Writing The Snowden Files: 'The paragraph began to self-delete' | Hacker News Reader

Writing The Snowden Files: 'The paragraph began to self-delete'

theguardian.com

60 pointspassepartout41 comments

This is a pretty embarrassing piece; it reads like something you'd find on a conspiracy forum.

1. Keyboards don't beep.

2. There are lots of more reasonable explanations for text getting deleted than "state agency wanted to play a juvenile prank on me and be glaringly obvious about it". A stuck key, an intermittent short across some of the leads caused by the coffee he spilled all over his keyboard (conjecture on my part), a glitchy keyboard controller -- we've seen all of these in our shop.

3. In Rio, "a tall American" immediately meets a fellow Westerner and "accosts" him -- by suggesting they go out and see the city? He's a spook because he dressed neatly and was in good shape? Hell, that makes me a spook too.

4. Choose one of the two following explanations for the iPhone behavior: one, a well-funded and resourceful state agency is hiring people to track a journalist writing a book about the biggest intelligence leak in recent history, and the people they're hiring are juvenile enough to use methods straight out of Hollywood to play a prank on their target's iPhone when he sends a text with possibly the most milquetoast insult about their methods in the history of ever; or, two, the iPhone crashed. (Your answer might be used to gauge your sanity.)

5. The hotel safe -- if it weren't for everything else he'd written, I might be willing to buy that this was a botched job. But in the context of the rest of the article, I think the more reasonable explanation is that it was a crappy safe, it never did work correctly, and he only noticed that part way through his stay in the room.

Windows beeps when you're pressing keys at the same time or just holding them down. I don't know the exact situations but I remember a "hot keys" notification popping up.

Let's consider the article is true and words were being deleted as he wrote them. How ridiculous is that? A. disconnect from the internet. B. The whole manuscript could be deleted with a few keystrokes if wanted. Why would someone sit there and delete out the "bad" parts while they know the writer is actually working and typing in the document? This makes absolutely no sense. PR stunt imo.

The Windows beep is usually from a speaker connected to your motherboard. There is no speaker located on the majority of keyboards, meaning no beeps.

It's not ridiculous to think words would begin to get deleted, but it is ridiculous to say some government organization would sit there and watch him type to remove some content. Why would any organization spying on him make it so obvious, and pointless. If he wanted to hide it from them he would just go to another computer.

I run into this self'deleting in words once a month. I have no idea how I activate it, but when i type it deletes what's in front of it. It's a frustrating feature that I haven't defeated, but I don't think the government is watching my computer, seeing what I type on Hacker News.

Pretty sure that's the Insert key that turns on "overtype".

(I have no idea what your technical expertise is like; please don't take offense to this.)

Have you noticed whether the blinking cursor has changed from a vertical line to a block? If it has (or, maybe, even if it hasn't, depending on OS + other factors), it's possible you've accidentally hit the "Insert" key on your keyboard, which toggles whether text is inserted or overwrites other text.

It's an ancient feature that very few people consciously use any more and still results in the occasional call in to our shop from a bewildered client.

Hitting the "Insert" key again should fix the problem next time.

I'm pretty sure the government is watching your computer (internet traffic, and maybe your webcam). They probably don't have you targeted for surveillance by an agent, which is what I think you meant.

We haven't yet been marketed a reason to constantly steam our webcams to the cloud. For this reason remote activation would be required in many cases, and that would be expensive on a mass scale.

Steps toward cloud services like this might include the Kinect, or face recognition login services. We'll see how it plays out. :^)

True. I was being maybe a little pedantic.

Accidentally toggling Sticky Keys is fairly common, and also causes beeping on keypresses.

So here is something I found by typing 'internet keyboard spy hardware' into google: http://www.spyemporium.com/key-stroke-logger-keygrabber-spy-... - it's a tiny little usb gizmo that intercepts keyboard input and barfs it to wifi via its own radio. This one dumps a huge log when its controller asks for it; it's not hard to imagine there might be similar devices that might do a constant broadcast of keystrokes, and insert keystrokes as well.

If we accept the thesis that he is being watched by Someone, then it's definitely not a stretch to imagine that something like this has been installed in his computer(s). I mean, he left his laptop in a hotel safe that didn't lock all day long, while he felt like he was being stalked. And left it there all the next day while hanging out with someone he suspected was a spy. What got put on it, in terms of hardware or software?

> Let's consider the article is true and words were being deleted as he wrote them. How ridiculous is that?

Some surveillers do that type of thing because they not only want the target to know they're being watched but also to make it appear the surveillers have far more control than they really do. They'll intricately set up a single incident like that, and leave the target thinking it's just an easily pulled of run-of-the-mill prank. The target then paranoidly thinks the next 10 or 100 coincidences are also part of the surveillance. Chances are that that particular incident was just a stuck key or something, but the chances are also that there was some similar incident weeks or months before caused by a surveiller that made the writer paranoid.

The most difficult situations are when there's more than one surveiller out there, which is quite common if you're worth surveilling. It can take years to disentangle roughly what's going on, and in the meantime if you say something plenty of people will call you names from a psychiatry textbook.

My keyboard beeps, and because it has cherry mechanical switches, I've had the delete key stick. But what is most common is when I'm using a virtual machine and for what ever reason focus is switches momentarily to the VM and then back out again and the VM saw the key up event but the host OS only saw the key down. And I get a zillion characters. Or more likely everything things 'alt' is down or and arrow key. I have to manually go push the keys to re-sync the host OS to the state of the keyboard. That is really annoying!

One the hand, the "self-deletion" seems very fishy, coming from a layperson's assumptions about computers and hacking, so I lean towards innocuous explanations, if not utter bullshit.

But to play devil's advocate, I wouldn't rule out the possibility of a gaslighting-style psychological attack. If the author was deeply infiltrated with the right malware, the keyboard stunt could done, and would achieve one of two things:

1. The writer is so unsettled or terrified that he abandons the project ("the chilling effect").

2. The writer foolishly goes public with the incident, making him look like a liar or a lunatic to the tech crowd, and probably everybody else too.

Food for thought.

(As I think about it, this is also exactly the sort of prank that a 14-year-old with a malware toolkit would find hilarious.)

>This is a pretty embarrassing piece; it reads like something you'd find on a conspiracy forum.

1. The guy doesn't seem like a computer expert. Don't dismiss his speculation merely because he's unable to explain what he observed as an engineer or programmer would.

2. There are always lots of more reasonable explanations for any suspicious activity than spying. This will be true for almost every case of actual spying that isn't unambiguously discovered.

4. The fact that one possibility is more likely does not disprove the possibility that it was the other. Do you really believe that every gov't agent is above a juvenile prank, or that none are buffoons? Or perhaps it wasn't a gov't agent but some other person.

5. Hotel safes are universally crappy and usually have a default master password that is known to criminals, and spies. I'll assume there are other ways to break into them as well.

Looks like someone deleted number 3.

I prefer to count in powers of two, at least up to five.

His lack of technical expertise is a very good reason to doubt his conclusions.

We've consulted on a few local cases of suspected computer sabotage. (Hurray for small-town politics.) In only one did we find actual evidence of wrong-doing; in every single other one, the case was an otherwise reasonable person whose suspicions were being fueled by a knowledge of I.T. based only on what they've seen on TV, in the movies, or read in magazines.

What Snowden did was remarkable specifically because it involved a huge pile of evidence. Conspiracy theorists are quick to point to this and say, "see, see, we've been right all along, and we're still right", but they don't understand that being right without any evidence is useless.

So articles like this one pollute the discussion that we all get to have thanks to Snowden's and Greenwald's efforts. Articles like this one erode their achievements.

This journalist doesn't seem to have consulted even one technical expert; he doesn't seem to have inspected the safe to gather any evidence whatsoever that it was tampered with; he doesn't seem to have taken a picture of a supposed spy who was assigned to take him around a city. In short, this journalist is not in any way contributing to the discussion that we get to have over the state's surveillance capabilities.

He's written a book about Snowden. He should know better.

Competent spies, criminals, and computer hackers don't leave a lot of evidence. I'd say that's a pretty good measure of competence at those activities. Flatly refusing to entertain the possibility that something like this might happen without solid proof is just as bad as mindlessly believing every fantastical nutter hypothesis without question. It may even be worse because those people don't sound crazy, but historically they've been wrong as often as the obvious loons.

Is it completely out of the question that #3 was simply a gay guy keen on him?

Is it now a sign of times that where previously most ppl (including me) would have dismissed this piece as

1) Does not understand technology so is committing some basic error leading to this

2) Making this sh$t up

3) Has a prankster who is close by.

Instead now I am almost betting that it was the NSA/GCHQ/Five Eyes/CIA who is behind these shenanigans?

Thank you Edward Snowden (for the hundredth time) for giving us hard evidence of the illegal and ineffective behavior on the Govt's part. You have also (unfortunately) fundamentally raised the bar on tin-foil hat debunking.

The cursor moved rapidly from the left, gobbling text. I watched my words vanish. When I tried to close my OpenOffice file the keyboard began flashing and bleeping.

To me and Occams razor that sounds more like a stuck key than the NSA openly deleting stuff in a manuscript while you're writing it.

More to the point, "keyboards flashing and beeping" is pretty much the polar opposite of what a professional organization like NSA would do. They would shred/unlink the file after its closed so that you'd never be the wiser.

But on the other hand, they wouldn't be in this guy's computer anyways because even if NSA were out to oppress him, he's pretty far back at the end of the ol' pri. queue. "Oh, no, not a manuscript, OMG, get Gen. Alexander on the STE-III!"

It actually sounds a lot more like a CIA intimidation tactic.

If this were an operation, it'd be more likely to be GCHQ. Keep in mind, GCHQ sent the NSA the Yahoo webcam photos, for use in XKEYSCORE. The two are close allies.

The CIA on the other hand, competes with the NSA for resources and jurisdiction.

Right now the NSA's budget dwarfs that of the CIA, since data collection and SIGINT have been prioritized over HUMINT. Technology advances and cost reductions might have encouraged this.

What types of intelligence and which agencies will be more relevant in the 21st century? The Snowden revelations and ongoing saga will play a large part in affecting future views, and answers to that question.

It might be more beneficial for the CIA to actually step back.

Plus, a lot of people want to see mass surveillance fail. It's pretty obviously a threat to democracy waiting to happen, and most people in service are dedicating their life to protecting democracy.

Except that the CIA does have an office in Rio, whose station chief is known for these kinds of tactics, as is written in the article.

I think also you're overstating how much the CIA might be competing with the NSA. Sure, at the highest levels, this might be true, but in the trenches, operatives share everything. I doubt anyone in the CIA truly resents the NSA and they'd happily help each other out like this.

He experienced the deletions after returning to his home, in the UK.

I certainly might be. It's interesting to consider though.

The NSA is tasked with collecting information. If there was an operation, as it was described, this would be a PSYOP. Also, while the NSA might help, it'd be another agency with more HUMINT and clandestine experience who designed and executed the operation.

To me it sounds like bullshit being invented by a reporter trying to spice up a story.

It sounds so crazy, the guy has more to lose by printing it (and having people think he's a loon).

I smell NSA involvement. They've clearly hacked the site and posted this piece to make Luke Harding and The Guardian look ridiculous.

Just because you are paranoid doesn't mean 'they' are not out to get you!!

If the events happened as described 'they' were trying to spook him or 'psych' him out.

I completely understand all the criticism toward this piece, and I don't think I would ever publish anything like this without at least some hard evidence, but I also wouldn't be surprised if he were completely right about his assumptions. Thinking skeptically about everything is a good habit, but sometimes the consequence of thinking like an intelligent reasonable person is that you forget how bafflingly stupid the world can really be.

Are all of the author's suspicions totally unfounded? Yeah, probably, because he has no good evidence to back them up. Do they lead to a narrative that is completely unreasonable and absurd? Absolutely. But it's also possible that the people who are spying on him are behaving in a way that is completely unreasonable and absurd, and are just competent enough to cover their tracks so a layperson won't have any evidence on them.

I don't have a ton of confidence in what I'm saying right now, but uh... I just don't blame him too much, is all. I definitely wouldn't dismiss him as a bad journalist or anything.

Let's play "spot the spook" in this thread..

That's my favourite game to play on Hacker News. I wish there was a Hacker News Enhancement Suite so I could keep track of them.

The article is 99% full of BS. I believe that too, however it made an impact: didn't knew there was a book[1]. I will read it and post a review. The amazon reviews look promising...

http://www.amazon.com/Snowden-Files-Inside-Worlds-Wanted-ebo...

The paragraph began to self-delete..

BOFH excuse #114:

electro-magnetic pulses from French above ground nuke testing.

at least it makes as much sense as the 'Russian hacker' assertion they made.

So a 'professional journalist' with an iPhone didn't think to make a video of the self deleting, or take a photo of the tall American?

I call BS.

Why on earth would a malicious party manually delete characters while the author is watching? If you don't care about being observed - as the author suggests - then in order to destroy his work, you'd just delete the truecrypt partition.

We used to do this for giggles. PC-Anywhere era.

Wow. Yeah, generally that's the US people's image of the US government in a nutshell. Conspiracy theories are getting old, old, old. Being overly suspicious is not productive in any way. Wake up and help your country be successful.

What he doesn't say is that the keyboard stopped flashing and beeping after he threw a biscuit at his cat.

I saw this a couple days ago. I thought it was rather silly.

This is exactly the time when you'd want to write about such a topic in pen and paper.

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