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Comment by carbocation | Hacker News Reader

Maybe I'm reading this poorly, but it feels very poorly written.

The opening stanzas describe a conversation over Signal, followed by a message from Otter.ai. But there is no initial disclosure that the journalist sent the conversation to Otter. The way the story is written, it sounds like Signal was hacked or his phone was exploited.

Later, he states:

> "Otter said that the fact that Aksu was the focus of the survey was only because I’d entered his name as the recording’s title."

So OK, you submitted a recording to Otter? Why not disclose that you used Otter intentionally:

> Apparently I wasn’t the only Otter user worried about this kind of scrutiny. “This survey has been discontinued over concerns that some customers (such as yourself) may include personal or sensitive information within the title of the conversation, and including this information within a survey may cause some concern,” Lai said.

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Ya the core of the article is missing a key point.

Did you enter "Mustafa Aksu" as the title of the Otter recording? If so, they just took the text you entered and emailed it to you. Why did you write this sensationalist article?

If they transcribed it and send it to you, maybe there's something here. But expecting Otter to be secure is an entirely different issue. But the article conflates this whole thing about the title with insecurity and it's unclear.

There is certainly an article to be written about the dangers of using Otter. But this stuff about the email and the title is a distraction. It attempts to "storify" something that doesn't need it. Automated recording means sending recordings to the cloud where you don't control them. That's a terrible idea for sensitive content. Full stop. That's the article.

Disclosure: have used Otter, like it, but wary of security issues. Self hosted option sounds good.

> Did you enter "Mustafa Aksu" as the title of the Otter recording? If so, they just took the text you entered and emailed it to you.

Returning information to users can be a surprisingly delicate matter. E.g. HIV clinics and mental health services (in the UK) are careful about the information they put in appointment reminders. Sure the patient signed up for the appointment, but they don’t necessarily want a voicemail or text message to mention the type of clinic.

Agree that returning user information can be delicate. I would think journalists dealing with such a sensitive contact would be more careful, but that's a dangerous assumption. Sure, I can use Tails and Tor, but for someone without a tech background it may be difficult or impossible to use those tools properly. Making privacy-preserving tools and practices the default is way. I appreciate the various guides the EFF puts out on privacy and digital hygiene.

Yeah, it's worded like he's trying to write some expose about how dangerous otter might be, but really he's just exposing how terribly leaky his own journalistic tradecraft is. I guess I appreciate his unintentional candor? I hope he has less sensitive gigs lined up.

Well said. Exposes their own bad habits and understandings. Wonder if there are nonprofits that offer training for journalists on this stuff.

The author does state that they were using Otter — it’s at the beginning of the anecdote

> The next day, I received an odd note from Otter.ai, the automated transcription app that I had used to record the interview.

Confirmed that I am reading poorly—thanks for pointing out this line, I had missed it.

Archive.today link demonstrating that this isn't a stealth edit by Politico: https://archive.is/etLpm

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