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That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus

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Re: That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus

#271

Post by mathfailure »

agsqwe wrote: post #148
imcritic wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Everything is relative. I'm an immigrant from a post-USSR country and the US is still orders of magnitude more democratic and free

Doubt. What are post-USSR countries (except for Ukraine) where government detains lots of people who hasn't committed any crimes? How many people get wrongfully killed by cops in post-USSR countries? In U.S. that's like a sport for cops to find an excuse to unalive someone.

And what is democratic about the fact that majority of people votes for candidate A, yet candidate B becomes the president because... because it's people don't actually vote for president, they vote for someone who counts pro-some party and it's THEY who vote for president in the end. What's democratic about corruption being completely legal (lobbying)? Do you know a single post-USSR country where lobbying is legal? (Hell, how can it be legal at all? there's no distinction between lobbying and corruption, that's the same thing!)

Re: That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus

#272

Post by semanticist »

hnlmorg wrote: post #193
fidotron wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The important point is to distinguish between truth and the co-ordinated release of information in the NYT, BBC etc. The latter is very much intended to send a message, but it is not to be taken as literal truth.

I cannot about the NYT, but the BBC is one of the most impartial sources available. So much so that the left and the right accuse the BBC of biasing the other in equal measures! If you want to talk about bias in the UK press then you’re better off looking towards The Sun, The Mail and anything owned by Murdoch (that guy has done so much damage to the world it’s unreal).

The left accuse the BBC of bias because, eg, the new Green Party leader has not been on any relevant BBC politics programs while Farage and other right wing politicians are regular fixtures.

The right accuse the BBC of bias because they fact-check them when they lie.

These things are not equivalent.

The BBC has lost a lot of credibility over the last decade or so. I can completely understand why they rolled over (often pre-emptively) to placate a Tory government that talked a lot about defunding them, but ultimately it has not served them well.

The newspaper situation in the UK is diabolical for sure.

Re: That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus

#273

Post by Rover222 »

roody15 wrote: post #98

Once a Chinese grad student explained to me a difference he noted between Chinese and American citizens. He said in China no really reads or watches 24/7 major news outlets in China. They are fully aware that all of it is propaganda and just go about their life. He said Americans seem to get really emotional over content in the press and seem to really struggle with the idea of propaganda / journalism in the news. I…

I agree from a high level, but I think the major difference is that: - Chinese news is propoganda in the traditional sense - directed/approved by the central government - US news is not centrally controlled like that, but most sources lean heavily left or right, and distort narratives to fit their views.

I feel like liberals believe that, while Fox News is clearly presenting things from a right-leaning perspective, most of their chosen news sources are neutral. That's absurd. NYT is certainly far left in how they spin the majority of their stories.

Re: That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus

#274

Post by [deleted] »

roody15 wrote: post #98

Once a Chinese grad student explained to me a difference he noted between Chinese and American citizens. He said in China no really reads or watches 24/7 major news outlets in China. They are fully aware that all of it is propaganda and just go about their life. He said Americans seem to get really emotional over content in the press and seem to really struggle with the idea of propaganda / journalism in the news. I…

[deleted]

Re: That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus

#275

Post by pixl97 »

CommieBobDole wrote: post #192
roody15 wrote: post #98

Once a Chinese grad student explained to me a difference he noted between Chinese and American citizens. He said in China no really reads or watches 24/7 major news outlets in China. They are fully aware that all of it is propaganda and just go about their life. He said Americans seem to get really emotional over content in the press and seem to really struggle with the idea of propaganda / journalism in the news. I…

I'd like to point out that the student's advice, "of course the news is ridiculous propaganda, just ignore it and go about your life and focus on your friends and family" is the the response desired by the authoritarian Chinese government who has carefully engineered the situation in the first place. The purpose of constantly publishing obvious lies is not for people to believe them (though some always will), it's to…

> it's to devalue the idea of truth in general.

You see a common theme in some people talking about science related things, aka "The science was wrong", which is very rarely the case. Most of the time when that is said it's "The conclusion was slightly incorrect because of statistically insignificant findings" (probability based) versus wrong (binary). You end up with a class of people that start thinking all science is wrong and at any moment their crackpot crap is suddenly going to be correct.

Re: That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus

#276

Post by ImPostingOnHN »

suddenlybananas wrote: post #156
alansammarone wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I think I agree with most of what you're saying, I think it can be misunderstood and it can be very damaging when taken to an extreme, so I'll just leave a quote from the absolutely fantastic 20 lessons from the 20th century by Timothy Snyder: > Believe in truth. To abandon facts is to abandon freedom. If nothing is true, then no one can criticize power, because there is no basis upon which to do so. If nothing…

Well, Snyder himself is a bit of a propagandist with his ridiculous double genocide theory. Here's a longer discussion[1] with examples of how he is an ideologue. (I would have liked to post a reply to the people responding to me but alas, I cannot.) [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1brdk1l/comm...

Could you please stop repeatedly editing multiple comments to respond to replies? The "reply" function exists for a reason, and your backedits disrupt the directional read of a thread, confusing the discussion.

If the HN system tells you that you're posting too fast, and you need to slow down, that also exists for a reason: you are, and you do. You can still reply (so please stop saying you cannot), you just need to slow down, be patient, and wait. It's ok to wait. Don't try to evade the restrictions. Wait.

Re: That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus

#277

Post by pixl97 »

herval wrote: post #226
UpsideDownRide wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lack of critical thinking is a bit of a worldwide schooling system failure. Underfunding on one hand and not having an education plan for people to develop those skills leads to what we have. Some are lucky to get those skills from home or from top tier schools. I imagine that this state of things was somewhat beneficial for the ruling elites but Russia is now showing the whole western world, that dumb population is…

Indeed it is - and likely by design anyway (critical thinking is bad for political control, after all). You generally want the ones in power (preferably the ones aligned to you) to be better educated than the masses.

In a 'well functioning' aristocracy the rich and titled tend to go to the best universities and get educations an such. In authoritarian governments the opposite tends to happen. Anyone that is too smart could take over and rule themselves and must have an accident before that can happen. You end up circled by ass kissers.

Re: That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus

#278

Post by oofbey »

bArray wrote: post #26

If the objective is to knock out cell towers, just jam them. It's clearly a SIM farm for middle-man communications. It just happened to be close to where the UN were.

Also hard to imagine how this could be used for espionage. Listening in on cell traffic requires defeating security measures in the protocol. Generally something like a 0 day. This might require a single SIM card, but probably not lots of unless there’s something very unusual about the vulnerability that requires lots of valid seeming actors on the network. Plausible I suppose. But “SMS spam” is a vastly more likely explanation than a security hole that can’t be brute forced on the radio.

Re: That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus

#279

Post by oofbey »

throwaway894345 wrote: post #232
whatamidoingyo wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This reminded me of a YouTube clip I watched years ago. It was basically a retired KGB agent explaining how the media purposely puts out conflicting stories. This breaks the brain of the citizens, and they're unable to know what is true. We indeed see this here in the US. I can't tell you what is true or false (in media) objectively. I can choose what I want to believe is true, though.

I would expect to see conflicting narratives in any country with free press. Why would we expect different outlets with different biases to run consistent narratives?

I agree it’s healthy for Americans to be more skeptical of journalism, especially the sources they think they trust. But a key difference between NYT and Xinhua in China is that NYT explicitly doesn’t want to be duped. Sure reporters are lazy and will run an article quickly about a breaking story they get from a government tip. But if they find out it was wrong the editors will be pissed and likely print an update or even retraction. That’s the key difference between independent media and government propaganda.

Re: That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus

#280

Post by CodeWriter23 »

The author does not dispute devices were found. Author expresses a belief it was controlled by a criminal enterprise. Author then claims to understand the intent of said enterprise.

The pattern: 1. Corroborate fact. 2. Pose plausible cause of fact. 3. Present unsubstantiated claim as fact.

Sounds like propaganda to me.

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