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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"
And not surprisingly, the US was discovered to be doping at massive levels thanks to the hack. US gymnastics gold medalist "super-star" Simone? Caught doping, but got "doctor's permission" to dope.
So it's not surprising that after a US-led investigation "caught" Russia doping, it turns out that the US was doping just as much. The only difference is that the US rewrote the rules to allow their doping.
plus one gymnast with an ADHD diagnosis
That's some crafty spinning on your part. That "one gymnast" is no other than Simone Biles. One of the most prominent stars of the Olympics. And, apparently, she was doping her entire life
Anyone complaining about the treatment of American males must not have anything better to complain about.
In Russia the only fear is criticizing the government.
You shouldn't fear that. The government should fear the citizens, not the other way around. "When government fears the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny."
In the West, fear is the norm as everything is offensive to everyone.
1. How would you know? 2. How come I'm not afraid all the time?
You can't even look into a woman anymore without being charged for eye rape.
God, I hope not. That does sound awfully invasive, depending on which hole you're looking into.
Two can play this stupid game.
That's true, but some people are better at playing stupid games than other people.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
The ADAMS database is where athletes have to log in and report their whereabouts in order to be available for out-of-competition testing (the most reliable way of catching dopers). It is also where athletes and the doctors requested Theraputic Use Exemptions (TUE's). There HAS to be a connection to make that work. Like too many of these types of hacks, it was a a weak user password that was compromised.
So far the dump just shows that the American athletes were following the rules like they were supposed to. This hack is Russia's way to try to cloud the picture and make it look like the exclusion of their athletes was "unfair", when in actuality their ENTIRE anti-doping infrastructure was completely compromised (including test samples being swapped out at the Sochi games). FYI there is another more detailed MacLaren report due to come out next month. S
Too bad almost none of the commentators understand common facts about sports physiology and pharmacology. For example, the CORTICOsteroids given the tennis players for injuries would tend to make them weaker, not stronger (it is the ANDROGEN type steroids that are used by dopers), And it's dubious that Ritalin would help a gymnast, though it might an endurance athlete.
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.
You rules people...do you not realize that a significant portion of the population will cheat? The people you hold up as heroes and say "they'd never cheat" are the exact people I am talking about.
It's all about being properly cynical about human nature, and there's lots to be cynical about.
I venture to say just about every winning athlete has found a way to dope without getting caught. Period.
So, if we get that BS argument about "honesty and fairness" out of the way...the answer is obvious. Just let them, and let them use well understood substances.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
"Massive scale?" The hack listed a grand total of four athletes, all of whom had medical exemptions.
Biles' was for Ritalin for ADHD, a condition she has been under treatment for since she was a young child. Williams' was for painkillers and anyiinflammmatories for chronic injuries.
The fact that the media have failed to put the ridiculousness of the Russian claims front and center and have perpetuated the "drug cheats" narratice promulgated by the Russian hackers in their headlines shows just how far the standards of the fourth estate have fallen.
In fact, the hack doesn't show doping occurred at all, since the only evidence it has uncovered is for appropriate therapeutic uses of controlled substances under prescription and properly reviewed and obtained waivers by the WADA.
Of course for the 90% of news "readers" who merely look at a headline and pass judgment, none of this matters, and the damage is done. Yet because news outlets know that such salacious headlines are the only way to get views and resultant ad revenue, they are perversely incentivized to keep making them.
The Russkies aren't dumb; they know this effect well and are exploiting it to push their agenda in international discourse. The major political parties and their operatives in the U.S. do too, which is why you will see patently absurd headlines like "Trump Says Obama literally is the founder of ISIS" made, since the average reader is too stupid/lazy to look below the fold to see the body of the story explaining "duh, this isn't true" and will accept the statement at face value.