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Source Code Similarities Between NSA Malware and 'Regin' Trojan

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Re: Source Code Similarities Between NSA Malware and 'Regin' Trojan

#51

Post by rantanplan »

bayesianhorse wrote: post #26
bayesianhorse wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends on just who you are attacking. Terrorist groups, criminal organizations or criminal individuals are legitimate targets of a cyber attack, just as they could and should be put under conventional surveillance. If government agencies attack ordinary citizens or companies, without legitimate authorization, than it's not a problem of means or tools but rather a problem with democratic or judicial oversight on t…

Providing these backdoors isn't government hacking on legitimate targets, but rather a sort of lazy surveillance or intrusion on its citizens.

You comment here sort of answers my question above. So basically you don't agree with attacking or weakening crypto/security systems.

The thing is that without those "competitive advantages", I fail to see how they can have an advantage over the bad guys. Playing offense, when the need arises, won't cut it. You're gonna have to "lay the foundations" so to speak, for you to be a successful attacker.

So basically we reach the old, but not so tired, question of how much of your freedom you're willing to sacrifice, for your government to be the "meanest of them all"

Re: Source Code Similarities Between NSA Malware and 'Regin' Trojan

#52

Post by vidarh »

raverbashing wrote: post #34
virtualritz wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Define 'democratic government'. This term is a euphemism nowadays in the West. E.g.: http://www.salon.com/2013/08/17/chomsky_the_u_s_behaves_noth...

I wonder if Chomsky would have that liberty of critique in any other country...

He certainly would in quite a lot of countries.

Chomsky is a lot less controversial in a lot of countries outside the US than he is in the US.

I'm sure there are countries where he'd be unable to say what he wants, but there are also a lot of countries (e.g. in Europe) where his political views are reasonably close to mainstream, to the extent where he's no more controversial than the average left wing politician and his main problem would be that he'd be one of many voices saying similar things.

Re: Source Code Similarities Between NSA Malware and 'Regin' Trojan

#53

Post by Flip-per »

raverbashing wrote: post #34
virtualritz wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Define 'democratic government'. This term is a euphemism nowadays in the West. E.g.: http://www.salon.com/2013/08/17/chomsky_the_u_s_behaves_noth...

I wonder if Chomsky would have that liberty of critique in any other country...

Are you serious?

I wonder what Barrett Brown would say about this topic, if he wouldn't sit in prison right now: http://boingboing.net/2015/01/22/barrettbrown.html

Are you aware that (h)activists from around the world do not travel to the USA because they fear the consequences, having their equipment seized or being imprisoned? Do you know why Laura Poitras is living in Berlin right now?

Re: Source Code Similarities Between NSA Malware and 'Regin' Trojan

#56

Post by mcv »

raverbashing wrote: post #34
virtualritz wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Define 'democratic government'. This term is a euphemism nowadays in the West. E.g.: http://www.salon.com/2013/08/17/chomsky_the_u_s_behaves_noth...

I wonder if Chomsky would have that liberty of critique in any other country...

I wonder how much longer he'll have that liberty in the US.

Re: Source Code Similarities Between NSA Malware and 'Regin' Trojan

#57

Post by UnoriginalGuy »

happyscrappy wrote: post #47
DavideNL wrote: post #45

US spying on allies, what else is new? Wasn't most of this already known? From wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regin_(malware)#Known_attacks_... : `Der Spiegel reported in November 2014.......` `Fox IT found Regin on the computers of one of its customers, and according to their analysis parts of Regin are mentioned in the NSA ANT catalog under the names "Straitbizarre" and "Unitedrake".`

Has Speigel reported on the ubiquitous US spy stations peppered throughout Europe? Have they speculated on why Europe does not close them?

Because the US shares intelligence with those governments. In some EU countries it is illegal for the government to spy on its citizens (also see the US pre-9/11), so the US spies on those countries and then relays the info back.

Pre-9/11 this is also how the US worked. The UK spied on the US and the US spied on the UK, thus both subverting national laws, they then shared intelligence with one another (which is legal) and thus the loophole was born.

This is actually the system the US is going back to, it is becoming politically unpopular for the NSA to spy on American Citizens, so GCHQ will likely take over the majority again, the reasons they couldn't after 9/11 was that the workload increase too much in too short a period, and the systems didn't yet exist.

Re: Source Code Similarities Between NSA Malware and 'Regin' Trojan

#58

Post by [deleted] »

NietTim wrote: post #27
hluska wrote: post #12

Nothing like waking up to a story that makes you feel embarrassed by your citizenship. Good job Canada, you're making a Maple Leaf a dangerous symbol all around the world. When I was a youngster, being Canadian meant that Incould travel anywhere and be fine. Granted, there was a > 50% probability that the other Canadians I would meet were really Americans, but that was nothing. My country had a solid international re…

Just imagine being American and being full of false pride...

[deleted]

Re: Source Code Similarities Between NSA Malware and 'Regin' Trojan

#59

Post by john_b »

bayesianhorse wrote: post #41
amirmc wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "That this control is inadequate in our view, doesn't matter for ... a democratic system." It absolutely matters. Without those controls you have a democracy in name only. You could quite happily rig elections, arrest opponents, suppress the population etc, while still claiming to be 'democratic'.

That omission of a few crucial words from my comment is almost malicious. I didn't say that the inadequacy doesn't matter for the democratic system, but rather that it doesn't matter for the question if the NSA is a part of such a system.

You may be technically and structurally correct, but I think most people care far more about how effective democratic checks and balances are being applied to the NSA (hint: not much) rather than classifying it as part of one type of system or the other.
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