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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?

#51

Post by DennisP »

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…

We don't really know, it might have been good enough.

> Snowden's identity was made public by The Guardian at his request on June 9, 2013.[97] He explained: "I have no intention of hiding who I am because I know I have done nothing wrong."[20] He added that by revealing his identity he hoped to protect his colleagues from being subjected to a hunt to determine who had been responsible for the leaks.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Snowden#Motivations

Re: Did the Intercept bungle the NSA leak?

#53

Post by ucaetano »

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…

Plenty of evidence: https://arstechnica.com/security/2017/06/how-a-few-yellow-do...

Massive incompetence and amateurish stuff on part of the leaker and The Intercept. Yellow dots have been known for ages.

Re: Did the Intercept bungle the NSA leak?

#54

Post by strictnein »

throwaway-1209 wrote: post #24

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.

The Intercept scanned the document and posted high quality versions of them online. They were of such quality that the embedded dots modern printers add to each page were readily available:

http://blog.erratasec.com/2017/06/how-intercept-outed-realit...

It pointed to the exact printer being used and the exact time and date the document was printed. They didn't need her email to figure out it was her, but I'm sure that will help them in her court case.

edit: cleaned up some sloppy verbiage

Re: Did the Intercept bungle the NSA leak?

#55

Post by vultour »

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?

He never said he was fit for a top secret clearance. Her Twitter profile should've been an instant disqualification from any sort of security clearance.

Re: Did the Intercept bungle the NSA leak?

#56

Post by chakalakasp »

thefalcon wrote: post #4
ahoy wrote: post #2

As with every headline that poses a yes/no question, the answer is usually "no". EDIT: I'm also unsure what the point of shifting the focus onto The Intercept's alleged "mishandling" of the leaker's identity is. It seems like a smear job meant to discredit a publication that the natsec community and mainstream media like WaPo dislike. It also removes the focus from the substance of the leaks and puts it on the "chara…

Except it sure seems like in this case, yeah, they bungled it. At the very least a total lack of awareness or care towards infosec to help protect sources (regardless of the fact that the lack of awareness extends to the source - I'd want a journalist to be better at this than I am if I were leaking information). [ The article doesn't mention this, but I wouldn't be surprised if these microdots, rather than "a crease…

I agree the microdots thing was sloppy. At least degrade the image of the page, or better yet retype the thing before sending it on. However, being one of the few people who printed it off from work was pretty stupid and would have boned her anyway. At some point in her brain she should have reflected that she was going up against the NSA and stealing their top secret intel and that maybe just maybe the system kept track of who printed out the Top Secret stuff the POTUS's attorneys are sweating bullets over.

That said, if the dude gets impeached she will probably eventually be pardoned.

Re: Did the Intercept bungle the NSA leak?

#57

Post by rhizome »

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'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?

Do the answers to these questions matter if the war continues regardless?

Re: Did the Intercept bungle the NSA leak?

#58

Post by cmiles74 »

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.

I don't think The Intercept has much responsibility here at all. In my opinion, in their role as receivers of leaked information, they should verify the information provided to them and decide if it should be released to the public. Sure, they shouldn't reveal their source and The Intercept met that requirement by insuring that they themselves did not know the leaker's identity.

Anyone who is thinking about leaking anything classified only needs to spend thirty seconds typing "Snowden" into Google to find out what happens when the federal government identifies the leaker. They then decide if it's worth the risk and how much time they will spend on covering their tracks. In this case (if true) it sounds like Reality Winner decided that they simply couldn't cover up their leaking and threw in the towel.

Much has been made of the watermarks on laser printers, we've known about those for a long time. Not everyone is aware but it's the sort of thing you can find out about if you put in time to do the research. After doing my own research, it doesn't seem like these watermarks really came into play; the NSA simply looked up everyone who had accessed the document and inspected their workstations for clues.

Re: Did the Intercept bungle the NSA leak?

#59

Post by vultour »

21 wrote: post #52

Off topic, her name is "Reality (Leigh) Winner"? Is this a new trend? Can you name your child with any surname you wish? For example "Tower John Trump".

Personally I think that seeing a name like "Reality Winner" on a CV would immediately make me question the entire family's fitness to exist in society.

Re: Did the Intercept bungle the NSA leak?

#60

Post by krrrh »

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…

> Snowden did everything right, and it still wasn't good enough.

But Snowden's whole strategy was to be a public figure. He fled the country and had a documentary filmmaker record the handover of the documents. It looks like Winning was hoping to remain private and had no idea what she was doing.

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