NY Times 'accidentally' publishes identities of Russian soldiers critical of Putin

Former newspaper of record, The New York Times, printed identifying information about Russian soldiers who criticized President Vladimir Putin, supposedly by accident. This will put the lives of these soldiers at great risk if anyone in Russian intelligence uses the Times to line their bird cage and bothers to read through the crap before tossing it in the garbage.

The accidental doxing revealed the phone numbers of soldiers and their families, and appeared in the metadata of a NY Times article in September detailing Russian troops criticizing Putin and the Ukraine war, as reported by Motherboard, Vice News' tech site. The Times kept the information available in the article and finally scrubbed it in January.

One soldier called Putin "a fool" and another said Putin was "gravely mistaken" to invade Ukraine. Others voiced concern about killing Ukrainian civilians, and so on.

Motherboard reported:

"This metadata error is a regrettable and entirely avoidable cockup on the part of the New York Times," Thomas Rid, professor of strategic studies at Johns Hopkins University/SAIS, told Motherboard in an online chat. "The Times says it spent almost two months on translating the recordings—well, it should have spent another 20 minutes on scrubbing the metadata." 

"Exposing the phone number of the families of Russian troops is exposing those family members to risks," Rid added.

It's no secret that The New York Times is friendlier to Russia than it is to Israel and conservatives in the US. And it has been that way for decades.

It would come as no surprise to me to discover the rag known as The New York Times intentionally left the damning information on their site.

Tweet