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?"

Comments

Proof

[bl968]

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.

Re:Proof

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

The timing is convenient.

I mean, last week, OPM gets pwned by $FOREIGN hax0rs. Everyone who's ever had a clearance, your SF-86 data has been compromised.

And today, out of the blue, agents (who, you know, tend to have clearances and whose real-life identities and/or cover identities may well have been compromised last week) are being pulled back, on account of ... Snowden?

The timing is *too* convenient.

Re:Proof

[knightmad]

Also it's a very interesting time. Right after they find out that the recent breach by the Chinese Government got the personnel files with information for all executive employees up to cabinet level (including the security clearance data) they reveal that the Chinese (and Russia) got secret personnel information after all via the Snowden leaks. Something seems weird about this timing.

Re:Proof

[Ly4]

It seems like their even disclosing the fact they know if the Russians and Chinese had access would be considered a state secret.
This. A thousand times this.

Did MI6 really blow sources in both China and Russia just so they could make Snowden look bad? Why would they do that?

It all sounds like the 'drained laptop' stories from early on in the Snowden saga, which turned out to be just speculation: http://publiceditor.blogs.nyti...

Re:Proof

[whoever57]

I will withhold my judgement on this until they release verifiable proof

Indeed. Does the NSA even have details of CIA operatives? Surely not, unless the NSA is spying on the CIA? In which case, WTF?

Re: Proof

[AvitarX]

Seems like of they embraced him as a citizen doing what was right, instead of sending him to Russia, things would be safer for mi6

Re:Proof

[binarylarry]

Oh right.

*WINK*

Re:Proof

[swilly]

Your theory would work if the agents that were pulled out were American, but British agents are unlikely to have an SF-86.

Re:Proof

[KGIII]

Yet, even if this story is true and this is a negative outcome, I still feel that Snowden was a patriot of the highest order. One does not need to be supportive of the current regime to be a patriot, in fact the reverse is the seeming greatest creator of patriots. This trend began with our founding fathers, dissent is a good thing at times.

Re:Proof

[ArmoredDragon]

Or SF86 wasn't the only data stolen, and the US government only chose to reveal that it was just SF86 stolen.

It wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if the US government has a lot of knowledge of basically every spy network in the world, allied and non-allied countries alike. It's called counter-surveillance, and the US has been doing it for a long time.

Re:Proof

[Runaway1956]

Agreed, 100%. And, I'll add that if the NSA and top government officials weren't such dickheads, Snowden probably never would have acted in the way he did. Government apologists tend to forget that a very large percentage of the NSA's spying is simply UNCONSTITUTIONAL. The NSA possesses all the tools to turn the US into a police state in short order. They are abusing those tools pretty badly. Who knows what the hell is going to happen in the next year, or ten years, if no one stands up to them now?

Partisans are quick to point out that Obama (or Bush, or Clinton, or whoever) would never do anything like that. The partisans are idiots, because THERE ARE people who would do all of that, and worse. I'm quite certain that General Alexander rationalizes how important his work is, and if he were allowed to act without fetters, he WOULD INDEED turn the US into a police state.

Re:Proof

[WolfWithoutAClause]

Well, there's a way to know, if they really have cracked it Snowden would be assassinated/kidnapped and repatriated soon. That cache was what was keeping him alive.

Failing that he'd have to go into hiding; and the Russians will be able to tell him whether that's necessary or not.

If that doesn't happen, it probably hasn't been cracked.

So we just have to watch what Snowden does.

Still, maybe it has been, the security agencies would have to be pretty damn stupid to not realise that gaping whole in the plan. But if Snowden doesn't disappear one way or another, then yup; they're that damn stupid.

Re:Proof

[aralin]

USA does not need a proof! If we say something you have to trust us! We are the good guys! You hate to trust us! Why would we lie? We are always right! How do you even dare to ask for proof? Traitor. Terrorist! We are coming for you!

Re:Proof

[dbIII]

He's an embarrassment to the NSA which is a good enough reason for the Russians to keep him fed and watered forever. "That cache was what was keeping him alive" is the sort of stuff Tom Clancy would have discarded as too ridiculous to put in his fiction.

Re:Proof

[Anonymous Coward]

So the NSA keeps a list of identities of MI6 members stored where some Hawaii-based contracted sysadmin has complete access to them.

And they trust him, his integrity and technical expertise enough that it takes years before they resort to action. And even then the purported reason is not that Snowden has been discovered to actually be a traitor, but rather that the technical tools even the U.S.A. had available for encryption were insufficient for guarding secrets.

If this is not a full-scale endorsement of Snowden and a thundering report of failure for U.S. intelligence politics, I don't know what is.

But more likely than not it is just a propaganda piece that the lying NSA scumbags could not be bothered to think through. But probably good enough for the American public.

Re: Proof

[Anonymous Coward]

As verbs:
Cause = effect
Alter = affect

http://grammar.yourdictionary....

It's fuzzy, but I think 'effect' would have been the better choice (and not worrying about it at all might have been an even better option for the AC higher in the thread :).

Re:Proof

[FirstOne]

More than likely the Russians or Chinese figured out how to use one of the backdoors the NSA was using to hack US databases. It sure looks like the backdoor the NSA found into JUNOS(Juniper routers) using SCHOOLMONTANA, SIERRAMONTANA, STUCCOMONTANA,, would be easy pickens once they retrieved a code sample from an infected routers.

After that it's just a matter of time before they turn the tables and use that same vulnerability to hack our networks.

Re:Proof

[Sneftel]

I agree. It would, however, also have been a colossal fuckup of the highest order, on his part. Encrypting a file in a way that is effectively uncrackable even by highly funded state agencies is not difficult these days.

Given that Snowden does not seem the sort for colossal fuckups, I'm a little incredulous of the report.

Re:Proof

[Livius]

You can't affect change until you effect it.

Re:Proof

[Livius]

They wouldn't blindly do something just because the Americans wanted them to. Remember, the British courageously stood up to the Americans and told them were wrong about invading Iraq.

Wait a minute, that was France...

Re:Proof

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would current-day hackers be unable to compromise the databases Snowden had regular sysadmin access to from Hawaii? Those are online. Snowden's stashes are offline and outdated. And individual agent lists were not the kind of stuff he was interested in anyway. He did not take an omnibus dump like Manning.

This really looks like scapegoating for a current-day whale-scale fuckup nobody wants to claim responsibility for.

Re:Proof

[IamTheRealMike]

There won't be any evidence offered, because this event is almost certainly a work of fiction. A careful reading of the articles and simply thinking things through will reveal colossal, gaping holes in the story the British government is peddling.

Firstly: we know beyond doubt that this story is at least partly fictional. We know this because the anonymous government sources (i.e. civil service officials) keep contradicting each other. We see for example this quote in the Independent, "However, despite a senior government official was quoted by the paper as saying that Snowden had "blood on his hands", Downing Street confirmed that there was “no evidence of anyone being harmed” as a result of his leaks". Different versions of the same story contradicting each other is a good sign that what we're being fed is a story: things always grow in the telling, especially when we're hearing a third or fourth hand account of what happened. The way US officials contradicted each other in the wake of the bin Laden assassination is a good example of that.

Secondly: this story asks us believe several extraordinary and completely implausible things.

In the UK foreign spying with people is the mandate of MI6, a separate agency to GCHQ, which handles signals intelligence only. It's like the split between the CIA and the NSA. Yet in several years of Snowden reporting there has never been any mention of documents from MI6. There has in fact only been a single mention of MI6 in the GCHQ/NSA documents, and that was a joint presentation about spying on climate change conferences! So the UK government is asking us to believe that journalists like Greenwald (who hates the UK because of the holding of his partner at Heathrow) would have a large cache of documents from an entirely separate agency and yet find nothing newsworthy in them at all ..... indeed, apparently MI6 is so boring that the existence of such documents isn't even worth mentioning? Apparently the UK has never done anything even embarrassing in many years of engaging in foreign HUMINT? That stretches the bounds of credulity beyond breaking point.

But it goes on. We are asked to swallow a second utterly ridiculous idea. Apparently the Russians and Chinese suddenly got access to a wealth of information on British spies, information so detailed it allowed them to be targeted:

The newspaper quoted a senior Home Office source as saying: “Putin didn't give him asylum for nothing. His documents were encrypted but they weren't completely secure and we have now seen our agents and assets being targeted.”

What normally happens when spies are caught? Well, they are normally arrested and tried, or at minimum thrown out of the country. Yet Downing Street is telling us that there was "no evidence of anyone being harmed". In short, we're being asked to believe that Russian and Chinese counter-intelligence suddenly found themselves with information so detailed that it amounts to a brain-dump of MI6, including lists of foreign agents ...... yet they walked away from the biggest gift in counter-intel history with nothing at all. Not a single arrest, not a single trial.

That the KGB and Chinese counter-intelligence are so incompetent defies belief - indeed, it is literally unbelievable.

There's a third totally implausible thing about this story. It asks us to believe that there is a cache of encrypted Snowden documents out there .... somewhere ..... and the Russians/Chinese were both able to obtain this cache, yet they could not obtain the accompanying password. So where did this cache come from? Again, the civil service is asking us to believe something utterly stupid: "Putin didn't give him a

Re:Proof

[Runaway1956]

It isn't YET a police state. We are close, but we haven't reached the point of no return. When the US actually becomes a police state, it will become illegal to even question authority. I can still question authority without going to prison. And, that is what all the "terrorism" bullshit really is. We are some indeterminate distance from two or three laws finally being passed that permits the local prosecutors to set up a kangaroo court, declare us to be terrorists, and have us shipped off to the FEMA camps that the militia groups are so concerned with. It's one thing for the feds to do it in rare instances, and cover it up. It is quite another thing for local prosecutors to do it brazenly.

Re:Proof

[Anonymous Coward]

I hate to sound evil or whatever, but I really hope this is what happened. Just to give them a taste of their own johnson to suck on.

Re: Proof

[Anonymous Coward]

I've heard that in the new release of the DSM-VI, "trying to explain human behavior rationally" is itself classified as delusional behavior.

Re:Proof

[Lord Apathy]

So the NSA keeps a list of identities of MI6 members stored where some Hawaii-based contracted sysadmin has complete access to them.

Wouldn't surprise me a bit if the did. As a system admin for over 20 years you would be surprised what you come across, what people trust you with and to do.

One bank I worked for all the terminals where secure with individual passwords, everything was secure. All but the backups. Everything was backup to tape that everyone in the IT department had access too. The backup tapes where not secure or tracked. Anyone with a IT badge could have walked in there, walked out with every customer record and it would have been weeks before it was noticed.

I was system admit at a real estate company. For years my job was to load weekly backups to a offsite location in the trunk of my car. This data contained every piece of data the company had from pay role to customer information.

One time when I was cleaning out an account for a former employee, on his unsecured home directory I came across a CSV file containing a dump of every customers account number, name, DOB, address, credit card numbers, SSN, and a lot more. If I wanted to commit a case of identity theft I could have made off like a bandit and nobody would have ever known.

Email admin. Almost every thing that goes on in a company now goes through the email system. A email admin could know more about the company than any one if he wanted too. What big deals are going down to who is sleeping with who in the office.

What it comes down to is people simply think that computers are all secure because they have no real clue how they work. The secretary at the front desk, she has no clue that her gossip is stored in plan text on a server that anyone in the IT department can read. Most CEO, CFO, BLTs, are the same way. They will email back and forth about the upcoming "big deal" they are working on.

Most people are simply ignorant on how computers really work.

Re:Proof

[AmiMoJo]

Indeed, it is actually a reaction to the report on mass surveillance that was published last week. This just "proves" the need to give the security services more powers to prevent another Snowden, except of course it's all just innuendo and anonymous sources.

Re:Proof

[ahabswhale]

Last I checked, the Congress isn't a database. Besides, that was the CIA -- not the NSA.

Re:Proof

[rtb61]

So somehow both the Russian Government and the Government of China both cracked the encryption at exactly the same time and the US government knew exactly when that happened. Now add to that both the US governments know exactly what police actions will be occurring in Russia and China, who is being sent out to arrest whom, so they have completely corrupted the policing records computers in Russia and China and are using those hacks to protect criminals that work for the US. I wonder how many police in those countries have been murdered when they got to close to protected individuals, members of organised crime or friendly terrorists being used by the US. I suppose I should keep mentioning the other four eyes Australia, Canada, New Zealand and UK but why bother 1 Cyclops and four muppets are not five eyes by any stretch of the imagination. Espionage agents are criminals of the worst order and actively seek to corrupt security arrangements in target countries with the lives of people in the target countries devalued to nothing to protect the criminal activities of those espionage agents. Fun and games in movies and video games but in real life not so much, closer to psychopathic animals on the rampage, ready to kill anyone who interferes no matter how innocently.

Re:Proof

[Jane Q. Public]

You're forgetting the context of GP comment I was replying to:

The NSA doesn't need a backdoor to hack US government databases. They have access to all that data anyway.

No, they don't.

Further, unless I am mistaken, your point is moot because the operation of the CIA that was hacking Congress... the one that was charged with spying on foreign embassies, etc. ... is a joint operation with NSA.

So I think you're nitpicking a bit too much.

Two questions need to be asked

[knightmad]

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.

Re:Two questions need to be asked

[mozumder]

Of course it wasn't worth it, because your privacy is far less important than your security.

When your privacy is violated, you only worry about bad things that "might" happen.

When your security is violated, those bad things actually DO happen.

This is why, in the real world, people care so little about privacy rights. It's only a theoretical problem, only for young libertarian idealists to worry about: "What if government does this or that?!" But grownups already have society modeled out, and are able to calculate through the end scenario of what actually does happen: "That bad thing you're worried about is possible because we have these other systematic checks." Of course, inexperienced people do not understand systems-level perspective, and have limited insight beyond what they see.

Like, right now, you actually think your privacy rights is more important than your competitive economic advantages you may have over Russian or China (economics is the REAL issue behind the Snowden leaks...)

We adults make fun of this sort of thing.

Re:Two questions need to be asked

[ShanghaiBill]

"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.

Re:Two questions need to be asked

[Pentium100]

Yea, with all the spying and wars, I am starting to have trouble seeing the difference between the USA and Russia, especially if looking at their foreign policy. Do something that either one of them dislikes and get a bomb on your head.

Re:Two questions need to be asked

[whoever57]

Of course it wasn't worth it, because your privacy is far less important than your security.

Maybe mine is, but what about members of Congress? How many members of Congress have secrets that can be used to influence votes? How many votes does it take to influence the policy of the US Government?

Let's face it, the "security threats" are vastly overblown. When teenage kids get get over airport fences we can be farly sure that terrorists are not trying.

We adults make fun of this sort of thing.

Not the real adults. Only the scared, little-minded people.

Re:Two questions need to be asked

[Fire_Wraith]

"Was it worth it?"

That's the question - not for Snowden, but for the policymakers, including both elected and career/appointed officials, that decided that it was worth discarding privacy concerns or worries that things were going too far, to the point that they finally pushed someone in their organization to blow the whistle? He wasn't even the first, either, just the biggest. Think of all the abuses we wouldn't have known about if it weren't for people like John Kiriakou or Thomas Drake, for instance. Classification of information is not meant as a shield to prevent wrongdoing from coming to light; yet that's exactly what some people try to use it as. They wring their hands and bemoan the fact that legitimate secrets were exposed in the course of bringing misconduct to light.

And yet, that is on their hands, at least in part, because if there wasn't wrongdoing covered up in the first place, I don't think any of those people would have risked ruining their lives and careers to expose things. Even if you're one of the people that thinks what was done wasn't wrong in the first place, is it really right in a democracy for that to be decided in secret? If half the country is going to be pissed off if they knew what you were up to, that should be a sign that you shouldn't just get a secret order approving it, it needs to go before a public debate.

Re:Two questions need to be asked

[Hevel-Varik]

This should not have been modded troll. It's different opinion. The support for the contention is provided. It's not the favored opinion on this website but since when does an out of favor view get down-modded her (I kid, I kid).

Seriously, you guys who mod down things you don't agree with make this site poorer than it should be.

Re:Two questions need to be asked

[KGIII]

I disagree, entirely, with everything you said but I am not sure why you are modded troll. I believe you legitimately believe what you state to be true, and I see the logic behind your view - but I disagree with your conclusions and your initial starting point. I want privacy, I will accept the lost security. I accept that people, maybe even my friends and family, may die. It is a rough world and shit happens. We, my friends and family, do not sit and worry about the potential outcomes from insecurity. We do, however, all pretty much agree that we do not want our details/data being harvested and warehoused by people who have no business with that data.

I will not sit silent while my rights are eroded to make you sleep better. I will protest and, eventually, I will leave. I am not a person you want to leave. I imagine you think that Capital Gains taxes are low. Rest assured that I paid more in taxes last year than you have paid in the last five - coupled with property taxes it may be greater than your ten year contribution. Additionally, I am vocal *and* running for the State Senate. I am actually on your side. You do not want me to leave.

See, I do not see the two as mutually exclusive. It is possible to have privacy AND security. We already have really good laws that allow this. What we are missing is a warrant, preferably in an open court though I think it is acceptable to use John Doe as the plaintiff's name. When we see something intrinsically wrong with an open and honest government then we are going to get a dishonest and closed government. When we make knee-jerk reactionary legislation we are going to get unforeseen outcomes.

We have committed some atrocities in the name of freedom as of late. When I say "we" I do mean you and I. This is not a 'royal we' or the likes. We are the government, the government is our people. We have done some horrific things but it is not too late for reparations and it is not too late for rehabilitation. I do not mean the cliché when I say this country needs an intervention. The last time we had an intervention it was some crazy bastards who smashed airplanes into people. Let us hope we can have an intervention before it reaches that point again.

We can do both of these things. We can monitor the bad guys without listening to Grandma's conversation with Aunt Betty about how it is a shame that her great-grandson will not be producing heirs because he caught the gay when he went off to that liberal college. We can have privacy while still giving up some information when we want to get on a plane - like an ID and a reasonable check for weapons. What we do not need is invasive searches for security theater or having to censor ourselves so the TLA listening in to our calls/conversations with friends do not witness our displeasure with the government. We do not need a gestapo nor do we need to insist the government can know nothing about us. Moderation is not the enemy and commonsense is not extinct.

Re:Two questions need to be asked

[Runaway1956]

Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
        Benjamin Franklin

You may of course do some searches regarding this quote. Some argue that the quote is applied improperly in most cases. Others argue that today's world is far to complex for the quote to have any meaning. Whatever interpretation of his words you choose to believe in, I assert that reading the words in their plainest meaning applies.

In short, only damned fools are willing to concede any right or any freedom or any liberty for the sake of safety.

Re: Two questions need to be asked

[FlyHelicopters]

If it results in a society with no secrets where everybody knows everybody else's secret, would it be ok for people in power like Hastert to have had relations with male student? I mean, everybody would know already.

I don't care, so long as it is consensual, knock himself out, not my business.

Frankly, such things being in the open remove one more way for people to try and blackmail him.

Sadly, most people aren't that enlightened and vote based on petty reasons, rather than important ones.

Re:Two questions need to be asked

[cold fjord]

Maybe you should reread that quote since you don't seem to agree with what it states.

Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. -- Benjamin Franklin

It seems to me that you haven't thought about these issues seriously in light of the activities of Washington and Franklin as intelligence masters during the Revolutionary War, and more generally how civil liberties are expressed in peace versus wartime.

Re:Two questions need to be asked

[cold fjord]

Why is all the blame heaped on Snowden?

Because he is the one that arrogantly ignored the democratic process, stole a massive store of intelligence documents, incompetently encrypted them, and made them available for friend and foe alike, and then fled to be among Americas adversaries. Surely you must see some room for assigning culpability to him?

What about "the actions of the NSA"?

The NSA didn't make the documents available to China and Russia. Snowden did.

Running a massive illegal spying operation on the American people,

You mean the copies of the phone records of many, but not all, Americans? That was repeatedly authorized, including by courts. The fact that there is a single recent court decision against it doesn't change that, and may just mean more trips through the courts where it will probably be upheld in the end.

lying about it in sworn congressional testimony,

That isn't actually true either. Congress gets briefed on those programs behind closed doors. What you are referring to is actually the actions of a reckless Senator who was grandstanding in open session.

and having no effective confidential channel for whistleblowers,

CONGRESS. Snowden could have gone to CONGRESS. He didn't. Snowden is culpable.

they deserve far more blame for this than Snowden does.

We've dealt with this - the entire blame is Snowden's.

Re:Two questions need to be asked

[Jiro]

However, Snowden *could* have informed US citizens of US government secret domestic surveillance activities, without taking *any* classified information outside the US.

Doing that would just get him tried and sentenced in secret.

Re:Two questions need to be asked

[Runaway1956]

More American citizens have been killed by police officers than by terrorists this year. How do you explain that? You go ahead and run around in circles, worrying about terrorists making the sky fall. I'm far more worried about what my own government is doing. Mohammed Camelbreath has to swim a couple thousand miles to poase any threat to me. The bastards in Washington merely have to pick up a telephone to fuck me over.

Re:Two questions need to be asked

[JaredOfEuropa]

See, I do not see the two as mutually exclusive. It is possible to have privacy AND security.

This is key. In fact, it's not just that they are not mutually exclusive; I think that there isn't even a strong relationship between the two. There's little or no trade-off, and having our privacy violated in the many ways it has been in the past years is not buying us a lot more security. Security is an excuse to violate our privacy. In rare, individual cases a valid one... and I fully agree that surveillance in such cases ought to be possible but require transparent laws and regulations, proper oversight, and real consequences for violations. We ought to be able to trust our government (I am Dutch by the way but the situation is largely the same), but they have shown us precious little trustworthiness in this matter. No proper rules (or any rules at all), no oversight, no punishment, and not even the basic IT smarts to keep sensitive data save. I wouldn't trust these guys with my phone number...

Snowden leaking details of operations on foreign soil along with details of domestic violations of privacy is another matter of course. But lets not forget that privacy was Snowden's motivation, and he has been rather careful in releasing snippets of information and securing the rest. Maybe he messed up with the encryption, or the capabilities of the Russian and Chinese governments proved too strong. Still worth it. And I am not at all convinced yet that Snowden's cache has indeed been cracked; the who thing is suspiciously convenient for embarrassed spy agencies.

Re:Two questions need to be asked

[cosmicaug]

cold fjord writes:

Why is all the blame heaped on Snowden?

Because he is the one that arrogantly ignored the democratic process, stole a massive store of intelligence documents, incompetently encrypted them, and made them available for friend and foe alike, and then fled to be among Americas adversaries.

I was unaware that the activities of the NSA were carried out under the auspices of the "democratic process". We live in a representative democracy. When someone like Bruce Schneier (who has access to the Snowden documents) can meet with legislators (that is, the people who are supposed to be our representatives in this democracy) and tell them what our government is doing rather than the other way around, I think it can be argued that the activities of the NSA no longer constitute part of a democratic process but rather, an arrogant ignoring of the democratic process (as you put it).

Re:Two questions need to be asked

[gtall]

Tell you what, go to Moscow and get on a soap box and tell the Russians what a pisshead Putin is. Now go to Washington and get on a soap box and tell the Americans what a pisshead Obama is? What? You never made it out of Moscow?

Re:Two questions need to be asked

[Runaway1956]

Tamir Rice? You need to get a grip on reality. Please note that I am not, nor have I ever defended Michael Brown. But there are dozens of young black men who have been killed by gung-ho ass-wipe cops out to make a name for themselves. Babies killed during police break ins when they toss a grenade into an occupied apartment. A decorated Marine veteran killed because he refused to take some medications. Some retard killed on his own front porch, because he didn't want to get in the car to go to a doctor's appointment.

I repeat - more Americans have been murdered by police than have died due to terrorist activity.

Mmm hmm.

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Could be a false flag...

[Anonymous Coward]

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

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:The first question that comes to my mind

[Runaway1956]

I think it is probably safe to assume that the cryptography was cracked. Throw enough resources at a encryption problem, it becomes a matter of time until it's cracked. I believe that both Russia and China were willing to throw massive resources at the encryption. So, whether the story is accurate or not, I'll presume that the encryption is compromised.

Re:The first question that comes to my mind

[Ly4]

Throw enough resources at a[n] encryption problem, it becomes a matter of time until it's cracked.

That is completely wrong, unless you define 'enough time' as 'longer than the age of the universe'.

More here (scroll down to the quote from Applied Cryptography): https://www.schneier.com/blog/...

Re:The first question that comes to my mind

[Ly4]

The insurance files were different - that was Wikileaks. There wasn't anything available generally like that from Snowden.

Re:The first question that comes to my mind

[Ly4]

The Wikileaks folks asked everyone to make copies of their files: http://yro.slashdot.org/story/...

I'm not aware of Snowden doing anything similar, nor of any indication that the Wikileaks files contained any of Snowden's material.

Nothing to hide, nothing to fear?

[inzy]

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...

Propaganda

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Propaganda

[FirstOne]

It's more likely that "Chinese hack of federal personnel files included security-clearance database" was responsible for the recall.

Snowden didn't post any files on the net.. He met his contacts in person in Hong Kong and hand delivered them (USB?) to Greenwald(reporter) and Poitras(film maker) in person. He claimed that he did not take any of NSA files on his laptops with him to Russia./P

Decrypted?

[ptaff]

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.

Re:Decrypted?

[Outtascope]

Or maybe the clinical stupidity of the US Government mandating backdoors in cryptography (either officially or covertly) has just been clearly illustrated. But then it would be absolutely impossible for anyone but friendly forces of the US Government to exploit such a thing, right?

Re:Decrypted?

[paulatz]

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.

Either that, or the encryption used contains a backdoor that Snowden was not aware of, but some Chinese and/or Russian secret services were. If this is true, it would justify all on its own Snowden leaks.

Re:Aftermath

[inzy]

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.

You missed a few:
- a semblance of transparency for US citizens in what their government is doing
- cessation of some of the programmes
- the overthrow of several dictatorships in the middle east
but hey, you keep worrying about the profits of some rich folk who hate you, that's really important
Oh yeah, and your last point was wrong

Or Just to Create the News Story Itself

[Kunedog]

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?

Weak encryption

[hawguy]

Too bad strong encryption wasn't available to him -- was whatever "weak encryption" he used known to the NSA as being vulnerable?

Re:Weak encryption

[cold fjord]

Too bad strong encryption wasn't available to him -- was whatever "weak encryption" he used known to the NSA as being vulnerable?

Your post is bullshit. Snowden had AES available to him, the same encryption method authorized to encrypt TOP SECRET information for the US government. NSA wouldn't let it be used if there was a meaningful weakness for protecting TOP SECRET information.

You're looking in the wrong direction. You're looking at technology when you should be looking at Snowden's choices, among them: What was really on those laptops claimed to be "empty"? Snowden was booted from the CIA for crossing the line with his computer access and for changes in his personality. He lied and cheated to get his job at NSA. He lied while he was at NSA. When did the lying stop .... if it did?

Bankers

[hackus]

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.

Re:Aftermath

[Anonymous Coward]

And Snowden is responsible for all this, right? If you are going to blame someone, how about you blame the right group of people, like the US administration? Snowden just pointed out to the 1984 like environment we all live in. This was already known to some extent but not proven and all he did was provide the proof. If you are doing "nothing wrong" (as Google execs like to repeat at every opportunity), how about you leave the bathroom door wide open while you are going about your business? Better yet, how about a live cam feed from your bedroom so we can watch you all the time ;)?

Propaganda - Unless They Are Fucking Idiots

[theshowmecanuck]

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 call bullshit

[msobkow]

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.

Re:I call bullshit

[cold fjord]

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?

Maybe they had help and this is only a delayed announcement to throw people off? What was Snowden doing while he stayed at the Russian embassy in Hong Kong? Why did they throw him a birthday party there? What was really on the laptops he took with him?

The true Bullshit is to believe that Snowden's actions were for our benefit.

Re:Aftermath

[Pentium100]

- American IT companies are losing billions because foreign customers are scared

Those poor companies! They will make a few billions less after getting truckloads of money from the government to introduce backdoors in their supposed secure products. Maybe next time those companies choose to protect the privacy of their customers...

- Intelligence networks are fucked

They will be rebuilt, however, spying on citizens may be reduces somewhat.

- Nothing whatsoever has changed in the way government agencies spy on US citizens

Except that the people now now about this and can take more precautions against being spied on.

Keep the real story off the news ..

[nickweller]

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

Websites full of words

[WaffleMonster]

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.

Re: Why is all the blame heaped on Snowden?

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:It was bound to happen.

[zugmeister]

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.

"bad Americans". Like all the ones that use electronic communications, you mean those bad Americans?
Does the fact that China and Russia do something unjust make it OK for America to do that thing to its own citizens?
What if it was ruled illegal in federal court. Would that affect your viewpoint?
I'm not sure you've really thought this through...

Well . . .

[hduff]

That's what they would like you to believe. Snowden makes a very convenient scapegoat for all manner of government fumbles.

Back up a minute here

[sjames]

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?

Re:Back up a minute here

[Lawrence_Bird]

Very good at restating the NSA party line. They have no idea what he took or did not take and the figure you site is their guess at the maximum.

Further - TFA is talking about MI6. NSA has nothing to do with MI6 agents or assets and its pretty unlikely that any NSA documents are going to reference operational assets of another agency (ie, CIA) let alone a foreign one.

You may not have noticed that UK is having a marginally interesting "debate" on just how far up their ass they want to let their government spooks look. I'm just shocked that a story like this would be planted in one of the less reputable press outlets at the same time.

If any assets or agents have been exposed, far more likely it is due to their own incompetence. If an Italian prosecutor can figure it all out then so can the Russian and Chinese counterintel officers who do that type of thing for a living.

Both the CIA and MI6 have become increasingly ameteurish since the end of the cold war. Snowden is just a convenient foil.

Oh come on!

[Cafe Alpha]

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.

Re:Why did archive go beyond domestic surveillance

[Runaway1956]

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.

Re:Aftermath

[KGIII]

I see where you are coming from and, I think, I see where you are going. I understand, I think, and do not intend to be malicious so bear with me if you will.

Citation needed on the truckloads of money part. They were likely paid and it was likely a paltry sum compared to your envisioned truckloads.

"...may be[sic] reduces..." It may increase as well. Using weasel words is not an effective statement. You are correct in that maybe the spying reduces. That is a potential outcome. It seems unlikely to me but we can hope. I appreciate your optimism but I think your hoped-for outcome may take a while longer yet. I think that Snowden got the ball rolling but it is up to us to keep up the momentum until we get what we want or a reasonable compromise.

I know of nobody who has changed their practices - those who are using encryption were using it before (as an example). Literally, I know of angry folks but not one of them has changed their practices to better secure their privacy. Realistically, how can they? There is nothing they can not scrape and gather data from - unless you go through some very extreme measures. So, can they? Yes but to what effect? How many people do you know, and be honest with yourself and us, who have actually made changes to their habits due to this and have stuck with those changes ever since they made them?

As I have stated, I think Snowden is a patriot of the highest degree. I do not think his release of information is enough to affect much change - I think we need to keep being vocal and keep insisting on a more open and law abiding government. Think of it like this, there were many heroes in WWII but not a single one of them actually won the war. We need to keep the motivation high and continue to apply pressure or they will continue the behavior.

A response to UK powers "undemocratic" report?

[hazeii]

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!

How do you know?

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:How do you know?

[sumdumass]

I'm not sure how you got this idea. Not all spy agencies are going to publicly explain activity they take or even disclose they took any steps. Usually there's some political motivation associated with such disclosure but we cannot assume a lie because of lack of information. Spy agencies do not operate like you and your friends on Twitter and Facebook.

Re:How do you know?

[Gr8Apes]

Anything anyone related to a spy agency says should be considered a lie until proven true. It's in their job description.

Re:How do you know?

[davester666]

You need to go up the food chain. "Anything anyone related to a gov't says should be considered a lie until proven true. It's in their job description."

Re:More important 3rd question ...

[MechaStreisand]

The answer is a definitive YES. A country that spies on the entire world deserves to have its secrets spilled. There are no legitimate US intelligence programs. He shouldn't have encrypted anything: he should have dumped everything immediately to everyone.

Propaganda

[Dunbal]

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.

As usual

[nospam007]

1. Pretend that you have decrypted the files.
2. Observe suspected agents to see who is fleeing.
3. Profit.

Re:Aftermath

[TapeCutter]

the overthrow of several dictatorships in the middle east

Not really, just added more fuel to the fire. It was actually the worst drought in 10kyr history of the fertile crescent that triggered the "Arab Spring", akin to the dust bowl years in the US but in the food bowl of N.Africa and the M.E. It also coincided with sever drought in Australia and Russia, grain prices skyrocketed out of the reach of normal Arabs.

Two million Syrians (10% of the population) abandoned their farms and moved into the cities, and there were regular food riots in Cairo and other major cities before anyone had heard of Snowden! The Arabs didn't all suddenly log on to FB and work out they were being oppressed, they became hungry, and when people become hungry they get desperate and unpredictable. The spark that ignited the powder keg was the guy who set himself on fire in the town square, go google WHY he set himself on fire and then ponder why that resonated so strongly across an Arab world where even the "middle class urbanites" were struggling to feed their families.

The other two points are spot on. :)

Jane, you ignorant slut ...

[CaptainDork]

... 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

Re:Jane, you ignorant slut ...

[AmiMoJo]

Snowden has stated that he got access to documents and accounts at higher levels than his own access allowed by simply telling people with access that he needed their password to log in and fix something. Apparently security training at the NSA is pretty poor.

Re:More important 3rd question ...

[Charliemopps]

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.

That's the problem, there were no files (as far as we know) that contain the kind of information you describe.

Deeply worrying

[jrq]

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....

Anyway

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Greenwald's reply

[ameline]

https://firstlook.org/theinter...

Re:Greenwald's reply

[Areyoukiddingme]

What's sad about Glen Greenwald's response is what the Sunday Times will do later. Mr. Greenwald's article repeatedly uses the phrase "retraction-worthy fabrications," but the actions of the Times already indicates that we're past that now. Newspapers as propaganda arms of the UK government, in the worst traditions of Soviet Russia and East Germany during the Cold War, are now firmly entrenched.

One of the extremely few verifiable lies (as opposed to the numerous unverifiable lies) has been silently deleted from the online version of the Sunday Times. It was not retracted. It was not corrected. It was not apologized for. It just vanished. The Times claimed David Miranda was "seized at Heathrow in 2013" in possession of 58,000 NSA documents after meeting Mr. Snowden in Moscow. (Because it quoted a number, it must be true, right?) At the time, David Miranda had never been to Moscow and had never met Mr. Snowden. That blatant, verifiable lie got stuffed into the memory hole. Which improved the quality of the writing a microscopic amount. David Miranda was detained, not seized, but "seized" has a higher negative connotation rating in the thesaurus all Murdoch properties use to compose their texts and they were going for maximum negativity in this article, which is why they squeezed in the reference to David Miranda at all. Times readers were to be reminded that Glenn Greenwald is gay, so they would instantly ignore any rebuttal or response. Overreaching for the anti-gay, got caught in a lie.

Given what they did with the verifiable lie, we can readily guess that the unverifiable lies will simply stand. They will never be retracted. They will never be corrected. They will never be apologized for. The Times will maintain the blatant lies for all time, and the readers of the Times will never know they have been lied to, because the readers of the Times don't read anything else. It's Soviet propaganda at its finest. Mikhail Suslov would be proud of Rupert Murdoch.

No, it's all Snowden

[DrYak]

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 !

BS

[wilson.sl.fung]

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.

Secret files, uh?

[Godwin O'Hitler]

Were they in a folder called "Secret file folder" on a machine named "Top secret. Do not look"?

Re:unneccessary use

[Steve B]

Perhaps if they weren't so busy snooping on the rest of us, they would have paid attention to specific warnings about the Boston Marathon bombers, the preexisting terrorism-related criminal record of the Garland shooter, etc.

Re:Aftermath

[Steve B]

You want a citation? Here's a citation:

In 2013, Reuters reported that documents released by Edward Snowden indicated that the NSA had paid RSA Security $10 million to make Dual_EC_DRBG the default in their encryption software, and raised further concerns that the algorithm might contain a backdoor for the NSA.

infosec 101...

[pointbeing]

Never let a hostile agent know his operations were successful.

Re:More flaws

[arth1]

It smells of domestic propaganda when the US has upcoming elections.

I'm not sure it has anything to do with the elections, but it sure has a putrid smell of wanting to justify condemning Snowden as a traitor, pointing to "evidence" that he did harm.
Which, coming from organizations that have been proven to lie to us by the same Snowden doesn't seem all that credible without anything to back it up except their word. I know just how much value I put on their word.

It's also rather unclear how they can say that the intel came from Snowden, and not, say, someone hacking into a system, or a real mole turning info over. How could they possibly know the source, given that the intel likely is duplicated in hundreds of places?

Indeed

[BlueCoder]

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?