I think this is a really thorough mea culpa which is quite impressive, given the frequent failure of other newspapers to publish a prominent apology when they have got things far more wrong than this.
> I think this is a really thorough mea culpa which is quite impressive
It took almost 6 months of badgering for that to finally happen though, despite an extensive and widely signed (by experts) op-ed pointing out how wrong and dangerous it was barely a week after the original article was published, and calls for corrections/retractions started within days if not hours.
> given the frequent failure of other newspapers to publish a prominent apology when they have got things far more wrong than this.
Getting things "far more wrong" matters less when it doesn't put lives at stakes, and you don't need to believe me on that, this correction article makes that point:
> During the review I independently confirmed that a Turkish government official had used the article when, in effect, attempting to deter users from WhatsApp.
> It took almost 6 months of badgering for that to finally happen though, despite an extensive and widely signed (by experts) op-ed pointing out how wrong and dangerous it was barely a week after the original article was published, and calls for corrections/retractions started within days if not hours.
Completely agreed, but they do fully concede this in their retraction:
>This made a relatively small, expert, vocal and persistent audience very angry. Guardian editors did not react to an open letter co-signed by 72 experts in a way commensurate with the combined stature of the critics and the huge number of people potentially affected by the story.
It might have taken a while for their internal review to complete but, honestly, what more can we ask for but an honest admission like this? If more media outlets could meet this standard we'd be in a much better place.
Could they have come back to us faster, yes, but an honest, well thought through apology with all these details included is a really strong response and I'm not going to complain.
We can always complain about why not this or that, but it seems we are never satisfied even when we get what we want.
Yes, we should be skeptical of all news sources, but from my experience, traditional newspapers tend to consistently misreport information security news.
I personally only trust security blogs and Twitters operated by certain security experts when it comes to news about security. I have a list of about 30 or so experts I trust.
I know that's not really practical advice for a typical person, though.
I think the Guardian handled the retraction and apology as best they could, and they deserve props for that, but it seems the hit-miss ratio for infosec stories is very poor for most "mainstream" sources out there (as much as I despise the "MSM" term).
As an ordinary guy for whom IT security is just one of many topics in which I'm interested, what do you suggest? I can't follow 1000s of blogs that cover all my interests.
And how do I choose reputable blogs in the first place? Do I trust reputation on HN and Reddit?
In the end, sure some articles will get some things wrong. But I would like to see evidence that they get it wrong more often than any other general source of news.
A few of these can occasionally be biased when there's a political edge to something, but some others I trust: Moxie Marlinspike, Daniel Bernstein, Dan Kaminsky, Rob Graham, Thomas Ptacek, Michał Zalewski, @SwiftOnSecurity (semi-parody account, but trustworthy info), Tavis Ormandy
>An investigation by the FBI has concluded that Russian hackers were responsible for sending out fake messages from the Qatari government, sparking the Gulf’s biggest diplomatic crisis in decades.
>It is believed that the Russian government was not involved in the hacks; instead, freelance hackers were paid to undertake the work on behalf of some other state or individual.
They could've easily made the headline "FBI: Qatar hackers of Russian nationality". By making the first 2 words of the headline "Russian hackers", they're obviously trying to take advantage of the recent surge in reports over Russian state-sponsored hacking. Most readers who see that headline are going to assume they meant "Russian state hackers", until they read the second paragraph.
That said, I don't see any factual errors in the article itself.
Did you read it? This is a lawyers carefully worded article to avoid being sued...
> "I accept the consensus view of the experts and, in consultation with editors, have arranged for the coverage to be amended and for a note to be added drawing attention to the review and linking to this column.
> I do not agree with critics that the story should be entirely retracted."
Huh? Accepting a consensus view is a really shifty way to avoid acknowledging being blatantly wrong.
I try to avoid making a habit of commenting on things without reading them, and also of over-quickly assuming that others do so.
> This is a lawyers [sic] carefully worded article to avoid being sued [...] Accepting a consensus view is a really shifty way to avoid acknowledging being blatantly wrong.
This leads me to question whether you read the article, or simply picked out snippets to support your preconceptions. Let's take some other quotations:
> In a detailed review I found that misinterpretations, mistakes and misunderstandings happened at several stages of the reporting and editing process. Cumulatively they produced an article that overstated its case.
> The most serious inaccuracy was a claim that WhatsApp had a “backdoor”
^ these look like an acknowledgement to me.
Furthermore, to refute your selectively used quotation above:
> I am not an expert in this field. For the review I consulted suitably experienced experts other than the 72 who had already declared their view. [...] I found a consensus that [...]
The author is accepting the consensus view amongst the experts with whom he spoke, since, as he acknowledges, he is not an expert in the field. This seems to me to be an emminently sensible approach, which most journalists would do well to follow.
It absolutely was a thorough mea culpa. You are also absolutely correct that it was not, at all, a timely mea culpa. The lack of timeliness makes it a much less impactful mea culpa, as public consciousness of the issue is likely drastically reduced, and there will likely be many who now remember the initial uproar but never see the correction.
