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Russian Hackers Stole NSA Data on U.S. Cyber Defense

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Re: Russian Hackers Stole NSA Data on U.S. Cyber Defense

#81

Post by dreamfactored »

0xfeba wrote: post #67
indubitable wrote: post #54

I find these allegations are deserving of some scrutiny. The entire story is quite bizarre when you begin to consider it. The NSA is apparently leaking like a broken pipe with this information. And it's peculiar because this is information that makes our intelligence agencies look completely inept. That is a very good thing if this story is fake, but a very bad thing if its true. It is stupefying that NSA contractors…

I'm so skeptical now of skeptical Russia posts. A 25 day old account who's first comment [0] was about media and divisiveness. 0 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15336362

If you've ever lived in Russia for any length of time and not been sheltered, the Kremlin stories coming out are not only totally believable but predictable. I think it's being massively downplayed in fact, because the reality of what's going on is simply so disturbing that nobody in power wants to accept it and have to act on it.

Re: Russian Hackers Stole NSA Data on U.S. Cyber Defense

#82

Post by beepboopbeep »

pdx wrote: post #40
mozumder wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because you trust journalists to do their job in verifying sources, which maintains their credibility. I want you to think your cunning plan through. What do you think would happen if journalists actually lied?

You have GOT to be fucking kidding. Have you actually been asleep for the last 6 years?

You're the only one in this thread that's incredulous about a major publication posting a researched article.

Clearly we are all out to get you.

Re: Russian Hackers Stole NSA Data on U.S. Cyber Defense

#83

Post by dragonwriter »

indubitable wrote: post #54

I find these allegations are deserving of some scrutiny. The entire story is quite bizarre when you begin to consider it. The NSA is apparently leaking like a broken pipe with this information. And it's peculiar because this is information that makes our intelligence agencies look completely inept. That is a very good thing if this story is fake, but a very bad thing if its true. It is stupefying that NSA contractors…

> Since Iraq I have become much more critical of pretty much everything. Our media and our government lied to generate a case for war.

Uh, while there were some media collaborating with the government propaganda, the government's case for war was thoroughly and pretty completely debunked in the mainstream media, nearly in real-time.

Few people paid as much attention to that as what the government was saying, which the media reported as, well, what government officials were saying, but the media would have been negligent not to report that. They can hardly be responsible for the strong effect of confirmation bias combined with official-sources bias among the population.

Re: Russian Hackers Stole NSA Data on U.S. Cyber Defense

#84

Post by codedokode »

dreamfactored wrote: post #77
indubitable wrote: post #54

I find these allegations are deserving of some scrutiny. The entire story is quite bizarre when you begin to consider it. The NSA is apparently leaking like a broken pipe with this information. And it's peculiar because this is information that makes our intelligence agencies look completely inept. That is a very good thing if this story is fake, but a very bad thing if its true. It is stupefying that NSA contractors…

I'm going to take it that you've never done public sector contracting. The security rules are in reality less 007 and more school library, and this is totally believable. There is another story in the news now about soldiers smartphones being hacked in Eastern Europe. The troops are therefore made to go through water every day but some of them just put their phones in condoms. Defense contractors aren't even state em…

Phones transmit signal so soldiers can be easily detected: if you see a large number of signal sources somewhere in the forest the probability is high that a military squad is hiding there. Soldiers should not have a phone when on duty.

Futhermore, if military base is located near or in the city the enemy can bring an IMSI catcher and record phone identifiers, or intercept calls.

Re: Russian Hackers Stole NSA Data on U.S. Cyber Defense

#85

Post by 23443463453 »

mhneu wrote: post #66
mtgx wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's of their own doing: https://www.salon.com/2013/06/11/500000_contractors_can_acce... Also, I believe I read a recent article about them allowing even more private companies access to this stuff, but I can't find a link right now.

It's partially George Bush's doing - he put a rule into place saying the government had to hire more contractors. Fits with the GOP plans to weaken the govt to enable tax cuts for the wealthy, but the increasing use of contractors has been bad for security. Full time federal employees take a different oath and generally feel more loyalty to the agency.

It does way beyond that. The origins of today's symptoms lie in the corporate elite turning the USA into a kind of private equity opportunity starting in roughly the late 60s. Ever since and with ever increasingly compounding effects and impact, the USA's capacity across all aspects has been syphoned off and drained. Worse yet, with the H1B program in the 1990s as a significant milestone or inflection point, we even totally capitulated on the desire to educate and train our own domestic capacity and population as the corporate entities draining the USA and it's people of their resources were more interested in short term gains, regardless of the consequences and long term impact.

With the rise of H1Bs and other less notable laws and policies only compounding the situation, all efforts to educate the "worker of the future" was little more than lip service to placate various anxious parties as the syphoning by the corporate elite continued. Now we are left in a country and world where we have imported foreigners with foreign ideologies, interests, and loyalties, largely infected with various ideologically subversive communist memes (in a literal sense) the Soviets spread as psychological warfare during the cold war without their hosts even knowing it; who are not only taking jobs from actual invested, patriotic Americans who's ancestors built the country, but being given jobs in government through another pernicious systemic vulnerability, affirmative action that prioritizes the creation of a fantastical inverse master race planned society through "diversity", at the expense of merit, skill, and ability.

It's kind of the classical mercenary problem of yesteryear. See the latter stages of the Roman Empire for details.

Re: Russian Hackers Stole NSA Data on U.S. Cyber Defense

#86

Post by dreamfactored »

SerLava wrote: post #80
dreamfactored wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm going to take it that you've never done public sector contracting. The security rules are in reality less 007 and more school library, and this is totally believable. There is another story in the news now about soldiers smartphones being hacked in Eastern Europe. The troops are therefore made to go through water every day but some of them just put their phones in condoms. Defense contractors aren't even state em…

Wait, are you saying the commanders are trying to destroy the soldiers' personal hidden phones by making them swim with their gear?

Yes, they are banned of course as per regulations but that is hardly going to stop the hardened phone addicts

Re: Russian Hackers Stole NSA Data on U.S. Cyber Defense

#87

Post by 1001101 »

pm90 wrote: post #71
indubitable wrote: post #54

I find these allegations are deserving of some scrutiny. The entire story is quite bizarre when you begin to consider it. The NSA is apparently leaking like a broken pipe with this information. And it's peculiar because this is information that makes our intelligence agencies look completely inept. That is a very good thing if this story is fake, but a very bad thing if its true. It is stupefying that NSA contractors…

While I agree with your assessment of the Establishments role in the promotion of the Iraq war, I don't think an actual conflict with Russia is either desirable or possible without severely wrecking the current global order. It seems more like the kind of behavior I've seen when you impose tedious security protocols universally without explaining it properly to those expected to follow it. I'm willing to bet that as…

> I don't think an actual conflict with Russia is either desirable or possible without severely wrecking the current global order.

Or the current globe.

Re: Russian Hackers Stole NSA Data on U.S. Cyber Defense

#88

Post by dreamfactored »

joe_the_user wrote: post #48
jakelarkin wrote: post #34

how Kaspersky was ever thought to be "okay" in the US enterprise/government market has always been perplexing to me. Antivirus, something which literally inspects all of your files and network activity, made in the country that's a hotbed of blackhat activity and home one of the most aggressive cyber-espionage militaries outside the US. yea okay great, sign me up.

Well, at this point, which anti-virus product you use is gradually devolving to "which state do you want to spy on you?". And the problem is, the answer may not be "the state I live in", since that state is the most likely to tax and otherwise regulate you.

Maybe rather than playing cat and mouse over taxes, a person who avoids taxes should be more fairly and simply designated as a foreign national or stateless?

Re: Russian Hackers Stole NSA Data on U.S. Cyber Defense

#89

Post by gooftop »

lallysingh wrote: post #50
joe_the_user wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, at this point, which anti-virus product you use is gradually devolving to "which state do you want to spy on you?". And the problem is, the answer may not be "the state I live in", since that state is the most likely to tax and otherwise regulate you.

https://www.clamav.net/ ?

In this day and age of FUD, what are the odds that said open source software has a vulnerability or malicious code inserted by some state actor (ours included)?

Re: Russian Hackers Stole NSA Data on U.S. Cyber Defense

#90

Post by woliveirajr »

strictnein wrote: post #45
woliveirajr wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does matter. Someone could replace his public key with a fake one. Everything that would be encrypted so that only he could see it could end up in wrong hands, because somebody would trust "I'm encrypting using his public key, I can tell anything to that guy", and the bad guy would read it.

I'm confused how you think transferring the PGP key through secure means would prevent that. It only (mostly) ensures the message you receive is valid. They could far more easily gain access to his server through a variety of means and upload a different copy of his key than try and do a MITM or whatever. It's not like he's going to notice if the key changes. What you're proposing is that an intelligence service is g…

His page (http) -> MITM -> page you get with another public key

You write him something -> he doesn't read.

You write him -> emails is intercepted -> he doesn't read it but who intercepted the email reads.

So his computer is never compromised. But his email server (some provider) is.

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