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Further ties of NSA to Equation Group hackers

arstechnica.com

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Re: Further ties of NSA to Equation Group hackers

#31

Post by ctchocula »

tokenadult wrote: post #12

Not an astroturfer or an apologist here. I've never had any employment connection with NSA or any other intelligence agency of any government. I'm a United States citizen who has spent six years of my adult life living outside the United States. I'll agree with a previous lower-level comment here that it is possible to publicly protest NSA abuses (as I did, with my whole family, in view of news media cameras and poli…

"I am absolutely certain that there are enough politicians ready to mobilize to roll back NSA surveillance programs if they really think the programs are excessive in their scope."

This seems a very paternalistic view of politics that assumes politicians inherently know better than the public and that the people here are overblowing the dangers of NSA surveillance. I can imagine an alternate universe where there was no one like Snowden to make public the breadth of surveillance and the system was allowed to run unchecked. Isn't it a worrying sign that the system of checks and balances required a whistleblower? Before that, the government was writing laws that were eroding privacy without the knowledge and input of the public. That's not how things are meant to work in a democracy.

Re: Further ties of NSA to Equation Group hackers

#32

Post by cryoshon »

ccvannorman wrote: post #17

The reason it's a big deal is because as more power accumulates in the hands on the "adults in the room", the more likely those adults are to become creepy, overbearing assholes -- There are many examples, the most prominent one in my mind being that the FBI/Hoover tried to convince MLK to kill himself, fully backed by the government. As the NSA et al get more [unchecked] power it will become more corrupt, isn't this…

Yes, power corrupts, and the US government is exceptionally powerful and exceptionally corrupt. The NSA is included in this, of course.

We already know the NSA's power has been extensively abused with "SEXINT" (stealing people's private photos for personal enjoyment and likely blackmail), JTRIG (discrediting people not accused or suspected of any crime), PRISM (monitoring every communication via to/from data and other private data), not to mention others.

None of these things relate to foreign espionage or generalized signals intelligence. Snowden said it himself: the NSA is only about SIGINT in their press releases. Really, their purpose is social control and consolidation of power. Their spying does not stop at members of the public or foreign publics; whistleblower Russ Tice said long before Snowden that the NSA had a tap on Barack Obama as early as 2004.

Re: Further ties of NSA to Equation Group hackers

#33

Post by pnathan »

It should be extremely clear: the NSA should be expected - and I don't know of anyone outside of anarchist circles who doesn't expect - to have extremely sophisticated targeting operations for espionage.

While I fully support limiting the mass surveillance, stopping the NSL practice, and indiscriminate data collection being performed (along with other Star Chamber-esque behaviors), it is pure folly to expect targeted spying to be limited technically or not take place. It's simply too valuable to be able to monitor $espionage_target's computations.

Re: Further ties of NSA to Equation Group hackers

#34

Post by rthomas6 »

pnathan wrote: post #33

It should be extremely clear: the NSA should be expected - and I don't know of anyone outside of anarchist circles who doesn't expect - to have extremely sophisticated targeting operations for espionage. While I fully support limiting the mass surveillance, stopping the NSL practice, and indiscriminate data collection being performed (along with other Star Chamber-esque behaviors), it is pure folly to expect targeted…

Yes, I agree. I mean, that's the point of the NSA, right? That's why they were created, for electronic surveillance.

Re: Further ties of NSA to Equation Group hackers

#35

Post by tptacek »

belorn wrote: post #28
tptacek wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know what repercussions there should be for that, but any consideration of repercussions has to consider the alternative to electronic attack, which is airplanes dropping munitions from great heights onto buildings with people in them. People should probably not kid themselves about geopolitics and military competition vanishing if we somehow manage to regulate "electronic warfare".

We recently had a article from Schneier that made a similar observation comparing electronic attack to airplanes dropping munitions from great heights, which is why the conclusion was that electronic attacks should be under the control of the military and not by NSA. We expect the military to strike other nations civil infrastructure (or at least the subject can be debated), but we also expect them to take responsibi…

That makes a lot of sense to me, too. Also: this isn't to say that there aren't grave concerns with using self-propagating malware as a vector for attacks. It's just to keep things in perspective.

The chances of a full-blown Iranian nuclear weapons program not eventually bearing an attack by explosive munitions are pretty close to zero; see Osirak. If malware that only really impacts centrifuges forestalls that for a couple years, I see it as a good thing.

Re: Further ties of NSA to Equation Group hackers

#36

Post by LLWM »

pdkl95 wrote: post #13
venomsnake wrote: post #2

Is this really a big deal? They were doing exactly what NSA was supposed to do. We moved from NSA should not spy on everyone to NSA should be toothless ...

The scope of these activities, especially when combined with the NSA's (and GCHQ's) indiscriminate "hack everything" attitude. When the NSA attacks so much infrastructure - including standards they are supposed to be supporting - at some point they start creating a reasonable doubt about the true actors behind any network attack. This could have various consequences, but one obvious one is how it affects a jury. It w…

If the NSA is really that overwhelmingly powerful, it is irrelevant whether a jury can be convinced of some random hacker's guilt. Let him go free if you must. If he is legitimately dangerous, the NSA can shut him down or point him the right way.

Re: Further ties of NSA to Equation Group hackers

#37

Post by tptacek »

fnordfnordfnord wrote: post #26
tptacek wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know what repercussions there should be for that, but any consideration of repercussions has to consider the alternative to electronic attack, which is airplanes dropping munitions from great heights onto buildings with people in them. People should probably not kid themselves about geopolitics and military competition vanishing if we somehow manage to regulate "electronic warfare".

>which is airplanes dropping munitions from great heights onto buildings with people in them. I know that you didn't mean for your comment to be taken literally but there is literally zero chance of enemy airplanes invading US skies and dropping munitions from great heights onto buildings with people in them. It is a silly thing to say and it does nothing to justify the current situation vis a vis the NSA et al. Try…

No, I mean literally: if Stuxnet really did target the Iranian nuclear project and really did set Iran back by a year or so, then Stuxnet forestalled an aerial bombardment of Iran by a year or so.

It's an ugly situation, since Iran's geopolitical strategy involves gaining concessions through a game of chicken with the US counter-proliferation regime. At some point, unless it's resolved in a way that ends the Iranian nuclear arms program, it is going to end in explosions, and scores of lost lives.

This is a descriptive observation, not a normative one.

It is also true that if Iran somehow arranged for explosions at US nuclear facilities, the USG's response would be world- historically horrific. Any reasonable observer knows this to be a fact, so we can acknowledge it without getting into philosophy and move on.

Re: Further ties of NSA to Equation Group hackers

#38

Post by lawnchair_larry »

tptacek wrote: post #24
belorn wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spreading malware is a big deal, and I am sure many people would get quite upset if important US infrastructure was targeted. What would the reactions be if the 911 system got hit by untested malware, or some traffic control systems crash because of spying activities. What repercussion should the US have received if the Iranian uranium enrichment had exploded and thrown fine radioactive dust into the environment? Wou…

I don't know what repercussions there should be for that, but any consideration of repercussions has to consider the alternative to electronic attack, which is airplanes dropping munitions from great heights onto buildings with people in them. People should probably not kid themselves about geopolitics and military competition vanishing if we somehow manage to regulate "electronic warfare".

This is a false dichotomy of the most offensive kind.

Re: Further ties of NSA to Equation Group hackers

#39

Post by LLWM »

cryoshon wrote: post #27
arkem wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comment would be stronger if you omitted the final sentence. Fortifying your opinion by preemptively calling other people contributing to the discussion "astroturfers and apologists" is poor form.

Shrug. Consider JTRIG: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_Threat_Research_Intellig... They're very blatantly using astroturfing and shilling to silence people who go against their idea of the way things should be. I doubt HN is going to have an astroturf quotient as high as someplace like reddit, though.

Did you even read the article? If they cared to actually silence someone, they would, and you would never know. People (or even robots) disagreeing with you on an internet forum is so far from effective that it's almost insulting to accuse them of it.

Re: Further ties of NSA to Equation Group hackers

#40

Post by jokoon »

tokenadult wrote: post #12

Not an astroturfer or an apologist here. I've never had any employment connection with NSA or any other intelligence agency of any government. I'm a United States citizen who has spent six years of my adult life living outside the United States. I'll agree with a previous lower-level comment here that it is possible to publicly protest NSA abuses (as I did, with my whole family, in view of news media cameras and poli…

> I call baloney on the idea that NSA can keep politicians on its leash simply by knowing their secrets.

What if some politicians manage to get an insider peek at the data NSA has ? NSA does not necessarily need to seek power on its own, but it can become a tool of control, usable by people who might want to make use of it.

Information is indeed power. The problem with that surveillance program is that it's a secret warchest of data, it's secret because it's purposed for criminal investigations. Anyone who can manage to bribe or have enough influence towards NSA employees could theoretically make unimaginable use of this data. It's having a monopoly on information. It also create distrust in computers in general, which is not necessarily a good thing.

The problem is not privacy, the problem is the possibility of small groups having privileged access to mandatory, potential sensitive data about anyone. That data is supposed to be secret because it's for investigative purposes. But it's done on everyone, without warrant, it's a recipe for a huge political mess.

This risk is way too high, compared to its advantages. You can't dismiss that risk.

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