Espionage In Icelandic Parliament

bumburumbi writes "An unauthorised computer, apparently running encrypted software, was found hidden inside an unoccupied office in the Icelandic Parliament, Althingi, connected to the internal network. According to the Reykjavik Grapevine article, serial numbers had been removed and no fingerprints were found. The office had been used by substitute MPs from the Independence Party and The Movement, the Parliamentary group of Birgitta Jonsdottir, whose Twiiter account was recently subpoenaed by US authorities. The Icelandic daily Morgunbladid, under the editorship of Mr David Oddsson, former Prime Minister and Central Bank chief, has suggested that this might be an operation run by Wikileaks. The reporter for the Reykjavik Grapevine, Mr Paul Nikolov is a former substitute MP, having taken seat in Parliament in 2007 and 2008."

Comments

Hang on a second...

[AceCaseOR]

So, Wikileaks is SPECTRE now?

Wikileaks == scapegoat

[presspass]

The Icelandic daily Morgunbladid, under the editorship of Mr David Oddsson, former Prime Minister and Central Bank chief, has suggested that this might be an operation run by Wikileaks.

If nothing else, wikileaks will be valuable to governments as a convenient scapegoat.

--

pass

Re:Wikileaks == scapegoat

[Dunbal]

former Prime Minister and Central Bank chief, has suggested that this might be an operation run by Wikileaks.

      This, brought to you by the mind that collapsed Iceland's economy.

Re:Rogue servers

[digsbo]

does anyone have any about Wall Street or Congress?

Why bother? They steal openly now.

Recovery Fairy Tales again

[scdeimos]

From TFA:

Stephen Christian, a computer expert at Oxymap ehf, told the Grapevine that ... "Information written to disk can be recovered by experts even after being overwritten several times unless you let the computer run for a few hours constantly 'covering up' its information. Computer hackers know this."

I laugh whenever I see comments like this. Lest we forget that nobody ever accepted The Great Zero Challenge, let alone beat it.

Re:Recovery Fairy Tales again

[ladadadada]

There are four problems with the Great Zero Challenge that I could identify at a glance:

1. No incentive. The prize is $40. Data recovery companies charge tens of thousands to recover a drive. (Depending on how hard it is.)
2. No disassembly. Any technique that "reads residual magnetism" is going to require custom read heads and access to the platters.
3. No longer running. The challenge ended in January 2009 and only ran for one year. That blog post is from September 2008.
4. Full disclosure. This is a show-stopper. Data recovery companies guard their secret methods very closely. Those secrets are their only competitive advantage. Telling everyone how they did it for $40 ? I don't think so.

In contrast, the James Randi Paranormal Challenge has a $1,000,000 prize, only has rules that disallow cheating, has been running since 1964 and is still running. The fact that no one has passed the preliminary stage of that challenge means something

Re:Rogue servers

[Dachannien]

I love reading the stories posted by the readership about all of the odd systems found stuck in closets and under desks which nobody knows what are doing.

Well, with regard to Congress, there are roughly 535 of them at any given time.

Re:so ?

[icebike]

Certainly possible.

But but planting a computer on someone's network is pretty much amateur hour don't you think? Unless it was done for "once you find this you will stop looking" purposes.

Wikileaks must have hired the CIA to do it

[7-Vodka]

Let's see, there are two possibilities that come to mind since this was done in the proximity of the female Icelandic MP with connection to wikileaks:

1. The member of parliament who is a friend of wikileaks is in on this and wikileaks conducted the spying as is being ignorantly claimed
2. Agents on behalf of the US government conducted this in order to spy on the icelandic MP and others nearby because of her connection to wikileaks

Obviously we can throw out #1 because it does not at all fit with wikileaks modus operandi and cannot be carried out by their infrastructure. They're set up to anonymously accept documents and disseminate them, they're not spies. Moreover the icelandic MP in question would be risking much to do this only to access documents she probably already has access to.

So #2 becomes the most obvious culprit.

Re:Running encrypted software?

[Anonymous Coward]

I prefer placebo encryption. I tell people its encrypted and any methods they try to decrypt it wont work.

It looks like donkey porn, but I can't decrypt it into the military secrets I know it must be!

Re:Rogue servers

[Black Parrot]

I love reading the stories posted by the readership about all of the odd systems found stuck in closets and under desks which nobody knows what are doing.

Well, with regard to Congress, there are roughly 535 of them at any given time.

Actually, it's the interns that are under the desks.

But lots of CongressCritters still in the closet, I trow.

Re:TrueCrypt

[snowgirl]

I am now officially setting up a background program for my two master servers to ping each other, and should the ping ever fail, they will auto shutdown...

$paranoia++

Re:James Randi is a fraud

[DavidTC]

Many people have accomplished what they've claimed, but then Randi came up with extra tests, until they failed.

Randi very clearly lays out of the bounds of any tests beforehand, and what is considered proof.

If anyone had actually passed that test, they would, you know, sue him, because they were promised payment of a million dollars if they did that. There is an actual contract with actual winning conditions.

But since you've made that claim, you should be able to demonstrate that Randi has, at least once, laid out a test and winning conditions, and then backpeddled once someone actually won.

Or you are a liar and a slanderer who has accused someone of criminal fraud.

He's not interested in "statistics", but demands "undisputable show of magic", but without magic tricks.

Yeah, you moron, because that's what he's testing.

If he let people win by 'statistics', he'd have a constant stream of people claiming they could predict a coin toss 75% of the time....and eventually one of them would happen to do that. Because that's how statistics work.