Slashdot Mirror
Did China Hack The CIA In A Massive Intelligence Breach From 2010 To 2012? (ibtimes.com)
schwit1 quotes the International Business Times:
Both the CIA and the FBI declined to comment on reports saying the Chinese government killed or imprisoned 18 to 20 CIA sources from 2010 to 2012 and dismantled the agency's spying operations in the country. It is described as one of the worst intelligence breaches in decades, current and former American officials told the New York Times.
Investigators were uncertain whether the breach was a result of a double agent within the CIA who had betrayed the U.S. or whether the Chinese had hacked the communications system used by the agency to be in contact with foreign sources. The Times reported Saturday citing former American officials from the final weeks of 2010 till the end of 2012, the Chinese killed up to 20 CIA sources.
Investigators were uncertain whether the breach was a result of a double agent within the CIA who had betrayed the U.S. or whether the Chinese had hacked the communications system used by the agency to be in contact with foreign sources. The Times reported Saturday citing former American officials from the final weeks of 2010 till the end of 2012, the Chinese killed up to 20 CIA sources.
Betteridge's law of headlines says "No."
China and Russia are strategic competitors. We should strive to have good relations with both, enhance partnership at points of shared interest, but also realize they are competitors. And for cryin' out loud, we should not be outsourcing a vast amount of our manufacturing base and knowledge to a strategic competitor. Enhancing economic partnership, certainly. Giving up our manufacturing base to one or the other is madness.
The pundits tell us we're a smart advanced country, manufacturing is beneath us. However, countries like China, Japan, and Germany, with national IQs equal to or greater than ours, cultivate manufacturing. So there's that.
It takes a special combination of arrogance and stupidity to believe that the U.S. can infiltrate and spy on every other intelligence organization on the planet, but somehow nobody is able to do the same to us using the same security vulnerabilities we leave in software specifically so people can be spied upon.
So yes, I do believe the CIA was breached.
Actually we just have our reporters emerging from their 8 year hibernation.
They are very cranky a little out of it.
For example, this one did not get the memo not to go back so far in time.
Perhaps if the NSA concentrated on cyber security instead of cyber attacks, this might not have happened?
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
C_atastrophically I_gnorant A_ssholes...
For no particular reason we cannot have headlines written like that for at least the next 4 years...
Proper Headlines:
Massive Chinese Data Breach Cripples CIA
Administration in Chaos Over Chinese Hack
Did Russia Pass Hacked Information to China
Crippling CIA Hack Leaked, Did Trump Know?
Trump Failed to Act On Chinese Hacking Allegations
None of those are "proper" headlines, because there is no actual evidence that they are true. TFA does not contain a single named or quoted source. It consists entirely of rumors, conjecture, and innuendo.
The reason that Betteridge's Law of Headlines is generally accurate is that using a question as a headline is a great crutch for weak journalism.
They likely had an easy back door through then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's private email server.
We'll never know, due to all the deletion they did to hide evidence. (That is, after all, why she took Colin Powell's advice and got her own email server to begin with.)
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The Soviet Union went for the mids and politics of US/UK gov/mil/contractors. Someone to talk to, some cash, some politics.
Classic spy offers.
The UK and later the US tried to counter that with better working conditions, better wages and more testing of trusted staff to see if they had been turned.
From the 1920-1970's the UK leaked everything interesting to the Soviet Union.
The US tried to counter such efforts by fully understanding the past and politics of every applicant. That worked until the USA did not walk the past of every applicant and hired on contractor trust or because a vital skill was needed. The FBI and other agencies would also test trusted US staff with undercover cash offers and see if they reported any security contacts outside work.
The US needed translators, experts for Korea, Vietnam, France, China, the Soviet Union, its Middle East occupations. Generations of very interesting people got clearances based on skill not security. They did their job well and reported back US methods and got to understand how the US looked for staff and then how to move up the ranks of the US clandestine services.
The US could have stopped all that by not using contractors but that was not an option politically. Any new security that blocked a contractor was removed by US party political efforts to allow contractors back into the most secret parts of the US gov and mil.
It took China a long time to understand how the CIA, NSA and GCHQ spy in China.
Dont have radio, data networks or any chatter from base to base to a command structure, everything is been collected on by the NSA and GCHQ.
MI6 and the CIA used a different approach. Invite a lot of students from China to top US and UK universities and try and get the students to enjoy freedom and democracy. When they returned to the Communist gov in China they would recall the fun freedoms and might just consider working for the CIA, MI6 later in China.
What the CIA and MI6 did not consider is that China would flood the West with trusted Communists that would enter the US and UK educations systems, learn and take everything back to China.
China started to notice the efforts to turn its graduates in the UK and US. China allowed some of its graduates to be turned and waited, watched and slowly understood what the West needed and wanted from spies in China over the years.
It took a few decades but China finally saw the pattern of the US and UK spy efforts in China, different to NSA and GCHQ collect it all.
China now understands when and how the approach will take place and has flooded the West with people who seem to want to spy for the CIA and MI6.
What the West saw as very smart people finally wanting freedom, wanting to change politics in China was just China flooding the West with its own spies.
The other issue for the GCHQ and NSA is the quality and amount of data collected in China and translation needed. Local staff at US and UK collection sites, later working on material all needed China experts. The secure hiring of expert staff over generations was always an issue given the skills needed and the time needed for results, Korea, Vietnam, handover of Hong Kong and later decades.
The US and UK so needed staff and spies in China that they never had the time to fully consider the idea that hiring a lot of people without the best security practices was not a good idea.
Decades later the results are the same that the UK faced with spies from the Soviet Union in the 1920-1980's.
Is the CIA leaking from computer databases? If any nation had that easy access deep within the CIA they would not act. They would watch and alter the flow of information and use it as a disinformation strategy to flush out more spies. Why act now and get the CIA to consider its issues and then be totally locked out?
The data flow back from spies in China could be a weak point. Using the "internet" or contact with a foreigner in China.
China understands every network in and out and the server
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Secretary of State doesn't receive that kind of information. That's National Security Council or private briefings. Would have never been shared by email, not even secure email.
The story talks about the execution of more than a dozen spies, but doesn't mention that this is perfectly acceptable under the Geneva Conventions. Leaving people to perhaps be a little outraged that "how dare they execute someone." The US has a history of doing the same thing (and so does pretty much everyone else on the q.t.) - I just find it interesting that neither the story, nor the comments, reflect on the consequences of this. Someone blackmails you into spying for them, you could end up dead. Why not just say "screw it" instead? You might even get your would-be blackmailer swinging at the end or a noose instead, or with, you.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Satan keeps his word
not so Trump
Stop libelling Satan!
It's the random use of capitals that make you particularly persuasive.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
Before long, Republicans are going to want to impeach Trump themselves. You can talk about it being partisan, but the reason Putin wanted Trump in is because of his incompetence, not his political views. Even partisan democrats are saying put the psychotic white-christian-america Pence in instead. At least he has a functioning brain.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
Secretary of State doesn't receive that kind of information. That's National Security Council or private briefings. Would have never been shared by email, not even secure email.
Fail.
Membership
The National Security Council is chaired by the President. Its members are the Vice President (statutory), the Secretary of State (statutory), the Secretary of Defense (statutory), the Secretary of Energy (statutory), the National Security Advisor (non-statutory), and the Secretary of the Treasury (non-statutory). ...
Investigators were uncertain whether the breach was a result of a double agent within the CIA who had betrayed the U.S. or whether the Chinese had hacked the communications system used by the agency to be in contact with foreign sources.
Yahoo Messenger with a ROT-13 plugin?
Chinese spies are doing their job, that's right. But Snowden's treason, likely, made that job easier. The asshole has blood on his hands — blood of Americans and those foreigners, who chose to help us, be it for money or to destroy the Communist regime, or both.
That said, I can't wait for Snowden and Manning to come out condemning Trump for sharing intelligence with Russia.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.