Trial of programmer accused in CIA leak ends in hung jury • Hacker News Board

Re: Trial of programmer accused in CIA leak ends in hung jury

#41

Post by gxon » Tue, Mar 10, 2020, 1:04 AM UTC

Scapeghost wrote: post #5

staticautomatic wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have to agree, with the usual caveats about anecdotal evidence, that it's awfully strange how often it seems that people accused of exfiltrating sensitive information are later discovered (I'm really tempted to write "discovered") to have child porn on their computers.

"Rule By Law" This is sorta what all the mass surveillance and tracking is about, or at least enables: To ruin the life of any potential dissident. If they can't dig up any dirt from your history, they'll inject it.

But has it ever been any different? Planting illegal items on people has always been a tactic that the law could use to ruin otherwise clean people they don't like. Talking about mass surveillance being the source of the problem kind of distracts from the fact that we need a solution to this form of abuse of power in general.

Part of the answer is probably constant counter-surveillance of law enforcement themselves (body cams, software logging, etc) stored in an immutable or at least tamper evident data store. Of course, you'd still have a "who watches the watchmen" problem.

Re: Trial of programmer accused in CIA leak ends in hung jury

#42

Post by lawnchair_larry » Tue, Mar 10, 2020, 1:06 AM UTC

undreren wrote: post #3

I'm not much of a conspiracy theorist, but it seems awfully convenient that a guy that knows how to nuke his hard disk to protect himself from the CIA, only nukes the the hard disk he downloaded the WikiLeaks transfer program on, and then forgets to nuke the hard disk riddled with child porn.

This is a ridiculous conspiracy theory.

Re: Trial of programmer accused in CIA leak ends in hung jury

#43

Post by meowface » Tue, Mar 10, 2020, 1:12 AM UTC

true_religion wrote: post #36

meowface wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To speak of conveniences and "cui bono?" instead of disinterested analysis of the evidence is to be a conspiracy theorist. Of course they conspire all day, because any covert action can be called a conspiracy. It doesn't necessarily lead one to think they're conspiracies in the sense of planting child pornography on a US citizen suspect's computer. One can't rule anything out when you're dealing with intelligence age…

To be fair, the CIA doesn’t need to seek out such content. There is a giant repository of it at FBI headquarters, used to create the hash database that they scan people’s computers with in order to convict them. This database is decades old. The government has people clearly capable of torturing actual living children in Guantanamo Bay, so I doubt they will have trouble finding someone capable of planting a picture t…

>To be fair, the CIA doesn’t need to seek out such content. There is a giant repository of it at FBI headquarters, used to create the hash database that they scan people’s computers with in order to convict them.

Could you show how you know they're still storing the photos, and not just the hashes?

>The government has people clearly capable of torturing actual living children in Guantanamo Bay, so I doubt they will have trouble finding someone capable of planting a picture taken in the 1960s.

Unless you're talking about cases of formally government-sanctioned raping of children by adults, I don't think this analogy works.

I could also say that any organization fine with assassinating people in cold blood would be fine with planting child pornography on someone's computer, and there may be some superficial logic to that, but I think it's completely false. I think there are millions of people who wouldn't lose a wink of sleep over assassinating someone in cold blood, but wouldn't be able to live with themselves if forced to acquire and plant images and videos of children being raped so that a political prisoner could be falsely convicted.

Of course, with any intelligence agency (and the FBI), one's prior for anything like that happening is much, much higher than average. I definitely believe they could've wanted to do such a thing and could have done it. But even with that prior, it's still a big claim, and it requires at least a little evidence. Ideally big evidence; not no evidence, and especially not nothing to even refute the comprehensive evidence and logs the FBI has laid out over hundreds of publicly released pages, and probably hundreds or thousands of more pages that we're not (yet) privy to.

Re: Trial of programmer accused in CIA leak ends in hung jury

#44

Post by meowface » Tue, Mar 10, 2020, 1:13 AM UTC

monadic2 wrote: post #37

meowface wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To speak of conveniences and "cui bono?" instead of disinterested analysis of the evidence is to be a conspiracy theorist. Of course they conspire all day, because any covert action can be called a conspiracy. It doesn't necessarily lead one to think they're conspiracies in the sense of planting child pornography on a US citizen suspect's computer. One can't rule anything out when you're dealing with intelligence age…

Is “cui bono” at odds with a disinterested analysis of the evidence?

Not at all, but for situations like these, it seems like a very high percentage of the time, it stops at "cui bono" and skips the analysis part.

Re: Trial of programmer accused in CIA leak ends in hung jury

#45

Post by meowface » Tue, Mar 10, 2020, 1:15 AM UTC

bilekas wrote: post #29

meowface wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>But I agree with other posters, he is capable enough to clean his leaking, but not his kiddie shit ? As I wrote in my post, he wasn't capable enough to clean up a lot of his leaking. They found various kinds of evidence. A lot of it was covered up, but a lot wasn't. >Also he was never recognised for the kiddie stuff before ? I would bet the majority of people who download child pornography probably never end up gett…

I only read the ;gloss over my points you made, so drill in a bit more before I listen. > a lot of his leaking. They found various kinds of evidence. A lot of it was covered up, but a lot wasn't. Point still kind stands. > I would bet the majority of people who download child pornography probably never end up getting on anyone's radar. Or at least a large percentage don't. Oh you would bet ? well let me discard all f…

>well let me discard all facts then.

Where are your facts? You're betting, too. CIA/FBI don't and couldn't possibly monitor what every single employee does when they're not at work, especially when they're taking anonymization precautions. There's probably more than one person working at such a place right now who's in possession of CP and who will live and die without ever being found out by anyone. It's just a numbers game.

>I refer to the above. You don't like it ? Bullshit, you're defending it.

I have no idea what you're trying to say. I'm a huge proponent of end-to-end encryption, and against any attempts by governments to backdoor it. It still has absolutely no relation to this particular topic.

Re: Trial of programmer accused in CIA leak ends in hung jury

#46

Post by meowface » Tue, Mar 10, 2020, 1:17 AM UTC

bilekas wrote: post #30

meowface wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>But I agree with other posters, he is capable enough to clean his leaking, but not his kiddie shit ? As I wrote in my post, he wasn't capable enough to clean up a lot of his leaking. They found various kinds of evidence. A lot of it was covered up, but a lot wasn't. >Also he was never recognised for the kiddie stuff before ? I would bet the majority of people who download child pornography probably never end up gett…

> are you suggesting that this is a double-layered conspiracy No, I am not, I'm saying that it's possible someone had a bad reaction to the leaks so decided to (allegedly) plant data. If you had a bit of common sense you would be able to read that.

Yes, obviously that would be the motive. But what does it have to do with governmental stances on encryption?

Re: Trial of programmer accused in CIA leak ends in hung jury

#47

Post by meowface » Tue, Mar 10, 2020, 1:24 AM UTC

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #38

meowface wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To speak of conveniences and "cui bono?" instead of disinterested analysis of the evidence is to be a conspiracy theorist. Of course they conspire all day, because any covert action can be called a conspiracy. It doesn't necessarily lead one to think they're conspiracies in the sense of planting child pornography on a US citizen suspect's computer. One can't rule anything out when you're dealing with intelligence age…

Is CIA really scared of fallout? This is the same agency that lies to congress, has blown up a plane full civilians (Cubana de Aviación Flight 455) and tortured people that later turned out to be innocent. Which part of that indicates they respect due process?

Yes, because some fallout is much worse than others, and some breaches of due process are much worse than others. I could list things that I consider just as bad or worse, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they will do literally anything and everything imaginable to achieve their objectives, especially when many decades have passed since many of these things.

Also, is torturing any better if the people are guilty? One of the many problems with torture is you can never know if they're innocent or guilty, in addition to the fact that even torturing guilty people is unethical. Unless you're alleging the CIA tortured people who they knew to be innocent, or who they knew were very likely innocent, which is a much more severe allegation. If you had evidence of them doing that within the past decade, my prior for their planting child pornography would increase by a lot, absolutely.

Re: Trial of programmer accused in CIA leak ends in hung jury

#48

Post by meowface » Tue, Mar 10, 2020, 1:28 AM UTC

true_religion wrote: post #39

meowface wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Certainly seems odd, but it's not like the guy's dead or something. First, it was stored in a VeraCrypt encrypted container; if he believed only he had the keys, he may have thought it was safe. If he believes he was being framed for child pornography, I imagine he would shout it from the rooftops. Or at least try to shout it to the extent he could, to the point that there would probably be at least a little coverage…

If you think you are being framed, but have no evidence then your best court defense is to talk about what you can prove. Judges do not look kindly on desperate gambits. Once you are free, it’s much easier to gather evidence.

He did attempt to orchestrate an extremely elaborate and desperate gambit to try to claim he was framed. (See citations 2 - 4.) And indeed, it appears it was not looked upon kindly.

I don't agree in general, though. If someone framed you but you couldn't prove the actual framing, you would still insist that you were framed and explain how you couldn't have done it. If that happened to me, I would be livid and professing my innocence and making it very clear to whoever I could that someone somehow planted the evidence. Maybe his lawyers advised him not to talk, but they didn't really present much of an argument for framing/planting at trial, either, it seems.

>Once you are free, it’s much easier to gather evidence.

What if you're convicted and sentenced to many decades, or life, as he likely will be either for a retrial on the leak stuff, or for his child pornography trial?

Re: Trial of programmer accused in CIA leak ends in hung jury

#49

Post by akiselev » Tue, Mar 10, 2020, 1:38 AM UTC

meowface wrote: post #43

true_religion wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, the CIA doesn’t need to seek out such content. There is a giant repository of it at FBI headquarters, used to create the hash database that they scan people’s computers with in order to convict them. This database is decades old. The government has people clearly capable of torturing actual living children in Guantanamo Bay, so I doubt they will have trouble finding someone capable of planting a picture t…

>To be fair, the CIA doesn’t need to seek out such content. There is a giant repository of it at FBI headquarters, used to create the hash database that they scan people’s computers with in order to convict them. Could you show how you know they're still storing the photos, and not just the hashes? >The government has people clearly capable of torturing actual living children in Guantanamo Bay, so I doubt they will h…

> I think there are millions of people who wouldn't lose a wink of sleep over assassinating someone in cold blood, but wouldn't be able to live with themselves if forced to acquire and plant images and videos of children being raped so that a political prisoner could be falsely convicted.

Why?

I think if there are millions of people who can justify assassination for their country/ideology, they'll be able to justify planting child pornography too. They'll just look away from the pictures themselves, just like they've looked away from every single other atrocity committed in their name. It's not like they have to pull a trigger: they have to print out some paper, stick it an envelope without looking while repeating to themselves "I wasn't the one who took the pictures" (if they even get that far in their thought process), and go about their business framing someone. It's even easier if they work in tech because they probably don't even have to open the file. Just grab ten thousand binary blobs from the database and thats it. One will be enough! Then they'll go home to their children, look them in the eyes, and forget all about it.

Perhaps I'm just too cynical.

Re: Trial of programmer accused in CIA leak ends in hung jury

#50

Post by harikb » Tue, Mar 10, 2020, 2:08 AM UTC

meowface wrote: post #43

true_religion wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, the CIA doesn’t need to seek out such content. There is a giant repository of it at FBI headquarters, used to create the hash database that they scan people’s computers with in order to convict them. This database is decades old. The government has people clearly capable of torturing actual living children in Guantanamo Bay, so I doubt they will have trouble finding someone capable of planting a picture t…

>To be fair, the CIA doesn’t need to seek out such content. There is a giant repository of it at FBI headquarters, used to create the hash database that they scan people’s computers with in order to convict them. Could you show how you know they're still storing the photos, and not just the hashes? >The government has people clearly capable of torturing actual living children in Guantanamo Bay, so I doubt they will h…

I fail to see how planting evidence crosses a higher moral barrier than killing someone.

By the way, in both cases, the person who makes the decision genuinely believes, probably on wrong information, that the person they are entrapping is evil and they just lack the right evidence

So I don’t buy the argument that they would lose they sleep over what they did.