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

#111

Post by Cacti » Fri, Jun 22, 2018, 11:39 PM UTC

Semirhage wrote: post #97

Cacti wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Solid argument, mate.

Am I wrong? Going back over a month, you already had your mind made up. Every comment on the topic since is singing the same tune. You’ve characterized an indictment as “pretty convincing” and scoffed at the notion that a government could fake the evidence offered. You’ve engaged with someone who has talked about shills (and they weren’t talking to you) with incredulity. These are your words, The guy is clearly guilt…

I did not reach a forgone conclusion. I reached an informed conclusion after reading the indictment and hearing the explanation by the defendant. That is not a forgone conclusion, that is just a normal, regular, every day conclusion based on the reasonable perponderance of evidence of what seems most credible. Reaching conclusions after reading evidence is what people do.

Could he be innocent? Sure. Could the VM be a plant? Sure. Could the government be lying? Sure. And that is why we have a justice system.

But just because something is possible, or you can come up with an explation of why something may exist, doesn't mean it's probable, and doesn't mean it's likely.

And for the record, since you seem to think you know all about me and my government-shilling ways, I was protesting the war at MIT before you were even born, and I actually think this guy is innocent of the leaking charges. I also happen to think he's very likely guilty of the CP charges.

By the way, do actually have any evidence whatsoever that would imply the government planted that VM, other than some theoretical argument? Because for all your bluster about rationality, I don't see you presenting a shred of evidence to suggest that this didn't go down exactly how it was presented in the indictment.

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

#112

Post by krapp » Fri, Jun 22, 2018, 11:41 PM UTC

burger_moon wrote: post #25

jscipione wrote: post #7

"Government investigators suspect that he provided WikiLeaks, the anti-secrecy organization, with a stolen archive of documents detailing the C.I.A.’s hacking operations, but they had not initially charged him in that crime." Wikileaks is a news organization, not an anti-secrecy organization who's First Amendment Right to Freedom of the Press has been illegally infringed upon by the US Government.

They don't actually publish news articles like the NYTimes though right? anti-secrecy seems to be a part of what wikileaks does but I'm not sure that would be an appropriate name either.

>They don't actually publish news articles like the NYTimes though right?

No, they publish classified documents. What they do is more akin to public espionage than journalism.

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

#113

Post by anonymous5133 » Fri, Jun 22, 2018, 11:42 PM UTC

jonhendry18 wrote: post #17

mindslight wrote: post #2

Prosecute the messenger; leave the criminal conspiracy untouched.

What criminality? Unless the CIA was using the tools against targets in the US, there's no US law broken. Every country does it.

Yup which is one reason why trump is pushing so hard on tariffs. The chinese have an army of hackers committing war fare against the usa and its trade secrets. Governments should not be hacking each other. They should be engaging in diplomacy like any civilized country.

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

#114

Post by anonymous5133 » Fri, Jun 22, 2018, 11:52 PM UTC

TomMckenny wrote: post #70

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.…

Completely agree. The narrative being presented is simply not logical to believe. Based on the narrative, this guy works for the cia, highly likely he knows cp is illegal, obtains cp, knows how to use encryption but then uses a weak password.

Not using a weak password is like security 101 first 5 minutes of the first class type of knowledge.

Im sure im not the only one buying this story.

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

#115

Post by Cacti » Fri, Jun 22, 2018, 11:56 PM UTC

anonymous5133 wrote: post #114

TomMckenny wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

Completely agree. The narrative being presented is simply not logical to believe. Based on the narrative, this guy works for the cia, highly likely he knows cp is illegal, obtains cp, knows how to use encryption but then uses a weak password. Not using a weak password is like security 101 first 5 minutes of the first class type of knowledge. Im sure im not the only one buying this story.

You’re making an assumption, that it was weak. What we know is that they found the password on his phone. It could have been quite strong.

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

#116

Post by rhizome » Sat, Jun 23, 2018, 12:02 AM UTC

anonymous5133 wrote: post #113

jonhendry18 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What criminality? Unless the CIA was using the tools against targets in the US, there's no US law broken. Every country does it.

Yup which is one reason why trump is pushing so hard on tariffs. The chinese have an army of hackers committing war fare against the usa and its trade secrets. Governments should not be hacking each other. They should be engaging in diplomacy like any civilized country.

War by another name, it seems like an admission that it's a war we are losing, or perhaps have already lost. It's also a bit rich to imply the USA is engaging in (or has any reason to expect) civilized diplomacy in any way.

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

#117

Post by bb88 » Sat, Jun 23, 2018, 12:05 AM UTC

Cacti wrote: post #115

anonymous5133 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Completely agree. The narrative being presented is simply not logical to believe. Based on the narrative, this guy works for the cia, highly likely he knows cp is illegal, obtains cp, knows how to use encryption but then uses a weak password. Not using a weak password is like security 101 first 5 minutes of the first class type of knowledge. Im sure im not the only one buying this story.

You’re making an assumption, that it was weak. What we know is that they found the password on his phone. It could have been quite strong.

I think the question I have is did the guy have a password manager on his phone?

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

#118

Post by superflyguy » Sat, Jun 23, 2018, 12:09 AM UTC

22837y wrote: post #103

taneq wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems to happen remarkably often in cases like these. Remember the Assange rape allegations which turned out to be a setup? It's the next step up from "found drugs in their car".

Yeah, those charges are very real. They've continually been upheld in courts in both the UK and Sweden.

Yes, the charges aren't going away. And because the girl was talked into the rape accusation and then tried to back out of it makes it a set up.

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

#119

Post by sverige » Sat, Jun 23, 2018, 12:10 AM UTC

22837y wrote: post #103

taneq wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems to happen remarkably often in cases like these. Remember the Assange rape allegations which turned out to be a setup? It's the next step up from "found drugs in their car".

Yeah, those charges are very real. They've continually been upheld in courts in both the UK and Sweden.

Nope, Sweden dropped the case.

https://www-m.cnn.com/2017/05/19/europe/julian-assange-swede...

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

#120

Post by ruskerdax » Sat, Jun 23, 2018, 12:17 AM UTC

Cacti wrote: post #56

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

A hidden iframe was used to install an encrypted VM on the defendants computer, with an encrypted file on it, accessible using a password Only the defendant knew? There are also extensive file system logs indicating a history of use. That was faked too? And the IRC logs, those are fake? Come on man.

It is extremely within the CIA's ability to plant a VM on a computer. It is not established that the password was known only to "the defendant," as if the CIA alleging that is the case makes it true.

Extensive file system logs are also easy to generate. They could also be legitimate access logs but the VM itself was compromised by the CIA.

IRC logs are literally a text file. It would be extremely easy to fake those as well.

Do you really think the CIA is incapable of doing something like this? Hell, if I were able to obtain the password used to encrypt the VM (easily within the realm of possibility with CIA resources) I could do each one of these things myself.

The CIA has many extremely clear motivations to set this up, and they absolutely have the means to do so. They have also in the past been caught doing far, far worse. In addition the Vault 7 leaks contain instructions for doing exactly what many suspect here -- planting something like CP covertly in order to frame someone.

Come on, man.