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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

#171

Post by qaq »

mikec3010 wrote: post #167
pc86 wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> you don't know what you're talking about. Personal attacks aren't welcome here. The government has the money . As evidenced by their defense budget. The government does not pay the money to their employees. As evidenced by NSA employees making less than high-grade truck drivers. The government does pay billions to corporations such as Lockheed or Booz, etc. SO let's recap: they have the money , they just choose not…

let's recap who are they? The Congress passed the pay caps if you show me any evidence that there is a broad voter support for removing those caps the "they" claim might have some merit otherwise "they"="we"

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

#172

Post by pc86 »

mikec3010 wrote: post #167
pc86 wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> you don't know what you're talking about. Personal attacks aren't welcome here. The government has the money . As evidenced by their defense budget. The government does not pay the money to their employees. As evidenced by NSA employees making less than high-grade truck drivers. The government does pay billions to corporations such as Lockheed or Booz, etc. SO let's recap: they have the money , they just choose not…

Saying you don't know what you're talking about is not a personal attack when you seem to be going out of your way to prove me right.

"The government" is not a gigantic neolithic behemoth doing whatever it wants whenever it wants. You might be surprised to learn that there are in fact three branches of government in the United States. Congress has passed more than one law detailing the manner in which federal employees can be paid, and limiting how much each given position may be paid.[0] Similarly, Congress sets the budget for the Executive agencies. Because the Pentagon get billions of dollars does not mean that it's trivial to raise the salary of everyone at the Food & Drug Administration.

USG employees make significantly less than their private sector counterparts (usually) because they get quite a few benefits unavailable to the private sector:

* Generous paid leave in the form of sick time, vacation time, comp time, and scheduled holidays

* Accrued paid leave is paid out when you leave government employment

* Government pension Ignoring the completely nonsensical "rent-seeking gatekeepers" comment, Lockheed and BAH receive government contracts through open bid procurement processes. You'll get no argument from me that often times these bids are written so only 1-3 firms in the world even qualify, but that's sort of the nature of the beast when the bid is to develop a new missile or something.

[0] https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/salaries...

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

#173

Post by mikec3010 »

qaq wrote: post #169
mikec3010 wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but then the government pays... That's my point. They have the money, but something-something..."policy"...something-something.... It goes to corporations instead of people.

Who are "they" in this case? If you think there is broad electoral support for removing government pay caps I have a bridge to sell you :).

The same "they" you are referring to. The ones writing the checks. I don't care about the precise technicality that enables wage suppression. I literally don't care. The constitution also says no spying on Americans, but somehow that precise word of law was elided. The bottom line is: they have billions, they suppress wages for employees, and they enrich billion dollar contracting firms. Nothing I claim is untrue.

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

#174

Post by the_duke »

TangoTrotFox wrote: post #135
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.

Spies are people that turn against their own country, often for little more than a payoff, and participate in activities that can and have resulted in the death, torture, and worse of countless individuals. For instance Augusto Pinochet, as just one example among many, was the direct and orchestrated product of a CIA "regime change" -- an activity that at it's most fundamental level relies on traitors. Spying is taki…

What does that have to do with my assertion?

Are you saying it is fine to execute relatives of spies?

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

#175

Post by qaq »

mikec3010 wrote: post #173
qaq wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who are "they" in this case? If you think there is broad electoral support for removing government pay caps I have a bridge to sell you :).

The same "they" you are referring to. The ones writing the checks. I don't care about the precise technicality that enables wage suppression. I literally don't care. The constitution also says no spying on Americans, but somehow that precise word of law was elided. The bottom line is: they have billions, they suppress wages for employees, and they enrich billion dollar contracting firms. Nothing I claim is untrue.

Yes that technicality is called democracy oh well

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

#176

Post by jessaustin »

Kalium wrote: post #152
jonnybgood wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If we assume they're "there still", TFA seems to indicate that they could be doing a better job?

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

#177

Post by Kalium »

jessaustin wrote: post #176
Kalium wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

If we assume they're "there still", TFA seems to indicate that they could be doing a better job?

The CIA has a tendency to do its own thing, and the NSA found the vulnerabilities. To my mind, this suggests that the NSA is competent at their job when allowed to do it. Further, the CIA could stand to benefit by allowing the specialists at the NSA to perform their function rather than trying to replicate it in-house.

This is naught but my opinion, and I understand where others might differ in their reading of the situation presented to us.

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

#178

Post by jessaustin »

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?

The less money they spend on this kind of thing, the more they have to funnel to their second cousin's shell corporation. With no oversight, performance degrades.

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

#179

Post by secfirstmd »

wowzerz wrote: post #164
secfirstmd wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What direct cryptographic attack do you know that works on a one time pad? (Aslong as the randomness used to build it is real, it is implemented properly and not re-used etc)

User error, for one. People get sloppy and reuse a not-so-one-time-pad. That alone compromises secrets with frequency analysis.

Yeah that's obvious and telling me what I already know and pointed out. I thought there was some other cryptographic issue.

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

#180

Post by t3soro »

jandrese wrote: post #126
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.

And on the hidden website there was a link back to cia.gov somewhere. On the other hand I'm surprised tor works in China at all. I would expect the Great Firewall to shut down all entrance/exit nodes going into or out of the country, except maybe for a few controlled by the government.

If you're the CIA, you have installed dark fiber or at least satellites bridging your Chinese Tor nodes to the rest of the worldwide Tor network.
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