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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?

#41

Post by braderhart »

chakalakasp wrote: post #16

Any article that ends with a yes/no question is always answered with "no". This one is no exception. Print classified info out at work on work printers from a monitored work computer you are logged into and said info ends up with reporters days later? Reporters you communicated with over gmail ?! This person isn't exactly an infosec genius. Which, I mean, isn't a sin or anything, but when you know the organization yo…

Unless you are a whistleblower and feel that the public legitimately needs to know about something, because afterall this election affects our daily lives. We deserve to to know the truth about threats to democracy, especially when Presidential candidates are still claiming that voter data was rigged. Didn't Trump blame Hillary for him losing the popular vote, saying that it was her fault for hacking the election?

Re: Did the Intercept bungle the NSA leak?

#42

Post by tanderson92 »

ceejayoz wrote: post #40
tanderson92 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think everyone would agree with that. The question then becomes: did The Intercept not follow best practices here? Once again, there is no evidence and any "yes" answer relies on trusting the NSA/DOJ.

> The question then becomes: did The Intercept not follow best practices here? If removing well-known, uniquely identifying printer microdots isn't a best practice, it should be.

> > The question then becomes: did The Intercept not follow best practices here?

> If removing well-known, uniquely identifying printer microdots isn't a best practice, it should be.

Very true; where is the evidence that they did not do so?

Re: Did the Intercept bungle the NSA leak?

#43

Post by [deleted] »

rmxt wrote: post #26
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?

[deleted]

Re: Did the Intercept bungle the NSA leak?

#44

Post by pine56 »

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?

I like to check on the kind of social circle they maintain. Loners generally don't get what it takes for a group to come to consensus about the grey stuff.

Re: Did the Intercept bungle the NSA leak?

#45

Post by RickS »

paralelogram wrote: post #23

Why are almost all official documents about Russian government-sponsored hackers "secret" or "top secret"?

Counter question: why wouldn't they be?

Either their methods work, and of course they should be secret, or their methods don't work, and it's unproductive to help them shorten the list of attack methods they try.

Re: Did the Intercept bungle the NSA leak?

#46

Post by yunyu »

tanderson92 wrote: post #42
ceejayoz wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The question then becomes: did The Intercept not follow best practices here? If removing well-known, uniquely identifying printer microdots isn't a best practice, it should be.

> > The question then becomes: did The Intercept not follow best practices here? > If removing well-known, uniquely identifying printer microdots isn't a best practice, it should be. Very true; where is the evidence that they did not do so?

https://twitter.com/flashman/status/871896475902631936

Re: Did the Intercept bungle the NSA leak?

#47

Post by RickS »

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 to handle mistrust and entitlement: Be trustworthy, and speak candidly about compensation.

Re: Did the Intercept bungle the NSA leak?

#48

Post by rndgermandude »

Yes, TheIntercept did compromise their source, although she did compromise herself as well due to poor opsec.

- TheIntercept failed to sanitize the documents before posting

- They provided the govt (or rather a govt contractor) with further information, at least that the mail was posted in Augusta, Georgia.

The former can be attributed to simple mistakes, but at least the latter is gross negligence of the highest order.

Given these two things alone, even if she had her own opsec in order, she'd likely been found out.

Re: Did the Intercept bungle the NSA leak?

#49

Post by hammock »

fixermark wrote: post #20
apeace wrote: post #10

The yellow dots thing was certainly a mistake on their part. But there's a much bigger issue I haven't seen anyone point out yet. One thing that the Intercept--and Glenn Greenwald in particular--have been very critical of is news organizations that blindly publish leaks as verified facts. Here[0] is just one example where Greenwald writes: > THE WASHINGTON POST late Friday night published an explosive story that, in…

How does the information you're describing (IP addresses used, ties to Russia, malware shape) help the average American if disclosed publicly? Because the harm seems immediate: bad actors will change their tactics and burn their channels, making them harder to detect, trace, or understand. Given that the average American barely understands what a computer virus is, is the level of technical detail you're calling for…

It helps Americans by bringing them more truthful journalism, by allowing the reporters to report independently verified facts rather than hearsay

Re: Did the Intercept bungle the NSA leak?

#50

Post by eli »

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…

To be clear, she contacted The Intercept from her work computer for something entirely unrelated. (Which is still not smart, but not as bad as people are implying)
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