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

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

twitter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–230 of 323 posts

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

#221

Post by draw_down »

rdtsc wrote: post #178
sillysaurus3 wrote: post #26

It's pretty fascinating to read the Shadow Broker's posts. They have to write something, since they can't just say "I work for Russia and we're reminding America that they're not invulnerable." So they have to come up with all sorts of contrived reasons about why they're doing this, complete with broken english to fool stylometry detection that walks the fine line between being believable and preposterous. Someone sp…

I speak 3 languages including Russian. I agree with the throwaway's post that it sounds like someone was trying to write like a Russian but didn't do a very good job.

Well, they certainly seem to have succeeded in fooling plenty of people around here.

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

#222

Post by chowell »

joshschreuder wrote: post #218
r721 wrote: post #167

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

What does "expensive signal" mean in this context?

He expands in his Medium post from last year, here: https://medium.com/@thegrugq/the-great-cyber-game-commentary...

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

#223

Post by chriscappuccio »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #125
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…

I've wondered how "zero day" mutated from its original meaning of "pirated software cracked and released on the day of its commercial release" to "a software vulnerability of which the software's maintainers are not yet aware". There doesn't seem to be any connection aside from illicit cracking.

This is part of the evolution of w0rdz. Now, it just means "fresh". The l33t-speak mutated once it went from warez to expl0itz. This should be obvious. If not, i'm pretty sure they teach this in l33t 101 or even l33t 95.

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

#225

Post by waitwait »

mootothemax wrote: post #68
waitwait wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another angle I haven't heard is that they are just having a bit of fun for the lulz: They know their adversaries can (fabricate) attribute with or without obfuscation (cyber war signalling style). So they bring it over the top with some cold war 80s action movie dialogue. It serves no other function than to taunt and confuse and hear some American housewives on Twitter go: I dunno, sounds Russian to me!

By halfway through I was kinda surprised they weren't going the full hog and throwing in a good Da , or Nyet, the people's... for full effect.

The full effect seems to be a thread of 200+ comments talking about the language in the release, sentence-for-sentence, and many (un)witting agents pouring over the contents of the files.

Perhaps, besides the fun of imagining someone having to explain to McCain what a "double dutch rudder" is, the language serves a higher purpose of increasing virality and impact.

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

#226

Post by oculusthrift »

coldtea wrote: post #211
oculusthrift wrote: post #135

remember that 1000s of paid russians were used to interrupt our election on sites like reddit. wouldn't be surprised if a few leaked to this site. especially with green accounts.

> remember that 1000s of paid russians were used to interrupt our election on sites like reddit. Or so a 2017 version of the "red scare" goes, so that the military industrial complex can sell more weapons and more "safety", and the fingers can keep being pointed at some enemy or another. That way their budgets get approved, some poor countries pay the toll (who cares anyway), and they might even be able to plunder th…

ahhh..... whataboutism[0]. classic russian tactic.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism

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

#227

Post by oculusthrift »

throwaway71960 wrote: post #185
oculusthrift wrote: post #135

remember that 1000s of paid russians were used to interrupt our election on sites like reddit. wouldn't be surprised if a few leaked to this site. especially with green accounts.

| 1000s of paid russians were used to interrupt our election on sites like reddit you mean, using the weapon of free speech? you know, like Voice of America? And still the election went off, on schedule, with no interruptions.

two green accounts with username number that is 2 away from each other. -__-

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

#228

Post by seppin »

doktrin wrote: post #77
zigzigzag wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

paradite is saying it's not well documented. It's poorly documented by people highly incentivised to lie. But hey, if you already wrote off anyone who disagrees as "delusional or paid shills" then you're too far gone to reason with. Literally nothing anybody ever says can make you think twice.

> poorly documented Uh huh https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/07/magazine/the-agency.html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolls_from_Olgino https://themoscowtimes.com/news/st-petersburg-troll-factory-... https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/02/putin-kremlin-... https://www.inopressa.ru/article/03Jun2014/buzzfeed/web_rus.... https://globalvoices.org/2015/04/02/analyzing-kremlin-twitte... > if you already wrote off a…

I honestly think HN is the target of some of these trolls as well.

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

#230

Post by astronautjones »

coldtea wrote: post #201
1337biz wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Count us both. The BS one hears today (against Russia, etc) are the "WMD"s of 2017. There's a single superpower the last 2+ decades (Russia is no USSR) and it has a long history of pushing for its "interests" all over the world, starting wars, grabbing resources, overthrowing governments, supporting all kinds of lunatics and dictators. And covering the whole damage they do with holier than though finger pointing, mad…

100%
Post reply on HN