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

Hacking Team hacked, attackers claim 400GB in dumped data

csoonline.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

201–210 of 240 posts

Re: Hacking Team hacked, attackers claim 400GB in dumped data

#201

Post by MichaelGG »

sathio wrote: post #199
MichaelGG wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's so interesting? They have a default value, most likely for testing. I find it very hard to believe anyone thinks "child_porn.avi" is a compelling filename for child pornography. I'd imagine they'd be more like " .mp4".

yes, I thought the same exact thing, but then I've read this: > better evidence generation https://github.com/hackedteam/rcs-common/commit/7059fb04a189... probably those are just placeholders but the intent seems at least a bit shady

Look at the change. They went from a unix-like file system path name to a Windows one. Considering they call to_utf16le_binary_null I'm going to guess they just wanted it to look reasonable (and perhaps not crash?) on Windows.

Re: Hacking Team hacked, attackers claim 400GB in dumped data

#202

Post by MichaelGG »

bobcostas55 wrote: post #198
MichaelGG wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's so interesting? They have a default value, most likely for testing. I find it very hard to believe anyone thinks "child_porn.avi" is a compelling filename for child pornography. I'd imagine they'd be more like " .mp4".

It's software sold to law enforcement/intelligence agencies, and it is designed explicitly to plant false evidence. Even post-Snowden I think that qualifies as interesting.

Can you elaborate on "design explicitly to plant false evidence"? I don't know what the program does, but those path names are zero evidence, come on.

Re: Hacking Team hacked, attackers claim 400GB in dumped data

#203

Post by celticninja »

caskance wrote: post #106
celticninja wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But they have guns. For some reason there is the belief that if you have guns then you are more free than someone without guns. Perhaps because the original intention was that if you have an armed population then they cannot be ruled over by means of force or they would at least be able to rise up against their opressors in a meaningful fashion. Guns in America are a bit of an opiate for the masses, people have guns…

Freedom is a feeling. If you feel free, then you are free.

I have to disagree. There are some very definite indicators of whether someone is free or not. You can be conditioned to accept your situation but that doesnt make you free.

Re: Hacking Team hacked, attackers claim 400GB in dumped data

#204

Post by TeMPOraL »

MichaelGG wrote: post #197
Fede_V wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's very possible that I've made some unfair assumptions. Could you give me a more fair representation of what goes into the mind of someone selling surveillance software to Sudan or Omar?

I actually have software that'd be a decent fit for this use case. I'm working on bringing it to market for VoIP companies to use in troubleshooting networks. (Hint: It's super effective. At one place we cut ticket response times down by an enormous factor.) And one benefit I'm planning on adding is lawful intercept. A lot of VoIP companies are sitting at risk of getting a valid warrant and having no way to respond.…

Here's the problem: you think someone else will do it anyway thus damage is certain, so you can at least be the first to profit from it. And guess what, your competitors probably think the same thing. And you'll all rush to delivering morally dubious products. Because hey, if someone will defect anyway, it's best I defect fist.

I am increasingly convinced that the very point of morality is to steer society away from stupid coordination failures like this.

Re: Hacking Team hacked, attackers claim 400GB in dumped data

#205

Post by TeMPOraL »

DonQuixote1000 wrote: post #173
chinathrow wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No for fucks sake, the alternative to hot/cold wars is peace. The idea that we have less dead when access to any kind of arms is heavily restricted, how about that?

He is is making the correct assumption that even if some people want peace others will be more than happy to kill you and rationalise that it was actually a good thing. So you are both right: the alternative is peace or war. I would definitely prepare for war though. To do otherwise is naive and gratuitously stupid.

Si vis pacem, para bellum may be a practical advice, but the outcome of it is an arms race. Which is a big problem, because that feedback loop ties up resources and manpower that could be better used elsewhere. So even if it is the most practical option now (since we don't have a single global government), we need to recognize how shitty it is and maybe figure out how to reduce its impact.

Re: Hacking Team hacked, attackers claim 400GB in dumped data

#206

Post by chinathrow »

jessedhillon wrote: post #168
chinathrow wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The US is going to bomb people anyway; better that they hit fewer non-targets along the way. This has been used as a talking point pro smart bombs for some time now - and yet we have still bombings of weddings with a civilian hit rate of nearly 100%. Killing is is still killing, no matter how smart the weapon is.

I think you should check out how bombing was conducted before the introduction of the smart bomb. We used to intentionally and systematically destroy entire civilian populations. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_bombing_during_World...

Supporting/defending bombs because they are better than older bombs? Really?

Not supporting/definding bombs: the right way.

Re: Hacking Team hacked, attackers claim 400GB in dumped data

#207

Post by chinathrow »

DonQuixote1000 wrote: post #173
chinathrow wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No for fucks sake, the alternative to hot/cold wars is peace. The idea that we have less dead when access to any kind of arms is heavily restricted, how about that?

He is is making the correct assumption that even if some people want peace others will be more than happy to kill you and rationalise that it was actually a good thing. So you are both right: the alternative is peace or war. I would definitely prepare for war though. To do otherwise is naive and gratuitously stupid.

It's not so much about preparing - it's about what you root/vote/lobby for. War should never be on the supporters agenda.

Re: Hacking Team hacked, attackers claim 400GB in dumped data

#208

Post by veddox »

arca_vorago wrote: post #133
veddox wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But they are not as free as Americans. Oh, give over! As if the US of A were the ultimate land of freedom. With the NSA, Guantanamo, race-based police violence... [Disclaimer: I have nothing against the USA (well, almost nothing). But I can't stand people talking about it as if it was the only true democracy/free country/heaven on earth.]

This is something I wish was addressed more in conversation when it devolves into a pissing match of freedom . Here's the deal. Yes, the US has been getting into some shady areas, even more-so since 9/11. All the things you reference are big issues that haven't been addressed properly yet. I'll grant you all that and more, because it's true. Here's the problem though. This is where I generally hear about how the Nord…

+1 for that comment

I have the highest respect for the history of the United States and where they came from. Perhaps the founding fathers were not the first to think thoughts of freedom, but they were among the forerunners in implementing a system that was actually based on the idea of freedom.

But I also very much agree that there is an increasing difference between freedom in theory and in practice in the States - something that I hope its citizens will manage to sort out sooner rather than later.

As Jefferson said: "The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground."

Re: Hacking Team hacked, attackers claim 400GB in dumped data

#209

Post by godgod »

542458 wrote: post #121
anc84 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People who join the US army should be forced to watch videos of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo torture, they should be forced to watch testimonies of people in drone-bombed municipalities. But I am afraid that for many the "we good, they bad" mentality would justify those atrocities. Like another commenter said, who is bad and who is good really depends on your viewpoint.

I think that's a little bit of an excessively simple viewpoint. The US army does much more than Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and drones (in fact, a lot of what you just described is probably managed by agents outside the army such as the CIA). To flip this around, should every employee of a Silicon Valley company be shamed for rising property values in the area that have left many homeless? Should every Google employee be…

The problem is that we don't teach ETHICS to software developers. Just because we can create skynet, does it mean we should? The power to create comes the power to destroy.

Re: Hacking Team hacked, attackers claim 400GB in dumped data

#210

Post by Nadya »

chinathrow wrote: post #206
jessedhillon wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you should check out how bombing was conducted before the introduction of the smart bomb. We used to intentionally and systematically destroy entire civilian populations. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_bombing_during_World...

Supporting/defending bombs because they are better than older bombs? Really? Not supporting/definding bombs: the right way.

I'll let the people bombing you know that you are unhappy they have bombs and refuse to make your own to deter them from bombing you because you don't support the use of bombs.

Would you like your message to include the sound of the bomb explosion that killed your brother or should we leave that out?

The point people are trying to get you to understand is that there are hundreds (if not thousands) of years of human history that has shown that when two groups of people disagree and cannot come to an agreement: they war.

Even when they reach an agreement, it's possible that one group will backstab the other group. Or perhaps they interpreted a given part of an agreement in different ways and are now arguing over which is the proper interpretation (a naive understanding of the Shia-Sunni relations)?

So Group A decides they are correct and will force Group B to agree by force. They approach Group B with their army armed with bows and swords. Group B has to submit to Group A, die, or fight back. To fight back they need a better trained army with superior bows and superior swords.

Group A is fearful that Group B now has a superior army with superior weaponry. So Group A invents guns. The sword-armed troops of Group B no longer stand a fighting chance against Group A. Fearing they will have to submit to Group A or die - Group B invents explosives... and so on and so on.

Now we have nuclear weapons that devastate miles of land and kill anyone caught in the blast. Fearing that a war between Group A and Group B would kill both sides and a Group C might enforce their ways, Group A and Group B have decided against using such powerful weapons against each other.

Now imagine you have 250 groups. 248 don't believe in using bombs. Which 2 groups are in power? Hint: it's not one of the 248 "peaceful" groups.

Post reply on HN