Assange in 2011: "They have automated the process." • Hacker News Board

Re: Assange in 2011: "They have automated the process."

#61

Post by wavefunction » Fri, Jun 07, 2013, 3:54 PM UTC

_nb wrote: post #21

wavefunction wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Paying with your credit card? That's being tracked. Your back account transactions are being indexed and collated. They're probably in all of our computers already. I've been operating a windows7 honeypot as my "main" computer for several years, generating what appears to be legit "personal" traffic. You wouldn't believe the shit I've found, and it doesn't appear to be your garden variety cyber criminals or foreign s…

Could you elaborate a bit on what you found on your honeypot?

It appears that the honeypot has been compromised in both a domestic botnet running in system memory by "authorities" local to the US, and also that there are background processes in Windows that are inspecting the filesystem for binaries matching certain signatures no matter how the user configures the system, even "stubbing out" the visible processes that would make sense, like their anti-malware and indexing services. Basically a Windows machine is owned from the get go.

Unfortunately this is not exactly my particular area of expertise, so for me it's like glimpsing a shadow through smoke and a moving window, mostly an impression but something that has become more and more sophisticated despite my attempts to prevent it via traditional and modern methods of forensics, and even weird things like audible and inaudible platter noise when there shouldn't be heavy (this is the key for me) disk io.

Re: Assange in 2011: "They have automated the process."

#62

Post by anoncow » Fri, Jun 07, 2013, 3:55 PM UTC

wavefunction wrote: post #18

junto wrote: post #14

I would now consider paying for services that offer real private email, social networking and file sharing / cloud backups, where none of those services were controlled by an US controlled entity and where the NSA couldn't snoop around in my private life. However boring my private life is, it is still mine. I wonder if anyone else would part with cold hard cash though, or is it just me? There maybe a niche there.

Paying with your credit card? That's being tracked. Your back account transactions are being indexed and collated. They're probably in all of our computers already. I've been operating a windows7 honeypot as my "main" computer for several years, generating what appears to be legit "personal" traffic. You wouldn't believe the shit I've found, and it doesn't appear to be your garden variety cyber criminals or foreign s…

please elaborate.

Re: Assange in 2011: "They have automated the process."

#63

Post by wavefunction » Fri, Jun 07, 2013, 3:59 PM UTC

_nb wrote: post #21

wavefunction wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Paying with your credit card? That's being tracked. Your back account transactions are being indexed and collated. They're probably in all of our computers already. I've been operating a windows7 honeypot as my "main" computer for several years, generating what appears to be legit "personal" traffic. You wouldn't believe the shit I've found, and it doesn't appear to be your garden variety cyber criminals or foreign s…

Could you elaborate a bit on what you found on your honeypot?

also, I determined that even unplugging the honeypot when "not in use" was not enough, as it appears to be using "bursts" similar to special forces radio techniques, when availability resumes to its cnc system.

Re: Assange in 2011: "They have automated the process."

#64

Post by euroclydon » Fri, Jun 07, 2013, 4:06 PM UTC

rpgmaker wrote: post #60

euroclydon wrote: post #32

I've been following these discussions the past couple of days on HN, and there are a few calm minds who are very knowledgeable of the law, who's comments have been enlightening and reassuring ('rayiner and others). But we now live in a completely online world, where nearly all communication and files are conveyed and hosted by third parties, and soon it will take several minutes for even a geek to mentally count up t…

"Those who do not move, do not notice their chains." - Rosa Luxemburg Of course you don't care about privacy, why should you? You're just a peaceful flock member. never acting against the power of the status quo. But look around and see what happens to the people that actually do confront power and you'll see why privacy is important.

Can you give me an example?

Re: Assange in 2011: "They have automated the process."

#65

Post by muyuu » Fri, Jun 07, 2013, 4:07 PM UTC

ISL wrote: post #55

muyuu wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Deleting FB alone might not be a solution, but it's a part of it. Out of these, I only have a gmail account. No personal data in it is real. I never email anyone I know in person from that account, nor I give it to anybody who knows me. I think I'm on the safe side. I operate similarly with my phone and basically everything else.

Are your emails encrypted? If not, anyone in the pipeline can read them.

I don't use email for anything private or important really. But yeah, I do encrypt with GPG anything moderately private I send.

Re: Assange in 2011: "They have automated the process."

#66

Post by anoncow » Fri, Jun 07, 2013, 4:07 PM UTC

cinquemb wrote: post #37

robotmay wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing gets me riled up like a vaccination denier. I can't even hold a conversation with them, I just get really angry.

You could just agree to disagree with them without expanding such emotional energy. Though I wonder when dissemination of vaccines will be more of a science instead of "We know this strand of virus is going around, everyone come here and get a shot of xyz because it is good for you and will protect you all", especially since overdosage of the massess will eventually lead to resistant strands. It would be really cool…

can you elaborate on the emergence of resistant strains due to mass vaccination?

Re: Assange in 2011: "They have automated the process."

#67

Post by Homunculiheaded » Fri, Jun 07, 2013, 4:08 PM UTC

junto wrote: post #14

I would now consider paying for services that offer real private email, social networking and file sharing / cloud backups, where none of those services were controlled by an US controlled entity and where the NSA couldn't snoop around in my private life. However boring my private life is, it is still mine. I wonder if anyone else would part with cold hard cash though, or is it just me? There maybe a niche there.

"Big Data" is the buzzword of the day but I think "Big Privacy" will be a bigger trend in the very near future. Right now it's technically possible to put together the resources to give your self a fairly good bit of privacy, just as it's always been possible to write a cron job to do remote backup before Dropbox. However this takes both a bit of technical skill, a good chunk of time and planning, and there's still a chance you'll miss something.

So I believe there's a lot of money to be made in providing instant privacy the same way dropbox provides instant backups. Likewise as statistics + programming = data scientist, statistics + programming + security = privacy scientist

Sadly this also means that privacy will become a commodity and I can easily imagine a tiered system of privacy based on cost (eg 19.99/mo get's you a secure network + encrypted files, 99.99/mo get's you text re-structuring to avoid stylometeric identification.)

Re: Assange in 2011: "They have automated the process."

#68

Post by JamisonM » Fri, Jun 07, 2013, 4:16 PM UTC

cinquemb wrote: post #57

JamisonM wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comment seems to misunderstand the difference between vaccinations and antibiotic treatments. Herd immunity disallows an organism a foothold in a population, it is not present to become immune - it is something entirely separate from the emergence of superbugs immune to all or most known antibiotic treatments.

How is the emergence of superbugs immunity to antibiotic treatments entirely separate when they are different strands of organisms that were previously treated?

Vaccinations and treatment are completely different things and vaccines and antibiotics are also completely different things. There are plenty of resources on the Internet that explain these matters - if you can get past the anti-vaccine psuedoscience search engine spam. For example you can find plenty of people trying to blame resistant Whooping Cough on vaccines when the most likely cause is the reduction of vaccination rates, not the presence of vaccinations in the first place.

I'd be the first to admit I am no expert so if you have real interest in the topic I would go looking for someone better qualified to talk to than me.

Re: Assange in 2011: "They have automated the process."

#69

Post by wavefunction » Fri, Jun 07, 2013, 4:16 PM UTC

wavefunction wrote: post #61

_nb wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you elaborate a bit on what you found on your honeypot?

It appears that the honeypot has been compromised in both a domestic botnet running in system memory by "authorities" local to the US, and also that there are background processes in Windows that are inspecting the filesystem for binaries matching certain signatures no matter how the user configures the system, even "stubbing out" the visible processes that would make sense, like their anti-malware and indexing servi…

I should say as well, I am an interested layman when it comes to this stuff. I have a knack for maths and statistical analysis, so please take my comments for what they're worth, which is only anecdotal

Re: Assange in 2011: "They have automated the process."

#70

Post by kunai » Fri, Jun 07, 2013, 4:21 PM UTC

pajju wrote: post #30

twistedpair wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And we can always trust the government, right?

We have voted them up — they are elected representatives. And Life goes by Hope and Positivity!

Just because we voted people in doesn't mean they're gods as soon as they enter office.

And positivity is useless if you just think everything can be fine as long as you have a positive outlook. That's foolishness. You SHOULD have alacrity towards this issue, but if you don't, that's your choice.

In ten years, you will look back and wish you did something. Mark my damned words.