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World Anti-Doping Agency Says It Was Hacked By Russia (theverge.com)
The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) is accusing Russian state-sponsored hackers of hacking its database of athletes involved in this year's Olympic Games in Rio. Whether it's in response to the WADA banning 119 Russian athletes from participating in the games due to a doping scandal, it has yet to be determined. The Verge reports: The agency claims the state-sponsored group Fancy Bear is behind the attack, although it doesn't clarify how that attribution was made. The accessed data included medical information, like Therapeutic Use Exemptions issued by International Sports Federations and National Anti-Doping Organizations. The group has reportedly released some of this data and threatened to release more. The attackers reportedly relied on spear phishing emails to gain access to the database and eventually used credentials specifically made for the Rio Olympic games. Fancy Bear was the same group responsible for hacking the Democratic National Committee earlier this year.
"We were hacked by Russia" seems to be the latest excuse for poor security.
Hopefully, the World Anti-Doping Agency will be sued into oblivion over their mishandling of personal data.
It would be nice to actually listen to the people in news rather than place all blame on the cyber fantasy of Fancy Bear:
"Julian Assange: 'A lot more material' coming on US elections" (July 27, 2016)
http://edition.cnn.com/2016/07...
""Perhaps one day the source or sources will step forward and that might be an interesting moment some people may have egg on their faces. But to exclude certain actors is to make it easier to find out who our sources are,""
Its amazing how that well understood but really powerful "Fancy Bear" tools set gets into so many well protected networks unnoticed... Only to be found by investigators so quickly as it is so just easy to find once it is in a network...
So rather than some all powerful, hard to track, no logs, no tools left behind method is a rather common "spear phishing" event...
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
WADA (not a reliable source) said they were hacked by Russians. They did not say they were hacked by Russia.
Personally I think the rules make sense as as you said it is supposed to be about who is the best athlete not who has the best chemists, the enforcement however is a disgrace as they seem to be completely political. I think it is pathetic that they banned Russia yet other countries that were arguably even worse violators received no such sanctions. As long as the rules a based on politics rather than fairness things will only continue to get worse.
And it's dubious that Ritalin would help a gymnast, though it might an endurance athlete.
Are you high?! (sorry, can't help it)
And it's not just Ritalin. For years she was scarfing Adderall and Dexedrine too. All stimulants. All banned.
Taking this to extreme: let's attach a jet pack to Steven Hawking's chair (under doctor's prescription) and let him compete in 100m sprint. Although it would be fun to watch, it would definitely be unfair to other athletes.
And that is my point: occasionally taking drugs to overcome injuries is totally fine by me. But taking them for years gives an unfair advantage - exactly what anti-doping tries to prevent.