Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

CIA malware and hacking tools

wikileaks.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

661–670 of 1001 posts

Re: CIA malware and hacking tools

#661

Post by jowiar »

dang wrote: post #484
jowiar wrote: post #272

Quit with the fucking conspiracy theories. Seriously -- can we get a fucking mod in here to get rid of this shit.

People are going to post for and against this stuff regardless of what we do. It sounds like you have additional reason to feel strongly about it but expressing that this way is inevitably counterproductive. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13811866 and marked it off-topic.

Things like this are why YC has zero ground to stand on when they attempt to solve "fake news" through investment. YC can start by firing their useless mods and hiring folks with some guts.

FWIW, my strong word choice was to draw specifically YOUR attention to the parent. That you consider me "counterproductive" while allowing HN to become a fake news echo chamber is irresponsible.

An attitude among the gatekeepers of "people are going to post for and against this stuff" is exactly why "fake news" is a problem.

Re: CIA malware and hacking tools

#662

Post by badloginagain »

mpg33 wrote: post #639
badloginagain wrote: post #562

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Im stating the possibility that the Executive Branch made available the means to doxx the CIA. The timing, the target, and the vector of attack all line up very nicely.

So Trump is simultaneously a complete incompetent blowhard and pulling off these mastermind plans??

I think it's likely that Trump will make difficult demands of his staff, and they find a way to make it happen. The President doesn't necessary get involved with the details of formulating the strategy to accomplish the demand. What's more important is the President thinks about risk factors, fallout, long-term implications of the strategy their staff proposes.

The 'incompetent' comes from an apparent disregard of thinking about the consequences of his actions. The 'blowhard' is self-documented.

Re: CIA malware and hacking tools

#664

Post by nikdaheratik »

tehwalrus wrote: post #45
dvcc wrote: post #5

Based on the overview alone (of course I can't read the entire report that fast!), this is exactly what I expect a spy agency would be doing -- if they were not then I would be disappointed. What exactly in the admittedly shortened list am I supposed to be upset about? It makes no distinction between US citizens and overseas parties. If these actions are being done domestically against US citizens, with no just cause…

> If these actions are being done domestically against US citizens, with no just cause sure I will get upset, but that has yet to be seen. May I just ask, why does this distinction matter? Why do you believe the world should be divided into "people who were issued bits of paper by my overlords" and "people who weren't"? I never understood this division in other people's heads. It leads to all sorts of philosophical p…

There's a big difference between war and spying. Accurate intelligence can actually prevent wars as it keeps governments honest about their movements and actions. It can also limit the damage of aggressive actions as it allows us to help target only the actual enemies rather than the enemies plus everyone in the entire village (obviously not 100% accurate).

Your claim that having the tools to spy on people is inherently unethical, but I don't buy that. The ability to hack a TV is nowhere near the ability to destroy a city with a WMD. It's not even on the same slope.

Re: CIA malware and hacking tools

#665

Post by abrkn »

TheHippo wrote: post #323
oakhaven wrote: post #224

TIL that CIA is using Atlassian Stash for internal code hosting. Many references to the stash.devlan.net, would be nice to see some code, I just found some python scripts: https://wikileaks.org/ciav7p1/cms/page_9535551.html

There are even images here: https://wikileaks.org/ciav7p1/cms/page_13205694.html

And they're using git flow

Re: CIA malware and hacking tools

#666

Post by chillwaves »

ismay wrote: post #576
abandonliberty wrote: post #485

It's interesting to note that Julian Assange didn't demonstrate control of the wikileaks private key during his Reddit AMA 1 month ago: https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/5n58sm/i_am_julian_as... Considering the political situation unfolding in the US and who this leak weakens, there is some evidence that wikileaks is not in the hands of a neutral party. There is clear motive right now for undermining the CIA. Th…

He very clearly explained his motives for not doing so in the AMA, and he gave an alternate POL by reading from the blockchain. This whole narrative of Wikileaks not being neutral is a very weird story, because they've never published anything that wasn't verified to be true. Since that's something they can't be attacked on, it seems that the strategy for discrediting Wikileaks has now become to accuse them of associ…

> So why even give a shit? As long as what they're publishing is true

Guess the phrase "lie by omission" doesn't mean much to you.

Re: CIA malware and hacking tools

#667

Post by abrkn »

eternalban wrote: post #37

This looks interesting: Hive's developer guide. It has a auto-destruct feature, just like in the movies: https://wikileaks.org/ciav7p1/cms/files/DevelopersGuide.pdf

Seems to have been having issues with premature self destruction:

"Discrepancy report DR-00134-2012 was issued after Operations determined that Hive version 2.5 was self-deleting prematurely. Analysis showed that a calculation involving the current time and the file modification time used to determine the time since last contact could result in a negative number that was then cast from an integer to an unsigned long integer. This resulted in a large positive number that exceeded the delete delay and subsequently caused Hive to self-delete."

Re: CIA malware and hacking tools

#668

Post by chillwaves »

freyr wrote: post #620
raverbashing wrote: post #602

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can publish only true facts and still push a narrative

> You can publish only true facts Can we go back to just calling them "facts"? A statement can be true or false, but a fact is true. You're playing into the idea that there are "false facts" or "alternative facts." There aren't. Those are lies or errors.

Because context matters? And people with any level of sophistication in their thinking can understand that.

I don't even know how to respond to some folks here. You really think it's impossible to use facts to construct a narrative that is untrue?

https://hbr.org/2016/10/theres-a-word-for-using-truthful-fac...

Come on now. We're better than this.

Re: CIA malware and hacking tools

#669

Post by jl6 »

I'll add my view that I don't see this as being all that surprising. Didn't we all expect that this is the sort of thing that TLA's get up to behind closed doors?

My main complaint is that even though I'm otherwise fairly well aligned to the US (ideals, principles, culture and such), I'm not a US citizen and therefore get treated as an enemy :(

Re: CIA malware and hacking tools

#670

Post by codezero »

thecynh wrote: post #529
mo17i wrote: post #475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried Sublime Text license key and it worked!

Aren't they verified server-side somehow? … I assumed the 10 seats would have been gone almost immediately.

According to LittleSnitch Omnigaffle 5 doesn't phone home at least when entering license keys. It may do so at some other time though.
Post reply on HN