The NSA has linked the WannaCry computer worm to North Korea • Hacker News Board

Re: The NSA has linked the WannaCry computer worm to North Korea

#201

Post by baursak » Thu, Jun 15, 2017, 1:46 PM UTC

blfr wrote: post #185

atemerev wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could fly to Moscow, but what you could see here was a far cry from a normal life of a Soviet citizen. At the same time, anti-Soviet propaganda also took many things wrong. Truth always takes a personal effort to discover; it can't be spoon-fed by the New York Times, or Pravda, or Facebook.

What did anti-Soviet propaganda "take wrong"? Even after reading Bukowski, Solzhenitsyn, and the Black Book of Communism, I find it hard to imagine an atrocity which communists didn't commit. And not as isolated incident of abuse of power, usually on a mass scale. They liked their genocides like they liked their mines and factories -- huge. Not to mention the economic system of constant shortages where you had to bri…

> They liked their genocides like they liked their mines and factories -- huge.

Wut? How many huge genocides exactly did the Soviets commit? As in killing off entire ethnic groups? I can't really name any, although I can definitely name at least one that Americans committed, but we usually don't like to talk about that.

Re: The NSA has linked the WannaCry computer worm to North Korea

#202

Post by jessaustin » Thu, Jun 15, 2017, 1:47 PM UTC

paradite wrote: post #163

rsync wrote: post #129

The only rational response to this is deep, deep skepticism. In the old days of the USSR, while very difficult, it was at least conceivable that you could just fly to moscow and see if they were eating their children there or burning priests or god knows whatever else. There was a natural limit to the deception that could occur and further a normal person could make conclusions about the things they saw with their ow…

You can in fact fly to North Korea, as thousands of people are doing every year. Or you can see what's happening through others who actually travelled there, like this photographer: https://www.dprk360.com

Just don't take any unofficial souvenirs...

Re: The NSA has linked the WannaCry computer worm to North Korea

#203

Post by cmiles74 » Thu, Jun 15, 2017, 1:48 PM UTC

I am not at all impressed with this article, it strikes me as another piece that simply summarizes information leaked by the US government or someone at one of the intelligence organizations.

They say "the NSA has linked the North Korean government..." then tell us the assessment was not made public, that it is inconclusive, and that the NSA has declined to comment. "One agency..." supposedly has a "building block for this assessment but they are not named. I understand that the government would like to protect their sources, but I don't think we should simply take them at their word. In my opinion, this piece is doing exactly that. What little concrete data I've managed to gather is all circumstantial, I've seen nothing that point to any sort of technical "smoking gun".

Maybe I am paranoid, but my concern is that this finger pointing at foreign governments does nothing but generate fear. When the legislature finally introduces a bill to defeat encryption across the board, they'll have widespread support and everyone who argues against it will be painted as some kind of imbecile. All of the sudden, the largest tech companies in the country will be accused of wanting to aid and abet North Korea and Russia.

And security doesn't materially improve. The assessment Reality Winner released isn't much better than these articles, but at least it's more straightforward and the means to the end were clearly disclosed. Yet no one is talking about putting training in place at the companies involved (to defeat phishing or social engineering attacks via phone or email) or source code audits (even private is better than nothing). It's infuriating.

Re: The NSA has linked the WannaCry computer worm to North Korea

#204

Post by michaelt » Thu, Jun 15, 2017, 1:51 PM UTC

SamUK96 wrote: post #175

rsync wrote: post #129

The only rational response to this is deep, deep skepticism. In the old days of the USSR, while very difficult, it was at least conceivable that you could just fly to moscow and see if they were eating their children there or burning priests or god knows whatever else. There was a natural limit to the deception that could occur and further a normal person could make conclusions about the things they saw with their ow…

So, very cut down, you're saying that the US are implicating North Korea because they know they can, because they think that "normal civilian joes" don't know anything about NK? I'de say it's highly likely too, but what we need to find out is why would the US deep-state do this? Is there a specific motive for the US deep-state haphazardly implicating NK, other than, just maybe, the NSA got their hands on some evidenc…

It doesn't need to be "the deep state" or "the US" - all it needs to be is one guy somewhere in government.

For all we know, this could have been leaked by Joe the North Korea analyst to raise his profile and increase his status.

Re: The NSA has linked the WannaCry computer worm to North Korea

#205

Post by wila » Thu, Jun 15, 2017, 1:51 PM UTC

qeternity wrote: post #182

carvalho wrote: post #12

Of note: The Shadow Brokers hinted at the same thing a few weeks back. "In May, No dumps, theshadowbrokers is eating popcorn and watching "Your Fired" and WannaCry. Is being very strange behavior for crimeware? Killswitch? Crimeware is caring about target country? The oracle is telling theshadowbrokers North Korea is being responsible for the global cyber attack Wanna Cry. Nukes and cyber attacks, America has to go t…

Do you have a link for this? Where are they releasing these comms?

at steemit.

see: https://steemit.com/shadowbrokers/@theshadowbrokers/oh-lordy...

Re: The NSA has linked the WannaCry computer worm to North Korea

#206

Post by jessaustin » Thu, Jun 15, 2017, 1:59 PM UTC

carvalho wrote: post #12

Of note: The Shadow Brokers hinted at the same thing a few weeks back. "In May, No dumps, theshadowbrokers is eating popcorn and watching "Your Fired" and WannaCry. Is being very strange behavior for crimeware? Killswitch? Crimeware is caring about target country? The oracle is telling theshadowbrokers North Korea is being responsible for the global cyber attack Wanna Cry. Nukes and cyber attacks, America has to go t…

Nukes and cyber attacks, America has to go to war, no other choices! (Sarcasm)

Even without that tag, there is another reading of that message. DPRK doesn't actually benefit from USA going to war, but other parties certainly do.

Re: The NSA has linked the WannaCry computer worm to North Korea

#207

Post by baursak » Thu, Jun 15, 2017, 2:04 PM UTC

mc32 wrote: post #148

random314 wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Remember Noam was the same guy who for political reasons did not want to believe Pol Pot was mowing through millions http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-07-01/brull---the-boring-tru... If the best criticism of Chomsky is from 40 years ago, and about Pol Pot - a person Chomsky believes is a mass murderer, I think Chomsky is doing quite well. > Additionally, there is no need to "manufacture consent" as only a very small…

>If the best criticism of Chomsky is from 40 years ago He's a politically, nay, ideologically motivated individual --i.e. he presents his version of a story to which there could be multiple sides with multiple interpretations, but his is "right". You can witness the same again when he more recently shrugged off 9-11 because he said, oh, well, the US committed similar atrocity by bombing a pill factory in the Sudan. H…

> You can witness the same again when he more recently shrugged off 9-11 because he said, oh, well, the US committed similar atrocity by bombing a pill factory in the Sudan.

Citation required. As far as I remember, he clearly called 9/11 an atrocity, how is that shrugging it off? If you provide a citation with a link, explaining exactly what you mean, I can comment further.

> Oh, and he also sympathized with Milosevic. Why? Oh, well, because he saw him as the one guy in the Balkans who was anti-American.

Citation required.

Here's Chomsky in 2006: https://chomsky.info/20060425/ Not to mention this little something from 2016: https://www.counterpunch.org/2016/08/01/the-exoneration-of-m...

Re: The NSA has linked the WannaCry computer worm to North Korea

#208

Post by ZoFreX » Thu, Jun 15, 2017, 2:04 PM UTC

carvalho wrote: post #12

Of note: The Shadow Brokers hinted at the same thing a few weeks back. "In May, No dumps, theshadowbrokers is eating popcorn and watching "Your Fired" and WannaCry. Is being very strange behavior for crimeware? Killswitch? Crimeware is caring about target country? The oracle is telling theshadowbrokers North Korea is being responsible for the global cyber attack Wanna Cry. Nukes and cyber attacks, America has to go t…

I'm not sure how much that adds though because at the time of them writing that, there was a lot of speculation online that it was NK based on some shared code. That argument was baseless, the amount of shared code was far too small and trivial to possibly be used for attribution, but it more easily explains why they bet on NK than having an inside track to an NSA investigation.

Re: The NSA has linked the WannaCry computer worm to North Korea

#209

Post by rf15 » Thu, Jun 15, 2017, 2:24 PM UTC

pulse7 wrote: post #190

rand77763 wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What exactly does a math competition have to do with ransomware?

If you are skilled in math, you will be better/faster in programming anything - including ransomware...

This is an incredible oversimplification(at best) which does not hold as-is.

I know enough math people who are ABYSMAL at coding due to the differences between domains and the constraints that shaped their way of thinking, and a lot of linguists who are surprisingly good at it due to just that.

Re: The NSA has linked the WannaCry computer worm to North Korea

#210

Post by devy » Thu, Jun 15, 2017, 2:32 PM UTC

pulse7 wrote: post #190

rand77763 wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What exactly does a math competition have to do with ransomware?

If you are skilled in math, you will be better/faster in programming anything - including ransomware...

Most of the North Korean people are starving most of the time - where are they practicing programming on, blackboards? The economic situation is VERY similar to Cuba before US lifted the embargo. Has any one of you heard famous hacking group originated from Cuba?