> attributed some of this delay to his difficulty in finding independent experts who hadn't signed the open letter.

They emailed me asking why I hadn't signed and if it meant that I didn't agree with the petition.

Funny thing, two reasons why I hadn't signed. First, it was because I only caught the petition when it was already deep with many people I respect a lot and I felt I added nothing

And second, I was conflicted because i'd previously had a disagreement with The Guardian on another story that got kicked up all the way to editorial and I felt was never adequately resolved and was largely swept under the rug.

After that experience I didn't feel that The Guardian were genuinely going to make a best effort to resolve what was their own mess, again.

edit: to add, it drives me fucking nuts every time I hear someone repeat "I heard WhatsApp is insecure". Thanks again, Gruardian.

It's a kind of interesting problem to have. I can see the logic in trying to find someone not on the letter to verify that what it says is true... but when literally everyone agrees, the logic falls apart.

I suspect this might be the side effect of excessive CYA. I'm not happy with it, but there have been so, so many articles that get the basic premises of tech completely wrong that I think I'd still rather them take an excessive amount of time checking than publish another ill-informed piece.

I really do not see the logic in seeking input from those who did not sign the letter. The reason I signed was specifically to help show them that a very large number of infosec experts disagreed with the reporting (And I am sure that is the reason many others signed).

Few of the people on the list have any, at least obvious, position outside of their field. The purpose of seeking input is to make sure that this isn't 72 "climate change deniers" in fringe positions or with their own "custom" organisations.

I understand what you are trying to say, but you might want to check out the full list. It contains people who have various strong opinions on different nuanced security related topics, yet all agree regarding this. I think that is why it is strange to brush aside the signatories.

> It contains people who have various strong opinions on different nuanced security related topics, yet all agree regarding this.

But it takes a while to verify this if you're not already familiar with it (I'd argue that's a reason why they shouldn't have published the article to begin with, but w/e)

The public editor wouldn't know any of that. It's pretty much thier job to not take someone at thier word. Even if he could verify each person's contribution, their position in the field and the relevance of these facts to this issue he still can't be sure that this isn't e.g. some fight between two sides and that this group isn't in minority to 172 other experts that think differently. It's out-of-band verification if you so will.

More likely that The Guardian weren't very good at finding any experts before or after the story. Apparently if you don't expose a distinguishable interface to the rest of the world journalist won't find you.

Come on. Not everyone in the field signed the letter.

Don't play dumb, David. The list of signers is extraordinary and surprising, especially to people like us who actually work in the field. This isn't a bunch of random Twitter people.

More importantly: your comment leaves the impression that there were notable people in the field who had a problem with the letter. If an expert working in messaging security didn't sign it, you and I both know that's probably just because they weren't aware of it (or, at the time, The Guardian's story).

Maybe I'm wrong (or lacking context), but FWIW I read baby's comment to mean that the public editor's claim that he had difficulty finding non-signers is silly.

It's not silly. I am not at all surprised that The Guardian was ultimately unsuccessful at finding someone reputable that works in this field to contradict the open letter.