3 ms·

New York Times Doxxes Source By Publishing Passport Number

61 points by jbegley 3y ago

teachrdan 3y ago
A bit ironic for the Intercept to write an article about this, considering they did the same thing to Reality Winner. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/reality-winner-interview-prison-nsa-1261844/ https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/real... To be fair I think she would have been caught regardless. But the Intercept made investigators' jobs way easier.
- Baldbvrhunter 3y ago
  "It takes a thief to catch a thief" Clarke, J. (1665) "Proverbs English and Latine" https://collections.library.yale.edu/catalog/16609781 https://collections.library.yale.edu/catalog/16609781
- rnk 3y ago
  There's a trend of these things happening. Reporters constantly miss what tracking tech does. Reality Winner's situation, where they gave the actual printout she gave them to the feds and it had secret codes embedded in it to identify when/where printed (a long standing thing in printers, in case you didn't know) completely violated her trust with the reporters. There was also the situation where the NYT reporter got docs from a leaker about Les Moonves' sexual harassement case. The reporter put in stupid info that outed the lawyer, that was on the line of "the docs has 57 pages" and a couple of other very specific things. There needs to be some kind of education system for reporters that helps them stop outing sources. We are of course served by extreme misdeeds being exposed in the press, whether it gores your own ox or someone else's. But reporters have to stop doing this. Don't publish and actual photo, please re-encode it, remove metadata, do it twice, try to test it yourselves to find something. Don't put numbers. Don't use exact phrasing. When big companies like microsoft try to find leakers, they have software that slightly changes the phrasing in their big company missives, I was told this by a microsoft exec once.
  - giraffe_lady 3y ago
    The Reality Winner one was especially fucked because IIRC they actually had a trained professional with experience in high stakes leaks on staff, they just didn't use them for her for some reason. Recent Kerry Howley book spent a significant chunk of time on this, it was infuriating. Reality Winner did not need to get busted. They almost certainly would have realized she did it but with the right lawyers she could have made it. Intercept's hubris and mismanagement did her in.
    - rnk 3y ago
      Great info, I had not heard that, it was needed. You cost someone years of their lives by that. The "authorities" always try to burry the details of the actual improper behavior behind the scandal of the leak, usually successfully.
- 74848472 3y ago
  [flagged]
Cenk 3y ago
> The Times story feature art — at the top of the article — is a mosaic composed of various images apparently supplied by Lu, including interior and exterior shots of the work camp. The mosaic is composed of 10 images. In the original article, the images’ URLs had irregular numbering, jumping from four to 20. Though only 10 of those 20 images were utilized in the opening mosaic by the Times, it was possible to view any of the 20 images by changing the image number in the file name listed in the image’s URL.
ChrisArchitect 3y ago
The source supplied the photos? And was there reason to think people would be trying to find missing photos in the sequence by changing URLs? I suppose the only sloppy thing is not editing out the PII in the photos, amateur hour.
soared 3y ago
A lot of negative stories about the NYT in the related stories at the bottom of the page - seems odd.
addicted 3y ago
This might be a big mess up by the NYTimes but it isn’t doxxing. Doxxing requires intent and the Intercept has provided no evidence that the NYTimes did this deliberately.
- Our_Benefactors 3y ago
  NYT is still the one doing the doxxing, intentional or not. They provided documents (where “doxx” comes from) that could identify the individual. “Doxing or doxxing is the act of publicly providing personally identifiable information about an individual or organization, usually via the Internet and without their consent to do so.”

61 points by jbegley 3y ago

A bit ironic for the Intercept to write an article about this, considering they did the same thing to Reality Winner. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/reality-winner-interview-prison-nsa-1261844/ https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/real... To be fair I think she would have been caught regardless. But the Intercept made investigators' jobs way easier.

Baldbvrhunter 3y ago
"It takes a thief to catch a thief" Clarke, J. (1665) "Proverbs English and Latine" https://collections.library.yale.edu/catalog/16609781 https://collections.library.yale.edu/catalog/16609781
rnk 3y ago
There's a trend of these things happening. Reporters constantly miss what tracking tech does. Reality Winner's situation, where they gave the actual printout she gave them to the feds and it had secret codes embedded in it to identify when/where printed (a long standing thing in printers, in case you didn't know) completely violated her trust with the reporters. There was also the situation where the NYT reporter got docs from a leaker about Les Moonves' sexual harassement case. The reporter put in stupid info that outed the lawyer, that was on the line of "the docs has 57 pages" and a couple of other very specific things. There needs to be some kind of education system for reporters that helps them stop outing sources. We are of course served by extreme misdeeds being exposed in the press, whether it gores your own ox or someone else's. But reporters have to stop doing this. Don't publish and actual photo, please re-encode it, remove metadata, do it twice, try to test it yourselves to find something. Don't put numbers. Don't use exact phrasing. When big companies like microsoft try to find leakers, they have software that slightly changes the phrasing in their big company missives, I was told this by a microsoft exec once.
- giraffe_lady 3y ago
  The Reality Winner one was especially fucked because IIRC they actually had a trained professional with experience in high stakes leaks on staff, they just didn't use them for her for some reason. Recent Kerry Howley book spent a significant chunk of time on this, it was infuriating. Reality Winner did not need to get busted. They almost certainly would have realized she did it but with the right lawyers she could have made it. Intercept's hubris and mismanagement did her in.
  - rnk 3y ago
    Great info, I had not heard that, it was needed. You cost someone years of their lives by that. The "authorities" always try to burry the details of the actual improper behavior behind the scandal of the leak, usually successfully.
74848472 3y ago
[flagged]

Cenk 3y ago

> The Times story feature art — at the top of the article — is a mosaic composed of various images apparently supplied by Lu, including interior and exterior shots of the work camp. The mosaic is composed of 10 images. In the original article, the images’ URLs had irregular numbering, jumping from four to 20. Though only 10 of those 20 images were utilized in the opening mosaic by the Times, it was possible to view any of the 20 images by changing the image number in the file name listed in the image’s URL.

ChrisArchitect 3y ago

The source supplied the photos? And was there reason to think people would be trying to find missing photos in the sequence by changing URLs? I suppose the only sloppy thing is not editing out the PII in the photos, amateur hour.

soared 3y ago

A lot of negative stories about the NYT in the related stories at the bottom of the page - seems odd.

addicted 3y ago

This might be a big mess up by the NYTimes but it isn’t doxxing. Doxxing requires intent and the Intercept has provided no evidence that the NYTimes did this deliberately.

Our_Benefactors 3y ago
NYT is still the one doing the doxxing, intentional or not. They provided documents (where “doxx” comes from) that could identify the individual. “Doxing or doxxing is the act of publicly providing personally identifiable information about an individual or organization, usually via the Internet and without their consent to do so.”