Another Word For It Patrick Durusau on Topic Maps and Semantic Diversity

June 15, 2016

Judicial Decision Making, Pulling Back the Curtain (Miranda v. Arizona)

Filed under: Government,History,Law — Patrick Durusau @ 1:11 pm

Miranda v. Arizona: Exploring Primary Sources Behind the Supreme Court Case by Stephen Wesson.

From the post:

You have the right to remain silent….” These words, and the rest of the legal warning that follows, are so well-known that they’ve almost become a synonym for “You’re under arrest.” They occupy such a familiar place in popular culture that it might seem as though they’d been part of U.S. law for centuries. However, the now-ubiquitous Miranda warning only came into being fifty years ago, when the Supreme Court ruled that the rights of a criminal suspect, Ernesto Miranda, had been violated because he had not been informed of his Constitutional protections against self-incrimination.

The Library of Congress is marking this landmark anniversary with the launch of Miranda v. Arizona: The Rights to Justice, an online presentation of historical documents that shed light on the arguments around, and the reaction to, the Miranda ruling of 1966. These documents, which include papers written by and for several Supreme Court justices, allow students to explore the issues discussed by the justices as they considered the ramifications of the case. In addition, letters from law enforcement officers and members of the public illuminate the contentious public debate that erupted after the ruling.

One particularly powerful document for students to analyze is a page from a memorandum that associate justice William Brennan sent to chief justice Earl Warren about the case. Acknowledging that his 21-page response is lengthy, Brennan explains, “this will be one of the the most important opinions of our time…”

He then focuses on two words from Warren’s opinion that he says go “to the basic thrust of the approach to be taken.” He expounds,

An important collection of documents, not only as background to Miranda v. Arizona but also as insight into decision making in the Supreme Court.

Decisions are announced by the media in sound-bite sized chunks, which fail to portray the complexity of Court opinions, much less the process by which they are created.

I can think of any number of cases that merit this sort of treatment or even deeper, inter-linked collections of documents.

Enjoy!

Mis-Direction: Possible What3Words App

Filed under: Mapping,Maps,Security — Patrick Durusau @ 12:24 pm

Take a minute to visit https://map.what3words.com/ or my post Wrigley Field: 1060 W Addison St, Chicago, IL or digits.bucked.talent? (3-Word Addresses), or this post won’t be as useful as it could be.

In a nutshell, https://map.what3words.com/ has created a 3 by 3 meter grid on the Earth’s surface and assigned each block a three-word name. For the convenience of people accustomed to more conventional addresses, where available, you can submit an address and get the three-word name for that block back.

Excellent potential for a project name “Mis-Direction,” that needs an innocent name as a smartphone app.

You send someone a three-word block name and when displayed on their smartphone, it maps to the “canonical” location. Anyone using your phone will get that result.

However, if when the location is displayed, without a prompt or signal, if you enter a 5-digit code, the actual location intended by the sender is revealed.

Would require a mapping table between 3-word name as sent and 3-word name as intended, and the locations have to be plausible to any third party who might be tracking the communication or using your phone.

I would suggest allowing 5 tries to get the correct number because locations for demonstrations and other activities need to be operationally secure for only a matter of hours.

After that, anyone can follow the trail of emergency vehicles to a location that was a closely held secret only hours before.

It isn’t clear if the uptake on What3Words will be broad enough to have an impact at large political gatherings in the United States this year but the same re-mapping principle with password applies to more conventional mapping techniques as well.

Investigative journalism tools

Filed under: Journalism,News,Reporting — Patrick Durusau @ 10:41 am

Investigative journalism tools by Markus Mandalka.

From the webpage:

Free software for journalists: Tutorials, bookmarks and open source tools for journalistic research, investigations and privacy and other digital tools for investigative journalism and data driven journalism or datajournalism:

Numerous resources organized under the following broad categories:

  • Databases, digital archives, data management systems, document management systems and content management systems
  • Data visualization
  • Extract data or convert data
  • Graphs and social network analysis (SNA)
  • Import and transform or convert data
  • Media monitoring, news filtering, news pipes and alerts
  • Privacy, security, safety and encryption
  • Reconcilation and merging
  • Search engines for fulltext search and discovery
  • Statistics and analytics
  • Tagging and annotation
  • Text mining, text analysis and document mining
  • Tutorials and tips: How to use open source research tools for investigative journalism
  • Universal open source toolset

A very useful site that is also available in Deutsch.

Suggestion: It’s easy to get overwhelmed by tool listings. Outline what you want from a tool in X category and go over the tools in that category with a view of selecting only one.

Use it long enough to see if it meets your current requirements. It may not be the latest or most talked about tool, but if it fits your needs and work flow, what more would you want?

That’s not to blind you to better tools, which do appear from time to time, but time spent on tool mastery is time not spent on research, writing and reporting.

June 14, 2016

Mapping Media Freedom

Filed under: Censorship,Free Speech,Journalism,News,Reporting — Patrick Durusau @ 6:51 pm

Mapping Media Freedom

From the webpage:

Journalists and media workers are confronting relentless pressure simply for doing their job. Mapping Media Freedom identifies threats, violations and limitations faced by members of the press throughout European Union member states, candidates for entry and neighbouring countries.

My American readers should not be mis-led by the current map image:

media-map-2-cropped-460

If it is true the United States is free from press suppression, something I seriously doubt, it won’t be long before it starts to rack up incidents on this site.

Just today, Newt Gingrich, a truly unpleasant waste of human skin, proposed re-igniting the witch hunt committees of the 1950’s. Newt Gingrich Suggests Reforming House Un-American Committee In Wake Of Orlando Shooting.

The so-called “presumptive” candidates for President, Clinton and Trump, have called for tech companies to aid in the suppression of jihadist content and even the closing off of parts of the internet.

At least once a week, visit the Mapping Media Freedom and do what you can to support the media everywhere.

More Censorship Is Coming – To The USA

Filed under: Censorship,Free Speech — Patrick Durusau @ 9:32 am

Hillary Clinton says tech companies need to ‘step up’ fight against ISIS propaganda by Amar Toor.

From the post:

Hillary Clinton said this week that if elected president, she would work with major technology companies to “step up” counter-terrorism efforts, including surveillance of social media and campaigns to combat jihadist propaganda online. As Reuters reports, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee made the comments in a speech in Cleveland Monday, one day after a gunman killed 49 people and left 53 wounded at a gay nightclub in Orlando.

Clinton did not provide details on how she would work with tech companies, though her comments add to the ongoing debate over privacy and national security, which has intensified following recent terrorist attacks in both the US and Europe. In her speech, the former secretary of state called for an “intelligence surge,” saying that security agencies “need better intelligence to discover and disrupt terrorist plots before they can be carried out.” She also called on the government and tech companies to “use all our capabilities to counter jihadist propaganda online.”

“As president, I will work with our great tech companies from Silicon Valley to Boston to step up our game,” Clinton said. “We have to [do] a better job intercepting ISIS’ communications, tracking and analyzing social media posts and mapping jihadist networks, as well as promoting credible voices who can provide alternatives to radicalization.”

What does it mean to “counter jihadist propaganda online?”

Does it include factual reports about the aims of jihadists and the abuses they seek to correct?

For example, the Declaration of Independence was once considered “propaganda.”

Does it include factual reports of terrorist bombings by coalition forces on jihadists positions?

Question: Who do you root for in the Star Wars movies, the tiny band of rebels or the empire?

Does it include calling on young people to actively resist corrupt and oppressive governments?

Let’s see…

Even anarchy itself, that bugbear held up by the tools of power (though truly to be deprecated) is infinitely less dangerous to mankind than arbitrary government. Anarchy can be but of short duration; for when men are at liberty to pursue that course which is most conducive to their own happiness, they will soon come into it, and for the rudest state of nature, order and good government must soon arise. But tyranny, when once established, entails its curse on a nation to the latest period of time; unless some daring genius, inspired by Heaven, shall unappalled by danger, bravely form and execute the arduous design of restoring liberty and life to his enslaved, murdered country.” [AN ORATION DELIVERED MARCH 6, 1775, AT THE… Joseph Warren (1741-1775) Boston: Printed by Messieurs Edes and Gill, and by J. Greenleaf, 1775 E297 W54, Fighting Words, a collection at Utah State University.]

Updated to use modern language, would that qualify?

As I remember the First Amendment, all of those qualify as protected free speech.

Clinton and her separated-at-birth twin, Donald Trump, can try to impose censorship on the legitimate speech of jihadists.

Let’s all lend the jihadists a hand and repeat their legitimate speech on a regular basis.

I for one would like to hear what the jihadists have to say for themselves.

Wouldn’t you?

ClojureBridge…beginner friendly alternative to the official Clojure docs

Filed under: Clojure,Functional Programming,Programming — Patrick Durusau @ 8:40 am

Get into Clojure with ClojureBridge

Welcome to ClojureBridge CommunityDocs, the central location for material supporting and extending the core ClojureBridge curriculum (https://github.com/ClojureBridge/curriculum). Our goal is to provide additional labs and explanations from coaches to address the needs of attendees from a wide range of cultural and technical backgrounds.

Arne Brasseur ‏tweeted earlier today:

Little known fact, the ClojureBridge community docs are a beginner friendly alternative to the official Clojure docs

Pass this along and contribute to the “beginner friendly alternative” so this becomes a well known fact.

Enjoy!

June 13, 2016

Wrigley Field: 1060 W Addison St, Chicago, IL or digits.bucked.talent? (3-Word Addresses)

Filed under: GeoNames,Georeferencing,Government,Mapping,Maps — Patrick Durusau @ 8:51 pm

Elwood Blues says in The Blues Brothers that he falsified his drivers license renewal and listed:

“1060 W. Addision”

as his home address, somehow

digits.bucked.talent

doesn’t carry the same impact. Yes?

Mongolia has places as familiar as Wrigley Field is to Americans but starting next month, all locations in Mongolia are going to have three-word phrase addresses. Mongolia is changing all its addresses to three-word phrases by Joon Ian Wong.

From the post:

Mongolia will become a global pioneer next month, when its national post office starts referring to locations by a series of three-word phrases instead of house numbers and street names.

The new system is devised by a British startup called What3Words, which has assigned a three-word phrase to every point on the globe. The system is designed to solve the an often-ignored problem of 75% of the earth’s population, an estimated 4 billion people, who have no address for mailing purposes, making it difficult to open a bank account, get a delivery, or be reached in an emergency. In What3Words’ system, the idea is that a series of words is easier to remember than the strings of number that make up GPS coordinates. Each unique phrase corresponds to a specific 9-square-meter spot on the map.

For example, the White House, at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, becomes sulk.held.raves; the Tokyo Tower is located at fans.helpless.collects; and the Stade de France is at reporter.smoked.received.

Mongolians will be the first to use the system for government mail delivery, but organizations including the United Nations, courier companies, and mapping firms like Navmii already use What3Words’ system.

The most remarkable aspect of the https://map.what3words.com/ is revealed if you try for:

Gandan Monastery (Gandantegchinlen Khiid), Gandan Monastery District, Ulaanbaatar 16040 (011 36 0354).

Use this URL: https://map.what3words.com/Gandantegchenlen+Khiid+Ulaanbaatar+Mongolia

mongolia-map-460

Now try changing languages (upper-right).

Three-word phrase addresses for the Gandan Monastery:

  • picturing.backfired.riverside (English)
  • schneller.juwelen.schaffen (German)
  • aislados.grifo.acuerde (Spanish)
  • nuageux.lémurien.rejouer (French)
  • turbato.fotografate.tinozza (Italian)
  • chinelo.politicar.molhada (Portugese
  • matte.skivar.kasta (Swedish)
  • vücudu.ırmak.peşini (Turkish)
  • карьера.слог.шелка (Russian)

I have only had time to spot check the site but did find retraced.loudest.teaspoon for Yap Island in Micronesia.

More obscure places to try?

You can find a wealth of additional information, yes, including an API at: http://what3words.com/.

A great opportunity for topic maps as previous ways of identifying locations are not going to wink out of existence. If 3-word addresses catch on, use of other locators may dwindle but that will be over generations. We are facing a very long transition period.

Thoughts on weaponizing 3-word addresses. First, using the wrong 3-word addresses to mis-lead agents of the state. Second, creating new 3-word addresses that can be embedded prose, song, without the dot separators.

Not to mention a server with proper authentication, returns the “correct” map location for a 3-word address, otherwise, you get the standard one.

Enjoy!

Microsoft Giveth, Microsoft Taketh Away

Filed under: Law,Microsoft — Patrick Durusau @ 12:43 pm

Microsoft Revoking Free Fallout 4 Copies Grabbed Due to Xbox Store Error by Ron Witaker.

From the post:

Yesterday afternoon, Fallout 4‘s Deluxe Edition Bundle showed up on the Xbox Store for a very attractive price – $0.00. As you can imagine, word of the error spread quickly, and while no numbers are available, you can bet that many people took advantage of the deal to grab a copy for their Xbox One. That version of the game typically runs $109.99, and includes the Season Pass for all the DLC.

Ron goes on to point out that Microsoft is revoking all licenses obtained due to this error.

With some exceptions, a sale is a completed act and not subject to revocation by only one of the parties.

Would be a stronger case if Fallout 4‘s Deluxe Edition Bundle had listed a price of at least $0.01. Can you say why?

Would costing $0.01 when purchased with other games make a difference?

Keep an eye out for litigation!

How Do I Become A Censor?

Filed under: Censorship,Free Speech,Social Media — Patrick Durusau @ 12:22 pm

You read about censorship or efforts at censorship on a daily basis.

But none of those reports answers the burning question of the social media age: How Do I Become A Censor?

I mean, what’s the use of reading about other people censoring your speech if you aren’t free to censor theirs? Where the fun in that?

Andrew Golis has an answer for you in: Comments are usually garbage. We’re adding comments to This.!.

Three steps to becoming a censor:

  1. Build a social media site that accepts comments
  2. Declare a highly subjective ass-hat rules
  3. Censor user comments

There being no third-party arbiters, you are now a censor! Feel the power surging through your fingers. Crush dangerous thoughts, memes or content with a single return. The safety and sanity of your users is now your responsibility.

Heady stuff. Yes?

If you think this is parody, check out the This. Community Guidelines for yourself:


With that in mind, This. is absolutely not a place for:

Violations of law. While this is expanded upon below, it should be clear that we will not tolerate any violations of law when using our site.

Hate speech, malicious speech, or material that’s harmful to marginalized groups. Overtly discriminating against an individual belonging to a minority group on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sex, gender, sexual orientation, age, disability status, or medical condition won’t be tolerated on the site. This holds true whether it’s in the form of a link you post, a comment you make in a conversation, a username or display name you create (no epithets or slurs), or an account you run.

Harassment; incitements to violence; or threats of mental, emotional, cyber, or physical harm to other members. There’s a line between civil disagreement and harassment. You cross that line by bullying, attacking, or posing a credible threat to members of the site. This happens when you go beyond criticism of their words or ideas and instead attack who they are. If you’ve got a vendetta against a certain member, do not police and criticize that member’s every move, post, or comment on a conversation. Absolutely don’t take this a step further and organize or encourage violence against this person, whether through doxxing, obtaining dirt, or spreading that person’s private information.

Violations of privacy. Respect the sanctity of our members’ personal information. Don’t con them – or the infrastructure of our site – to obtain, post, or disseminate any information that could threaten or harm our members. This includes, but isn’t limited to, credit card or debit card numbers; social or national security numbers; home addresses; personal, non-public email addresses or phone numbers; sexts; or any other identifying information that isn’t already publicly displayed with that person’s knowledge.

Sexually-explicit, NSFW, obscene, vulgar, or pornographic content. We’d like for This. to be a site that someone can comfortably scroll through in a public space – say a cafe, or library. We’re not a place for sexually-explicit or pornographic posts, comments, accounts, usernames, or display names. The internet is rife with spaces for you to find people who might share your passion for a certain Pornhub video, but This. isn’t the place to do that. When it comes to nudity, what we do allow on our site is informative or newsworthy – so, for example, if you’re sharing this article on Cameroon’s breast ironing tradition, that’s fair game. Or a good news or feature article about Debbie Does Dallas. But, artful as it may be, we won’t allow actual footage of Debbie Does Dallas on the site. (We understand that some spaces on the internet are shitty at judging what is and isn’t obscene when it comes to nudity, so if you think we’ve pulled your post off the site because we’re a bunch of unreasonable prudes, we’ll be happy to engage.)

Excessively violent content. Gore, mutilation, bestiality, necrophilia? No thanks! There’s a distinction between a potentially upsetting image that’s worth consuming (think of some of the best war photography) and something you’d find in a snuff film. It’s not always an easy distinction to make – real life is pretty brutal, and some of the images we probably need to see are the hardest to stomach – but we also don’t want to create an overwhelmingly negative experience for anyone who visits the site and happens to stumble upon a painful image.

Promotion of self-harm, eating disorders, alcohol or drug abuse, or similar forms of destructive behavior. The internet is, sadly, also rife with spaces where people get off on encouraging others to hurt themselves. If you’d like to do that, get off our site and certainly seek help.

Username squatting. Dovetailing with that, we reserve the right to take back a username that is not being actively used and give it to someone else who’d like it it – especially if it’s, say, an esteemed publication, organization, or person. We’re also firmly against attempts to buy or sell stuff in exchange for usernames.

Use of the This. brand, trademark, or logo without consent. You also cannot use the This. name or anything associated with the brand without our consent – unless, of course, it’s a news item. That means no creating accounts, usernames, or display names that use our brand.

Spam. Populating the site with spammy accounts is antithetical to our mission – being the place to find the absolute best in media. If you’ve created accounts that are transparently selling, say, “installation help for Macbooks” or some other suspicious form tech support, or advertising your “viral video” about Justin Bieber that’s got a suspiciously low number of views, you don’t belong on our site. That contradicts why we exist as a platform – to give members a noise-free experience they can’t find elsewhere on the web.

Impersonation of others. Dovetailing with that – though we’d all like to be The New York Times or Diana Ross, don’t pretend to be them. Don’t create an identity on the site in the likeness of a company or person who isn’t you. If you decide, for some reason, to create a parody account of a public figure or organization – though we can think of better sites to do that on, frankly – make sure you make that as clear as possible in your display name, avatar, and bio.

Infringement of copyright or intellectual property rights. Don’t post copyrighted works without the permission of its original owner or creator. This extends, for example, to copying and pasting a copyrighted set of words into a comment and passing it off as your own without credit. If you think someone has unlawfully violated your own copyright, please follow the DMCA procedures set forth in our Terms of Service.

Mass or automated registration and following. We’ve worked hard to build the site’s infrastructure. If you manipulate that in any way to game your follow count or register multiple spam accounts, we’ll have to terminate your account.

Exploits, phishing, resource abuse, or fraudulent content. Do not scam our members into giving you money, or mislead our members through misrepresenting a link to, say, a virus.

Exploitation of minors. Do not post any material regarding minors that’s sexually explicit, violent, or harmful to their safety. Don’t solicit or request their private or personally identifiable information. Leave them alone.

So how do we take punitive action against anyone who violates these? Depends on the severity of the offense. If you’re a member with a good track record who seems to have slipped up, we’ll shoot you an email telling you why your content was removed. If you’ve shared, written, or done something flagrantly and recklessly violating one of these rules, we’ll ban you from the site through deleting your account and all that’s associated with it. And if we feel it’s necessary or otherwise believe it is required, we will work with law enforcement to handle any risk to one of our members, the This. community in general, or to public safety.

To put it plainly – if you’re an asshole, we’ll kick you off the site.

Let’s make that a little more concrete.

I want to say: “Former Vice-President Dick Cheney should be tortured for a minimum of thirty (30) years and be kept alive for that purpose, as a penalty for his war crimes.”

I can’t say that on This. because:

  • “incitement to violence” If torture is ok, then so it other violence.
  • “harmful to marginalized group” If you think of sociopaths as a marginalized group.
  • “harassment” Cheney is a victim too. He didn’t start life as a moral leper.
  • “excessively violence content” Assume I illustrate the torture Cheney should suffer.

Rules broken vary by the specific content of my speech.

Remind me to pass this advice along to: Jonathan “I Want To Be A Twitter Censor” Weisman. All he needs to do is build a competitor to Twitter and he can censor to his heart’s delight.

The build your own platform isn’t just my opinion. This. confirms my advice:

If you don’t like these rules, feel free to create your own platform! There are a lot of awesome, simple ways to do that. That’s what’s so lovely about the internet.

How to Read a Legal Opinion:… (Attn: Bloggers, Posters, Reporters)

Filed under: Journalism,Law,Law - Sources,News,Reporting — Patrick Durusau @ 10:29 am

How to Read a Legal Opinion: A Guide for New Law Students by Orin S. Kerr.

If I would require one rule for reporting on courts and legislatures it would be: No story will be published without links to the bill, law or decision being reported.

How hard is that?

Yet every day posting appear where you must guess to find an opinion or legislative material.

Links won’t keep you mis-reporting laws and opinions but it will enable your readers to spot such mistakes more easily. (Is that the reason links are so often omitted?)

If you want to improve your skills at reading opinions, take a look at Kerr’s How to Read a Legal Opinion: A Guide for New Law Students.

Black’s Law Dictionary is a great help, but don’t use an “original” or out-dated version. The law is stable, but not that stable. There is an iPhone version.

Bear in mind that Black’s doesn’t record every nuance for every term defined by a statute or used by a court. It is a general guide only.

Scientists reportedly close to finding a use for LinkedIn

Filed under: Humor — Patrick Durusau @ 8:09 am

Scientists reportedly close to finding a use for LinkedIn

Following a four-year multinational, interdisciplinary, cross-disciplinary study involving social scientists, computer scientists, algorithm developers, statisticians, mathematicians, programmers, engineers and clairvoyants, reports are circulating that there may be a breakthrough in the search for a use for the LinkedIn social network website.

“We don’t want to get people’s hopes up too much”, said Prof. Don Key of Stanford West University, “but we feel we are nearly there”.

“We have partnered with IBM and have used several hundred racks of their BlueGene/Q platform for the past four years and the results will almost certainly be out by next Friday”, said Prof. Key.

😉

One serious use of LinkedIn is to collect images for your facial recognition cameras.

LinkedIn is one of the many “leaky” public sources of data. Even without breaching its security.

You can find stories similar to this one at: The allium.

PS: I just saw this news scrolling across the screen: “Study confirms the wicked get 63% less rest.”

The Symptom of Many Formats

Filed under: JSON,Publishing,XML — Patrick Durusau @ 7:56 am

Distro.Mic: An Open Source Service for Creating Instant Articles, Google AMP and Apple News Articles

From the post:

Mic is always on the lookout for new ways to reach our audience. When Facebook, Google and Apple announced their own native news experiences, we jumped at the opportunity to publish there.

While setting Mic up on these services, David Björklund realized we needed a common article format that we could use for generating content on any platform. We call this format article-json, and we open-sourced parsers for it.

Article-json got a lot of support from Google and Apple, so we decided to take it a step further. Enter DistroMic. Distro lets anyone transform an HTML article into the format mandated by one of the various platforms.

Sigh.

While I applaud the DistroMic work, I am saddened that it was necessary.

From the DistroMic page, here is the same article in three formats:

Apple:

{
“article”: [
{
“text”: “Astronomers just announced the universe might be expanding up to 9% faster than we thought.\n”,
“additions”: [
{
“type”: “link”,
“rangeStart”: 59,
“rangeLength”: 8,
“URL”: “http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2016/17/text/”
}
],
“inlineTextStyles”: [
{
“rangeStart”: 59,
“rangeLength”: 8,
“textStyle”: “bodyLinkTextStyle”
}
],
“role”: “body”,
“layout”: “bodyLayout”
},
{
“text”: “It’s a surprising insight that could put us one step closer to finally figuring out what the hell dark energy and dark matter are. Or it could mean that we’ve gotten something fundamentally wrong in our understanding of physics, perhaps even poking a hole in Einstein’s theory of gravity.\n”,
“additions”: [
{
“type”: “link”,
“rangeStart”: 98,
“rangeLength”: 28,
“URL”: “http://science.nasa.gov/astrophysics/focus-areas/what-is-dark-energy/”
}
],
“inlineTextStyles”: [
{
“rangeStart”: 98,
“rangeLength”: 28,
“textStyle”: “bodyLinkTextStyle”
}
],
“role”: “body”,
“layout”: “bodyLayout”
},
{
“role”: “container”,
“components”: [
{
“role”: “photo”,
“URL”: “bundle://image-0.jpg”,
“style”: “embedMediaStyle”,
“layout”: “embedMediaLayout”,
“caption”: {
“text”: “Source: \n NASA\n \n”,
“additions”: [
{
“type”: “link”,
“rangeStart”: 13,
“rangeLength”: 4,
“URL”: “http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubble/hst_young_galaxies_200604.html”
}
],
“inlineTextStyles”: [
{
“rangeStart”: 13,
“rangeLength”: 4,
“textStyle”: “embedCaptionTextStyle”
}
],
“textStyle”: “embedCaptionTextStyle”
}
}
],
“layout”: “embedLayout”,
“style”: “embedStyle”
}
],
“bundlesToUrls”: {
“image-0.jpg”: “http://bit.ly/1UFHdpf”
}
}

Facebook:

<article>
<p>Astronomers just announced the universe might be expanding
<a href=”http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2016/17/text/”>up to 9%</a> faster than we thought.</p>
<p>It’s a surprising insight that could put us one step closer to finally figuring out what the hell
<a href=”http://science.nasa.gov/astrophysics/focus-areas/what-is-dark-energy/”>
dark energy and dark matter</a> are. Or it could mean that we’ve gotten something fundamentally wrong in our understanding of physics, perhaps even poking a hole in Einstein’s theory of gravity.</p>
<figure data-feedback=”fb:likes,fb:comments”>
<img src=”http://bit.ly/1UFHdpf”></img>
<figcaption><cite>
Source: <a href=”http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubble/hst_young_
galaxies_200604.html”>NASA</a>
</cite></figcaption>
</figure>
</article>

Google:

<article>
<p>Astronomers just announced the universe might be expanding
<a href=”http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2016/17/text/”>up to 9%</a> faster than we thought.</p> <p>It’s a surprising insight that could put us one step closer to finally figuring out what the hell
<a href=”http://science.nasa.gov/astrophysics/focus-areas/what-is-dark-energy/”> dark energy and dark matter</a> are. Or it could mean that we’ve gotten something fundamentally wrong in our understanding of physics, perhaps even poking a hole in Einstein’s theory of gravity.</p>
<figure>
<amp-img width=”900″ height=”445″ layout=”responsive” src=”http://bit.ly/1UFHdpf”></amp-img>
<figcaption>Source:
<a href=”http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubble/hst_young_
galaxies_200604.html”>NASA</a>
</figcaption>
</figure>
</article>

All starting from the same HTML source:

<p>Astronomers just announced the universe might be expanding
<a href=”http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2016/17/text/”>up to 9%</a> faster than we thought.</p><p>It’s a surprising insight that could put us one step closer to finally figuring out what the hell
<a href=”http://science.nasa.gov/astrophysics/focus-areas/what-is-dark-energy/”>
dark energy and dark matter</a> are. Or it could mean that we’ve gotten something fundamentally wrong in our understanding of physics, perhaps even poking a hole in Einstein’s theory of gravity.</p>
<figure>
<img width=”900″ height=”445″ src=”http://bit.ly/1UFHdpf”>
<figcaption>Source: 
<a href=”http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubble/hst_young_
galaxies_200604.html”>NASA</a>
</figcaption>
</figure>

Three workflows based on what started life in one common format.

Three workflows that have their own bugs and vulnerabilities.

Three workflows that duplicate the capabilities of each other.

Three formats that require different indexing/searching.

This is not the cause of why we can’t have nice things in software, but it certainly is a symptom.

The next time someone proposes a new format for a project, challenge them to demonstrate a value-add over existing formats.

June 12, 2016

Tracking News Repos

Filed under: Journalism,News,Reporting — Patrick Durusau @ 7:36 pm

@newsnerdrepos tweets every time one of 85 news github accounts posts a new repo.

Just started but what an excellent idea!

Ten Simple Rules for Effective Statistical Practice

Filed under: Data Science,Science,Statistics — Patrick Durusau @ 7:17 pm

Ten Simple Rules for Effective Statistical Practice by Robert E. Kass, Brian S. Caffo, Marie Davidian, Xiao-Li Meng, Bin Yu, Nancy Reid (Ciation: Kass RE, Caffo BS, Davidian M, Meng X-L, Yu B, Reid N (2016) Ten Simple Rules for Effective Statistical Practice. PLoS Comput Biol 12(6): e1004961. doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1004961)

From the post:

Several months ago, Phil Bourne, the initiator and frequent author of the wildly successful and incredibly useful “Ten Simple Rules” series, suggested that some statisticians put together a Ten Simple Rules article related to statistics. (One of the rules for writing a PLOS Ten Simple Rules article is to be Phil Bourne [1]. In lieu of that, we hope effusive praise for Phil will suffice.)

I started to copy out the “ten simple rules,” sans the commentary but that would be a disservice to my readers.

Nodding past a ten bullet point listing isn’t going to make your statistics more effective.

Re-write the commentary on all ten rules to apply them to every project. The focusing of the rules on your work will result in specific advice and examples for your field.

Who knows? Perhaps you will be writing a ten simple rule article in your specific field, sans Phil Bourne as a co-author. (Do be sure and cite Phil.)

PS: For the curious: Ten Simple Rules for Writing a PLOS Ten Simple Rules Article by Harriet Dashnow, Andrew Lonsdale, Philip E. Bourne.

Art and the Law: [UK Focused]

Filed under: Art,Censorship,Free Speech,Law — Patrick Durusau @ 4:29 pm

Art and the Law: Guides to the legal framework and its impact on artistic freedom of expression by Jodie Ginsberg, chief executive, Index on Censorship.

From the post:

Freedom of expression is essential to the arts. But the laws and practices that protect and nurture free expression are often poorly understood both by practitioners and by those enforcing the law.

As part of Index on Censorship’s work on art and offence, Index has published a series of law packs intended to address questions about legal limits related to free expression and the arts.

We intend them as “living” documents, to be enhanced and developed in partnership with arts groups so that artistic freedom is nurtured and nourished.

This work builds on an earlier study by Index on Censorship, Taking the Offensive, which showed how self-censorship manifests itself in arts organisations and institutions.

Descriptions of:

Child Protection: PDF | web

Counter Terrorism: PDF | web

Obscene Publications: PDF | web

Public Order: PDF | web

Race and Religion: PDF | web

along with numerous other resources appear on this page.

Realize these are UK specific and the laws on such matters vary widely. That’s not a criticism but an observation for the safety of readers. Check your local laws with qualified legal advisers.

Unlike Jonathan “I Want To Be A Twitter Censor” Weisman, my advice for when you find offensive content, is to look away.

What other people choose to create, publish, perform, listen to, view, read, etc., is their business and certainly none of yours.

Criminal acts against other people, children in particular, are already unlawful and censorship isn’t required outlaw them.

APIs.guru Joins Growing List of API Indexes [Index of Indexes Anyone?]

Filed under: Programming,WWW — Patrick Durusau @ 2:51 pm

APIs.guru Joins Growing List of API Indexes by Benjamin Young.

From the post:

APIs.guru is the latest entry into the API definition indexing, curation, and discovery space.

The open source (MIT-licensed) community curated index currently includes 236 API descriptions which cover 6,271 endpoints. APIs.guru is focused on becoming the "Wikipedia for REST APIs."

APIs.guru is entering an increasingly crowded market with other API indexing sites including The API Stack, API Commons, APIs.io, AnyAPI, and older indexes such as ProgrammableWeb's API Directory. These API indexes share a common goal says APIEvangelist.com blogger Kin Lane:

Developers around the world are using these definitions in their work, and modern API tooling and service providers are using them to define the value they bring to the table. To help the API sector reach the next level, we need you to step up and share the API definitions you have with API Stack, APIs.io, or APIs.guru, and if you have the time and skills, we could use your help crafting other new API definitions for popular services available today.

The APIs.guru content is curated primarily by its creator, Ivan Goncharov. According to a DataFire Blog entry, the initial content was populated "using a combination of automated scraping and human curation to crawl the web for machine-readable API definitions."

The empirical evidence from Spain indicates that the more places that link to you, the more traffic you enjoy. Even for news sites.

From that perspective, a multitude of over-lapping, duplicative API indexes is a good thing.

From my perspective, that is a one-stop shop for APIs, it’s a nightmare.

Which one you see depend on your use case.

Enjoy!

Playpen (porn) and Tamper-Proof NITs (Chain of Custody)

Filed under: Cybersecurity,FBI,Government — Patrick Durusau @ 2:19 pm

Dr. Christopher Soghoian’s affidavit in UNITED STATES OF AMERICA v. EDWARD JOSEPH MATISH, III, Criminal No. 4:16cr16, Document 83-1, is a highly readable account of why the lack of encryption for the Playpen Network Investigative Technique (NIT) is fatal to the FBI’s case.

In a nutshell, the lack of encryption means that the FBI cannot prove that data from a point of origin was not changed before it reached the FBI’s computer. Anywhere along the network transmission, some third party could have changed or even inserted new content.

In legal speak, it’s call “…the chain of custody.”

Say for example a defendant is charged with illegal possession of a firearm. At trial, the state must product the firearm alleged to be in his possession at the time of his arrest. Moreover, as part of that proof, the state must prove “custody” of that gun at every step of the way.

The arresting officer testifies to the arrest and identifies the gun retrieved from the defendant. They then testify they put that gun into a bag with a label, noting the serial number and then signing the bag after sealing it. Next a crime room technician will testify they received bag # with the officer’s signature and logged it into their evidence log. And so on, up until the officer opens the bag in court and says: “This is the gun I took off of the defendant.”

Break that chain of custody and the evidence isn’t admissible.

The chain of custody doesn’t exist in the Playpen cases because the lack of encryption means the data in question could have been changed at any number of points along the way and the FBI cannot prove otherwise.

Think of it as an affirmative burden of proof. No proof of chain of custody and the evidence is not admissible.

Even a first year FBI trainee should know that rule.

Which makes the FBI’s desire to get D- quality work approved all the more puzzling.

Why not follow the rules and do good work? What so daunting about that?

Suggestions?

PS: Should the FBI need advice on following the rules on cyber-evidence matters, don’t contact the Justice Department. They have an unsavory reputation for lying to judges and just as likely would lie to the FBI. Check around for ex-U.S. attorneys with cyberlaw experience.

How to Run a Russian Hacking Ring [Just like Amway, Mary Kay … + Career Advice]

Filed under: Computer Science,Cybersecurity,Security — Patrick Durusau @ 12:41 pm

How to Run a Russian Hacking Ring by Kaveh Waddell.

From the post:

A man with intense eyes crouches over a laptop in a darkened room, his face and hands hidden by a black ski mask and gloves. The scene is lit only by the computer screen’s eerie glow.

Exaggerated portraits of malicious hackers just like this keep popping up in movies and TV, despite the best efforts of shows like Mr. Robot to depict hackers in a more realistic way. Add a cacophony of news about data breaches that have shaken the U.S. government, taken entire hospital systems hostage, and defrauded the international banking system, and hackers start to sound like omnipotent super-villains.

But the reality is, as usual, less dramatic. While some of the largest cyberattacks have been the work of state-sponsored hackers—the OPM data breach that affected millions of Americans last year, for example, or the Sony hack that revealed Hollywood’s intimate secrets​—the vast majority of the world’s quotidian digital malice comes from garden-variety hackers.

What a downer this would be at career day at the local high school.

Yes, you too can be a hacker but it’s as dull as anything you have seen in Dilbert.

Your location plays an important role in whether Russian hacking ring employment is in your future. Kaveh reports:


Even the boss’s affiliates, who get less than half of each ransom that they extract, make a decent wage. They earned an average of 600 dollars a month, or about 40 percent more than the average Russian worker.

$600/month is ok, if you are living in Russia, not so hot if you aspire to Venice Beach. (It’s too bad the beach cam doesn’t pan and zoom.)

The level of technical skills required for low-lying fruit hacking is falling, meaning more competitors for the low-end. Potential profits are going to fall even further.

The no liability for buggy software will fall sooner rather than later and skilled hackers (I mean security researchers) will find themselves in demand by both plaintiffs and defendants. You will earn more money if you can appear in court, some expert witnesses make $600/hour or more. (Compare the $600/month in Russia.)

Even if you can’t appear in court, for reasons that seem good to you, fleshing out the details of hacks is going to be on demand from all sides.

You may start at the shallow end of the pool but resolve to not stay there. Read deeply, practice everyday, start current on new developments and opportunities, contribute to online communities.

Vermont Trumps (sorry) Feds?

Filed under: Government,Privacy — Patrick Durusau @ 9:03 am

Signed By the Governor: Sweeping Vermont Privacy Law Will Hinder Several Federal Surveillance Programs by Mike Maharrey.

From the post:

Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin has signed a sweeping bill that establishes robust privacy protections in the state into law. It not only limits warrantless surveillance and helps ensure electronic privacy in Vermont, it will also hinder several federal surveillance programs that rely on cooperation and data from state and local law enforcement.

The new law bans warrantless use of stingray devices to track the location of phones and sweep up electronic communications, restricts the use of drones for surveillance by police, and generally prohibits law enforcement officers from obtaining electronic data from service providers without a warrant or a judicially issued subpoena.

Some random examples of federal government lying:

So, Mike would have us believe that Vermont (drum roll) passing a bill and the governor signing into law is going to interfere with federal surveillance programs in what way?

But, but…, it’s a law!” (in a shocked tone of voice).

And you think that means what? Exactly?

Laws don’t enforce themselves. I know that comes as a surprise but there it is.

As Andrew Jackson once remarked, of Chief Justice John Marshall, “John Marshall had made his decision, now let him enforce it.” (For constitutional history buffs, that’s Cherokee Indian Cases (1830s).)

If the police, state and federal, ignore this new Vermont state law and no one will prosecute them, how much hindering of Federal surveillance programs do you see?

My multiple-choice survey questionnaire has only one response for that question:

None.

If we disagree, the missing piece maybe that the executive branch consists of the people who put laws into effect.

When the executive branch ignores the law, the judicial and legislative branches become distractions, nothing more.

June 11, 2016

Jonathan Weisman: Don’t Let The Door Hit You

Filed under: Censorship,Free Speech,Journalism — Patrick Durusau @ 10:44 am

Jonathan Weisman has decided to leave Twitter for reasons he sets forth (at length) at: Why I Quit Twitter — and Left Behind 35,000 Followers.

The essence of his complaint: Twitter failed to censor the speech of other Twitter users.

I offer no defense for the offensive and crude tweets Weisman received via Twitter.

However, as the The Times’s deputy Washington editor, Weisman had the resources to filter his Twitter stream to remove such posts on his own.

But avoiding the offensive tweets wasn’t his goal.

Weisman’s goal is to silence others and to enlist Twitter in that task.

I have to agree that Twitter’s use of its “terms of service” is arbitrary and capricious, not to mention lacking transparency, but that’s all the more reason to discard content rules from “terms of service,” not make them more onerous.

Weisman’s parting shot is to describe Twitter as a “…cesspoll of hate….”

Humanity has a number of such cesspools as well as large swaths of people who fall somewhere between there and sainthood. No reason to expect social media that reflects society to be any different.

Jonathan Weisman leaving Twitter is the loss of another advocate for censorship and there can never be too few of those.

PS: The New York Times needs to seriously think about why it employs a censorship advocate as its deputy Washington Editor.

My Data Is Dirty! Basic Spreadsheet Cleaning Functions

Filed under: Data Quality,Journalism,News,Reporting,Spreadsheets — Patrick Durusau @ 8:59 am

My Data Is Dirty! Basic Spreadsheet Cleaning Functions by Paul Bradshaw.

A sample from Paul Bradshaw’s new book, Finding Stories in Spreadsheets.

Data is always dirty but you don’t always need a hazmat suit and supporting army of technicians.

Paul demonstrates Excel functions (sniff, other spreadsheet programs have the same functions), TRIM, SUBSTITUTE, CHAR, as easy ways to clean data.

Certainly makes me interested in what other techniques are lurking in Finding Stories in Spreadsheets.

Enjoy!

June 10, 2016

International Journal of Proof-of-Concept

Filed under: Cybersecurity,Security — Patrick Durusau @ 8:18 pm

International Journal of Proof-of-Concept or Get The Fuck Out (PoC||GTFO or PoC or GTFO)

Some weekend reading!

I have only glanced at a couple of issues but can say volume 10 has Apple ][ Copy Protections, which is a great article if you are a data archivist.

Archivist err on the side of preservation, an instinct I normally applaud. But Apple ][ software? I suppose. 😉

Enjoy!


Update: New mirror: http://www.pocogtfo.com/

May’s fake news quiz (FirstDraft News)

Filed under: Humor — Patrick Durusau @ 4:41 pm

May’s fake news quiz

Best played on smart phones, in a group, at a bar.

Hilarity will ensue!

Enjoy!

June 9, 2016

ggplot2 – Elegant Graphics for Data Analysis – At Last Call

Filed under: Ggplot2,Graphics,R — Patrick Durusau @ 4:53 pm

ggplot2 – Elegant Graphics for Data Analysis by Hadley Wickham.

Hadley tweeted today that “ggplot2” is still up but will be removed after publication.

If you want/need a digital copy, now would be a good time to acquire one.

Record Linkage (Think Topic Maps) In War Crimes Investigations

Filed under: Record Linkage,Social Sciences,Topic Maps — Patrick Durusau @ 4:28 pm

Machine learning for human rights advocacy: Big benefits, serious consequences by Megan Price.

Megan is the executive director of the Human Rights Data Analysis Group (HRDAG), an organization that applies data science techniques to documenting violence and potential human rights abuses.

I watched the video expecting extended discussion of machine learning, only to find that our old friend, record linkage, was mentioned repeatedly during the presentation. Along with some description of the difficulty of reconciling lists of identified casualties in war zones.

Not to mention the task of estimating casualties that will never appear by any type of reporting.

When Megan mentioned record linkage I was hooked and stayed for the full presentation. If you follow the link to Human Rights Data Analysis Group (HRDAG), you will find a number of publications, concerning the scientific side of their work.

Oh, record linkage is a technique used originally in epidemiology to “merge*” records from different authorities in order to study the transmission of disease. It dates from the late 1950’s and has been actively developed since then.

Including two complete and independent mathematical models, which arose because terminology differences prevented the second one from discovering the first. There’s a topic map example for you!

Certainly an area where the multiple facets (non-topic map sense) of subject identity would come into play. Not to mention making the merging of lists auditable. (They may already have that capability and I am unaware of it.)

It’s an interesting video and the website even more so.

Enjoy!

* One difference between record linkage and topic maps is that the usual record linkage technique maps diverse data into a single representation for processing. That technique loses the semantics associated with the terminology in the original records. Preservation of those semantics may not be your use case, but be aware you are losing data in such a process.

Hack Back! — (Interview, OpSec Tips)

Filed under: Cybersecurity,Security — Patrick Durusau @ 3:06 pm

Hack Back! — Discussions on hacking, Anarchism and secure OSs by B_Meson. (Or why we should not ask questions of hackers.)

From the post:

I recently had an exchange with the notorious hacker who hacked Hacking Team, a now infamous Italian company that sold spyware to oppressive regimes, which was used to target dissidents and journalists with spyware. Previously, the hacker breached Gamma Group, a similar corporation and dumped 40GB of files onto the Internet*. HB! was able to penetrate their customer support portal, where they obtained a list of targets in Bahrain . While 40GB seems like a large number, 30+ GB of it is a password protected zip file, presumably (according to HB) containing a full copy of the FinFisher server software, that no one has cracked.

(image omitted)

The Hacking Team breach was much larger, containing about 400GB of useful files. These hacks, besides being technically interesting, seems driven by political and human rights concerns. Further, by releasing their emails and source code, we found key details of how these corporations operate, an example being the CEO of Hacking Team ending all of his emails with a famous line attributed to Benito Mussolini.

By releasing the source code, some zero days that these corporations were using have been patched, they have lost numerous clients and their own engineers are leaving the field. The technical details of the hack are quite interesting themselves as the techniques are quite sophisticated. The hacker, who uses several alias including Hack Back!, Gamma Group PR and Phineas Phisher recently attacked a police “union” in Barcelona. In one of the most interesting hacks, Hack Back! exfiltrated a bunch of Bitcoin and sent it to Rojava in their struggle for autonomy against multiple international forces, including ISIS.

We spoke over a variety of topics including secure computation, anarchism, international solidarity, and prison abolition. Our transcript has been lightly edited, translated and some details left out for operation security purposes. I use the name HB to refer to his Hack Back! alias.

It’s an interesting and inspirational interview.

However, questions about political groups, books, music, etc., result in tells that even fairly inept government agents could follow.

At the very least, conduct interviews with hackers through intermediaries who can change language style and omit information that obviously leads to tells.

Better yet: Don’t ask. Don’t Tell.

What isn’t written down or spoken aloud is incapable of being discovered.

Yes?

PSA: Change Your Passwords

Filed under: Cybersecurity — Patrick Durusau @ 10:46 am

Social media is exploding with news of a new hack, this one: Passwords for 32M Twitter accounts may have been hacked and leaked by Catherine Shu, Kate Conger.

Twitter.com denies the hack, figures and I haven’t read any reliable confirmations of it.

Still, it’s probably time you changed your Twitter password and turned on two-factor authentication?

BTW, you aren’t re-using passwords are you?

That is your Twitter password isn’t the same password as your root password to the enterprise server? (Forget I asked. I don’t want to know.)

While changing your Twitter password, consider changing any weak or re-used passwords.

Password managers make 20+ character passwords trivial to use.

Accurate Reporting on the UK Parliament

Filed under: Government,Journalism,Law,Law - Sources,News,Reporting — Patrick Durusau @ 10:30 am

When you read: British lawmakers pass new digital surveillance law by Elizabeth Piper and William Schomberg, do you think:

  1. The UK has a new surveillance law?
  2. Debate on a proposed surveillance law has ended in the House of Commons?
  3. A proposed surveillance law is about to be debated in the House of Lords?
  4. Princess Kate’s life will be streamed real-time 24×7 on BBC 4?

If you said #2 and/or #3, your right!

Answers #1 and #4 are false.

I’m completely innocent of any experience with procedure in the UK Parliament but discovering the Reuters headline was false, wasn’t all that hard.

If you don’t know UK parliamentary procedure, check before reporting: http://www.parliament.uk/.

For the Investigatory Powers Bill, you could start at: About Parliament to get an overview of the process and some rather imaginative terminology used to describe the process.

Quick tip: Look for Bills before Parliment if the bill has just been in the news. Easiest place to look for the latest information.

Scroll down and you will find the Investigatory Powers Bill is now in the House of Lords.

The Investigatory Powers Bill link takes you to a very well-organized page that summarizes the current bill status (not a law) along with the full text and links to other useful resources.

The page also offers RSS and email alerts of further action on this bill. You will be accurately informed despite repeated AP reports of its passage.

If you do report on the Investigatory Powers Bill include its status page. That will assist voters in knowing who is responsible for this travesty, should misfortune prevail and it become law.

Columbia Journalism Review – Become a Charter Member

Filed under: Journalism,News,Reporting — Patrick Durusau @ 9:38 am

Columbia Journalism Review – Become a Charter Member

From the webpage:

For half a century, the Columbia Journalism Review has assessed the performance of American journalism, becoming an essential read for top leaders in the media industry and a respected voice of press criticism.

Now you can show your support for CJR’s role as media watchdog and advocate for a sustainable, viable and free press by becoming a Charter Member.

Your Charter Memberships benefits include:

  • Subscription to the print magazine
    Two biannual issues of the newly expanded and enhanced Columbia Journalism Review.
  • Members-Only eNewsletter
    Every week, members will receive an update from the editors with insights and previews available only to members.
  • Quarterly Updates from the Editor
    Every three months, members will receive an insider’s report about journalism from the CJR newsroom.
  • eAlerts
    Members will receive email alerts notifying them of important and timely articles.
  • Invitations to CJR Events and Panel Discussions
    Members will be invited to attend live and live-streamed CJR events and panels.
  • Listing on Membership Page
    In recognition of your support for the CJR mission, all Charter Members will be recognized on the website.

Plus Coming Soon:

  • Exclusive Members-Only Content
    Only CJR members will have access to select CJR content and resources including the popular “Who Owns What” database.
  • Members-Only Group Forum
    A place for members to discuss what’s on their minds, ask questions, and share experiences.
  • Members-Only Discounts
    Exclusive CJR member discounts at other affiliated organizations.

Sign up as a Charter Member today and you will receive the Spring  issue celebrating the centennial anniversary of the Pulitzer Prizes.

SignUpToday.png

I need funds to be incoming but when I saw this opportunity to become a charter member of the Columbia Journalism Review, more funds became outgoing.

It really is that important.

A journalism powered bright light on government and corporations may not stop or deter actions that harm the public, but it will enable resistance.

Please join the Columbia Journalism Review and urge your friends to as well.

How fake news sites frequently trick big-time journalists

Filed under: Journalism,News,Reporting — Patrick Durusau @ 9:06 am

How fake news sites frequently trick big-time journalists by Jack Murtha.

From the post:

It would’ve been one hell of a story. Early this month, “news” surfaced that Michael Jordan—yes, the Michael Jordan—had threatened to move his NBA team, the Charlotte Hornets, from North Carolina unless the state repealed a law barring transgender people from using the bathroom of their choice. Air Jordan hadn’t seemed so heroic since he saved Bugs Bunny in the 1996 movie Space Jam.

Except the news was as fictional as the film.

A few sites posing as legitimate news organizations, including one that crudely imitates ABC News’ logo and web address, first published the bunk Jordan story. From there it spread to other media outlets, like Metro US, Elite Daily, and the Dallas Voice. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel even weaponized the false claim in an editorial against North Carolina’s law. For what felt like the millionth time, fake news sites—the kind that say they’re satirical but are nothing like The Onion—had duped journalists into buying a bogus story.

For now, forget the hoaxsters and hoodwinked journalists who continue to fuel this tire fire. The more significant culprits are the companies that enable and reward behavior that empowers fake news. In striving for traffic, prolific output, and social media hype, some newsrooms have prioritized the quick and provocative, while undervaluing reporting. This system has allowed fake news sites to essentially develop best practices to fool journalists. Facebook now lets users flag fake news stories, which then appear less frequently, or with an attached warning, in newsfeeds. But without a top-down cultural shift in journalism, garbage stories will continue to enter the mainstream.

I share Murtha’s annoyance with news organizations that don’t emphasize quality reporting but “fake” news stories are only the tip of that iceberg.

It is apparently standard practice with some news outlets to not include links to original press releases or documents discussed in a story. What possible benefit is derived by forcing readers to search for original sources is unclear.

Perhaps it lessens the odds of discovering the reporter didn’t read the document in question? Other suggestions?

Or stories that repeat official propaganda without raising factual or logical errors in such propaganda. The media’s dog like subservience to government on stories of terrorist “propaganda” for example.

How often does your news organization mention countering terrorist “propaganda” is difficult because much of it is true??

Perhaps better, does your news organization ever even ask if terrorist “propaganda” is true?

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