Whilst theregister.co.uk does get straight to the point. the newyorker article tells a very interesting story about his work in hacking P2P, working with the secret service, trying to sell his software to the FBI, GPS tracking his mates cheating wife etc.
Yeah, people on here don't seem to understand that you read the New Yorker for narrative and literary craft, not for getting information as fast as possible.
And New Yorker article submitters don't understand that the HN crowd tends to prefer the Register style, at least for providing a focal point where everyone can get up to speed quickly for a productive discussion.
I'm speaking for the quality of discussion that happens when everyone is aware of the all the facts presented in the article, vs when everyone is mired in unproductive guesswork because they missed the critical details of the threat vector because it's wedged between a description of some boss's pursed lips and the coffee used that in that office.
I don't think that's true and there appears to be room for both. I read both, one is good for quickly understanding what's happening / happened and the other is a much richer and interesting story. Twitter can exist in the same universe as novels you know.
I didn't say no one should ever enjoy NYer style articles, only that the Register is better for getting everyone to the point where they can productively discuss the article. A flowery style no one will ever finish isn't as good for that.
But the Register article is from 2016, when the firm had recently been raided. The New Yorker article covers the years afterward, including how the firm managed to sell its assets to Kroll, a well-known private-eye/corporate-intel firm.
I can't speak for the average HN reader, but I honestly don't give a shit that a small cybersecurity firm I've never heard about got raided and shut down, whether it was in 2016 or 2019. I am much more interested in the story of the people who created the firm, how they managed to find success, and what led to their downfall. Such information is often not satisfactorily communicated in a news brief style.
Normally I prefer El Reg but that is dry and uninformative, whereas the New Yorker article rocks a heap of other critical information.
Most importantly they are colouring in the people and their flaws, without specifically labelling them (e.g. psycho/sociopathic is never said, but the behaviours are).
The interactions with politicians and federal entities are critical to understanding the story.
What you see as irrelevant information is all extremely relevent if you care about protecting yourself against fraud, manipulation, bad actors, etcetera.
Think about the legal and social context of this article, and you will see other facets of the reporting that are clever.
I am a middle aged intelligent man who used to be an engineer, and now I have moved up the ranks. I work in IT for a droll company, so I can afford some toys and vacations, and a bit because I just like hardware.
I treat El Reg like a British pub, where wit is appreciated, and sometimes we talk about "the war" (our collective past), and certainly taking the piss out of ourselves and everyone else is a good laff.
I also need to know some of what El Reg writes about for work; at least they make it fun, unlike most of the rest of my job where much of the pleasure is black.