Slashdot Mirror
NSA Infected 50,000 Computer Networks With Malicious Software
rtoz writes "The American intelligence service — NSA — infected more than 50,000 computer networks worldwide with malicious software designed to steal sensitive information, documents provided by former NSA-employee Edward Snowden show."
The NSA was conducting a military operation against an ally.
Wasn't this exactly what the USA declared to be considered an act of war, that would justify retaliation with conventional weapons?
I thought this was illegal? What can victims claim who lost data due to this?
Are they allowed under the law to break it?
It's reasonable to expect every intelligence agency to spy on anyone they can.
Perhaps as regards governments the hypocrisy should be dropped, and caught spies simply traded for other caught spies as was Cold War custom. Business IS business, and trusting anyone, even "allies" (whatever that means) can be childish especially if they are penetrated by enemy operatives.
How much we wish to restrain internal spying is another matter.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Going forward, how can we nogotiate peace with the NSA? who can nogotiate on Americans behalf?
So the NSA has committed illegal acts, violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, or whatever it is that they charge people with for "hacking."
A "warrant" can't authorize this kind of access, because warrants for "everything" are void, per the 4th Amendment of the US Constitution.
Now nobody can argue that they are nothing but a bunch of criminals.
For the sake of the argument, don't such agencies need tools/methods to do their stuff ? So they infected computer networks.. where's the similar outrage with common spammers, that actually do have a global impact on internet traffic / quality of service ? We're in 2013.. the Internet isn't safe. Anything networked isn't safe. What does it matter that you can now put (another) face on the big bad Internet Bad Guy ? I mean, really, they can be "activated with the push of a button" - what are we talking about here, networks with internet access ? Were the owners expecting them to be private or something ? I too dislike an orwellian future, but some things just aren't worth fussing over. If the internet was a pristine place full of trust and good will, sure this would be shocking news. But it isn't.
NSA targets Windows machines the most for obvious reasons This isnt exactly unknown news
People once told me 68K ram was all we needed,
I'm flashing back to that scene here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UKUGZz5Hjw
Did the NSA force AV companies to not track the NSA virus, then keep it "legally" secret?
These are the two options of how to classify this thing. It is not really possible to get more evil in nature, just in scale.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
The best way to stop the NSA from doing such kinds of things is to make spying on citizens a Casus foederis in the NATO contracts.
In case of ongoing spying, the attacked contries could defend themselves (hopefully with nuclear weapons).
As the US seem not to care about other peoples' human rights , it would be probably the best way, to stop this totalitarian goverment and fashist country.
The US is choosing the path of aggression instead of the path
of civilized behavior.
This is a strategy designed by fools. If the fools responsible were the
only ones who would pay for their crimes that wouldn't be so bad.
But every American will pay for what a tiny minority of American swine have done.
By the way, before you start in with your xenophobic redneck moron responses, I AM an American,
and I see what is coming and I do not like it one bit. When the rest of the world has had enough
of the US overstepping its bounds, all the US military power won't make a bit of difference.
Economic sanctions alone can and will bring the US to its knees. If you don't believe this is
possible, you need to read more history.
.
Haha, look at all the AC posts. You guys are fricken cowards. Like posting anonymously is somehow going to prevent the government from knowing who you are.
Look, you give an agency the task of preventing damage to your country - that is what they are going to try and do, any way they can or have to. And lets be real, laws are just a game. Everyday we see how loopholes, misinterpretations etc are used to get around anything. You think ANYONE at ANYTIME expected GE, Apple, Microsoft to pay 0 taxes? And yet they do, year after year, because with the right efforts, all laws can be gotten around. Laws are what naive people follow, like religions (and religious laws).
If you want the NSA/FBI/CIA to stop spying on everyone, abolish them. Then enjoy your free country for about a year, because that is as long as it will last.
Otherwise understand it is a balance. A balance that people in those positions understand much better than the general public. Let them do their job.
slashdot troll = you make a compelling argument I do not like the implications of.
More and more the concept album "Year Zero" by Nine Inch Nails is becoming less "concept" and more "reality."
You can dance if you want to.
these people are not warriors - they are parasites, and should be treated as such.
it's simply criminal, they should go to jail, like all the rest.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzrZukr3mbU
The USA pursued Gary McKinnon for a decade for cracking some USA military and NASA computers, mainly those where incompetent sysadmins had not changed default passwords. What Gary McKinnon was wrong; but this is also wrong and worse by an order of magnitude.
Do we assume that the USA gov't will hand over those responsible as it wanted the UK to hand over Gary McKinnon ? I would eat all of my hats if the USA gov't even talked about the possibility.
The U.S. government is EXTREMELY corrupt, and the response of U.S. citizens is to make foolish jokes.
Which Jew? Maybe it's one of my cousins.
about 5 years ago, I was working on my PhD in computer security. We had a paper about some issues in SE Linux. We hadn't found any backdoors but there were a couple things that concerned us. It was accepted by a journal and then pulled at the last minute. No reason given but my advisor told us to drop it. "Bad career move" were the words he used.
Wow, antisemitism in 2013.
troll harder, AC.
So they infected the internet. That's one. What were the other 49,999?
Yes, The "Do as I say, not as I do" standard.
"American Exceptionalism" in NewSpeak. Double-plus FTFY.
I believe that the only method to get rid of such threat is to make files executable by change of their attributes, not their extension. You understand what I mean ;-)
And yet he still doesn't disclose what was weird or concerning to them even in an anonymous posting talking about finding something weird or concerning. It's like those whisper campaigns that don't really say anything bad but say something in a way that people interpret it badly then as momentum builds, things are simply added by people who think they heard more then what was said. Before you know it, an attorney general running for governor wants to take birth control away from women when the courts have said long ago that the state couldn't do that and nothing he done as the lead attorney for the state indicates that he ever wanted to do or try to do such things.
I mean even if he was scared/worried that something could come back on him, all he would need to do is find someone who doesn't care like at a defcon and tell them where to look anonymously.
Don't worry, they didn't. It was borrowed money.
Which debt will be paid (interest included) with his taxes.
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
Please self publish, tell the world, smart people will look into your work and fix issues over time.
Your work would also help people learning computer security.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
A government spokesperson states that any disclosure of classified material is harmful to our national security.
What a useless PR hack. Two points:
Exits.
Having 'exits' where you can put your hooks into, and those exits are not locked down with adequate security, or more likely missing it altogether. So a non-privileged user can escalate, and say, the keyboard intercept is wide open AND it is convention not to clear the buffer. Another way may be an 'On Error' routine, which can privilege escalate. The context of the 'on error' means it can pass and audit, if combined with poor memory fencing.All security products are 'gettable' , as you are going to fold if you cant sell into the US market. Another possible beauty is direct DMA from video cards, many possibilities if undisclosed instruction sets are available.
It is a matter of what is NOT in the code rather than whats in it. The linix 'immutable' setting have got to hurt.One concludes security experts and guru's are not. The downside? The4 most popular OS's (MS, Apple, Phones(all brands), *Nix may covered. BSD's are a lot harder. Once people start using not run-of-the-mill stuff, the game will be harder.
So what OS did they infect?
I suspect an upwardly mobile legal type wanted a big trophy to put in his wall so hyped this UFO nut that was trespassing on poorly secured sites as some sort of international master criminal. It sounds better on the CV than hassling a guy with a history of mental illness for looking around bits of the net where there is supposed to be better security than there is.
All we've seen is a lot of opinions and hearsay but that's as good a grasp as I can get on it. You would think that "more then simple snooping" would have resulted in some solid evidence. There's nothing in his background that indicates he'd be capable of more than that.
The USA is a rogue state. I have no desire to visit there and wish to limit its influence on my life to a minimum.
My commiserations to the citizens of the USA who have to endure its Orwellian regime and unfair, capitalist system.
they used the exploit at all - i gather the majority of these incursions are left hanging because the NutSoupAhats are smart enough to not want to get caught with their fingers in anyone savvy enough to bite.
Lets redefine the word "terrorist" by expanding it's meaning to, not just "One that engages in acts or an act of terrorism." but to include the ones that are inducing fear to get bigger salaries and shiny supercomputers. By promoting fear without a real threat, NSA and friends are contributing to global terror.
Post 911 every human is a 'potential' terrorist for US regime
Casteism