A couple of weeks ago I made fun of tech journalism. It was an easy—some might even say a cheap—shot but Gizmodo brings this kind of ridicule on themselves. Sadly, besides the buffoonery, there’s actual malpractice going on.
Cellebrite is an Israeli company offering forensic software to law enforcement agencies. Recently, they published a blog post concerning their ability to extract information from Signal, a secure messaging app. The post was a little over the top and to their credit, Cellebrite replaced the post with a more moderate one.
That, however, did not stop the BBC and other “legitimate news sources” from publishing stories claiming that Cellebrite had cracked Signal’s encryption. Cellebrite’s post didn’t say that and it’s certainly not true. The true story is hardly worth telling. It’s like \(2+2=4\), film at 11. You can read that story at Signal’s Website.
Nobody with any brains takes news organizations specializing in Tech seriously. They are almost always wrong and appear to be more interested in clicks than news. But the BBC and organizations like Forbes, Bloomberg, the New York Times, and the others are supposed to be “real” news sources and yet they propagate the same sorts of nonsense. They shouldn’t wonder that anyone paying attention discounts everything they say.