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Snowden Speculates Leak of NSA Spying Tools Is Tied To Russian DNC Hack (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Two former employees of the National Security Agency -- including exiled whistleblower Edward Snowden -- are speculating that Monday's leak of what are now confirmed to be advanced hacking tools belonging to the U.S. government is connected to the separate high-profile hacks and subsequent leaks of two Democratic groups. Private security firms brought in to investigate the breach of the Democratic National Committee and a separate hack of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee have said that the software left behind implicates hackers tied to the Russian government. U.S. intelligence officials have privately said they, too, have high confidence of Russian government involvement. Both Snowden and Dave Aitel, an offensive security expert who spent six years as an NSA security scientist, are speculating that Monday's leak by a group calling itself Shadow Brokers is in response to growing tensions between the U.S. and Russia over the hacks on the Democratic groups. As this post was being prepared, researchers with Kaspersky Lab confirmed that the tools belong to Equation Group, one of the most sophisticated hacking groups they've ever investigated. "Why did they do it?" Snowden wrote in a series of tweets early Tuesday morning. "No one knows, but I suspect this is more diplomacy than intelligence, related to the escalation around the DNC hack." In a brief post of his own, Aitel agreed that Russia is the most likely suspect behind both the Democratic hacks and the leaking of the NSA spying tools. He also said the NSA data was likely obtained by someone with physical access to an NSA secure area who managed to walk out with a USB stick loaded with secrets.
K, thanks for the speculation.
... they got copies of hacking tools used by the NSA. Are the two related?
If so, why did the DNC have NSA hacking tools?
If not, what is the reason for tying the stories together?
Weird that my draft committed suicide as I attempted to reply... Reminds me of http://www.huffingtonpost.com/... in some ways...
Anyway, the introduction to my comment is that I don't like or dislike Hillary, but she is clearly well qualified to be president and the Donald is clearly fundamentally not qualified. The HuffPo piece is just one more angle on why not.
Therefore I believe that a Trump victory would be quite similar to a decapitation strike. Insofar as America has real enemies including Putin and Daesh, they would obviously be motivated to do anything they can to help Trump win. Hacking the DNC is one angle, but I'm more concerned about a major terrorist strike timed just before the election. America's enemies may be crazy, but they aren't stupid.
Cue the crazy trolls. Actually, I'm not convinced all of Trump's trolls are crazy. Even the ones that seem to be sincere might be faking it, like Trump himself. Actually makes more sense to me that some of them are paid to fake it (perhaps by Putin and his fiends). (Apologies to Rocky and Bullwinkle, eh?)
Right before posting, I always <ctrl>-A/<ctrl>-C to grab a copy of the text. That way if the system hiccups, I can open a local text file and save the text while I straighten things out. Has saved my bacon bunch of times.
On your point about Hillary being qualified, and not trying to provoke an emotional response, I took the trouble to research Hillary's decisions and accomplishments over the last 16 years.
And came up empty.
There's not a single moment that I could find, no decision or action or award, that Hillary can point to with pride and say "I did this!". The best I can come up with is that she was elected as senator.
Since you think she's qualified, can you help me out by justifying that a bit? I mean... is there *anything* you can point to that forms the basis of your opinion?
I don't mean "she's not Trump", either. I could just as well vote for the Green or Libertarian candidate, and they're also not Trump.
What has she actually *done* that merits your support?
(Note that I'm trying not to be trollish, and I haven't thrown any insults. Please keep that in mind when responding.)
Slashdot is getting ADD.
Go, read entire series of Snowden's twits on the subject. The whole point is: this disclosure is a warning shot. Imagine if the rest of the files will reveal targets, personally identifiable info on perpetrators, provable attribution etc. God forbid malware targets are in NATO countries or some such. This thing might explode into a serious international scandal.
Russians are mentioned simply because they might have better motives for pulling this off (with some tit-for-tat hacking going on right now). But that's beside the point.
Who writes articles like this? Why would Snowden be making such statements. What did he mean when they say "NSA data was likely obtained by someone with physical access to an NSA secure area who managed to walk out with a USB stick loaded with secrets." "calling itself Shadow Brokers is in response to growing tensions between the U.S. and Russia over the hacks on the Democratic groups" It reads like propaganda to me. I don't believe Snowden is in Russia and also still a reliable source of information, especially on matters to do with Russia... a nation with the potential to take over the media and even explode journalists. You can believe what you like about Snowden and the NSA, but trusting the info stream from Snowden inside of Russia is stupid.
The hacked emails show that the media colluded with the Hillary campaign to shut Bernie out. That story lasted less than 1 day before those same media entities changed the story to focus on the Russian hacker speculation, which was then followed by several days of talking about how Trump supposedly asked Russia to hack the DNC.
Look -> Squirrel.
Actually makes more sense to me that some of them are paid to fake it (perhaps by Putin and his fiends).
But Hillary actually is paying people to pretend to support her online. Look up "Correct the Record."
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
The GOP wasn't hacked cuz it was self-destructing on its own and didn't need any help from Russia to fall completely apart.
Also there is this possibility that Trump is a Russian agent, doing what he does best, to be rewarded with ownership of a prime vacation palace on the shores of the Crimea. I'm not saying that's what's going on... I mean you just got to wonder. You know? What with being so chummy with Vladimir. It could be.... we'll have to wait and see where Trump goes after he drops out of the race... but I'm just speculating. You know?
The material walked out with a real human. It was then given to the press. More of a US Watergate informant talking to the press about their day job than any real hacking.
The US cover story sold to the press is that super smart nations got into the US political party computers, stayed in over some time totally undetected, got the data out in bulk and just left a huge amount of logs showing their tool sets and real ip ranges.
Smart enough to get in, stay but no skills in covering their origins or method.... methods that got presented to the waiting US press in full.
The covering up of another cleared, trusted person walking out the press with material had to be covered up.
Blame another nation, roll out their methods to friendly US press to sell the spy plot globally. Hope to sell the hacking fantasy to the tech sector.
The second story is some NSA tool set got found in use online and master keys to many US brands of OS, telco equipment. More people will be able to go totally undetected or create their own bespoke malware per OS just as security experts warned thanks to junk crypto standards. Lots of ex staff, former staff, nations that worked with the US have had access to the same skills, tools.
Given to them by the US or borrowed by dual citizen staff, methods kept after projects together. With so many tools floating around, in use, it was only a matter of time until someone tracked the tool sets back and got a copy in the wild...
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Why? Russia would want the world to know that nobody's information is safe from them. Even if they weren't involved in this attack at all, there is utility in the rest of the world believing they were. There is a lot of power in having your adversaries think you are capable of something even if you really aren't.
"Exiled" is perfectly applicable. Quit trying to assign your own made-up meanings to words and you'll be much happier.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
"Exiled" can also simply mean, "No longer living in one's homeland and disinclined to go back." It's not necessarily a thing that is done *to* someone.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Were some abracadabra Cyrillic-looking characters left behind? But it is not only Russian language which uses non-Latin alphabet.
Only one thing she *could* accomplish: saving the Supreme Court from being packed with right-wing, misogynist (but I repeat myself) psychos that by comparison would even make Scalia look like an actual jurist instead of the corrupt partisan hack that he was.
Then again, I don't think a GOP-controlled Senate will ever again let any Democratic president appoint another judge at any level, let alone a Supreme. That is their most effective way of delaying (denying) true social progress in the USA - especially the overturning of Citizens United (the Dred Scott of the modern era).
I don't believe Snowden is in Russia
I do. There aren't really a lot of places he could be and be protected from being killed or forcibly brought back to stand trial in the USA. Given that both his father and girlfriend have both been seen getting on flights to Moscow to visit him, you seem to be suggesting a highly unlikely scenario here.
and also still a reliable source of information, especially on matters to do with Russia... a nation with the potential to take over the media and even explode journalists. You can believe what you like about Snowden and the NSA, but trusting the info stream from Snowden inside of Russia is stupid.
Now you are dead on the money with this comment, but I got branded a troll here the last time I made a post suggesting something negative about Snowden. We'll see how yours does.
Dave Aitel DID NOT SAY the DNC hack was the Russians. He said THIS hack was the Russians. Snowden similarly did not say the DNC hack was the Russians, he said THIS hack was, and that it was related to the eacalation after the DNC hack--that is, accusations toward Russia afterwards. There is zero evidence that the DNC hack was rhe Russians, nor that it was even so sophistocated as to require a state actor.