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The FBI considers FaceApp to be a potential counterintelligence threat [pdf]

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Re: The FBI considers FaceApp to be a potential counterintelligence threat [pdf]

#121

Post by remarkEon »

debt wrote: post #117
zkid18 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US intelligence agencies do the same, no? The country intervening in most foreign elections is the United States with 81 interventions, followed by Russia (including the former Soviet Union) with 36 interventions from 1946 to 2000—an average of once in every nine competitive elections [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_electoral_intervention

"US intelligence agencies do the same, no?" Yes, definitely, again another thing beyond dispute. Not sure what the point is you're trying to make though.

The most effective aspect of this disinformation campaign is that if you share the wrong meme on reddit or Facebook you can get accused of being a tool of the Kremlin, which is pretty grand and hilarious really. Americans have gaslit themselves into thinking the Russians are everywhere (again).

Re: The FBI considers FaceApp to be a potential counterintelligence threat [pdf]

#122

Post by nl »

freehunter wrote: post #68

I know it's against the rules to tell people to read the article, but I would encourage everyone to read the article. It specifically says this is a potential threat to > "elected officials, candidates, political campaigns, [and] political parties" not to the general public. The potential threat is for someone at Candidate_1's campaign taking selfies with the app, that then uploads them to Russian servers where the R…

It specifically says this is a potential threat to > "elected officials, candidates, political campaigns, [and] political parties

But that is NOT what it says at all.

I can't emphasise how misleading this summary is! The exact quote is:

> If the FBI assesses that elected officials, candidates, political campaigns, political parties are targets of foreign influence operations involving FaceApp [then the the FBI would investigate].

Note that "IF"? That puts a pretty different spin on it to your interpretation!

Separately, it says:

> The FBI considers any application or similar product developed in Russia, such as FaceApp, to be a potential counter-intelligence threat.

@dang - I think that the current headline "FBI designates FaceApp as counterlintelligence threat" as misleading. "Designates" implies something like being added to an official list (like a sanctions list or something). A better headline would be "FBI responds to congressional query on FaceApp" or "FBI considers all Russian-built apps counterintelligence threats"

Re: The FBI considers FaceApp to be a potential counterintelligence threat [pdf]

#123

Post by nl »

rauchp wrote: post #5

Looks like the FBI designated FaceApp as a threat because of its crazy data policy and its Russian origin. Even though I think it's a really shady app, that's a pretty low bar.

They haven't designated it as a threat. The headline is wrong.

Re: The FBI considers FaceApp to be a potential counterintelligence threat [pdf]

#124

Post by dang »

killjoywashere wrote: post #115

Let me be clear up front: I'm questioning your motives. Every citizen of a democracy is a political actor and a participant in the economy and society. The Russians are agnostic, just like our intelligence services. They'll target economic actors, political actors, anyone on the social graph that looks potentially useful. In a world of micro-transactions, targeted advertising, and fake news, that's pretty much anyone…

Crossing into personal attack isn't ok on HN. Please review the site guidelines and don't post like this here.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21689071 and marked it off-topic.

Re: The FBI considers FaceApp to be a potential counterintelligence threat [pdf]

#125

Post by [deleted] »

Stratoscope wrote: post #93
freehunter wrote: post #68

I know it's against the rules to tell people to read the article, but I would encourage everyone to read the article. It specifically says this is a potential threat to > "elected officials, candidates, political campaigns, [and] political parties" not to the general public. The potential threat is for someone at Candidate_1's campaign taking selfies with the app, that then uploads them to Russian servers where the R…

> I know it's against the rules to tell people to read the article, but I would encourage everyone to read the article. It's not against the rules at all, so thank you for the encouragement! I will go read the article. What the guidelines warn against is something different: Please don't comment on whether someone read an article. "Did you even read the article? It mentions that" can be shortened to "The article ment…

[deleted]

Re: The FBI considers FaceApp to be a potential counterintelligence threat [pdf]

#126

Post by zkid18 »

FDSGSG wrote: post #107
zkid18 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think FaceApp should be hosted on an AWS-like infrastructure. Hosting in Russia is expensive and does not provide any advantages, such as dynamic routing that is crucial for world-wide app. Most developers use it to comply with Russian standards: you only need to store information about Russian users on Russian servers. In addition, currently in Russia there are no good alternatives for reliable cloud neural networ…

>I think FaceApp should be hosted on an AWS-like infrastructure. >Hosting in Russia is expensive and does not provide any advantages Hosting in top .ru DCs like Selectel is vastly cheaper than on any AWS-likes. These are extremely different products though.

You might be right. It's been a while since I tired to migrate to Russian servers.

Re: The FBI considers FaceApp to be a potential counterintelligence threat [pdf]

#127

Post by zkid18 »

debt wrote: post #117
zkid18 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US intelligence agencies do the same, no? The country intervening in most foreign elections is the United States with 81 interventions, followed by Russia (including the former Soviet Union) with 36 interventions from 1946 to 2000—an average of once in every nine competitive elections [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_electoral_intervention

"US intelligence agencies do the same, no?" Yes, definitely, again another thing beyond dispute. Not sure what the point is you're trying to make though.

My point is that I do not see a direct connection between the mobile application founded by the Russian indie developer almost 2 years ago and the swaying one of the most established democracy in the entire history.

Re: The FBI considers FaceApp to be a potential counterintelligence threat [pdf]

#128

Post by Craighead »

debt wrote: post #117
zkid18 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US intelligence agencies do the same, no? The country intervening in most foreign elections is the United States with 81 interventions, followed by Russia (including the former Soviet Union) with 36 interventions from 1946 to 2000—an average of once in every nine competitive elections [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_electoral_intervention

"US intelligence agencies do the same, no?" Yes, definitely, again another thing beyond dispute. Not sure what the point is you're trying to make though.

No, not at all the same. Please educate yourself on the Russian SORM law. Russia a revisionist authoritarian regime establishing cyber sovereignty in places other than Russia.

Re: The FBI considers FaceApp to be a potential counterintelligence threat [pdf]

#129

Post by LoLFactor »

winfred wrote: post #87
_jal wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> saying "yeah but everyone does it" is about as off-topic of a remark as you can get I've seen this sort of "argument" a lot lately. Not sure why people think it communicates anything other than lazy cynicism. That everyone (to a rounding error) has sex does not mean that everyone has sex with everyone.

It's got an actual name: Whataboutism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism

How amusing that it's most often associated with Russian propaganda.

Re: The FBI considers FaceApp to be a potential counterintelligence threat [pdf]

#130

Post by r41nbowdash »

rauchp wrote: post #5

Looks like the FBI designated FaceApp as a threat because of its crazy data policy and its Russian origin. Even though I think it's a really shady app, that's a pretty low bar.

Yeah, I don't think it's about the data storage, as much as the possibility of backdooring your phone by a rogue state.
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