10 ms·

i was contacted on twitter by the journalist at dailydot who broke the news (https://twitter.com/davidcovucci https://twitter.com/davidcovucci) because i have j

i was contacted on twitter by the journalist at dailydot who broke the news (https://twitter.com/davidcovucci https://twitter.com/davidcovucci) because i have java code on github from ~10 years ago that reads a certain ‘nofly.csv’ file (https://gist.github.com/yawboakye/3888617 https://gist.github.com/yawboakye/3888617). the interaction was short and i wondered what he was looking for exactly. well, it was joke code, written as part of introduction to java. all this makes me wonder where ‘super-secret-nuclear-codes.csv’ could get me

nebula8804 4y ago
wow so some journalists have found the search bar on github. I knew it wasn't going to last but I wish it remained a hush hush thing longer.
- pphysch 4y ago
  Given the revelations about massive fraud in "Russian bot" detection (e.g. Hamilton 68) I'm inclined to believe the mainstream media is still wholly incompetent at anything of this sort. Probably because the laymen don't know any better.
  - milsorgen 4y ago
    Knoll's Law is a heck of a thing: https://effectiviology.com/knolls-law/ https://effectiviology.com/knolls-law/ Even though I'm aware of this phenomenon I constantly catch myself believing what I read until I remind myself to double check. Of course that leaves huge swaths of things I don't deem important enough to double check. I really wish there was a way to bring about, maybe not more accountability in media, but more faith that a news org or journalist is putting forth their best efforts to communicate correct information. It really is a tough nut to crack in terms resources available.
    - FredPret 4y ago
      You need multiple experts in a given topic to give a briefing to know what is going on. But now we need multiple experts in every single field, and layers of other people to verify that the former are, in fact, experts. The problem of accurate news is unsolvable.
    - robocat 4y ago
      > Knoll’s law Commonly known as Gell-Mann amnesia - from a quick search it looks as though Knoll’s law came first. https://theportal.wiki/wiki/The_Gell-Mann_Amnesia_Effect https://theportal.wiki/wiki/The_Gell-Mann_Amnesia_Effect says “In a speech in 2002, Crichton coined the term Gell-Mann amnesia effect”. https://www.everything2.com/title/Knoll%2527s+Law+of+Media+Accuracy https://www.everything2.com/title/Knoll%2527s+Law+of+Media+A... says “Jan 25 2001: Everything you read in the newspapers is absolutely true, except for that rare story of which you happen to have firsthand knowledge.” Although I would be sure the idea is much older.
  - pryce 4y ago
    I don't find Matt Taibbi's reporting on the Hamilton 68 dashboard credible. Caroline Orr has written a decent article about it here [1]. From my own investigations relating to social media bot behaviour in completely unrelated spheres (new religious movements / cults online), i've sen bots primarily being used to amplify or suppress content by human operated accounts - people operating bot accounts aren't looking to have the bots become 'influencer' nodes. When I tracked those human-operated accounts that were getting boosted, I assessed many as intentionally receiving bot assistence, and others as being completely ignorant of the bot operation but getting boosted anyway. The latter group is useful to a bot operation as it helps dilute the bot networks intentions, and may at times align ideologically as well. This is the sort of important distinction that any genuinely interested researcher or journalist would be keen to make. There is nothing of the sort in Taibbi's post. Instead, Taibbi makes assumptions that align with his priors, (aligning we might note, extremely well with the person paying him), then goes to a handful of (likely cherry picked to be sympathetic) human accounts and says "they thought you were a bot har-har!" looking for a soundbite. I found it risible. [1] https://weaponizedspaces.substack.com/p/the-truth-about-those-russian-linked https://weaponizedspaces.substack.com/p/the-truth-about-thos...
    - pphysch 4y ago
      You're essentially asserting that some openly-biased political operatives in Washington DC are more "credible" than Twitter's moderation chief or an investigative journalist (both with access to internal Twitter documents), based on some unrelated amateur OSINT. That's ridiculous.
      - karp773 4y ago
        How can you be sure the new owners/management of Twitter and the hired "investigative journalist" are not compromised? I was very symathetic and enthusiastic about their recent pivot toward free speech. But now it's clear to me it was not about free speech but rather a certain agenda which is suspiciously aligned with Russian interests.
        4y ago
  - karp773 4y ago
    > Hamilton 68 The current Russian regime is very creative in its methods of disinformation. This Hamilton 68 scandal reminded me of a ruse that the russians once set up to discredit the lists of their KIA soldiers in Ukraine. They created a fake "human rights" group which at first republished data from credible open sources, but once they earned trust and publicity, they started throwing in bogus but easily identifiable names like soccer team rosters and such. Then they publicly busted and humiliated their own fake "human rights" activists along with the other sources, exposing the fraud in the domestic media. The goal was to disredit the idea that the published information about russian losses (or bots in case of Hamilton 68) is trustworthy. I am not saying that the parent organization of Hamilton 68 is a russian ruse but rather that the sources or some of the staff could be compromised.
    - pphysch 4y ago
      Incredible.
- croes 4y ago
  Maybe just google search

nebula8804 4y ago

wow so some journalists have found the search bar on github. I knew it wasn't going to last but I wish it remained a hush hush thing longer.

pphysch 4y ago
Given the revelations about massive fraud in "Russian bot" detection (e.g. Hamilton 68) I'm inclined to believe the mainstream media is still wholly incompetent at anything of this sort. Probably because the laymen don't know any better.
- milsorgen 4y ago
  Knoll's Law is a heck of a thing: https://effectiviology.com/knolls-law/ https://effectiviology.com/knolls-law/ Even though I'm aware of this phenomenon I constantly catch myself believing what I read until I remind myself to double check. Of course that leaves huge swaths of things I don't deem important enough to double check. I really wish there was a way to bring about, maybe not more accountability in media, but more faith that a news org or journalist is putting forth their best efforts to communicate correct information. It really is a tough nut to crack in terms resources available.
  - FredPret 4y ago
    You need multiple experts in a given topic to give a briefing to know what is going on. But now we need multiple experts in every single field, and layers of other people to verify that the former are, in fact, experts. The problem of accurate news is unsolvable.
  - robocat 4y ago
    > Knoll’s law Commonly known as Gell-Mann amnesia - from a quick search it looks as though Knoll’s law came first. https://theportal.wiki/wiki/The_Gell-Mann_Amnesia_Effect https://theportal.wiki/wiki/The_Gell-Mann_Amnesia_Effect says “In a speech in 2002, Crichton coined the term Gell-Mann amnesia effect”. https://www.everything2.com/title/Knoll%2527s+Law+of+Media+Accuracy https://www.everything2.com/title/Knoll%2527s+Law+of+Media+A... says “Jan 25 2001: Everything you read in the newspapers is absolutely true, except for that rare story of which you happen to have firsthand knowledge.” Although I would be sure the idea is much older.
- pryce 4y ago
  I don't find Matt Taibbi's reporting on the Hamilton 68 dashboard credible. Caroline Orr has written a decent article about it here [1]. From my own investigations relating to social media bot behaviour in completely unrelated spheres (new religious movements / cults online), i've sen bots primarily being used to amplify or suppress content by human operated accounts - people operating bot accounts aren't looking to have the bots become 'influencer' nodes. When I tracked those human-operated accounts that were getting boosted, I assessed many as intentionally receiving bot assistence, and others as being completely ignorant of the bot operation but getting boosted anyway. The latter group is useful to a bot operation as it helps dilute the bot networks intentions, and may at times align ideologically as well. This is the sort of important distinction that any genuinely interested researcher or journalist would be keen to make. There is nothing of the sort in Taibbi's post. Instead, Taibbi makes assumptions that align with his priors, (aligning we might note, extremely well with the person paying him), then goes to a handful of (likely cherry picked to be sympathetic) human accounts and says "they thought you were a bot har-har!" looking for a soundbite. I found it risible. [1] https://weaponizedspaces.substack.com/p/the-truth-about-those-russian-linked https://weaponizedspaces.substack.com/p/the-truth-about-thos...
  - pphysch 4y ago
    You're essentially asserting that some openly-biased political operatives in Washington DC are more "credible" than Twitter's moderation chief or an investigative journalist (both with access to internal Twitter documents), based on some unrelated amateur OSINT. That's ridiculous.
    - karp773 4y ago
      How can you be sure the new owners/management of Twitter and the hired "investigative journalist" are not compromised? I was very symathetic and enthusiastic about their recent pivot toward free speech. But now it's clear to me it was not about free speech but rather a certain agenda which is suspiciously aligned with Russian interests.
      - 4y ago
- karp773 4y ago
  > Hamilton 68 The current Russian regime is very creative in its methods of disinformation. This Hamilton 68 scandal reminded me of a ruse that the russians once set up to discredit the lists of their KIA soldiers in Ukraine. They created a fake "human rights" group which at first republished data from credible open sources, but once they earned trust and publicity, they started throwing in bogus but easily identifiable names like soccer team rosters and such. Then they publicly busted and humiliated their own fake "human rights" activists along with the other sources, exposing the fraud in the domestic media. The goal was to disredit the idea that the published information about russian losses (or bots in case of Hamilton 68) is trustworthy. I am not saying that the parent organization of Hamilton 68 is a russian ruse but rather that the sources or some of the staff could be compromised.
  - pphysch 4y ago
    Incredible.
croes 4y ago
Maybe just google search