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Botched CIA Communications System Helped Blow Cover of Chinese Agents

foreignpolicy.com

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Re: Botched CIA Communications System Helped Blow Cover of Chinese Agents

#151

Post by EthanHeilman »

yborg wrote: post #13

It took 8 years for the CIA to figure out what happened?? This certainly explains why China and Russia continue to conduct cyber operations basically at the same level of intensity they have been for years - US intelligence, despite its enormous, unaccountable budget is unable to stop them or even know where they are compromised. If there is an actual hot conflict between the US and either of these nations, I shudder…

Intelligence isn't just about human intelligence sources. Historically the US has been terrible at human intelligence and peerless at technical intelligence such as spy satellites, bugs, signals intercept, etc...

Re: Botched CIA Communications System Helped Blow Cover of Chinese Agents

#152

Post by Kalium »

jonnybgood wrote: post #148
yardie wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was a time when the NSA was in the white hat business; securing networks, identifying vulnerabilities and contributing to net sec projects. SELinux has been their most famous contribution. This all changed with the war on terrorism. Finding and exploiting vulnerabilities was the mission.

It hasn’t changed. Why you’re referring to falls under Information Assurance in their mission statement.

Exactly. It tends to not make the news, but it's all there still.

Re: Botched CIA Communications System Helped Blow Cover of Chinese Agents

#153

Post by hguant »

pjc50 wrote: post #92
the_duke wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you are not condemning: - death penalty - death penalty for relatives of criminals - death penalty for pregnant relatives I'd love to know what country you live in and if you would condone laws that allow this.

"We kill people based on metadata": https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2014/05/10/we-kill-people-base... Admittedly that only applies to non-US nationals outside the US, but the CIA and American overseas military operations have relied for years on executing people (and their wives, children, neighbours, wedding guests, and first responders) with missiles.

This is a false equivalency, and your language seems to be intentionally politicized to provoke an emotional response rather than a rational one. It reeks of "whataboutism."

You argument is comparing the actions of the US military against a foreign enemy - and their associates - to the actions of the Chinese internal security against their own people. Are you saying the Chinese are at war with their own people?

Re: Botched CIA Communications System Helped Blow Cover of Chinese Agents

#154

Post by nasredin »

baybal2 wrote: post #12
solatic wrote: post #11

>But the CIA’s interim system contained a technical error: It connected back architecturally to the CIA’s main covert communications platform. When the compromise was suspected, the FBI and NSA both ran “penetration tests” to determine the security of the interim system. They found that cyber experts with access to the interim system could also access the broader covert communications system the agency was using to i…

How stupid it is to spend so much effort on compartmentalising their intel net in the country, but have all spies report by dialing in into the same website in a country employing few brigades worth of people reading tcpdumps 24/7? Compare that to one way coded messages over hf radio: a place for pick up of a dead drop in n days is broadcasted, then it is picked up by a man who reads it, destroys it, and gtfos from t…

There's still "number stations" broadcasting over shortwave radio.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it?!

Re: Botched CIA Communications System Helped Blow Cover of Chinese Agents

#155

Post by EthanHeilman »

edm0nd wrote: post #131
qaq wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For starters they can't really pay market salaries for the skills they need so to some degree this has more to do with laws on the books than with management and organizational failures.

That's why agencies like the FBl just raid people and then flip them into Confidential Human Sources (CHS). They dont have to pay them anything and use the threat of jail time in exchange for skills/information.

... and they gain deniability if the sources do anything unethical which in turns gives them more leverage over the source.

Re: Botched CIA Communications System Helped Blow Cover of Chinese Agents

#156

Post by obmelvin »

hackermailman wrote: post #141
sandworm101 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Between the lines: it was Tor. Deploys on computers. Web-based. Detectable through decryption or pattern analysis. Firewalls. It was a pair of Tor hidden services. The mistake was probably that they ran both on the same machine with only a firewall separating them, rather than physically different servers.

Which sounds like a management decision to cut costs by running them on the same server. This is probably why we are seeing ex regime department heads in the news lately as political pundits in hopes they create enough deflection to avoid prosecution for 30+ agents dying on their watch.

Do you seriously think the CIA cared about server costs for something like this?

Re: Botched CIA Communications System Helped Blow Cover of Chinese Agents

#157

Post by hunterjumper06 »

pc86 wrote: post #129
mikec3010 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shows a contradiction/hypocrisy. They have the money, but just choose to spend it on corporations and not humans.

No, it shows that unfortunately you don't know what you're talking about. Federal employee salaries are set by legislation and may not be changed. They can't get bonuses or anything else. Contracts are bid and are paid out of completely different budgets.

Yes, we actually can get yearly bonuses though they are minimal and tied to the performance rating process and tenure to the agency (at least at my agency). For those that are interested, I’d check out the General Schedule pay scales on the Office of Personnel Management’s (OPM) website. OPM is the agency responsible for providing guidance to federal agencies on all matters related to HR. OPM’s pay scales: https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/salaries...

However, some agencies have gotten special permission from Congress to use another pay scale which was designed to allow agencies to pay for performance rather than guaranteed raises over time. Though I’ve heard that it doesn’t always work the way it was intended. I was actually initially offered a lot lower salary at another agency that used the pay for performance than my current agency that uses the General Schedule scale.

For general reference: GS-7: B.A./B.S. and GS-9: Master’s.

For all intelligence positions, you are required to pass and maintain a Top Secret/Special Compartmented Information clearance which takes about a year these days due to backlog. This hinders the agencies ability to recruit top talent. I recommend checking out the SF-86 Questionnaire for National Security Positions if you want to see what all is asked.

Right now, I could switch to the private sector and make a lot more than I am making now. But I stay because I believe in the mission and work of my agency. I get to do things that I would never get to do in the private sector. Maybe one day I will switch but for right now I am staying.

Re: Botched CIA Communications System Helped Blow Cover of Chinese Agents

#158

Post by patrickg_zill »

olivermarks wrote: post #38

Other Dorfman articles https://foreignpolicy.com/author/zach-dorfman/ I treat any media 'story' about spooks with great suspicion, because it almost almost invariably winds up over time that there are far more layers to the onion than are revealed in these types of exposes. I wonder what 'The disaster in China has led some officials to conclude that internet-based systems, even ones that employ sophisticated encrypti…

When the Russians were concerned about security, they switched back to using typewriters. Don't assume that a high tech solution would always be the answer...

Re: Botched CIA Communications System Helped Blow Cover of Chinese Agents

#159

Post by hackermailman »

obmelvin wrote: post #156
hackermailman wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which sounds like a management decision to cut costs by running them on the same server. This is probably why we are seeing ex regime department heads in the news lately as political pundits in hopes they create enough deflection to avoid prosecution for 30+ agents dying on their watch.

Do you seriously think the CIA cared about server costs for something like this?

Sure, that's some manager's performance bonus. When I briefly worked for Nav Canada our manager decided to buy the cheapest dollar store pens possible in order to pad his performance metrics. We also had to sign them out individually from his safe. Not at all surprised if a CIA manager did a risk analysis and decided lets use the same server(s) and save a few dollars the risk is acceptable.

Re: Botched CIA Communications System Helped Blow Cover of Chinese Agents

#160

Post by digi_owl »

bsder wrote: post #45
yborg wrote: post #13

It took 8 years for the CIA to figure out what happened?? This certainly explains why China and Russia continue to conduct cyber operations basically at the same level of intensity they have been for years - US intelligence, despite its enormous, unaccountable budget is unable to stop them or even know where they are compromised. If there is an actual hot conflict between the US and either of these nations, I shudder…

Defense is always harder than offense when it comes to computers.

Computers at its core have no clue about offense or defense, that is in the realm of context (and lawyers).
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