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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?

#141

Post by LeifCarrotson »

dingaling wrote: post #139
LeifCarrotson wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Or just logged into Gmail on her work computer?

Re: Did the Intercept bungle the NSA leak?

#142

Post by gozur88 »

cmiles74 wrote: post #69
strictnein wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 tha…

In the vast majority of cases, the watermark data wouldn't point anywhere interesting. Maybe the serial number would point to a public library or a warehouse where the printer was stored prior to sale. Certainly The Intercept had no way of knowing that the serial number would correspond to an office printer at the NSA or one of their contractors. I don't think we should expect news outlets to scour every printed docu…

>Certainly The Intercept had no way of knowing that the serial number would correspond to an office printer at the NSA or one of their contractors.

They should have assumed it. While I agree they can't be expected to have enough technical savvy to remove watermarks, they should have re-typed it and hid or (better) destroyed the original.

What she did was illegal and the government is going to nail her to the wall for it, if for no other reason than as an example to others contemplating the same thing. I'm astounded how little effort they (both the leaker and the Intercept) put into avoiding discovery.

If it were me the watermarks would have been gone before the document left my possession. If you depend on other people to keep your secrets you're doomed.

Re: Did the Intercept bungle the NSA leak?

#143

Post by florean »

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…

We're talking about the FBI, not the NSA, and court documents.

> Meanwhile the alleged leaker allegedly used her work computer to contact The Intercept.

This really should be ignored. The FBI included it as probable cause for their search and arrest warrants, but she had e-mailed them asking for a podcast transcript months earlier. As far as leaking, she mailed the document to them and had no electronic communication at all. The Intercept blabbed that it was postmarked Augusta, GA and was printed, which is what gave her away. They screwed up and if they want anyone to feel safe leaking to them again, they need to own up to it and describe how they are going to fix their procedures to protect their sources in the future.

Re: Did the Intercept bungle the NSA leak?

#144

Post by tanderson92 »

yohui wrote: post #138
ajross wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 d…

I don't make any particular claim about how the government identified the source. They also have access logs and apparently only 6 people accessed the document.

I do think that The Intercept bungled this in not stripping the watermarks; I don't shield them from criticism even though I value their reporting. But I do not necessarily accept the government's version of events. Parallel construction is not unheard-of.

Re: Did the Intercept bungle the NSA leak?

#145

Post by tanderson92 »

florean wrote: post #143
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…

We're talking about the FBI, not the NSA, and court documents. > Meanwhile the alleged leaker allegedly used her work computer to contact The Intercept. This really should be ignored. The FBI included it as probable cause for their search and arrest warrants, but she had e-mailed them asking for a podcast transcript months earlier. As far as leaking, she mailed the document to them and had no electronic communication…

> We're talking about the FBI, not the NSA, and court documents.

It's called parallel construction; it has happened before and it will happen again.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-dea-sod-idUSBRE97409R20130...

Re: Did the Intercept bungle the NSA leak?

#146

Post by apeace »

hammock wrote: post #49
fixermark wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Exactly.

I think it's also informative to look at how attribution was viewed in the past. We as a tech community used to almost pride ourselves on our skepticism, as can be seen in this Bruce Schneier post[0] on Stuxnet.

In the post (written in 2010), he points out that attributing Stuxnet to the US Government is "almost entirely speculation", that ties to the Bushehr nuclear power plant were "rumors" at the time, and that "Once a theory takes hold, though, it's easy to find more evidence".

It took years months of more research, technical similarities to the Flame virus, video of an Israeli intelligence official joking about the virus, and much more before the tech community accepted the theory that Stuxnet was a US Government creation.

I'm not saying there's a perfect solution, but surely we as a tech community have lost our skeptical tone and no longer see it as important to question the government's technical claims as we once did.

I have a feeling if the roles were reversed, and it were Trump crying foul about Russian hacking, that's exactly what we'd be doing.

[0] https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2010/10/stuxnet.html

Re: Did the Intercept bungle the NSA leak?

#147

Post by florean »

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…

> There's no evidence that it was The Intercept's actions that caused her to be found.

There's plenty of evidence The Intercept's actions caused her to be found. It's documented in the FBI's affidavits for arrest and search warrants. https://www.buzzfeed.com/stevenperlberg/a-federal-government...

To wit: 'The Reporter told the Contractor that the Reporter had received the documents through the mail, and they were postmarked "Augusta, Georgia."'

So the FBI looked up who printed the document and of those six, who lived in Augusta, GA. Open and shut. Thanks, The Intercept!

Re: Did the Intercept bungle the NSA leak?

#148

Post by peterwwillis »

linkregister wrote: post #137

What I find interesting is that the email from the Gmail account on the work computer was able to be intercepted and logged. What mechanism might they have used, an SSL proxy with a pre-loaded root certificate? How long is this data logged?

How long would the National Security Agency keep copies of the internet sites visited by contractors with access to classified reports while inside secure facilities?

How long until the protons in the backup tapes decay?

Re: Did the Intercept bungle the NSA leak?

#149

Post by ScottBurson »

florean wrote: post #147
CogitoCogito wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> There's no evidence that it was The Intercept's actions that caused her to be found. There's plenty of evidence The Intercept's actions caused her to be found. It's documented in the FBI's affidavits for arrest and search warrants. https://www.buzzfeed.com/stevenperlberg/a-federal-government... To wit: 'The Reporter told the Contractor that the Reporter had received the documents through the mail, and they were pos…

Yes, but there were only six who printed it to begin with. I'm inclined to agree that the Intercept shouldn't have shared that information with the contractor, but it's not at all clear that the leaker wouldn't have been found anyway.

Re: Did the Intercept bungle the NSA leak?

#150

Post by hsod »

throwaway-1209 wrote: post #130
hsod wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would constitute evidence in this context? To me, this statement which was: * made contemporaneously with the investigation * by experts * not intended for public consumption is evidence. It's not a formal proof, but it's evidence.

No, a statement is not evidence no matter how much you want it to be. A _sworn testimony_ of a _witness_ is evidence. But there can't really be any witness here, unless the person on the other end was extremely careless. So you get a bunch of hot air and unsubstantiated allegations which will never go anywhere.

It's evidence of what the person who wrote it thought at the time they wrote it. Your epistemology seems self-serving.
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