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

nytimes.com

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

#121

Post by researcher88 »

archgoon wrote: post #10
xnull1guest wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Certainly false flag operations are a tactic that has seen reliable and regular use, especially in counterintelligence. But what purpose exactly would a false flag operation against SONY serve? Definitely not as a pretext to take action against North Korea - the US could much more easily justify actions against NK than it has many other nations in its history.

Playing devils advocate here: The NSA is arguably having a credibility problem at home in the US. It needs to convince the tech industry that there are enemies abroad who threaten their security, and attacks by nation states (who aren't the US) is something that is real. North Korea is a great scape goat. They can deny it all they want, and we don't care about the diplomatic costs, because it can't get any worse. Peo…

Schneier said there are three. The 2nd leaking the Merkel and X-KEYSCORE and the third connected to NCTC.

Also one was supposedly raided by the FBI at the end of October but that story was never updated.

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

#123

Post by happyscrappy »

coldtea wrote: post #116
chongli wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Well, the US didn't have much issue with European fascism in Spain, or with supporting fascism in Chile and otherwhere in Lat. Am., not to mention the horrendous state that Saudi Arabia is...

It is foolhardy to defend North Korea so the only option to argue is that America is bad too, but what you are arguing is the way of the world. If the US thought they could play NK against China they certainly would.

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

#124

Post by happyscrappy »

psykovsky wrote: post #102
arcameron wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you've massively devalued an entire people based on the actions of their government... Let's not forget the great value and results of CS education in the US: - spying for pretty much everybody, regardless of location - drone guidance systems to kill people unlawfully - missile systems for air strikes on countries purported to have WMDs - millions of $ spent on silly apps that arguably do nothing to improve q…

As an European I say we should stop the US from learning. They're getting dangerous, with their knowledge.

>As an European I say we should stop the US from learning. They're getting dangerous, with their knowledge.

Getting dangerous? The game is over, Europe has outsourced their intelligence gathering and show no indication of even wanting to try to catch up.

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

#125

Post by gambiting »

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…

Sure. My country(Poland) used to be communist for nearly 50 years, and you know what we called ourselves? Democratic Republic of Poland, just like North Korea calls itself democratic. There were elections, party members were elected - but it was all corrupt through and through. The same party would win with 99.9% of the votes, party members were chosen by who gave the largest bribe or who was closest family member. And the secret police didn't make people "disappear" because of any Western sanctions on the East - it's because they were bad people with bad morals. North Korean government is a bad government, where people at the top have everything and people below them have very little to nothing. Just because they are not starving like people in Africa are, doesn't mean that their system "works". It doesn't.

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

#126

Post by saiya-jin »

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…

let me guess - you have this Putin guy as a personal hero and the best thing that happened to Russia for decades, right? :) Black & white world you live in, I think some time outside your home country would do you good.

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

#127

Post by donohoe »

shutupalready wrote: post #117

> General Clapper praised the food; his hosts later presented him with a bill for his share of the meal. Not only are they evil, but they're cheap too. But the fact is that the hosts would have billed for the meal because the U.S. government asked to be billed. The USG requires that officials traveling on business not accept gratuities, gifts, dinners, or anything above a certain value (which is about US$100 -- it ge…

    they can't get that little thing right, it makes 
    me wonder about the accuracy of the rest of the article.
Given they got a small detail correct like the persons present was Gen. Clapper inclined me to trust the accuracy of the rest of the article.

Same logic?

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

#128

Post by GabrielF00 »

lisptime wrote: post #83
GabrielF00 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't believe that the US has ever said that "a digital attack is an act of war". The quote that you linked to says that the United States reserves the right to respond militarily to "hostile acts in cyberspace" if it exhausts all other options and judges the costs of action to be greater than the costs of inaction. The statement is not saying that any cyberattack is an act of war, it is saying that the United Stat…

or they did: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/01/us/politics/01cyber.html?_...

That article is saying the exact same thing that I'm saying.

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

#129

Post by GabrielF00 »

shutupalready wrote: post #117

> General Clapper praised the food; his hosts later presented him with a bill for his share of the meal. Not only are they evil, but they're cheap too. But the fact is that the hosts would have billed for the meal because the U.S. government asked to be billed. The USG requires that officials traveling on business not accept gratuities, gifts, dinners, or anything above a certain value (which is about US$100 -- it ge…

It's customary for foreign governments to give gifts to US officials when there's a diplomatic trip, and it's customary for US officials to accept those gifts (under the exception you cited) given that refusal to do so would embarrass both parties. You can see the list of such gifts here: https://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2013/04/26/2013-099...

Given that presenting one's guest with a bill (or demanding a bill) would seem to violate social norms and cause embarrassment, I would imagine that meals are typically treated the same way.

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

#130

Post by thomasahle »

donohoe wrote: post #127
shutupalready wrote: post #117

> General Clapper praised the food; his hosts later presented him with a bill for his share of the meal. Not only are they evil, but they're cheap too. But the fact is that the hosts would have billed for the meal because the U.S. government asked to be billed. The USG requires that officials traveling on business not accept gratuities, gifts, dinners, or anything above a certain value (which is about US$100 -- it ge…

they can't get that little thing right, it makes me wonder about the accuracy of the rest of the article. Given they got a small detail correct like the persons present was Gen. Clapper inclined me to trust the accuracy of the rest of the article. Same logic?

Not quite. When reading an article I want nearly all facts to be correct. Otherwise it won't do me any good. Now if I sample two facts and one is true, the other is false, it makes it unlikely that the article is mostly true. Sure, it is also unlikely that nearly every facts is false, but that's still not very comforting.
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