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posted by LaminatorX on Friday February 21 2014, @06:30AM   Printer-friendly
from the Nations-Spying-on-Authors dept.

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.]

 
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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by mojo chan on Friday February 21 2014, @11:30AM

    by mojo chan (266) on Friday February 21 2014, @11:30AM (#4360)

    It makes a lot of sense actually. Obviously anyone with those files is going to be a target of spying and hacking attempts. If you read TFA he claims that was not the only incident of this kind, and that he has been very obviously followed in real life too.

    It's a standard intimidation tactic. We own your computer, we know where you are and are monitoring you at all times. You are a high value target to us, worth putting guys on to follow. It wouldn't work unless he noticed.

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  • (Score: 1) by dingo on Friday February 21 2014, @04:02PM

    by dingo (1579) on Friday February 21 2014, @04:02PM (#4509)

    It's in government agencies' best interest to have you believe they're all powerfull, is it not?
    How much hard, physical proof is there NSA actually did all the stuff people and/or other countries claim they've been doing?