Comment by gaoshan
5 months ago
There is so much to address in this post but I want to look at just this part: "One of the reasons we know this story is bogus is because of the New York Times story which cites anonymous officials, “speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation”. That’s not a thing, that’s not a valid reason to grant anonymity under normal journalistic principles. It’s the “Washington Game” of “official leaks”, disseminating propaganda without being held accountable."
It is not accurate to claim "that's not a thing". Citing anonymous sources is a long established practice (in particular when it comes to law enforcement activities or potentially sensitive political reporting). The NYT has formal editorial standards around the identity of anonymous sources that require editors to assess the justification for applying it. It doesn't mean the information is reliable, that's where an editorial eye comes into play, but it does fall under the category of normal journalistic practice.
Next the "Washington Game": there’s a grain of truth here, but it is overstated. Yes, leaks can be part of a strategic move by politicians and it can be a source of exploitation by political operators but to equate all anonymous sourcing with propaganda is misleading. Plenty of such reporting has resulted in significant truths being revealed and powerful people being held accountable (Watergate, the Pentagon Papers, Abu Ghraib). Responsible reporting involves weighing a source's motivations as well as corroborating and contextualizing that information as accurately and truthfully as possible.
The author's dismissiveness oversimplifies (or mischaracterizes, if I am being less generous) the reason and function of anonymity here. They overstate the issue with propaganda and anonymous sources. Accurate in the sense that anonymity can enable propaganda (it has happened), it is inaccurate in its absolutism.
I feel like this sort of tone, with the absolutism, the attempt to reduce the complexity and nuance of reporting to the point where it can be dismissed is pretty typical of what passes for commentary in today's blog/tweet/commentary culture but it really plays more into the hands of those that would sow confusion and mistrust than it does into that of the truth and accuracy.
The "Washington Game" is described the Society of Professional Journalists. https://www.spj.org/spj-ethics-committee-position-papers-ano...
Citing anonymous sources is not established ETHICAL practice, it's corruption of the system. The roll of the journalist is to get sources on the record, not let them evade accountability by hiding behind anonymity. Anonymity is something that should be RARELY granted, not routinely granted as some sort of "long established practice".
What is the justification for anonymity here? The anonymous source is oath bound not to reveal secrets, so what is so important here that justifies them violating their oath to comment on an ongoing investigation? That's what we are talking about, if they are not allowed to comment on an ongoing investigation, then it's a gross violation of their duty to do so. The journalist needs to question their motives for doing so.
We all know the answer here, that they actually aren't violating their duty. They aren't revealing some big secret like Watergate. They are instead doing an "official leak", avoiding accountability by hiding behind anonymity. Moreover, what the anonymous source reveals isn't any real facts here, but just more spin.
We can easily identify the fact that it's propaganda here by such comments about the SIM farms being within 35 miles of the UN. It's 35 miles to all of Manhattan. It's an absurd statement on its face.
The article you cited does not agree with your assertions. It specifically tells you how and when to evaluate the use of an anonymous source.
If you don't ever use anonymous sources, many fewer people will talk to you. Being on the record about something that will get you fired, will get you fired - and then no one talks to journalists.
What separates actual ethical journalists from the rest is doing everything the article you cited suggests - validating information with alternative sources, understanding motives, etc.
You don't have to use every single source you talk to in your article though. Sure, I will grant my neighbor's dog anonymity but I won't include his opinion in my article at all.
Totally. If there's something to whistleblow then whistleblow, don't just gossip at a bar to a journalist.
> The anonymous source is oath bound not to reveal secrets
When you say this, what oaths are you specifically thinking about?
One of the more sober assessments in this entire thread, and closely aligned with how I experienced it. It's not nothing to stress the fact that it was pretty far away from the UN and that it's not obvious why a case of SIM cards would enable surveillance (seems more like it would anonymize an individual bad actor). But a large part of this is completely unsubstantiated speculation that people are nodding along with, which, in my opinion, is showing a breakdown in the ability to comprehend logical or evidence-based arguments.
> But a large part of this is completely unsubstantiated speculation that people are nodding along with, which, in my opinion, is showing a breakdown in the ability to comprehend logical or evidence-based arguments.
This is how I feel about the NYT article. So much doesn't add up, and the more I read and investigate, the flakier it becomes.
Odd to have officials speaking anonymously about an investigation while the Secret Service is putting out press releases about it.
There's a possibility that some of the evidence in the investigation is classified and/or stems from classified sources and methods. If the scammers are mixed up in foreign counterintelligence type stuff (very common with Chinese and Russian cybercriminal actors) then things get murky and people might go off the record because the documents they're reading have classification markings on them.
Just a possibility, I too feel this is weird.
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>Odd to have officials speaking anonymously about an investigation while the Secret Service is putting out press releases about it.
This is a bizarre new take that seems to be making the rounds. Not that they are right or wrong but they've been a staple of national security communication and reporting for as long as once followed the news, which for me is dating back to the George W. Bush admin. Glenn Greenwald in his heyday had a field day ripping apart credulous NSA wiretapping reporting that relied on unnamed officials. In fact I think he popularized the idea that the pervasiveness of such quotes was so widespread that they constituted a systematic problem with national security reporting. Not that I think it's necessarily a good practice but I wouldn't say it's presence in a story constitutes a "tell" that anything about the story is unusual.
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Honestly the mechanism is missing. Having hundreds of SIM card or a physical device is not a conclusive proof of anything. Show us the attack vector - exactly how will this cause problem.
I think it's a form of Gell-Mann Amnesia.
The NYT article is not sufficiently critical (of something) so it is government propaganda but in other times and places the NYT was not propaganda.
Judith Miller taught me that either the NYT is totally corrupt, or easily misled. It is completely reasonable to place almost zero weight on stories they report on "national security" from nothing but anonymous sources from the intelligence community.
Real stories have real evidence.
No journalistic institution is perfect. And, there are indeed journalists who cut corners, tell misleading narratives, or are too credulous.
However, there have been important and sometimes shocking stories that have been told thanks to reporting based on trustworthy, anonymous sources. The Pentagon Papers is a textbook example.
You completely miss my complaint. Perhaps I was unclear. The Pentagon Papers is the exact opposite! Ellsberg actually shared the documents; there were literal "papers" involved in the Pentagon Papers. That's the "real evidence" I demand.
Off-the-record conversational, "I'd never lie to you" BS, from anonymous sources in the "intelligence community" is a lead to investigate, not a story. They weren't called the Pentagon Whispers.
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DJT has shown us all that "Corrupt" and "Incompetent" are two sides of the same coin.
>Plenty of such reporting has resulted in significant truths being revealed and powerful people being held accountable (Watergate, the Pentagon Papers, Abu Ghraib).
And what, pray tell, is the major scandal in this case? The source isn't alleging any impropriety or illegal activity. Anonymous sources are for stories which are being suppressed or lied about, not for investigations which have not yet publicly been announced due to pending litigation. If there's no obvious motive for why the source would want to be anonymous then all you're reporting on is rumor and gossip.
> The NYT has formal editorial standards around the identity of anonymous sources that require editors to assess the justification for applying it.
They should also have editorial standards that judge the quality of the information and then decide whether to even print it or not. In this case, without a second source, it probably should /not/ have been printed.
That’s exactly what those guidelines say: https://www.nytimes.com/article/why-new-york-times-anonymous...
> What we consider before using anonymous sources:
> How do they know the information?
> What’s their motivation for telling us?
> Have they proved reliable in the past?
> Can we corroborate the information they provide?
> Because using anonymous sources puts great strain on our most valuable asset: our readers’ trust, the reporter and at least one editor is required to know the identity of the source. A senior newsroom editor must also approve the use of the information the source provides.
Is there a particular change you’re proposing?
>> Can we corroborate the information they provide?
I can only guess, but based on the reporting, it looks like they skipped this guideline.
>> Have they proved reliable in the past?
Which is half the battle. The real question is "have they lied to us in the past?"
The change I'd propose is that they actually apply them, and not just to stifle cases that do not fit their narrative.
How do you know they didn't have multiple confirmations from different anonymous sources? Generally this is the case with high quality journalism (souce: dated a journalist).
Their own words.
"Secret Service officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity"
Their only stated source is "USSS officials" who bafflingly demand "anonymity." I would expect the reporter to tell those /officials/ they need to allow a direct quote or to provide another source; otherwise, their information simply won't be printed.
It's the difference between being a blind mouthpiece and being a reporter.
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To me, the article is saying that an "ongoing investigation" is not a valid reason to grant anonymity, not that there are no valid reasons to grant anonymity.
Who is being protected from whom by granting this source anonymity? With your three examples it's clear, but not as much in this case.
Officials who are not supposed to talk about ongoing investigations, and might get fired if they do, but can't help themselves so they do it anyway under cover of "anonymity."
And honestly, probably everyone in a position to know, does know who the "anonymous" source is, but it's just enough plausible deniability that everyone gets away with it. They get to push their narrative but also pretend they are following the rules that are supposed to protect various parties in the process.
Meanwhile if I were on a grand jury and blabbing to the press every evening about an investigation, I could get in real trouble.
While this comment is true, the bigger/real story is all(?) the media is lying.
Anyone on TikTok has gone down the phone farm rabbit hole. Some of us stay. This is teen level tech. There's phone farm ASMR.
Better question is why this is the best take down of a 'bogus' story on Hacker News?
This comment really should not be top or what Hacker News discusses as a side comment.
So in a meta conversation about news, there was discussion yesterday about social media and speech. One of the main reoccurring threads of conversation was that news should be left to the experts and those vetted. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45352213 https://substack.com/@cybersect/p-174413355
Author kind of made me trust him about as much as I trust the SS on not exaggerating when he spoke as if only he is an authority because he has declared himself a hacker. I think I might have trusted him more if he said "I used to run one of these SIM farms back in the day"
> this sort of tone, with the absolutism, the attempt to reduce the complexity and nuance of reporting to the point where it can be dismissed is pretty typical of what passes for commentary in today's blog/tweet/commentary culture but it really plays more into the hands of those that would sow confusion
I think this is the mechanism of action that will lead to america's downfall.
algorithmic content has connected dopaminergic interest to extremism while simultaneously welcoming influence from both agents of neutral chaos and malicious destruction.
i am currently watching a schism unfold in my immediate family over the death of charlie kirk. if we literally cannot discern the difference between charlie and a fascist/nazi/racist because complexity and nuance are dimensions of information that do not exist, then we are destined for civil war.
you cannot understand vaccine safety, israel v palestine, russia v ukraine, or literally anything else by scrolling instagram reels. stop having an opinion and uninstall the poison.
In my extended family there's some government employees an auditor and someone in defense, and listening to them try to explain why the 'failed audit' fox news had their father ranting about as a reason everyone deserved to be fired by DOGE at the time and he was "loving every minute" was more nuanced and not good evidence for the conclusion he'd been fed was difficult.
Even in simple jobs I've worked there's always been something armchair experts don't consider that makes their quick fix "just do this" or "how hard can it be to do X" ignorant and irrelevant. But he was so enamored of Elon and "saving us money" he couldn't even fathom maybe his kids who are smart and have been in the industry for sometime might know or understand something he doesn't.
Later I asked him "What audit are you talking about?" And he said "Who cares, I know they failed and that's all I need to know." The brazen ignorance mixed with outright callousness masquerading as righteousness is not good.
Same. If Charlie was a Nazi then half of America is.
It's quite annoying
It's possible the author is wrong, but one should consider the author's history and demonstrated technical proficiency, e.g., the programs he has written. Take a look at his code. He has been around much longer than "blogs" and "Substack"
IMHO, he is also proficient at explaining complex topics involving computers. If others have differing opinions, feel free to share
Anyone know where can we see parent commenter's code or something that demonstrates their knowledge of computers, computer networks or particular knowledge of "SIM farms"
"Sometimes departments want to float ideas that a spokesperson would not want to put his or her name behind."
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/which-anonymous-sources...
IIUC, the blog post is not claiming there is no such thing as speaking with the press on the condition of anonymity, it is claiming that requesting anonymity for disclosing the existence (cf. the details) of an investigation into routine criminal activity is reasonable cause for skepticism. The blog post then explains why the author believes the "SIM farm" is a routine criminal enterprise, not something more
One does not have to be an "expert in political propaganda", nor rely on one, to question out of common sense why anonymity is needed to disclose the discovery of a "SIM farm"
That single paragraph is the weakest part of the article, IMHO. The other observations are quite well-taken, I think, including the observations about the experts cited in the article.
> the programs he has written.
This is authority bias. Being a great programmer does not make one an expert in political propaganda, the inner workings of government, or the media.
> Anyone know where can we see parent commenter's code or something that demonstrates their knowledge of computers, computer networks or particular knowledge of "SIM farms"
The parent commenter literally never questions the post's technical conclusions or assumptions. Why are you acting like they did?
The commenter appears to be trying to make a point about how the post addresses sources, tone, and confidentiality.
I think there is a bit of disconnect between people knowing what is possible and what people fear might be doable.
It's entirely possible that there are good non technical reasons for believing who was behind this while being technically incorrect about what it was that they intended to do.
Some of the more fanciful notions might be unlikely. Some of the evidence is only relevent in context. The distance from the UN is not terribly compelling on its own, the significance of the area of potential impact containing the UN is only because of the timing.
A state action might be for what might seem to be quite mundane reasons. One possible scenario would be if a nation feared an action suddenly called for by other states and they just want to cause a disrupting delay to give them time to twist some arms. Disruptions to buy time like this are relatively common in politics, the unusual aspect would be taking a technical approach.
"Yes, leaks can be part of a strategic move by politicians and it can be a source of exploitation by political operators but to equate all anonymous sourcing with propaganda is misleading."
AFAICT, the blog author never equated _all_ anonymous sourcing with propaganda. The blog post is not titled "The NYT is bogus"
Instead, the blog post discusses a specific story that relates to a specific "SIM farm"
It questions why _in this particular instance_, relating to a "SIM farm", the source needed to remain anonymous
But that is not the only reason the author thinks the SIM farm story is bogus/hype
Based on technical knowledge/experience, the author opines the "SIM farm" was set up for common criminal activity, not as a system purposefully designed to overload a cell tower
It is the later opinion, not the one about the NYT, that is interesting to me in terms of evaluating this "news" hence I am curious what similar experience the parent commenter may have, if any
After so many years of being exposed to it on HN and the developer blogs submitted to HN, I have become accustomed to dismissive tone and black-and-white, all-or-nothing, pick-a-side thinking from software developers, i.e., what the parent calls "absolutism", absence of "nuance", etc. Probably not a day goes by without some HN commenter trying to dismiss "mainstream media", making some nonsensical complaint about news reporting that they dislike
Silicon Valley is now intermediating the publication of these worthless opinions for profit: Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and so on
But, like I suggested, if one reads the blog author's source code and discussions of programming and cryptography, then one might be more willing to tolerate some personal opinions about the NYT. Ideally, programmers would only comment online about programming, and not, for example, about journalism, but that's not what happens in reality
Your reply only addresses the tone of the article.
His claim is that they busted a common criminal sim farm, with little or no national security implications. You don't address that all.
You are attacking a straw man to make your arguments which makes me question your motivations.
Nowhere did the substack author say that cinting anonymous sources is not a thing, which your wording is implying. They say that citing anonymous sources to discuss an ongoing investigation is not a valid reason.
Let's look at the guidelines for ethical journalism and they quote the NYTimes guidelines: anonymous sources... “should be used only for information that we believe is newsworthy and credible, and that we are not able to report any other way.”
"... journalists should use anonymous sources only when essential and to give readers as much information as possible about the anonymous source’s credentials"
https://ethicsandjournalism.org/resources/best-practices/bes...
So the question is were these anonymous sources essential to the story? Have they given enough information about the sources credentials?
Click bait hating on other click bait
Came here to post this. Haven't we learned many times in the last 5 years that, on average, "The Literal New York Times" is a better and more reliable source than "Some Guy on Substack"?
Claiming that anonymous sources inside an agency/administration is "not a thing" clearly betrays the fact that this person knows nothing about actual journalism. Heck even a casual NYT reader will know that they cite anonymous sources within the administration all the time! Just look at all the reporting about the Musk/Rubio dust-ups!
They do quote anonymous sources all the time, and, more often than not, those anonymous sources are leaking to the media to push their narrative, ie propaganda. The NYT is very clearly the puppet of washington insiders.
The “literal New York Times” doesn't exist anymore. This is not investigative journalism. This is just acting as the mouth piece for some anonymous government official.
They do quote anonymous sources all the time, and, more often than not, those anonymous sources are leaking to the media to push their narrative, ie propaganda.
Citation needed. The New York Times has very strict rules about using anonymous sources. It's not some scary, shadow journalism effort. They publish their rules for anonymous sources right on their web site. Google is your friend.
The “literal New York Times” doesn't exist anymore. This is not investigative journalism. This is just acting as the mouth piece for some anonymous government official.
Having been a reader of the New York Times for almost 50 years, I can say the New York Times hasn't changed that much. I can also say that I look at it with a much more critical eye than most because of my journalism degrees and decades of experience as a journalist.
A major problem with society is that some anonymous low-karma recent-joiner rando spews things on HN like "The NYT is very clearly the puppet of washington insiders" and people believe it for no reason other than it tickles the part of their brain that agrees with it. Not because of any kind of objectivity, analysis, proof, or thought.
To pick a nit, you are correct: This was no investigative journalism. This was a routine daily story covering an announcement by a government agency. If you don't know the difference between the two, then you lack the knowledge and understanding required to be critical of any sort of journalism.
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News is a good source for facts. If they say the sky is blue, I would have no reason to doubt them. But if they say the sky is turning from blue to pink, and we should all be worried because this might be a sign of the end times, I wouldn't get up from my chair.
I found the focus on the source being anonymous odd as well. I think the correct lesson is that substacks have just as much propensity towards being propaganda as the nyt does.
> Haven't we learned many times in the last 5 years that, on average, "The Literal New York Times" is a better and more reliable source than "Some Guy on Substack"?
Humm... No?
Uh, my recent experience is that "Some guy on Substack" is a significantly more reliable source than "The Literal New York Times".
Gel-Mann Amnesia affect applies here: every time I've seen mainstream media cover a subject that I have personal experience or expertise with, it's been shockingly inaccurate. This includes the NYTimes. It includes random guys on Substack too, but I've found that random guys on Substack when speaking about their area of expertise are actually pretty accurate. It's left to the reader to determine whether some random guy on Substack is actually speaking to an area of their expertise, but other comments here have attested that the author actually knows what he's talking about when it comes to SIM farms.
And what exactly makes "Robert Graham" such an expert in this particular domain? I don't know who this person is or why I should trust their personal blog over the NYT. The article itself is rather hand-wavy in it's assessment of the report. The thesis is essentially "bot farms use lots of sims & this is an example of using lots of sims, therefore this is a bot farm and not espionage."
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Both can be bad. The NYT absolutely publishes some slop from time to time, and I'm inclined to believe this is one such occasion. But this Substack essay isn't a measured correction and has its own mistruths and exaggerations. In other words, there's a middle ground between total credulity and solipsistic nihilism.
Maybe on average, but we've also learned there are too many times when "The Literal New York Times" either repeats propaganda for money, or literally just makes shit up.
When has the NYTimes made shit up?
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