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Comment by tptacek | Hacker News Reader

Running misinformation is part of Wikileaks' job. It's not the NYT's job.

They at least re-clarified on twitter. But not in the article. https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/839160771674255360

I believe they've edited the article:

"Among other disclosures that, if confirmed, would rock the technology world, the WikiLeaks release said that the C.I.A. and allied intelligence services had managed to bypass encryption on popular phone and messaging services such as Signal, WhatsApp and Telegram. According to the statement from WikiLeaks, government hackers can penetrate Android phones and collect 'audio and message traffic before encryption is applied.'"

If that's an edit, it's still pretty poor. The 'experts' quoted are Wikileaks themselves. The disclosure 'A spy agency had 0-day exploits for mobile devices' would not rock anything.

Agreed 100% - but methinks NYT (and others) still look to them for technical guidance on some matters - however misguided that might be.

The NYT has a _huge_ list of experts to contact for stories like this. They chose not to, in the interests of getting a salacious lede printed quickly.

Well I think they put out the article first and get experts to correct the finer points later. I don't agree this is the best tactic, but reporting first is important.

They have changed the title. Currently: "WikiLeaks Releases Trove of Alleged C.I.A. Hacking Documents"

See for instance WaPo, where Greg Miller and Ellen Nakashima got Nicholas Weaver from ICIR on the record for analysis for the story. Compare with the NYT's original story, which had no disclosed expert sourcing. Maybe a habit we should all develop is to first scan these things to see who they got on the record to talk about it.

It's not hard for them. I'm not making this up: NYT has a huge list of experts to reach out to for stories. They just chose not to.

> It's not hard for them. I'm not making this up: NYT has a huge list of experts to reach out to for stories. They just chose not to.

I wasn't disagreeing with you. I was just saying that their tactic is to publish first and update. This is pretty common, especially in bigger stories. They get paid by getting eyeballs on their site. If someone publishes 20 mins before them they lose money, even if they are more accurate.

So just always take a breaking story as a draft. The story isn't finished and I bet will get updated several times.

If I'm not mistaken then the NYT has shown in the past that it can get basic tech/security facts like these straight.

Could you explain more about "misinformation is part of wikileaks' job"

And that it's not NYT's job while we're at it.

In contrast, running McCarthy type propaganda and smear campaigns against Julian Assange/Wikileaks is part of NYT's job.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/04/us/politics/julian-assang...

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/08/business/media/assange-wi...

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