Do most HN commenters believe that Assange is outright lying?
"We receive information anonymously, through an anonymous submission platform. We do not need to know the identity of the source, neither do we want to know it.", most recently in the AMA https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/5c8u9l/we_are_the_wik...
If correct (and I'm inclined to believe them here as it's a key component of their process), then they would have no knowledge one way or another as to who the true submitter really was. I think Assange is bending the truth by denying the source of the submission—if his staff's statement is true then he would have no way of knowing.
Under Occam's Razor I'd conclude that they got played in the exact way that was intended.
So yeah, I would give more credibility to the NSA than to Assange in this case, without any need to accuse him of lying.
I don't really read anything new in the article except what was already mentioned in October.