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by tyingq 1912 days ago
The example of reporters unintentionally exposing sources is a pretty good reason to publicize that it exists.
2 comments

It's really just incredibly shitty op-sec from The Intercept, which should have known better. This isn't really a novel technique.
Sure. Publicizing it might inform whistleblowers so they aren't mistakenly outed by publishers that should know better.
It's something that people who deal with highly sensitive information and sources should know, absolutely. But it's still not a big deal for anyone who's not going up against a well resourced government.
Maybe you just want to go about your life without every innocuous aspect of it being secretly interfered with? You might be able to ignore it for a long time because it doesn't harm you, but it only takes one shitty change in the wider system for it to be turned entirely against you.
That's already happened. License plate trackers, cell sites logs, phone and car location data tracks everywhere you go. Google analytics inside a google browser running on google's OS on google hardware, all to gather data on you to make slightly more money selling ads. Not to mention other data aggregators who will sell that data to anyone with a credit card. Every aspect of our lives are already being overtly interfered with, but no I really should care a lot about some stupid printer dots.