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

Whistleblower uncovers London police hacking of journalists and protestors

wsws.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 275 posts

Re: Whistleblower uncovers London police hacking of journalists and protestors

#131

Post by dTal »

deadbunny wrote: post #129
dTal wrote: post #122

>The Bindmans LLP law firm, acting on behalf of Jones, contacted six of those listed to verify their passwords (the others could not be traced). In response, five of the six gave passwords that matched those given in the letter, and the sixth was nearly a match. Well jeez no wonder they were hacked if they're that easy to socially engineer. "Verify my password? That's funny, you're the third one this month..."

Blaming the victims? Really?

Obviously the people hacking accounts are the baddies. But I don't think it's inappropriate to note that, seemingly, someone literally phoned them up, asked for, and received their passwords - and that's not even the main story!

Re: Whistleblower uncovers London police hacking of journalists and protestors

#132

Post by hunter2_ »

deadbunny wrote: post #129
dTal wrote: post #122

>The Bindmans LLP law firm, acting on behalf of Jones, contacted six of those listed to verify their passwords (the others could not be traced). In response, five of the six gave passwords that matched those given in the letter, and the sixth was nearly a match. Well jeez no wonder they were hacked if they're that easy to socially engineer. "Verify my password? That's funny, you're the third one this month..."

Blaming the victims? Really?

When victims are overtaken by force, coercion, stealth, or a multitude of other reasons, you can't blame them. When a victim in their right mind offers up a secret to someone they didn't authenticate, "victim blaming" as a construct is a stretch.

Re: Whistleblower uncovers London police hacking of journalists and protestors

#133

Post by cmdrfred »

dTal wrote: post #131
deadbunny wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blaming the victims? Really?

Obviously the people hacking accounts are the baddies. But I don't think it's inappropriate to note that, seemingly, someone literally phoned them up, asked for, and received their passwords - and that's not even the main story!

I still can't believe the "humans are generally trusting and helpful to strangers" vulnerability has yet to be patched.

http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=2526

Re: Whistleblower uncovers London police hacking of journalists and protestors

#134

Post by NumberCruncher »

>> This alleged criminality is the result of a deliberate government policy of using the police and security services to [...] protect company profits and the status quo. [...] it is not simply the case that the police and security services are just being used by the government. In fact, the police and security services are becoming emboldened to take a more independent role as direct agencies of the ruling elite, overriding other bodies.

No comments needed.

Re: Whistleblower uncovers London police hacking of journalists and protestors

#135

Post by ethics_gradient »

acd wrote: post #49

Its an issue when you self censor opinions which deviate from the mass. It also an issue of freedom of press. The government know who you talk to through metadata collection even if you use encryption.

To get that data, governments may need a bunch of things: the company being under their jurisdiction in some legally relevant sense, laws allowing for such requests (those may or may not be needed, sadly), the company keeping the data. If the company doesn't keep the data, they could try to compel it to or hack it, but those may be more difficult. So that's a lot of steps.

For this reason Signal is hardly comparable to Whatsapp and many other apps using the same protocol: the latter group openly logs metadata, the former says they almost don't, is open source, is more trustworthy due to the organizational structure. Finally, there's even some evidence ( https://whispersystems.org/bigbrother/eastern-virginia-grand... ) that they don't.

Re: Whistleblower uncovers London police hacking of journalists and protestors

#136

Post by [deleted] »

Ntrails wrote: post #45
dirtbox wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The camera surveillance stuff hasn't been true since the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 when much of it was scrapped. I'm not sure I've never heard of surveillance vans on every block though, that's certainly not true.

There are a lot of fucking cameras in London - they didn't get taken down in 2012. Of course I'm fine with the cameras so ymmv. Also, plenty of police vans with ANPR systems to check on cars etc as they drive about. As for the rest, sometimes I wonder if people on HN have forgotten what the real world is like. Is encryption evil? Clearly not. Does it being prevalent cause issues with intercepting terrorist/criminal c…

[deleted]

Re: Whistleblower uncovers London police hacking of journalists and protestors

#137

Post by ethics_gradient »

ionised wrote: post #125
ak4g wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find myself self-censoring on topics like this, not because of what I (don't) fear is being done by authorities, but because I can't help but to note that we're not, in fact, living in some Orwellian dystopia, and that seemingly the surveillance that is being done is promulgating a safe and stable society, but not toeing the sky-is-falling line doesn't do much for those numbers by my username. Meanwhile, there are…

> surveillance that is being done is promulgating a safe and stable society Evidence?

Well, there is evidence to the contrary, at least: the lack of success of the NSA mass spying programmes, with experts like Schneier repeatedly showing why such programmes cannot in the near future even be useful for their stated purpose (anti-terrorism), and officials from the government admitting that they didn't really get much out of it - just some taxi driver who could hardly be called a threat.

The evidence that such systems endanger safety, meanwhile, should be obvious to anyone who has read about how surveillance has been used, from totalitarian states to even liberal democracies (even in the somewhat recent US history), as well as knowledge of how quickly the latter could turn into the former.

Re: Whistleblower uncovers London police hacking of journalists and protestors

#138

Post by ue_ »

NumberCruncher wrote: post #134

>> This alleged criminality is the result of a deliberate government policy of using the police and security services to [...] protect company profits and the status quo. [...] it is not simply the case that the police and security services are just being used by the government. In fact, the police and security services are becoming emboldened to take a more independent role as direct agencies of the ruling elite, ov…

>government policy of using the police and security services to [...] protect company profits and the status quo

If anyone needed more evidence that we are living in a bourgeois democracy rather than a people's democracy, look no further than this government policy enforced by their thugs.

Re: Whistleblower uncovers London police hacking of journalists and protestors

#139

Post by RubenSandwich »

dTal wrote: post #130
RubenSandwich wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think your selling the victims short here. The law firm could of been more discrete. e.g. "Hello X, We are investigating a case involving the government hacking journalists. You are a person of interest in this case. The government records show that your password is Y. Can you confirm or deny that this was your password around the dates Z?"

Well, at the very least, "the sixth was nearly a match" is pretty damning. "Nono, you've got it wrong, MY password is hunterTHREE - you see there was this incident..."

I'm gonna continue to play Devils advocate here and that person in question could of merely confirmed that it was close.

But realistically I think your right. People will gladly handout passwords to people who sound authoritative. It's amazing to me how many DEFCON talks begin with: "So we just pretended to be X and asked for their password and got it."

Re: Whistleblower uncovers London police hacking of journalists and protestors

#140

Post by 24gttghh »

snovv_crash wrote: post #73
andy_ppp wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you can suggest one?

Look at the peaceful transition in South Africa. Do you think that would have happened if the old government thought they could keep hanging on?

The campaign of the ANC* was peaceful?

*edit: I don't know what I thought ANG was...

Post reply on HN