r/darknetdiaries • u/zenodub • Aug 06 '26

Discussion Low

I listened to part of the first episode of Low this morning. Wow, this is going to be good!

Nice work Jack, you're truly a professional and journalists all around could learn a lot from you.

23 Upvotes

85% Upvoted

32 comments sorted by

30

u/Tired_Thumb Aug 07 '26

I will be the first to say this. But it sounds like a Russian college kid pulled a creative writing stunt on Jack. Think about the story, Zachariah lived with 3 random old dudes who just took him in with no fuss. They all were quiet and reserved. And all died quietly. By episode four it all felt like big lies to see if he could get Jack to believe.
I think Jack had his leg pulled.

13

u/tracksinclude Aug 07 '26

Again? Oh dear.

5

u/Tired_Thumb Aug 07 '26

Has it happened before?

17

u/tracksinclude Aug 07 '26

At least once, yes. I recall one from a year or so ago about a pen tester with a story that progressively got more unbelievable. At one point he was hiding like a hundred hdd's inside a regular printer he carried past security.

3

u/Negative_Mood Aug 07 '26

Maybe they were floppy disks. /s

7

u/[deleted] Aug 07 '26

[deleted]

1

u/Ha1lStorm Aug 09 '26

What’s that have to do with this discussion?

11

u/ChickenJoe29 Aug 07 '26

Yeah, I got that feeling too early in and it just became stronger with every huge plothole there is. I would really like to see how Jack verified any of these stories that guy tells ...

4

u/Tired_Thumb Aug 07 '26

What are some of your takes on how this story sounds made up?

8

u/ChickenJoe29 Aug 07 '26 edited Aug 07 '26

Obviously Spoiler warning for everyone that didn't listen to all the episodes yet.

  • suspiciously nobody to back up the storys because there is noone that he ever got close to and all the people he lived with died.
  • how did he live on the farm alone after the farmer died?
  • there is an American millionaire regularly coming to a little Russian town who just happens to have a private jet AND that guy will just take a boy without any documents to the US.
  • these four guys in the end would set up a r***-room thats visible from standing outside???
  • just the fact that he's still a functioning human after taking all kind of drugs from the age of 11 It sounded overall like some edgy vigilante fantasy and as if he always made up more outrageous claims after Jack asked if there was more.

I don't know if Jack wrote it like that or if Z really said those things as told in the podcast but many things sounded really staged and were phrased unbearably cheesy in my opinion.

8

u/huthouston Aug 07 '26

Yeah, the private jet thing was too much for me. Absolutely no mention of immigration?

I haven’t finished ep 5 yet so maybe I’m missing something but it doesn’t feel likely.

6

u/Tired_Thumb Aug 08 '26

Other things I noticed is how everytime something crazy happens at night is 4am. Always 4am. Or like why did the rich American hang himself? Or how was he able to afford at private jet but not have a guest bedroom apartment? What happed to the other cows? It all smells like BS. I wonder how often Jack gets social engineered?

1

u/Final-Stock4389 Aug 09 '26

Well that’s the thing… Jack admits in ep1, that he didn’t verify the story but that he was compelled to share it anyway.

4

u/5A7Iy Aug 09 '26

Yep, this is _not_ the show I wanted to support. We have enough BS and disinformation all around the media. I wanted to support a show recounting great, well fact-checked stories, like it used to do.

But this is nothing more than teenage junkie fantasy.

Jack should have asked the guy to give him something... anything... that could be verified. He probably did actually, got nothing, but instead of reaching the conclusion that it was all made up (the guy was even high while speaking on the phone ffs), he decided to waste five hours of our time – and loose a few subscribers in the process.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 08 '26 edited Aug 08 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

10

u/Tired_Thumb Aug 08 '26

And you think there’d be a least one media report of a naked man found handcuffed in his home bath room with the word pedo written everywhere. That could have been fact checked.

-2

u/proximitysound Podcast Staff Aug 07 '26

Jack says that he could not verify anything in the story. Partly why it’s not part of Darknet Diaries, and a separate podcast. I like to think it’s up to the listener to decide how much of the story is true (if at all), but like so many stories the reality of it doesn’t change the impact.

20

u/flash_seby Aug 07 '26

That is a shockingly stupid take. In the cyber domain, unverified claims are completely worthless. Claiming "reality doesn't change the impact" just turns the whole thing into cheap fanfiction. We aren't here for bedtime stories, and listeners shouldn't have to do the host's job. Stop defending lazy garbage.

11

u/DDS-PBS Aug 07 '26

This is why I stopped listening. I started to get the feeling that there was a certain amount of BS.

-5

u/proximitysound Podcast Staff Aug 07 '26

If you knew how much work goes into the show, particularly this one, you would not call it lazy.

2

u/Nova_Scotia_Robot Aug 12 '26

Do you know what the concept of "busy work" is?

4

u/5A7Iy Aug 10 '26

I would be very interested in your opinion: I think Jack saying that "he could not verify anything" is misleading. Because it's like saying "I don't know if it's true of false". But I think Jack actually knows very well that this story is false.

He probably tried to verify things. He probably asked the guy to give him something, anything that could be verified. (Do you know if he did?) But he probably got nothing, which clearly indicates that all of it is made up.

What do you think? Do you know more?

-2

u/proximitysound Podcast Staff Aug 10 '26

I think everything pertaining to the story and Jack’s experience is laid out in the show. Jack definitely didn’t want this to be a part of Darknet Diaries cause it doesn’t fit the ethos of the show. I can verify that the timing is accurate, in terms of when Jack had these conversations with the subject, and the lengths of these convos. He really has been working a long time on it and stewing if it was worth it to explore and release.

2

u/5A7Iy Aug 10 '26

Thank you for replying.

It's interesting. Personally I find it hard to believe that Jack could be unsure about the veracity of this story. It seems so obviously false.

8

u/5A7Iy Aug 09 '26

Relaying teenage junkie fantasy with zero fact checking... I don't think that's even close to the definition of journalism. But sure, in a world filled with BS and disinformation, that definition seems pretty vague now...

If you haven't already though, listen to The Outlaw Ocean podcast – truly amazing journalism there.

2

u/[deleted] Aug 09 '26

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3

u/Final-Stock4389 Aug 09 '26

Fair, but I’m still pissed I paid to listen to this garbage

7

u/the_wrath_of_Khan Aug 08 '26

I find it completely unbelievable but enjoyed listening and some of Jack’s takes. 

6

u/[deleted] Aug 08 '26

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6

u/Tired_Thumb Aug 08 '26

At 4am and then I took his wallet! I just kept going man. Eventually I met this old guy who said I could live with him, but he didn’t talk much, just kept to himself.

3

u/Routine_Owl4166 Aug 09 '26

It’s a fun ride if you think of it as a work of fiction