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Parler Users Breached Deep Inside U.S. Capitol Building, GPS Data Shows
- nickthegreek 6y agoThat Greenwald tweet isn't aging well. https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1348619731734028293 https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1348619731734028293
- sibeliuss 6y agoTBH, it's almost an act of bad faith, or deliberate disinformation, to write that tweet.
- eachro 6y agoYup. He could have removed the entire sentence about Parler and the tweet would retain most of its meaning.
- mhh__ 6y agoThat describes a lot of what he gets up to these days. There's a reason why The Intercepts article on him leaving is as close as you can politely get to physically disowning him and his work.
- danudey 6y agoI hadn't read that article, so I googled it, and assuming this[0] is the correct one, wow. Some choice excerpts, which are even better in context so read the article: > The narrative Glenn presents about his departure is teeming with distortions and inaccuracies — all of them designed to make him appear as a victim, rather than a grown person throwing a tantrum. > it was he who was attempting to recycle the dubious claims of a political campaign — the Trump campaign — and launder them as journalism. > We have the greatest respect for the journalist Glenn Greenwald used to be > We have no doubt that Glenn will go on to launch a new media venture where he will face no collaboration with editors — such is the era of Substack and Patreon. In that context, it makes good business sense for Glenn to position himself as the last true guardian of investigative journalism and to smear his longtime colleagues and friends as partisan hacks. [0] https://theintercept.com/2020/10/29/glenn-greenwald-resigns-the-intercept/ https://theintercept.com/2020/10/29/glenn-greenwald-resigns-...
- Bootvis 6y agoI was confused as the linked threat didn’t seemed to have aged particularly badly. However, lower in the thread Greenwald claims that the insurrectionists organized on Facebook and 0 of them on Parker.
- nickthegreek 6y agoThanks, I didn't realize it linked to the top thread and not the specific tweet. "Do you know how many of the people arrested in connection with the Capitol invasion were active users of Parler? Zero. The planning was largely done on Facebook. This is all a bullshit pretext for silencing competitors on ideological grounds: just the start."
- dfxm12 6y agoThen maybe it's worth taking the whole thread into consideration. The zero arrests comment probably is incorrect, but, does that take away from the larger point, especially with regards to the context of the nyt article? Tl;dr: he made a lot of tweets on this subject. Cherry picking one part of one tweet doesn't say much about his overall point.
- mint2 6y agoGreenwald cannot object to cherry picking and ignoring context without being a hypocrite.
- BitwiseFool 6y agoAny viable social media competitor needs critical mass. A conservative exodus to Parler would be one way to make that happen. Big tech just squashed a competitor while the "iron was hot" for Parler and even if it comes back online it might never get the network effect it could have gotten.
- dragontamer 6y agolobste.rs seems to be doing fine as a discussion site aimed at technologists. This "hypergrowth at all costs" mindset is pretty suffocating. There's plenty of niche sites that are successful without the need of trying to be the biggest in the world.
- Uhhrrr 6y agoIt could still be true - perhaps the arrestees weren't actively using it but other people who just wandered around and posted were.
- wtfiswiththis 6y agoGreenwald has been an activist for years. I recall him finding the most tenuous of reasons to defend Assad and Putin's conduct in Syria. It kept falling apart as the regime kept conducting further chemical weapons attacks. Everything could be dismissed as some grand imperialist plot against Assad. The goal posts moved dozens of times always in reaction to further news that detailed different aspects of the chemical weapons campaign. Greenwald kept finding ways to dismiss the citizens on the ground. Because surely RT.com knows better. He then kept dismissing the joint international investigation team while it was in the field. Because surely Assad's own press releases know better. After awhile he deleted his Twitter timeline[1]. Greenwald is not a journalist when he carries forward narratives like this, he is an activist. Just like when he carried forward narratives from "Guccifer 2.0" aka Kremlin during the 2016 election. What he is doing here seems really similar to his conduct from that era. He thought he found -the thing- that exempts something he want to defend from ire. Now an entire narrative is build around it. His little personal fort. I'll never be able to forgive Glenn for using his name on Twitter to beat down Syrians who were giving first hand testimony and video evidence. He engaged against them like they were his enemy, likely because they were the enemy of his favored narrative and biases. Disgusting. Here is an archived version of his tweet[2]. You'll need it in time after he commits another purge when he moves onto the next indefensible right wing trope he feels like picking up. [1] https://twitter.com/im_pulse/status/1022690869139464192 https://twitter.com/im_pulse/status/1022690869139464192 [2] https://archive.vn/cmxFp https://archive.vn/cmxFp
- raarts 6y agoI don't like this. Please comment on what he states in his tweet, instead of bringing up old ones. When you're right, you're right. Regardless of your past.
- 6y ago
- selimthegrim 6y agoDoes Greenwald not understand what sideloading an app is?
- refurb 6y agoUsing Parler doesn’t mean the planning wasn’t done on Twitter and Facebook.
- balozi 6y agoWatch for propaganda in support of a cause.
- twalla 6y agoAre you implying that visualized GPS data is somehow propaganda?
- gher-shyu3i 6y agoWhat about Twitter users? Isn't this just a case of popularity?
- mhh__ 6y agoI think the point is more that there seems to be a narrative that no arrested Capitol-terrorists used Parler.
- rbanffy 6y agoWhich seems to be a matter of time now.
- filoeleven 6y agoFrom the article, the GPS data comes from photos or videos uploaded to Parler and released in the data dump. Twitter and other social media sites strip out that data, whereas Parler did not.
- jonplackett 6y agoIs Parler usually anonymous or something? What were these people thinking posting videos of themselves committing a crime?
- mhh__ 6y agoI'm normally fairly reluctant to call people stupid, but these people are obviously not the sharpest tools in the shed.
- jfengel 6y agoAn insurrection is only a crime if you lose. Otherwise, it's a thing to be proud of for generations. Now, there doesn't seem to have been any path to victory for them, and that casts doubt on the rest of their judgment. But at least in the moment, they believed they were heroes.
- dragontamer 6y agoThey really didn't think that far ahead. Plenty of the rioters streamed themselves live on Youtube, Twitch, and Facebook, while shouting their own names on camera. Some of them even had their work-badges and IDs displayed during the riots, and bragged about their "accomplishments" on Facebook publicly under their own name.
- cptnapalm 6y agoPerhaps they saw the take over of the Hart Senate building during the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings? Or AOC leading a take over of Pelosi's office? There were some minor arrests, but not much more than slap on the hand stuff, as I recall.
- sibeliuss 6y agoI don't think -- for even a single microsecond -- that anyone anywhere close to those hearings feared for the lives. It's absolutely absurd to compare the two situations. This standard ("does anyone feel unsafe") should always be used as a check against ones haywire common sense.
- spoonjim 6y agoI am a "Parler User." I have an account and until it was taken down I used to check it every few days. Don't make assumptions about a person's politics from the mere existence of software on their device.
- jfengel 6y agoCan we make assumptions based on their presence at a political rally, followed by their unauthorized presence in a government building?
- schappim 6y agoI don't think you can. The user base != the service, and not all users are equal. When I look at the Parler situation, I think most likely poor management/decisions were the greatest contributing factor to their current predicament. The management probably didn't think they had a hate-speech problem until it was too late. As such, they didn't have the systems in place to deal with it, and the systems they were going to put in place were going to be tempory (as highlighted by Apple's response to their app modernisation plan).
- watwut 6y agoHonestly, there was no way for them to not know that, unless they never open their own site. Their site also had moderation structures in place - leftist opinions were removed fast. It was meant for right wing only.
- danudey 6y agoFrom any service, someone's presence at a political rally, followed by being present inside of the capitol building as a violent mob storms through while representatives are evacuated in fear of their lives, is a pretty good filter, regardless of them being Parler users, for "users who are probably either insurrectionists or journalists". You can filter down from there, but even if you mistakenly think that fifty percent of Parler users just liked the idea of free speech platforms enough that they used a site frequented by the neo-nazis despite all that, it's likely that only the violent insurrectionists happened to be the ones in the crowd, and then in the capitol building, posting things to Parler as they went.
- bmoreoutside 6y agoI feel establishing indoor positioning using device GPS is questionable unless the Capitol has an indoor GPS repeater.
- local_dev 6y agoExtremely questionable. GPS accuracy even outside isn't perfect and GPS accuracy inside is a crap shoot depending on the building. Someone could have been walking past outside and be shown as inside the building.
- kersplody 6y agoThe building has LTE repeaters, micro-cells, and wifi networks. A tight geo is very possible with assisted GPS.
- colsandurz 6y agoNot really. To geolocate a user the cell providers would need to know the absolute position of all the LTE repeaters and cells (which they might). But they'd also need to compensate for indoor propagation (which is much more complex than outdoor). Also AGPS only provides satellite ephemeris, which enables a faster time to fix, not better accuracy.
- colsandurz 6y agoA GPS repeater would only give accurate time, not position. The repeater only repeats the signal that's captured by the antenna on the roof. I use GPS repeaters frequently in my labs to supply timing to instruments.
- chrisco255 6y agoWhat a loaded propaganda hit piece. They were using ANDROID phones! They SNAPCHATTED the whole thing! Ban everything! They are a threat to democracy!
- nicoffeine 6y agoAll members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff released a statement today that reads in part: "The violent riot in Washington, D.C. on January 6, 2021 was a direct assault on the U.S. Congress, the Capitol building, and our Constitutional Process... ...the rights of freedom of speech and assembly do not give anyone the right to resort to violence, sedition and insurrection."[1] Additionally the FBI had a national press conference where they revealed the following: "Federal prosecutors are looking at bringing 'significant' cases involving possible sedition and conspiracy charges in last week’s riot at the U.S. Capitol... the Justice Department has created a specialized task force that will look at everything from travel to movement of the individuals."[2] The message isn't "ban everything" but "ban the things that are a threat to democracy, according to the FBI and the Joint Chiefs." If you find yourself on the other side of the argument, maybe it's time to consider why. [1] https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/12/politics/joint-chiefs-memo-capitol-insurrection/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/12/politics/joint-chiefs-memo-ca... [2] https://ktiv.com/2021/01/12/watch-live-at-2pm-fbi-justice-department-hold-briefing-on-capitol-riots/ https://ktiv.com/2021/01/12/watch-live-at-2pm-fbi-justice-de...
- chrisco255 6y agoThey did not mention Parler as the story implicated. I'm not arguing on behalf of people doing illegal things. I'm arguing against the framing of an app as the problem instead of the people committing illegal acts themselves. People use text messages for comms, people use Telegram, they use phone calls, they use a myriad of apps to communicate. Framing Parler as the problem is just a way of justifying further lockdowns on political speech and selective censorship and banning and a delegation of our sovereignty and liberty to the biased discretion of powerful corporate entities.
- 6y ago
- vel0city 6y agoI'm curious what the accuracy of assisted GPS is inside such a large building. There's a part of me which thinks it could be highly accurate (probably lots of unique AP's to triangulate off known accurate locations) but on the other hand you're still deep inside the Capitol building which doesn't exactly have thin walls.
- jlgaddis 6y agoFTA, FWIW: > The precise locations of Parler users inside the building can be difficult to place. The coordinates do not reveal which floors they are on ... the coordinates themselves are only accurate up to an approximate distance of 12 yards (11 meters).
- anigbrowl 6y agoI'm sure it will vary within the building, but suggested positions can be cross-referenced with the actual content of the video, which should be easy to geolocate in many cases (any area that's normally accessible to the public has probably been photographed many times).
- hindsightbias 6y agoI’m told a new meme is that Parler was a honeypot run by antifa.
- seastonATccs 6y agoNo but there WERE many honypot posts on Parler asking people to upload their phone recordings and identify who they were. Hundreds gave their contact info and specifically what they did during the attack.
- dwd 6y agoDid they filter for Parler users who were legitimately in the Capital building, such as Ted Cruz?