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fleg writes:
"The Guardian is reporting that while the author of The Snowden Files was writing it, paragraphs started self-deleting."
From the article:
By September the book was going well - 30,000 words done. A Christmas deadline loomed. I was writing a chapter on the NSA's close, and largely hidden, relationship with Silicon Valley. I wrote that Snowden's revelations had damaged US tech companies and their bottom line. Something odd happened. The paragraph I had just written began to self-delete. The cursor moved rapidly from the left, gobbling text. I watched my words vanish. When I tried to close my OpenOffice file the keyboard began flashing and bleeping.
[ED Note: Some of author's claims are of course unverifiable, but his insiders view of the early days of the story are interesting even so.]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by r00t on Friday February 21 2014, @02:26PM
The facts are mostly all anecdotal and construed together but the absence of cold, hard proof doesn't mean everything here is purely coincidence. Consider the following:
* GCHQ smashes Guardian computer equipment[1]
* Verizon digging up lines outside Guardian's office
* intruder breaks into home and steals laptop
* safe in motel room would "no longer work"
* Random stranger guy cozies up for pics, beers, dinner etc.
* cell phone having odd technical glitches
* Document deletions tended to occur when disparaging NSA.
* keyboard flashing and "bleeping"
Aside from a few, these events by themselves are not unique or uncommon. Put them all together and a different story seems to emerge. Yep, spilled anything on a keyboard will pretty much buckfeta the thing but considering the other points of interest here, it sounds quite likely that there was a remote connection of some kind vying for keyboard focus.
[1] http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2290006/g chq-agents-smashed-laptops-at-the-guardian [theinquirer.net]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 21 2014, @03:15PM
But there's a good reason to suspect it was not the NSA or GHCQ deleting his text: They would not have done it that way. I'm sure if they wanted to destroy his text, they would instead have chosen a less suspicious way. For example they could have caused his computer to simply crash, and when he rebooted, he'd find out that apparently the crash corrupted the file (or maybe even the complete hard disk) to the point that it could no longer be recovered.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Friday February 21 2014, @06:45PM
IF the intent was to destroy the text then yes, they would not have done it that way. OTOH if they wanted him to freak out and stop writing...
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 2, Interesting) by dmc on Friday February 21 2014, @08:13PM
Even better from their ratfucking perspective than getting him to freak out and stop writing might be to get him to freak out and write so freakily that he discredits himself. Remember that episode of the X-Files where they spiked Moulder's apartment tap-water with LSD? :)
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 21 2014, @03:58PM
was it a wireless keyboard?
I have had those flip out for no reason at all. Usually some cheap part in the radio. One guy I worked with the mouse would start randomly moving around and clicking things.
(Score: 1) by wikkiwikki on Friday February 21 2014, @04:26PM
Its not paranoia if they are really after you!!!
(Score: 1) by neagix on Friday February 21 2014, @10:27PM
Undiscriminated paranoia will not help you if they are all after you. Cold blood and no panic, that will help you.
(Score: 2, Funny) by NewMexicoArt on Friday February 21 2014, @04:57PM
When I read the article my moderator points disappeared. Then my computer rebooted Exactly when the nurse bumped it.