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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?
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."
Did the NSA force AV companies to not track the NSA virus, then keep it "legally" secret?
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.
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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.
If it's good enough for the RIAA & MPAA to use the term, then it's good enough for the rest of the world.
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.
Fear Not! Diane Feinstein is hard at work writing a new law to reform the NSA. And by "reform", I mean "retro-actively legalize everything they did, Constitution be damned."
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
spammers go to prison[1] or are fined[2]
[1] http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2009/11/godfather-of-spam-goes-to-prison-for-four-years/
[2] http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2008/11/facebook-spammer-fined-almost-1-billion-under-can-spam/
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.
Yes, The "Do as I say, not as I do" standard.
"American Exceptionalism" in NewSpeak. Double-plus FTFY.
Dude, you focus on anti terrorism but it has been happening long before that.
Some people claim the constitution is an archaic piece of paper which has long outlived its usefulness and should be reinterpreted as much as possible to get around it's limitations. We call these people the "living document" people who think reinterpreting definitions allows portions of it to change meanings as the needs of society changes. This is despite the fact that there is an amendment process and if anything actually did need changed, it could be using the amendment process. But the outcome is the second amendment being nothing but the military having the right to have guns and you and I can hunt, free speech zones (which was originally instituted by the democrats) equaling first amendment rights, removal of all religious displays from public view as the first amendment free exercise of religion, cops dressed like military assault teams having the right to kick in the wrong door and kill the occupants as being the forth amendment's right to be secure in your person, papers and effects. There are a lot more that has happened when we get away from strict interpretations of the US constitution.
You may have only noticed this crap with the war on terror. But it has been around for a while before it. Your rights have been subject to interpretations for quite a while now and terrorism is only the latest if the move.
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.
A government spokesperson states that any disclosure of classified material is harmful to our national security.
What a useless PR hack. Two points:
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.