Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

N.S.A. Tapped into North Korean Networks Before Sony Attack, Officials Say

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 159 posts

Re: N.S.A. Tapped into North Korean Networks Before Sony Attack, Officials Say

#91

Post by cyphunk »

redstripe wrote: post #66
sandworm wrote: post #60

Anyone else notice this: "We realized there was another actor [South Korea] that was also going against them [North Korea] and having great success because of a 0 day they wrote. We got the 0 day out of passive and were able to re-purpose it. Big win." NSA learned of a 0-day exploit being used by South Korea (not five eyes) and re-purposed it. They had knowledge of an exploit in the wild. Did they share this with any…

Are you suggesting the NSA should be a government funded QA department for large corps and open source? For commercial software the companies who are not finding these bugs on their own are to blame. For open source, the cheapskates who mooch free software without contributing are too blame.

No, except the NSA/WhiteHouse has themselves said they would be the QA dept for corps.

http://icontherecord.tumblr.com/post/82416436703/statement-o...

Re: N.S.A. Tapped into North Korean Networks Before Sony Attack, Officials Say

#92

Post by pjc50 »

kimjonsegfault wrote: post #79
chroma wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that it's a scary argument. That's why I was careful in how I put it forth. The problem is that many skills are dual-use. At some point, a threshold is reached where a student is more likely to use the knowledge to harm than to help. This threshold depends on the skill and the student. To use a hypothetical: Would you condone someone teaching particle physics in North Korea? How about biology? Chemistry? Turb…

What's scary is the level of your indoctrination. North Korea has been surviving decades in almost complete world isolation, because it opposes capitalism. It's not mordor, it's a society with a structure that is not compatible with western capitalism. Everything you think you know about has been filtered to hide any positive aspects of such a society and to exacerbate the negatives. This was done to Vietname, to Chi…

They don't have a free press either, and political or social dissent tends to result in people being "disappeared". And they have rather a lot of artillery pointed at Seoul.

Re: N.S.A. Tapped into North Korean Networks Before Sony Attack, Officials Say

#93

Post by kimjonsegfault »

pjc50 wrote: post #92
kimjonsegfault wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's scary is the level of your indoctrination. North Korea has been surviving decades in almost complete world isolation, because it opposes capitalism. It's not mordor, it's a society with a structure that is not compatible with western capitalism. Everything you think you know about has been filtered to hide any positive aspects of such a society and to exacerbate the negatives. This was done to Vietname, to Chi…

They don't have a free press either, and political or social dissent tends to result in people being "disappeared". And they have rather a lot of artillery pointed at Seoul.

Where was the free press in the lead up to the Iraq war? How would you know of all the 'disappeared'? There very well might be, but just by stating that like a fact, you're repeating something you simply heard in the 'free press', helping spread the narrative. I'm sure there is ideological cleansing there, so is there in any society, especially one under ideological attack. And I'm sure there is way more artillery pointed at North Korea than exists in North Korea.

Re: N.S.A. Tapped into North Korean Networks Before Sony Attack, Officials Say

#94

Post by eru »

xnull2guest wrote: post #52
eru wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In the case of SONY, the attackers were able to enter the network through spearphishing emails - something that essentially no investment in security is going to prevent. Investment can make spearphishing much harder. Defense is not always absolute, but about raising the cost for the attacker.

I agree that all security is a cost-benefit tradeoff. This is of course folklore wisdom. The importance with regard to the SONY case is that SONY was not the victim of an opportunistic attack but was targeted specifically. In this case, it is highly likely that SONY did invest in training its employees in corporate policy and security awareness (at least as much as any other corporation). I have trouble thinking of a…

> The importance with regard to the SONY case is that SONY was not the victim of an opportunistic attack but was targeted specifically.

Amazon, Google etc are specifically targeted all the time. What's different?

Re: N.S.A. Tapped into North Korean Networks Before Sony Attack, Officials Say

#95

Post by DominikR »

chroma wrote: post #72
akg_67 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The chance that an American programmer will work on software harmful to humanity is quite small. The chance that a North Korean programmer will do so is massive." It is the same argument made by nuclear non-proliferation countries. Only responsible countries should own the nuclear weapons. Well, guess how that argument turned out. The only country to use nuclear weapon is the one calls itself responsible one. Along…

Your line about nuclear proliferation is a total non-sequitur. The US of 1945 is not the US of today. Our ethics and standards have risen significantly in the past 65 years. You might as well call the US hypocritical for backing UN resolutions against racism because of segregation up to the 60's. > Along the lines of your argument, DPRK citizens shouldn't be learning physics, chemistry, mathematics, aerospace enginee…

> The US of 1945 is not the US of today. Our ethics and standards have risen significantly in the past 65 years.

This is true, but what is also true is that most of the world outside the US and EU views the West (which is something like 12% of the worlds population) as an extremely bloodthirsty and cruel culture/society (regarding external behaviour) that is the greatest threat the humanity faces today.

You want to believe that the US is ethical and good because you probably live there and like your country and people, which I can understand very well.

Re: N.S.A. Tapped into North Korean Networks Before Sony Attack, Officials Say

#96

Post by iliis »

kimjonsegfault wrote: post #90
chongli wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and European fascism was okay because the trains were always on time.

North Korea is not a fascist or nationalistic regime. And it's only been turned into a concentration camp by the West through sanctions. It's not even any more antithesis to democracy either. The party members are elected. The institution members are promoted by performance like anywhere else. The 'supreme leader' being some sort of a Sauron is a fantasy. Since you're comparing to Nazi Germany, you should also know t…

You know that North Korea has actual concentration camps, right? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoeryong_concentration_camp

Re: N.S.A. Tapped into North Korean Networks Before Sony Attack, Officials Say

#97

Post by interesting_guy »

chroma wrote: post #57
thejosh wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and that same argument can be made for pretty much any other country... why teach computer science to US, as they have shown they can't be trusted - they will probably end up in the NSA!

Are you seriously comparing the NSA to North Korea? This is a country that starves and kills millions of its own people. They imprison, torture, and execute their citizens for being related to someone who watched South Korean television. It is quite likely the most harmful regime on the planet. Read some stories from North Korean defectors. Then let me know just how content you are with people contributing to the DPR…

I'll speak for myself in my non-american opinion, yes. The NSA is as bad as DPRK.

Re: N.S.A. Tapped into North Korean Networks Before Sony Attack, Officials Say

#99

Post by realusername »

kimjonsegfault wrote: post #90
chongli wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and European fascism was okay because the trains were always on time.

North Korea is not a fascist or nationalistic regime. And it's only been turned into a concentration camp by the West through sanctions. It's not even any more antithesis to democracy either. The party members are elected. The institution members are promoted by performance like anywhere else. The 'supreme leader' being some sort of a Sauron is a fantasy. Since you're comparing to Nazi Germany, you should also know t…

Everyone is saying that North Korea is a bloody dictatorship where people are starving to death. Medias, scientists, tourists who were there (yes, you can actually go there), geopoliticians, ... There is just some evidence everywhere. There is no conspiracy about North Korea and this has nothing to do with capitalism.

They have giant statues of their leader and a massive painting of him in the most prestigious place of the country. On official articles, the leader is mentioned everywhere. They manufacture 'pins' with the face of the leader on it and everyone is wearing it. There is painting of the leader in almost every house. (do I need to continue ?)

Re: N.S.A. Tapped into North Korean Networks Before Sony Attack, Officials Say

#100

Post by kimjonsegfault »

iliis wrote: post #96
kimjonsegfault wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

North Korea is not a fascist or nationalistic regime. And it's only been turned into a concentration camp by the West through sanctions. It's not even any more antithesis to democracy either. The party members are elected. The institution members are promoted by performance like anywhere else. The 'supreme leader' being some sort of a Sauron is a fantasy. Since you're comparing to Nazi Germany, you should also know t…

You know that North Korea has actual concentration camps, right? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoeryong_concentration_camp

Unfortunately, every country has prison colonies. USA has more than anyone, including abroad. You choose to believe 'Database Center for North Korean Human Rights' from which this article is sourced, that it seeks to publicize the truth and isn't funded by CIA. I believe otherwise, after comparing activities of human rights organizations in countries all over the world. It makes me quite sad that the human rights cause and genuinely well meaning people are used to further US imperialism.
Post reply on HN