New Charges in Huge C.I.A. Breach Known as Vault 7 • Hacker News Board

Re: New Charges in Huge C.I.A. Breach Known as Vault 7

#61

Post by Semirhage » Fri, Jun 22, 2018, 10:33 PM UTC

Cacti wrote: post #29

rando444 wrote: post #4

While I won't justify anything this person allegedly did.. it seems open to speculation whether the child pornography stuff was actually legitimate, or some sort of targeted attack. (whether to destroy his character/career or keep him under judicial watch / within the country)

You can read the indictment for yourself: https://www.scribd.com/document/379346745/Joshua-Adam-Schult... It's pretty convincing.

It’s an indictment, aka one side of the story presented in the best possible light. Of course it’s convincing. That doesn’t mean it isn’t completely accurate, but judging guilt or innocence based on limited information provided from one party is nuts.

Re: New Charges in Huge C.I.A. Breach Known as Vault 7

#62

Post by JumpCrisscross » Fri, Jun 22, 2018, 10:34 PM UTC

vkou wrote: post #37

wyldfire wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or option C: a propaganda arm of the Russian Government. EDIT: downvoters aren't offering a response, so I'll just hope or assume that they want evidence: [1] https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/08/17/wikileaks-turned-down-l... [2] https://www.theguardian.com/news/2016/apr/07/putin-dismisses... [3] http://www.haaretz.com/us-news/1.771716 [4] http://edition.cnn.com/2017/10/25/politics/cambridge-analyti... [5] https://sunli…

Good God. I don't like Wikileaks, but even if they are a 'propaganda arm of the Russian government', they still have First Amendment rights, and they are still a news organization.

> they still have First Amendment rights, and they are still a news organization

I agree. But the First Amendment doesn’t protect individuals or companies from any and all prosecution.

Re: New Charges in Huge C.I.A. Breach Known as Vault 7

#63

Post by abiox » Fri, Jun 22, 2018, 10:34 PM UTC

colordrops wrote: post #54

alpha_squared wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can tell the truth and still be deceitful. Claiming to have had evidence on Russian corruption and publicly declaring an intent to release followed by silence and unwillingness to do so indicate two things, to me anyway. 1. The original claim is a lie. There is no evidence of Russian corruption and the claim was made for attention or some other purpose. Remind me, again, how many lies it takes to make someone unt…

By that measure, the New York Times, Fox News, Washington Post, CNN, and Wall Street Journal are all propaganda.

they have their moments. they all tend to be good at cheerleading war, for example. msnbc fired phil donohue for being against the iraq war. last election, the washington post (in)famously ran a glut of anti-sanders material in a short time span (16 articles in 16 hours, i believe it was).

Re: New Charges in Huge C.I.A. Breach Known as Vault 7

#64

Post by wahern » Fri, Jun 22, 2018, 10:35 PM UTC

jesseb wrote: post #24

anonymous5133 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look up five eye agreement. Different governments often work with each other to catch people. You help me out and ill help you out type of stuff.

Sweden is a member of the Fourteen Eyes, not Five Eyes.

Sweden is also a member of One Hundred Ninety-Three Eyes and One Hundred Ninety-Five Eyes.

Re: New Charges in Huge C.I.A. Breach Known as Vault 7

#65

Post by pbhjpbhj » Fri, Jun 22, 2018, 10:35 PM UTC

djsumdog wrote: post #47

simion314 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly, some bad iframe could load CP files and not display them, later if someone checks the network logs they can "prove" you visited and watched those urls. Combine this with the very specific ad targeting that is possible to pull of(like the guy that managed to make FB to show his ad to his roommate) and you get an easy and remote way to frame people

It's also a strict liability crime, so intent doesn't matter. The evidence can't be viewed except by very few people approved by the justice department, so CP might just be pictures of a 17th year old that the person didn't even know was underage.

50+G of encrypted data, specific references to 6yo, 8yo in file names and confirmation by a LEO witness that the videos match the filenames. The videos presumably can be viewed in part (by the judge?) in some sort of closed session if the defence requests it?

Re: New Charges in Huge C.I.A. Breach Known as Vault 7

#66

Post by Cacti » Fri, Jun 22, 2018, 10:37 PM UTC

gowld wrote: post #49

Cacti wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The indictment goes into some detail on this: https://www.scribd.com/document/379346745/Joshua-Adam-Schult... The guy is clearly guilty.

That's not how justice works. The indictment is the prosecutor's claims, not established facts that have survived subject to cross-examinations. The listed evidence could be fake, could be real but linked to the accused, or could be real and linked.

I didn’t say it was. What I am saying is that, assuming the evidence is as described (and I see no evidence to suggest otherwise short of theoretical exercises in “well it could always be faked”), the description of the VM is awfully convincing.

It strains credulity to think that the government planted an encrypted VM with an encrypted file with a password known only to the defendant, faked the entire usage logs, and faked an extensive file system logs to match a pattern of use that would be incredibly difficult to do correctly. It’s just not believable, nor is there any suggestion as to government motive that would risk such an incredible violation of the law if they were caught.

We can play theoretical exercises all day, but the fact is that the evidence as described is incredibly damning.

Re: New Charges in Huge C.I.A. Breach Known as Vault 7

#67

Post by mikec3010 » Fri, Jun 22, 2018, 10:39 PM UTC

Cacti wrote: post #30

staunch wrote: post #9

> Mr. Schulte had been charged last year in New York with possession of child pornography. The fact that they found child porn on his computer is the scariest part. Almost any technical person could frame almost anyone else with CP possession. It's just a matter of putting some files on a computer and/or faking some logs, browser history, etc. It would be incredibly trivial for the CIA to put CP on his computer and t…

The indictment goes into some detail on this: https://www.scribd.com/document/379346745/Joshua-Adam-Schult... The guy is clearly guilty.

I arrive at the opposite conclusion from reading that. Someone smart enough to work in black hat security should know how fucking illegal CP is, how aggressively its investigated, and know not to flagrantly talk about it on an irc channel and host it to randos online. At the very least they would use tor and figure it out for themselves.

Re: New Charges in Huge C.I.A. Breach Known as Vault 7

#68

Post by wpdev_63 » Fri, Jun 22, 2018, 10:39 PM UTC

Cacti wrote: post #27

salimmadjd wrote: post #5

Mr. Schulte had been charged last year in New York with possession of child pornography Very interesting! It almost seems like the pornography charges against him was a way to punish him but without prosecuting him for the actual leakage. Perhaps the government wanted to still point the fingers at someone else or avoid embarrassment?

You should read the indictment. That porn was not planted. https://www.scribd.com/document/379346745/Joshua-Adam-Schult...

If you really think the guy who leaked highly classified CIA documents that reveals their means of mass surveillance happened to also be a pedophile then you are one naive person. Do yourself a favor and never watch 24-hour news programs.

Re: New Charges in Huge C.I.A. Breach Known as Vault 7

#69

Post by pbhjpbhj » Fri, Jun 22, 2018, 10:40 PM UTC

influx wrote: post #6

rando444 wrote: post #4

While I won't justify anything this person allegedly did.. it seems open to speculation whether the child pornography stuff was actually legitimate, or some sort of targeted attack. (whether to destroy his character/career or keep him under judicial watch / within the country)

I read the IRC logs, and I'm skeptical that anyone not deeply versed in the lingo, tone, and character of that scene could fake them. It's not impossible, but it was pretty convincing to me.

The IRC logs in the papers linked in this thread make the suspect out to be an imbecile -- discussing highly illegal activity in plain text using the most obvious keywords ...?

Re: New Charges in Huge C.I.A. Breach Known as Vault 7

#70

Post by TomMckenny » Fri, Jun 22, 2018, 10:40 PM UTC

salimmadjd wrote: post #5

Mr. Schulte had been charged last year in New York with possession of child pornography Very interesting! It almost seems like the pornography charges against him was a way to punish him but without prosecuting him for the actual leakage. Perhaps the government wanted to still point the fingers at someone else or avoid embarrassment?

States, even relatively benevolent ones, take any steps necessary to secure national secrets, even extra legal ones.

Take the likelihood that a leaky contractor coincidently is a pedophile. One who works in security yet encrypts stuff with the same cellphone password everywhere.

Balance that with the possibility that a motivated state actor could plant such files on a pc or alter logs on a server they are monitoring.

Coincidentally also, it is very much sufficient for a jury to convict yet the accusation is ambiguous/obvious enough to deter other would be leakers.

I have no idea whether this is a good way to do things but it's a pretty widespread set of coincidences that would also happen to have a particular effect.