Comment by binarray2000 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by binarray2000 | Hacker News Reader

> AND PUTIN'S WORST NIGHTMARE

Yes, we know that the "U.S. No Longer An Actual Democracy" [1] but, can the US MSM at least TRY to make us think that it is? I mean, look at these:

http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/54dca6ffeab8ea393e4...

http://gdb.rferl.org/4881AF9E-1328-47C6-B468-559DBCE349DF_w9...

http://gdb.rferl.org/4D8132DF-9979-4338-8545-2FE3A9B7E259_w9...

http://cdn.spectator.co.uk/content/uploads/2016/10/cover_spe...

http://cdn.static-economist.com/sites/default/files/imagecac...

(This is just a small excerpt. Search Google images for putin cover page. Just for fun, Google search for trump cover page as well.)

Is this objective, non-partisan, peace-oriented media? Or lying, partisan and warmongering media?

Where are the evidences that Russia or Putin himself are breaking into US servers? No one provides one.

Why is this not a headline news:

James Clapper: Non-state actor likely to blame for massive cyberattack

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/james-clapper-non-state-actor-li...

Where is Joe Biden to threaten Russia after these revelations by Clapper?

Listen, I want to live in peace and prosperity and not have to die (or be maimed) in some war or to be a refugee or to have to build my home. And, I hope, neither do YOU.

[1] Don't believe me. Believe the son of the US billionaire Herbert Sandler:

https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/3723#efmAMnANJA...

One thing I learned from following the US elections for a year is that all those people saying "omg free media is soooooo important in a democracy" turned out to be absolutely right.

The subtlety is that "controlled media" isn't just "state-owned media" (something that the US media loves pointing out about RT for example). If you have a system where incentives are put in place so that the media has an interest in presenting an image of those in power which is the image that those in power would like to present, then the media won't show you an objective picture. In the case of democracies (and here I'm not only talking about the US) these incentives are what's called "access". That is, the idea that if someone in the media wants to call an insider in the government, that guy will take the call. Media companies who don't have this access aren't seen as serious and lose viewers. That is why media in the US (and most democracies) isn't really free (for the most part; there are exceptions): because if they're seen to be very anti-establishment, they won't get any access.

Here's a thought experiment. Imagine that we institute by law a "Chinese wall" [1], of the type that banks already have, between government and media. Prediction: the first time this idea will be proposed, both the government and the media will hysterically oppose this idea. The government because they lose on of the most important forms of control that they have over the media, and the media because they lose their competitive advantage over any well informed youtuber with smart things to say.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_wall

What does compliance with your rule look like? The media only talking to designated spokespeople on recorded video? The media just publishing press releases? How do they investigate things that the government PR doesn't want to discuss?

I have a problem with the way access is traded on, but I think the solution is to convince some media companies to have some backbone (we invited Titus J. Stuffington on tonight, he didn't want to talk about the bribes he took, we decided not to get some damn fool to defend the bribes in his stead), not to ban them from talking to government officials.

I hear you, this is the old debate of incentives versus regulation: which one should you use in order to extract the outcome you believe is better. I don't know.

The problem with "convince media companies" to have backbone is one of incentives. Media companies are fighting amongst them, and if the incentives are such that the ones that "have a backbone" will always lose to the ones that don't, then your approach is a non-starter (and I believe this is currently the case because viewers demand that the media company have "access").

So how could you align a media company having a backbone with it winning in the media company competition? Well, for example by targeting a niche audience that hates seeing media companies pandering for the establishment. With that audience, your media company would win. Of course, only small companies target small niches. Then the question becomes: is that audience big enough that the big established media companies notice and want to gun for it?

Then there's an additional complication which is that with your method media companies aren't _really_ calling out poor bad governmental behaviours, but only having the appearance of doing so. That is, they try to appeal to the "no bullshit crowd" by calling out minor pre-negociated points, while still cuddling with the government on the things that really matter.

It's a complicated world.

Again, what does compliance with your rule look like? How do journalists do journalism if they can't talk to key players in the stories they investigate?

Again, I don't know.

Maybe the answer isn't that they can't talk altogether, but that regulations should be put in place for communications. For example, if a journalist wants to talk to a government official they can do so whenever the government officla say so, but the _full_ content of the conversation has to be made available to all media companies before any one of them can publish anything. The downside with this approach is that it removes the incentive of any one media company to put much resources into investigative journalism that gets it scoops from conversations with the government. The upside with this approach is that it removes the obvious conflict of interests which is that media companies won't trash the government in order to be fed these scoops (and when I say "the government" I'm including the opposition; one's business model is to be fed by the Republicans (Fox) the other's will be to be fed by the Democrats (MSNBC))

> "Why is this not a headline news: James Clapper: Non-state actor likely to blame for massive cyberattack"

Maybe because everyone and their dog in tech understands this was just script kiddies playing with new toys?

Why the jump over to the DDOS from last week? No one is saying it was Russia, so you want everyone who previously made statements about other, ostensibly unrelated hacks to clarify that they don't think the DDOS was related to Russia?

As far as the email hacks, there are a couple of recent pieces laying out the case for tying them to Russia:

http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a49791/russian-dnc-emai...

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/how-hackers-broke-into-john...

As the Motherboard article says, there is no known smoking gun, but the targeting of the phishing campaign has a pretty strong overlap with Russian interests.

Well, then let's go back to DNC Leaks:

NSA Whistleblower: US Intelligence Worker Likely Behind DNC Leaks, Not Russia

http://theantimedia.org/nsa-whistleblower-dnc-russia/

I have William Binney and you have Vice (owned by Disney) and Esquire (by Hearst). Someone like Binney beats journalists working for corporatocracy. Every day. :-)

The author of the Esquire piece isn't a journalist working for Esquire.

Oh man, you just keep on giving. Thank you! Your input keeps my juices flowing. :-)

Thomas Rid has worked for "Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik, a Berlin think tank".

https://ridt.co/about/

And do you know who SWP has worked for? U.S. State Department:

> The Cablegate leak produced evidence that leading representatives of the SWP (Volker Perthes, its head, and Walter Posch, an expert on Iran) had advised the U.S. State Department to proceed against Iran with a "policy of covert sabotage (unexplained explosions, accidents, computer hacking etc)".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Institute_for_Internati...

Thank you again for helping me expose yet another branch of the corporatocracy tree.

(BTW, I have researched this in five minutes, max.)

(BTW, I have researched this in five minutes, max.)

What's your point? You can take previous work in the field both ways, it "connects" someone, but it also means they have some chance of knowing what they are talking about. Above, you use Binney's past at the NSA as something that adds credence to his words...

There is a HUGE difference between the two.

> Binney was a Russia specialist and worked in the operations side of intelligence, starting as an analyst and ending as a Technical Director prior to becoming a geopolitical world Technical Director. In the 1990s, he co-founded a unit on automating signals intelligence with NSA research chief Dr. John Taggart. Binney's NSA career culminated as Technical Leader for intelligence in 2001. Having expertise in intelligence analysis, traffic analysis, systems analysis, knowledge management, and mathematics (including set theory, number theory, and probability), Binney has been described as one of the best analysts in the NSA's history.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Binney_(U.S._intellige...

William Binney is a heavyweight (NSA Technical Director), an insider, Russia expert (especially regarding SIGINT).

I don't see that Thomas Rid has done anything but teaching and writing while working for various USG affiliated think thanks. While that might be admirable in itself, what credibility does he have regarding the expertise or the inner workings of US or Russian intelligence? I don't see much, even when not compared to Binney.

Another difference: By working for USG affiliated think thanks (RAND Corporation, SWP), Rid is just another exceptionally well paid [1] alibi provider for the imperial politics the US oligarchy leads. And that makes him very biased, which in turn makes his writing very biased. So biased in fact, that it insults my intelligence. How are the Esquire editors so stupid not to think that I will take Rid's name, Google it and find out (in less than five minutes!) that he's a shill?

[1] Normal professors cannot afford to live "in the Barbican in the City of London". And he even has chuzpe to brag about it!

So your solution to what you perceive to be propaganda, is lower quality propaganda? I guess you took a look at "credible arguments" and decided, no, you'll just stick to the other side of the false dichotomy.

Great question with a great phrase "lower quality propaganda" (can I steal it?).

I am well aware that I am manipulated, as is everybody else. By every medium. Be it a small blog, be it commercially owned medium, be it state owned medium. And I try to consume a wide range of them to get a better picture.

Here is my list of worst to best in "propaganda quality":

- US corporate media just insults my intelligence. I consume it but it's unbearable. Its manipulation tactics are so obvious, so inelegant, so clumsy. US empire and its media has done something remarkable in the 26 years since the fall of the Berlin wall: In 1990 USA was a country with a great image, in 2016 USA is arguably the most hated country in the world.

- BBC does it MUUUUCH better. You can see that the Brits still know how to be an empire. Smaller, but an empire nonetheless. They have learned their lesson and now they don't let their hubris take over. That's why BBC is much more bearable because they are subtle in the way they manipulate.

- Russia Today, state owned (just like the BBC!) does it best! Look at its name: Russia Today. You'd think that you'll learn something about Russia today by consuming it. Well, you kind of do, but they show you only the good stuff. They don't lie (like their US or, subtler, British colleagues). No, they left out news that make them look bad but they (almost) don't lie. And, regarding the world (especially US, UK, Europe, wars NATO as alliance and member states are involved in) they are very close to the core truth. Big plus, they (often) invite people who have opposite opinion. Bottom line, they don't insult my intelligence by manipulating me.

> Why is this not a headline news:

You linked to a highlighted story on their sci/tech section. What more do you want? There's tens of outlets reporting his comments - just check Google News.

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