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

791–800 of 1001 posts

Re: CIA malware and hacking tools

#791

Post by losvedir »

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #574
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…

It looks like someone wants to pull an Erdogan, and they know that the CIA, FBI, and NSA (the American security deep-state) are the chief obstacle to their goal. Which makes sense, considering it's those agencies who are usually responsible for both preventing foreign intrusion into our government (if the enemy is foreign) and mounting coups d'etat (if the enemy is domestic).

> It looks like someone wants to pull an Erdogan, and they know that the CIA, FBI, and NSA (the American security deep-state) are the chief obstacle to their goal. Which makes sense, considering it's those agencies who are usually responsible for both preventing foreign intrusion into our government (if the enemy is foreign) and mounting coups d'etat (if the enemy is domestic).

I think you're really overstating things here.

While Turkey's military may have mounted coups to restore secular order in the past, that's a peculiarity of their history. To think that the CIA, FBI, or NSA would serve a similar role in the U.S. is unrealistic. The times I can think of off the top of my head that they've gone against the law it hasn't been to the people of America's benefit, to say the least.

Besides of which, it's not even a reasonable comparison. The intelligence agencies aren't comparable to the military. If God forbid there were a coup in the U.S. it would involve the military, and they would probably be following Mattis, who is on Trump's side at the moment.

Lastly, come back to me when Trump is rewriting the Constitution and jailing journalists and judges by the thousands. Until then, this comment comes across to me as either paranoid hysteria about the U.S.'s situation or tragically belittling Turkey's.

Re: CIA malware and hacking tools

#792

Post by subroutine »

jwtadvice wrote: post #702
fastball wrote: post #689

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's say hypothetically that the Russian government has a Cyber Defense arm that has nearly the scope and capability as the US (the DNC/Hillary stuff seems to indicate this). Let's say this is true for many world powers (US, UK, China, and Russia for starters). However, it seems like Wikileaks, while claiming to be a neutral source that "just wants to make powerful people accountable", they only seem to be releasing…

Wikileaks published the internal communications of the Erdogan Administration in Turkey, indicating among other things (corruption) the administrations back channel to the Assad Administration in Syria (an enemy of the United States). The fallout of these disclosures potentially contributed to a building coup attempt in Turkey by forces loyal to the US (which the US tacitly supported) that burst just a week after the…

Wikileaks could focus its hacking efforts anywhere, so the question is, why Turkey?

On 24 November 2015, Turkish F-16 combat aircraft shot down a Russian Su-24 during an airspace dispute close to the Turkish-Syrian border. Russian President Vladimir Putin described the incident as "a stab in the back by the accomplices of terrorists" and further stated that "today's tragic events will have significant consequences including for relations between Russia and Turkey".

7 months later, on 19 July 2016 WikiLeaks released the AKP Emails. AKP is the ruling party of Turkey and political force behind president Recep Erdoğan.

Re: CIA malware and hacking tools

#793

Post by CuriousCosmic »

drharby wrote: post #720
alpha_squared wrote: post #603

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the purpose of devil's advocate in this, I think it's possible to state truths and still be misleading and/or distracting from another narrative. Just because something is true doesn't necessarily explain what the motive is for releasing that information. It's certainly healthy to have at least a shadow of a doubt as to what WikiLeaks's motivations are when it's already shown that it can either restrain itself fr…

Strongly concur. Ask any military officer who is a ring knocker; telling a 100% truthful narrative in such a manner as to provide a false narrative is still grounds for breaking the spirit of the honor code, and thus grounds for disenrollment.

can concur, the honour code definitely cares more about intent than truthfulness

Re: CIA malware and hacking tools

#794

Post by subroutine »

codezero wrote: post #670
thecynh wrote: post #529

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Speaking of little snitch...

http://i.imgur.com/JR5Ehbc.png

Re: CIA malware and hacking tools

#795

Post by TAForObvReasons »

edblarney wrote: post #790
TAForObvReasons wrote: post #753

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Allegedly WL did not release every email they had from the Syria leak. While every email released may be legitimate, the omission of emails pertaining to russia creates a narrative. Wikileaks may be telling the truth but it's far from clear whether they are telling the whole truth. And in between "truth" and "whole truth" there's a lot of room to shape the narrative

If Wikileaks is in any way editorializing the information, that is not specifically related to things like 'redaction of names to not put specific lives at risk' - then it is existentially damaging to their credibility. It's not just 'shaping narrative' - it's 'creating it'. I'm not for or against the very nature of Wikileaks - but I'm pointing out that editorialization is quite fundamentally bad - for an organizatio…

Even people here are susceptible to the logical problem. Here's a thread from last year: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12984371

The people who support Wikileaks are arguing that none of the leaks were fraudulent, while critics point to evidence suggesting that Wikileaks was editorializing by withholding information. The supporters never really address the editorializing issue.

Re: CIA malware and hacking tools

#796

Post by 6nf »

knowaveragejoe wrote: post #257
struct wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Michael Hastings? [0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Hastings_(journalist)

While the above is certainly plausible(killing someone with a car), I highly doubt this is the case here: https://www.metabunk.org/debunked-michael-hastings-crash-car...

I'm sorry but that thread doesn't debunk this at all

Re: CIA malware and hacking tools

#797

Post by nyolfen »

1897234235 wrote: post #228
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…

I believe the revelation here is the the CIA has built a duplicate version of the NSA, but with much further reach and less accountability.

'further reach' is stretching it to put it lightly. all of the cia tools appear to be individually targeted, whereas the nsa's programs are broadly based on mass surveillance.

Re: CIA malware and hacking tools

#798

Post by wallace_f »

alpha_squared wrote: post #603
ismay wrote: post #576

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

For the purpose of devil's advocate in this, I think it's possible to state truths and still be misleading and/or distracting from another narrative. Just because something is true doesn't necessarily explain what the motive is for releasing that information. It's certainly healthy to have at least a shadow of a doubt as to what WikiLeaks's motivations are when it's already shown that it can either restrain itself fr…

> For the purpose of devil's advocate in this, I think it's possible to state truths and still be misleading and/or distracting from another narrative.

I think while that's correct, we shouldn't let it distract our attention to the fact that transparency in government/democracy is good for the people, especially the working class.

Re: CIA malware and hacking tools

#799

Post by hourislate »

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…

Assange will be leaving the Ecuadorean Embassy soon.

I have a feeling he tries to get to the Russian Embassy or Russia itself?

You can bet GCHQ and NSA know something and could tell you exactly if Assange is working with Russia or anyone else for that matter. At this point they have people inside the Embassy cleaning his bathroom and vacuuming the carpets.

Re: CIA malware and hacking tools

#800

Post by marmot777 »

pillowkusis wrote: post #631
marmot777 wrote: post #500

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do they make such monumentally short-sighted, clearly bad decisions? Is it weak technical leadership (weak political or just old fashioned weak)? What is the internal logic these people use to justify pure folly that's probably done more harm than good even to their own interests and goals? Baffling.

Nobody makes "decisions" like this in an organization with the level of complexity and bureaucracy that the CIA has. A lot of these decisions can be seen more as emergent behavior, subject to politics, short-term immediate incentives, and the pragmatic observation that any attempt to make significant changes (i.e. "change the laws around classification of documents") has such a high time horizon that it's better to b…

I think you're right as if you look at behaviors as the result of a rational decision-making process, it seems the sort of "decision" only an insanely self-destructive person or organization would make
Post reply on HN