24 ms·

There's a weird culture around reporting problems without reporting names. You see it a lot here on HN and occasionally in media. I'll never understand. Why bot

There's a weird culture around reporting problems without reporting names. You see it a lot here on HN and occasionally in media. I'll never understand. Why bother talking about corporate misbehavior (or etc) and not back it up with the basic, minimal data you could provide?

willcipriano 4y ago
Makes claims impossible to falsify, without naming names nobody can poke holes in your analysis.
- coldtea 4y ago
  Or, you know, keeps your ass safe from being sued...
  - LadyCailin 4y ago
    Anybody can sue you at any time for any reason. For libel and slander cases though, telling the truth is a valid defense.
    - smohare 4y ago
      This view vastly underestimates the ability of a completely wrong party to sue for slander. In the US at least. You see this with pseudoscientific snake oil salesmen all the time.
    - numpad0 4y ago
      In theory, but assholes often aren’t creative, and justice system is as it always had been, so,
    - coldtea 4y ago
      >Anybody can sue you at any time for any reason. Which is neither here, nor there, as some are more likely to sue you than others. >For libel and slander cases though, telling the truth is a valid defense. Which is neither here, nor there, again. Not everybody wants the hassle of going through a lawsuit or the time and money costs associated, even if they have a "valid defense".
mitchdoogle 4y ago
Maybe their research is ongoing, maybe they are afraid of being sued, maybe they'd rather not harm a company so reputation without fully understanding why they do this
- ivanhoe 4y ago
  So why did they publish the text now then (other than obviously for self-promotion)? Why not finishing their research first, discussing with lawyers how not get sued, and contacting the company about it so that they can fix it or comment on it, and only then publishing the proper, responsible research that is actually useful to someone?
sharken 4y ago
They state that their findings will be presented at Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium in July. So it seems they want to keep some info for that event. Should i hazard a guess, it would be either Zoom or Teams.
- im_down_w_otp 4y ago
  My guess was going to be Google Meets because I suspect this happens in order to pipe audio to their voice to text translation engine they use to offer you the live closed-captioning feature. As well as, I assume, to archive a text indexable/searchable log of your conversations. I say this latter part based on multiple experiences I've had receiving clearly targeted advertising for topics I make random passing jokes or commentary about in live conversation, but which I've never once searched, click-imprinted, etc. for online. But, this is purely suspicious speculation. The live closed-captioning feature is a real thing and a thing I could absolutely see resulting in Google always sending audio streams to their backend for.
MaxBarraclough 4y ago
> You see it a lot here on HN and occasionally in media It makes some sense here on HN where people often post under their real names and want to think carefully before badmouthing a former employer, or otherwise picking a fight. I agree that journalists have little excuse.
- ElemenoPicuares 4y ago
  > I agree that journalists have little excuse. Except wanting anyone, ever to talk to them again about something controversial.
  - cogman10 4y ago
    I disagree. Bob Woodward has gotten PLENTY of high level politicians to talk to him candidly even though he's publishing what they are saying often in an unflattering light. If someone as famous as the watergate guy can STILL get politicians to talk to him, what does a random journalist have to fear? I mean, FFS, the gamer nexus guy got newegg to talk to him even after blasting them about ripping him off and letting them know "we are recording everything". Journalists are acting like a single inkling of a bad word said will lock them out of access to everyone everywhere. The truth is, there are so many journalists out there that one could make a career of asking hard questions and publishing unflattering statements and the STILL would likely not be recognized by most individuals if they asked for an interview.
    - ElemenoPicuares 4y ago
      The gamer nexus guy? He got a 1-on-entire-team-of-PR-and-customer-service-people interview at a deep-discount computer parts company in their own office to discuss known implications of decisions they deliberately made. THAT's your benchmark? Nothing about that situation has bearing on whether people first think of safely concealed sources or being publicly dragged through the mud like Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden before sharing things far more important than entitled rants about customer service for entertainment-related products. My lord.
    - 4y ago
saghm 4y ago
I imagine it's to avoid getting sued by the company behaving poorly. Companies bring lawsuits against good-faith security researchers all the time to try to silence them, so if you were a researcher, why would you expect the one company among the several you researched who's potentially misbehaving to not misbehave by trying to sue you into silence?
greyhair 4y ago
I have said negative things about someone's favorite product and then abandoned a thread (not here on this site) because the stream of hate that followed drowned out the original message. People can be irrationally attached to the things they use. As a farm kid growing up, you didn't step between two guys arguing the merits of I-H and J-D farm equipment (1970s...)

willcipriano 4y ago

Makes claims impossible to falsify, without naming names nobody can poke holes in your analysis.

coldtea 4y ago
Or, you know, keeps your ass safe from being sued...
- LadyCailin 4y ago
  Anybody can sue you at any time for any reason. For libel and slander cases though, telling the truth is a valid defense.
  - smohare 4y ago
    This view vastly underestimates the ability of a completely wrong party to sue for slander. In the US at least. You see this with pseudoscientific snake oil salesmen all the time.
  - numpad0 4y ago
    In theory, but assholes often aren’t creative, and justice system is as it always had been, so,
  - coldtea 4y ago
    >Anybody can sue you at any time for any reason. Which is neither here, nor there, as some are more likely to sue you than others. >For libel and slander cases though, telling the truth is a valid defense. Which is neither here, nor there, again. Not everybody wants the hassle of going through a lawsuit or the time and money costs associated, even if they have a "valid defense".

mitchdoogle 4y ago

Maybe their research is ongoing, maybe they are afraid of being sued, maybe they'd rather not harm a company so reputation without fully understanding why they do this

ivanhoe 4y ago
So why did they publish the text now then (other than obviously for self-promotion)? Why not finishing their research first, discussing with lawyers how not get sued, and contacting the company about it so that they can fix it or comment on it, and only then publishing the proper, responsible research that is actually useful to someone?

sharken 4y ago

They state that their findings will be presented at Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium in July. So it seems they want to keep some info for that event. Should i hazard a guess, it would be either Zoom or Teams.

im_down_w_otp 4y ago
My guess was going to be Google Meets because I suspect this happens in order to pipe audio to their voice to text translation engine they use to offer you the live closed-captioning feature. As well as, I assume, to archive a text indexable/searchable log of your conversations. I say this latter part based on multiple experiences I've had receiving clearly targeted advertising for topics I make random passing jokes or commentary about in live conversation, but which I've never once searched, click-imprinted, etc. for online. But, this is purely suspicious speculation. The live closed-captioning feature is a real thing and a thing I could absolutely see resulting in Google always sending audio streams to their backend for.

MaxBarraclough 4y ago

> You see it a lot here on HN and occasionally in media It makes some sense here on HN where people often post under their real names and want to think carefully before badmouthing a former employer, or otherwise picking a fight. I agree that journalists have little excuse.

ElemenoPicuares 4y ago
> I agree that journalists have little excuse. Except wanting anyone, ever to talk to them again about something controversial.
- cogman10 4y ago
  I disagree. Bob Woodward has gotten PLENTY of high level politicians to talk to him candidly even though he's publishing what they are saying often in an unflattering light. If someone as famous as the watergate guy can STILL get politicians to talk to him, what does a random journalist have to fear? I mean, FFS, the gamer nexus guy got newegg to talk to him even after blasting them about ripping him off and letting them know "we are recording everything". Journalists are acting like a single inkling of a bad word said will lock them out of access to everyone everywhere. The truth is, there are so many journalists out there that one could make a career of asking hard questions and publishing unflattering statements and the STILL would likely not be recognized by most individuals if they asked for an interview.
  - ElemenoPicuares 4y ago
    The gamer nexus guy? He got a 1-on-entire-team-of-PR-and-customer-service-people interview at a deep-discount computer parts company in their own office to discuss known implications of decisions they deliberately made. THAT's your benchmark? Nothing about that situation has bearing on whether people first think of safely concealed sources or being publicly dragged through the mud like Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden before sharing things far more important than entitled rants about customer service for entertainment-related products. My lord.
  - 4y ago

saghm 4y ago

I imagine it's to avoid getting sued by the company behaving poorly. Companies bring lawsuits against good-faith security researchers all the time to try to silence them, so if you were a researcher, why would you expect the one company among the several you researched who's potentially misbehaving to not misbehave by trying to sue you into silence?

greyhair 4y ago

I have said negative things about someone's favorite product and then abandoned a thread (not here on this site) because the stream of hate that followed drowned out the original message. People can be irrationally attached to the things they use. As a farm kid growing up, you didn't step between two guys arguing the merits of I-H and J-D farm equipment (1970s...)