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Kaspersky: Yes, we obtained NSA secrets. No, we didn’t help steal them

arstechnica.com

121–130 of 139 posts

Re: Kaspersky: Yes, we obtained NSA secrets. No, we didn’t help steal them

#121
post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When someone says something like "Wake up" it's a pretty reliable indicator they're off in conspiracy theory land. I'm saying wake up to the real world. By the way, a statement like that has a lot more impact if you don't immediately follow it with a conspiracy theory. > The reason they didn't find anything is.... So what you're saying is Mueller has found more solid evidence of improprieties between Russia and the…

>I'm saying wake up to the real world. By the way, a statement like that has a lot more impact if you don't immediately follow it with a conspiracy theory. That's all on the record. >So what you're saying is Mueller has found more solid evidence of improprieties between Russia and the Trump campaign in 10 months than 5 years of politically motivated witch hunting. Has he? Exactly what has Mueller found? By the way, l…

> That's all on the record.

Ehh, that's a half truth at best as even a cursory bit of research would tell you.

> Has he? Exactly what has Mueller found?

Enough to get two felony incitements and dozens of sealed ones? I mean, I'd expect you to know this as you care about these investigations based not on party but on their individual merit. So, you must be following this one really closely because that is already far more than the entire Benghazi investigation found and it's just getting started.

> By the way, let me suggest to you that if the justice department ever asks you for emails relating to an investigation you'll almost certainly end up going to jail if you delete a bunch of them and then claim you were just deleting private email.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/oct/...

All in all, cool, but I care a lot more about the current sitting president of the USA's links to Russia than I do about some deleted emails. And if you don't, then I suggest waking up.

Re: Kaspersky: Yes, we obtained NSA secrets. No, we didn’t help steal them

#122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no justice only the decision of those in power. -do you really want that power to be in the tiny hands of an orange clown ? #justcurious

As much as you may dislike him, please don't use this kind of discourse on HN.

just to clarify ? the question itself has merit ? no ? the description of the commander in chief however may not have shown respect, for which I accept your comment and take the downvotes on the chin.

Re: Kaspersky: Yes, we obtained NSA secrets. No, we didn’t help steal them

#123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is accidentally downloading a document and then deleting it immediately 'knowingly receiving classified information'?

they received it doesn't mater what you did after that an did take "deleted" with a pinch of salt

'knowingly receiving' means you know what you're receiving before you look at it.

Re: Kaspersky: Yes, we obtained NSA secrets. No, we didn’t help steal them

#124
post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok so I know very little about Russia, where would one go to verify that claim? I'm not disputing it at all, just trying to inform myself. One of the reasons I ask, is related to Telegram. I'm aware of the crypto argument. But it seems (from the outside, so could be a complete cover of course) that Pavel Durov is somewhat taking a stand against their government[1][2][3]. Is that simply because he has enough money to…

Right after he lost control of his company (FB clone) when he refused to shut down opposition related groups on it. He openly talked about pressure from FSB etc. Telegram is not run out of Russia and Durov does not live in Russia. So if you don't mind loosing all your russian assets and living in exile you sure can speak out :)

>Telegram is not run out of Russia and Durov does not live in Russia

FWIW this is bullshit, telegram office in St. Petersburg is literally one floor below the VK office and Durov is regularly present there.

The whole exile thing is a charade, they’ve gone as far as assaulting people to try to keep it up https://m.lenta.ru/news/2017/03/20/durov/

Re: Kaspersky: Yes, we obtained NSA secrets. No, we didn’t help steal them

#125
post #27

Before this article was published I don't think it was alleged that Kaspersky ever did anything. All the public knew is that allegedly Israel hacked Kaspersky and noticed the Russian government using Kaspersky's tools to try and dig out secret documents. I mean who knows, maybe the Russian government had a backdoor that they were abusing, maybe they hacked Kaspersky themselves, or maybe they were just given access. I…

Also this part from WSJ article remains: "For many months, U.S. intelligence agencies studied the software and even set up controlled experiments to see if they could trigger Kaspersky’s software into believing it had found classified materials on a computer being monitored by U.S. spies, these people said. Those experiments persuaded officials that Kaspersky was being used to detect classified information." https://…

As a spy agency, this is how you put the middle finger up to a a remote spy agency. You report their malware to an antivirus database.

It's basically saying 'ha ha, we caught you, and now the whole world can look at what you were up to'.

Presumably, the NSA will have automated monitoring tools scanning every bit of AV software and AV databases looking for any of their own tools there, so they know right away when someone has publically outed them.

I wouldn't be surprised if these weren't even hooked up to automated self-removal logic so that NSA malware could remove itself in seconds worldwide if an AV database were updated to detect it.

Re: Kaspersky: Yes, we obtained NSA secrets. No, we didn’t help steal them

#126
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Watching US situation from outside it's seems there's an urgent need for some kind of a bad guy. Kaspersky is just easy target and apparently three-letter-agencies have means to steer the media to pursue this direction.

Remember last year when Kaspersky accused[1] Microsoft of anti-trust for disabling their antivirus? And Microsoft admitted it was done in the name of compatibility.[2] Something about that seemed fishy to me because none of the other AV venders were complaining. Was Microsoft told to intentionally sabotage Kaspersky? [1] https://www.computerworld.com/article/3141470/security/kaspe... [2] https://www.theverge.com/2017…

That sounds like a legit software incompatibility to me.

Kaspersky was probably using some private API they shouldn't have been using, and when Microsoft changed the API or changed the way it worked, they had to disable Kaspersky or computers would no longer boot up.

When companies do that, they nearly always reach out to the affected vendors with advance warning so the vendor can do a rushed fix, but repeat offenders, or issues detected very late in the game before release can end up with no notice.

Re: Kaspersky: Yes, we obtained NSA secrets. No, we didn’t help steal them

#127
post #44
post #6

So an NSA contractor or employee takes confidential/highly sensitive code and documents home and leaves it on their machine. They then install a pirated version of Office, after disabling their antivirus software which is telling them it is infected with a virus and preventing the installation. Seems like massive incompetence from this user rather than Kaspersky doing anything malicious, and those files where destine…

Incompetence? For all we know that guy was trying to sell the data to China or Saudi Arabia. Why isn't his investigation a bigger story? I thought the NSA hated leakers?

[deleted]

Re: Kaspersky: Yes, we obtained NSA secrets. No, we didn’t help steal them

#128
post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I'm saying wake up to the real world. By the way, a statement like that has a lot more impact if you don't immediately follow it with a conspiracy theory. That's all on the record. >So what you're saying is Mueller has found more solid evidence of improprieties between Russia and the Trump campaign in 10 months than 5 years of politically motivated witch hunting. Has he? Exactly what has Mueller found? By the way, l…

> That's all on the record. Ehh, that's a half truth at best as even a cursory bit of research would tell you. > Has he? Exactly what has Mueller found? Enough to get two felony incitements and dozens of sealed ones? I mean, I'd expect you to know this as you care about these investigations based not on party but on their individual merit. So, you must be following this one really closely because that is already far…

>Enough to get two felony incitements and dozens of sealed ones? I mean, I'd expect you to know this as you care about these investigations based not on party but on their individual merit.

So what's in the sealed indictments?

Don't include links to polifact if you want people to take you seriously. Seriously.

Re: Kaspersky: Yes, we obtained NSA secrets. No, we didn’t help steal them

#129
post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's all on the record. Ehh, that's a half truth at best as even a cursory bit of research would tell you. > Has he? Exactly what has Mueller found? Enough to get two felony incitements and dozens of sealed ones? I mean, I'd expect you to know this as you care about these investigations based not on party but on their individual merit. So, you must be following this one really closely because that is already far…

>Enough to get two felony incitements and dozens of sealed ones? I mean, I'd expect you to know this as you care about these investigations based not on party but on their individual merit. So what's in the sealed indictments? Don't include links to polifact if you want people to take you seriously. Seriously.

Don't know, but even a inditement for jaywalking is more substantial than anything the Benghazi investigation found.

Judging by the two unsealed ones though, it's likely more serious than that.

Re: Kaspersky: Yes, we obtained NSA secrets. No, we didn’t help steal them

#130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's interesting to analyze your comment for a minute. Consider that PRISM was revealed in 2013. It is a far reaching surveillance program carried out by the NSA with the assistance of numerous major tech players, including Apple. [1] It's unveiling was certainly an embarassment both for the companies involved as well as the NSA. And here we are in 2017, just 4 years later, with you stating that users can "trust" com…

That does not make much sense. US companies have always needed to hand over information when presented with a warrant from LE or the FBI, I don't think that was ever denied by a US company. In Apple's case, this would be any iCloud data which they can access and is not encrypted (such as contacts or calendar entries). However, the OP was referring to something completely different: Government attempts to force Apple…

It seems you're conflating a couple of our surveillance programs. PRISM operates in coordination and active cooperation with a relatively small number of US companies, including Apple. There is a rubber stamp warrant, of our secret court approves over 99%. The type and amount of information accessed here is extensive and includes encrypted and personal information - as well as even real time access to user accounts. You can see the NSA slides on PRISM here: https://archive.org/details/NSA-PRISM-Slides As an example of this, the NSA has real-time access to encrypted Skype conversations: http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/inside-the-nsa-s... The breadth of information being collected was increasing quite rapidly, and everything I'm basing this this one is from 3-4 years ago.

Another surveillance program, that you seem to be conflating with PRISM, is MUSCULAR. That program is not as well known as PRISM. And it does what you're suggesting in directly tapping communication lines grabbing data from everywhere and archiving everything. Naturally anything that was sent on those lines unencrypted (or is otherwise able to be exploited) is then openly available. One significant difference from PRISM is that this is done without even a rubber stamping of warrants. Your post seemed to be describing the less 'cooperative' capacities of MUSCULAR with the token oversight of PRISM.

The problem that I see here is that most people are incredibly poorly informed on our surveillance programs, which include extensive domestic surveillance. And that is a shame, because in order for there to be progressive change people need to understand the current state of the situation. It's like discussing a budget when you think you have a billion dollars in the bank, but in reality you're already in the red - the sense of urgency, which should be there, has been artificially removed.

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