Wikileaks: Julian Assange's internet access 'cut' • Hacker News Board

Re: Wikileaks: Julian Assange's internet access 'cut'

#111

Post by tP5n » Mon, Oct 17, 2016, 11:43 AM UTC

rtpg wrote: post #87

pilif wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He needs good friends who host VPNs for him then the state actors would just bug that good friend.

which would require infecting the VPN machines themselves? Just wiretapping isn't sufficient because of public key encryption Assuming the nodes themselves are not compromised (big ask) and identity can be confirmed(like via key exchange), state actors can listen as much as they want to the wires, they won't be getting much. Except if some private key were out there...

> Just wiretapping isn't sufficient

Please explain, I was under the impression that the above could not reasonably be claimed anymore with any kind of certainty [1][2][3]. Perhaps I'm misunderstanding something important here or the 'Happy Dance!!' slide [4] made me paranoid.

[1] http://arstechnica.com/security/2016/10/how-the-nsa-could-pu... [2] http://arstechnica.com/security/2016/08/cisco-firewall-explo... [3] http://arstechnica.com/security/2015/10/how-the-nsa-can-brea... [4] http://www.spiegel.de/media/media-35515.pdf

Re: Wikileaks: Julian Assange's internet access 'cut'

#112

Post by dllthomas » Mon, Oct 17, 2016, 11:44 AM UTC

johansch wrote: post #73

anondon wrote: post #60

When Assange accesses the internet, I am guessing that state actors would be trying to see what his traffic contains. How would a person in such a situation access the internet and be sure that his traffic cannot be decrypted and/or there is no man in the middle modification of his traffic. For the sake of discussion, assume he has a brand new laptop with Debain/tails or another FOSS OS. The general consensus seems t…

If he has a laptop it almost certainly hacked if it's in any way connected to the Internet. How could it not be?

> [...] if it's in any way connected to the Internet

And probably even if not.

Re: Wikileaks: Julian Assange's internet access 'cut'

#113

Post by Ao7bei3s » Mon, Oct 17, 2016, 11:56 AM UTC

amelius wrote: post #93

appleflaxen wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the good news is that you don't even need to encrypt your data, if they are random to start with.

That might be tricky. An encrypted file may have some properties a random file does not have in general.

No, unless the algorithm is broken.

Ciphertext indistiguishability[1] is a basic requirement for any encryption scheme. All modern ciphers are designed to make that hard.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distinguishing_attack

Re: Wikileaks: Julian Assange's internet access 'cut'

#114

Post by dllthomas » Mon, Oct 17, 2016, 12:03 PM UTC

mbreedlove wrote: post #42

varjag wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or there's no insurance files and Assange is bluffing. He won't sit on some scoop harming the United States for long, his ego and power trip would force his hand.

The insurance files are public. They just have to release the keys. 3.6GB - http://wlstorage.net/torrent/wlinsurance-20130815-A.aes256.t... 49GB - http://wlstorage.net/torrent/wlinsurance-20130815-B.aes256.t... 349GB - http://wlstorage.net/torrent/wlinsurance-20130815-C.aes256.t... 94GB - https://file.wikileaks.org/torrent/2016-06-03_insurance.aes2... I don't know why they would put out a few hundred gigabytes of fak…

> I don't know why they would put out a few hundred gigabytes of fake files.

To trick people like you? `dd if=/dev/urandom` is much easier than finding a comparable quantity of actual info.

I don't know enough to have much opinion on the odds that's the case, vs them being real, though.

Re: Wikileaks: Julian Assange's internet access 'cut'

#115

Post by maxerickson » Mon, Oct 17, 2016, 12:28 PM UTC

cookiecaper wrote: post #110

maxerickson wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just company reps, the US government issued a statement to the effect: https://www.dhs.gov/node/23199

Yeah, the unifying theory here is that they're all taking orders from the administration and pushing the baseless narrative that Russia is the source of everything anti-Clinton to try to discredit all of the dirt that's out there on her. It's no surprise that the government is following its own orders. I think they also do this because they don't want people to know how simple it is to conduct this kind of cyberattac…

We very quickly went from Representatives of well-known internet security firms have stated that they believe the attack comes from the Russian government, but have nothing to provide other than their professional opinion to a giant, airtight conspiracy.

Re: Wikileaks: Julian Assange's internet access 'cut'

#116

Post by alva » Mon, Oct 17, 2016, 1:26 PM UTC

maxerickson wrote: post #109

cookiecaper wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no hard evidence that Russia is involved. Representatives of well-known internet security firms have stated that they believe the attack comes from the Russian government, but have nothing to provide other than their professional opinion (which is not based on specific data afaik). The Russia myth comes from everyone repeating each other and pretending like it's fact. I don't really think Americans think of…

It's not just company reps, the US government issued a statement to the effect: https://www.dhs.gov/node/23199

Read the statement very carefully. At no point do they actually say, or directly suggest that Russia is behind the Podesta and DNC leaks.

The media and some politicians are full force memeing this, saying USG blames Russia for the hack and leaks. The statement does not say this in the slightest.

Re: Wikileaks: Julian Assange's internet access 'cut'

#117

Post by alva » Mon, Oct 17, 2016, 1:27 PM UTC

lyschoening wrote: post #29

gragas wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[citation needed] Please provide evidence that the leaks are from Russia. Also, many people care a lot about Assange. Millions of people care about Assange and WikiLeaks. It is absolutely absurd (and almost un-humanitarian) to try to downplay the work that he has done.

U.S. intelligence services and the Obama administration have explicitly accused Russia of the leaks and assessed that this must have been orchestrated from high in the Russian government. That's a pretty bold statement in politics. Of course we can point to cases where U.S. administrations have lied, but it still should count as evidence, at least on a probabilistic level. Also, regarding Assange, I believe evgen mea…

>U.S. intelligence services and the Obama administration have explicitly accused Russia of the leaks

No they have not. Read the statement [0] very, very carefully.

[0] https://www.dhs.gov/node/23199

Re: Wikileaks: Julian Assange's internet access 'cut'

#118

Post by makomk » Mon, Oct 17, 2016, 1:38 PM UTC

cmdkeen wrote: post #106

Xylakant wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 3. The British government has the power to issue DA-notice to media outlets. Surely they can suppress all blogs and all of twitter and facebook at the same time. Oh, hold - why didn't they suppress the tweet we're discussing. > 4. "Storming" the Ecuadorian embassy would not take a lot of manpower. This isn't a raid of a Mexican cartel. There is no resistance to expect, the adversarial repercussions would be diploma…

Firstly D-notices are only advisory, while the media tend to comply with them they are in no way legally enforceable. Secondly central London has rather good wifi and 4G coverage. Presumably the "appropriate contingency plans" are to switch his phone's personal hotspot on and carry on as normal. Though there might be a nasty phone bill coming down the line.

I'd be surprised if the police or military couldn't dig out a jammer from somewhere if they wanted to - or just turn off the local cell towers for a while. Wouldn't be the first time.

Re: Wikileaks: Julian Assange's internet access 'cut'

#119

Post by dragonwriter » Mon, Oct 17, 2016, 1:44 PM UTC

phy6 wrote: post #44

evgen wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What it would confirm is that Assange has made himself more trouble than he is worth the the Ecuadorian's and they have decided to simply kick him out of their embassy. They have no moral obligation to continue providing shelter for someone who thinks their protection is some untouchable perch from which to play political games and are simply asking them to leave. Assange is that guy you once knew from high school wh…

I think if this election cycle has taught us anything, it's that allegations of the worst kind can be created for political reasons. Surely Bill Clinton AND Donald Trump AND Julian Assange AND Anthony Weiner can't all be rapists, right? What kind of a world do we live in if they all are?!

A patriarchy where powerful men are essentially unaccountable for abuse of women. Or, in other words, exactly the same world we've been living in for centuries. (Not saying all the allegations are true, just that even if they were, it wouldn't fundamentally alert the nature of the world, which is one of the reasons they spread so easily--they are quite consistent with the way the world is observed to work.)

Re: Wikileaks: Julian Assange's internet access 'cut'

#120

Post by cylinder » Mon, Oct 17, 2016, 1:45 PM UTC

Kenji wrote: post #40

I wish I could help Assange. This guy deserves a medal, and barely any country has enough morals to host him. Here we have a presidential candidate seriously saying "Can't we just drone this guy?" (Hillary Clinton, obviously) and barely anyone stands up for him. People get extradited because otherwise there will be economic embargos. Trade your morals for a 4K TV. Disgusting.

For the average population of the US, just say someone's actions increase the possibility of a terrorist attack, and you will have majority backing to throw them to the wolves (and I mean literally). There's nothing I can do as an American. Swedes, you have more power per capita, you should fight to get these ridiculous rape charges dropped so he can make safe passage to Ecuador.

Amazing how Bob Woodward was a journalist hero who went onto have unprecedented access to future Presidents for his books and yet this is Assange's fate. It's disgusting.