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It’s shameful that one of the worlds best journalistic sources didn’t even bother to reach out to Signal to get comment on a story they ran about them I feel l

by cgb223 6y ago

It’s shameful that one of the worlds best journalistic sources didn’t even bother to reach out to Signal to get comment on a story they ran about them I feel like a lot of today’s mistrust of news stems from publications not verifying sources, or checking evidence, or at least scrutinizing what others are saying. Wish we could fix that

lemoncurd 6y ago
i have more faith in the onion than bbc, they are from the best newspaper
- pirocks 6y ago
  The BBC isn't a newspaper.
  - zepto 6y ago
    The onion is
  - lemoncurd 6y ago
    man i dont care about your technicals
DaniloDias 6y ago
It isn’t shameful. It is yet another indicator that the journalism industry is creating the intellectual equivalent of Animal Crossing. It’s a time waster that entertains- not a reflection of truth. How could any business be considered “the best” in its field and create such a shitty product? Simplest explanation: they are not trustworthy and never were.
- Erlich_Bachman 6y ago
  This is not due to incompetence. This is done with the objective to influence the public opinion of cryptographic tools so that people will stop using them. The system has no way of actually breaking encryption, that's why it is focusing on the other ways to circumvent it - one of them being making most people (non-experts) believe that it doesn't work anyway so they will stop using it. This is a focused campaign, this is not just random occurence of incompetence.
  - pvg 6y ago
    This is a focused campaign What's the evidence for this?
ffpip 6y ago
BBC article states "BBC has contacted Cellebrite and Signal for comment" https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-55412230 https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-55412230
- judge2020 6y ago
  How and when they contacted cellebrite/signal is important, but even when you see "refused to comment" there really isn't a timestamp for when contact was attempted/initiated. Is there a reason for this?
- toby- 6y ago
  And the original blog post by Cellebrite does claim to have 'cracked' the encryption, doesn't it? So the BBC's headline isn't exactly inaccurate.
  - kortex 6y ago
    So what? There's plenty of dubious blogs claiming all manner of things. The actual accomplishment isn't noteworthy (they wrote a scraper). If it were encryption-breaking, it would indeed be noteworthy, and thus worthy of fact-checking or at least waiting for Signal's rebuttal of "lolwut, no, that's nonsense". "Accuracy" is moot here: BBC's headline is misinformation.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  - upofadown 6y ago
    No, it didn't. It specifically stated that access to the Android keystore was needed to get at the stored Signal data.
  - AsyncAwait 6y ago
    There's a blog post claiming the Earth is flat. Would the BBC publish an article on it outside of satire?
- 6y ago
andrepd 6y ago
Related: the Gell-Mann effect. You read a newspaper story on a topic about which you are knowledgeable, and get mad at how wrong they've got everything. Then you turn the page and read the next story, on which you are not an expert, and take it at face value.
- Matticus_Rex 6y ago
  In my circles this gets me into arguments all the time. Everyone reads a book, everyone but me likes it. I point out how one section I know a lot about is deeply wrong, everyone else says versions of "well other than that part it's a great book!" I wish LW-style rationalist circles didn't attract such obnoxious people, because I don't know of any other collection of people who recognize and try to adjust for things like this.
  - nerpderp82 6y ago
    Perhaps we should reframe how we approach new knowledge? "That was a super interesting book, it brought up lots of ideas and explanations, lets discuss what parts if any we think are true." ! Folks call out information and facts as fake news, not apply healthy skepticism but a rejection of all knowledge and then at the same time falling for hoaxes. The whole country needs to take a gap year and learn the scientific method.
    - alvarlagerlof 6y ago
      They are actually extremely rigorous about this in lower Swedish education. Source criticism is part of the curriculum. It becomes evident how much of a difference it makes when comparing the behavior of the elderly population at large (were only those who went to University have been thought it) to those who have had this from the start.
  - Retric 6y ago
    Rationalist circles make just as many horrific logical errors. If you want to dig into this stuff philosophy has dug deep, and frankly all they came up with is all sources should be treated as suspect. Aka, even if a source got the stuff you know about right, you should still be be skeptical. And yes, that includes purely logical reasoning about math. It’s not a satisfactory answer, but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
travmatt 6y ago
I’m just as concerned about: > According to one cyber-security expert, the claims sounded "believable". One anonymous source at the topic of the article that bolsters the claim, then all the experts who were willing to attach their names to their words all temper the articles claim are towards the end of the article.
- Brian_K_White 6y ago
  A post on the 2600 group on fb said "seems legit".
- ehsankia 6y ago
  They couldn't even get a single named expert to comment on record?
SoSoRoCoCo 6y ago
> I feel like a lot of today’s mistrust of news stems from publications not verifying sources First, a nitpick: that is a thought not a feeling: you didn't state how it made you feel, you stated an idea. Moving on... That's not why people mistrust the media. They mistrust the media because they are told to by politicians seeking to discredit journalism and control the narrative.
- NateEag 6y ago
  I approve of your nitpick. I am a counterexample to your main point. I distrust most media sources because I've not once seen one present rigorous, transparent, verifiable research about a current event of interest to me. I think I've seen every media source I've followed get significant facts wrong about things I know well. I try to fight back against Gellman amnesia in my own head.
  - SoSoRoCoCo 6y ago
    > I distrust most media sources because I've not once seen one present rigorous, transparent, verifiable research about a current event of interest to me. "Because I've never seen it, clearly it does not exist."
    - Brian_K_White 6y ago
      "I have no reason to believe this, but it clearly must exist" That's called faith and religion. You cannot rationally make decisions based on anything other than what you know and have seen or can reasonably project from there. IE, I can't see an atom with my eyes, and I can't duplicate all the research of history myself, but I can see some things with my eyesb and I can duplicate some research myself, and I can follow a reasonable, logical, defensible chain of trust from what I can directly prove to myself, to proofs I can accept indirectly, and distinguish those from fairy tales.
      - SoSoRoCoCo 6y ago
        > "I have no reason to believe this, but it clearly must exist" Except I never said that, whereas the previous post had a congruent summary of OP. Strike one. > You cannot rationally make decisions based on anything other than what you know and have seen or can reasonably project from there. True. But that isn't what we are talking about, you ventured into strawman territory all on your own. The person was claiming they've never seen a truthful source, this is called the No True Scotsman fallacy. We're not talking about god, we're talking about the fact that some journalism is unbiased. There is much of it out there, but OP seems to think there isn't, or has convinced him/herself due to their own desire to not be wrong. Strike two. > can follow a reasonable, logical, defensible chain of trust from what I can directly prove to myself, to proofs I can accept indirectly, and distinguish those from fairy tales. You've demonstrated that you aren't very good at following a "logical chain of trust" because you've reasoned to yourself, poorly, something that wasn't even being discussed. Strike three. First time playing with logic? It never ceases to astonish me how people who throw around the terms "logic" and "rational thought" really, reeeeeally don't know how to deploy either.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
mikece 6y ago
There is a thin line between modern journalism and click-bait ad farms.
will4274 6y ago
Additionally shameful: - they haven't printed a retraction yet - the technology reporter in question doesn't understand the tech well enough to recognize the error, even when somebody states it explicitly (https://mobile.twitter.com/janewakefield/status/1341419657211854850 https://mobile.twitter.com/janewakefield/status/134141965721...)
- andrewnicolalde 6y ago
  Hey, that's my tweet :)
__MatrixMan__ 6y ago
I used to work at a traffic signal company. We got bad press whenever somebody "hacked" our infrastructure. It was always a super sophisticated "default password attack". I tried to get the default password changed to unique-per-unit randomly chosen uuid, just to be so obnoxious as to convince the customer to set their own password. Encountered resistance of the "but then they'd need to be retrained" sort. I wish I could say we didn't deserve the bad name, but we kinda did.

by cgb223 6y ago

lemoncurd 6y ago

i have more faith in the onion than bbc, they are from the best newspaper

pirocks 6y ago
The BBC isn't a newspaper.
- zepto 6y ago
  The onion is
- lemoncurd 6y ago
  man i dont care about your technicals

DaniloDias 6y ago

It isn’t shameful. It is yet another indicator that the journalism industry is creating the intellectual equivalent of Animal Crossing. It’s a time waster that entertains- not a reflection of truth. How could any business be considered “the best” in its field and create such a shitty product? Simplest explanation: they are not trustworthy and never were.

Erlich_Bachman 6y ago
This is not due to incompetence. This is done with the objective to influence the public opinion of cryptographic tools so that people will stop using them. The system has no way of actually breaking encryption, that's why it is focusing on the other ways to circumvent it - one of them being making most people (non-experts) believe that it doesn't work anyway so they will stop using it. This is a focused campaign, this is not just random occurence of incompetence.
- pvg 6y ago
  This is a focused campaign What's the evidence for this?

ffpip 6y ago

BBC article states "BBC has contacted Cellebrite and Signal for comment" https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-55412230 https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-55412230

judge2020 6y ago
How and when they contacted cellebrite/signal is important, but even when you see "refused to comment" there really isn't a timestamp for when contact was attempted/initiated. Is there a reason for this?
toby- 6y ago
And the original blog post by Cellebrite does claim to have 'cracked' the encryption, doesn't it? So the BBC's headline isn't exactly inaccurate.
- kortex 6y ago
  So what? There's plenty of dubious blogs claiming all manner of things. The actual accomplishment isn't noteworthy (they wrote a scraper). If it were encryption-breaking, it would indeed be noteworthy, and thus worthy of fact-checking or at least waiting for Signal's rebuttal of "lolwut, no, that's nonsense". "Accuracy" is moot here: BBC's headline is misinformation.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- upofadown 6y ago
  No, it didn't. It specifically stated that access to the Android keystore was needed to get at the stored Signal data.
- AsyncAwait 6y ago
  There's a blog post claiming the Earth is flat. Would the BBC publish an article on it outside of satire?
6y ago

andrepd 6y ago

Related: the Gell-Mann effect. You read a newspaper story on a topic about which you are knowledgeable, and get mad at how wrong they've got everything. Then you turn the page and read the next story, on which you are not an expert, and take it at face value.

Matticus_Rex 6y ago
In my circles this gets me into arguments all the time. Everyone reads a book, everyone but me likes it. I point out how one section I know a lot about is deeply wrong, everyone else says versions of "well other than that part it's a great book!" I wish LW-style rationalist circles didn't attract such obnoxious people, because I don't know of any other collection of people who recognize and try to adjust for things like this.
- nerpderp82 6y ago
  Perhaps we should reframe how we approach new knowledge? "That was a super interesting book, it brought up lots of ideas and explanations, lets discuss what parts if any we think are true." ! Folks call out information and facts as fake news, not apply healthy skepticism but a rejection of all knowledge and then at the same time falling for hoaxes. The whole country needs to take a gap year and learn the scientific method.
  - alvarlagerlof 6y ago
    They are actually extremely rigorous about this in lower Swedish education. Source criticism is part of the curriculum. It becomes evident how much of a difference it makes when comparing the behavior of the elderly population at large (were only those who went to University have been thought it) to those who have had this from the start.
- Retric 6y ago
  Rationalist circles make just as many horrific logical errors. If you want to dig into this stuff philosophy has dug deep, and frankly all they came up with is all sources should be treated as suspect. Aka, even if a source got the stuff you know about right, you should still be be skeptical. And yes, that includes purely logical reasoning about math. It’s not a satisfactory answer, but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

travmatt 6y ago

I’m just as concerned about: > According to one cyber-security expert, the claims sounded "believable". One anonymous source at the topic of the article that bolsters the claim, then all the experts who were willing to attach their names to their words all temper the articles claim are towards the end of the article.

Brian_K_White 6y ago
A post on the 2600 group on fb said "seems legit".
ehsankia 6y ago
They couldn't even get a single named expert to comment on record?

SoSoRoCoCo 6y ago

> I feel like a lot of today’s mistrust of news stems from publications not verifying sources First, a nitpick: that is a thought not a feeling: you didn't state how it made you feel, you stated an idea. Moving on... That's not why people mistrust the media. They mistrust the media because they are told to by politicians seeking to discredit journalism and control the narrative.

NateEag 6y ago
I approve of your nitpick. I am a counterexample to your main point. I distrust most media sources because I've not once seen one present rigorous, transparent, verifiable research about a current event of interest to me. I think I've seen every media source I've followed get significant facts wrong about things I know well. I try to fight back against Gellman amnesia in my own head.
- SoSoRoCoCo 6y ago
  > I distrust most media sources because I've not once seen one present rigorous, transparent, verifiable research about a current event of interest to me. "Because I've never seen it, clearly it does not exist."
  - Brian_K_White 6y ago
    "I have no reason to believe this, but it clearly must exist" That's called faith and religion. You cannot rationally make decisions based on anything other than what you know and have seen or can reasonably project from there. IE, I can't see an atom with my eyes, and I can't duplicate all the research of history myself, but I can see some things with my eyesb and I can duplicate some research myself, and I can follow a reasonable, logical, defensible chain of trust from what I can directly prove to myself, to proofs I can accept indirectly, and distinguish those from fairy tales.
    - SoSoRoCoCo 6y ago
      > "I have no reason to believe this, but it clearly must exist" Except I never said that, whereas the previous post had a congruent summary of OP. Strike one. > You cannot rationally make decisions based on anything other than what you know and have seen or can reasonably project from there. True. But that isn't what we are talking about, you ventured into strawman territory all on your own. The person was claiming they've never seen a truthful source, this is called the No True Scotsman fallacy. We're not talking about god, we're talking about the fact that some journalism is unbiased. There is much of it out there, but OP seems to think there isn't, or has convinced him/herself due to their own desire to not be wrong. Strike two. > can follow a reasonable, logical, defensible chain of trust from what I can directly prove to myself, to proofs I can accept indirectly, and distinguish those from fairy tales. You've demonstrated that you aren't very good at following a "logical chain of trust" because you've reasoned to yourself, poorly, something that wasn't even being discussed. Strike three. First time playing with logic? It never ceases to astonish me how people who throw around the terms "logic" and "rational thought" really, reeeeeally don't know how to deploy either.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

mikece 6y ago

There is a thin line between modern journalism and click-bait ad farms.

will4274 6y ago

Additionally shameful: - they haven't printed a retraction yet - the technology reporter in question doesn't understand the tech well enough to recognize the error, even when somebody states it explicitly (https://mobile.twitter.com/janewakefield/status/1341419657211854850 https://mobile.twitter.com/janewakefield/status/134141965721...)

andrewnicolalde 6y ago
Hey, that's my tweet :)

__MatrixMan__ 6y ago

I used to work at a traffic signal company. We got bad press whenever somebody "hacked" our infrastructure. It was always a super sophisticated "default password attack". I tried to get the default password changed to unique-per-unit randomly chosen uuid, just to be so obnoxious as to convince the customer to set their own password. Encountered resistance of the "but then they'd need to be retrained" sort. I wish I could say we didn't deserve the bad name, but we kinda did.