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That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus

cybersect.substack.com

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Re: That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus

#451

Post by Rover222 »

VerminOctopus1 wrote: post #359
Rover222 wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, m…

The fact that you think NYT is “far left” is a great example of how incredibly far the overton window has shifted.

The whole democratic party has shifted drastically left in the last 10 years. If you can't recognize this, you're just deep in the echo chamber, IMO.

Re: That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus

#452

Post by Rover222 »

SmirkingRevenge wrote: post #394
Rover222 wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, m…

NYT is definitely not far left and is still the cream of the crop when it comes to fact-based reporting According to this outfit the NYT "skews left": https://app.adfontesmedia.com/chart/interactive Their opinion section is mostly center left but has pretty wide ideological diversity

They do still do a lot of fact-based reporting, that why I'm still a subscriber. But their staff is 90% liberal, and it certainly comes through in a lot of their reporting, not just in opinion pieces. The left is as much as an echo chamber as the right, if you stick to media aligned on either side.

Re: That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus

#453

Post by immibis »

levocardia wrote: post #379
gaoshan wrote: post #262

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…

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 source…

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.

Re: That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus

#454

Post by IAmBroom »

sbarre wrote: post #170

This whole thing reminds me of the 90s when the government would bust some 16 year old hacker kid in his suburban bedroom who was abusing a PBX, and then parade him around like they'd arrested Lex Luthor (the cartoon villain, not the actual hacker) and prevented a global crisis.

"We just arrested this drug pusher. One of our brave officers got a 0.001 milligram piece of fentynal on his sleeve, but fortunately after being rushed to the Emergency Room we were able to save his life.

"The other 0.003 mg were lost while trying to get them in the evidence bag."

Re: That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus

#455

Post by Atlas667 »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #299
pkphilip wrote: post #260

Reminds me of the time when I consulted with a very large newspaper chain in the US which owned a lot of papers - both left leaning and right leaning. we used to get feeds from all of the usual sources. But the news articles themselves were "massaged" in various ways by some of the same editorial teams to suit the left-leaning or the right-leaning newspapers. The idea that completely different spin can be put to the…

>What this taught me is that the media's primary role is to polarise people to either the left or the right so that they can be herded to vote along or act along prescribed lines. It has nothing to do with voting or acting. It has everything to do with locking in another consistent reader (aka "ad viewer"). If you can get someone ideologically driven, they become hooked, and you can stroke their ego by feeding them c…

The ad viewer rationale is parallel to advertiser interests and state goals. The media will try to satisfy it's advertisers editorially as well as comply with some state narratives for state favors.

Advertisers have massive leverage over what gets published in the media through pulling and pushing their ad funding.

And "Ex" NSA/CIA/FBI employees work in all branches of communications/media and many in editorial roles like "Foreign Policy Editors/Analysts", "Law Enforcement Analyst" or as consultants for editors.

It's not just "the media" who is destroying the country, it's capitalism and their profit motive.

Re: That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus

#456

Post by chrononaut »

istjohn wrote: post #429
chrononaut wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No, [journalists] know what they are doing ... Carefully calibrated, highly-selective use of (often, quite awkward) linguistic constructs does not happen unconsciously, it is a deliberate, knowing choice. The incredible vast majority of people in the world are acting in good faith. The way you are framing this is that nearly all journalists are acting in bad faith, which makes me believe the arguments of the parent…

> The incredible vast majority of people in the world are acting in good faith. We have fundamentally different priors.

Which areas or circumstances are you observing otherwise?

Re: That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus

#457

Post by IAmBroom »

mmcwilliams wrote: post #112
t1234s wrote: post #105

I thought it looked suspicious how neat the cabling was done and cables taped down to the floor to prevent tripping hazards. This would most likely not be the case for a one-time event.

Why not? That's the standard on film shoots in locations that are absolutely "one-time events". People do that all the time.

Unless you're claiming this was pulled off by a pro film crew, that point is irrelevant.

My computer setup is far from a one-time event, and my cabling is a nightmare.

Re: That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus

#458

Post by SoftTalker »

boomboomsubban wrote: post #445
gaoshan wrote: post #262

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…

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.

Re: That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus

#459

Post by nostrademons »

deelowe wrote: post #450
nostrademons wrote: post #444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 w…

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."

Here's his bio from the RSA conference:

https://www.rsaconference.com/experts/robert-graham

BlackICE was a big personal firewall 20 or so years ago - you can read all the CNet/ZDNet reviews if you search for it. You can also look at his code (for a port scanner that can scan the entire Internet in 5 minutes, whew) on GitHub:

https://github.com/robertdavidgraham/masscan

Re: That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus

#460

Post by mewse-hn »

sbarre wrote: post #170

This whole thing reminds me of the 90s when the government would bust some 16 year old hacker kid in his suburban bedroom who was abusing a PBX, and then parade him around like they'd arrested Lex Luthor (the cartoon villain, not the actual hacker) and prevented a global crisis.

I forget what originally opened my eyes to the theatrics of a typical perp walk (probably Grisham) - the cops tip off the reporters, the reporters get their content for the nightly news, the cops use the front door of the station rather than using the parking garage entrance like normal. It's a bizarro red carpet event.
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