7 ms·

Tucker’s Message Fiasco Is the Wakeup Call You Need to Auto-Delete Your Messages

26 points by blakeashleyjr 3y ago

JohnMakin 3y ago
> Think twice before sending a message, even over Signal. You will likely not be able to predict when you will be sued, investigated, or otherwise thrown into the lime-light. Or, radical new idea here, how about conduct yourself in a reasonable way where if everyone in the world read your text messages you wouldn't be fired or go to jail?
- MarcScott 3y ago
  Why limit this to text based communication? How about also limiting what you say when talking with friends in a pub, just in case the conversation gets recorded and then leaked? What about conversations around the dinner table with your family? What about chat between you and your significant other in the bedroom? What about things you say out loud when on your own? What about your thoughts?
  - zorrotorro 3y ago
    > What about your thoughts? This is the endgame. The perfect citizen will not be capable of thinking the undesired thoughts. Who says AI alignment / brain washing is impossible?! We are doing a pretty good jobs with humans.
- johnlocke8 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - User23 3y ago
    No my friend, he aspires to be the one wearing the boots.
- jkeisling 3y ago
  So “if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear”? Would you tell that to abortion rights activists in Mississippi, journalists reviewing the Panama Papers, or dissidents in China? Radical new idea here, but maybe you shouldn’t believe that everyone in authority from now till you die will only fire and jail people for the ideas that you personally don’t have or like, or suggest data privacy rules for others accordingly.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - bena 3y ago
    Not exactly what he's saying. To be fair, he's expressing himself poorly. Because, yes, "If a law is unjust, a man is not only right to disobey it, he is obligated to do so." He wants to say something more like "Conduct yourself in a way where if everyone read your messages they won't realize what a fucking miserable, intolerant asshole you are". And let's be completely fair here. Tucker Carlson wasn't fired for holding any of the opinions that he holds. He wasn't fired for voicing those opinions. He wasn't even fired because people knew he had those opinions. He wasn't even fired because there was now evidence of all of that. He was fired because it looks like doing something. And he made it really fucking easy for them to do it. He was a huge asshole in private messages and he could be sacrificed easily. It's a similar thing that happened to Jon Gruden a few years back. While investigating Dan Snyder for several things, some emails Jon Gruden wrote during his time at ESPN saying some pretty stupidly racist stuff got "leaked". Then the conversation shifted from Snyder's trafficking of Washington's cheerleaders to Gruden's racism. Gruden resigned as coach of the Las Vegas Raiders as a result of all the hoopla. All of those emails were sent to someone. They knew about it. Plenty of people worked with and for Gruden. They knew who he was. What kind of language he employs. Mike Tomlin, Sean McVay, Kyle Shanahan, and others all knew who the man was. The league knew. ESPN, knew. Not a single thing that got leaked was a surprise to anyone with any input or influence on Gruden's career. He was fired simply to distract from the Washington issue. However, like Carlson, he made it really easy for them to do so by being a miserable asshole. I don't send a single work email or work message that I would have to defend in the court of public opinion. Even when I step outside the bounds of purely work related issues, I don't express negative opinions about groups of people based on characteristics they have no choice over. The worst you could hit me with would be that I'm not as funny as I try to be. You won't find me being a miserable asshole when* our organization's emails becomes a matter of public record. *I say when because I work for an organization where this is a very real possibility.
- jjoonathan 3y ago
  The bar for "things that could get you fired" is not set by Tucker Carlson's behavior. Remember donglegate, that time an overheard "dongle" joke got someone fired? The limelight is extraordinarily harsh. Having nothing to hide isn't just a function of your own record, it's an assumption that pitchfork-wielding crowds will act reasonably. That's just not how it works. Better to play it safe.
- parker_mountain 3y ago
  >Or, radical new idea here, how about conduct yourself in a reasonable way where if everyone in the world read your text messages you wouldn't be fired or go to jail? This is ridiculous. There are so many things you can do that are ethical and illegal. Or ethical and legal and would still piss a lot of people off. Or, how about just wanting to rant off the record with friends? This idea the default should be "act like you're being watched" is harmful, both to the individual and to society.
  - cm2187 3y ago
    Or humour. Hard to make any joke in private that won't offend (or pretend to be offended) someone on the internet.
    - derekp7 3y ago
      That's what I call "synthetically offended". It is where there is no offense intended, and none actually received, but the potentially offended party (or more likely a third party) can string together something to make it look like an offense. Often as a "gotcha" to the "offender". So next time someone takes offense at something, ask them are they really offended, or synthetically offended?
  - lr1970 3y ago
    > This idea the default should be "act like you're being watched" is harmful, both to the individual and to society. As George Orwell said in his 1984 "Big Brother is watching you".
  - deafpolygon 3y ago
    > This idea the default should be "act like you're being watched" is harmful, both to the individual and to society. Yet, that is oftentimes the reality. You _are_ being watched (online).
  - heavyset_go 3y ago
    Foucault is rolling in his grave.
  - 3y ago
- valianteffort 3y ago
  I am requesting that publicly share all of your text messages for the past 10 years. Surely you have nothing you wouldn't want public, or things that any group would find offensive.
- NotYourLawyer 3y ago
  This only works if you are also clairvoyant. There are plenty of things that were uncontroversial a decade ago that would now incite a twitter mob.
  - inawarminister 3y ago
    End of history bias is very human.
- jdasdf 3y ago
  >Or, radical new idea here, how about conduct yourself in a reasonable way where if everyone in the world read your text messages you wouldn't be fired or go to jail? There is no man on earth who has ever been able to do that. Do you have any other impossible suggestions?
  - unethical_ban 3y ago
    My dad always said "Don't do anything you wouldn't want people to read about in tomorrow's newspaper". Many people also say "What would Jesus do?" No one can live like Christians believe Jesus did, but it's a guide. No one can be perfectly honest and moral 100% in their lives. It's a principle. I think the point of the OP comment is "the first lesson Tucker should get out of the ordeal is not being a racist fascist, rather than cover your tracks when you're a racist fascist." I also think it's valuable for people to know just how revealing text messages can be, and so if you have any valid concern about being targeted by the state, clearing your communications history is wise.
    - logdap 3y ago
      [dead]
    - tgv 3y ago
      IIRC, that's the kind of behavior that got people crucified.
  - igetspam 3y ago
    Hold on there bud, please don't speak for all of us. I'm quite confident that I and most people, even some other men, do not share your risk profile. I prefer to just be a decent person.
- friendswdorthy 3y ago
  It wasn't that long ago homosexuality was illegal and considered a medical condition. There are plenty of other examples for why this is a bad excuse to not secure communication.
- pxue 3y ago
  China is that way, friend.
- tgv 3y ago
  Just wait until google sells your data to the insurance companies and they refuse to insure you because you searched once too often for "cancer". "But it was for my mother in law," you will say. And they will reply: "We'll cancel her insurance as well."
- User23 3y ago
  > Or, radical new idea here, how about conduct yourself in a reasonable way where if everyone in the world read your text messages you wouldn't be fired or go to jail? Who's to say whether or not what is today a perfectly innocent message might be socially ostracizing or even criminal hate speech in 5 years?
- LinuxBender 3y ago
  how about conduct yourself in a reasonable way where if everyone in the world read your text messages you wouldn't be fired or go to jail? This concept may be put to the test once platforms like Discord leak all their data. It will eventually happen. Discord save everything forever and messages are only marked as deleted. They may even do voice-to-text transcriptions in the background as that is also easy to save forever. This probably also applies to Zoom and Slack, if not now then eventually. Slack had very weak controls for 3rd party integrations in that any employee could add random-integration but hopefully that has changed. I am curious how everything will play out.
- pupppet 3y ago
  There's a lot of conflating making jokes with being racist in the replies here.
BugsJustFindMe 3y ago
Oh yes. I see it clearly now. The problem this whole time was actually that he didn't sufficiently hide the evidence of malicious intent. What a weird, bland, utterly oblivious take.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
reducesuffering 3y ago
[flagged]
- codyb 3y ago
  Yeesh. Gross.
  - simoncion 3y ago
    For whatever reason, OP failed to reproduce all of Carlson's statement. The rest of the statement is something that you should definitely read: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35919449#35921301 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35919449#35921301>
- pfannkuchen 3y ago
  Are we asserting here that the traditional rules of martial engagement are the same across all cultures in the world? Or we are saying that European cultures are not fairly similar to one another in this regard, due to a shared religious heritage? I’m confused what people are angry about here.
  - krapp 3y ago
    There are no "traditional rules of martial engagement." White people surround, mob up on and beat the shit out of people just as much as people of any other race. To imply that white people are above such behavior (and thus that other races are less civilized) is a white supremacist and racist mentality. But you already knew that.
    - hajile 3y ago
      You inferred a lot of stuff that quote doesn't actually say.
      - krapp 3y ago
        "Jumping a guy like that is dishonorable obviously. It’s not how white men fight." Is this not implying that white men don't fight dishonorably? Is not the implication that follows from that, that fighting dishonorably is a trait that belongs to non-white races? If not, why mention "white men" specifically? Why not claim this is not how honorable people fight? What did I infer that wasn't there? I stand by my interpretation.
71a54xd 3y ago
The way his phone was compromised was likely with targeted malware like Pegasus v2. Even if you're deleting messages it wouldn't matter, because whatever you're seeing on the screen / typing is all being logged and transmitted somewhere else.
- plorg 3y ago
  His phone wasn't compromised, it was subpoenaed in a lawsuit.
monero-xmr 3y ago
“Never write if you can speak; never speak if you can nod; never nod if you can wink”
- cm2187 3y ago
  From The survival guide to an Orwellian world.
- yread 3y ago
  Or as Jan Werich said "Don't think. If you do think, don't speak out. If you do speak out, don't write it down. If you do write it down, don't sign it. If you do sign it, don't be surprised."
  - throw0101b 3y ago
    > Or as Jan Werich said Do you have a citation for this? I'm familiar with the saying, but have never seen an attribution for it before.
    - yread 3y ago
      I've found it here https://citaty.net/citaty/283440-jan-werich-nemysli-kdyz-myslis-tak-nemluv-kdyz-mluvis-tak/ https://citaty.net/citaty/283440-jan-werich-nemysli-kdyz-mys...
zorrotorro 3y ago
I postulate that given HNs political guidelines, this whole submission has a high chance of being flagged for some reason. Most people have no need to auto-delete something that was recorded by a 3rd party already.
- chillycurve 3y ago
  The small political portion of this post is almost irrelevant to the message.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
majkinetor 3y ago
The problem with Signal is that other party can turn auto delete off for both. Clearly bad design. It should be that the smallest timer wins.
- chillycurve 3y ago
  If you can't trust the other party, you have already lost.
  - majkinetor 3y ago
    This isn't only about other party, you are missing the point. Other party can be hacked or played and I certainly do not trust that people are competent in that domain AT ALL.

26 points by blakeashleyjr 3y ago

> Think twice before sending a message, even over Signal. You will likely not be able to predict when you will be sued, investigated, or otherwise thrown into the lime-light. Or, radical new idea here, how about conduct yourself in a reasonable way where if everyone in the world read your text messages you wouldn't be fired or go to jail?

MarcScott 3y ago
Why limit this to text based communication? How about also limiting what you say when talking with friends in a pub, just in case the conversation gets recorded and then leaked? What about conversations around the dinner table with your family? What about chat between you and your significant other in the bedroom? What about things you say out loud when on your own? What about your thoughts?
- zorrotorro 3y ago
  > What about your thoughts? This is the endgame. The perfect citizen will not be capable of thinking the undesired thoughts. Who says AI alignment / brain washing is impossible?! We are doing a pretty good jobs with humans.
johnlocke8 3y ago
[flagged]
- User23 3y ago
  No my friend, he aspires to be the one wearing the boots.
jkeisling 3y ago
So “if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear”? Would you tell that to abortion rights activists in Mississippi, journalists reviewing the Panama Papers, or dissidents in China? Radical new idea here, but maybe you shouldn’t believe that everyone in authority from now till you die will only fire and jail people for the ideas that you personally don’t have or like, or suggest data privacy rules for others accordingly.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- bena 3y ago
  Not exactly what he's saying. To be fair, he's expressing himself poorly. Because, yes, "If a law is unjust, a man is not only right to disobey it, he is obligated to do so." He wants to say something more like "Conduct yourself in a way where if everyone read your messages they won't realize what a fucking miserable, intolerant asshole you are". And let's be completely fair here. Tucker Carlson wasn't fired for holding any of the opinions that he holds. He wasn't fired for voicing those opinions. He wasn't even fired because people knew he had those opinions. He wasn't even fired because there was now evidence of all of that. He was fired because it looks like doing something. And he made it really fucking easy for them to do it. He was a huge asshole in private messages and he could be sacrificed easily. It's a similar thing that happened to Jon Gruden a few years back. While investigating Dan Snyder for several things, some emails Jon Gruden wrote during his time at ESPN saying some pretty stupidly racist stuff got "leaked". Then the conversation shifted from Snyder's trafficking of Washington's cheerleaders to Gruden's racism. Gruden resigned as coach of the Las Vegas Raiders as a result of all the hoopla. All of those emails were sent to someone. They knew about it. Plenty of people worked with and for Gruden. They knew who he was. What kind of language he employs. Mike Tomlin, Sean McVay, Kyle Shanahan, and others all knew who the man was. The league knew. ESPN, knew. Not a single thing that got leaked was a surprise to anyone with any input or influence on Gruden's career. He was fired simply to distract from the Washington issue. However, like Carlson, he made it really easy for them to do so by being a miserable asshole. I don't send a single work email or work message that I would have to defend in the court of public opinion. Even when I step outside the bounds of purely work related issues, I don't express negative opinions about groups of people based on characteristics they have no choice over. The worst you could hit me with would be that I'm not as funny as I try to be. You won't find me being a miserable asshole when* our organization's emails becomes a matter of public record. *I say when because I work for an organization where this is a very real possibility.
jjoonathan 3y ago
The bar for "things that could get you fired" is not set by Tucker Carlson's behavior. Remember donglegate, that time an overheard "dongle" joke got someone fired? The limelight is extraordinarily harsh. Having nothing to hide isn't just a function of your own record, it's an assumption that pitchfork-wielding crowds will act reasonably. That's just not how it works. Better to play it safe.
parker_mountain 3y ago
>Or, radical new idea here, how about conduct yourself in a reasonable way where if everyone in the world read your text messages you wouldn't be fired or go to jail? This is ridiculous. There are so many things you can do that are ethical and illegal. Or ethical and legal and would still piss a lot of people off. Or, how about just wanting to rant off the record with friends? This idea the default should be "act like you're being watched" is harmful, both to the individual and to society.
- cm2187 3y ago
  Or humour. Hard to make any joke in private that won't offend (or pretend to be offended) someone on the internet.
  - derekp7 3y ago
    That's what I call "synthetically offended". It is where there is no offense intended, and none actually received, but the potentially offended party (or more likely a third party) can string together something to make it look like an offense. Often as a "gotcha" to the "offender". So next time someone takes offense at something, ask them are they really offended, or synthetically offended?
- lr1970 3y ago
  > This idea the default should be "act like you're being watched" is harmful, both to the individual and to society. As George Orwell said in his 1984 "Big Brother is watching you".
- deafpolygon 3y ago
  > This idea the default should be "act like you're being watched" is harmful, both to the individual and to society. Yet, that is oftentimes the reality. You _are_ being watched (online).
- heavyset_go 3y ago
  Foucault is rolling in his grave.
- 3y ago
valianteffort 3y ago
I am requesting that publicly share all of your text messages for the past 10 years. Surely you have nothing you wouldn't want public, or things that any group would find offensive.
NotYourLawyer 3y ago
This only works if you are also clairvoyant. There are plenty of things that were uncontroversial a decade ago that would now incite a twitter mob.
- inawarminister 3y ago
  End of history bias is very human.
jdasdf 3y ago
>Or, radical new idea here, how about conduct yourself in a reasonable way where if everyone in the world read your text messages you wouldn't be fired or go to jail? There is no man on earth who has ever been able to do that. Do you have any other impossible suggestions?
- unethical_ban 3y ago
  My dad always said "Don't do anything you wouldn't want people to read about in tomorrow's newspaper". Many people also say "What would Jesus do?" No one can live like Christians believe Jesus did, but it's a guide. No one can be perfectly honest and moral 100% in their lives. It's a principle. I think the point of the OP comment is "the first lesson Tucker should get out of the ordeal is not being a racist fascist, rather than cover your tracks when you're a racist fascist." I also think it's valuable for people to know just how revealing text messages can be, and so if you have any valid concern about being targeted by the state, clearing your communications history is wise.
  - logdap 3y ago
    [dead]
  - tgv 3y ago
    IIRC, that's the kind of behavior that got people crucified.
- igetspam 3y ago
  Hold on there bud, please don't speak for all of us. I'm quite confident that I and most people, even some other men, do not share your risk profile. I prefer to just be a decent person.
friendswdorthy 3y ago
It wasn't that long ago homosexuality was illegal and considered a medical condition. There are plenty of other examples for why this is a bad excuse to not secure communication.
pxue 3y ago
China is that way, friend.
tgv 3y ago
Just wait until google sells your data to the insurance companies and they refuse to insure you because you searched once too often for "cancer". "But it was for my mother in law," you will say. And they will reply: "We'll cancel her insurance as well."
User23 3y ago
> Or, radical new idea here, how about conduct yourself in a reasonable way where if everyone in the world read your text messages you wouldn't be fired or go to jail? Who's to say whether or not what is today a perfectly innocent message might be socially ostracizing or even criminal hate speech in 5 years?
LinuxBender 3y ago
how about conduct yourself in a reasonable way where if everyone in the world read your text messages you wouldn't be fired or go to jail? This concept may be put to the test once platforms like Discord leak all their data. It will eventually happen. Discord save everything forever and messages are only marked as deleted. They may even do voice-to-text transcriptions in the background as that is also easy to save forever. This probably also applies to Zoom and Slack, if not now then eventually. Slack had very weak controls for 3rd party integrations in that any employee could add random-integration but hopefully that has changed. I am curious how everything will play out.
pupppet 3y ago
There's a lot of conflating making jokes with being racist in the replies here.

BugsJustFindMe 3y ago

Oh yes. I see it clearly now. The problem this whole time was actually that he didn't sufficiently hide the evidence of malicious intent. What a weird, bland, utterly oblivious take.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

reducesuffering 3y ago

[flagged]

codyb 3y ago
Yeesh. Gross.
- simoncion 3y ago
  For whatever reason, OP failed to reproduce all of Carlson's statement. The rest of the statement is something that you should definitely read: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35919449#35921301 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35919449#35921301>
pfannkuchen 3y ago
Are we asserting here that the traditional rules of martial engagement are the same across all cultures in the world? Or we are saying that European cultures are not fairly similar to one another in this regard, due to a shared religious heritage? I’m confused what people are angry about here.
- krapp 3y ago
  There are no "traditional rules of martial engagement." White people surround, mob up on and beat the shit out of people just as much as people of any other race. To imply that white people are above such behavior (and thus that other races are less civilized) is a white supremacist and racist mentality. But you already knew that.
  - hajile 3y ago
    You inferred a lot of stuff that quote doesn't actually say.
    - krapp 3y ago
      "Jumping a guy like that is dishonorable obviously. It’s not how white men fight." Is this not implying that white men don't fight dishonorably? Is not the implication that follows from that, that fighting dishonorably is a trait that belongs to non-white races? If not, why mention "white men" specifically? Why not claim this is not how honorable people fight? What did I infer that wasn't there? I stand by my interpretation.

71a54xd 3y ago

The way his phone was compromised was likely with targeted malware like Pegasus v2. Even if you're deleting messages it wouldn't matter, because whatever you're seeing on the screen / typing is all being logged and transmitted somewhere else.

plorg 3y ago
His phone wasn't compromised, it was subpoenaed in a lawsuit.

monero-xmr 3y ago

“Never write if you can speak; never speak if you can nod; never nod if you can wink”

cm2187 3y ago
From The survival guide to an Orwellian world.
yread 3y ago
Or as Jan Werich said "Don't think. If you do think, don't speak out. If you do speak out, don't write it down. If you do write it down, don't sign it. If you do sign it, don't be surprised."
- throw0101b 3y ago
  > Or as Jan Werich said Do you have a citation for this? I'm familiar with the saying, but have never seen an attribution for it before.
  - yread 3y ago
    I've found it here https://citaty.net/citaty/283440-jan-werich-nemysli-kdyz-myslis-tak-nemluv-kdyz-mluvis-tak/ https://citaty.net/citaty/283440-jan-werich-nemysli-kdyz-mys...

zorrotorro 3y ago

I postulate that given HNs political guidelines, this whole submission has a high chance of being flagged for some reason. Most people have no need to auto-delete something that was recorded by a 3rd party already.

chillycurve 3y ago
The small political portion of this post is almost irrelevant to the message.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

majkinetor 3y ago

The problem with Signal is that other party can turn auto delete off for both. Clearly bad design. It should be that the smallest timer wins.

chillycurve 3y ago
If you can't trust the other party, you have already lost.
- majkinetor 3y ago
  This isn't only about other party, you are missing the point. Other party can be hacked or played and I certainly do not trust that people are competent in that domain AT ALL.