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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?

#131

Post by ajross »

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…

I'm not sure I understand. There's a woman actually in jail awaiting charges over this. You're saying the NSA has a sacrificial agent to take the fall? That they're faking the whole judicial process? That they somehow induced a contractor to steal a real document and leak it to the paper they wanted it leaked to?

I'm all for a good conspiracy theory, but you're going to have to spell this one out better.

Re: Did the Intercept bungle the NSA leak?

#132

Post by tanderson92 »

tptacek wrote: post #125
tanderson92 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Excuse me? Your characterization is far off the mark, and your snark unappreciated. I was simply remembering that the government can and does lie, and that there we should remember the interests of the parties involved. It's not content free to observe this fact and to stress what we do and do not know. If I had to change anything it would be the fact that they only signed up for an intercept mailing list using work…

There's nothing snarky about my comment; I meant exactly what I said.

One can be snarky while very serious. I didn't even realize until looking it up that "snark" is a portmanteau of "snide" and "remark". One can be seriously snide.

Anyway I'll take the lack of substantive criticism of my point and critique of form as a point of pride.

Re: Did the Intercept bungle the NSA leak?

#133

Post by elif »

eli wrote: post #50
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)

That's an important distinction that gets lost in the vaguery of the sensational journalistic rhetoric. To me, the evidence trail presented sounds like one of those post-facto explanations the FBI concocts in order to preserve their true secret methodologies.

Re: Did the Intercept bungle the NSA leak?

#134

Post by ajross »

cmiles74 wrote: post #58
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.

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 a…

> I don't think The Intercept has much responsibility here at all.

They do if they want to keep their jobs. It's not a moral point, it's a Darwinian one. No one talks to journalists who burn their sources.

The Intercept's literal genesis was as a clearing house for leaked data. This is... really bad if they want to be known as a safe place to send leaks.

Re: Did the Intercept bungle the NSA leak?

#135

Post by mythrwy »

cryoshon wrote: post #111
mythrwy wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't handle them. Regardless of age. Pick out the worst and get rid of them. You may find the troubles with the others diminish. Being fired once or twice in life is a character building experience. It often makes you re-assess your worth and take work more seriously. And later, as a person becomes (potentially) a manager, they realize the ego crush that is being fired and treat with respect, unlike "kid" managers w…

>to understand the underlying nature of commerce and human interaction that we can't treat people as anything other than a means to make money under capitalism?

Not sure were that was stated (or even implied) but since you ask, no, particularly with the modifier "anything other than".

We are born in blood. And we return to mud. That's the essence of our beginning and our end. Nobody likes this. So, we sanitize with (very important) abstractions. To make it so life is more than a reptilian struggle. To allow civilization, working collaboratively, a degree of security, care for the weak, all the things that make it possible to transcend the law of jungle and live beyond our biology. But the underlying reality doesn't go away just because we have abstracted on top of it. People sometimes forget why abstractions are important. Or, sometimes they forget there is a hard reality underlying.

The nature of the abstraction named "commerce" and the nature of the abstraction named "human interaction" is that of give and take. Not give and give. And both abstractions depend for existence on trust, on integrity, on honor, and on the willingness to part with something in exchange for something.

Point being, sometimes it takes getting down to primal gut level emotions to understand abstractions are abstractions, why they exist and how they relate to underlying reality.

Along with integrity and self sacrifice, respect is an important virtue that seems to be increasingly lacking. It won't be for long. These things will come back again because they are vital to any useful abstraction layer.

Re: Did the Intercept bungle the NSA leak?

#136

Post by joe_the_user »

ajross wrote: post #131
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…

I'm not sure I understand. There's a woman actually in jail awaiting charges over this. You're saying the NSA has a sacrificial agent to take the fall? That they're faking the whole judicial process? That they somehow induced a contractor to steal a real document and leak it to the paper they wanted it leaked to? I'm all for a good conspiracy theory, but you're going to have to spell this one out better.

Not that I have any idea what actually happened but hiring someone at a low level, who seems kind of unreliable, allowing them access to something who's leakage you might not care about, letting everything play out the way it did, seems like something a spy agency would be reasonably adept it.

The women was a contractor, not an agent, so they aren't sacrificing someone they've invested in. etc

Again, what actually happened, who knows?

Re: Did the Intercept bungle the NSA leak?

#138

Post by yohui »

ajross wrote: post #131
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…

I'm not sure I understand. There's a woman actually in jail awaiting charges over this. You're saying the NSA has a sacrificial agent to take the fall? That they're faking the whole judicial process? That they somehow induced a contractor to steal a real document and leak it to the paper they wanted it leaked to? I'm all for a good conspiracy theory, but you're going to have to spell this one out better.

I think tanderson92 is claiming that the source was actually identified via other methods, so the material provided by the Intercept played no role in identifying the source. Hence the Intercept did not accidentally reveal their source but is being portrayed as such in order to discourage people from leaking to them.

Personally, while that scenario doesn't sound impossible I think the likelihood is being overstated due to motivated cognition: if you like the Intercept you would like to believe they did nothing wrong, but in reality people do make mistakes.

Re: Did the Intercept bungle the NSA leak?

#139

Post by dingaling »

LeifCarrotson wrote: post #39
thefalcon wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The search warrant says that the internal audit and (logged-in?) gmail account were the smoking gun. Page 11, paragraphs 14-16: https://d3vv6lp55qjaqc.cloudfront.net/items/1k2I053M3J2z0f47... > 14. The U.S. Government Agency [NSA] examined the document shared by the News Outlet [The Intercept] and determined the pages of the intelligence reporting appeared to be folded and/or creased, suggesting they had been printed…

Rather revealing that the "Agency" was privy not only to the e-mail metadata but also the contents.

Watching outbound SMTP from Gmail or just MiTM internal agency traffic?

Re: Did the Intercept bungle the NSA leak?

#140

Post by florean »

cmiles74 wrote: post #58
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.

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 a…

> the NSA simply looked up everyone who had accessed the document and inspected their workstations for clues.

The FBI doesn't mention the watermark in their affidavits, but they do mention that The Intercept gave away that the document had been printed and mailed from Augusta, GA. That allowed them to quickly zero in on Winner. The only "clue" on her workstation was that she had e-mailed The Intercept asking for a podcast transcript months before. In other words, she knew The Intercept existed. The Intercept burned her.

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