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Did the Intercept bungle the NSA leak?

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Did the Intercept bungle the NSA leak?

#21

Post by mmjaa »

fixermark wrote: post #17
mmjaa wrote: post #3

Yes, or maybe no. It doesn't really matter, because this is just one of many battles being waged in the current cyber-war gripping our lives. I mean, we have to just see it in the larger context: there is very definitely a war going on among various, nefarious, otherwise, or indeterminate, hostile parties. It seems that if we must dismantle the military-industrial state, it is going to be through info-wars. The key t…

I'm curious: If there is a war going on, did this leak help or hinder? Which side did it help or hinder? Who benefits from this leak, and who is harmed? I have a sinking suspicion that the average American, for example, isn't benefited by this leak.

I dunno how we can quantify "Americans being benefited" in light of what these leaks are revealing in the global context, but I sure don't like it, living as I do, under either a velvet glove, or an iron one, depending on which side of the wall I happen to decide to visit.

But, I do think that these leaks are good for everyone, not just Americans, and that is why they need to happen.

Re: Did the Intercept bungle the NSA leak?

#22

Post by davexunit »

hdolt wrote: post #8

It's getting complicated managing 25 year olds at work these days. Lot of mistrust and entitlement issues I have never seen before. If you are a manager any suggestions about how to handle this stuff?

How about getting a handle on your own prejudice against young people?

Re: Did the Intercept bungle the NSA leak?

#24

Post by throwaway-1209 »

Nah. Only 6 people have printed the doc and of those only one could be found in phone call metadata making a call to a press related contact. I don't know what the leaker was thinking.

And in the end even this leak doesn't contain any evidence of anything that would even tie it to Russia, let alone GRU. On the internet no one knows you're a dog. So she will get 10 years in the slammer for nothing.

Re: Did the Intercept bungle the NSA leak?

#25

Post by [deleted] »

CogitoCogito wrote: post #18
user982 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It has all the appearances of the government trying to smear a news outlet and ensure no one leaks to them again. A scheme that would be less effective if not for The Intercept's demonstrably deficient opsec in protecting its source in this affair.

There's no evidence that it was The Intercept's actions that caused her to be found. I agree that they should be more careful (they should _always_ be more careful), but there are many ways the source could have been found independent of the newspaper. Regardless, the government has many incentives to claim that it was The Intercept's deficient opsec that caused them to find the leaker. There really isn't much you ca…

[deleted]

Re: Did the Intercept bungle the NSA leak?

#26

Post by rmxt »

Cozumel wrote: post #14

Check their very public social media profiles[0], Reality Winners reads like she escaped a psych ward so how she was ever given clearance should be an issue in itself. [0] http://www.informationliberation.com/?id=56840

Says the person linking to "informationliberation dot com". Pot, meet kettle.

Sure her twitter profile is highly politically charged and should likely have made her unfit for clearance, but citing that as evidence that she should be institutionalized is ridiculous. She'd likely say the same about you given your proclivity for "informationliberation". Where does that leave us for discourse?

Re: Did the Intercept bungle the NSA leak?

#27

Post by mmjaa »

CogitoCogito wrote: post #11
mmjaa wrote: post #3

Yes, or maybe no. It doesn't really matter, because this is just one of many battles being waged in the current cyber-war gripping our lives. I mean, we have to just see it in the larger context: there is very definitely a war going on among various, nefarious, otherwise, or indeterminate, hostile parties. It seems that if we must dismantle the military-industrial state, it is going to be through info-wars. The key t…

Yeah I think it's basically guaranteed that this is what we would hear regardless of how they found the leaker. Maybe this method was used, maybe they looked at printer looks, maybe they looked at access logs to the document, etc. Regardless, they _say_ that the problem was The Intercept's handling because there is no way to verify it and it makes them look bad. Really this news should be taken with a grain of salt.…

>Really this news should be taken with a grain of salt.

Something I think is valuable in this leak is the fact that the general public will be better educated that in fact their printers are capable of tracking every single thing they print, and there is no really, truly, anonymous personal printing any more.

I hope the blahgosphere will pick up on this and that we see Stories targeted to the normals that explains these sorts of things to them. Grandma may not care too much about her phone being listened to (after all, it was always so, to her at least..), but if you explain to Grandpa that there is a secret code that will tie every single printed sheet back to his house-hold, well, that may raise a few shingles ..

Re: Did the Intercept bungle the NSA leak?

#28

Post by fixermark »

mmjaa wrote: post #21
fixermark wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious: If there is a war going on, did this leak help or hinder? Which side did it help or hinder? Who benefits from this leak, and who is harmed? I have a sinking suspicion that the average American, for example, isn't benefited by this leak.

I dunno how we can quantify "Americans being benefited" in light of what these leaks are revealing in the global context, but I sure don't like it, living as I do, under either a velvet glove, or an iron one, depending on which side of the wall I happen to decide to visit. But, I do think that these leaks are good for everyone, not just Americans, and that is why they need to happen.

But practically, what would you do given the information divulged. Hackers gonna hack, that's known. Does knowing Russian agents attempted a hack cast them in worse light? No; we already know Russia isn't a close political ally of the US. What details of the hack do is tip off the Russians to burn their channels and methods and complicate the NSA's work in protecting American digital assets from further attack (as well as, depending on what secondary information can be gleaned from the hack based on what the Russians know, compromise the NSA's own back-channels and espionage approaches to understanding what Russia's spy operations are doing).

There's a difference between the leaks Deep Throat provided ("Your President is a criminal") and the leaks allegedly executed by Reality Winner ("Russian spies are spying, as Russian spies do"). A failure to distinguish qualitative nature of dumped information weakens both the future security of leakers and the overall philosophy that more transparency is a good thing.

Re: Did the Intercept bungle the NSA leak?

#29

Post by revelation »

user982 wrote: post #12
tanderson92 wrote: post #5

Have we learned nothing about the NSA's tactics? The Intercept publishes reporting that they would rather not have been printed, and the very day the DOJ unseals charges where they try to say they learned about the leak from a paper crease from what can be reasonably inferred to be The Intercept. Meanwhile the alleged leaker allegedly used her work computer to contact The Intercept (in contradiction with their recomm…

> It has all the appearances of the government trying to smear a news outlet and ensure no one leaks to them again. A scheme that would be less effective if not for The Intercept's demonstrably deficient opsec in protecting its source in this affair.

The leaker first contacted them through her work email.

It was game over at that point. Nothing they could do would have fixed that.

Re: Did the Intercept bungle the NSA leak?

#30

Post by lotso »

deanCommie wrote: post #19
user982 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It has all the appearances of the government trying to smear a news outlet and ensure no one leaks to them again. A scheme that would be less effective if not for The Intercept's demonstrably deficient opsec in protecting its source in this affair.

In a situation like this, you as the leaker have a lot more to lose than whoever you're leaking to. In that situation, I'm sorry, but the responsibility for protecting your identity is on you. Anonymize the data. Do not leak something that only you would have access to. etc, etc. Because unless you're leaking to Infowars, you have to expect that a legitimate journalist will present your data to the organization from…

I think everyone would agree the leaker should be more cautious, but The Intercept should also know best practices too around printed materials too.
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