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Snowden: NSA just lost control of its Top Secret arsenal of digital weapons

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Re: Snowden: NSA just lost control of its Top Secret arsenal of digital weapons

#161

Post by zzzcpan »

mirimir wrote: post #159
trendia wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe they knew we'd think it odd for Russians to speak with a Russian accent so they did it anyway to trick us. "Are you the sort of man who would put the poison in his own goblet? Now a clever man would put the poison into my goblet, because he would know that only a fool would drink the goblet given to him. I am not a fool, so clearly you wouldn't do that. But you must have known that I was not a great fool, so I…

Yeah, pretty much. Except no poison drinking was involved here. Unless it was the NSA that did it. And of course, this was all old stuff, so it wasn't really very poisonous. But really, really, really. There's just no way to know.

Who else, besides Russia, plays these spy games with the US?

Re: Snowden: NSA just lost control of its Top Secret arsenal of digital weapons

#162

Post by 1337biz »

snowwrestler wrote: post #138
throwaway71958 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Russian myself, I can tell you with certainty that there are mistakes in that text that a Russian ESL speaker would never make, and verb tenses are a bit too good for an unskilled speaker. Due to the combination of these two factors, I bet this was written by a native English speaker who thinks he/she knows the mistakes a Russian would make. They're wrong.

"Actually it's probably a false flag to make Russia look bad." - throwaway71958, created 8 days ago 2017 in a nutshell right there.

Full circle irony: I find the argument of the dubious throwaway more beliveable than OP.

Re: Snowden: NSA just lost control of its Top Secret arsenal of digital weapons

#163

Post by lern_too_spel »

cyphunk wrote: post #110

A good time to remember the official US Intelligence Community statement and policy/lie on 0days, as given post-heartbleed: When Federal agencies discover a new vulnerability in commercial and open source software – a so-called “Zero day” vulnerability because the developers of the vulnerable software have had zero days to fix it – it is in the national interest to responsibly disclose the vulnerability rather than t…

A good time to remember the actual policy of the US government on 0-days (the so-called VEP), which is more nuanced than the tinfoil hat crowd is willing to understand. https://epic.org/privacy/cybersecurity/vep/

Re: Snowden: NSA just lost control of its Top Secret arsenal of digital weapons

#164

Post by rugffgbv »

mirimir wrote: post #146
throwaway71958 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, there's no Russian first-language bias in that text for sure. Another argument in favor of the opinion that this was written by an American: the author seems to be well versed in the memes of the US political discourse. Someone from outside the US is unlikely to even know or care about Trump's "movement", or who "Bannon" is, or "drain the swamp", or "white privilege" etc. They're also unlikely to abbreviate "Ne…

Maybe they're a non-American who's trying to look like an American who's trying to look like a Russian.

Possible. Certainly those are not genuine mistakes by native Russian speaker.

Re: Snowden: NSA just lost control of its Top Secret arsenal of digital weapons

#165

Post by mirimir »

zzzcpan wrote: post #161
mirimir wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, pretty much. Except no poison drinking was involved here. Unless it was the NSA that did it. And of course, this was all old stuff, so it wasn't really very poisonous. But really, really, really. There's just no way to know.

Who else, besides Russia, plays these spy games with the US?

North Korea, China and Israel come to mind. Also many independents. And the US probably plays with itself.

Re: Snowden: NSA just lost control of its Top Secret arsenal of digital weapons

#166

Post by noobermin »

M_Grey wrote: post #87
burkaman wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a discussion about the Russian government, it doesn't really have much to do with Russian people in general.

That sentence is correct however you read it out.

It is "discrimination" to be suspicious of state actors? Was Snowden performing discrimination in exposing the NSA's spying?

Re: Snowden: NSA just lost control of its Top Secret arsenal of digital weapons

#167

Post by r721 »

Nicholas Weaver‏: "Overall, though, it looks like the auction file from Shadow Brokers is mostly a bust, better stuff in the free file."

https://twitter.com/ncweaver/status/850797548717481984

the grugq: "Calling it now: the first ShadowBrokers dump was an expensive signal. This latest one was not (expensive, that is.)"

https://twitter.com/thegrugq/status/850825305845399552

Re: Snowden: NSA just lost control of its Top Secret arsenal of digital weapons

#168

Post by jorblumesea »

mirimir wrote: post #158
jorblumesea wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost certainly what a Russian disinformation campaign would include. But you cannot easily hide motives and attack patterns. These kind of campaigns scream Russia, no one else in the world operates like them or could operate like them. Almost everyone in the intelligence circles include Snowden agrees they are Russian. Smells like a duck, quacks like a duck...

Well, if it's so obvious to you, then you could easily copy it. And so, why not someone else?

It's not easily copied, that's my point. The MO of this campaign (and others) isn't easily done, which is why it's easy to narrow down suspects. There are only a few possible intelligence agencies that could do something like this and only Russia has the motive.

Re: Snowden: NSA just lost control of its Top Secret arsenal of digital weapons

#169

Post by mirimir »

rugffgbv wrote: post #164
mirimir wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe they're a non-American who's trying to look like an American who's trying to look like a Russian.

Possible. Certainly those are not genuine mistakes by native Russian speaker.

Yes, I think that we can agree on that.

Re: Snowden: NSA just lost control of its Top Secret arsenal of digital weapons

#170

Post by Avenger42 »

jwilk wrote: post #109
mootothemax wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I get your wider point, I find the different types of mistakes that ESL'ers with different mother tongues make absolutely fascinating. I've noticed, say, that in Poland, where the native tongue lacks articles, people regularly mess up "the" and "a," or miss them altogether. I've never met a French person with the same issue, for obvious reasons. When I started looking into people's mistakes with tenses in Engli…

No, in Polish adjectives normally go before nouns, just like in English.

I assumed he was facetiously referring to Reverse Polish Notation[1].

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_Polish_notation

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