yawnxyz 2 days ago

> deepened our understanding of reaching audiences that might otherwise be blocked from accessing our journalism > Users who wish to continue reading Times journalism where their access to the main website may be blocked can do so through WhatsApp or Telegram.

https://archive.is/ is still the de-facto way to read NYT articles...

  • duskwuff 2 days ago

    The fact that reading the NYT requires a paid subscription takes away a lot of the value of a Tor service. (Can you even buy a subscription over Tor? I doubt it; it'd be a fraud risk.)

    • Scoundreller 2 days ago

      For a while, there was no paywall on NYT over Tor

  • 1vuio0pswjnm7 2 days ago

    "https://archive.is is still the de-facto way to read NYT articles..."

    It's popular on HN for sure, but archive.is only works where the NYT article is archived

    Lighter weight, open source, local solutions like Bypass Paywalls Clean work on any NYT article regardless of whether archived

    archive.is may be blocked for some internet subscribers in some countries

    archive.is webpages are quite large and contain telemetry

    For example,

       </script></div></div><img style="position:absolute" width="1" height="1" src="https://[USER-IP-ADDRESS].us.TBT3.379913754.pixel.archive.is/x.gif"><script type="text/javascript">
    • dmantis 2 days ago

      I've never understood why their free bypass extension doesn't release it's sources on public platform.

      Their git pages just refer to bundled extensions.

      You can get the sources from the extension, but I doubt that anybody audits them and kind of afraid to install it in my browser with access to all tabs.

      Could work for a dedicated browser only for paywalls bypass though.

    • agubelu 2 days ago

      The fact that Bypass Paywalls Clean works for so many websites is kinda baffling to me. Are there any reasons why they choose to implement paywalls in front-end only, or is it just technical incompetence?

      • przemub 2 days ago

        One that comes to mind is SEO - they want their articles to show up in search engines and social media.

      • ZeroTalent 2 days ago

        The people who bypass the paywall wouldn't pay anyway. It's just a marketing tactic. This + SEO.

  • pogue 2 days ago

    Is there an Onion archive.today?

    • Scoundreller 2 days ago

      Yes, the tor browser will auto-advise you that a .onion link is available.

    • bolognafairy 2 days ago

      I would at the very least be hesitant to provide such a service, and I’ve gotta imagine that I’m far from alone :)

      • nextts 2 days ago

        Why? It is the archivey bit that gets you in trouble, not the oniony bit.

noident 2 days ago

WhatsApp and Telegram are hardly replacements for Tor access. A government can block them easily.

The onion service's days were numbered after they fired Runa Sandvik. I'm surprised it lasted this long. Looking at the pay and current labor disputes, it seems like the New York Times isn't a good place for a skilled software engineer to work these days.

They'll keep running SecureDrop over an onion service, right...?

  • spyspy 2 days ago

    Runa was a gem. Her firing was a huge blow to the company. Nobody of any note lasts very long at NYT.

    • drweevil 2 days ago

      Amen to that. I should have known she was behind the Tor link, which I used often. I'm disappointed in the Times. Nothing new there.

  • mmooss 2 days ago

    > WhatsApp and Telegram are hardly replacements for Tor access. A government can block them easily.

    Also, you tell a private company information that you are reading the NYT and which articles you read. If the NYT is banned or a signal of suspicion where you live, that doesn't help.

  • wkat4242 a day ago

    Yeah only last year a court in Spain ruled to block telegram for everyone after some minor civil law disagreement. I had to scramble to set up an MTProxy for me and my friends (which was pretty easy with docker). Fortunately it never happened because the government called them back.

  • keepamovin 2 days ago

    Lol it is not hard to create a hidden service:

    Prerequisites:

    - Linux: You may need `sudo` privileges to install Tor and modify system files.

    - macOS: Homebrew must be installed (`brew`) to manage Tor.

    - A web server must already be running on the specified local port (e.g., 8080).

    - Firewall: This function does not configure the firewall. Ensure that:

      - Tor’s default port (9050) is allowed.
      - Your web server’s port (e.g., 8080) is accessible locally.
    
    
      #!/usr/bin/env bash
    
      # Function to add a Tor hidden service for a local web server
      add_tor_hidden_service() {
        local local_port="${1:-8080}"  # Default to 8080 if no port is provided
        local torrc=""
        local tordir=""
        local sudo_cmd=""
        local os_type=""
    
        # Detect OS and set paths
        if [[ "$OSTYPE" == "linux-gnu"* ]]; then
          os_type="linux"
          torrc="/etc/tor/torrc"
          tordir="/var/lib/tor"
          sudo_cmd="sudo -n"
        elif [[ "$OSTYPE" == "darwin"* ]]; then
          os_type="macos"
          torrc="$(brew --prefix)/etc/tor/torrc"
          tordir="$(brew --prefix)/var/lib/tor"
        else
          echo "Error: Unsupported OS (Linux or macOS required)" >&2
          return 1
        fi
    
        # Install Tor if not already installed
        if ! command -v tor &>/dev/null; then
          echo "Installing Tor..." >&2
          if [[ "$os_type" == "linux" ]]; then
            if [ -f /etc/debian_version ]; then
              $sudo_cmd apt update && $sudo_cmd apt install -y tor
            elif [ -f /etc/redhat-release ]; then
              $sudo_cmd yum install -y tor || $sudo_cmd dnf install -y tor
            else
              echo "Error: Only Debian or RedHat-based Linux supported" >&2
              return 1
            fi
          elif [[ "$os_type" == "macos" ]]; then
            brew install tor
          fi
        fi
    
        # Ensure Tor is running
        if [[ "$os_type" == "linux" ]]; then
          $sudo_cmd systemctl start tor
        elif [[ "$os_type" == "macos" ]]; then
          brew services start tor
        fi
    
        # Configure hidden service
        local hidden_service_dir="$tordir/hidden_service_$local_port"
        local dir_line="HiddenServiceDir $hidden_service_dir"
        local port_line="HiddenServicePort 80 127.0.0.1:$local_port"
    
        if ! grep -qF -- "$dir_line" "$torrc"; then
          echo "Configuring Tor hidden service..." >&2
          echo "$dir_line" | $sudo_cmd tee -a "$torrc" >/dev/null
          echo "$port_line" | $sudo_cmd tee -a "$torrc" >/dev/null
        fi
    
        # Restart Tor to apply changes
        echo "Restarting Tor..." >&2
        if [[ "$os_type" == "linux" ]]; then
          $sudo_cmd systemctl restart tor
        elif [[ "$os_type" == "macos" ]]; then
          brew services restart tor
        fi
    
        # Wait for onion address to be generated
        local onion_address=""
        for attempt in {1..30}; do
          if [[ -f "$hidden_service_dir/hostname" ]]; then
            onion_address=$($sudo_cmd cat "$hidden_service_dir/hostname")
            break
          fi
          sleep 1
        done
    
        if [[ -z "$onion_address" ]]; then
          echo "Error: Failed to generate onion address" >&2
          return 1
        fi
    
        echo "Success! Your web server is now available on the Tor network." >&2
        echo "Onion address: $onion_address" >&2
        echo "$onion_address"
      }
    
      # Example usage
      # serve -p 8080
      # add_tor_hidden_service 8080
      add_tor_hidden_service "$@"
    
    Tested on macOS, probably good in other OS listed above. So run a server on a port. Then run this function. Boom, you have a hidden service.

    Mining for a nice vanity hostname might be more difficult tho! How would that be done?

sharkjacobs 2 days ago

> Users who wish to continue reading Times journalism where their access to the main website may be blocked can do so through WhatsApp or Telegram.

elsewhere,

> Apple Says It Was Ordered to Pull WhatsApp From China App Store

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/18/technology/apple-whatsapp...

  • rsync 2 days ago

    … or just walk right into the central Shanghai library and read the paper copy.

    This is possible and I have done it many times.

    • uni_baconcat 2 days ago

      You know they tear off all pages of negative CPC reports, right?

      • rsync 2 days ago

        No, I don’t know that because it is not the case.

        I have sat in that library and read the NYT with a big, loud, front page headline critical of China and the CCP.

        I have never seen pages missing.

        • uni_baconcat 2 days ago

          Unfortunately, I have sat in that library last month too. Issues of latest magazines are missing, and some English books have entire chapters omitted.

        • ch4s3 2 days ago

          What does the June 3rd issue look like?

  • lxgr 2 days ago

    The service itself isn’t available in China either anyway, I think.

luma 2 days ago

Journalists speak truth to power, meanwhile the NYT aligns itself with power at every opportunity. For example, they knew the NSA was spying on us but never ran the story to protect GW's chances at reelection. Presumably they didn't want to be seen as anti-establishment with the new powers and are reverting to their time-proven behavior. NYT will lick the boot when presented, same as ever.

  • Lammy 2 days ago

    https://www.carlbernstein.com/the-cia-and-the-media-rolling-...

    “The Agency’s relationship with the Times was by far its most valuable among newspapers, according to CIA officials. From 1950 to 1966, about ten CIA employees were provided Times cover under arrangements approved by the newspaper’s late publisher, Arthur Hays Sulzberger. The cover arrangements were part of a general Times policy—set by Sulzberger—to provide assistance to the CIA whenever possible.”

    • dmix 2 days ago

      You don't need employees anymore just anonymous sources from "government insiders" by journalists who gain social/work credit from being friends with intelligence officials. The quid pro quo is implied and unquestioned because it sells papers. NYT/WSJ/WaPo are the main vectors for that stuff (big journalist outfits get big juicy sources) and they do it proudly.

      • michaelt 2 days ago

        I don't think "about ten CIA employees were provided Times cover" was a way to funnel CIA info into the NYT - which, as you say, wouldn't need direct employment.

        It sounds more like CIA spies wanted to go poking around in foreign countries, interviewing people and photographing things, which being an NYT reporter allowed them to do.

        • c22 2 days ago

          But what does the NYT get out of it?

          • michaelt 2 days ago

            The journalists? Nothing, in fact it's a big negative.

            The newspaper owners, though? The point of a newspaper is to obtain political power, both direct and through favours. The CIA was willing to overthrow a democratic government and replace it with a military dictatorship to help out a banana company - who wouldn't want to be owed favours like that?

          • bigiain 2 days ago

            Tasty tasty boot grime.

            • nextts 2 days ago

              Or a door revolves?

      • chneu 2 days ago

        I'm not saying I disagree, but please see how dangerous your thinking can be.

        That basically takes away a major tool of journalists and allows you to paint whoever you disagree with as wrong simply because they don't wish to go public.

        Very, very dangerous way of thinking. Allowing sourcesto stay anonymous is a major tool for journalists.

        • dmix 2 days ago

          An anonymous source from a whistleblower: practical and understandable. Anonymous sources from gov officials that just tows an established useful line that benefits them: way, way too common.

          I'm a daily reader of NYT and I can't count the number of times I see them use it each year. It's become standard practice enough to not be just some edge case to protect people.

          It's like how the government classifies everything because it makes their job easier.

          Not knowing the person, agency, level of access, etc behind a quote makes it extremely difficult to take seriously. A ton of trust is being put on NYT that it's not just purposefully fed information or gossip.

          • c22 2 days ago

            I think it's "toe the line", like lining up side by side with everyone else on your team.

            • fsckboy 2 days ago

              >I think it's "toe the line", like lining up side by side with everyone else on your team.

              right, but not quite: toe the line means for example standing on an athletic field right at the out-of-bounds line without letting your toes onto the wrong side of it; said about any rule-based situation, to purposely stay within the rules, indicating an individuals obedience with no implication of "testing" the rules.

          • dingnuts 2 days ago

            "a source close to the matter reports" basically implies whatever coming next is bullshit

        • KennyBlanken 2 days ago

          There's a difference between a source needing to be anonymous for their safety (physical, employment, etc) and someone in an administration or agency refusing to go on-record about policies and actions of an agency or administration because there's be a record, publicly, of what they said - and both they and the organization they're in could be held to that.

          Or that administration/agency using "anonymous source" nonsense to gatekeep - wanting to reward particular reporters/outlets that 'play by the rules'.

          You'll see a reporter ask something at a press conference, and there will be a refusal or non-answer. But then the press secretary pulls aside a few reporters after the press conference and gives them details.

          Unfortunately because the press are willing to do this, more and more information simply does not come out through official channels, which means politicians, agencies, administrations, etc have accountability - their reputation simply isn't on the line.

        • bee_rider 2 days ago

          The word of anonymous sources should be taken with a pretty big grain of salt, but they can point to verifiable information.

          • blitzar 2 days ago

            That is why the standard is two (or more) independent sources.

            • infamouscow 2 days ago

              You should count the actual number of sources in an article, it's virtually always singular.

    • fsckboy 2 days ago

      >From 1950 to 1966

      going back in time like that says nothing about the NY Times of today. In that same time period, the Democrats were the party defending racial segregation, it was your great+ grandparents

    • reaperducer 2 days ago

      From 1950 to 1966

      That was 75 years ago. If you're going to grind an axe, at least pick one from this century.

      • Spooky23 2 days ago

        We asked 4 Jill Stein voters in this West Virginia diner what they feel about CIA employees at the New York Times. One weird trick was shared.

    • owenversteeg 2 days ago

      Indeed. The Times is the mouthpiece of power. The event referenced in the GP comment [1] was a classic example of the NYT playbook when they get some information that goes against their narrative: 1) delay publication until they are absolutely forced to publish, 2) edit to play down the story, and 3) bury it as well as they can. They famously did this with the Holocaust [2].

      [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_The_New_York_Times_con...

      [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_The_New_York_Times_con...

  • spyspy 2 days ago

    Disclaimer I worked at NYT but this is just unsubstantiated garbage. Say what you will about the company and journalism as a whole but you’d be hard pressed to find a better group of truth-seekers out there. waves hands at every other “news” outlet

    • drweevil 2 days ago

      I don't see it that way. Not after years and years of noticing the pro-establishment bias. One example that still sticks with me is the coverage of the of the so called aid convoy at Cucuta, Venezuela. (As an aside, almost all coverage of Venezuela by the mainstream media is grossly deficient.)

      The short of that story is this: Something happens. The mainstream media (including the Times) write about it in a way that is unflattering to the Venezuelan government (or whatever enemy du-jour is targetted). Weeks later, when it no longer matters, the Times prints a more accurate version, but still manages to be as uncomplimentary as possible. As the time itself said--two weeks later:

      >"CÚCUTA, Colombia — The narrative seemed to fit Venezuela’s authoritarian rule: Security forces, on the order of President Nicolás Maduro, had torched a convoy of humanitarian aid as millions in his country were suffering from illness and hunger." (from https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/10/world/americas/venezuela-...)

      Independent South American journalists got it right. The UN tried to set the record straight about this aid convoy, the day after the event. But from the NYT, we got 'the narrative'. And that article that finally said Mr. Maduro didn't do it, came out two weeks later. By then the damage was done.

      I've observed that same dynamic with other events as well, such as during the Bolivian coup attempt of 2019. The OAS manufactured a non-existent electoral crisis. No major US paper pushed back on that narrative, which was later shown to be an artifact of how the votes counting process--as the Bolivian government claimed all along, rather than any real crisis.

      The Times simply can not be counted upon to give unbiased coverage in other situations either: Syria, Iran, Israel, Palestine, Russia, Ukraine, China, are all strongly biased with the official US narrative.

      This is why I cannot subscribe to this paper. It is too often useless as a place where I can go to to get truth.

    • ants_everywhere 2 days ago

      The propaganda outlets have really been pushing hard the line that you can't trust professional journalists, and people who get their news from influencers just seem to accept it uncritically.

      • impossiblefork 2 days ago

        The actual solution is the Swish journalist, who you yourself pay directly for his stories.

      • boredpeter 2 days ago

        It’s not propaganda, Noam Chomsky wrote a book about how media is used to advance otherwise unpopular government policies decades ago and the NYT is mentioned in it. If anything this post is propaganda.

        • mmooss 2 days ago

          Why wouldn't they use social media to do the same? Why trust influencers but not professional media?

          And then, where do you get information?

        • jancsika 2 days ago

          Even Chomsky has said that you could read the NYT from back to front to partially counteract the bias toward cozying up to power. (I.e., the stories that show bias in favor of U.S. govt are the ones at the front that are most prominently placed.)

          Toplevel OP, however, is saying some things that are more radical and less studious:

          * "NYT aligns itself with power at every opportunity." Because the statement is totalizing it is trivially disproved. Off the top of my head-- see the "Pentagon Pundits" story by David Barstow[1]. It won a Pulitzer and was published while Bush was still president. It was also a front-page story IIRC.

          * "never ran the story to protect GW's chances at reelection." IIRC Glenn Greenwald was the most vocal/detailed critic of Keller's cowardice on spiking the domestic surveillance story in the lead up to the 2004 election. But even he didn't claim Keller did in order to help GW win the election. OP made that up out of whole cloth.

          I don't think HN comments like this are propaganda, but they are low-effort and apparently impulsively written.

          At least nobody has yet used the pretentious terms "Gell-Mann Amnesia" or "Overton window" in this thread, so that's progress. :)

          1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentagon_military_analyst_prog...

        • ants_everywhere 2 days ago

          Noam Chomsky the genocide denier who is most famous for thinking LLMs are impossible because you can't learn language unless it's hard coded?

          I wouldn't consider him a reputable source on anything.

    • g8oz 2 days ago

      The Times is especially pernicious because of the hallowed reputation it has. It lets it spin the narrative at crucial moments. Look back at Judith Miller and the Iraq war. Or in the recent case of the Gaza conflict - their false reporting on mass rapes in the debunked "Screams Without Words" article helped give Israel political cover during a critical juncture of the carpet bombing of the Palestinians.

      • tyre 2 days ago

        Their coverage of Gaza and Israel has been the deepest hit to their reputation.

        The ratio of “college hate speech” to coverage of Israel’s targeted and mass war crimes has been unbelievable. I’d be deeply ashamed if I worked there.

        (Putting aside that this apartheid has been going on for far longer, of course, without consistent coverage.)

    • 4509Hg 2 days ago

      No it isn't garbage. During the Biden regime they ran every culture war story that was expected from them. During COVID they ran a hardliner policy for two years. Then, when they were told about an imminent policy reversal around December 2021, they suddenly started manufacturing the new consent with questioning if lockdowns hurt school children etc.

      They had been Iraq hawks, they are Ukraine hawks now.

      The NYT most closely matches Chomsky's media analysis of all outlets, and unlike other outlets the NYT hides it well.

      • dralley 2 days ago

        "Biden regime"

        • mixedCase 2 days ago

          https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/regime

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regime

          Relevant quote: "In politics, a regime (also spelled régime) is a system of government that determines access to public office, and the extent of power held by officials. The two broad categories of regimes are democratic and autocratic."

          It is true that as a term it has accrued some negative connotations due to the frequent use of the all-encompassing "regime" to speak of governments where their exact denomination tends to fall on the autocratic side of things. From a journalistic point of view, it is better to use a neutral term than a charged one; which unfortunately as you've noticed yourself it can taint the term to readers who are not familiar with its exact scope.

          But it is correct to call it Biden's regime, just like the current administration (perhaps a better term given its popularity in the US) is part of Trump's regime.

        • rh4az 2 days ago

          [flagged]

        • 5zqewR 2 days ago

          With respect to culture wars and firing the "vaccine" hesitant it was a regime. Trump is now establishing a regime of a different kind. One can be unhappy with both.

          • PhasmaFelis 2 days ago

            I'm excited to hear why you put "vaccine" in scare quotes.

            • bigstrat2003 2 days ago

              I'm not the same person. But a vaccine which doesn't actually provide lasting immunity is a really shit vaccine. And while I wouldn't say that means it doesn't deserve to be called a vaccine at all, certainly many people think that.

              • op00to 2 days ago

                No, it’s not. The tetanus vaccine saves lives and must be redone every so often. The cholera vaccine as well. There are many excellent vaccines that save lives that require boosters.

              • PhasmaFelis 2 days ago

                Yearly flu vaccines have been a thing for decades.

                If that's what OP thinks, I'm not sure they actually know what a vaccine is.

    • davidw 2 days ago

      I found this story pretty enlightening

      https://css.seas.upenn.edu/new-york-times-a-case-study-in-in...

      It's certainly not that they come up with outright lies. They have a ton of good people who work there. But there's something rotten higher up in the way they put their finger on the scales.

      • AuryGlenz 2 days ago

        That article makes awful conclusions.

        Biden’s age was a bigger factor because it was absolutely clear he was in rapid cognitive decline. No doubt it’s also happened to Trump at his age (as it does to everyone), but Biden essentially hid from any unscripted press the entirety of his Presidency.

        Trump does the opposite. We can all judge his actual cognitive faculties because he’s constantly tweeting or in front of cameras. It’s pretty clear to anyone with a brain that most of the things the Biden administration did, Biden himself had very little to do with. Trump, again, is the opposite.

        The NYT honestly should have been covering Biden’s decline more. It bordered on a coverup. The fact that people were surprised at his debate performance points to that.

        • davidw 2 days ago

          But once he was out of the race and there was only one old guy, age ceased to become an issue.

          That's what makes what they're doing kind of insidious. They're not making things up - Biden is indeed old. It's how they weight things and how much they push them.

          There's a reason the "NYT Pitch Bot" account is so popular - it's poking fun at a real phenomenon.

          • allturtles 2 days ago

            Are you claiming that the NYT is biased in favor of Trump? That's so hard to take seriously that I don't even know what to say to that.

            • davidw 2 days ago

              I only know what I see.

              Obviously the editorial page is not in favor of Trump.

              The organization as a whole... IDK, I have a suspicion that they kind of view the chaos as good for business and exciting, rather than 'boring and dull' like Biden.

              It's not a blatant bias, it's more subtle than that. It does not involve spreading falsehoods. More things like 'both sides!'.

        • Spooky23 2 days ago

          Biden has severe spinal arthritis and neuropathy in his feet. The guy walks around in pretty severe pain and suffers from a stutter.

          The story of the cognitive decline was pushed aggressively by the Trump people because it’s good TV. Just like they neutralized Desantis with the weirdo campaign.

          It’s pretty obvious that Trump is a turnip. I’ve heard him speak in person… the sound bites sound cogent on TV, but the dude is like a drunk monkey he can’t string sentences together. The reactionary policy isn’t out of Trump’s head, its from a little army of fascist attorneys.

          Both are odious Presidents… it’s ridiculous that a country as large and powerful as the United States is led by 80 year olds.

          • AuryGlenz 2 days ago

            Oh, come on. Are people still using the "stutter" excuse? Go look up a video of him from 2000 or whatever. His stutter sure did get worse!

            The story of cognitive decline was pushed because it was true. That's why he basically did no press, and why he used a teleprompter during times no other president would: https://archive.is/C60uH

            When he did speak without one, he regularly said stuff like "they don't want me to talk about that."

            I don't disagree that they're both way too old. However, the Trump we have now seems to be basically the same Trump we had in 2016. He rambles about as much as he did then. He could quickly deteriorate though - we'll see.

            • davidw 2 days ago

              And once the race was no longer between two old guys, age ceased to matter much to a number of news outfits.

              If you look at old Trump interviews, from say 20 years ago, he has absolutely degraded, and not by a small amount.

              • krapp 2 days ago

                >And once the race was no longer between two old guys, age ceased to matter much to a number of news outfits.

                Age never mattered with regards to Trump, but it was a meme with Biden even when he was VP. In terms of press coverage and popular perception it was never a race between two old guys, it was a race between "the old guy" and Trump.

                • davidw 2 days ago

                  And the press did a lot to shape that perception despite both showing signs of decline. That's the point. The coverage was skewed.

        • bee_rider 2 days ago

          Hey what is up with Biden’s rapid decline nowadays, anyway? I guess considering the rate he was apparently declining when it was a hot-button political issue, by now he must be a vegetable by now, right?

          • milesrout 2 days ago

            It wasn't a rapid decline. The media ignored it and covered it up but there were signs of serious cognitive decline even before he was elected.

            • mmooss 2 days ago

              The conclusion of the research linked earlier in the thread is that the NYT covered it too much.

              • milesrout 2 days ago

                The mainstream media essentially didn't cover it at all until halfway through the election.

                • mmooss 2 days ago

                  Who specifically do you mean by "mainstream media"?

                  In this discussion of the NY Times, they covered heavily and the Biden camp complained bitterly. Can you say when they started covering it?

    • sonotathrowaway 2 days ago

      Their comment is vastly more substantiated than your feelings are. We all know that NYT suppressed a story about unlawful mass surveillance, then published it to avoid being scooped.

      This is besides the mountains of bullshit they pushed to promote the Iraq war - propaganda they have never, and will never fully admit to.

    • dangus 2 days ago

      I don't really disagree with you but at the same time I wouldn't expect any run of the mill employee to know about this sort of conspiracy if it were real.

    • croes 2 days ago

      > to find a better group of truth-seekers

      Pretty useless if those who need it the most can’t read it.

    • dataf3l 2 days ago

      ok put your money where your mouth is, call your coworker and lets see they revert the onion service then...

      • spyspy 2 days ago

        The key word you missed in my comment is “worked”.

    • casey2 2 days ago

      [flagged]

      • spyspy 2 days ago

        You got me I’m a spook.

      • mise_en_place 2 days ago

        Listen closely when people tell you who they are.

    • MrMcCall 2 days ago

      Seeking the truth and reporting it ALL are two different things.

      Telling 90% of the truth means telling the least important 90%.

      The love of money corrupts all but the noblest of people's hearts.

      • oefrha 2 days ago

        Often times I hear a fairly important piece of negative news about <group>, then look up which MSMs have reported it. Chances are I can find it on CNN, but it’s completely missing from NYT, or only one tangential sentence/paragraph in a related piece. Lying by omission is powerful.

  • mmooss 2 days ago

    > they knew the NSA was spying on us but never ran the story

    They did run the story; they withheld it for awhile.

    > to protect GW's chances at reelection

    Is there evidence of that? I've never heard it and I promise that no Republican thinks the NY Times actively helping them.

  • andreygrehov 2 days ago

    The answer is ad revenue. If you go against what your subscribers believe in, you lose money. If you lose money, you might lose your job. If you lose your job, you can't pay your mortgage.

    • londons_explore 2 days ago

      I suspect plenty of government money directly flows to newspapers as part of various campaigns to sway public opinion on certain politically important topics.

      Perhaps moreso outside the USA where just a handful of paid articles can sway some topic important for US foreign policy.

      • throwaway48476 2 days ago

        Middle East governments are huge newspaper advertisers. The Chinese government has a propaganda page in the wsj.

    • spyspy 2 days ago

      But then you introduce a subscription model and people decry how the good news is paywalled…

      • c0nducktr 2 days ago

        When the paywalled model is just as unwilling to go against its advertisers as the free model, it not surprising people aren't happy with the change.

        • spyspy 2 days ago

          Ok so there's nothing they can do. Got it.

  • skwirl 2 days ago

    If you went back to 2004 and told people the NYT was trying to help re-elect George W Bush they would nervously back away slowly from you.

  • rediguanayum 2 days ago

    Consider that technology may have moved on, and there are other better ways to communicate with journalists: https://www.nytimes.com/tips e.g. Signal and to read NYTimes e.g. high quality VPN.

    • mmooss 2 days ago

      > to read NYTimes e.g. high quality VPN

      I don't see how an ordinary non-technical user could obtain access to a "high quality VPN". I'm not sure a technically skilled user could without a lot of work to setup some sort of chain of anonymous proxies.

    • basedrum 2 days ago

      Lol, that tips page uses tor?

  • starik36 2 days ago

    Your post is nonsense. NYT has endorsed a democrat for every election in recent history. Why would they "protect" GW's chances at reelection???

    Endorsements

        2024: Kamala Harris (Democrat)
        2020: Joe Biden (Democrat)   
        2016: Hillary Clinton (Democrat)   
        2012: Barack Obama (Democrat)   
        2008: Barack Obama (Democrat)   
        2004: John Kerry (Democrat)   
        2000: Al Gore (Democrat)   
        1996: Bill Clinton (Democrat)   
        1992: Bill Clinton (Democrat)
    • luma 2 days ago

      I take them at their actions, not their empty words. Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_The_New_York_Times_con...

      > In an interview in 2013, [NYT Executive Editor] Keller said that the newspaper had decided not to report the piece after being pressured by the Bush administration

      Bush told them not to run the story while he was running for president. As always, the boot was presented and they licked it clean.

      • darkhorse222 2 days ago

        Your excerpt is a bit misleading, here's a wider cut:

        When it published the article, the newspaper reported that it had delayed publication because the George W. Bush White House had argued that publication "could jeopardize continuing investigations and alert would-be terrorists that they might be under scrutiny." The timing of the New York Times story prompted debate, and the Los Angeles Times noted that "critics on the left wondering why the paper waited so long to publish the story and those on the right wondering why it was published at all." Times executive editor Bill Keller denied that the timing of the reporting was linked to any external event, such as the December 2005 Iraqi parliamentary election, the impending publication of Risen's book State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration, or the then-ongoing debate on Patriot Act reauthorization. Risen and Lichtblau won the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting in 2006.

        In an interview in 2013, Keller said that the newspaper had decided not to report the piece after being pressured by the Bush administration and being advised not to do so by The New York Times Washington bureau chief Philip Taubman, and that "Three years after 9/11, we, as a country, were still under the influence of that trauma, and we, as a newspaper, were not immune."

        • rsingel 2 days ago

          And the NYT only published when Risen's book was going to come out, meaning the reporting that they paid for was going to get published in a book and embarrass the hell out of them

        • luma 2 days ago

          The question of facts are clear and admitted by their executive leadership. That the Bush admin gave them a bunch of scary stories isn't relevant - they knew the NSA was illegally spying on all Americans and, under pressure from an administration running for re-election, made the conscious decision to keep Americans uninformed of what power was doing to them.

          That's the old grey lady, same as she ever was. Take a gander at the rest of that Wiki page, this isn't an isolated incident.

        • ranger_danger 2 days ago

          A newspaper that is scared to post a story... what does that tell you about them?

          • mmooss 2 days ago

            What says they were scared?

            • ranger_danger 2 days ago

              > decided not to report the piece after being pressured

              • mmooss 2 days ago

                I see what you are referring to, thanks.

                'Pressure' doesn't mean fear necessarily. It could just result in different calculations of concern or risk.

                More importantly, the word 'pressure' upthread was written by a random Wikipedia editor. It's not quoting NYT editor Bill Keller. I think reading much into it - or even relying on it at all - is risky.

                From what I know, do I think the Bush administration attempted to pressure the NYT? I wouldn't be surprised. But the evidence says the Bush team made arguments about risk to national security. Those certainly could have influenced the NYT, and I think the NYT said that.

  • user3939382 2 days ago

    I definitely see it as a mouthpiece for the establishment and three letter agencies, my interest and trust in it is pretty much 0.

  • setgree 2 days ago

    > [The NY Times] knew the NSA was spying on us but never ran the story to protect GW's chances at reelection

    This is a really strong claim -- the part about the 'why'. Strong claims generally require strong evidence. I'm perfectly willing to believe they spiked the story for other, more plausible reasons, but come on, their editorial endorsing John Kerry is right there for everyone to read:

    > There is no denying that this race is mainly about Mr. Bush's disastrous tenure...When the nation fell into recession, the president remained fixated not on generating jobs but rather on fighting the right wing's war against taxing the wealthy. As a result, money that could have been used to strengthen Social Security evaporated, as did the chance to provide adequate funding for programs the president himself had backed...The Bush White House has always given us the worst aspects of the American right without any of the advantages. We get the radical goals but not the efficient management.

    So what exactly is the theory here that they spiked an NSA story to help this guy win re-election?? [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/17/opinion/john-kerry-for-pr...

    • throwaway48476 2 days ago

      I know PBS frontline did a documentary on this.

      • jancsika 2 days ago

        They did, it is worth watching, and it most definitely does not make the claim that Keller scuttled the story because he wanted GW to win the election.

        I've never heard anyone except user Luma at the top of this HN thread make that claim.

        If anything the time and energy devoted on this thread to disputing an apparently hastily-written and not fact-checked claim is evidence for why serious journalism (and a good editor!) is worth its weight in gold.

beardog 2 days ago

Reddit still has an onion service but is defacto unusable

  • marc_abonce 2 days ago

    Kind of, it depends. In my experience so far, Reddit blocks Tor nodes about 20% of the times or so. More specifically, it seems to return a 429, probably because someone tried to abuse Reddit from the same node and Reddit banned the IP. In my experience, this is just as likely to happen with the onion site or the www address.

    That being said, I only lurk so I don't know if there are any additional restrictions when trying to log in.

    Is that the same issue you have or is it something else?

aendruk a day ago

They started serving an expired TLS certificate on 2024-12-08. I inquired about it a few days after but never heard back.

DeathArrow 2 days ago

If my life or my freedom would be at stake, I wouldn't rely on TOR for anonymity.

  • halJordan a day ago

    In fact it's quite the opposite. If you need to do something to save your life and youre weighing the decision of take no action vs take action via tor; you and anyone else would take the risk with tor.

lxgr 2 days ago

Despite the symbolism, does this change anything about their reachability from Tor?

Is there any practical advantage to a website in being explicitly reachable as a hidden service on Tor, as opposed to simply not blocking exit node IPs?

  • marc_abonce 2 days ago

    I don't know if there's any benefit for the end user, but I think it helps with the reliability of the Tor network because onion sites are accessed by normal Tor nodes, not exit nodes[1]. This means that if you access the onion version of a site you're "relieving" the exit nodes from the extra traffic, which is good because exit nodes already have to handle a massive amount of traffic from all the requests to the surface web.

    [1] https://community.torproject.org/onion-services/overview/

    [1.5] http://xmrhfasfg5suueegrnc4gsgyi2tyclcy5oz7f5drnrodmdtob6t2i...

  • heavyset_go 2 days ago

    Assuming your adversary is a state with access to certificates, a malicious or compromised exit node could lead to your de-anonymization and access to information you may want to keep confidential or hidden.

    Your connection to an onion service is end-to-end encrypted and authenticated, as well, which means no MitM can trick you or sniff your traffic.

    • lxgr 2 days ago

      Ah, no reliance on the web PKI is a very good point (especially if their site also accepts document drops etc) I didn't consider, thank you!

t0bia_s 2 days ago

Would be interesting to see statistics of how many unique visits per day through onion on NYT was made.

cantrecallmypwd 2 days ago

Another act of bending the knee, just like when they axed Chris Hedges in the patriotic military invasions.

mlinksva a day ago

> we are now taking these learnings and applying them to building out our main page and signature products

I'd love (genuinely, this is not a snarky comment) to read more about either (learnings, application) or of course both.

notepad0x90 2 days ago

Isn't it a paywalled service? How do people use it? they access it anonymously and then pay with a card?

  • thinkingemote 2 days ago

    First pay for the service (on non-tor system if the payments provider doesnt like Tor), then on Tor you can input your username and password like you would as normal.

    Tor doesn't stop people users voluntarily de-anonymising themselves for specific sites. It does stop curious entities on the network from seeing what people do.

    • notepad0x90 a day ago

      that makes sense I guess, if you don't consider NYT themselves a potential threat actor that might nullify your anonymity.

lordofgibbons 2 days ago

NYTimes lost any and all credibility when they hired a literal Israeli Military Intelligence propagandist to write the their headline shock inducing piece on 40 beheaded babies, infants in ovens, and mass rape.

These have all been widely been debunked, including by Israeli media. But NYT never retracted their propaganda piece. This gave a free hand for the IDF, with U.S backing, to commit mass murder on an industrial scale in Gaza.

How are they even relevant anymore, and why do people pay to consume literal foreign propaganda? The purpose of the news media is to inform, but these guys are doing the complete opposite.

https://x.com/zei_squirrel/status/1761740292015767736 https://theintercept.com/2024/02/28/new-york-times-anat-schw...

  • yieldcrv 2 days ago

    To continue on this

    Israeli Jewish citizens criticize the war

    People abroad criticize the war

    But outside the country, many Jewish people abroad defend it and have this wildly incendiary defense mechanism against the people abroad, as if every critique from anyone is part of a thinly veiled movement to disrupt their right to existence

    Why cant the rest of us be assumed to be at parity with Israeli citizen’s critique?

    so unproductive

  • funcantor 2 days ago

    Why would you link to one of the most extreme mentally unwell twitter accounts immediately after a sentence on criticizing people willingness to consume propaganda?

    • lordofgibbons a day ago

      Your unfounded ad hominem attacks aside, everything posted both there and on The Intercept are provably true. Interesting that you conveniently ignore the main issue here, which is the lack of integrity.

    • subjectsigma 2 days ago

      Hmm, that account they posted is full of memes portraying China and communism in a good light, I wonder what their motivation could possibly be

  • realusername 2 days ago

    It's always been a very bad newspaper internationally, we could mention the Irak war cover or the constant attacks of EU countries.

TZubiri 2 days ago

[flagged]

  • freen 2 days ago

    Serving your website on TOR is emphatically not running an onion router nor providing an exit point.

    You are factually incorrect.

entriesfull 2 days ago

Good riddance. We The People will continue to build open and decentralized/anonymous platforms that don't spread government propaganda.

  • mmooss 2 days ago

    Where do you get good information?