The NSA Leak Is Real, Snowden Documents Confirm (theintercept.com)

Sam Biddle, reporting for The Intercept: On Monday, A hacking group calling itself the "ShadowBrokers" announced an auction for what it claimed were "cyber weapons" made by the NSA. Based on never-before-published documents provided by the whistleblower Edward Snowden, The Intercept can confirm that the arsenal contains authentic NSA software, part of a powerful constellation of tools used to covertly infect computers worldwide. The provenance of the code has been a matter of heated debate this week among cybersecurity experts, and while it remains unclear how the software leaked, one thing is now beyond speculation: The malware is covered with the NSA's virtual fingerprints and clearly originates from the agency. The evidence that ties the ShadowBrokers dump to the NSA comes in an agency manual for implanting malware, classified top secret, provided by Snowden, and not previously available to the public. The draft manual instructs NSA operators to track their use of one malware program using a specific 16-character string, "ace02468bdf13579." That exact same string appears throughout the ShadowBrokers leak in code associated with the same program, SECONDDATE. SECONDDATE plays a specialized role inside a complex global system built by the U.S. government to infect and monitor what one document estimated to be millions of computers around the world. Its release by ShadowBrokers, alongside dozens of other malicious tools, marks the first time any full copies of the NSA's offensive software have been available to the public, providing a glimpse at how an elaborate system outlined in the Snowden documents looks when deployed in the real world, as well as concrete evidence that NSA hackers don't always have the last word when it comes to computer exploitation.

Comments

Soooo

[OverlordQ]

> classified top secret, provided by Snowden, and not previously available to the public.

But it was available to Wikileaks. Occam Razor says hacking wikileaks is probably easier.

Re:Soooo

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a hash contained in the documents mcfly.
You get paid much for that comment?
SIGINT DC has been teh suck since it got outsourced.

Occam's Razor says DC is on this place like flies, watch it.

Re:Soooo

[Anonymous Coward]

seriously, when will government employess, contractor or not, realise that LYING should not be part of their job description.

Re: Soooo

[Anonymous Coward]

Who is this Occam and where did he get his razor?

Re: Soooo

[Alypius]

Doesn't matter, TSA nabbed it when he was flying out of DC.

Re:Soooo

[TheCarp]

When the paychecks stop coming.

Its very easy to ignore the truth when your salary requires it to not be taken into account.

Re:Soooo

[Anonymous Coward]

Wikileaks? They have nothing to do with it.

Re:Soooo

[harrkev]

Funny how the public keeps on electing people who have perfected lying to an art form.

Re: Soooo

[dasgoober]

Sounds like a Dollar Shave Club commercial in the making....

Re:Soooo

[Anonymous Coward]

When everybody on the planet pinky-swears to play nice and they dance around the maypole tossing flowers at each other you stupid fuckwit

Re:Soooo

[maharvey]

Its not surprising, as the signal to noise ratio is very low, and only a professional watchdog can begin to sort it all out. And even that doesn't help because there are also liars posing as watchdogs.

The internet only makes it worse, spewing like a fire hose.

Re:Soooo

[harrkev]

Interesting point about the watchdogs. Who actually IS a watchdog these days?

When I was a kid, you could generally trust the media. However, since the repeal of the "fairness doctrine," every media outlet is biased, and is really more of a propaganda machine than simply news.

Re:Soooo

[MachineShedFred]

The "fairness doctrine" never really helped, because it just caused the media to water down the problem in order to not piss anyone off. For example:

Congressional Republicans decide that the world is not a sphere, and must be flat.* Congressional Democrats send 180 Congressmen to give speeches from the Well in the US House of Representatives about how idiotic that is.

The headline? "Democrats and Republicans disagree on geometry of Earth"

That's what the so-called Fairness Doctrine gets us. When did we get the idea that facts were unfair, or biased?

I agree that the media is a fucking joke today compared to past eras, but that's more a function of corporate profitability and shrinking newsrooms than pandering to a specific audience. You can't write an investigative piece about something if you don't have any investigative journalists left working for you.

*note that I am not Republican bashing here - I'm just giving an absolutely ridiculous example meant to make the point very clear.

Re:Soooo

[boristdog]

When I worked for the federal government in the 80's, I had to break federal laws every day just to get my job done.

It is not an efficient system.

Re:Soooo

[harrkev]

Facts are not unfair or biased. However, media can (and often does) choose which facts need to be reported.

As a quick example, homicides are down over 50% since their peak around 1992 or 1993. The last time homicides were this low was 1957 (facts, based on FBI statistics). However, I have actually seen articles about "What (insert candidate name here) is going to do about gun violence?" This already assumes several things, and it is possible that NONE of them are true:

1) Gun deaths are somehow worse than knife deaths

2) A criminal without a gun will suddenly stop being a criminal

3) That doing something will automatically make the public safer, instead of just disarming the honest people.

4) Gun laws will actually affect criminals, whose job actually involves breaking the law.

Each of those points could be a discussion by itself, and yet some "news" pretends that all assumptions are already decided.

That is now news, that is propaganda. It is actually shaping the discussion to stack the deck in your favor.

Re:Soooo

[postbigbang]

No, the Fairness Doctrine didn't really cause this at all. Your knowledge of history is weak.

The result you cite hypothetically above is the result of three things:

1. Corporate media, sometimes called "journalists" aren't really journalists at all, and feed from a very narrow set of supplied "facts".

2. Public media journalists are routinely castrated, and create very little "journalism" on their own. They're scared of: CPB funding losses, and the barely breathing budgets of PBS and NPR affiliates.

3. The public gets their news from bias-side publications in the extreme, these days, and neutral, fact-filled sites are eschewed, in favor of their personal bias and so actual facts are difficult to find, and tougher still to verify and understand in context.

There is a journalism problem, as you cite. However, it's best to follow the money for the true answer, and go to the sites where the clickbait is comfortable for you.

Re:Soooo

[bugs2squash]

First of all hats off to you for making this about guns.

There are many many times more gun deaths than knife deaths in the USA each year So yes, gun deaths are much worse than any other form if only by the numbers.

A criminal without a gun is less likely to kill you, so while still a criminal he is far less of a criminal, criminality is a question of degrees, we've all broken a law at some point. To my mind any crime committed with a weapon of any kind (including non firearms) should be treated as an aggravated crime and punished more harshly. In other countries guns are rarely used in crimes and the death rate is correspondingly much lower

Reducing the number of guns and changing the types of guns in public hands in the USA will make the public safer, just as doing the same has achieved in other countries

All laws affect criminals' behavior in general, evidence shows that they generally try to avoid breaking the law (eg. avoid taking hostages) except for the specific purpose they have in mind because all that does is increase the risk

Go ahead and discuss the points all you like, I feel you missed a few, the arms race between the public and the police for example, that is not helping, or the increased likelihood of dying by a gun if you actually have one, apparently they don't magically make you or your children bulletproof. Or the dishonest representation of this being all or nothing, that people could not keep a shotgun to defend their home or a hunting rifle but give up the gang and paramilitary weapons

Re:Soooo

[harrkev]

I did not INTEND this to be a gun thread. I was just pointing out how the media can make ASSUMPTIONS that are not actually true!

Facts for you, besides the ones showing that the homicide rate is DECREASING. Quick! The streets are safer every year. DO SOMETHING TO REVERSE THIS HORRIBLE TREND!

We tried an "assault weapons ban" for 10 years. No noticeable affect on crime.

Over 300 millions guns in the US. 8,124 gun homicides in 2014. That means that for every gun used in a murder, there are were 37,000 that killed nobody. Yes, that means 0.027% of all guns are the problems.

In general, reducing the total number of guns will affect very little. Taking guns away from HONEST people will accomplish exactly NOTHING, and may even make things worse, since the honest can no longer defend themselves. There have been studies on this. Defensive gun use numbers vary based on the politics of the person doing the study, but even low-ball numbers are in the hundreds of thousands of incidents each year. High end ranges in several million, but around a million times a year seems to be the media. Yes, a million times a year guns are used to prevent or deter crime.

Some of the most violent places have the most strict gun laws! You may say that the guns come from areas with looser gun laws, but I will respond that those areas with looser gun laws have LESS VIOLENT CRIME. The net effect is that with strict gun laws, only the criminals are armed. If you have two cities: one with horrible crime and one that is doing OK, the obvious solution is to take the laws from the city that is failing and forcing those laws on the city that is doing great. That is like saying that a business that is making money should copy the business that is going bankrupt.

And please don't tell me that honest people don't stop crime with guns. An attempted mass shooting happened about one mile from where I live right now, and a good guy with a gun stopped a bad guy.

So, you have proven my point. Don't make Assumptions that are not proven.

Re:Soooo

[Altrag]

Sure its possible that none of them are true, but its likely that they are -- or at least they're closer to true than "ignoring a problem will magically solve it," which seems to be the route the NRA and friends would like to take.

1) Gun deaths aren't worse than knife deaths -- dead is dead. Its just a hell of a lot easier to kill someone with a gun than it is with a knife. This should be fairly obvious. If it wasn't true, then the army would use kitchenware rather than assault rifles.

2) They won't stop being a criminal. They'll stop being a criminal who can kill you from 20+ feet away with little chance of defending yourself.

3) and 4) are fairly interrelated. Basically the logic is that if there's less guns in the world in general, then there will be less guns for criminals to get their hands on. And if the criminals don't have guns to attack honest citizens with, the honest citizens have less need of a gun to defend themselves.

Obviously if you made a law tomorrow that required for the immediate surrender of all firearms, you'd be a bit of a moron. All of the honest weapons would be removed but the criminals by definition don't really care about the law so they'd still have their existing stashes, even if not a single new gun was ever produced.

If such a thing were to be implemented sanely, it would require a fairly extended (years.. possibly even decades) ramp-up to slowly reduce the existing public supply of firearms across the board rather than just suddenly disarming only the honest citizens and leaving the criminals to have a heyday.

Re:Soooo

[harrkev]

By the way, you are right about more gun deaths than knife deaths. However, it would be extremely foolish to think that by removing guns, that those killed by guns would still be alive. Most of those would just turn into knife deaths. And, once again, I point out that people killed by knives are JUST AS DEAD as those killed by guns. How many people were killed by a TRUCK in France last month? Do you think that all of those grieving relatives are happy that their loved ones were not killed by a gun? Shifting murder from one weapon to another does nothing.

Get rid of the guns, and you still have murderers who will use another tool. Get rid of the criminal, and there will be no murders, no matter what tools are available.

By the way, did you know that there is VERY LITTLE correlation between the availability of guns and the homicide rate? On the other hand, there is a VERY BIG correlation between poverty and violence. Chicago has the same gun laws throughout the city. However, some zip codes have no homicides each year, and some zip codes have quite a few! The difference is the poverty in each zip code. If you want to save lives, try doing something about the poverty. Provide jobs.

I should also point out that, yes, guns make it easier to kill many people -- like in France, where they have very strict gun laws, where the killers had guns. However, the odds of being the victim of a mass murder are approximately the same as being struck by lightning -- extremely rare and not a good enough reason to restrict the rights of MILLIONS of honest Americans who have hurt nobody.

Simply stated, there are people (like you) who want to tell everybody else how to live. There are people (like me) who just want to be left the hell alone to live my life without people like you poking your nose into my business.

Re:Soooo

[harrkev]

Ahhhh, another person who elevates assumptions to the level of facts.

1) Yes, guns are more powerful. However, the VAST majority of murders are in ones and twos. Mass murders are actually hardly a blip on the statistics. So can a person kill another person with only a knife? YES. In fact, it is possible to commit MASS murder with a knife. A couple of years ago, a guy near a college campus killed several people. He killed just as many people WITHOUT a gun as he did WITH a gun. Also, the army faces ENEMIES who are also armed, not innocent victims. A guy with a knife against an unarmed person still has a powerful advantage.

2) They will turn into a criminal who can kill you from three feet away with little chance of defending yourself.

2a) If the victim is armed, they might stand a chance. If you disarm the victim and the criminal still has at least a knife, they are still pretty screwed.

3) Less guns for the criminal to get their hands on comes about by disarming the VICTIMS. Yeah, right. Explain to me how disarming me makes me any safer. I have killed zero people. I have shot zero people. I have stabbed zero people. Disarming me only makes things safer for criminals that would seek to harm me or my family.

So, yeah, thanks of proving my point AGAIN that the media can make assumptions that sane people will still disagree on.

Re: Soooo

[Anonymous Coward]

So how do we overthrow our government when it's necessary, with knives? By disarming the people that means disarming the police and military because they're people, right? Are we to blindly trust our government like all the sheep in other countries?

Re:Soooo

[Anonymous Coward]

> classified top secret, provided by Snowden, and not previously available to the public.

But it was available to Wikileaks. Occam Razor says hacking wikileaks is probably easier.

It doesn't really matter at this point, does it?
Whatever caused the leak will not go away. It might be different persons behind it every time but the leaks will keep coming.

If information is too important to be public then it should be obvious for everyone that NSA can't be trusted to keep i secret.
If you allow NSA to monitor your communication you might just as well do the communication in public or invite everyone who might be interested in listening.
Foreign nations doesn't even need to spy on companies individually. NSA have collected it all for them.

Re: Soooo

[Anonymous Coward]

Lol...americans and their guns...ahhh...and the tacky shithole they live in.

Always good for a laugh.

Re:Soooo

[Altrag]

1) Its not about possibility, its about probability. Sure you indeed can go on a spree with a knife, but its a lot less likely. Not in any small part because of:

2) 20 is quite a bit bigger than 3. I have more than 6x the amount of time to realize the situation is shitty and can attempt to flee before defending myself (or not) is even in question. And 20' is already a fairly low estimate depending on the attacker's weapon and skill with said weapon.

3) Way to not read to the end. I explicitly said you need to reduce guns for _everybody_ by making it a slow drain rather than an sudden forced surrender (which yes, the criminals would happily ignore.) Disarming you makes you safer by also disarming your attacker at the same time. It has to be done in a way that affects all people, not just the ones you feel like cherry-picking to "prove" your point.

A good start would be to just significantly limit the sale of new weapons. Criminals' guns break down and go missing just as much as anyone else' and have to be replaced. Lower supply means making that much harder. Black market weapons would have the same lack of supply issue (because there's no significiant production period,) so that's at best a temporary measure for the criminals to fall back to.

Re:Soooo

[Anonymous Coward]

Reducing the number of guns and changing the types of guns in public hands in the USA will make the public safer, just as doing the same has achieved in other countries

A popular myth, exactly the kind of thing OP was referring to. The press has created this myth by misreporting facts, aided by the gun control fanatics.

At the risk of confusing you with facts, crime-related gun deaths have been falling in many places for decades, including the USA and Australia, as violent crime rates have been falling. This fact was mis-used and mis-reported by the gun control fanatics (never an ethical group) and the press to claim that Australia's gun control was reducing the deaths by firearms. There's no scientifically legitimate evidence that gun control has actually affected the rates. For that matter, the rates are falling faster in the USA than Australia.

In some parts of Australia, firearm ownership has actually gone up since the ban (which doesn't affect all firearms), but violent crimes are still trending down - but this hasn't changed the view presented by the media. Another beautiful example of selective mis-reporting of facts by the press.

Reversing the laws that prohibited concealed carry (laws created by gun control nuts) in the USA has actually reduced almost every category of violent crime, including really ugly ones like rape, in those jurisdictions that have done this. The rates in these jurisdictions ARE falling faster then the general trends (John Lott).

Many countries - including some of the Scandinavian countries, and New Zealand, have access to firearms similar to the USA. Some of them even have mandatory military service, and distribute some of their military weapons among the civilian population (a legacy of the Cold War for those countries in danger of Soviet invasion). We're not just talking assault rifles, either. They don't have gun violence problems.

Whatever causes gun violence, access to firearms seems to be unrelated. Probably revamping the US welfare system (including all those different 'entitlement' programs that are just welfare disguised as something else, including medi-care, social security, and so forth) and providing basic medical care to everybody - perhaps just re-using the Swiss model, which is certainly not what Obama Care does - would do a lot to fix the problems the USA has. It might even make sense to slowly phase out all the existing welfare systems and just replace them with a well thought out basic income plan, using the same funds that are already available. This would allow laws such as minimum wage to be removed, which in turn would stop the massive long term bleeding of jobs overseas.

As in education, governments in the USA spend huge amounts on welfare with very poor results, and no sane person would continue to do things that just don't work - this creates pressure for people to get involved in drug trafficking, which in turn is responsible for most of the gun violence. The "War on Drugs" doesn't help - treatment should be the focus, not creating jobs by building more prisons. If more funds were needed, cutting the federal tax code down to fifty or so pages (from thousands) would remove a lot of loopholes (which hide in complexity).

Requiring the medical profession provide suicide assistance to those people wishing to end things would help as well, since it would help remove the confusion between suicide with guns and other deaths involving a gun (as US suicide rates are actually lower than many first world countries - www.suicide.org - it's obviously wrong to blame these on gun availability, but the gun control fanatics do this anyway, and ignorant folks believe them). A nation that actually practiced separation of church and state would have done that a long time ago.

Perhaps with all this people would actually have the time to keep track of what their government was doing, and would be able to prevent problems with federal agencies before things got way out of hand.

Re:Soooo

[harrkev]

Wow. Soooo much fail in one post.

Let's assume that we DID get rid of all guns. What would be the result? Criminals tend to be young males. Victims can be anybody, including women, and the elderly. Statistically speaking, in a physical confrontation, elderly and women are at a disadvantage compared to men. So you are clearly in FAVOR of criminals having an advantage. How very nice of you to make the streets safe for murderers and rapists. What chance does a 100-pound woman have against a crazy-ex? If she armed herself, at least she would have a chance. How sad that people like you want the woman defenseless. If I had to choose, I would much rather see the woman alive and her stalker dead, rather than the way that you would prefer. OK, you might not prefer that the woman die, but if you refuse to allow her the tools to defend herself, you are not really giving her much of a choice.

Studies have shows that guns are used approximately a MILLION TIMES A YEAR to prevent or deter crime. There are a lot of studies on this subject, and many of them are done to prove a point (pro-freedom or anti-freedom), so the numbers vary wildly. However, the median (aka probably most accurate) number seems to be around 800,000 to 1,000,000 times per year (think Olympic scoring -- discard low and high numbers and average the rest). So, you actually think that it would be a great idea to NOT deter crime a million times a year? Wow, how can anybody be that stupid?

Plus, if you did get rid of the guns, you still have the criminals. People will STILL DIE, so with guns gone, you then have to move on to the next bogeyman -- evil, terrible knives! I wish that I were joking, read this Snopes article:

http://www.snopes.com/2015/06/...

The fact that people have to ask "is this satire" and the answer is "sadly, no." should be telling. So, yeah, if you really want to get rid of violence, you can do two things:

* Figure out what causes violence (socioeconomic factors) and try to address that.

--OR--

* Get rid of guns.

* Whoops, people are still killing each other. Get rid of knives.

* Darn, people are still killing each other. Require proof of athletic league membership to buy a baseball bat, and you had better be a professional carpenter before buying a hammer.

Sadly, you would choose path #2. Re-read that Snopes article and then try to tell me that course is what you would want for America. I carry a Leatherman Wave on my belt at all times. You would be surprised how many times a day I need a knife, scissors, or screwdriver. Do you think that I want to live in a country where carrying a simple, common multi-tool can get me arrested?

Also, getting rid of guns will also remove hunting. Hunting is NECESSARY -- simple fact. Apex predators are mostly gone (like wolves). Vegetarian animals generally survive by running away and breeding a lot. It is the breeding thing that causes problems. Animals like deer and elk will breed like crazy in the absence of predators, until their numbers lead to destruction of habitat, starvation, and disease. I know that if I were a deer, I would rather have a happy life and live with a 10% chance of being shot, rather than a 100% chance of starvation, and hope that I was one of the ones strong enough to survive. I live close to Rocky Mountain National Park, and the rangers are having to shoot elk to keep their numbers down! True -- look it up.

Re:Soooo

[peawormsworth]

1) Gun deaths are somehow worse than knife deaths

If I had to kill someone, I would select a gun over a knife. A gun would allow me to achieve the goal at a greater distance and probably in less time and with less practice.

I also suspect that the memory may be less traumatizing due to the difference in mess and due to the length of time that I could have stopped myself before completing the horrible actions.

Re:Soooo

[harrkev]

A gun is certainly a better tool for killing than a knife. However, if denied a gun, you certainly CAN kill with a knife, and the victim will be just as dead.

A guy in France managed to kill close to 100 people without using a gun.

Re:Soooo

[Altrag]

That first paragraph.. I have no idea what the fuck you're going on about. That's taking everything I said to an extreme, then pulling out your gun, shooting the extreme and continuing on well past absurd. "Safe for murderers and rapists?" I don't recall ever stating that the police should be disbanded. I'd also like to find out your source for determining that shoot-outs are somehow safer for a woman (never mind any children or bystanders that might be nearby) than just running away and calling the cops like a sane person.

Studies have shows ... MILLION TIMES A YEAR

Well for starters, some sources would be good. You're telling me that one in every 350 Americans are having to defend themselves in a way that a) requires a gun as opposed to less lethal options like calling the damned cops and b) would still require a gun if the attacker didn't also have a firearm? That seems a bit of a high statistic to be quoting without references (and preferably ones not sponsored by the NRA since you know, bit of a conflict of interest there.)

People will STILL DIE

Yep. Fact of life. But you can do things to reduce the amount of people who die without resorting to a black and white "if its not zero then we may as well not bother at all" anti-logic.

move on to the next bogeyman -- evil, terrible knives

Yeah, its such a shitty world when we have to only worry about the second most deadly weapon. If only they'd start shooting each other more often then we could stop worrying about knives! That's like saying we shouldn't bother curing cancer because then we'd just be worrying more about heart attacks.

* Figure out what causes violence (socioeconomic factors) and try to address that.

Nobody said we shouldn't do that as well. These things aren't mutually exclusive and in fact are complementary in a lot of ways.

* Get rid of guns.

Yep.

* Other stupid shit

Once again taking logic past the extreme and into the absurd. I don't know why you didn't suggest cutting off peoples' hands to prevent strangulation the way you were going at it.

Re-read that Snopes article and then try to tell me that course is what you would want for America

Yep. I much prefer being mocked for worrying about knives than being legitimately worried about guns.

getting rid of guns will also remove hunting

This is true, and it does remove the possibility of taking ALL guns out of society. But then that possibility doesn't really exist anyway since you still need police and military and other armed personnel.

Once again though, I'm not advocating black and white "get rid of all guns," as I'm well aware that that's unlikely to the point of impossible. I'm advocating reducing the amount of guns. And if you want to be really specific, certain types of guns (especially handguns that are easy to carry and conceal) should have more emphasis on reduction than things like hunting rifles that have actual legitimate uses outside of the vague claim of "self-defense."

Though since you like absurd extremes, there's nothing stopping hunters from picking up a bow and arrow or a spear. We survived for many thousands of years before guns were invented. Not that I'd especially advocate for that but it does indicate that guns aren't as necessary as you want to believe.

rangers are having to shoot elk

Rangers would fall more into the same category as police and military -- people authorized and (presumably) trained to use specific weapons for specific purposes and trusted not to abuse that power. Yes, that trust will occasionally be broken but once again its not about zero its about reduction.

Re:Soooo

[harrkev]

Wow, once again, you COMPLETELY FAIL TO GET THE POINT. I don't know if you are TRYING to be obtuse or if it just comes naturally.

I don't recall ever stating that the police should be disbanded.

When I say "safe for murderers and rapists," are you REALLY so dumb that you don't realize? Police generally come when (if) called, and they take time to get there. We have police, and over 11,000 homicides in 2014. Police CANNOT prevent homicide. They show up AFTER the murder and try to catch the criminal. If somebody tries to kill you, and you happen to have a cell phone on you, do you think that you could stay alive the 5 to 10 minutes for the police to arrive? Maybe, maybe not. Try your luck!

Criminals can run from the police. However, criminals ARE afraid of armed victims.

I'd also like to find out your source for determining that shoot-outs are somehow safer for a woman

Where is your proof that it isn't? Seriously, running away and calling the cops is always your FIRST option, but it should never be your ONLY option. What if you can't run away? What if the woman is at home on the 2nd story and can't get past the bad guy on the stairs? The woman is MUCH better off locking the door and aiming the gun at the door. Try to tell me otherwise and make yourself look like a fool.

If a woman goes up against a man in a purely physical confrontation, the woman is at a disadvantage. The average woman will be smaller and weaker. The average man will be larger, stronger, and quite possibly have a background in sports and other physical activity. There are corner cases (God help the man that tries to attack Ronda Rousey), but, in general, what I have said is true. However, if the woman is armed, she stands a MUCH BETTER chance against those that would try to hurt her. It only takes about four to six pounds of pressure to pull a trigger, and, statistically speaking, woman actually make better shots than guys. Women are among the best sharp-shooters out there.

Like I said, about two miles from my house was a case where a good GIRL with a gun stopped a would-be mass murderer.

Here is a case where a woman had a restraining order against her ex. She had applied for a gun permit, but was still waiting. However, her ex killed her while she was still waiting... Gun control killed her. Here chances would have been MUCH better if she was armed...

http://freebeacon.com/issues/n...

Studies have shows ... MILLION TIMES A YEAR
Well for starters, some sources would be good.

OK. Granted. Given the quality of your thinking so far, I am not surprised that you can't use Google. Let me help you. Here is one great link. Yes, it is Wikipedia, but they have links to the various studies, so you can read them for yourself. This is from the article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... :

Estimates over the number of defensive gun uses vary wildly, depending on the study's definition of a defensive gun use, survey design, population, criteria, time-period studied, and other factors. Low-end estimates are in the range of 55,000 to 80,000 incidents per year, while high end estimates reach of 4.7 million incidents per year. Discussion over the number and nature of DGU and the implications to gun control policy came to a head in the late 1990s.[2][3]

So, yeah, like I said, lots of these studies are biased one way or another. Throw out the lowest and highest scores and average the rest. However, even the ones AGAINST guns still have "estimates are in the range of 55,000 to 80,000 incidents per year." Get rid of guns, and get rid of those tens of thousands of cases of using them defensively. "Using" can be just

Re:Soooo

[harrkev]

Here are three people who are alive because of a gun. A grizzly attacked some fishermen in the Alaskan wilderness. Do you really want to tell those people that you would prefer that they be dead right now because guns are evil?

https://www.americanhunter.org...

who really cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

Honestly, who gives two shits? so the NSA got hacked, fuck em.

Re:who really cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

The NSA gives at least two shits, that's who.

And they have the ear of the guys with guns, so attempting to "fuck em" is likely to end up with the fucker becoming the fuckee. At best. At worst, the fucker may become the subject of interment. And these aren't just any guys with guns, either. These are the guys with the most guns.

Those two-or-more shits could get a lot of people killed.

Censorship?

[sshir]

I'm still waiting for major US news outlets to cover the story. Are they being censored? The story has major political implications, e.g. often proposed mandate to allow government to access encrypted private communications, etc. BBC seems have no problem reporting on this.

Re:Censorship?

[Anonymous Coward]

Censored? Not in the least. The topic is just beyond the skill level of any news agency in the US to report on. It's also not been reported on Facebook heavily or trending on Twitter so no news agency in the US has a source to get their information from (I'm not even half kidding with that one)

The only people who understand what this is and the implications are tech people. Your neighbor, parents, family, friends, unless they are also tech people, don't have a clue what this means.

Essentially the vast majority of people in the US (including ALL politicians) are too stupid to understand this topic so it's not going to get covered.

Re:Censorship?

[b0bby]

What kind of major outlets are you looking for?

http://abcnews.go.com/Internat...

https://www.washingtonpost.com...

http://www.wsj.com/articles/gr...

http://www.npr.org/sections/th...

Hell, even the NY Daily News covered it:

http://www.nydailynews.com/new...

Re:Censorship?

[sshir]

Go scan their front pages. Then return to me.

Re:Censorship?

[sshir]

Ok, abcnews does have it on front page, CNN, wsj, nytimes do not.

Re:Censorship?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are they being censored?

They're too busy getting Hillary elected.

Re:Censorship?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm still waiting for major US news outlets to cover the story.

Why? Did Ronald Dump stay in bed today?

Re:Censorship?

[Anonymous Coward]

I saw it on CNN and heard it on NPR.

Re:Censorship?

[clubby]

At this point, anything broadly considered to be a "major US news outlet" has, at best, a tangential relationship with "news." CNN is hopelessly clueless and out of touch, while Fox & MSNBC are the propaganda arms of their respective parties. The NYT sat on a vitally important story, clearly in the public interest, in order to help GWB's re-election campaign. These groups are marketing organizations, who sometimes publish news as a means of promoting their brand.

On the plus side, a major US journalism outlet, The Intercept, is on it.

Re:Censorship?

[Anonymous Coward]

So overblown stories don't make the front page

The job of these agencies is to spy on people. Some of them foreign, some domestic. It is what they were created to do. Get over it.

Re:Censorship?

[Anonymous Coward]

i heard about this on NPR Tuesday on teh drive home.

Re:Censorship?

[quantaman]

Ok, abcnews does have it on front page, CNN, wsj, nytimes do not.

Blame readers.

At the end of the day newspapers are in the business of attracting readers. A story about NSA hacking tools is too esoteric for most of their readers and lacks the cool characters or personalized villains that drive narratives.

Even the last /. story only had 130 comments, and it's a story specifically about the NSA and hackers. If it barely interests the /. audience I don't imagine it's going to be a hit with the general public.

Re:Censorship?

[Anonymous Coward]

This has been [is being] a catastrophe. For much less than this CNN spends days on endless debates. The silence of the media on such a major event is deafening.

Re:Censorship?

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean like ABC News, Fox News, WSJ, The Hill, WaPo, NY Times, Bloomberg, NBC News? A quick trip to Google News indicates that this story is getting immense press coverage in mainstream outlets.

Re:Censorship?

[Anonymous Coward]

Your original claim was that the story wasn't being covered and that the story was being censored. It is not, your claim is debunked. Now you are just moving the goal posts.

Re:Censorship?

[Sir_Eptishous]

Oh, I get it...
It didn't show up in your FB news feed, right?

Re:Censorship?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's being covered quite heavily, but if you're expecting Kardashian or Plane-crash level of coverage, then don't get your hopes up. This kind of news isn't the stuff that gets a lot of viewers stuck to the screen.

Re:Censorship?

[Anonymous Coward]

Newspapers are for high brows. What the ignorant masses call 'news' is TV. Is on the TV that the event should be reported.

Re:Censorship?

[cfalcon]

"Spies Spying" is not really front page news. Every interesting story can't make the front page. That's why there are other fucking pages.

This is not a media blackout. This is a niche story with reasonably broad implications, but just because you appreciate all the implications doesn't mean everyone else does.

Re:Censorship?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, abcnews does have it on front page, CNN, wsj, nytimes do not.

Blame readers.

At the end of the day newspapers are in the business of attracting readers. A story about NSA hacking tools is too esoteric for most of their readers and lacks the cool characters or personalized villains that drive narratives.

Even the last /. story only had 130 comments, and it's a story specifically about the NSA and hackers. If it barely interests the /. audience I don't imagine it's going to be a hit with the general public.

Can we please stop being nice and say things like they are? The average person is too stupid to understand why something like this is important, much less the actual content. They are gullible, incompetent fools who will believe literally anything if it plays to an emotional response. This is true for all major issues and is the primary reason most people should not be allowed to have any influence or say in major decisions.

Re:Censorship?

[I4ko]

What news would that be exactly - "Computers are insecure, networked computers even more so!"- these ones?
That isn't news worthy. There was a 4 season edutainment TV show some years ago called Battlestar Galactica.

If you aren't operating under the above presumption, you are doing it wrong, dead wrong.

Re:Censorship?

[Anonymous Coward]

fuck you, you elitist sob.

Re:Censorship?

[armand.winter]

The leak is real, his name was Seth Rich and Hillary had him killed... don't you read the news?

Re:Censorship?

[jodokast98]

No..no..no. They only care about Hillary, Trump, or Bernie and BLM.

Re:Censorship?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Too Stupid" vs "Doesn't Care"

The average person may not be too stupid to know any better, they may just not actually give a flying rats bottom. Because someone doesn't like something that you deem important doesn't lower their power of smarts, but shows what kind of person you actually are.

Kudos thou, you're tough on the internet.

Re:Censorship?

[Anonymous Coward]

You really think the Rothschilds, who own the entire news media, and pentagon, would want this reported?

Re:Censorship?

[Anonymous Coward]

fuck you, you elitist sob.

So you are one of the average stupid people. You will just have to accept it, at some point.

Re:Censorship?

[tnk1]

Stupidity is not required. Ignorance is more than sufficient. There are probably people out there with a 95 IQ who understand this issue better than some random mathematician with a 140 simply because the average intelligence person works as an IT janitor and deals with it every day, while the mathematician is working on some obscure problem requiring an esoteric proof and doesn't have any exposure to it.

Intelligence only gets you so far if you have no pertinent experience or knowledge to process with your planet sized brain.

Of course, yes, the public is generally marked by both average intelligence AND ignorance of most topics, which is a serious problem, and why big government tells them what to do, instead of vice versa. But what do you expect? No one is an expert on everything to a degree that they need to be in order to make hard decisions.

Re:Censorship?

[Anonymous Coward]

You have no proof of that.

I happen to know that because I was just with the special ops team that disposed of that proof.

I'm With Her... and so is Black Ops Team 818-Bravo. Be sure to vote for your pre-selected Presidential candidate in November, citizens.

Re:Censorship?

[dj245]

Ok, abcnews does have it on front page, CNN, wsj, nytimes do not.

Blame readers.

At the end of the day newspapers are in the business of attracting readers. A story about NSA hacking tools is too esoteric for most of their readers and lacks the cool characters or personalized villains that drive narratives.

Even the last /. story only had 130 comments, and it's a story specifically about the NSA and hackers. If it barely interests the /. audience I don't imagine it's going to be a hit with the general public.

130 comments is a pretty good discussion on Slashdot. It may even be above average.

Re:Censorship?

[Anonymous Coward]

The leak is real, his name was Seth Rich and Hillary had him killed... don't you read the news?

Ok, you are making major assumptions here or you are privy to news that the rest of us in the real world don't have access to.

No where in the media has it been said that Hillary had anyone killed, other than perhaps Faux News or the Glenn Beck show or the Rush Limbaugh show.

You have made your political biases clear just by opening your mouth, and you are the only one who doesn't see it.

Must be nice to be stupid and ignorant and not be able to smell your own shit.

you sir are a fucking idiot.

Witty comment here...

[wbr1]

The real interesting thing will be when detection tools for this malware are created. Then we will see how many people -without warrants- the NSA is using this on.

Re:Witty comment here...

[PolygamousRanchKid]

The real interesting thing will be when detection tools for this malware are created.

Well, in order for detection tools to be developed . . . folks will need access to the NSA toolkit code. The honorable thing for the ShadowBrokers to do, would be to make this freely and openly available for all.

But the fact that they are offering this as an auction, shows us that the ShadowBrokers are just in it for the money.

I'm guessing that China, Russia and the NSA itself will create bidding "fronts" to bid for them, and no private entities will be able to match their funds. So whatever is in that toolkit will still stay secret.

Re:Witty comment here...

[pz]

How quickly can a tool be built that scans all of memory for that string?

Re:Witty comment here...

[6ULDV8]

If they were honorable, they wouldn't be thieves. Any assurance that the tools would be sold only once would require some sense of honor.

Re:Witty comment here...

[skids]

You can pretty much do that in a single cli command. But you'll get the 25 or so copies your browser made of it by viewing this page, too.

Re:Witty comment here...

[rahvin112]

No, the really interesting thing is going to be what happens to these "shadow brokers" in time. They've hacked a state sponsored defense agency and published weapons of war for sale. This is the kind of thing that's likely to get you put on a rendition list.

Re:Witty comment here...

[Sir_Eptishous]

The honorable thing for the ShadowBrokers to do, would be to make this freely and openly available for all.

But the fact that they are offering this as an auction, shows us that the ShadowBrokers are just in it for the money.

Not so fast...
Once Shepard and Liara had killed the few operatives aware of the Broker's true identity, Liara will take over without anyone else in the organization suspecting a transition. Liara is well aware of the power at her disposal, as she could use the information network to start a war in ten minutes if she wanted to, but she vows to not abuse her position and to help Shepard find a way to combat the Reapers.

Re:Witty comment here...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not honor. If they sell it again, they undermine the point of auction. They will lose any credibility about any promises they make. When you do something because you have to as opposed to because you want to, it's not honor anymore.

Re:Witty comment here...

[Anonymous Coward]

God that was so lame. The new writers for ME2 completely changed her personality and motivations. From demure, sweet, introverted science researcher doing it for it's own sake to ruthless, shady criminal boss ready to slit throats and create situations where thousands of innocents could be killed in pursuit of money and power. And now she is hooking up with Snowden. She isn't even the same person any more. Same with some other characters, it was just so blatant with Liara.

Re: Witty comment here...

[Anonymous Coward]

Weapons of war? These soloist were used on their own citizens for Christ sakes. Shadow brokers did us a fucking favor even if they are selling it. Which BTW, I would do to, but under the condition that after a year everything gets released into public domain.

Re:Witty comment here...

[Sir_Eptishous]

They sort of explained her change in personality. I remember something happened to her in between 1 and 2. Anyway, as soon as Shephard breaks Julian Assange out of the Peruvian embassy and gets the codes to the Zion Mainframe, the ShadowBrokers will be irrelevant.

Re:Witty comment here...

[pz]

... and that command line would be? Bonus points if it works under Windows, too (or has an equivalent)!

Re:Witty comment here...

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's say the NSA submits the highest bid, the hackers accept, and the NSA pays them. What is to prevent the hackers from selling it again? Would the NSA have to cough up its entire budget to keep the tools a secret? That's just untenable. (Unless the hackers are themselves honorable and don't share them with anyone else. But why would we expect that?) They can simply extort the NSA for almost any amount.

Re:Witty comment here...

[theArtificial]

Windows has some catching up to do. On Linux you can do something like: cat /dev/ram | strings | grep "ace02468bdf1357"

code

[MagicM]

That's amazing. I've got the same combination on my luggage!

Re:code

[Hylandr]

Eliot would be proud.

Re:code

[imatter]

So the combination is... A, C, E, zero, two, four, six, eight, B, D, F, one, three, five, seven, nine. That's the stupidest combination I've ever heard in my life! That's the kind of thing an idiot would have on his luggage!

Re:code

[Anonymous Coward]

Came here for this. Did not disappoint.

We need an untraceable unique identifier...

[Anonymous Coward]

We need an untraceable unique identifier.

How about splitting alternate letters and numbers then concatenating the strings.

Unique, memorable and plainly untraceable, I like it.

Re:We need an untraceable unique identifier...

[Anonymous Coward]

They should have used the obviusly superior 0xdeadbeef

It's time

[tomhath]

So Snowden stole some software along with the other documents. No surprise. Nor is it a surprise that he's cashing in on it now.

Re: It's time

[Anonymous Coward]

You obviously didn't even read the summary. That, or your English interpretation skills are subpar. It specifically says the Snowden leaks referenced a manual on how to track the malware. What they found is that what they use to track the software is ask over the new leak.

Snowden obviously did not leak any software, just the manual to use said software.

Re: It's time

[tomhath]

What they found is that what they use to track the software is ask over the new leak.

I have no idea what you meant there.

But if you had read the article you would see the direct connection to the documents Snowden admits he stole and the code that ShadowBrokers is trying to sell today. His leak didn't "reference" a manual, it was the manual. The code existed before he headed to Russia.

The evidence that ties the ShadowBrokers dump to the NSA comes in an agency manual for implanting malware, classified top secret, provided by Snowden, and not previously available to the public. The draft manual instructs NSA operators to track their use of one malware program using a specific 16-character string, “ace02468bdf13579.” That exact same string appears throughout the ShadowBrokers leak in code associated with the same program, SECONDDATE.

Re: It's time

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly, so he did not "steal" any software.

Autocorrect on my tablet makes sentences incomprehensible sometimes. But you just pointed it to be how Snowden did not steal any software, yet your original post says he did. What did I miss?

Re: It's time

[Anonymous Coward]

The documents are still there. So Snowden didn't so much "steal" them as "share" them.

Re: It's time

[tomhath]

Where did I point out that he didn't steal the code? He admitted that he stole the manual, and now the code which goes with the manual turns up. How obvious does it have to be that he took the code at the same time he took the manual.

Re: It's time

[Anonymous Coward]

When you make an assumption, you make an ass out of u and umption.

Re: It's time

[tomhath]

You're assuming the code and the manual that went with it were taken in separate attacks? Why would you assume that?

No offense, but duh..

[s.petry]

Do you really need to ask if US News agencies censored? The current media puts the old Pravda to shame. If they were merely protecting State secrets I'd give them a pass on this, at least in terms of discussing details. They should however discuss concerns with the operations in general terms so that the public can debate and direct the Government. They are not however interested in protecting the State and have no concern for truth and honesty. Have not had such concerns for literally decades now. The fact that media claims to have different names makes it less visible to the unwary.

OK, so how did it happen?

[ErichTheRed]

I would think that anyone who actually chose to work for the NSA in an offensive capacity would be quite dedicated to their job. Same goes for most intelligence operatives -- I can't imagine they get paid as much as they could make in a private business or a well-funded covert organization, yet there they are. By contrast, Snowden was basically a contract sysadmin who had access to what was going on -- he wasn't coming up with these plans/exploits. I'd guess anyone voluntarily working on these exploits would be pretty serious about guarding their work and wouldn't take copies home on the train with them.

So -- is it old fashioned espionage tactics, finding out who these people are and squeezing them in various ways? Did whoever is behind this just get lucky and happened upon unencrypted copies of these tools? Should be interesting to watch.

Re:OK, so how did it happen?

[HornWumpus]

Perhaps, on the other hand I bet there are at least a few NSA types making fortunes on insider trading, along with black programs funded by insider trading.

The agency, no doubt, has the software widely enough distributed to have plausible deniability if the greedy spooks were caught by the SEC (like that would happen).

Re:OK, so how did it happen?

[Anonymous Coward]

Snowden was basically a contract sysadmin who had access to what was going on

Not legally. He used a keylogger to steal login credentials. That gave him access far beyond what he was cleared to see.

Re:OK, so how did it happen?

[Anonymous Coward]

There are 30,000 people working at the NSA (!). Even with background checks, etc...that's way too many to keep any secrets. SO yes, I bet we are talking about old-school espionage...cash payments...blackmail...theft/break in to someone's apartment...etc. And don't forget government contractors...maybe they just asked Infosys for the files.

Re:OK, so how did it happen?

[sjames]

Right now, there are three types working for the NSA. those who feel ethically compromised and disgruntled and those whose ethics are 'flexible' enough to overlook that their agency is shirking half of it's charter and violating the other half, all while lying to congress and likely the President. The third type isn't heads up enough to have noticed anything.

Re:OK, so how did it happen?

[swb]

I always figured that the best way to fund black programs was just to back a truck up to the bureau of engraving and take a few pallets of $100s.

Re:OK, so how did it happen?

[FeelGood314]

The software was likely left on a staging server that got disconnected or forgotten about so the NSA was unable to delete it. The NSA doesn't launch attacks from Virginia so they would likely keep their tools close (hop and latency wise) to their target.

Re:OK, so how did it happen?

[Anonymous Coward]

Entirely possible that one of the second group spent the last few years thinking that Obama's use of the NSA's weapons was OK, but they don't trust either Trump or Hillary (or both) with this power, so they moved to the first group and discarded the tools when it started to look like they'd take the CiC position.

That said, pretty much every article I've seen about this suggests it was Snowden's doing in the first place, supposedly all the timestamps on the files shown so far are immediately before he defected.

Re: OK, so how did it happen?

[Anonymous Coward]

Citation needed.

Re:OK, so how did it happen?

[chill]

Did you watch Citizenfour? There were a couple scenes in there, IIRC, where comments were made about a "second leaker". I believe there were also mentions in some of the Guardian articles as well. Not a lot in either, but definite indications the Snowden was not the only one.

I was wondering what happened to #2...

Re:OK, so how did it happen?

[sjames]

The old timestamps are more likely because they had to give some away to prove they had something worth buying but believed the newer ones would have the most perceived value.

Re:OK, so how did it happen?

[Anonymous Coward]

There are 30,000 people working at the NSA (!). Even with background checks, etc...that's way too many to keep any secrets. SO yes, I bet we are talking about old-school espionage...cash payments...blackmail...theft/break in to someone's apartment...etc. And don't forget government contractors...maybe they just asked Infosys for the files.

Affirmative action probably has 100's of spies, dozens of actual terrorists and about a thousand "diversity" people that just make messes for others to clean up.

The US government, at it's core, all the way to the top is trying to be politically correct more than it is trying to be effective. That's why they deleted the information that would have stopped the Orlando and San Bernadino shootings. (cite: Phillip Haney book "See Something, Say Nothing.")

It's not surprising at all that the NSA would be full on clusterfuck by now.

Re:OK, so how did it happen?

[dbIII]

I would think that anyone who actually chose to work for the NSA in an offensive capacity would be quite dedicated to their job

The example of the "Star Trek set" guy and a few others indicated that they are a bunch of horse judges doing a "heck of a job" getting sit-down money and playing at being toy soldiers.
IMHO it should be run by the military at military wages with military professionalism instead of all this pissing in pockets and outsourcing of huge contracts to good friends or political connections.

Re:OK, so how did it happen?

[HornWumpus]

'Best' would mean the least number of people would know about it (also means least oversight). So your method has a flaw.

Re:OK, so how did it happen?

[AHuxley]

The walk out of material in the US context is nothing new. Every decade sees people walk out material they feel the public should know.
The press is protected. Public discussion on material thats published then gets issues fixed, legal teams can ask governments to stop collect it all spying domestically ect.
The main issues is the flood of contractors and a lack of real vetting in the past few years. Too many people are needed to collect domestically and a rapid expansion ensured access could come from other agencies or even get supported by the past work. Contractors vouching for their own staff to get more gov clearances based on other agency work.
Having staff walk the life story of an applicant would ensure something is understood about that person. Just looking up a few digital files and their past work record can allow interesting people to get work that then allows them to rapidly advance. Most governments learned that just trusting staff in the 1920-50's with the expanded need for German and Russian is not the best policy.

This is "proof?"

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe I'm missing something here, but as I read this, it is saying that these software shows traits described in the documents Snowden released to the public years ago... how is this in any way proof?

Imagine I were to publish in a newspaper, "every article I write will include the word 'stegosaurus.'" Now somebody else publishes an article, intentionally includes the word "stegosaurus," and then claims that that is proof that I wrote it. That's obviously dumb, because everybody knew that that was my habit, so anybody could imitate it.

Could the same thing not be true of this hack? It's certainly circumstantial evidence, but it is far from conclusive proof in my opinion.

Re:This is "proof?"

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe I'm missing something here, but as I read this, it is saying that these software shows traits described in the documents Snowden released to the public years ago...

Incorrect. The software shows traits described in documents Snowden took years ago, but which had not been released to the public until now. Unless Glenn Greenwald or Laura Poitras personally wrote this software after reading over the trove of yet-unreleased Snowden documents, it's a fair bet that it's authentic.

Report the Zero Days

[DatbeDank]

Betting the likelihood of the NSA reporting these zero days to their respective software vendors is zero.

To put this into 20th century context

[Anonymous Coward]

They broke our Enigma code.

Re: To put this into 20th century context

[Anonymous Coward]

So...are we the baddies?

Re:To put this into 20th century context

[AHuxley]

The NSA and GCHQ expected the world to just keep using junk weak standards crypto every decade.
The academics, corporate structure, staff, legal departments, political leaders seem indifferent, obvious or unable to to cope with their junk crypto product they promote as a standard..
An expensive product sold as very secure VPN then becomes nothing more than the cheapest server that can be totally collected on.
Crypto standards get set in a race to be the most easy to revert to tracking users and getting plain text back.

FOOL!

[Anonymous Coward]

What a fucking joke... "Snowden documents confirm it".

Anybody that has been paying attention the last few years knows Snowden is STILL working for the U.S. government, and that his "leaking" information was a trick to fool the public into believing the federal government has far more capabilities than they really have.

The NSA has leaked tools before, and they even release a "Secure" Linux distro, which when booted up would immediately call home to the NSA.

If these tool leaks were real, the NSA wouldn't be talking about them and CNN and NPR the obama propaganda puppets, would not be talking about them at all.

Ignore the tools, or YOU will be the next NSA tool.

Question is it real or dis-information

[Anonymous Coward]

When stuff like this occurs I always wonder...is the super-snazzy NSA really just a bunch of knuckleheads or are they really slick and this is part of an elaborate and well planned disinformation campaign? Based on my life experience I'm pretty sure its the former...but TV/movies make me wish it were like the latter.

Re:Question is it real or dis-information

[pezpunk]

even slick and savvy very intelligent people fuck up every once in a while. and when your organization is made up of 40,000 people, that means, statistically, at any point in time there is always someone in the process of fucking something up royally, no matter how sharp they are by and large.

Re:Question is it real or dis-information

[cwsumner]

When stuff like this occurs I always wonder...is the super-snazzy NSA really just a bunch of knuckleheads or are they really slick and this is part of an elaborate and well planned disinformation campaign? Based on my life experience I'm pretty sure its the former...but TV/movies make me wish it were like the latter.

When you were in school and didn't know the answer to a multiple-choice question, what was the usual answer?
"D : All of the above" ===

Could be the knuckle-heads are being manipulated by the actual operators, as a show for us.

Of course, who is a knuckle-head and who is an operator, changes frequently...

I still believe

[Anonymous Coward]

it's bullshit and/or a massive honey-pot and/or an attempt at some future propaganda piece to smooth over or calm the anger against the U.S and its NSA. "it's the Russians or Chinese because they have our h4xx0r tools!" etc

But encryption!

[Anonymous Coward]

My favorite part is any argument the government makes now that they need access to everyone's devices, and weakened encryption. Sorry, but you can't even keep a lid on your own stuff. **** off.

Re:But encryption!

[pezpunk]

exactly. the US wants a back door built into every device because we can trust them to use it only when needed!

even if we COULD trust them (which we can't) we KNOW we can't trust them to keep the keys to that back door out of the hands of "bad guys".

Re:But encryption!

[dbIII]

Something like that came up in the Manning "cablegate" leak.
A Nigerian branch of a US oil company was asked to provide sensitive information to a US intelligence group and they told the spooks to fuck off because they were sure the spooks would have a leak.

Government/Law Enforcement Backdoors

[CanEHdian]

Right, and government/law enforcement backdoors are going to be perfectly safe and will never, not ever, fall into the wrong hands, pinky swear! Just trust us!

Re:Government/Law Enforcement Backdoors

[sjames]

This cannot be repeated enough and needs to be brought up every time some agency suggests it.

ace02468bdf13579?

[Dread_ed]

Dammit that's the combination to my luggage!

Who Believes Snowden Anymore Anyway?

[Ralgha]

Snowden is probably an NSA plant meant to distract us anyway. He might not even know he is, they just fed him all the crap that he's "revealing" and it's either fake, or they don't care that we know. Think about it, has Snowden actually told us anything that we didn't already know (or suspected at least)? Who gives a crap if the NSA got hacked, it's what they do, the hack, they get hacked, and the cycle continues.

Of course it has NSA fingerprints

[dhaen]

I'll guess it's been fabricated by the NSA to root out interested parties, and certainly to fool Snowden.

Updated detections?

[Kernel Kurtz]

So have antivirus/antimalware vendors updated their definitions to detect the exploits that have been leaked so far?

That would be both useful and informative as to the scope of these programs.

Re:Updated detections?

[AHuxley]

Think of it as 3 stages.
The detection of a users interest in a forum, as an ip, chat room, phrase, friends, friends of friends. That gets an automated push down of complex ads, random OS ready malware, tracking cookies that are set to be more persistent. Every aspect of their computer, provider, account, friends of friends is collected on.
Been an every day part of the internet, thats expected by any user and is a great place for govs to start.
That maps out a basic idea of who the user is, what they have installed. OS vendors, browsers are a great help with that as the ads always reach the users.
The next step is to weaken all VPN hardware so if any one gets too smart and thinks another ip and some crypto will hide them, they are mistaken. Their real ip and content is revealed in real time. The network informs on the users, no matter their OS, AV, VPN.
Finally the bespoke push down into a users computer, their next computer hardware upgrade if they have it posted. That will be a normal part of their OS to any AV product, hardware and be undetected by any high level consumer or commercial OS scan or AV.
AV products just never see the bespoke code as its perfect for one mission for one users computer, network... before that stage the tasking is all on the "internet" side, always weak VPN servers or constant tracking.

Second Dates

[Anonymous Coward]

The only way to get a second date for me is to install, or preferably let the gals of the NSA install this package to my system.

Who Believes Ralgha Anymore Anyway?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ralgha is probably an NSA plant meant to distract us anyway. He might not even know he is, they just fed him all the crap that he's "revealing" and it's either fake, or they don't care that we know. Think about it, has Ralgha actually told us anything that we didn't already know (or suspected at least)? Who gives a crap if the NSA got hacked, it's what they do, the hack, they get hacked, and the cycle continues.

backdoors

[Anonymous Coward]

Leaks like this are a good reason it's a bad idea to require that encryption systems have backdoors that are turned over to the government.

FBI JUST CANT GET ENOUGH COCK -- dupe lies

[Anonymous Coward]

https://yro.slashdot.org/story/16/08/18/2213257/how-the-us-will-likely-respond-to-shadow-brokers-leak

NSA leaked bullshit then claimed their shadow did it.

Do not believe shit on this fucking site right now regarding security or government.

Or really anything.

From first post on other story...

But now look at the new FBI Slashdot spin...
The Intercept can confirm that the arsenal contains authentic NSA software, part of a powerful constellation of tools used to covertly infect computers worldwide.

Confirmed wow. Authentic wow. Powerful wow. Constellation wow. Covertly infect wow. Worldwide wow.

You blow it 1) on dupe... the first time failed that was a big clue 2) sensationalizing the dupe and failing even more dramatically.

Anybody who posted like OH WOW NO KIDDING is a liar here too.

All bullshit. Not real. Ignore the whole fucking summary. owefjioqwehfweio and seconddate seconddate is all cunt shit.

Re:FBI JUST CANT GET ENOUGH COCK -- dupe lies

[Anonymous Coward]

WE DIDN'T DO IT ! somebody must have got a hold on our tools!!

They hate facts. They wish this was a story like this.

http://thenextweb.com/insider/2016/01/28/how-the-fbi-became-the-worlds-largest-distributor-of-child-sex-abuse-imagery/

Fuck you FBI faggots.

SNOWDEN DOESN'T USE TWITTER FROM RUSSIA

[Anonymous Coward]

You lying mother fuckers keep pushing this agenda. It is all based on the dupe story from Snowden on Twitter the other day.

He does not use Twitter. Guess who controls Twitter? The USA government. 9/11 was a big lie too. But can you see through large lies?

Re:SNOWDEN DOESN'T USE TWITTER FROM RUSSIA

[Anonymous Coward]

believe nothing regarding NSA, FBI, or CIA except: they are lying.

Furthermore you paid them to lie for you so don't be mad they are lying to you. Just eradicate the liars, the lies go too. You can not eradicate the lies and keep the liars and have correction. You have to..

ERADICATE THE LIARS employed by the people of the United States of America.

Re:SNOWDEN DOESN'T USE TWITTER FROM RUSSIA

[Anonymous Coward]

Right. If you say keep the liars, they promise not to lie any more, what? They are liars. Do you believe they will not?

Ed Snowden exposed the lies and they thanked him? Or they got mad because he ruined their lies? Now this story? Some super elite hacking tools from the NSA got into some wrong hands but it really was themselves? (shadows)

They are fucking fools and made to be slaughtered.

anti-virus

[Anonymous Coward]

So, how many anti-virus companies scan for that ace.... code?

This should be an obvious addition to the virus signatures.

Perfect Record

[Anonymous Coward]

It's strange to me that no one seems to ever question the integrity of the documents provided by Snowden - they are assumed to be exactly as he found them.

Never once a question of editing those documents, or adding new ones.

Bizarre, isn't it? How easily we receive what we want to believe.

Snowden === ShadowBrokers ?

[niaxilin]

Being labeled as authentic will certainly raise the bidding price on the auction. Is Snowden actually ShadowBrokers? Does he get a cut from the auction?

Why else is he engaged in a timely marketing campaign to authenticate the software? I would think he could have waited until after the sale, unless we really wanted to boost the price.

Re:Snowden === ShadowBrokers ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is Snowden actually ShadowBrokers?

That would so fucking rule if he was.

Maybe they did! Maybe those were Chinese!

[mimino]

*drops the mic.*

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit.

Snowden knows

[Anonymous Coward]

everything about everything

I guess we've answered the question

[khelms]

Q: Who watches the watchers?

A: The hackers do.

Yes he saw The Town

[Anonymous Coward]

Snowden himself said they were "authenticious"