The Intercept steps up after catching a reporter faking data and sources

Zenaan Harkness zen at freedbms.net
Sat Feb 6 03:50:21 PST 2016


On 2/6/16, Александр <afalex169 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> I find it quite funny how  people who routinely post pro-government
>>         garbage are not 'trolls', including, you know high ranking CIA
>>         mafiosos. Furthermore, the CIA mafiosos and lapdogs call other
>>         people 'trolls'...
>
> Oh, i love it. Thanks juan!


For those who kept their brain cell uninebriated last year and its
synapse firing at least once a day, a few burner addresses got, well,
burned - CIA boys apparently "just havin a bit of fun, don't worry
about it you plebe" - quite the eye opener. Anyway, it's quite clear
they send some folk this way for training. Although this one time, on
cee pee, it seemed like damage control with a covert take down attempt
- can't have those nasty Russians be highlighted in a positive way
now... nasty, nasty, nasty we must believe, like you know, killers and
drunkards, all the way down!

I used to take down, in arguably humorous ways, certain annoying
telephone persons who tended to ring me about some 35 year old debt
they considered important or something. So then this one time, on the
telephone, I realised I was training them, and in that moment I saw
this sad fact, felt a bit depressed and sad about it, so I said to the
lady who'd rang:
"You're new at this [your] company right?"


  ... silence on the other end ...




"You know, your company always sends the new guys to me for training,
but I've had enough of that, now that I realise that's what you're
doing, and I used to have fun with you, but it's not good that I'm
training you because then you'll just be better at being aggressive to
other people you call."



  ... more silence on the other end ...




"So, I'm not going to talk to you people any more."


Finally she speaks up with some indignation "You're not going to talk
to me? But you need to confirm your name and a contact address?!"

I think said "bye" or something before hanging up, can't remember
cause that was a few years ago now.


They stopped ringing me after that.



A moral of the story is actually a bit earlier in history - in that
first moment when I said "FUCK THIS" to the fear inside myself and
confronted the bully at the other end of the phone, and this time I
did it with dignity and simple questions asked back to that bully - I
just didn't fucking care any more, but I was no longer angry either.
The bully hung up the phone on me in less than 2 minutes. Damn that
was a good feeling!  I did not even realise they were about to hang
up, but I sure pulled a surprised yet celebratory fist in the air when
it happened.


    Recommended by Z - "confront the bully"


Had others in stitches after that since I'd go and put these calls on
speaker-phone, hoping that my friends might get some strange ideas
about confronting telephone bullies instead of cowering meekly in fear
and dumping their frustration on me afterwards.

This one time, a particular friend (at the time, sadly no longer) was
really pissed off when his phone rang, so I asked him "is that a debt
collector?" "I think so, they keep fucken ringing too" he replied.
"You want me to get it next time - I'll handle them for you eh?" to
which he agreed, and right on queue, a few minutes later they rang
back again.

So, this particular one went pretty much like this (I first put the
phone into loud speaker mode so everyone could listen in):

me: "Hello?"

Bully: "Is that Name Redacted?"

me: "Who's calling please?"

B: "I need to confirm if that's Name Redacted?"

me: "Sorry, I don't know who you are."

B: "I'm John from Credit Solutions Proprietary Limited, can you please
put Name Redacted on the phone."

me: "Well, ahh ... ... you might be speaking with him now."

B: "Oh, ok, can you please confirm that your family name is Redacted?"

me: "Well I'm not really wanting to do tha..."

B: "THIS is an IMPORTANT business call and I can only speak with Name
Redacted as it's a personal financial matter. Will you please confirm
that you are Name Redacted and also give me your postal address?"

me: "Look, you are wanting information from me."

B: "YES, you need to confirm your name and contact details before we
can proceed."

me: "But I don't really want to proceed."

B: "You are really starting to waste my time! Are you just a joker?!?"

me: "Look, you've haven't caught me at the best time and I just wan..."

B: "OK, I'll call back later, when's a good time to call you back?!"

me: "Oh look, I'd rather get it out of the way now, but I don't know
who you are?"

B: "I TOLD you I'm JOHN from Credit Solutions and I'm in the Customer
Care department - you can speak with my manager if you want to confirm
that I DO work here!"

[At this point I mumbled slightly because I didn't really want him to
hear my next words:]
me: <mumbling>"You don't sound very caring to me."

B: "What was that? You want to speak with my manager?"

me: "No, no, that won't be necessary."

B: "What's your family name?!!"

me: "OK. First, what's -your- family name and postal address?"

B: "I, n.. no, I can't give you that information?"

me: "Hm.  So you can't give me that information."


me: "Why can't you give me that information?"




B: "We have a legal procedure."


me: "Oh."


me: "Ok."


me: "Well, I -guess- I can understand that, since your company has a
duty of care to you guys and all that. I guess we can always serve a
Subpoena on your company if we needed that information."

B: "WHAT?!"

me: "Oh you know, if the police needed some information or something."

B: "Things have always been done this way - it's nothing new you know!"

me: "Yeah, I suspected that."

B: "Anyway, can you please confirm your family name for me?"

me: "Oh no! Sorry. I can't do that!"

[At this point one friend (who's phone I'd answered) is starting to
laugh under his breath, since he could see the last part coming up.
Also, the next few lines are verbatim, and I personally was struggling
to contain my mirth, since the bully at the other end of the phone
STILL did not see it coming, and instead asks me the following
question, point blank, and a little slowly, since I guess for some
strange reason he seems to want to make sure he does not misunderstand
me:]


B: "You  can't  confirm  your  name?"


me: "Nope."


B: "Why not?"


me: "I have a legal procedure."


NOW he hangs up the phone.


More laughs than we'd had in a long time. All in a few minutes flat.

(Shared this with many people - hope it wasn't too long for the Internet.)




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