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Future headline: NY Times reporter gets phished. Confidential sources' identities and quotes made public. Worldwide we are seeing an attack on journalism and t

Future headline: NY Times reporter gets phished. Confidential sources' identities and quotes made public. Worldwide we are seeing an attack on journalism and the free press. Cutting security resources as a short term profit-boosting exercise can have disastrous consequences. Many people all over the world risk arrest or even death for sharing information with journalists. If they can't be sure that the journalists have an excellent security apparatus backing them, it will be too risky for them to come forward.

bitwize 7y ago
The Tim Pool vids that hacks of and leaks from the NYT inspire should be interesting.
motohagiography 7y ago
I don't know if american journalists seriously need opsec anymore, as nobody in the legit press is writing anything that could threaten the institutions they'd need to protect themselves from. Anyone doing anything dangerous today isn't going to depend on the protection of their newspaper. The only people with skin in the game are actual activists, short selling hedge funds, and maybe some edgy podcasters. There is this odd dynamic where if you need the additional legitimacy of an old media organization to get your story out, there must be something fishy about it. Like it's a palace gossip leak, and nothing with real consequence or risk. If your story is really worth your safety, there is the much greater risk that editors will spike it, the way they did with pretty much every major whistle blower story of the last decade. Hollywood was protected for years, intelligence leaks were regularly spiked, and often journalists themselves were complicit actors in the official retaliations. I'm sure the NYT will still have a security role of some sort, but the idea that it could actually equip reporters at a corporate level with the tools to do the kind of opsec you need to facilitate stories at the level of the Intercept, Wikileaks, and other insurgent media seems unlikely.
- marcoseliziario 7y ago
  One of the most annoying things in hacker news is people downvoting any opinion that doesn't match their world view. I don't necessarily agree with the poster above, but it is obviously not an instance of trolling, also it is not offensive or damaging to anyone.
  - robohoe 7y ago
    Same really goes for every social media/news site that allows comments and voting.
  - danso 7y ago
    Declaring that journalists today aren’t writing anything of importance is a pretty trolling assertion.
    - marcoseliziario 7y ago
      Maybe it is a hyperbole. Maybe it is a radical opinion. In both cases, it is not clear it is a trolling assertion, because it fails the test of being clearly an opinion given with the intent of derailing a discussion. A troll is not someone with radical, out of average opinions, a troll is someone that wants to derail a discussion. It doesn't look like that for me. It is no even that much of a novel assertion, in one form or another, I've been hearing opinions like that from people from all sides of the political spectrum since I became interested on politic debates. It is not that far from what you've got reading books like Chomsky's "Manufacturing Consent" or from what you read on a lot of right-wing blogs. If you think this is an incorrect and unjust assertion, and I would be strongly attracted to agree with you, the best course of action is not silencing the speaker, but engaging in rational discussion with them. Then, and only then, if the poster refuses to address your arguments rationally, and starts things like personal attacks, fallacious arguments, and a general uncalled-for aggressiveness, we could justly label them as a troll and act accordingly, not before.
    - marcoseliziario 7y ago
      Ironically, someone downvoted you. Which is a shame. Even not agreeing with what you said about it, I really appreciated the opportunity to present my counter-points to you.
- maximente 7y ago
  yep. once upon a time the sources of information for Greenwald's stories on a particular three letter agency may have sought out the grey lady, but those days are long gone. the hit piece on him afterwards removed all doubt that the NYT is no longer carrying its pentagon papers legacy. the US media serves at the pleasure of the King. only a fool would attempt to blow the whistle with the NYT (or NPR).
  - dillondoyle 7y ago
    NYT continues to break important, 'government source/whistleblower' journalism. Pulitzer is an obvious reference of recent and consequential stories including a description of a 'deeply sourced' story right up top [1], amongst volumes and volumes more reporting. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Pulitzer_Prizes_awarded_to_The_New_York_Times#2010s https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Pulitzer_Prizes_awarde...
    - motohagiography 7y ago
      My response to the OP about eliminating this director of security role was in regard to the need of a newspaper for that senior security role. The stories in this page of listed Pulitzer Prizes would not necessitate the level of operational security that a few independent journalists require and use every day. The NYTimes still does journalism, and still has an important role, but the need for such a direct cybersecurity role seemed diminished (and management seemed to agree) - and would probably get in the way of less sensitive work if you had to put everything past them. To some others in this thread, "troll," seems to have come to just mean a provocative outsider view. What most journalists do does not require a higher degree security to achieve it, so yes, that is disappointing.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]

bitwize 7y ago

The Tim Pool vids that hacks of and leaks from the NYT inspire should be interesting.

motohagiography 7y ago

I don't know if american journalists seriously need opsec anymore, as nobody in the legit press is writing anything that could threaten the institutions they'd need to protect themselves from. Anyone doing anything dangerous today isn't going to depend on the protection of their newspaper. The only people with skin in the game are actual activists, short selling hedge funds, and maybe some edgy podcasters. There is this odd dynamic where if you need the additional legitimacy of an old media organization to get your story out, there must be something fishy about it. Like it's a palace gossip leak, and nothing with real consequence or risk. If your story is really worth your safety, there is the much greater risk that editors will spike it, the way they did with pretty much every major whistle blower story of the last decade. Hollywood was protected for years, intelligence leaks were regularly spiked, and often journalists themselves were complicit actors in the official retaliations. I'm sure the NYT will still have a security role of some sort, but the idea that it could actually equip reporters at a corporate level with the tools to do the kind of opsec you need to facilitate stories at the level of the Intercept, Wikileaks, and other insurgent media seems unlikely.

marcoseliziario 7y ago
One of the most annoying things in hacker news is people downvoting any opinion that doesn't match their world view. I don't necessarily agree with the poster above, but it is obviously not an instance of trolling, also it is not offensive or damaging to anyone.
- robohoe 7y ago
  Same really goes for every social media/news site that allows comments and voting.
- danso 7y ago
  Declaring that journalists today aren’t writing anything of importance is a pretty trolling assertion.
  - marcoseliziario 7y ago
    Maybe it is a hyperbole. Maybe it is a radical opinion. In both cases, it is not clear it is a trolling assertion, because it fails the test of being clearly an opinion given with the intent of derailing a discussion. A troll is not someone with radical, out of average opinions, a troll is someone that wants to derail a discussion. It doesn't look like that for me. It is no even that much of a novel assertion, in one form or another, I've been hearing opinions like that from people from all sides of the political spectrum since I became interested on politic debates. It is not that far from what you've got reading books like Chomsky's "Manufacturing Consent" or from what you read on a lot of right-wing blogs. If you think this is an incorrect and unjust assertion, and I would be strongly attracted to agree with you, the best course of action is not silencing the speaker, but engaging in rational discussion with them. Then, and only then, if the poster refuses to address your arguments rationally, and starts things like personal attacks, fallacious arguments, and a general uncalled-for aggressiveness, we could justly label them as a troll and act accordingly, not before.
  - marcoseliziario 7y ago
    Ironically, someone downvoted you. Which is a shame. Even not agreeing with what you said about it, I really appreciated the opportunity to present my counter-points to you.
maximente 7y ago
yep. once upon a time the sources of information for Greenwald's stories on a particular three letter agency may have sought out the grey lady, but those days are long gone. the hit piece on him afterwards removed all doubt that the NYT is no longer carrying its pentagon papers legacy. the US media serves at the pleasure of the King. only a fool would attempt to blow the whistle with the NYT (or NPR).
- dillondoyle 7y ago
  NYT continues to break important, 'government source/whistleblower' journalism. Pulitzer is an obvious reference of recent and consequential stories including a description of a 'deeply sourced' story right up top [1], amongst volumes and volumes more reporting. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Pulitzer_Prizes_awarded_to_The_New_York_Times#2010s https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Pulitzer_Prizes_awarde...
  - motohagiography 7y ago
    My response to the OP about eliminating this director of security role was in regard to the need of a newspaper for that senior security role. The stories in this page of listed Pulitzer Prizes would not necessitate the level of operational security that a few independent journalists require and use every day. The NYTimes still does journalism, and still has an important role, but the need for such a direct cybersecurity role seemed diminished (and management seemed to agree) - and would probably get in the way of less sensitive work if you had to put everything past them. To some others in this thread, "troll," seems to have come to just mean a provocative outsider view. What most journalists do does not require a higher degree security to achieve it, so yes, that is disappointing.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]