7 ms·

Why, when we reading article about leaked information, why don't we get to see original leaked document, and only presented with the conclusions of the author.

Why, when we reading article about leaked information, why don't we get to see original leaked document, and only presented with the conclusions of the author. I'd like to make my own conclusions. Might be i spot something that author missed, or interpret things differently. Now i only get two quotes from document (presentation) "increase pushback" and "reset narrative"

AmericanChopper 6y ago
If you keep you pay enough attention, I think you'd find that primary sources have nearly completely disappeared from the news media. They'd much rather tell you what to think, rather than risk having you make your own mind up.
bobthepanda 6y ago
Generally speaking, uploading the original unaltered document is a great way of accidentally outing your source, since often printed materials and even digital copies have some sort of uniquely identifying marks.
- izacus 6y ago
  It's also an amazing way to provide context and sabotage the narrative agenda the news article is pushing. We can't have that kind of nuance in modern media.
  - bobthepanda 6y ago
    You say this as if it was ever the case in pre-modern media either.
- skinkestek 6y ago
  Extremely valid point, I'd consider this close to table stakes. Also, in some more "interesting" settings there's also exploit-loaded documents to be aware of, here's from a leak I've been following lately: > If you really want to open a Word document from Psy-Group, please go ahead, knock yourself out. Below are the links to the Word document as well as the email. Just remember that Mr. [...] mistake might have been opening a Word file from Psy-Group in the first place… I took the liberty to remove the name as I guess that particular guy is probably suffering enough at the moment.
  - intricatedetail 6y ago
    Documents may also have a unique wording for each recipient and the source could be easily identified by that by whoever created a document.
- piaste 6y ago
  The full English prose text, minus headers or footers, would still provide almost all required contest to inform the reader without the fingerprinting.
  - darkwater 6y ago
    Then inevitably somebody would complain that the original document wording might have been altered.
    - piaste 6y ago
      As opposed to a PDF scan which can definitely not be forged at all? ;) Nothing less than a digital signature can prove the integrity of a digital document, and even that is worthless unless the corresponding public key has been publicly made available via a separate and trusted channel, which is unlikely.
      - bobthepanda 6y ago
        Anything that can be used to prove a document's integrity can generally also be used to identify where it came from and how it was produced, which is why we generally don't see any effort to do this at all. In fact, plenty of things that can't prove a document's integrity can also be used to identify its source, which is why this isn't done; you can't be sure that you've sanitized the document enough to protect the leaker.
  - ohgodplsno 6y ago
    What if there are ten variants, all with slightly modified wording, allowing knowing immediately who leaked it?
    - bobthepanda 6y ago
      You don't even need that. Documents have been identified before because some versions replace characters with nearly identical looking but different unicode characters (say, the various variations of spaces, or the semicolon with the Greek question mark.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitespace_character https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitespace_character https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Question_mark#Greek_question_mark https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Question_mark#Greek_question_m...
StreamBright 6y ago
That’s 90s like, today you get the interpretation either by highly partisan media or big tech.
crocodiletears 6y ago
Conclusions are dangerous, and direct exposure to unregulated information may result in the wrong (potentially dangerous) ones. You need the disciplined mind of a journalist to filter out the most dangerous elements of context and content so your mind isn't dazzled and deranged by the intricacies of Google's corporate strategies. But, in all seriousness, there are a number of reasons at play here. Firstly, they want to increase the friction required for you to leave the site. News publications are all but interchangeable anymore, and if they're reporting a story second-hand, then they don't want you to realize you could get more information by swimming upstream. Secondly, they want to milk it. There's very little information in this article. If there's anything else worth knowing in the document, they probably want to atomize it into multiple articles to stimulate pageviews. Thirdly, if you have the document, and the document is short, the journalist likely contributes no value to the system. Short term strategy documents like the one described in the article are often concise and easily consumed by members of the public. The document likely outlines the context in-which it was written, and then contains one or two pages of a proposed strategy (if that, going by the sparseness of the quotes). Almost anybody curious enough to actually read the article beyond the headline would likely be better served by the document itself. Great journalism has been done over leaked documents. The Snowden leaks involved reams of content produced by intelligence concerning a plethora of subjects, for a diversity of purposes. Weaving that information together into a coherent story that exposed the broad strokes of what the NSA was up to was great journalism. Likewise, great journalism can be done by distilling and contextualizing singular documents that are long, nuanced, and require domain knowledge. This likely isn't one of those circumstances. If you had the document, you wouldn't need the writer, who may not even have seen the original document (the story dates at least back to the 29th [0]). Fourthly, if you had the document, you would be able to check the author's work. This has been an underconsidered thorn in journalist's side for some time. Different publications have different content production policies. A writer may be expected to produce three to four pieces a day. In this context, even when they aren't trying to manipulate information push a narrative or belief on you (though they often are), the writer may only have skimmed the original document before putting out their piece. As a result, they may have been wrong in some essential, or technical manner that astute readers could pick up on. This would diminish the writer's reputation, as well as the publication, and the journalistic field's. [0] https://www.gizchina.com/2020/10/29/google-launches-a-new-strategy-to-counter-the-new-eu-regulations/ https://www.gizchina.com/2020/10/29/google-launches-a-new-st...
foepys 6y ago
The NSA once got handed a copy of a whistleblowed document by a journalist to confirm its authenticity and they tracked the source down within days. https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/06/the-mysterious-printer-code-that-could-have-led-the-fbi-to-reality-winner/529350/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/06/the-m...
mannykannot 6y ago
This seems moot, as Google is denying neither the existence of this document, nor its tenor.

AmericanChopper 6y ago

If you keep you pay enough attention, I think you'd find that primary sources have nearly completely disappeared from the news media. They'd much rather tell you what to think, rather than risk having you make your own mind up.

bobthepanda 6y ago

Generally speaking, uploading the original unaltered document is a great way of accidentally outing your source, since often printed materials and even digital copies have some sort of uniquely identifying marks.

izacus 6y ago
It's also an amazing way to provide context and sabotage the narrative agenda the news article is pushing. We can't have that kind of nuance in modern media.
- bobthepanda 6y ago
  You say this as if it was ever the case in pre-modern media either.
skinkestek 6y ago
Extremely valid point, I'd consider this close to table stakes. Also, in some more "interesting" settings there's also exploit-loaded documents to be aware of, here's from a leak I've been following lately: > If you really want to open a Word document from Psy-Group, please go ahead, knock yourself out. Below are the links to the Word document as well as the email. Just remember that Mr. [...] mistake might have been opening a Word file from Psy-Group in the first place… I took the liberty to remove the name as I guess that particular guy is probably suffering enough at the moment.
- intricatedetail 6y ago
  Documents may also have a unique wording for each recipient and the source could be easily identified by that by whoever created a document.
piaste 6y ago
The full English prose text, minus headers or footers, would still provide almost all required contest to inform the reader without the fingerprinting.
- darkwater 6y ago
  Then inevitably somebody would complain that the original document wording might have been altered.
  - piaste 6y ago
    As opposed to a PDF scan which can definitely not be forged at all? ;) Nothing less than a digital signature can prove the integrity of a digital document, and even that is worthless unless the corresponding public key has been publicly made available via a separate and trusted channel, which is unlikely.
    - bobthepanda 6y ago
      Anything that can be used to prove a document's integrity can generally also be used to identify where it came from and how it was produced, which is why we generally don't see any effort to do this at all. In fact, plenty of things that can't prove a document's integrity can also be used to identify its source, which is why this isn't done; you can't be sure that you've sanitized the document enough to protect the leaker.
- ohgodplsno 6y ago
  What if there are ten variants, all with slightly modified wording, allowing knowing immediately who leaked it?
  - bobthepanda 6y ago
    You don't even need that. Documents have been identified before because some versions replace characters with nearly identical looking but different unicode characters (say, the various variations of spaces, or the semicolon with the Greek question mark.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitespace_character https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitespace_character https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Question_mark#Greek_question_mark https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Question_mark#Greek_question_m...

StreamBright 6y ago

That’s 90s like, today you get the interpretation either by highly partisan media or big tech.

crocodiletears 6y ago

Conclusions are dangerous, and direct exposure to unregulated information may result in the wrong (potentially dangerous) ones. You need the disciplined mind of a journalist to filter out the most dangerous elements of context and content so your mind isn't dazzled and deranged by the intricacies of Google's corporate strategies. But, in all seriousness, there are a number of reasons at play here. Firstly, they want to increase the friction required for you to leave the site. News publications are all but interchangeable anymore, and if they're reporting a story second-hand, then they don't want you to realize you could get more information by swimming upstream. Secondly, they want to milk it. There's very little information in this article. If there's anything else worth knowing in the document, they probably want to atomize it into multiple articles to stimulate pageviews. Thirdly, if you have the document, and the document is short, the journalist likely contributes no value to the system. Short term strategy documents like the one described in the article are often concise and easily consumed by members of the public. The document likely outlines the context in-which it was written, and then contains one or two pages of a proposed strategy (if that, going by the sparseness of the quotes). Almost anybody curious enough to actually read the article beyond the headline would likely be better served by the document itself. Great journalism has been done over leaked documents. The Snowden leaks involved reams of content produced by intelligence concerning a plethora of subjects, for a diversity of purposes. Weaving that information together into a coherent story that exposed the broad strokes of what the NSA was up to was great journalism. Likewise, great journalism can be done by distilling and contextualizing singular documents that are long, nuanced, and require domain knowledge. This likely isn't one of those circumstances. If you had the document, you wouldn't need the writer, who may not even have seen the original document (the story dates at least back to the 29th [0]). Fourthly, if you had the document, you would be able to check the author's work. This has been an underconsidered thorn in journalist's side for some time. Different publications have different content production policies. A writer may be expected to produce three to four pieces a day. In this context, even when they aren't trying to manipulate information push a narrative or belief on you (though they often are), the writer may only have skimmed the original document before putting out their piece. As a result, they may have been wrong in some essential, or technical manner that astute readers could pick up on. This would diminish the writer's reputation, as well as the publication, and the journalistic field's. [0] https://www.gizchina.com/2020/10/29/google-launches-a-new-strategy-to-counter-the-new-eu-regulations/ https://www.gizchina.com/2020/10/29/google-launches-a-new-st...

foepys 6y ago

The NSA once got handed a copy of a whistleblowed document by a journalist to confirm its authenticity and they tracked the source down within days. https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/06/the-mysterious-printer-code-that-could-have-led-the-fbi-to-reality-winner/529350/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/06/the-m...

mannykannot 6y ago

This seems moot, as Google is denying neither the existence of this document, nor its tenor.