Slashdot Mirror
Report: Russia and China Crack Encrypted Snowden Files
New submitter garyisabusyguy writes with word that, according to London's Sunday Times, "Russia and China have cracked the top-secret cache of files stolen by the fugitive US whistleblower Edward Snowden, forcing MI6 to pull agents out of live operations in hostile countries, according to senior officials in Downing Street, the Home Office and the security services," and suggests this non-paywalled Reuters version, too. "MI6 has decided that it is too dangerous to operate in Russia or China," writes the submitter. "This removes intelligence capabilities that have existed throughout the Cold War, and which may have helped to prevent a 'hot' nuclear war. Have the actions of Snowden, and, apparently, the use of weak encryption, made the world less safe?"
I will withhold my judgement on this until they release verifiable proof. It seems like their even disclosing the fact they know if the Russians and Chinese had access would be considered a state secret.
"GET / HTTP/1.0" 200 51230 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; Setec Astronomy)"
First (as stated in the summary): "Have the actions of Snowden, and, apparently, the use of weak encryption, made the world less safe?"
Second (not asked, but as important as the first): Was it worth it? Did the revelations made the world a better after the revelations?
IMO yes, it was worth it. Having secret programs authorised by secret laws and secret alliances to reduce or remove the privacy of the population as a whole for some geopolitical goal is not something that should happen in democratic countries.
The better question is why we're letting these agencies get away with scapegoating Snowden, just because they try to blame everything on him? It's not like they're free of any cu;pability for their actions just because some guy blew the whistle on them.
Without confirmation, this is just as likely to be a false flag attempt to charge Snowden with something serious as it is to be an actual news story.
The first question that comes to my mind is, "Has anything actually been cracked?" Maybe this is all just some kind of release to make Snowden looked bad. All I know is that spying is all about lying. All I know is that I'm an American who feels compelled to be an Anonymous Coward when talking about things like this... in America, and wondering if that makes any real difference. All I know is that they, ultimately, will die just as I will die. All I know is all they know, when you reduce it down. The spy is in me, and try as I might... I cannot decipher my own secret.
As politicos (and Google execs) repeat far too frequently, I'm sure there's nothing that sensitive there, is there? Were MI6 and CIA, etc., heaven forbid doing something bad? Golly, I hope not. We don't need encryption if we all obey the law, right?
http://www.salon.com/2013/11/0...
Here's the outcome of Mr Snowden's "whistleblowing":
- American IT companies are losing billions because foreign customers are scared
- Intelligence networks are fucked
- Nothing whatsoever has changed in the way government agencies spy on US citizens
The guy should send his resume to Al Qaeda.
lucm, indeed.
Blaming the whistleblower for revealing shady operations as an excuse for why those shady operations are no longer effective seems like an arsonist running a second by second commentary on the flaming building they set alight, all while asking for more matches and gasoline. I want to believe people are better than this, but this sort of "news" has been seen too often of late, I think.
How likely is that two very different actors cracked the same encrypted file *at the same time*?
More like pure speculation.
AFAIK, the encrypted versions weren't widely distributed; chances are that the documents weren't force-decrypted by RU/CN. I mean, if a cracker gets access to one of the few computers who holds the encrypted documents, he for sure can wait just a bit until the encryption key is entered into a keylogger. Snowden using weak keys? seems unlikely.
Typical British tabloid crazy, poor, shit journalism. The first article mentioned decrypting; the only other source i could find mentioned "interpreting" the original leaks.
Awsome! that means all files can now be released to everyone with need for redaction because the active operations have been compromised by foreign powers.
Also it took them years to figure out the password was 00000000
Even if there are never any charges, the bad (Snowden) PR of the news story itself is enough motivation for them to manufacture an issue (if they think they can get away with it). No one ever actually charged Assange with rape, did they?
What if the claim that the files have been decrypted is false? Just the claim disrupts intelligence operations. Perhaps they have some information that was obtained by other means and has been used to "prove" that the files have been cracked, when, in reality, they have not?
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
Too bad strong encryption wasn't available to him -- was whatever "weak encryption" he used known to the NSA as being vulnerable?
The only people I am afraid of are the western bankers who faced with a declining empire because of their lawlessness, refuse to except their loss of power and wealth and decide if they can't continue to have all of this wealth and power and all od the lawlessnes and mischief you read about in the free news on the internet.
They will destroy it.
Those are the people you should be afraid of.
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
Look, they've had a couple years to figure out that if Russia and China have a shit pile of encrypted files, that they are going be busy trying to crack them. So if they haven't substituted out their people (operatives in spooky talk) in the last 2 years, the people running the circus are a bunch of fucking clowns. If they didn't have alternate plans with different networks, they are incompetent. Those files only show what those agencies were doing historically at this point. Because if they are still current, the U.S. is really in trouble. The next thing you know they'll be run by creationists who don't believe in science and evolution. Or they know how to capitalize on a really arcane book of myths to keep the people occupied.
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
GCHQ and the UK have been crying wolf about encryption for years. Now after all their bleating about how they can't crack encryption, they're claiming the Russians and Chinese have done it, but they couldn't?
Bullshit.
Bullshit.
Bullshit.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Perhaps if intelligence services weren't gathering so much domestic intelligence on the taxpayers who fund them and, if citizens could rely on public oversights with enough teeth to ensure that the intelligence powers were being used ethically then there wouldn't be a motivation for leaks.
However there isn't and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
We knew that the minute Snowden walked out of the United States with classified information from no less, the NSA, he was going to be a target of foreign nations. Snowden can only be grateful that he wasn't killed on his way to HK and have his laptops stolen, although we don't know how the Russians have treated him. They could have coerced him into giving away the encryption, maybe not, but yes he put the United States at a big disadvantage. But hey, thanks for telling us the NSA is spying on some bad Americans. And, by the way everybody spies on everybody. Russians on us. We on the Russians. China on us. By the way, those Chinese siphon information the world over. How do you think they got stealth tech? They stole info on US Postal workers for goodness sake. So, have a great life in Russia Snoweden. Hopefully you didn't screw us up too badly.
Assuming this Sunday Times story is accurate, what idiot spymaster kept the real identities of active agents on a 'computer' that apparently any random IT techie had access to. I wonder if the media is trying to distract attention from that massive OPM hack.
Second OPM Hack Revealed: Even Worse Than The First
Finally, all that bitcoin mining paid off.
If you have any document, it either gets into hands that shouldn't have it, or it doesn't. If it doesn't, you need no encryption. If it does, you must assume that it is passed on to your worst and most capable enemy.
So weak encryption that your most capable enemy can crack is just pointless. It doesn't help if you don't lose the document, and it doesn't help if you lose it. Using encryption is inconvenient, but using strong encryption is not one bit more inconvenient than using weak encryption.
If they have top secret documents that have been cracked by the Chinese or Russian government due to weak encryption you only have yourself to blame.
What I find difficult to believe:
1. Russia or China would make it known they cracked anything.
2. Western intelligence would make it known they know what Russia and China were able to do.
3. Articles which read like propaganda, provide no details and cite no specific sources.
I guess if the NSA didn't put backdoors in the encryption it would have held up. Btw, Snowden never had the files in Russia. He handed them off the reporters before he went there.
Because the media is fully controlled by our governments since its necessary to control us. Blogs and online news screwed that up temporarily, but that's mostly been fixed by having them taken over by bigger companies. As for the Guardian et al, the relevant people have been punished, and what's getting published now is being vetted first.
That's what they would like you to believe. Snowden makes a very convenient scapegoat for all manner of government fumbles.
"I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert
almost!
From the department of desperate and stupid propaganda in the west, we have this gem.
if (snowden==hero)
emotional_response=outrage;
else
emotional_response=outrage;
IMO yes, it was worth it. Having secret programs authorised by secret laws and secret alliances to reduce or remove the privacy of the population as a whole for some geopolitical goal is not something that should happen in democratic countries.
Actually there is a much more important 3rd question. Was it necessary to do a mass dump of NSA files that went far beyond mass domestic surveillance in order to bring that mass surveillance to the attention of the people?
The answer is a definitive NO. Snowden overshared. He may have inadvertently harmed legitimate intelligence programs and agents. He should have pruned his dump and kept it on topic.
So, Russia and China just happened to crack these files at the very same time?
Further, the files Snowden took from the NSA (U.S.) exposed MI6 (UK) agents in Russia?!?
I wonder what terribly embarrassing thing was about to be published in the UK that MI6 doesn't want people paying attention to?
"Have the actions of Snowden, and, apparently, the use of weak encryption, made the world less safe?"
Why is all the blame heaped on Snowden? What about "the actions of the NSA"? Running a massive illegal spying operation on the American people, lying about it in sworn congressional testimony, and having no effective confidential channel for whistleblowers, they deserve far more blame for this than Snowden does.
Why the blame? Apparently incompetence. Why was he putting an archive out there that included legitimate operations and agents, why not confine his archive to docs exposing the domestic mass surveillance programs? He overshared.
As I recall during the whole Snowden-chase saga, Greenwald stated that Snowden no longer actually had the files with him once they parted ways in Hong Kong. They were never in Russia. And the Chinese probably didn't even know about them before Greenwald parted ways with Snowden. They have concocted planted stories before to try to make Snowden into someone who damaged the U.S. and the U.K. interests. I'll wait to see Greenwald's response before making much of this.
... if you had any respect for the US constitution or due process. But you don't. So fuck you.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
https://xkcd.com/538/
Windows is a bonfire, Linux is the sun. Linux only looks smaller if you lack perspective.
The eeeeevil Russians and Chinese are coming for us, blah blah blah.
Forgive me if I continue to not give a shit about anything these people have to say.
I wonder how pissed off all the various countries of the world will be when they find out the details of what has been going on?
Can you imagine how pissed off some people like the French would be if it turned out the US meddled in a French election? Or stole technological secrets from one of their national darlings and handed it to US companies?
It is one thing to find out that there is a program called Operation French Fry that was to monitor French politics. But if it turns out that they did specific things on specific dates to specific people; then the gloves will come off.
It was me. I made quite the mess.
Why was he putting an archive out there that included legitimate operations and agents...
Yes, that's a very good question. Others have already asked that exact question in this thread. What would an NSA contractor be doing with a list of agents? More succinctly, why was the NSA spying on the CIA? If you put any thought at all into the allegations from this article, the answer seems to be either that Snowden did no such thing and this is yet another set of lies to make him look bad, or that Snowden has revealed even more shocking and inappropriate behaviour by the NSA.
Or is it a double bluff? Make Russia and China think you nolonger have spies in there countries and there is nothing to worry about.
Was watching a program on the History Channel when it hit me: Will the famous Top-Secret Snowden File Cache be this generation's USS Maine? You know, the ship that sunk and served as excuse for the Spanish-American War?
I was 100% sure this would happen. Yes there are a number of ways it could have happened, but in the end they knew who had the keys. You point a gun at the person and say "tell me the password," encryption "cracked." Or you show that person a picture of their niece, father, first love whatever and then a few pictures of people you've torture to death. Encryption "cracked". Or you put a keylogger chip in a keyboard on a computer known to have the codes. Encryption "cracked". Or ... who cares. The information was high value, they knew where it was. They knew who had the keys. None of it and no one was protected by serious security.
And maybe the password was breakable. Even if he used 256 bit encryption, if he used a phrase that was too small, then, dummy. Whatever the outcome was assured from the beginning, because Russian intelligence and Chinese intelligence are the sort of people who will spend a million dollars to poison someone with polonium just to make a point.
spies. So if they're still in trouble despite having years to prepare for this, whose fault is that?
What if the claim that the files have been decrypted is false? Just the claim disrupts intelligence operations. Perhaps they have some information that was obtained by other means and has been used to "prove" that the files have been cracked, when, in reality, they have not?
That's the problem. All this lying, cheating, plotting, planning, cloak-and-dagger shit ... what kind of person really wants to live like that? The whole show is run by psychotic sociopathic people in charge leading a bunch of followers who think their willingness to go to extremes justifies their dedication to their goals.
I see a lot of that foreign spying as just as wrong as the domestic spying. Nations such as Germany are hosting our troops within their own borders, and we repay them with what? Spying on their internal as well as foreign affairs? We are really shitty guests when you get down to it.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
This seems well-timed, just two days after David Anderson QC's report calling the UK surveillance powers "undemocratic", "fragmented" and "obscure". Got to keep the populace onside while working towards the next set of even-more intrusive laws, all in their own interest of course!
All your ghosts are just false positives.
Edward Snowden is NOT a hero; he is a severely flawed character who did something good (unmasking a mountain of government lies and deceit towards its own people) while doing something very bad (exposing the intelligence activities of only the more-free and more-decent western nations to their less-free and less-decent enemies). Guys like Snowden and Assange are great at pretending to be all about freedom while amazingly only ever hurting the "good guys" who are more free than the "bad guys" whose interests they NEVER seek to harm.
You want a hero? Try all those opponents of Putin who risk their very lives (and many of whom have been killed) for challenging his evil narrative. Nobody has murdered Assange or Snowden. Had either of these guys been more honorable, they would have found themselves testifying before congress on Capitol Hill after which the public might well have demanded their protection as whistle blowers. They did not have such motives, but merely pretended to be on the side of the angels while actually behaving very badly.
The only reason I can see to have mercy on Snowden is that he found himself, under the Obama administration, in a bad spot. During the Obama years, the administration has zealously prosecuted whistle blowers and the Democrats on Capitol Hill have mindlessly done Obama's bidding to shield him from any and all congressional hearings (a far-less honorable act than the GOP during the Nixon years). They have even turned on journalists they used to like. Snowden, knowing Obama would prosecute him and that no Democrat in Washington (including the press, mostly die-hard Democrats) could be trusted to protect him had one option left: trust the GOP. Being a young leftist, however, he was probably completely programmed by MSNBC, HuffPo, Kos, and the rest to never listen to or cooperate with a Republican. This much makes sense. Turning to Putin however zeros this all out.
Looks more like anti-Russian or anti-Chinese propaganda.
It is becoming increasingly abundant on Slashdot, as US Government paid trolls seem to be posting far more often these days.
It would be interesting if the admins for slashdot could do some log analysis against posts mentioning Russia and China, and see what proportion are being submitted by IP addresses used by the US regime, and its 'security' contractors.
Obviously the article is missing any evidence at all.
Minimally, I would expect the author to provide:
1. Evidence suggesting why the author believes that the Russians cracked these files
2. Evidence suggesting why the author believes that the Chinese cracked these files
3. Why the Russian and Chinese cracking of these files conveniently appears to have happened at the same time.
4. How the Russians/Chinese got the encrypted files, given that Snowden never apparently took them to Russia.
Clearly propaganda, and actually rather damaging for the reputation of the Sunday Times / Reuters.
What are the chances of RUSSIA AND CHINA breaking the encryption at the SAME time and Mi5 handily knowing about it?
Now what are the chance of them doing that when Snowden NEVER TOOK THE FILES TO RUSSIA in the first place?
On the other hand, what the chances of this being a 'blame Snowden' lie from the people who just lost a lot of files?
Just another fucking lie from these spooks.
MI5 was neck-deep in Soviet moles, what became of it? Absolutely nothing! One bureaucracy embarrassed another. Big fucking deal if you're a bureaucrat, and that's all spying really is, a bureaucratic imperative, big fucking nothing if you aren't.
If the thing is a lie, it could come from any of the agencies that issue lies.
How did they crack files he never took to Russia, because he feared they could beat him to get him to reveal the password? Flaw #1.
Snowden files only cover Britain now? Even the claim doesn't make sense. If they had cracked Snowden files why wouldn't the US, and other 5 eyes agencies be removing their people? Flaw #2.
Even a cursory glance says this is a lie.
Maybe MI6 should not be stupid enough to share their operations details with Americans...
and which may have helped to prevent a 'hot' nuclear war.
Preventing escalation in hostility by acting in a hostile manner. Right. See? Spies are GOOD. When we spy on a country it means we're trying to be friends. Also black is white, 2+2 = 5, and Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
cf wikipedia. Why should I believe any of this drivel, then?
Sooo NSA stored all bulk surveillance together with sensitive CIA operations? Why did NSA store info on CIA operations? And one whistle blower got his hands on it all and whistled? You think _that_ was the problem? Hahahahah
The less restricted access to information is, the quicker it will get leaked. But regardless sooner or later it will get leaked. Be it through whistle blowers, spies, corruption or stupidity. Else the restriction on access is so great that the information becomes useless. Since it cannot be evaluated or used at all.
If you read histories of espionage dating back to between the First and Second World Wars, or through the Cold War, you come across plenty of examples of compartmentalisation and the idea of holding information in small cells so that a leak or capture cannot compromise an entire organisation.
We also know that Edward Snowden was working for a contractor tasked with working on signals intelligence. This would typically [but not always] be information assembled from mass capture techniques such as interception of undersea internet cables.
So my question is: would it be reasonable to expect that someone in Snowden's position, with the data we know he could access, also have access to the *operational* side of information gathering? Put another way: how many people operating *outside of the actual spy's personal cell* know the identity of the spy? What we know about simple "best practice" for the spy business and the principle of compartmentalization tells us that it should be impossible to establish the identity of the spy. They would simply be known (in James Bond parlance) as "Agent Triple X" [from "The Spy Who Loved Me" for the curious].
This has to be misdirection - an attempt to sully Edward Snowden's image with the fall-out from the recent hacks against the US Government.
Occam's Razor "1", Spin-Doctors "0"...
"What is right" to them does not mean what you think it means. And since they have and army and a navy to back up their version, your version is unlikely to prevail.
Imagine the look on the faces of the victorious Chinese decryption team on opening up Snowden's files and find nothing but this link http://bit.ly/IqT6zt
Exactly. The cheapest way for Russia/China to put western intelligence agencies on the defensive is to fake it. Use some other intel to take a stab at the contents, spread a rumour that you cracked it, and watch western intelligence personnel leave as a precaution. Then just check names off your list of suspected agents as they leave, AND send them home at their own expense.
The timing of this is rather suspicious though. Snowden has been in Russia since June 2013, and I doubt Russia would have pissed around for two years trying to decrypt those files if they really wanted them. Just install a keylogger and wait. Western intelligence agencies would have removed their personnel long ago. As others have mentioned, this announcement comes hot on the heels of the hacked government personnel records, including people with clearances. This could be butt covering, as in "Those suspicious people are not agents, pay no attention to them, we already removed all our personnel because of Snowden".
Human Rights, Article 12: Freedom from Interference with Privacy, Family, Home and Correspondence
ANY encryption can be broken with enough resources, mostly time. They all know that. And how many years since the whistle was blown did they have opportunity to remove the vulnerable agents? If they're only starting now, then any deaths are THEIR fault. Any expense at rushing is entirely their doing.
If they're talking truth, that is, which is highly unlikely.
Hero isn't some fictional superman with no flaws.
Snowden is a hero. He did a heroic thing. That's 100% the definition of hero, flaws don't count in the definition. At all.
etc
if they hadn't tried to burn the whistleblower? The US government could have let him return to the US safely, instead of making him stay in a country where you have spies running around. Instead we get double standards: Life of the little guy is ruined, the top brass can continue (including lying to congress/senate) or get a mild slap on the wrist (David "Betrayus" Petraeus)
It is is interesting to know if the story is true in the first place: Both China an Russia crack the code, at about the same time. And we know that for both countries. Wow, I'm impressed that this spying business works so well.
Bert
the former American security contractor, who fled to seek protection from Vladimir Putin,
Snowden fled to Russia to be protected from Putin! Who would have thought.
I call absolute BS on the whole thing, they just trying to pass off their own incompetence into getting owned recently onto Snowden.
Not buying it, besides it's not like they have any credibility at this point anyway.
Since the files are already in the hands of the enemy could someone please be more specific on what they contained..... You know, since it would not make a difference since the Communist powers now have their hands on it. Like could the information be any more vague. Plus this info was leaked more than a year ago. Wouldn't the "enemy" already have the info they want in their hands? This news is suspect..
The cheapest way to lull China/Russia into false security is to say you pulled out all your operatives.
1. Pretend that you have decrypted the files.
2. Observe suspected agents to see who is fleeing.
3. Profit.
thats all.
Ah, the usual "unnamed officials". Such brave souls they are to leak this crucial information to the public.
Look at the opening excerpts from the linked Sunday Times piece.
If this is true, it isn't just Britain pulling agents and assets but the all the NATO and Asian allies and partners.
It could just as easily be true that Russia and/or China have penetrated or compromised some other intel sources but arranged to detain the Western agents in such a way as to make the West conclude that the Snowden archive was the only possible source. In this way, the Brits and Yanks would be forced to pull agents at once, revealing the foreign locations and foreign citizens that the Western agents were targeting in Russia and China.
The article summary doesn't mention that the Times is insisting that American agents are also compromised.
Sounds like more self-serving hysteria.
I would expect that if anything happens to compromise Western espionage operations, now and in years to come, "Edward Snowden" will be the fall guy for everything. Very convenient for MI6 to use Snowden as their whipping boy.
Given how the West's operations were compromised for all holders of security clearances last week, I'd say it is more likely that our own government's constant and deliberate "carelessness" in cybersecurity procedures and data security are to blame and they just want to use Snowden as the scapegoat.
For Americans, this is a news story best commented on as an Anonymous Coward.
It could actually be true no doubt but it seems to me that this is just another salvo in the character assassination of Edward Snowden.
Even if it were true all it does is show the absolute incompetence of our intelligence agencies and the malfeasance of our political representatives; this is the worst thing about the unfettered collection of personal data by government and business alike, namely the lack of protection from the misuse and exposure of the information collected. Our collective governments and parliaments worldwide have been asleep at the wheel for the last 30 years, that is those that aren't actively involved in the process.
Andy Warhol got it right / Everybody gets the limelight
Andy Warhol got it wrong / Fifteen minutes is too long.
Nope
Korma: Good
So, according to Sunday Times, China and Russia are now officially "hostile" countries, little bit like North Korea and the future ISIS caliphate, if they get to form one before they die to the last man.
Talk about yourselves. The world isn't UK, you know. If anything, Snowden's revelations have shown that it's the UK who performed hostile acts of espionage against their European allies, together and on behalf of their trans-atlantic big buddies, not Soviet Russia.
You mean like the data the Chinese are supposed to have stolen in the last two US federal government break-ins?
Or maybe Snowden gave the Russians the password and they shared it with the Chinese.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
The password was 12345678
If Russia had the encrypted files, and Snowden was in Russia and could be tortured for the password, why would they only NOW remove their spies? After the files were claimed to be decrypted by some magic means?
None of this makes sense.
It smells of domestic propaganda when the US has upcoming elections.
some powerpoints were published I think by the Guardian if I remember correctly awhile back. they were piss poor, the NSA really needs a marketing team to help clean them up. they looked like shit, really.
"This removes intelligence capabilities that have existed throughout the Cold War, and which may have helped to prevent a 'hot' nuclear war. Have the actions of Snowden, and, apparently, the use of weak encryption, made the world less safe?"
Its a twisted mind that thinks to be safe a country need to invade the minds of other nations rather than earning their respect and admiration.
Trust is the most valuable attribute, spying destroys trust.
Dont blame the messenger.
Time to throw Snowden off the fucking pedestal because his releases have caused a lot of harm. Yeah, we all don't want NSA to spy on us. Trouble is they also spy on all the ugly motherfuckers on this planet, and now the intelligence community will have a totally shitty time dealing with those assholes. This is a fucking life/death game, maybe on a massive scale and dicks that release that kind of material without considerations as to foreign policy consequencies should get their comeuppance. If fucking Russky nukes hit one or more of eastern Europe EU capitals and Russkies get emboldened enough to start a wider war Mr. fucking Snowden will be partially responsible. Fuck him. Even if the shithead wasn't working with Russkies from the beginning of this comedy, which is doubtful now, he sure as hell came over to their side soon enough. Get through your heads that the bastard has caused massive damage to Western intelligence/military/defense.
How do do you like this quote from a NATO general via former NSA guy:
Said a senior NATO (non-US) GOFO to me today: "We'll probably be at war this summer. If we're lucky it won't be nuclear." Let that sink in.
— John Schindler (@20committee) May 20, 2015
http://20committee.com/2015/05/28/i-told-you-so/
How about this:
http://20committee.com/2015/06/12/snowden-is-a-fraud/
Still love fucking Snowden?
And I still don't like our governments spying on us. But I like Russky and Chinese filth of the planet spying on us even less.
TIMING
The revelations about the impact of Snowden on intelligence operations comes days after Britain's terrorism law watchdog said the rules governing the security services' abilities to spy on the public needed to be overhauled.
Conservative lawmaker and former minister Andrew Mitchell said the timing of the report was "no accident".
"There is a big debate going on," he told BBC radio. "We are going to have legislation bought back to parliament (...) about the way in which individual liberty and privacy is invaded in the interest of collective national security.
"That's a debate we certainly need to have."
Cameron has promised a swathe of new security measures, including more powers to monitor Briton's communications and online activity in what critics have dubbed a "snoopers' charter".
Britain's terrorism laws reviewer David Anderson said on Thursday the current system was "undemocratic, unnecessary and - in the long run - intolerable".
He called for new safeguards, including judges not ministers approving warrants for intrusive surveillance, and said there needed to be a compelling case for any extensions of powers.
So what you really have is fear monger lying for more police state jackboot power grabby bullshit. I don't think it was an accident that Orwell was English.
The ironic thing is that Americans would not support Snowden had the U.S. government not spied on it's own citizens. The fact that by breaching the trust of it's own citizens it has forfeited sympathy.
they are already compromised.
That's almost certainly the case. The story reeks of propaganda. For instance, the claim that the UK has some kind of large Russian spy network is rather contradicted by the fact that they only recently started recruiting Russian speakers. Pretty hard to get intel from a country where you don't have any staff that speak the language.
The notion that a "cache of documents" was cracked also sounds like nonsense. None of the Snowden documents have dealt with human intelligence ("HUMINT" as they call it). We're being asked to believe that there's hugely detailed info about British spies in what Snowden leaked, yet, no mention of documents from MI6 has been made up until now? Not even alluded to?
And the Russians and Chinese, working independently, both managed to crack this cache ... at the same time?
And none of the spies that were found after this calamitous event were arrested or deported? Not a single one? Even though when Russian spies were found in the USA they were turned into a media circus and then put in front of a judge?
No way. None of the things we're being asked to believe make even a shred of sense. There's a far, far more plausible explanation that does fit the facts: British intelligence was far, far more reliant on SIGINT for insight into Russia and China than they wanted their bosses to believe. MI6, in particular, is stretched to the limit. We know that they routinely cancel surveillance of people they believe might be dangerous jihadis because they don't have the resources to continue. Lacking Russian language speakers, lacking any real motivation to spy on Russia until very recently, you can see how they might have become super reliant on the very fragile techniques used by GCHQ. Now I absolutely do believe that foreign governments became harder to spy on as a result of Snowden, but this terrible disaster that has afflicted UK intelligence is much more likely to be the result of foreign embassies upgrading their VPNs to non-weak Diffie-Hellman, than the result of moving agents who may or may not even exist.
... you're assuming Snowden had access to more than "need to know," and that he was far down the chain of command and somewhat removed from the atmosphere of responsibility and duty.
That doesn't sound plausible.
Oh, wait.
Manning, Pfc.
Walks in with a Lady Gaga disk and walks out with the goods.
nm
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
... there was no OPM breach.
The US feds came up with a nice piece of fiction and now the British bastards are doing a spin-off.
It was China. No, Russia. No, it was OPM. No, Snowden.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
Maximum security prison provides maximum protection from guns, alcohol, drugs, unlicensed operations, also gives you food, roof and medical care, all at no direct cost to you.
I doubt that you will want to live in a place that guarantees you security, but empirical studies show that in every society there are some people who choose to be, with their actions or in actions, in the prison. I hope you are not the one.
If you believe this, I have a nice bridge in NYC that you can purchase futures on. It's a bit old, but serviceable...
I wonder how the US can not know what Snowden took then, as they have said repeatedly. I had the impression the encrypted
material would be in their reach. Are they so much poorer in decryption (possibly with their own backdoors?) than China/Russia?
Rather, having your spies outed after major breakin to US government data is not so surprising, and this seems a red
herring to avoid taking blame for consequences of those losses.
Theory: A OTP has a finite length in bits, a finite number of bits means a finite number of possible combinations, anything with a finite number of combinations is crackable by brute force in finite time (assuming time is infinite).
Practice: Make the number of combinations large enough so that the time to crack it makes cracking it impractical, eg: 100 trillion years.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
So... Russia and China have been working together to crack an encrypted file? Or... they've worked on it independently and almost at the same time cracked the code? Or... Chinese mole helps Russian team crack the code? And somehow the US has not managed to crack the Snowden file?
Sounds fishy.
I am hearing this news from morning, but what does it mean. How bad it could be for UK and what China and Russia will get out of this.
Thanks
http://iavinash.com
This news concerns me. It reminds me of the time that we spotted WMDs from satellite and surveillance, and invaded Iraq. Thank God we found those weapons once we got there. Oh, right....
My UID is prime!
so snowden got a file of humint operatives while working at nsa ? or was it while being a low level guy at cia ?
occam points to this just being a lie in order to smear snowden or gain support for the intel agencies.
remember, these folks aided tony blair to wage war against iraq. these assholes effectively created isis.
all because tony blair and karl battenberg are cleanly bribed by israel and the wahabists.
sis, your house is rotten.
Secret agents in Russia didn't prevent a nuclear war. That's ridiculous! The decision to attack or not attack was a political decision, made by politicians in the public performance of their roles. What, we think a spy dropped something in a politician's drink to make them feel more friendly to their enemies on the day they were set to deliver the "blow them up" command? Sheesh.
Stanislav Petrov prevented a nuclear war once. And he was not a secret agent.
https://firstlook.org/theinter...
Ian Ameline
He was using 'export quality' encryption, which like export beer, no one in their right mind would use. Then again, being outside of the USA, he was complying to export regulation ;)
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
"hosting our troops"... "guests"... That's funny. Europe and Japan are occupied territories. That is the only reason they are still at peace! And just barely. We must admit that the US is the region's peacekeeper. That's a fact jack! It is the only reason Europeans can sleep with both eyes closed. They now live more securely than Henry VIII or Louis XVI ever did, only because of the United States. This is why they can live with relatively tiny military budgets. The US carries the load.
It was all snowden's work along!
He stole the data for the sole purpose of giving to Russia and China!
He's an evil communist traitor that needs to be put on an electric chair!
The recent breach by China are just purely coincidental!
Also there's no way that Russia would the resource and know how to obtain such data, and they had to rely on a lone consultant instead of their mighty KGB/FSB !
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Snowden files were leaked ages ago, you're telling me now that governments around the world hasn't done anything to protect their agents and put preventive measures in place until now? Besides, Snowden was true to the people, not the government, it was in the people's best interest that he get exiled for. All these smear campaign to undermine what he has done will reflect in history how evil the government can become to maintain control of their own people.
Why bother keeping him at this point?
Were they in a folder called "Secret file folder" on a machine named "Top secret. Do not look"?
No, your children are not the special ones. Nor are your pets.
I didn't know Official PlayStation Magazine was still around... Crazy that they would be a target in all of this!
June 11th:
David Anderson QC's independent review of UK Investigatory Powers, "A Question of Trust", is released. It calls for a significant overhaul of the whole area of legislation (spread over 65+ different acts of legislation apparently), a handing of warrant oversight to judges (rather than the current ministerial rubber stamp) and a more coherent approach to the very variable degree of privacy protect currently given by law.
June 14th:
After months of silence on the subject, a "senior government source" (whatever that is journalistic code for) briefs the Sunday Times, the BBC and others on damage supposedly caused to UK security efforts by Edward Snowden.
Mere coincidence, of course.
Maybe, with a bit of coercion. I doubt he would have had access to those servers though. And it would be really impressive if nobody remembered to change the server passwords in that time :-)
Human Rights, Article 12: Freedom from Interference with Privacy, Family, Home and Correspondence
If this is true, I hope the Russians and/or Chinese publish the information so other countrieswill know who the traitors who sell data to the US. The US has already shown us how to treat "enemy combattants" so thei're up for a rough time.
Glenn Greenwald has written a clear statement here arguing that the assertions of the Telegraph article are deeply flawed, and based entirely on anonymous statements from government officials. It is worth a read. Here is one paragraph from it:
The Sunday Times today merely recycled the same evidence-free smears that have been used by government officials for years – not only against Snowden, but all whistleblowers – and added a dose of sensationalism and then baked it with demonstrable lies. That’s just how western journalism works, and it’s the opposite of surprising. But what is surprising, and grotesque, is how many people (including other journalists) continue to be so plagued by some combination of stupidity and gullibility, so that no matter how many times this trick is revealed, they keep falling for it. If some anonymous government officials said it, and journalists repeat it while hiding who they are, I guess it must be true.
This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when first he appears as a protector - Plato (423 to 327 BC)
Never let a hostile agent know his operations were successful.
we see things not as as they are, but as we are.
-- anais nin
...by Glenn Greenwald, with copious facts, in The Intercept: https://firstlook.org/theinter...
All major countries spy on all other major countries, friend or foe. They would be negligent of their duties to their own citizens to do otherwise.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
Snowden is a heroic figure. Yes, he may have endangered US and allied operatives doing the good work but how safe were these people in the first place? Trust us say the safe people in the glass towers. Protocols need to change.
'I don't know what it's called. I just know the sound it makes, when it takes a man's life.' ~ Four Leaf Tayback
Mmmm - yeah. But then, not all nations spend a fraction of their GDP on spying. And, you know, that whole Five Eyes thing basically pits "us" against the world. You may be right - but I see the whole damned thing as immoral and unethical, not to mention that it's a violation of all sorts of treaties, understandings, and agreements.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Snowden was a traitor that blackmailed America with the threat of releasing the codes if he died or was jailed.
Now, Russia and CHina have the data that they want (which was EVERYTHING that snowden had).
Snowden is sitting in Russia, while we are putting extreme economic pressure on Russia. No doubt at some point, Russia will pull out of Ukraine and will want the sanctions gone. My guess is that America will INSIST on having snowden turned over for prosecution in return.
Snowden will then join manning in prison. For the rest of his fucking miserable life.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
So a ex NSA employee with knowledge on how to maintain secure systems fails to protect some data... Lets just say he used AES256 and a 20 character random password.. To start with breaking that password would take a *long* time...
In addition, if i where him, i would use one of those secure USB sticks with a pin to boot a live system, on that live system i would put a key-file that would be encrypted by the 20 character password.. Possibly i would do a 2-person setup where each person only having a part of the key.
To make things a bit harder on brute-forcing doing double-encryption where the second password is stored as the last few bytes of the file and when using CBC that would require the full file to be decrypted, and that would put enormous requirements on cpu and memory usage.
What could have been done, theoretically, would be that a keylogger where installed on a machine where he decryped the data, and if not networked the keylogger where fetched later on.. But unless russia/china shared the password there would have had to be 2 attacks against him without him ever noticing...
But getting access to the data is probably much easier by just using a wrench..
The "agents" positions could not have been that dangerous if they left them in place knowing Snowden's stolen data was out in the wild.
Sorry not going to believe they just shrugged and "went with it" after the leak.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
The Murdoch article is pure propaganda.
We now have one of the purest examples of this dynamic. Last night, the Murdoch-owned Sunday Times published their lead front-page Sunday article, headlined “British Spies Betrayed to Russians and Chinese.”
Just as the conventional media narrative was shifting to pro-Snowden sentiment in the wake of a key court ruling and a new surveillance law, the article (behind a paywall: full text here) claims in the first paragraph that these two adversaries “have cracked the top-secret cache of files stolen by the fugitive US whistleblower Edward Snowden, forcing MI6 to pull agents out of live operations in hostile countries, according to senior officials in Downing Street, the Home Office and the security services.”
https://firstlook.org/theinter...
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
The problem is that the cause-effect tree doesn't start with Snowden. This is as silly as punching someone else, then acting like they started it!
Cause Effect Tree....
1. Punch someone else in the face (true aggressor, spying and breaking the law)
2. Person getting punched doesn't like it. (people getting spied on)
3. Person that got hit doesn't punch back, does the right thing instead and tells the police. (Exposing illegal unconstitutional activities)
4. The original person who punched someone else in the face now complains that the police have "endangered" his "face-punching" operations. (The illegal thing that started this whole mess).
How in the *HELL* can the person who gets punched be the wrong person for A: Not punching back, and B: Taking the full story to the authorities. What else *can* a punched-in-the-face person do besides these exact things?
This is literally that stupid. How can someone who 1st breaks the law now complain about how the exposing of their lawbreaking will harm current operations ongoing WHICH ARE BREAKING THE LAW! Duh, stopping the illegal activity is what we are trying to do! This is all a logical Jedi-Mind-Trick for the idiots in our population. Are you really that dumb people?
What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.
-Hitchens.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
Sure, war is "wrong" too. So are starving, poverty, suicide, crime, etc.
They are also not going away.
If Western intelligence agenices had not been so profoundly and grossly abusing their position Snowden would not have had to have acted at all; those documents would not have had to have been taken.
Fault analysis requires tracing the chain of failure back to its *earliest* point, not the *first* point where a change can be made to avoid failure.
Also...
I wonder how many agents MI5 actually has in Russia/China.
I have the impression there has for a long time now been a great over-reliance on mass surveillance and the minimization of human intelligence.
Could it be they've withdrawn like 50 people? and what roles did they have? how much did they matter?
As it is, I rather suspect a false-flag operation here. I'm guessing Russia/China/etc have actually penetrated Western intelligence networks to the extent that it is simply no longer safe to use agents, and Snowden is being blamed.
Throws US State required key escow into sharp relief. Let's put keys for EVERYTHING into a single State database and... wait until it's hacked. Smart move, guys. What kind of access would you end up with then to say, nuclear power plants? and that's not even taking into consideration abuses by the State and intelligence agencies themselves.
Russia and China thanks to Snowden just gave each citizen of the USA a fighting change to rein in the lawlessness of the US Federal and States Governments.
The information will eventually be available and FOIA requests in the trillions to NSA and blackmail and extortion salvos to all Federal and State employees.
The new Democracy of the 21 century now in action and has a toe-hold on the beach.
Jolly Good
Manning was an idiot. Yet a greater idiot gave him access to files when he wanted to leave service.
Snowden was a patriot. He tried to appeal to his chain of command.
If I were in the position I doubt I would have the balls to do what either Snowden or Manning did. I would take my oath more seriously.
And that is the irony. I have would have more integrity yet what do you do when your bosses that took the same oath as you to protect and defend the constitution shit all over it...
P.S. For how long did the NSA know what was in the Snowden files and what info he had access to? Are you really going to leave your agents in the field like that?
"We're not going to spy on Russia or China ANY MORE! It's JUST NOT SAFE! SO you don't have to worry, Russia and China, because we're not spying on you!"
Yeah right.
"and which may have helped to prevent a 'hot' nuclear war."
Who says people even wanted to prevent it? Order comes from chaos, continued order without chaos leads to this fucked up world we're in now. Would have rather seen it nuked back in the 80's
Well, it probably is.
You're an anonymous idiot.
Published in the UK Sunday Times, eh? Brought to you by the proprietors of Fox News!
See https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/06/14/sunday-times-report-snowden-files-journalism-worst-also-filled-falsehoods/
As I read it, basically they have started to manufacture a case to start a 'hot' nuclear war.
Why was he putting an archive out there that included legitimate operations and agents, why not confine his archive to docs exposing the domestic mass surveillance programs?
He offered to allow the NSA to vet the information before it was released. The NSA refused.
... on how properly implemented encryption works? Because I guarantee Snowden isn't the kind of person to fuck it up.
I wish twats would quit spouting off about stuff they don't fully understand..
Could this be the reason why US changed its tone about Ukraine's government?
- He didn't bring the documents into Russia. He left them with reporters
The only sources of that statement are individuals that were involved with the incident.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
If Russia and China had actually cracked the encryption around Snowden's files, would the Brits be publicising it to the world? I don't think so. The Brits would not want to let the Russians/Chinese to know they (the Brits) know. And once Snowden's exploits were known to the Brits (several years ago), why would the Brits not have taken precautionary measures to prevent problems like this from occuring, unless the Brits are just exceedingly stupid (which I doubt). How can we verify the truth, or lack thereof, of this report? I doubt we can, short of having our own agents inside MI6. Why would the Russians/Chinese give the first hint of a sniff of a clue that they have decrypted these files? I don't think they would, as it would be beyond stupid to do so. Let the Brits keep their agents in place and feed them bad info. This whole thing smells quite fishy to me.
Five Reasons the MI6 Story is a Lie
From the link;
The Sunday Times has a story claiming that Snowden’s revelations have caused danger to MI6 and disrupted their operations. Here are five reasons it is a lie.
1) The alleged Downing Street source is quoted directly in italics. Yet the schoolboy mistake is made of confusing officers and agents. MI6 is staffed by officers. Their informants are agents. In real life, James Bond would not be a secret agent. He would be an MI6 officer. Those whose knowledge comes from fiction frequently confuse the two. Nobody really working with the intelligence services would do so, as the Sunday Times source does. The story is a lie.
2) The argument that MI6 officers are at danger of being killed by the Russians or Chinese is a nonsense. No MI6 officer has been killed by the Russians or Chinese for 50 years. The worst that could happen is they would be sent home. Agents’ – generally local people, as opposed to MI6 officers – identities would not be revealed in the Snowden documents. Rule No.1 in both the CIA and MI6 is that agents’ identities are never, ever written down, neither their names nor a description that would allow them to be identified. I once got very, very severely carpeted for adding an agents’ name to my copy of an intelligence report in handwriting, suggesting he was a useless gossip and MI6 should not be wasting their money on bribing him. And that was in post communist Poland, not a high risk situation.
3) MI6 officers work under diplomatic cover 99% of the time. Their alias is as members of the British Embassy, or other diplomatic status mission. A portion are declared to the host country. The truth is that Embassies of different powers very quickly identify who are the spies in other missions. MI6 have huge dossiers on the members of the Russian security services – I have seen and handled them. The Russians have the same. In past mass expulsions, the British government has expelled 20 or 30 spies from the Russian Embassy in London. The Russians retaliated by expelling the same number of British diplomats from Moscow, all of whom were not spies! As a third of our “diplomats” in Russia are spies, this was not coincidence. This was deliberate to send the message that they knew precisely who the spies were, and they did not fear them.
4) This anti Snowden non-story – even the Sunday Times admits there is no evidence anybody has been harmed – is timed precisely to coincide with the government’s new Snooper’s Charter act, enabling the security services to access all our internet activity. Remember that GCHQ already has an archive of 800,000 perfectly innocent British people engaged in sex chats online.
5) The paper publishing the story is owned by Rupert Murdoch. It is sourced to the people who brought you the dossier on Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction, every single “fact” in which proved to be a fabrication. Why would you believe the liars now?
There you have five reasons the story is a lie.
Dan. -- So what if it's spelt wrong, nobody's perfect
So its been the MI6 agents who were keeping peace. Yeah like China and Russia just exists for a a nuclear war. How paranoid and delusional can you be??
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/06/14/sunday-times-report-snowden-files-journalism-worst-also-filled-falsehoods/
A relatively small number of foreign companies have brought the giants of American industry to their knees over the past few decades – companies such as Toyota. The Japanese automaker gained more share than any other company which operates in the American car market in the last twenty years. GM lost the most. But, GM had to contend with many rivals from Europe and Japan, each of which aimed products at niches in the US market. Toyota does not deserve the credit alone for GM’s downfall. . Compare price here is the best websitewww.pricekhan.com . The tales of most of the US companies that suffered large sales losses to foreign competitors involve poor management, or the inability to innovate quickly or buy valuable assets as they became available. It is not that simple. Almost every case discussed here is in an industry which is still changing. GM may have lost ground to Toyota. Now, each loses ground to South Korean firms Kia and Hyundai. China-based Acer was able to take sales from Dell because of the success of the netbook. Acer was early. U.S.-based Dell was late. By the time each was building netbook sales, Apple introduced a tablet PC–the iPad. The race course has been redrawn twice in less than four years. These are eight stories of American companies which lost substantial market share to foreign rivals. There are cases where most of the sales loss came within the US itself. Other cases are ones where an American company with a large worldwide presence lost an important portion of its market share to a company based outside the US. The geographic expanse of the failure is often nowhere near as important as the effect of the financial loss. A company that has a 50% drop in sales will probably go out of business or be permanently crippled whether all of that loss came in Asia, Europe, or the US. The lesson to be learned here is that the next big thing keeps coming year after year after year. That’s even true for the US company that just came out with it. Compare price here is the best website www.pricekhan.com
Well, if the US and UK are all BFFs and sharing secret agent phone numbers, then obviously so are the Russians and Chinese.
I'm still having a big problem with the first part of this story. That the US would have the list of UK spies in the first place. I expect them to co-operate, but to just share the entire list, not just on a case-by-case need-to-know type thing seems really unlikely. Does the UK have a list of all US assets? Does this sound like a good idea to anyone?
FTFA:
Last night, the Murdoch-owned Sunday Times published their lead front-page Sunday article, headlined âoeBritish Spies Betrayed to Russians and Chinese.â
This is the power relationship in this case:
Murdoch's papers are fundamentally criminal enterprises who have been caught tapping the phones of government officials and celebrities alike, among other crimes.
They also deny that man-made climate change is a threat to human civilization, a fact about them which bascially makes them mass murderers in a lot of people's eyes, including a lot of people in government.
So their entire existence is hanging by a thread of goodwill and if that thread ever gets cut, they're going to prosecuted out of existence and Murdoch is going to jail like the criminal he is.
Such an compromised entity is called "useful" in government circles.
"Please dont' prosecute us, we'll do anything you say any time say.. anything..anything!"
Thus this news story.
No one should take from this that I am specifically pro-Snowden.
What I am is anti-what-he-revealed. It's just too much unchecked power waiting to be abused. It's a structural flaw in how governments operate that one day is going to cause catastrophic damage to democracy.
I would not have done what Snowden did just because think of the damage to national security and where's the evidence this power is currently being abused to stifle democratic liberties?
Where are the bodies and innocent ruined lives?
Where's the influenced or rigged elections?
Where 's the blackmail of Senators and Congresspeople?
All of these crimes are the stuff a panopticon faciliates, but we find no evidence for them, at least yet.
The worst we know about was what Anonymous revealed- a despicable but private effort on the part of govt. contractors to smear and destroy Glenn Greenwald's career and ability to make a living.
But that was private actors, the Chamber of Commerce going to Stratfor looking to destroy him, not the government.
OTOH revealing what he revealed absolutely helps Very Bad People do Very Bad Things. So that is absolutely a cost to society that can't be just brushed aside.
Point is, this panopticon 1984 shit should never have been put into place without serious limitations and safeguards, ones which were not left in the hands of a small group of political lackeys like the FISA court.
Abusive panopticons are what develop in the dark when no one is looking. No one is above the temptation to create unlimited power and take it unto themselves "for the greater good". If it's not being abused, it will be.
We would never know about it- Wyden wasn't able or willing to get the word out- except for Snowden. So we all owe Snowden a debt of gratitude, even if his process was imperfect. He could not sort everything he took for relevance \ danger to national security \ criminality. It was a logisitcal limitation. So he left it to reproters to sort it out.
It's complicated and I dont feel a need to make is less complicated than it is.
He clearly revealed things that are illegal and dangerous to the point of killing the democracy- dangerous to the point of *clearly being a threat to national security*.
At the same time he clearly damaged national secuity.
Legitimate appeals to national security cannot be allowed to evolve into a democracy suicide-pact.
You can't be allowed to baby-step the democracy off a cliff. You built a dangerous system you can't legitimately claim you can control, that is ripe and aching for Stasi / Nazi / Soviet style abuse, which could be used to kill the democracy. Your otherwise legitimate claims to national security are severely undermined .
What Snowden means is the NSA et al were power hungry madmen building a democracy killing WMD and someone who was not brainwashed into the cult found out about it and blew the whistle, and damaged our national security in the process.
The scary thing is this- we
If the Opposition had in fact gotten access to this stuff, wouldn't they keep that fact top secret? How did the US/UK find out about it?
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
Just read the Intercept or any other responsible journal. This is Government alarmist B$ and the Sunday Times quiesced with it. Note that a 'Downing St. spokesperson' said they have no evidence of anyone being harmed - contradicting their own agent provocateurs...
For those who haven't seen it yet. https://firstlook.org/theinter...
and
considering the brouhaha underway in the UK now about the mass telephony (voice and data) surveillance...
considering how some have said Snowden was vindicated by the recent US pull-back on this...
considering how this 'report' comes from a spy agency which can never give specifics about their agents and thus can never be proven (or disproven)...
and considering how this same agency (along with their domestic intelligence agency) benefit greatly from these mass surveillance powers...
i call bullshit on this 'report'
So let's examine what Special Ed has done that's "wrong"?: 1) Theft 2) False credentials 3) Tampering with national security 4) Placing all Americans at risk 5) International flight 6) Traveling on a voided passport 7) Bartering with items/information he doesn't legally own nor has personally created 8) Terroristic threats 9) Unethical treatment toward his employer 10) Misrepresentation 11) Perjury/breach of oath 12) Dereliction of duty 13) Failure to follow orders. 14) Impersonation of known government officials/identity theft. He's also flirting with, in fact, trying to set up the two main offenses: A) Assisting foreign powers B) Aiding the enemy. Sure, the Constitution guarantees the freedom to share more information in the public, and the right to free speech is great... but NOT when it will cause a danger to National Security. The info Snowjob likely possesses is probably EXACTLY the kind of stuff al Qaeda wants leaked out so they can learn better of how to successfully find ways to kill Americans at will. Not to mention, maybe names and locations of counter-terrorism spies that the U.S. has out in the field infiltrating the ranks of those would-be murderers. People want to complain about the NSA and alleged "spying", but then they'll also complain about not feeling the government is doing enough to protect them from al Qaeda! The NSA is not "hiding" anything, but they'll be truly ineffective if EVERYONE knows what they're working on. They're not interested is photos of your baby or mom's recipes. Has NOBODY stopped for a moment and asked "why" the NSA has been doing what they're doing? Did people think the authorities use magic to uncover terrorist plots? Which would you prefer, "spying" on you or terrorism on you? Snowflake did what he did for the fame (for the escape from obscurity that everyone wants... although most average people simply use Facebook).
I wonder if any of the posts on here are from State sponsored trolls?
And if so, which States?
They were stolen? I thought he made copies, and left the originals intact.
I'm surprised nobody mentioned this before now. Golly!
There's no time like the present. Well, the past used to be.
Let's start with this. Soon after Daniel Ellsberg was revealed as the source behind the Pentagon Papers, White House officials started spreading rumors that Ellsberg was actually a Soviet spy and that he'd passed on important secrets to the Russians: None of it was true, but it was part of a concerted effort by administration officials to smear Ellsberg as a "Soviet spy" and a "traitor" when all he really did was blow the whistle on things by sharing documents with reporters.
Now we get to today:
https://www.techdirt.com/artic...
So we've already written about the massive problems with the Sunday Times' big report claiming that the Russians and Chinese had "cracked" the encryption on the Snowden files (or possibly just been handed those files by Snowden) and that he had "blood on his hands" even though no one has come to any harm. It also argued that David Miranda was detained after he got documents from Snowden in Moscow, despite the fact that he was neither in Moscow, nor had met Snowden (a claim the article quietly deleted). That same report also claimed that UK intelligence agency MI6 had to remove "agents" from Moscow because of this leak, despite the fact that they're not called "agents" and there's no evidence of any actual risk. So far, the only official response from News Corp. the publisher of The Sunday Times (through a variety of subsidiaries) was to try to censor the criticism of the story with a DMCA takedown request. Either way, one of the journalists who wrote the story, Tom Harper, gave an interview to CNN which is quite incredible to watch. Harper just keeps repeating that he doesn't know what's actually true, and that he was just saying what the government told him -- more or less admitting that his role here was not as a reporter, but as a propagandist or a stenographer.
Say it again, we live in a "Free" country. The man who penned the article has admitted to being a government "shill". The OP is nothing more than government disinformation. There is a consistant *Motis Operedni* spanning several decades to lead us to believe they do this regularly.
"London's Sunday Times" hm, I doubt any information coming from sources that usually spread warmongering lies. Besides, when you encrypt something with random data and XOR operation, there is no decryption technique in the world to decypher that, because there is no cypher. It is unbreakable encryption technique anyone can use - You just need randomly generated file, that is large as data you want to XOR and since no "fancy" algorithm is used - no decryption is possible.
Horsefuckery. Spying on government actions is not the same thing at all as spying on entire civilian populations. And to pretend that everything is equal here is as stupid as saying the Vatican is a military power on par with the entire U.S. military, as they both have guards with guns.
Because even if some other countries politicians are as keen on spying on every communication from every person on the planet as the NSA, they are as much in a physical or financial position to challenge the U.S. as the Vatican has in defeating the U.S. Army, Navy, and Air Force.