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US Mounted 231 Offensive Cyber-operations In 2011, Runs Worldwide Botnet
An anonymous reader sends this news from the Washington Post:
"U.S. intelligence services carried out 231 offensive cyber-operations in 2011, the leading edge of a clandestine campaign that embraces the Internet as a theater of spying, sabotage and war, according to top-secret documents [from Edward Snowden]. Additionally, under an extensive effort code-named GENIE, U.S. computer specialists break into foreign networks so that they can be put under surreptitious U.S. control. Budget documents say the $652 million project has placed 'covert implants,' sophisticated malware transmitted from far away, in computers, routers and firewalls on tens of thousands of machines every year, with plans to expand those numbers into the millions. ... The implants that [an NSA group called Tailored Access Operations (TAO)] creates are intended to persist through software and equipment upgrades, to copy stored data, 'harvest' communications and tunnel into other connected networks. This year TAO is working on implants that “can identify select voice conversations of interest within a target network and exfiltrate select cuts,” or excerpts, according to one budget document. In some cases, a single compromised device opens the door to hundreds or thousands of others."
that is so cool.
Never say never. Ah!! I did it again!
Allies, "ALLIES", we don't need no stinkin' Allies. All of it, ALL OF IT, ours, we, want it all, exploit it, burn it, the whole world, it's ours, Ours, OURS.
Seriously out of control. Looks like Chinese hardware is the least of the worlds problems. With the US Stupidity Services trying to purposefully break everyone's networks and insert back doors that only they, and their contractors, and anyone who wants to pay those contractors knows about.
Morons there is no such thing as an exclusive back door. Once you broken the security of other countries networks, you leave access for anyone waiting to exploit, bet anything you like those morons did not at all to monitor and ensure those back doors were not exploited by others. I wonder how many times now the US government has blatantly lied about cyber attacks they launched that have been discovered and then blamed on other countries and pseudo organisation like Anonymous.
How many attacks have they launched they were designed to do nothing else but increase their budget?
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Who believes the US government had something to do with it?
Suddenly after meeting with regulators the price recovers?
Conclusion: Promote regulation of the Bitcoin network as it's correlated with a rise in the price.
Time for me to destroy my webcam and make sure no device on my computer has a microphone.
But I can't find a single typewriter in any antique shops any more.
---- The above post was generated by the Turing Institute. Maybe.
Whistleblowing on a secret US government agency that's governed (if at all) by secret laws and secret courts, and is clearly out of control? Sorry, that would never cross the line into treason. It's the agency which is breaking the law.
What operatives? None of the people involved in this are working undercover, they're working in cubicles in office blocks in the US.
He had already leaked it all to the Guardian. The information is out now. He just can't effectively comment on any of it anymore.
I see the glass as full with a FoS of 2.
Like everyone else on slashdot, I only run Debian and must say I smile when I see reports such as country sponsored malware strikes like this. But it does make me ask an honest question:
How can we be sure that the Linux kernel isn't compromised? I don't really have the time to go through all lines of code and I doubt my security analysis and development skills are up to the task anyway.
We aren't talking about the beacon of the free world, we're talking about the USA!
Don't complain about syntax, grammar, or spelling. There is no.hell like input on android.
It is really, really easy to turn a blind eye to the evil one's government perpetrates when that evil is not directed at one's self or one's loved ones, and when in fact these benefit in some way from said evil.
Does all this evil keep our economy strong (possibly at the expense of other economies)? Does it keep stuff cheap at walmart? Does it keep the movies and tv programs flowing? Does it keep most of us basically comfortable in our lives? Then maybe we just won't bother sticking our necks out for a bunch of foreigners who offer nothing to us in return.
What is it that you want people to do exactly? Do you think we have any control over what intelligence agencies do? If we try to stop them then their allies will be in the position to do to us and our loved ones exactly what the US intelligence agencies are capable of doing to people in your country.
You don't seem to understand how things work. The US citizen cannot stop the US government because your government would work with the FBI to stop that. It would be called terrorism. The penalty for terrorism is harsh and can even include death.
If someone in your country tried to take on the intelligence agency of your country, then if your country is allied with the US government then the CIA would destroy those people/terrorists.
The only realistic solutions which aren't suicide or completely insane all take time. Decades. The government agencies can be made less abusive over time, and made to follow the laws of war or at least make it clear to us what rules they follow.
If Snowden leaked this at this point he's exposing information on operations, methods, everything. At what point does it cross the line and become treason? Is there a line which gets crossed where every Snowden supporter would say "this has gone too far"?
As a non-US citizen and potentially impacted by the US govt actions, I don't have any incentive to say "this has gone too far".
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
It is NEVER treason to expose government wrongdoing or unconstitutional behavior. It is NEVER treason to expose government coverups or lies. It is NEVER treason to disclose programmes that should have had proper congressional or public oversight but didn't. Everything so far disclosed has fallen into the above categories. If ever disclosing one of these wrongdoings or unconstitutional behaviors or coverups has put an operative or operation in jeopardy - then the blame rests solely on the shoulders of whoever perpetrated that cover up. Otherwise, any wrongdoing could be hushed up simply by entangling it with something else.
At least, that's my view as a Snowden and Manning supporter
Or maybe you should be asking: should the government have no limit as to what it can do in the name of protecting the country from supposed foreign conspiracies.
If they have really developed software which can do that, they should share their techniques with the commercial world. Software that can continue to run even after a system upgrade? Sign me up.
That's seriously a good question. The ironic answer is that the knowledge that would be sufficient to make an informed decision (as to where the line should be other than an annoyingly vague "whatever doesn't make it worse for humanity") is being withheld from us. Any actual example we could use would be based on what we already know, which isn't going to be whatever the government is still keeping secret - the good _and_ the bad.
Which puts us all between something of a rock and a hard place.
Having read this particular article, it doesn't mention any specific operations, nor any specific methods. I say "specific" because, while it does reveal that the US government is exploiting vulnerabilities in software and hardware (really not a surprise), it does not reveal specifics that would allow an enemy to distinguish between "US government exploit" and "random joe exploit".
I also found this part interesting: "The NSA designs most of its own implants, but it devoted $25.1 million this year to “additional covert purchases of software vulnerabilities” from private malware vendors, a growing gray-market industry based largely in Europe." Apparently, providing 25.1 million dollars of additional demand for unethical behaviour is now within the NSA's newest line in the sand, to go along with global warrant-less electronic surveillance of everyone including its own citizens within its own borders.
Which means here's the thing:
The US government crossed its constitutional line under a veil of secrecy from its own people and then said: I'll keep going.
Edward Snowden crossed his personal line under the orders of the US government and then said: I'm turning whistleblower.
So right now, I'm a lot more worried about the US government's limits than Snowden's.
Pentagon Sets Stage for U.S. to Respond to Computer Sabotage With Military Force
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304563104576355623135782718.html
Don't quote me on this.
That depends of if we decide the NSA has gone far enough to be considered a domestic enemy of the people. It lies to congress, it lies to the citizens, and it may be lying to the president as well. That doesn't sound much like a legit government agency. It spies on Americans and subverts the Constitution. That sounds like something an enemy does.
And yet Russia can call us up and say "Hey, there are two Chechen refugee brothers in Boston who we think are terrorists" and NOTHING HAPPENS.
Q: What does the "B." in Benoit B. Mandelbrot stand for? A: Benoit B. Mandelbrot