7 ms·

They aren't very prominent, but the two links at the top of the blog post provide useful context: https://www.mediaite.com/online/exclusive-joy-reid-claims-new

by nkurz 9y ago

They aren't very prominent, but the two links at the top of the blog post provide useful context: https://www.mediaite.com/online/exclusive-joy-reid-claims-newly-discovered-homophobic-posts-from-her-blog-were-fabricated/ https://www.mediaite.com/online/exclusive-joy-reid-claims-ne... https://theintercept.com/2018/04/24/msnbcs-joy-reid-claims-her-website-was-hacked-and-bigoted-anti-lgbt-content-added-a-bizarre-story-liberal-outlets-ignore/ https://theintercept.com/2018/04/24/msnbcs-joy-reid-claims-h... The summary is that last year Reid (a journalist for a major US television news network) publicly apologized for a series of blog posts that were characterized as 'homophobic'. More posts of a similar nature were recently discovered on archive.org, and instead of apologizing for these as well, Reid has disavowed them. She and her lawyers claim that unlike the previous occasion, these newly discovered posts were altered by 'hackers' either before or after being archived. The linked blog post is making the limited claim the posts on archive.org accurately represent the posts present on Reid's site at the time they were archived, and do not appear to have been altered post-archiving.

makomk 9y ago
Apparently there are also archived copies of some of the posts on the Library of Congress site that were saved back in 2006 when they were originally posted: http://ws-dl.blogspot.co.uk/2018/04/2018-04-24-why-we-need-multiple-web.html http://ws-dl.blogspot.co.uk/2018/04/2018-04-24-why-we-need-m... I'm not sure how old the Internet Archive copies were since they're no longer available, but at least one of the ones saved elsewhere was originally archived in 2012.
onion2k 9y ago
The linked blog post is making the limited claim the posts on archive.org accurately represent the posts present on Reid's site at the time they were archived, and do not appear to have been altered post-archiving. This might actually be a good use case for a blockchain. Hashing the data that's added to the archive and then putting the hash in the blockchain would reasonably prove the data in the archive hasn't been modified at a later date.
- etskinner 9y ago
  Forgive my shallow understanding of block chain, but wouldn't that make the archive immutable? Surely there are times where the Wayback Machine needs to delete snapshots, in cases where there's copyright infringement or other illegal activity.
  - pdpi 9y ago
    > Forgive my shallow understanding of block chain, but wouldn't that make the archive immutable? Kind of. The current state of the archive is mutable, but that changes to that state are logged to an append-only edit history — it's that edit history that is the "blockchain", and starting from a known good state and replaying all those edits must produce the current state. In fact, this is how cryptocurrencies work too — the state is the balances/utxo set, and the blockchain records transactions, which are effectively just mutations on that state. In this situation, you'd look at the current state and find the deleted snapshot missing, but the edit log would have an entry saying the snapshot was added (and what its hash was at the time), then another entry saying it was deleted.
  - beager 9y ago
    This is also an issue for major blockchains in deployment now, specifically Bitcoin. There is the potential for illegal content, or links to it, to be stacked on BTC’s blockchain [0], and so anyone who holds that blockchain would also possess it. I believe this would also be an issue for things like Filecoin/IPFS but I’m not sure if the liability issues are different or nuanced. [0] https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/03/19/ability_to_dump_illegal_content_in_bitcoins_blockchain_puts_participants_in_peril/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/03/19/ability_to_dump_ill...
    - AgentME 9y ago
      IPFS works like torrents: users only host things that they choose to, so there's no issue of some people being stuck hosting content they don't want to.
  - PurpleBoxDragon 9y ago
celticninja 9y ago
Thanks for the links. Seems like the Streisand Effect is going to bring this to a wider audience than would have originally seen it. And all for the want of an apology.
Shivetya 9y ago
slightly off topic, but can right to forget laws force sites like this to be remove entries you designate?

by nkurz 9y ago

makomk 9y ago

Apparently there are also archived copies of some of the posts on the Library of Congress site that were saved back in 2006 when they were originally posted: http://ws-dl.blogspot.co.uk/2018/04/2018-04-24-why-we-need-multiple-web.html http://ws-dl.blogspot.co.uk/2018/04/2018-04-24-why-we-need-m... I'm not sure how old the Internet Archive copies were since they're no longer available, but at least one of the ones saved elsewhere was originally archived in 2012.

onion2k 9y ago

The linked blog post is making the limited claim the posts on archive.org accurately represent the posts present on Reid's site at the time they were archived, and do not appear to have been altered post-archiving. This might actually be a good use case for a blockchain. Hashing the data that's added to the archive and then putting the hash in the blockchain would reasonably prove the data in the archive hasn't been modified at a later date.

etskinner 9y ago
Forgive my shallow understanding of block chain, but wouldn't that make the archive immutable? Surely there are times where the Wayback Machine needs to delete snapshots, in cases where there's copyright infringement or other illegal activity.
- pdpi 9y ago
  > Forgive my shallow understanding of block chain, but wouldn't that make the archive immutable? Kind of. The current state of the archive is mutable, but that changes to that state are logged to an append-only edit history — it's that edit history that is the "blockchain", and starting from a known good state and replaying all those edits must produce the current state. In fact, this is how cryptocurrencies work too — the state is the balances/utxo set, and the blockchain records transactions, which are effectively just mutations on that state. In this situation, you'd look at the current state and find the deleted snapshot missing, but the edit log would have an entry saying the snapshot was added (and what its hash was at the time), then another entry saying it was deleted.
- beager 9y ago
  This is also an issue for major blockchains in deployment now, specifically Bitcoin. There is the potential for illegal content, or links to it, to be stacked on BTC’s blockchain [0], and so anyone who holds that blockchain would also possess it. I believe this would also be an issue for things like Filecoin/IPFS but I’m not sure if the liability issues are different or nuanced. [0] https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/03/19/ability_to_dump_illegal_content_in_bitcoins_blockchain_puts_participants_in_peril/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/03/19/ability_to_dump_ill...
  - AgentME 9y ago
    IPFS works like torrents: users only host things that they choose to, so there's no issue of some people being stuck hosting content they don't want to.
- PurpleBoxDragon 9y ago

celticninja 9y ago

Thanks for the links. Seems like the Streisand Effect is going to bring this to a wider audience than would have originally seen it. And all for the want of an apology.

Shivetya 9y ago

slightly off topic, but can right to forget laws force sites like this to be remove entries you designate?