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Bradley Manning and the 'Hacker Madness' Scare Tactic
New submitter wabrandsma sends this excerpt from New Scientist:
"The Bradley Manning case continues a trend of government prosecutions that use familiarity with digital tools and knowledge of computers as a scare tactic and a basis for obtaining grossly disproportionate and unfair punishments, strategies enabled by broad, vague laws like the CFAA and the Espionage Act. Let's call this the 'hacker madness' strategy. Using it, the prosecution portrays actions taken by someone using a computer as more dangerous or scary than they actually are by highlighting the digital tools used to a nontechnical or even technophobic judge. ... We've seen this trick before. In a case that we at the Electronic Frontier Foundation handled in 2009, Boston College police used the fact that our client worked on a Linux operating system with "a black screen with white font" as part of a basis for a search warrant. Luckily the Massachusetts Supreme Court tossed out the warrant after EFF got involved, but who knows what would have happened had we not been there. And happily, Oracle got a big surprise when it tried a similar trick in Oracle v. Google and discovered that the judge was a programmer who sharply called them on it."
And happily, Oracle got a big surprise when it tried a similar trick in Oracle v. Google and discovered that the judge was a programmer who sharply called them on it."
Does anyone have a link for this bit?
... the prosecution portrays actions taken by someone using a computer as more dangerous or scary than they actually are by highlighting the digital tools used to a nontechnical or even technophobic judge. ... We've seen this trick before. In a case that we at the Electronic Frontier Foundation handled in 2009 ...
I wonder what Kevin Mitnick would have to say about this revelation as news.
... simply to avoid admitting ignorance.
On a broad scale, people have always been scared by what they don't understand. On a more refined level, people are often willing to agree with a strongly-worded argument if they don't understand the premise
There are lots of new problems due to technology - but very few new avoidance tactics / reactions. Look at the opposition to nearly every major advance (in science) in the last 500 years. No need to go further back - you'll find enough examples in the last 50 that going back 500 will be difficult.
- Nec Impar Pluribus, or so I'm told.
Aren't the judge and jury supposed to have adequate knowledge of the case and the context? Why would they allow a judge that is uneducated about the pertinent topics? The defendant isn't able to ask for a more appropriate audience for their case?
Bullshit. If you were marginally, literate, you'd realize that they use the intent as a crime. This is worse, but it's not nearly as pervasive as what the author ignorantly argues.
What exactly is the relevance to the Manning case? He was convicted of releasing classified information, something it's pretty obvious he did. Regardless of what the information is or how he obtained it, the release of the information is what he was charged with and convicted of doing.
This sounds like someone trying to hitch their own free software wagon to the pro-Manning/Wikileaks train.
Original article on EFF blog.
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
It isn't just black screen with white fonts (THAT YOU TYPE INTO!!!) that are things to be cursed and feared, I also design electronics. Its horrible. Show me a non-consumer-electronics looking box with wires sticking out of it, and I will show you a police bomb squad sealing off a neighborhood. If they saw wires inside of a computer, they surely would blow it up.
Considering that Manning already had access to the networks he downloaded the material from I think it would be a stretch to call it hacking. But I agree that it is SOP to refer to the tools used in a crime in the most intimidating manner to strengthen the argument. Well no matter what the details of the vernacular used Manning will be a rather old man before he will be breathing free air again. He will not get life but the shear number of charges he is being convicted of will assure that his parole, if he is ever eligible, will be decided by our children or grandchildren.
Burn the digital witch.
In the Manning case, technology is relevant. There is no way he would've been able to photocopy that amount of information. The case shows the very real danger of switching to digital without considering the security implications. Furthermore, what Manning did had quite a big impact, the volume of the leak more than explains the harsh charges, there's no need to blame it on the 'hacker scare'.
Bad example.
Without a computer, there's no way Manning could have access to hundreds of thousands of documents, nor the ability to make copies of them, and then distribute them.
A better example would be getting computer charges piled onto a standard embezzlement charge.
For once that "OT" means "on topic". Considering revelations about NSA and FBI surveillance and that bunny worshipers are likely to be children, do you feel safe? I wouldn't.
Free Martian Whores!
In the Manning case, the prosecution used Manning's use of a standard, more than 15-year-old Unix program called Wget to collect information, as if it were a dark and nefarious technique.
Maybe it's not quite that, but if it's used to download information that shouldn't be collected by an individual, it certainly bears watching. One would hope that the military now flags anyone using it on classified information. Though of course there are plenty of other ways to collect such information, or to hide the fact that wget is being used.
(T>t && O(n)--) == sqrt(666)
It's called a "Threat Narrative". It's why there were no WMDs. There never was even suspicion of WMDs. There was only the need for a Threat Narrative to convince the people to let the armed forces off it's chain.
Vietnam? Threat Narrative. McCarthyism? Threat Narrative.... The Holocaust? Threat Narrative.
Require Evidence before belief -- That's rational. Always disbelieve the Threat Narrative.
Don't Fall For It, not even once.
I don't know about shills and all that, but you are right in the first part of your post. Prosecution is there to get a conviction and they will use whatever legal means they have, just like I'm sure his defense tries to minimize his guilt in any way they can. Its called adversarial legal system.
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
The EFF is to computer and internet rights as what the NRA is to run rights and the defense of the 2nd amendment.
I would love to see the EFF and NRA team up! *grin*
Life is not for the lazy.
Do you think that the only things the NSA is doing that are objectionable have already been revealed?
The U.S. government is extremely corrupt in many ways.
The U.S. government has 6 times the percentage of people in prison as the percentage in European countries. In the U.S., prisons are big business, a way for corrupt people to make money.
Private jails:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_prison
Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
My irony meter is pegged. Now the EFF is using the same logic that the government is using. If we hadn't been watching out for your interests, who knows what bad things might have happened.
Donations cheerfully accepted.
There is the other extreme. I remember a SlashDot story long ago about a judge who ridiculed someone suing for spamming damages with the comment "why not just delete the offending email?"
The "hacking" laws are written in terms of access, which is contextual. Manning had access to the systems to do the work for which he was employed by the DoD. He did not have access to copy off files and give them Wikileaks. So he did violate those laws.
Only if you redefine the word "access".
If I created an account for you on my system, and made you a super-user, you have access to all kinds of stuff... config files, creating users, installing software. This doesn't mean you have my approval, but I did give you access to them.
Redefining the word (in noun form) to mean something else is an exceptionally dangerous road to go down. If someone misreads an order (judicial or executive) and does something unintended, do we really want them becoming a sacrificial scapegoat? Do they not have "access" because they didn't have actual permission? Wouldn't we prefer to nail those who shouldn't have given them access or those who gave bad instructions? Do we just assume that because children aren't allowed in a bedroom that they don't have access to the gun under the pillow? Do we want that legal defense?
"Access" cannot be equated to verbal or paper permission. Access (noun) is the ability to access (verb) something, not the authority to do so.
He accessed something that he wasn't supposed to, but to which he had access. What he did with it was clearly illegal. He shouldn't have been given access, but that's a whole different ball of wax.
I won't join Slashcott. OTOH, If Beta goes live, I just won't be back until it's fixed. Sorry Dice.
Except that Israel was a theocracy conquered by Rome. Within the bounds of Roman law, the Jews were permitted their own governance. The Sanhedrin did hear real trials based on Jewish religious law, brought before them by people who could be called lawyers. Even many of the secular laws were religiously colored in some way, much like Christianity sometimes does in our law today.
It's closer than you might think.
(Yes, "The Law" in most passages does refer to the Law of Moses, but interpretations of it were often the law of the land, as well.)
I won't join Slashcott. OTOH, If Beta goes live, I just won't be back until it's fixed. Sorry Dice.
And the fact that so many people believe that to be true is in the basis of the bad shape of your justice system.
No, prosecution is not there to find yuo guilty but to find the truth of a case. There's no simmetry between prosecution and defense.
Should actions which would violate the geneva convention were they carried out on a prisoner of war be considered acceptable when carried out on individuals otherwise detained? Should a government deal with it's own citizens more harshly than an enemy combatant (whom they would have killed had he not surrendered)?
It seems you consider your fellow man the enemy. Indeed, you believe he should be dealt with more harshly than a foreigner who has taken up arms against you. You should rethink your priorities.
If Clinton et al "believed" Iraq really had WMDs, then it is Clinton et al who were stupid.
The only "stupidity" the GPP has in thinking that Clinton et al didn't believe that is the stupidity that Clinton et al were dumb enough to believe that shit.
If thinking people are better than they are (if you have absolutely no evidence of them being so sub-normal) is stupid, then I don't want to be smart in this area.
Then again, how do you read minds? How do you know Clinton et al really believed it, rather than just repeat what they'd been given?
And you are entirely the moron who they target with this "hacker madness" alarmism.
"He copied documents ON A COMPUTER!!!" (Dan dan daah scary music chords)
"He drove a getaway IN A CAR!!!!" (Dan dan daah)
Or in your assinine version:
"He shot someone WITH A GUN!!!" (Dan dan daah)
But you never hear those brought forward AT ALL in "ordinary" cases. I mean the fucking case would be "Assault with a deadly weapon". If the charge were "Assault with a naughty thing", then MAYBE mentioning the naughty thing was a gun would be used, but prosecutors ALREADY say "With a deadly weapon".
Using wget is no more nefarious or special than using Windows to copy a file.
Except to credulous morons like yourself who think that if you don't use it, it's Un-American and AUTOMATICALLY worse.
I wonder how much the anti-US propaganda shills get paid per successfully submitted article these days.
Probably less than the pro-US government shills like yourself.
What about curl!!!?
Jedis are stupid. If they were so powerful, why couldn't they handle counseling for a kid who missed his mom?
No, prosecution is not there to find yuo guilty but to find the truth of a case. There's no simmetry between prosecution and defense.
Your reality meter just exploded (in the negative limit).
First of all, the State (prosecution) is incredibly highly motivated to get a conviction. Their reputation and salary and promotions depend upon it.
Second, there is complete equivalence between the behavior of prosecution and defense. In theory, the defense is supposed to ensure that the trial is conducted openly and fairly (hence the "face his accuser" stuff). In practice, they do whatever they can to achieve a verdict of innocence.
The day I hear a CDL tell the post-trial media conference "well, we presented all valid evidence, and the witnesses were truthful, but my client was guilty as sin and justice was properly served" is the day I begin to trust our justice system.
https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
Contrary to what you claim "There are lots of new problems due to technology" there is really nothing new. The rich will abuse society to get more, the poor will mostly whine about how bad things are, the middle class will be split between those that ignore reality, those that deny reality, and those that speak out against the abuses.
The easiest way for the rich to get more is to entertain the masses with gladiators and heresy/witch trials.
The first well known philosophical writings we have document this very thing in the life of Socrates and his Philosophy. Socrates tells you that the cycle has been happening for some time, and offers a solution in educating all members of society. Those in power have ensured that the poor know nothing about this masterful work. Look upon the Government control over education systems and be amazed.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
These thoughts have been bouncing around in my head for a while now. I've been following a steady stream of stories and reports chronicling the continual demonization of stigmatization of "hackers" and generally technologically proficient people in general.
People misunderstand or refuse to understand at all. The negative perception caused partly by a few ne'er-do-wells and mostly by corporate propaganda paints us all with a thick coat of black. Misunderstanding transforms into mistrust, mistrust into fear, fear to indignant anger, anger to oppression; before you know it, we have a publically supported, government sanctioned witch hunt on our hands. We technology-savvy individuals are being singled out as the next great threat to the establishment.
The FBI threw Sklyarov in the slammer for giving a security talk on flaws in Adobe's DRM. Russia -- Russia, people, not exactly known for a track record of upholding civil rights -- issued a statement for security researchers to stay the hell out of the US because it had become illegal to do some math.
Auernheimer exposed a blatant security flaw, which only existed because of AT&T's utter laziness and indiscretion, and went to prison simply because the way he exposed it and pissed off AT&T.
Swartz hanged himself after the full force of the federal government hounded him and drove him over the edge by threatening a 35-year prison term for what should have been a slap-on-the-wrist misdemeanor.
An obviously technophobic judge ruled for an injunction against a UK security researcher to prevent him from publicizing an immobilizer security flaw that could be exploited by organized crime to steal millions of dollars worth of expensive sports cars. He is going ahead with it anyway because it's the responsable thing to do when affected parties refuse to address it, and I'm willing to bet the government is going to come down on him heavily for it.
The incidents of tech-savvy people being vilified are too numerous to list, but I'm sure we're all aware of them. The establishment wants their culture of liability, where ordinary individuals are dragged into the big leagues and expected to perform at the same level as corporate and government giants, while our perspective demands greater personal freedoms to offset the goliathan advantage held over us.
I think we're going to see a lot more of this until the societal shift is complete and the new generation becomes leadership, and that's a *very* optimistic view.
Sometimes when I read the number of comments here, and the tone of them, I wonder if it would really be outside of the NSA budget to hire say 50-100 people to maintain multiple social media identities and post positive things. Such things have been rumored to exist in Egypt, Syria and China.
I for one believed the American system, and American freedoms required oversight, they were centered around checks and balances, when the oversight is secret, when the checks and balances appear non-existant, than for those areas of American operations, it would appear the only fundamental difference between us and China, Syria et al, is that we are better funded.
I am torn because what I know of the Bradley Manning case, a young idealistic man saw a video of US troops attacking what appeared to be unarmed men, this would appear to be against the laws of armed combat, but not necessarily against common US policy, i.e the appearance is we will drone strike a "terrorist" meeting, and we dont seem to hold the hellfire missles just because Osama Bin Laden is having tea and not presently clutching an AK47, is it legal, is it Just? Manning did a complete document dump, because he encountered one instance of what appeared to be a war crime. The prosecution made examples of were people who had put their lives on the line lost, their lives or their families lives due to information contained in that leak.
This appear to be a young idealistic man, who witnessed what he thought was a war crime, and didnt leak it the right way, and the way he leaked the information hurt actual people and got brave men and women killed. It appears there were multiple failings here.
1. There doesnt appear to be an affective outlet within our armed forces or intelligence agencies for reporting abuses, that wont put the reportee at risk, This is a serious flaw.
2. His ability to perform such a broad data dump, no one person or even one system should have that much information. Allegedly the Russians are switching to type writers for very sensitive documents for just this reason.
3. Is it a war crime to shoot unarmed men, is it just to shoot unarmed men, if a person is known to be plotting attacks, or leading an organization either at war or attempting to kill your citizens can you destroy them and the building they are in? In 1996 when Clinton bombed an Iraqi intelligence building, was it a war crime because they were not currently carrying a weapon? If Saddam Hussein was in a bunker, and presently unarmed would it be a war crime to shell the bunker. If Al Qaeda is gathering for tea, is it a war crime to kill them.
4. Accepting that it is acceptable to kill terrorists while they are plotting leads to much harder questions, the ones that lack the oversight, who is a terrorist, what makes them a terrorist, and what process gives us the right to kill them while they are unarmed? A lack of oversight here, and a lack of checks and balances will leave us with the same level of freedom as other countries that lack oversight or checks and balances.
Err, Switzerland's not in the EU.
Obama and his inherited Terror Machine Regime has a Perfect Shit Storm week over the last.
1) Failed to get a conviction on Manning and "Aiding The Enemy"; all the other convictions are trumped up as well but the Obama Regime failed miserably.
2) US Senate and House hearing on NSA and their "Terror Toys" take down.
3) Director of NSA gets 'The Finger' 1000 time over at DefCon; someone should have hurled a flaming bag of shit to him.
4) Russia granted one-year asylum to Edward Snowden.
The Obama Regime's response? Issue a world-wide terror event alert and close 22 embassies and consulates (CIA and NSA Radio Shacks) in the Middle East and North Africa countries.
Well, hells bells, it is still Sunday morning where I am at and it is still Sunday evening in Central Europe, and NOTHING has happen ... 'Obama Terror Event' wise. Oh, a history Professor in GB got a Twitter thread of a bomb that turned out to be nothing at all too! Well, Twitter is a 'bomby' shitty application anyway.
Just a hoax, like Obama and his Regime are fakes.
Cheers
Having been thwarted, yet again, in his "Terror Event" proclamation of the weekend, Mr. Obama's Regime rolls the dice again and decides to extend the US Embassy and Conciliate closures through August 10th desperately hoping that Someone will attack them.
Mr. Obama has also green-lighted a 'Plan B' as drawn up by the CIA to insure a "Terror Event" does indeed happen. The CIA's plan is to hire a team of "terrorists" from Saudi Arabia and Egypt drawing from the homeless population with management from the contractor Academi, formerly known as 'Blackwater' to stage an "attack" on a heavily fortified building, formerly a CIA torture facility in Mogadishu. State Department personnel have supplied Embassy attire and several locals known to the CIA will take part masquerading as U.S. Embassy staff for photographic and video purposes only (audio is being recorded offsite by English-American speaking Britons from GCHQ). A script for the 'event' and radio (already mentioned), television and internet messages have been produced by a team of somewhat minimally employed Hollywood screen writers under employ, temporarily, of the CIA. If the worst case scenario materializes, i.e. no terror event by 9 August, then the CIA's Plan B will warp into action in the early hours of 10 August, well in time for the morning TV News shows on the US east coast and 'Voilà', Mr. Obama will have his very own special Terror Event and be able to save face with the US public, all at rather nominal tax payer expense with considerable heart felt considerations to the 'Federal Spending Sequestration'.
Yeah. GP has 'European countries', P has 'Switzerland', and I did some hasty editing. Hopefully that doesn't obscure my point.
No such thing as a verdict of innocence. It is not guilty by reasonable doubt(or jury nullification). There is a rather large difference between innocence and not guilty.