The CIA Says It’s Time to Up Its Cyber Game • Hacker News Board

Re: The CIA Says It’s Time to Up Its Cyber Game

#31

Post by snowwrestler » Mon, Mar 09, 2015, 4:53 PM UTC

eatbuckyballs wrote: post #3

aluhut wrote: post #2

So with all the attention (advertisement/panic) the NSA has generated, the CIA wants a cut of the cake for themselves? That whole agency disco in the US is so confusing that I have the feeling this has to be the plan all the way or it's some kind of old cold war virus spawning divisions and agencies. Don't they all overlap? Is there enough reality for all of them to spy on?

The NSA is primarily charged with Signals Intelligence, Where as the CIA is Human Intelligence. So it's actually a pretty clear line. They also have their own security clearance process (though they tend to recognize each others in join work). The Department of Homeland security is a bit different, they're charged with domestic operations and support (TSA). The FBI is a Domestic Detective agency for lack of a better…

It doesn't seem like a clear-cut line to me; aren't Internet communications "signals"? Isn't that why the NSA has taken the lead on Internet intelligence operations up to this point? So how will what the CIA is planning to do be qualitatively different from what the NSA is already doing?

I agree with the parent; there is substantial overlap in capabilities and responsibilities among the agencies that do intelligence work for the U.S. government.

These overlaps led directly to the mistaken Iraq invasion. DOD and CIA reported very different things about the Iraq WMD program, and the U.S. leadership could choose which one they wanted to believe. Cheney and Rumsfeld convinced Bush to listen to DOD, and we all know how that worked out.

Re: The CIA Says It’s Time to Up Its Cyber Game

#32

Post by Kalium » Mon, Mar 09, 2015, 4:58 PM UTC

Zikes wrote: post #9

kissickas wrote: post #8

> In the wake of last year’s attack by North Korea against Sony Pictures Entertainment and numerous other breaches, the urge to hack back, or at least build up the means to do so when and if needed, has increased. So this is just casually accepted as fact now?

It's sad that Mutually Assured Destruction is the first place they go. They could get a better understanding of security and enforce, research, and advise standards of protection on consumer data, making everyone in the country better off, or they can "hack back". I don't really see how knowing what the average Joe in North Korea is Googling is supposed to help when my data is leaking like a sieve, but whatever.

They could, and then they'd be fighting an endless losing war over security. They'd rather like to have their own information attack capabilities.

Re: The CIA Says It’s Time to Up Its Cyber Game

#33

Post by res0nat0r » Mon, Mar 09, 2015, 5:01 PM UTC

task_queue wrote: post #15

kissickas wrote: post #8

> In the wake of last year’s attack by North Korea against Sony Pictures Entertainment and numerous other breaches, the urge to hack back, or at least build up the means to do so when and if needed, has increased. So this is just casually accepted as fact now?

Doesn't matter if it's fact if it creates a nice narrative for increasing and securing funds and power.

Why is suddenly everything the government says automatically a lie/coverup/false flag/conspiracy, yet the opposition in this case just happily accepted as fact?

The USG has no need to falsely accuse North Korea in order to step up it's cyber warfare game. Stuxnet did that a long time ago and was started under the Bush administration.

Re: The CIA Says It’s Time to Up Its Cyber Game

#34

Post by bfuller » Mon, Mar 09, 2015, 5:06 PM UTC

josefresco wrote: post #19

jnewland wrote: post #6

Step 1: Stop saying "cyber"

What's wrong with "cyber"? - does it not relate to computers?

It is increasingly used in situations that have pejorative connotations, "cybersex", "cybercrime", et cetera.

Re: The CIA Says It’s Time to Up Its Cyber Game

#35

Post by Zikes » Mon, Mar 09, 2015, 5:06 PM UTC

Kalium wrote: post #32

Zikes wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's sad that Mutually Assured Destruction is the first place they go. They could get a better understanding of security and enforce, research, and advise standards of protection on consumer data, making everyone in the country better off, or they can "hack back". I don't really see how knowing what the average Joe in North Korea is Googling is supposed to help when my data is leaking like a sieve, but whatever.

They could, and then they'd be fighting an endless losing war over security. They'd rather like to have their own information attack capabilities.

Security will always be cat and mouse, but in the case of information security a good offense does not at all make for a good defense. Those holes in our information security system will still be there, to be exploited by whomever finds them. The only reasonable course of action is to devote resources to penetration testing ourselves and implementing strong security standards, along with developing good disaster recovery and damage minimizing plans.

Re: The CIA Says It’s Time to Up Its Cyber Game

#36

Post by kevin_thibedeau » Mon, Mar 09, 2015, 5:07 PM UTC

Sounds like they're jealous that the NSA gets all the cool toys and they want to play too.

Re: The CIA Says It’s Time to Up Its Cyber Game

#37

Post by hellbanner » Mon, Mar 09, 2015, 5:09 PM UTC

josefresco wrote: post #19

jnewland wrote: post #6

Step 1: Stop saying "cyber"

What's wrong with "cyber"? - does it not relate to computers?

I thought cyber meant systems, like cybernetics.

Re: The CIA Says It’s Time to Up Its Cyber Game

#38

Post by psykovsky » Mon, Mar 09, 2015, 5:29 PM UTC

happyscrappy wrote: post #27

shit_parade wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

meanwhile Obama gives pretty speeches about fighting extremism and tries to drum up more support for killing people an ocean away. American Democracy is a farce.

It is too bad it does not seem like Europe will ever get its act together enough to be a balance against the US.

EU == USA lackey

Re: The CIA Says It’s Time to Up Its Cyber Game

#39

Post by lotsofmangos » Mon, Mar 09, 2015, 5:36 PM UTC

res0nat0r wrote: post #33

task_queue wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't matter if it's fact if it creates a nice narrative for increasing and securing funds and power.

Why is suddenly everything the government says automatically a lie/coverup/false flag/conspiracy, yet the opposition in this case just happily accepted as fact? The USG has no need to falsely accuse North Korea in order to step up it's cyber warfare game. Stuxnet did that a long time ago and was started under the Bush administration.

It still does seem unlikely that a nation state would hack a film company specifically because of a scene featuring their leader being assassinated and immediately publicly dump exactly that clip in a load of stolen email data, so that it ends up all over reddit while still in the process of demanding that it is not released in any format ever.

That said, from another point of view, monumental fuck-up is a consistent feature of many human endeavours.

Re: The CIA Says It’s Time to Up Its Cyber Game

#40

Post by Canada » Mon, Mar 09, 2015, 5:39 PM UTC

jnewland wrote: post #6

Step 1: Stop saying "cyber"

Government says cyber to differentiate from traditional "security", which means "establishing or maintaining control by putting people in cages or killing them". When talking with someone who can launch missiles, order soldiers to kill, or dispatch law enforcement officers to assault a crowd of students holding a protest, then saying cyber isn't ridiculous.

Computer security people just say "security" without any qualifiers, because none are required. When a salesman pitching an anti spam product says cyber, he's failing the shibboleth