and ignore the shocking truth that innumerous government agencies can aquire blackmail on anyone they want at any time without even breaking the law; and if they fear a journalist or leaker sufficiently, cause a high speed car or plane crash to get rid of them.
- gingerrr 10y agoAlternate editorial spelling: burying the lede.
- untog 10y ago> This is standard operating procedure at propaganda outlets like NYT/Washington Post Et Al. It's an opinion piece. It's literally right there in the title that you should expect someone to be expressing an opinion, not engaging in objective reporting.
- nohat 10y ago>Using automated tools to search the whole database, as security researchers subsequently did, turned up no hits. This sounds so serious and involved, but probably took 10 seconds and just involved ctrl-f or (even) grep.
- multinglets 10y agoOh cool another round of "but they can't spy on the whole internet" from media stooges and their dumbass readership who haven't seen the pattern that's been going on for 20 fucking years now.
- jaimex2 10y agoYep, and the nytimes's reputation takes another hit on #fakenews
- macintux 10y agoAmazing how many people fail to grasp the difference between opinion and journalism.
- vortico 10y agoAgreed, and here's a way one can easily tell. Summarize the article's new content that it brings to the table in one or two sentences. These sentence(s) will be easier to classify as fact or opinion as the article as a whole. I would summarize her unique message as "Wikileaks over-sensationalizes their releases", which may be fact if it's true (and she offered good evidence), but 90% of the rest of the writeup had little to do with that new content.
- fulafel 10y agoAnother way is to read the section title (in this case "The Opinion Pages").
- hackuser 10y agoCan people who have read the article address specific facts the author brings up, or specific errors in the analysis? Maybe we can have a serious discussion right here. I read the article and it looks straightforward to me, but I don't independently know the facts. The analysis seems solid, but perhaps someone knows something I don't. Unfortunately I've rarely seen so much noise (i.e., non-contributing comments) on HN, though the level tends to rise when someone doesn't buy into a Wikileaks' message.
- ploggingdev 10y agoThe article gets all the facts and analysis right. The article is most likely meant for a less tech savvy audience than HN i.e the average internet user who falls for fake news such as "WhatsApp is hacked". Yes, such nonsense is circulating on social media. Since this article does not bring anything new to the table for us HNers and has a reasonable number of upvotes, people start creating noise here.
- gens 10y agoAs an outsider whose only contact with New York Times is from submissions here, it seems that they don't know what they are talking about most of the time.
- Neliquat 10y agoI agree, but they sure seem to be submitted a lot, and then commented on by nyt staff. How very odd indeed.
- Torgo 10y agoEverything in this article was extrapolated from 140 characters.