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Snowden: Hack of an NSA server is not unprecedented, publication of the take is

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Re: Snowden: Hack of an NSA server is not unprecedented, publication of the take is

#81

Post by MisterWebz »

chatmasta wrote: post #66
BoringCode wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also entirely possible that unicorns are real.

I really don't think it's an unreasonable possibility. It's a known fact Snowden worked for CIA and even received deep cover training while working in Geneva. Much of his behavior is not that of a hapless IT admin, but someone well trained in HUMINT operations. He comes from a multigenerational military family. That's the kind of background that breeds strong loyalty to the state, and the exact kind of background fro…

Would the CIA willingly do so much damage to the US? Surely there are other ways to sabotage the NSA instead of doing something as high profile as leaking NSA documents to the public. Besides, I think leaking classified documents of other intelligence agencies is something no agency does, because an escalation of this sort would be disastrous for both agencies involved.

Re: Snowden: Hack of an NSA server is not unprecedented, publication of the take is

#82

Post by JoeAltmaier »

MisterWebz wrote: post #81
chatmasta wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really don't think it's an unreasonable possibility. It's a known fact Snowden worked for CIA and even received deep cover training while working in Geneva. Much of his behavior is not that of a hapless IT admin, but someone well trained in HUMINT operations. He comes from a multigenerational military family. That's the kind of background that breeds strong loyalty to the state, and the exact kind of background fro…

Would the CIA willingly do so much damage to the US? Surely there are other ways to sabotage the NSA instead of doing something as high profile as leaking NSA documents to the public. Besides, I think leaking classified documents of other intelligence agencies is something no agency does, because an escalation of this sort would be disastrous for both agencies involved.

Last thing CIA would do is reveal them. All leverage is lost. They would instead hold them hostage.

Re: Snowden: Hack of an NSA server is not unprecedented, publication of the take is

#83

Post by majewsky »

cloverich wrote: post #77
Declanomous wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If HN and Reddit are any indication, if you post a link to a blog post, people will respond without reading it. People don't like switching domains, especially if they are browsing from an app. (Myself included)

Sure but that's not just being lazy, its also a learned habit. There's a great deal of blog posts (like most writing in general) that is 5% information and 95% fluff. Sometimes you want the art, sometimes (esp. the engineering mindset) you just want the information. Skipping to comments frequently yields this, often with bonus comments like "I'm an actual expert and that post is very innaccurate".

This. I frequently find myself skimming over HN comments on a submission before reading the article, because it provides a hint at whether reading the submission is actually worth my time.

Re: Snowden: Hack of an NSA server is not unprecedented, publication of the take is

#84

Post by chatmasta »

MisterWebz wrote: post #81
chatmasta wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really don't think it's an unreasonable possibility. It's a known fact Snowden worked for CIA and even received deep cover training while working in Geneva. Much of his behavior is not that of a hapless IT admin, but someone well trained in HUMINT operations. He comes from a multigenerational military family. That's the kind of background that breeds strong loyalty to the state, and the exact kind of background fro…

Would the CIA willingly do so much damage to the US? Surely there are other ways to sabotage the NSA instead of doing something as high profile as leaking NSA documents to the public. Besides, I think leaking classified documents of other intelligence agencies is something no agency does, because an escalation of this sort would be disastrous for both agencies involved.

Has he really done that much damage? People are more afraid of the NSA than ever. One could argue that's exactly what they wanted.

Re: Snowden: Hack of an NSA server is not unprecedented, publication of the take is

#85

Post by then_you_wink »

I posted about this in a different thread with a different throwaway, because I had suspicions that Snowden knew about the whole EG auction thing anyways. The writing has been on the walls.

This is why there is so much hype over what appears at a first glance to be an obvious scam, because there is a lot of potential for civilians to learn a lot about how state-sponsored hacking actually operates. It's very different from how it's portrayed in the movies, and you really wouldn't be any wiser from not having been tainted by the movies anyways just due to the ridiculous amount of stealth involved in day-to-day operations.

If rumors are to be believed, then it means that EG can't possibly be crazy enough to make such a (relatively) rudimentary mistake like leaving behind binaries to tools that they KNOW only they have access to. These binaries don't seem like such a big deal, but the real situation is this: these binaries are the ONE thing that can tie all the dots together about all the different attacks that have happened. IRATEMONK, Stuxnet, Flame, etc. All these crazy "unprecedented" hacks that have just popped up out of nowhere could potentially be linked together with these binaries that may or may not exist. On top of that, with enough analysis, it's possible to even identify different programmers just from their stylometry, even through code, so if these binaries are detailed enough there could be the potential for correlation of the author(s).

That auction is really interesting.

Re: Snowden: Hack of an NSA server is not unprecedented, publication of the take is

#86

Post by vibrio »

JustSomeNobody wrote: post #11
peterkelly wrote: post #2

It also highlights the risks of NSA exploiting zero-days and creating malware to conduct offensive operations, rather than reporting vulnerabilities to the vendor to make everyone safer. Now these tools have been stolen by one of their adversaries, and may make it out into the public for anyone to take advantage of. I just watched an excellent documentary called "Zero Days" ( https://weshare.me/823adb83b8e98628 ) thi…

Question: Does the NSA have an obligation to be ethical?

YOU NEED ME ON THAT WALL!!!

Re: Snowden: Hack of an NSA server is not unprecedented, publication of the take is

#87

Post by chatmasta »

hueving wrote: post #80
chatmasta wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really don't think it's an unreasonable possibility. It's a known fact Snowden worked for CIA and even received deep cover training while working in Geneva. Much of his behavior is not that of a hapless IT admin, but someone well trained in HUMINT operations. He comes from a multigenerational military family. That's the kind of background that breeds strong loyalty to the state, and the exact kind of background fro…

It's just as likely he was operating on direct orders from the president himself because he feared the power of the NSA and needed the public against it! That's the thing about conspiracies, when there is no proof or reasonable cause you're free to just make up whatever you want.

Remember when it was a conspiracy theory that the NSA was reading all your emails?

Re: Snowden: Hack of an NSA server is not unprecedented, publication of the take is

#88

Post by fweespeech »

irishcoffee wrote: post #72
pests wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The quoted tweet uses two acronyms. Which is incorrect? You say acronyms as a plural. Can you please identify two or more specific usages (hopefully with citation!) of Snowden using acronyms incorrectly?

TAO is composed of much more than hackers, and hackers are in other groups besides TAO. No, I don't have link-able sources.

Yes, TAO is more than hackers. NSA isn't the only organization in possession of SigInt groups which operate like this, hell, its a pretty long list of groups.

However, you may want to consider Snowden isn't hostile enough to go through and list ever group in the US that maintains an arsenal of malware for operations in public. That doesn't necessarily mean ignorance, a more generous interpretation is everyone knows about TAO so he calls it TAO.

I realize you probably don't like the guy, but would you really preferred he list off every SigInt group in the US with a malware arsenal just to cover all his bases and all of their component groups that operate in relation to it?

Idk about you, but I don't need him to post org charts of all of that to get the gist.

Re: Snowden: Hack of an NSA server is not unprecedented, publication of the take is

#89

Post by digi_owl »

wepple wrote: post #41
eeeeeeeeeeeee wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for summarizing that. As others have commented, I wish Snowden would simply blog about this sort of thing. Twitter is frustrating to digest for any insightful commentary that is on the longer side.

if we're lucky, twitter will do what they did with the hashtag and other things when they realised their users needs were 'inventing' new features. The 1/n 2/n n/n tweets is a huge indicator of a feature need. Of course, that's going to dilute their original value proposition of short direct messages.

Twitter started out as an SMS repeater.

SMS has for ages, thanks to Nokia, had the capability of merging multiple messages into a single large one.

Twitter could just make use of this and save themselves a whole lot of grief.

Re: Snowden: Hack of an NSA server is not unprecedented, publication of the take is

#90

Post by altcognito »

balabaster wrote: post #50
pjc50 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So this seems to be the "Dr Strangelove" scenario playing out, but with (fortunately) exploits rather than nuclear weapons. It sounds like many countries have other significant exploits into other countries, but this isn't "admitted"; it's not an unignorable public fact (+). The Russian destabilisation plan is to get Western countries to see NSA attacks on them and lose trust in the US - plus an attack on the concept…

It takes Russia pointing this out to make us lose trust in the U.S.? I think the U.S. has done this all on their own. Snowden was just the latest whistleblower showing the world they can't be trusted. There were others before him, but it got swept under the rug. We all know the U.S. election system is flawed to a point of being broken and thus democracy as we like to believe it's supposed to work doesn't even exist.…

> We all know

rolls eyes, adjust your tinfoil hat.

Look, even if you believe that dark, unseen forces control the world using the US as a conduit - it would appear that the world has been the better for it. Given a choice of world management between Russian and US in this regard, the choice is pretty straightforward.

People who complain about Europe, the US and the general Western alliances management of the world are selling a pretty ugly alternative.

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