[HN Gopher] A CIA hacker's revenge
___________________________________________________________________
A CIA hacker's revenge
Author : jbegley
Score : 145 points
Date : 2022-06-06 11:59 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.newyorker.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.newyorker.com)
| weeeeelp wrote:
| https://archive.ph/3oNMJ
| kome wrote:
| about https://wikileaks.org/ "the site had released e-mails from
| the Democratic National Committee which had been stolen by
| hackers working on behalf of the Kremlin"
|
| is this true? i don't think there has never been a definitive
| evidence or proof about this. just "journalistic evidence" (=
| news outlets repeating the same info without any real evidence).
| HideousKojima wrote:
| The claim that they were stolen by Russia came from James
| Clapper: https://time.com/4625301/cia-russia-wikileaks-dnc-
| hacking/
|
| You may recall Clapper from his previous film, titled "I
| perjured myself before Congress and lied to the American
| public, and I would have gotten away with it too if it weren't
| for that damn Snowden kid." So take anything he says with an
| entire truckload of salt.
|
| Edit: Source regarding his perjury -
| https://apnews.com/article/business-33a88feb083ea35515de3c73...
| StanislavPetrov wrote:
| There has never been _any_ evidence released, definitive or
| otherwise. The assertions have always been along the lines of,
| "we know Russia is capable of doing this and we know Russia
| would like to do this therefore Russia did this".
| wil421 wrote:
| It's been said in various news outlets over and over again
| that Dutch Intelligence watched them carry out the DNR hack.
| Of course they aren't going to release actual evidence. The
| info was released to the press much later presumably after
| the Dutch hack was no longer useful.
|
| See another commenters article from Ars above.
| trasz wrote:
| >It's been said in various news outlets over and over again
|
| Try a little thought experiment: substitute "China" for
| "USA" and ask yourself, would you believe claims by Chinese
| espionage agency official, repeated by numerous Chinese
| outlets? Even if he wasn't known for committing crimes,
| like James Clapper is?
| NoGravitas wrote:
| Wikileaks has always claimed that the emails were leaked to
| them by someone inside the DNC, not by hackers, Russian or
| otherwise. The claims to the contrary have essentially all come
| from sources related to US intelligence services, and the
| publicly available evidence amounts to "trust us, we're the
| experts".
|
| Russiagate is QAnon for liberals.
| astrange wrote:
| It was released in a "talking indictment" of some GRU hackers.
|
| You'd very rarely want to release this as it would compromise
| sources and methods. Due to the extreme public interest we do
| actually know the info came from the Dutch intelligence agency,
| who among other things were tapping the GRU's security cameras.
| permo-w wrote:
| >"talking indictment"
|
| I do not know why it is, but the second anyone uses quotation
| marks like this, my trust in what they're saying instantly
| goes down by an order of magnitude
| astrange wrote:
| That sounds like a personal problem.
| permo-w wrote:
| it may well be. this is not a comment on what the person
| I'm replying to is saying
| LMYahooTFY wrote:
| Do you have source links for this?
| astrange wrote:
| No, I don't pull up sources for comments I'm making at 7 AM
| because I can't sleep.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| https://arstechnica.com/information-
| technology/2018/01/dutch...
| guggleet wrote:
| Is this an attempt at a novelty account?
| _jal wrote:
| This is a complicated story that's been made murkier by
| politics, I'm honestly not sure where the best starting
| place is. Marcy Wheeler is has been researching and
| documenting a whole cloud of related stories. These two are
| probably no worse than others as starting points.
|
| https://www.emptywheel.net/2017/01/04/why-was-gru-using-
| open...
|
| https://www.emptywheel.net/2017/03/28/what-was-the-
| relations...
| Ansil849 wrote:
| What's with the uncritical pro-CIA tone throughout this whole
| article?
|
| Quotes like this go completely unchallenged:
|
| > Karen, the O.S.B. supervisor, later recalled. "That information
| getting out into a forum like that can hurt people and impact our
| mission. It's a huge loss to the organization."
|
| What about the people who could be hurt as a result of the
| intelligence the CIA collects via the spyware?
| dylan604 wrote:
| >What about the people hurt as a result of the intelligence the
| CIA collects via the spyware?
|
| How exactly was someone "hurt" because of said spyware?
|
| >How did they reach this conclusion
|
| The CIA (or any TLA) does not comment on ways & means of
| investigations. That's just silly to think they would as it
| would expose those ways & means.
|
| I'm all for being critical of anything spoken out of which ever
| side of the mouth the CIA PR people are speaking, but I'm not
| sure you're arguments are really effective here.
| Ansil849 wrote:
| > How exactly was someone "hurt" because of said spyware?
|
| What do you think the information gleaned from the targets is
| used for, if not to harm the targets or others? This is
| beyond the fact that you don't think the mere act of having
| spyware installed on your devices is hurtful?
| dylan604 wrote:
| I equate this to those that say that downloading warez is
| not hurtful as it's just some electrons shifting around, so
| nothing was actually stolen.
|
| Having spyware sucks, and I do the best of my ability to
| not let it get installed. However, random internet thiefs
| vs nation state operatives are not the same and I do not
| humor myself to think I am adequetely equipped to prevent
| it. If the CIA plants stuff on my, a US citizen's computer,
| then that is absolutely something to be pissed off about
| and they need to be punished for this behavior. However, I
| know in my personal life there is nothing they will find of
| value and it is ultimately an absolute waste of their time
| and resources. If some random internet thief also can make
| use of the US Gov't agency's spyware in a way that is
| harmful to me (stealing money, etc), then it's even worse
| as they TLA probably think "secret" backdoors are safe.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Iranian_nucle.
| ..
| imwillofficial wrote:
| Because it's true? Leaked operational secrets = people killed.
| Ansil849 wrote:
| > Leaked operational secrets = people killed.
|
| Correct. Leaked operational secrets, like say via spyware
| installed on devices, = people killed. Which brings me back
| to my original question:
|
| > What about the people who could be hurt as a result of the
| intelligence the CIA collects via the spyware?
|
| So why is the fact that this leak could also save lives not
| pointed out?
| rhema wrote:
| > This is not dragnet mass surveillance of the kind more often
| associated with the National Security Agency. These are hacks, or
| "exploits," designed for individual targets.
|
| Mhmm. Pray tell what oversight should make me believe this is
| true?
|
| > Snowden and Manning were not seeking to blow the whistle on any
| one particular policy, in the manner that Ellsberg was; theirs
| was a more generalized disaffection, and the troves of data that
| they exposed were indiscriminate
|
| Both good whistleblowers who I do not care what ideological
| principles inspired them.
|
| > Unlike other prominent digital leakers, Schulte did not seem
| like an ideological whistle-blower.
|
| I guess you have to be a good person to be a whistleblower in the
| CIA. Maybe that's why they don't hire good people.
| alas_141 wrote:
| On your last bit, I don't see your point. It was obvious from
| the article that Josh didn't have a problem breaching personal
| privacy/security provided he was wielding/creating the tool
| that did it. It didn't track that he leaked data for any
| ideological reason other than he could, and felt the CIA
| deserved to get egg on their face for how they treated him.
| Also, beyond the idea that the CIA knew of vulnerabilities on
| public companies that exposed Americans and neglected to
| cooperate to patch them, the data, largely made up of exploits,
| that was leaked can't really be ideologically driven unless
| you're operating under the assumption that it isn't widely
| known that intelligence agencies hack their adversaries.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| It's not surprising that the cause of the leaks was petty and
| personal. "Deep Throat" Mark Felt's reason for exposing Nixon
| seems to be that he was upset he didn't get the director job, a
| similarly petty reason.
|
| Ideological cases like Ellsberg, Snowden, and Manning are the
| exception.
| pizzachan wrote:
| I wouldn't be surprised if they each had their 'petty' reasons
| as well. You have to lose faith in the people around you and
| the system at large before you feel you can go rogue. I
| personally burned a pretty significant relationship and my
| career in the process when the Trump military trans ban came
| through. I had by that point been hit with many petty
| injustices and indignities, but it was ban that finally brought
| me over the edge.
| imwillofficial wrote:
| What do you mean?
| antiverse wrote:
| >Snowden
|
| Looking back at everything that transpired with Snowden boggles
| the mind. I still have no idea if he's an adversarial plant by
| some government (meant to sow distrust, etc) or if he was
| genuine from the get-go. It is incredibly hard to get to the
| truths of these things, and the media outlets spinning it in
| their own ways (based on who donates to them and who owns them)
| makes it even harder.
| Consultant32452 wrote:
| If he were an adversarial plant by some government who
| intentionally sowed distrust by revealing factual things,
| would you lean more towards upset or thankful towards that
| third party government?
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Given that there is massive interest in getting people to
| believe that he is an adversarial plant, I would adjust your
| biases in the opposite direction to offset.
|
| I have seen no credible evidence that he didn't do this for
| ideological reasons.
| jacquesm wrote:
| If Snowden has an ideology it is 'to do what's right by his
| personal ethics', I don't see any East vs West or other
| usual suspects like claim to a pre-packaged position, from
| what I've read about him and from him he genuinely wanted
| to make a stand for a public that does not care about their
| privacy being destroyed.
|
| Too bad, really, he took one for the team and we failed to
| support him.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| I don't know when ideology became a dirty word but I was
| not using it in that sense.
| Terry_Roll wrote:
| > It is incredibly hard to get to the truths of these things,
|
| What are you a sock puppet? Everyone knows about deniable ops
| in the Special Forces world, assassinations are not something
| new, what makes you think Edward Snowden isnt telling the
| truth?
|
| Personally I dont think he's exposed that much, but then he
| may not have been in the thick end of it.
|
| Just read some of the stuff published by ex-military, and if
| you were a kid growing up around those sort of people, you
| probably got to hear about it.
|
| The vast majority of the population, less than 1% are like
| Mother Theresa, which means _everyone_ _has_ _secrets_ and
| today, science can extract those secrets against your will
| without you even knowing.
|
| AI detecting subconscious bias in judges
| https://www.theverge.com/2019/1/17/18186674/daniel-chen-
| mach... is just the tip of the iceberg.
|
| > the media outlets spinning it in their own ways (based on
| who donates to them and who owns them) makes it even harder
|
| Even journalists & news organisations including state
| broadcasters dont realise, they are giving away secrets at
| the subconscious level. There will come a point when they
| want to shut up shop because of what they are implicated in.
|
| AI is an arm's race that has no boundaries, and the winner
| takes it all!
| xpe wrote:
| >> It is incredibly hard to get to the truths of these
| things,
|
| > What are you a sock puppet?
|
| In case you haven't seen the HN guidelines:
|
| > Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing,
| shilling, bots, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It
| degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're
| worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll
| look at the data.
|
| In addition to that, saying "It is incredibly hard to get
| to the truths of these things" is hardly a convincing
| argument that an account is a sock puppet, which I'm
| defining as "A pseudonymous online identity adopted to
| further the user's real-life interests or to agree with
| sentiments the user has already expressed online." (per
| Wordnik)
| spansoa wrote:
| > I still have no idea if he's an adversarial plant by some
| government
|
| He was an Aaron Swartz type who just wanted information to be
| free. It is clear Snowden wasn't a mole. He just hated
| closed-doors spying on innocent people, & having their
| privacy invaded at every instance. His legacy will not be
| forgotten[0]
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowden_effect
| ProAm wrote:
| I wonder if the Ukraine war has affected Snowden with all the
| sanctions? An America, exiled in Russia who has a job and
| works. Is he paid in Rubles? Is life immensely more difficult
| for him now than it was 6 months ago? Curious.
| yardie wrote:
| From what I understand, and I'm not sure if it's propaganda
| or not, but the ruble dropped and then bounced back. The
| only Russians affected by the embargoes are the expats.
| They have to exchange rubles for dollars but can't. Even
| NATO members are still buying Russian oil and gas. Cutting
| it off completely would destabilize their own economies.
| [deleted]
| trasz wrote:
| Ruble "bounced back", because it's no longer
| exchangeable, its exchange rate is fictional now.
| Russians can't withdraw more than $10k per year, and 80%
| of any USD income must be deposited within a week or so.
| jacquesm wrote:
| From what I understand, and this definitely isn't
| propaganda the reality is that people are much happier to
| have 'hard' currency than rubles and a lot of hard
| currency is coming into Russia in physical form via for
| instance Turkey but also other countries.
| at-fates-hands wrote:
| >> but the ruble dropped and then bounced back.
|
| You are correct.
|
| _Understandably, the Russian authorities blamed the West
| for the drop in the ruble exchange rate, and depreciation
| for inflation. At the same time, they reacted by
| enforcing capital controls, restricting convertibility,
| offering more rubles to support bank liquidity and
| raising interest rates on ruble deposits._
|
| _Shortly afterward, they also announced that in the
| future Moscow would honor its euro- and dollar-
| denominated debts, but would ask "hostile countries" to
| pay for their energy imports in rubles. Some dubbed this
| policy the "ruble clause."_
|
| _The authorities can now boast that the ruble has
| stabilized. By the beginning of April, one euro bought 85
| rubles, marking a slightly stronger exchange rate than
| before the war began. Western operators are perhaps not
| overly interested in Russian monetary policy. But what
| about the ruble clause? Is it little more than a flash in
| the pan with little practical relevance, or should we
| take it more seriously?_
|
| https://www.gisreportsonline.com/r/ruble-clause/
| iLemming wrote:
| > but the ruble dropped and then bounced back.
|
| It doesn't mean much. If I remember it right, back in
| USSR time, the ruble rate was about 1.6 for a dollar. Yet
| people couldn't buy toilet paper whenever they needed it.
| There was a severe deficit of pretty much everything.
| It's not going to be like in the 90s - the economy is
| very different, but sugar shortages just three-four weeks
| into the war is not a good sign. It will get tough for
| Russians, which is not beneficial to anyone - not for
| them, nor for Europeans, Americans, or Chinese.
| yardie wrote:
| Sugar isn't a good indicator of much. Russia basically
| got their sugar from the country they just invaded. And
| Ukraine is just in a shitty strategic location. No one
| really cared about them until it became blindingly
| obvious they have a strategic location important to
| Russia. The sugar problem will resolve itself in a few
| months. The oil-based energy problem (where Russia holds
| the advantage) is going to take years to untangle.
| iLemming wrote:
| I agree, sugar perhaps is not a good indicator. There
| wasn't an actual shortage of sugar, it was a short-lived
| market panic. But, still, many other sectors of the
| Russian economy are already suffering - automakers, air
| travel & cargo are good examples. Some big tech companies
| like Cisco have entirely left the market, which is
| neither good for Russians nor Cisco. They already come
| $200M short in their quarterly. The layoffs didn't follow
| only because Cisco already slashed thousands of jobs last
| year due to the pandemic.
|
| Yes, there will be a lot of money in hard currency from
| oil and gas, but without access to high-tech & parts
| (which not many countries would sell to Russia), it's
| gonna pull the entire country into stagnation.
| agapon wrote:
| whoosh!
| agapon wrote:
| It was actually 1.6 dollars for 1 soviet ruble. But it
| was impossible to freely buy dollars at that rate.
| iLemming wrote:
| Aye, I got it backwards. My bad.
|
| Update... no wait, dollar was about 60 kopeeks, so for 1
| dollar you'd get 1.6 soviet roubles, I was right, no?
| nosianu wrote:
| I read an article just today - sorry, forgot which one, and
| too many in my history to find - reporting about foreigners
| still in Russia, who refuse to leave.
|
| They say there is a lot less variety in stores, but life is
| really quite normal. Except, everybody really makes sure
| what to say (and what not), especially to strangers. They
| report difficulties - or impossibilities - with money
| transfers.
|
| I have a friend with decades of business ties to Russia, he
| and his (Russian) wife live in Germany but he has a
| residency-type visa (whatever it's called) for Russia and
| even after the war flew there several times, via Turkey.
| There still are quite a few businesses present, smaller
| ones I think. I fully support Ukraine, but personally I'm
| content with those kinds of contacts remaining.
|
| They - several interviewed people independently - reported
| that they did not experience any problems from normal
| Russian people or from the authorities but where treated
| normally.
|
| I think if Snowden just removes himself from public view
| and does not talk about politics and the... _special
| operation_ , he'll be just fine, as will all the other
| foreigners.
|
| EDIT: Found it: "Westerners Who Stayed in Russia Find Home
| Transformed By War" (published yesterday)
| https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2022/06/05/westerners-who-
| sta...
|
| Note that "Moscow Times" is not aligned with the Russian
| government, and is registered in Russia as "foreign agent"-
| Please don't let the name deceive you. As you can see from
| their articles, they freely report on the war and the
| impact of the sanctions and other stuff. There Russian
| language website has even more detailed articles about
| Russian internal things, quite unfiltered (Google Chrome
| can auto-translate, if necessary).
|
| > _None of the Westerners in Russia interviewed by The
| Moscow Times said they had feared for their physical safety
| since the start of the war. Nor did they report any
| instances of hostility from authorities or ordinary
| Russians._
|
| > _But the military campaign has undoubtedly cast a cloud
| over their relationships with others, making them more
| cautious when voicing opinions._
| aaaaaaaaata wrote:
| Used to entertain ideas that he was an intelligence limited
| hangout, but...he's just too relentless & genuine to be doing
| a "good job" as one!
|
| He really does try to inform the People.
| the_af wrote:
| > _I still have no idea if he 's an adversarial plant by some
| government_
|
| Was what he disclosed true or not? In the end, that's all
| that matters.
| rblatz wrote:
| You can say only true things but still mislead by
| selectively releasing information. That's why it is
| essential to try and understand the motivations behind the
| leaked information.
| the_af wrote:
| Yes. On the other hand, the NSA illegally spying on
| Americans is bad. You don't need to know the motivations,
| it's just bad. You cannot build a robust democracy on top
| of such a shaky foundation.
|
| They can claim "Snowden was a KGB mole!" but if they
| hadn't been doing such nasty things, there wouldn't have
| been something so damaging for the mole (or a disgruntled
| ex employee, whatever) to disclose. There will always be
| dirty laundry to disclose of course -- nobody is 100%
| clean -- but this was major.
|
| This is classic "shooting the messenger".
| retcon wrote:
| I can't get past the question about the conditions under
| which the disclosures became deemed necessary. Everything
| else definitely never ought to be clear or you have a
| problem with arbitrary decision making agency out of hand.
| the_af wrote:
| I honestly don't understand your reply, could you reword
| it please? Thanks.
| xpe wrote:
| > Was what he disclosed true or not? In the end, that's all
| that matters.
|
| Incorrect. One person -- or one group -- or one ideology --
| doesn't get to decide all that matters for everyone.
| the_af wrote:
| Your reply is worded so generally and vaguely I don't
| even understand what you mean.
|
| Who "gets" to "decide" what in your reply? Please be
| specific.
| at-fates-hands wrote:
| From what he reportedly took and what's been released, I'm
| still so confused.
|
| It was a hot mess in the media for a few months about how
| the reporters he fed stuff to was going to release it all.
| Then, once the story died down, you didn't hear anything
| and there were no more releases. At least none that were so
| groundbreaking, they hit the media. You could say the media
| was culpable and simply ignored subsequent releases though.
|
| Is there somewhere you can go to see what's been released?
| I'm still under the impression the bulk of what he said he
| had has yet to be released.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| >Is there somewhere you can go to see what's been
| released? I'm still under the impression the bulk of what
| he said he had has yet to be released
|
| Most of what he took he gave to reporters so it wouldn't
| be released, that's why he didn't release everything
| online.
|
| The several organizations he gave information to
| continued to go through it for a couple of years,
| periodically releasing stories based on the disclosure.
| They all slowly stopped funding going through the
| documents, until only the Intercept was left.
|
| They continued with a limited staff until 2019, and it's
| end is one of the reasons both Poitras and Greenwald have
| left the organization.
|
| For what has been released, see
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_surveillance_disclos
| ure...
|
| And https://theintercept.com/collections/snowden-archive/
| sky-kedge0749 wrote:
| I don't know. If a ton of news came out about shady stuff
| happening at the Coca-Cola company, I'd want to know if it
| was all coming from corporate espionage paid for by Pepsi.
|
| We assume an impartial news organization will investigate
| Coke and Pepsi equally, so if the org comes out with a
| bunch of stuff about Coke acting badly, we figure that Coke
| really is bad, otherwise the org would have gone after
| Pepsi too, or both. On the other hand if a less scrupulous
| news org one day receives a mysterious package with a ton
| of bad stuff about Coke and just verifies and prints it,
| then Pepsi could be good or bad or anything, but most
| people will think they're good because of all the bad stuff
| only coming out about Coke.
| the_af wrote:
| I don't follow that line of reasoning. The NSA massively
| invading the privacy of Americans, often without
| disclosure, has nothing to do with a Pepsi vs Coke
| scenario.
|
| This isn't a competition between two corporations, this
| is about democracy and people's rights. What is this
| other side you would like to see presented more
| "impartially"?
|
| PS: [a completely fictional scenario] if a leak disclosed
| that Coca-Cola was secretly implanting mind-controlling
| substances via their soft drinks, and that these
| substances made every consumer broadcast their most
| intimate thoughts to Coke marketing execs, you should
| publish this and damn Coke. Who cares about what Pepsi is
| doing? Their turn will come.
| xpe wrote:
| Yes, there are big differences between an NSA leak versus
| the hypothetical soft drink company example. These
| differences are fair game to discuss.
|
| But in the context of the thread, the common thread is
| clear. Negative information, even if true, can be chosen
| selectively to attack an enemy.
| the_af wrote:
| The context of this thread is democracy and the rights of
| Americans.
|
| I'm not even sure what "selectively attack an enemy"
| means in this context. What Snowden disclosed was
| unequivocally bad, who cares what his motives were? We
| are not comparing soft drinks.
| sky-kedge0749 wrote:
| In an ideal world voters would rationally consider leaks,
| blame would be allocated appropriately, and the
| importance of the whole situation would be weighed
| against other concerns.
|
| In the real world voters are at the mercy of cognitive
| and other biases, tend to blame the current government no
| matter what, and a leak's importance depends as much on
| media attention and trivialities like how close the leak
| is to an election as it depends on actual merit.
|
| So, even true leaks can be effective tools to remove a
| government you don't like.
|
| Suppose some government opposes the U.S. in some
| important way. That government then gets voted out at the
| next election due to a leak. Would you care if that leak
| came from a CIA mole? I would. I doubt the CIA would
| investigate and reveal foreign corruption or illegal
| overreach purely out of the goodness of its heart.
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| I have found all the "shoot the messenger" of leaks to be
| so backwards it seems like an orchestrated defense.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| It is, and it's how media manufactures consent for
| punishing/outing whistleblowers who should be protected
| from any type of harassment.
|
| We saw something similar recently with the leak of the
| SCOTUS Roe v Wade opinion. There was a huge push to move
| the discussion from how controversial the opinion was &
| what the fallout would be towards "leaks are bad & we
| have to find who did this".
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| >It is, and it's how media manufactures consent for
| punishing/outing whistleblowers who should be protected
| from any type of harassment.
|
| Agreed; but...
|
| In your example, it's both. In that case, it's a
| completely legal and expected part of the process for the
| justices to decide things, even if it's things you don't
| like.
|
| In the case of Snowden or Manning or others, they were
| leaking something that the government says it does not
| do, should not do, and expressly illegal things.
|
| So it's not a great example. While we likely agree on
| abortion; Roe has always been on "shakey legal ground"
| (RBG's words) and the 7 justices that decided it could
| not agree if it was because of the 9th or 14th
| amendments, and offered no explanation how one or both of
| these superseded the 10th in this scenario. If you
| haven't, read the full opinion, do, it gives insight into
| what is going on... legally anyhow.
|
| So as to your example, it wasn't a whistleblower or
| shooting the messenger to find the scotus leaker - it's
| literally protecting the sanctity of that institution's
| process.
|
| If you can't imagine a scenario you would be upset a
| decision you agreed with was leaked in order to bully
| justices or influence a coming election, you aren't
| thinking hard enough.
| ameister14 wrote:
| Manning was ideological? I was under the impression that she
| was simply immensely unhappy and dissatisfied with her
| experience in the military as a whole and so released a huge
| amount of info without going through it.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| While I know much of what inspired her was the depression she
| was going through, I thought her knowledge of the illegal
| acts she knew were carried out also inspired her action. It's
| been a while since I've read her story though, so I could be
| misremembering.
| imwillofficial wrote:
| Vindictiveness based on non judicial punishment and a
| failing career.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| Most of what Manning released wasn't exposing crimes.
| Diplomatic insults via private internal communication
| aren't particularly actionable.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| No, and they weren't intended to be dumped in public. The
| Guardian journalists published the key for the file
| containing them, changing it from a leak that a team of
| journalists were going through to choose what to publish
| to one everyone had full access to. Manning can't be
| blamed for that.
|
| Plus, far more of Manning's leaks were about the wars
| than the diplomatic cables.
| greggsy wrote:
| In espionage recruitment, they refer to 'MICE': Money, Ideology
| (East vs West, religion), Compromise (blackmail) and Ego.
|
| Ego includes appealing to someone's desires for sex, positions
| of power, or revenge - this case fits well end truly here.
| jacquesm wrote:
| They missed 'Ethics'. And no, that's not ideology.
| hag wrote:
| I just listened to an episode of The Darknet Diaries with an
| ex-CIA (I think) agent and he was talking about MICE. I'm
| pretty sure he said the C was for Coercion, but that does
| include blackmail as you said.
| hammock wrote:
| I could see blackmail falling under ego also
| corrral wrote:
| The inclusion of "ego" seems like kind of a cop-out,
| like, "it could be one of these three things, or... uh...
| literally anything else".
| MockObject wrote:
| Seriously. If ego includes sex, it ought to include money
| as well.
| dylan604 wrote:
| I've always thought it was pretty accurate and not cop-
| out at all. At least they didn't try to squeeze in "id"
| Fargoan wrote:
| Darknet Diaries is such a good podcast. Especially the
| Student and Saudi Aramco episodes
| [deleted]
| JackFr wrote:
| Not obvious that Snowden or Manning are truly ideological.
| marssaxman wrote:
| What else would Snowden's motivation _be_?
| jacquesm wrote:
| Ethics. Which is not necessarily and ideology.
| RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote:
| > Because of national-security concerns, they couldn't take work
| home, or talk with anyone on the outside about what they did all
| day.
|
| I wonder if that would be an advantage. You are a clear
| separation between work and life. No one is allowed to call or
| message you at home about work when you are out of the office.
| perch56 wrote:
| Checkout Severance on Apple TV if you have the possibility but
| that's pretty much the story behind the series.
| cshokie wrote:
| An interesting topic and well done by the show.
|
| Just be warned that season one ends on a cliffhanger, and
| season two is a year away (or more). I didn't know that and
| found it frustrating.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| Yes and no. To pull it off you need a lot of process and
| bureaucracy. It's both good and bad.
| [deleted]
| DeathArrow wrote:
| If I infect someone's device with malware and exfiltrate data do
| gain money or obtain unfair advantages, I am a criminal.
|
| If a CIA employee infects a foreign finance minister's device
| with malware so US can obtain unfair advantages, he's an unsung
| hero.
| Victerius wrote:
| States occupy a distinct place in the legal spectrum. If you
| kill someone deliberately, you're a murderer. If a government
| kills someone, it's either a capital punishment, an act of war,
| or an assassination. But the idea that national governments can
| commit "crimes" has always been tenuous at best, because there
| is exists no supranational entity with the willingness and the
| authority to enforce violence against rule-breaking states. The
| United States and international coalitions have acted as the
| surrogates of the rules-based order several times, like in
| Korea and Afghanistan, but a CIA employee acting on behalf of
| and on direct order from his government enjoys a certain
| immunity from prosecution, like states at large.
| whatshisface wrote:
| States can't just "kill someone," they have to initiate
| criminal proceedings. You're describing a version of
| sovereignty that hasn't been recognized since the signing of
| the Magna Carta in 1215. In the modern world authority
| derives from the consent of the governed and is bound by law.
| dzonga wrote:
| I'm sure when the CIA / FBI reads this, they have a smile
| on their faces. Plenty of people i.e US citizens /
| residents have been killed not just on foreign soil but on
| US soil as well. Extra-judicial killings happen to this
| day. Foreign one's well that's just collateral damage ;) if
| you're a non threat of course, they might put the child-
| porn charge just to extend your suffering.
| bloak wrote:
| Maybe some states have to initiate criminal proceedings
| before killing people, but other states are happy to kill
| people, including their own citizens, including children,
| without any criminal proceedings:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anwar_al-Awlaki
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Abdulrahman_al-
| Awla...
|
| (To be fair, most countries have vague laws and corrupt
| courts so having a court in country X decide that someone
| should be executed is hardly any better, in practice, than
| having Barack Obama order the execution.)
| [deleted]
| imwillofficial wrote:
| Ruby ridge, waco
| jaywalk wrote:
| Oh, please. We have a confirmed account of Obama ordering
| the (successful) execution of an American citizen without
| due process. So it's not just theoretical.
| formerkrogemp wrote:
| > States can't just "kill someone," they have to initiate
| criminal proceedings. You're describing a version of
| sovereignty that hasn't been recognized since the signing
| of the Magna Carta in 1215. In the modern world authority
| derives from the consent of the governed and is bound by
| law.
|
| Bullshit. Millions of people have directly lost their lives
| due to the actions of the American government and citizens.
| Where were the criminal proceedings and due process for
| "collateral" damage in dozens of countries worldwide?
| rolph wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directorate_of_Operations_(CI
| A...
| whatshisface wrote:
| This would be a better link to make that point with [0]
| since the controversy section on that one only links to
| it, but my response would still be that government
| employees cannot overturn the rule of law by getting away
| with a few crimes any more than people who are not
| government employees can. Could you imagine if the police
| would give up on a law every time they had a cold case?
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Committee
| x86_64Ubuntu wrote:
| Plenty of civil rights activists were killed by the state
| or with the tacit approval of the state.
| ianhawes wrote:
| > but a CIA employee acting on behalf of and on direct order
| from his government enjoys a certain immunity from
| prosecution, like states at large
|
| Said employee enjoys immunity from prosecution in the United
| States.
|
| The US prosecutes foreign hackers operating on behalf of
| other countries all the time. They're rarely apprehended for
| obvious reasons, but the US is playing a very dangerous game
| with the liberty of their own hackers.
| ganoushoreilly wrote:
| Many, Many, US "Hackers" have shown up on lists in foreign
| countries. After OPM and associated Briefs, many in the top
| offices of these agencies were explicitly briefed as such.
| Some have dealt with harassment with stolen identities,
| some have even been approached in "friendly" countries and
| questioned. This isn't new. While other governments may not
| be as overt with the vast majority of know "hackers" the
| same happens to many in the US that are found out. Some
| have to be strategic on flights out of the country to make
| sure they maintain friendly countries etc.
|
| All said, most of it is political posturing and I don't
| expect people to be _eradicated or disappeared_ but that is
| a very real possibility in some countries.
|
| When it becomes "fun" is when you're at Defcon and you see
| people that also recognize you, but both of you know you're
| on opposite sides.
|
| So the US isn't playing any game that other countries
| aren't. Unless you work in the US govt. in one of these
| agencies doing this type of work, respectfully, you are
| looking at it from a tainted lens.
| JackFr wrote:
| Do you really not see any difference? Given that HN readers are
| pretty bright, it's hard not to think you're making the
| argument in bad faith.
| trasz wrote:
| Have you ever wondered if the difference you're allegedly
| seeing is not just a (very obvious when looked at from the
| outside) propaganda?
| JackFr wrote:
| Regardless of proaganda, the CIA is literally authorized by
| act of Congress, while I am prohibited by various acts of
| Congress. The CIA, the Congress, and the United States may
| be evil in your opinion, but there are _facts_ which
| differentiate my actions from that of the CIA.
| trasz wrote:
| Sure - and it works the exact same way in, say, Russia,
| or China. The main difference between those and CIA is
| American propaganda.
| JackFr wrote:
| Yes.
|
| As in the USA, certain acts that individuals do in China
| and Russia are prohibited in their respective regimes and
| yet practiced by their foreign intelligence agencies. We
| agree fully.
|
| That is not the point you were originally making. You
| seemed, facetiously, to be confused that behavior
| prohibited to US citizens was permitted to the US
| intelligence apparatus.
| vkou wrote:
| It's the difference between a soldier killing bad dudes at
| work, and me going out on the street to kill bad dudes on my
| way to work.
|
| State-state interactions are bound by different rules & norms
| than person-person or person-state interactions.
| tonmoy wrote:
| This applies to basically any other activity, from drug dealing
| to covert arms trading to assassinations. Malware is probably
| the least shocking imo
| wiglaf1979 wrote:
| It seems like this disconnect is something that riles you up.
| Context is key and the weaponization of cyberspace by Nation
| State actors is being defined as we go along. It's getting to
| be more than a bit dated but the book and documentary
| "Countdown to Zero Day" hits on this kind of stuff. I enjoyed
| the hell out of it mostly. The rest of the time was me getting
| more and more pissed about how short sighted we were with
| Stuxnet. Blowback and all that.
|
| Just a recomendation for your reading list since I was thinking
| a similar pithy comment and figure you might also enjoy that
| book like I did.
| greggsy wrote:
| But everyone does it - not just the US.
|
| If the CIA does something against another country it's still
| illegal.. just not inside the US.
| photochemsyn wrote:
| Ah so we are no better than China, Russia, North Korea and
| Iran. The claim that the US foreign policy agenda is
| promoting democratic values and human rights around the
| world, then, I guess that was just a two-faced con artist
| act?
|
| The NSA and CIA are probably more interested in feeding Wall
| Street insider information on foreign economic activity so
| they can obtain advantages than anything else, and of course
| there's the kickback angle with the private contractors
| bloated secret budgets. How patriotic can you get?
| JackFr wrote:
| > The NSA and CIA are probably more interested in feeding
| Wall Street insider information on foreign economic
| activity so they can obtain advantages than anything else
|
| Wall Street has pretty much shied away since Clarence Beeks
| blew the orange juice corner in 1983.
| greggsy wrote:
| your first paragraph is just a reflection of the way the
| world works. You can take sides - most people do - or not.
| Either way the ethics are steeped in a complex of
| nationalism, ideology, media, state control, and everything
| in between.
|
| Your second paragraph seems a tad hyperbolic. The intel
| machine is there to progress a country's interests. Most of
| the time, it is for peaceful purposes, but agreed there is
| often a commercial interest at play.
| boomchinolo78 wrote:
| Having met someone who was at the top of my country's
| intelligence machine: CIA is corrupt, other countries
| fare a bit better but not too well. It's a difficult
| problem to concentrate so much power and not have
| corruption.
| bombcar wrote:
| "Democratic values and human rights" is just how we refer
| to "how we want it done" - when what we want goes against
| them, they fall away to the side and aren't talked about.
| jjitz wrote:
| > The NSA and CIA are probably more interested in feeding
| Wall Street insider information
|
| Citation needed. What a ridiculous thing to say.
| photochemsyn wrote:
| Well, the NSA and CIA and the State Department have long
| claimed that their cyber-espionage activities have
| nothing to do with securing economic information for the
| advantage of say, US oil companies, right?
|
| https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/longhorn-
| cybe...
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/09/nsa-spying-
| bra...
|
| Those claims seem to be false. Engaging in cyber-
| espionage (and indeed, going to war) for economic
| advantage seems to be the name of the game. Why not just
| be honest about it, instead of spouting all this pablum
| about 'defending democracy and human rights'?
| MockObject wrote:
| > Why not just be honest about it, instead of spouting
| all this pablum about 'defending democracy and human
| rights'?
|
| Maybe the actual decisionmakers of the world all already
| know how the world works.
| imwillofficial wrote:
| You want a citation for secret stuff the spook agencies
| do?
|
| Are you kidding me?
| toomanyrichies wrote:
| I'm not taking sides either way, but Hitchens's Razor
| does still apply here (i.e. "claims made without evidence
| can be dismissed without evidence").
| NoGravitas wrote:
| > I guess that was just a two-faced con artist act?
|
| Of course it was. Read Chomsky.
| zmgsabst wrote:
| > Ah so we are no better than China, Russia, North Korea
| and Iran.
|
| Don't let perfect be the enemy of good: the world isn't
| black and white, but shades of gray.
|
| I think it's both the case that the US does unsavory things
| _and_ that the US is better than those nations on the
| subjects you're talking about.
|
| > The NSA and CIA are probably more interested in feeding
| Wall Street insider information on foreign economic
| activity so they can obtain advantages than anything else,
| and of course there's the kickback angle with the private
| contractors bloated secret budgets.
|
| Compared to those nations you listed, I don't think this
| claim is true.
| mistrial9 wrote:
| "But everyone does it " <---- ?!??
|
| out of respect for the forum here, let's elucidate a bit. The
| History of Civilization on the one hand .. you know, the
| difference between a pack of animals and something that can
| endure via shared purpose.. The History of Conscious Choice
| (won't say the R**** word here) .. are both grounded in
| choosing higher ground so to speak.
|
| At every stage, those who could cheat the rules for others,
| look good doing it, and take the rewards, had an
| economic/territory advantage. Those who _serve_ in a uniform
| service are bound by law for real reasons !!
|
| How can a single comment blithely dismiss the "Social
| Contract" and hand-supply a _lame excuse_ as contribution to
| a social discussion ? Its the same mentality as 12 year olds
| stealing .. "everyone does it" is not the answer, not at
| all.
| runjake wrote:
| Welcome to a peek behind the world's thin veneer.
|
| You should see what goes on and who dies in order to keep
| our iPhone and gas prices down, and our children fed.
|
| Expose consumers to the true costs of goods and services in
| a moral world, and the world's morals are going to start
| looking pretty different, pretty quickly.
| mandmandam wrote:
| > in order to keep our iPhone and gas prices down, and
| our children fed
|
| Bullshit. None of that is for our sake. These people
| aren't running charities or ideologically driven; they're
| just greedy scumlords who would happily sell guns to 8
| year olds, or systematically deny climate change for 50
| years, if it made them money.
| MockObject wrote:
| Resource extraction using brutality is pointless without
| a market for the extracted resources.
| anonymousisme wrote:
| Why does the article repeat this known-to-be-false assertion
| about Wikileaks?
|
| "But WikiLeaks had also shown, quite recently, a willingness to
| be a mouthpiece for foreign intelligence services: in 2016, the
| site had released e-mails from the Democratic National Committee
| which had been stolen by hackers working on behalf of the
| Kremlin."
|
| The DNC leak was an inside job and not a result of a "hack".
|
| https://nypost.com/2017/08/15/new-report-claims-dnc-hack-was...
| Barracoon wrote:
| Why does the NY Post repeat known to be false assertions about
| Russian malign influence. DNC was APT28 and not an inside job.
| ForHackernews wrote:
| All else being equal, I'd trust the New Yorker's fact checking
| much more than the NY Post's.
| kappuchino wrote:
| Not the most credible news-source. "Report claims" - and that
| was during the Trump Administration, correct me if I am wrong.
| anonymousisme wrote:
| There are plenty of other contemporaneous sources all saying
| the same thing. Similar to the now dis-proven Russia-gate
| hoax, the DNC are the ones pushing the narrative that the
| leak was a Russian operation. The analysis of the time stamps
| on the DNC files has proven that they were not copied over a
| network, but copied locally.
| [deleted]
| kappuchino wrote:
| This source say otherwise ... and its from a forensics
| company https://www.crowdstrike.com/blog/bears-midst-
| intrusion-democ...
| stefantalpalaru wrote:
| > a forensics company
| https://www.crowdstrike.com/blog/bears-midst-intrusion-
| democ...
|
| That's just a front for a think-tank: https://web.archive
| .org/web/20200930134745/https://www.atlan...
|
| And CrowdStrike is so deeply involved with the DNC that
| they ended up lying for them:
| https://mate.substack.com/p/indicted-clinton-lawyer-
| hired-cr...
| helloooooooo wrote:
| CrowdStrike is a 40 billion dollar cyber security
| company. You must be deep down the conspiracy rabbit hole
| to be convinced it is a front for a think tank. Dmitri
| Alperovich is a well respected and experienced security
| professional.
| Rotdhizon wrote:
| I enjoyed the beginning of the article because it was actually
| informative. Once you get to the part where it becomes a blatant
| smear and misdirection campaign, it loses its interest and
| credibility. Why does half the entire read just focus on
| destroying this guys character?
|
| If he actually did get caught with what they say he did, then
| sure he deserves to go down but it's weird how hyper focused they
| are on painting this guy as the devil in his personal life. It
| seems like it's because their isn't any real evidence present to
| nail this guy. It's all circumstantial and worse, in ways that
| could very easily be planted/faked.
| jaywalk wrote:
| When the article revealed the child porn, my first thought was
| "of course they 'found' child porn." Such a coincidence how
| tough cases like this always turn up with child porn charges.
| UberFly wrote:
| Then there's that other possibility that he actually did have
| child porn on his computer.
| jaywalk wrote:
| Sure, that's certainly possible. And if he did, then he
| deserves to be prosecuted and punished for it.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| Well, he's being _charged_ with _having_ child
| pornography on his computer. Whether or not he was the
| one who put it there and used it is debatable.
|
| As someone else noted, it seems statistically unlikely
| that so many people who the government brings national
| security cases against are pedophiles.
|
| One of the following must be true: a surprising number of
| all government workers in intelligence are pedophiles,
| pedophilia and propensity to leak government secrets are
| highly correlated, or the government is planting
| evidence.
|
| I'm not going to discount the mental health correlation
| possibility, because being crazy enough to work for the
| government _and then_ ineptly leak classified
| materials... doesn 't bode well for an individual's
| baseline mental stability.
| jjoonathan wrote:
| "Just sprinkle some child porn on him Johnson, and let's get
| out of here"
|
| That said, it sounds like they caught him fair and square
| with actual evidence (the backdoor, the access logs, and the
| versioning of the leak) and the mistrial was the result of a
| confused jury.
| jaywalk wrote:
| But they were missing the key piece, which is that he
| leaked it. Without that, it's all circumstantial. Was he
| _probably_ the one who leaked it? Yeah, I think it 's safe
| to say that. But that's not where the bar lies in a
| criminal trial.
| hermitdev wrote:
| But, do they need to prove that he leaked it? Surely the
| backdoor and exfiltrating the data alone would be enough
| to put him away from a long time, even if he never shared
| it with anyone.
| jaywalk wrote:
| They need to prove that he leaked it if they want him to
| be convicted of it. And they want that because the
| punishment for it is far more severe.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| I believe possession of unauthorized copies of classified
| information is already a crime, though I think the
| possible charges are far less than leaking it.
| jaywalk wrote:
| You are correct, which is why they wanted to get him
| convicted of leaking it.
| dahdum wrote:
| He didn't deny he had the child porn though did he? Hardly
| seems like a frame up job if he admits it was there, hidden
| behind 3 encryption layers. I thought his excuse was someone
| uploaded it to his server "back in college".
|
| Even ignoring his troubling sexual history and the chat logs,
| it sounds pretty legitimate.
| Ansil849 wrote:
| > Why does half the entire read just focus on destroying this
| guys character?
|
| Yeah, this was my question reading this piece as well. This
| article overwhelmingly reads like uncritical character
| assassination. I think whether the guy was a giant dick to
| coworkers should be tangential at best, if not outright
| irrelevant, but definitely not the centerpiece of the story,
| and yet it is.
| NoGravitas wrote:
| You're quite right, and the answer to the original question
| is "Because the US mainstream media are, knowingly or not,
| part of the US national security establishment's propaganda
| wing." But apparently, domestic propaganda is something only
| $BAD_COUNTRY engages in.
| buitreVirtual wrote:
| The description of his character is a fascinating part of the
| story. Keep in mind that this a story, and not (just) an
| indictment. Showing his character is also critical background
| for the reader to understand why he allegedly leaked that
| backup.
| x86_64Ubuntu wrote:
| If it were just CSAM, then that would be one thing and we could
| write it off as the government trying to railroad him. But the
| government also claims to have access to chat logs in chatrooms
| focused on CSAM, as well as a video of him sexually assaulting
| an old roommate.
|
| Just because they are focusing on his atypical and undesirable
| character attributes doesn't mean that it's not a credible
| work.
| webmobdev wrote:
| But note that they still haven't proceeded to prosecute him
| for these charges yet. Which just seems so odd.
| no-dr-onboard wrote:
| Having worked in similar environments, I found that most of the
| features in this article are both believable and typical.
|
| The workplace hostility, the various office personas, the
| drudgery, humiliation and bureaucracy even the VM that's triple
| encrypted isn't unusual for even the most benign cybersecurity
| researcher. Ironically, the lapse in OPSEC isn't either. Time
| and time again, people who are doing bad things always seem to
| have a lapse in OPSEC that is routinely double underlined in
| these types of articles.
|
| And of course, the last typical bit is the Child Sexual Abuse
| Material being found. Isn't it something that when the
| NSA/CIA/FBI wants to take someone down they always seem to find
| CSAM? I'd hazard that this approach is used when the state's
| most "powerful and prominent police agency" isn't able to
| decrypt/bypass what they're truly after. Consider the
| frustrations they encountered with DPR[1]. another commenter
| quipped, "sprinkle a little CP in there and call it a day".
| After all, doesn't this fit the MO of the FBI/CIA when you
| consider the Stonewall investigations[2]? Find something that
| is absolutely anathema to the public, charge the suspect with
| that. Not surprised.
|
| 1. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/10/how-the-feds-
| too...
|
| 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stonewall_riots
| sbarbarian wrote:
| Regardless of planted or no - feel sorry for whatever digital
| forensic examiner had to confirm it was indeed what it was.
| Not the victim in this scenario, but its an often-overlooked
| and extremely unpleasant role to confirm this stuff.
| carapace wrote:
| Remember "Hacking Team"?
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacking_Team
|
| It's not mentioned in the WP article but automated planting
| of the aforementioned material on a target computer was one
| of the capabilities they sold.
| siliconc0w wrote:
| It sounds like a leak was inevitable given their IT security.
| Encrypted virtual machine with an encrypted home folder
| containing an encrypted archive with passwords kept unencrypted
| on his phone is pretty comical but Op Sec is hard.
|
| The only evidence that is mildly convincing is that he accessed
| the same archive as the one uploaded though just because the leak
| might have came from a credential he created as an administrator
| doesn't necessarily tie it to him. Still from this it's a wonder
| anyone with talent wants to work for government - get paid less
| and possibly prosecuted if you leave on bad terms.
| imiric wrote:
| > passwords kept unencrypted on his phone
|
| Yeah, I scoffed at this part.
|
| What are the chances someone working in OpSec would leave his
| personal devices so insecure? Either the CIA had much more
| access than what this article claims, or the article is missing
| details.
| photochemsyn wrote:
| This article is a waste of time at best and a deliberate
| misdirection at worst. Focusing on the (alleged) leaker and
| ignoring the content of the leak is a classic propaganda tactic.
| Right at the beginning we see this claim in defense of the CIA
| program:
|
| _This is not dragnet mass surveillance of the kind more often
| associated with the National Security Agency. These are hacks, or
| "exploits," designed for individual targets._
|
| Perhaps the most news-making program in that leak was something
| called "Marble Framework", and as I recall NSA whistleblower Bill
| Binney talked quite a bit about it in relation to Russiagate. I
| don't care about Russiagate, so let's search Google with
| 'verbatim' (under tools) on.
|
| binney "marble framework" CIA -russiagate
|
| So, here we get a lot of interesting results and a description of
| Marble Framework. Here's one source for example, not sure I agree
| with their characterization of Binney, who was at least trying to
| be responsible and follow the laws that banned mass domestic
| warrantless collection, and who seems like a decent person (plus
| B-tree tutorial) but at least this source discusses the central
| matter:
|
| https://freethoughtblogs.com/stderr/2017/04/14/why-cia-and-n...
|
| > "Description: The Marble Framework is designed to allow for
| flexible and easy-to-use obfuscation when developing tools. When
| signaturing tools, string obfuscation algorithms (especially
| those that are unique) are often used to link malware to a
| specific developer or development shop. This framework is
| intended to help us (AED) to improve upon our current process for
| string/data obfuscation in our tools. The framework utilizes pre
| and post-build execution steps to apply obfuscation to the tool.
| [CIA Marble Framework docs]"
|
| This is a tool allowing for things like 'false flag'
| cyberattacks, such as planting malware that looks like it came
| from whoever - North Korea, Iran, etc. - but which reports back
| to CIA. Rather tellingly, this article doesn't even mention it.
| Nor does it dig into the issue of economic espionage, something
| the US government claims it never does. See the above source's
| discussion of something called 'Longhorn' for the counterexample.
|
| The issue is this makes all the US government claims about
| 'detecting the signature of foreign hackers' in all manner of
| news reports completely suspect. How do we know they didn't put
| those signatures there themselves? Now they have a massive
| credibility problem (see also lies about WMDs in Iraq, etc.) -
| and that's something the New Yorker apparently doesn't want to
| dig into. Kind of pathetic really.
| itsthecourier wrote:
| DeWilde wrote:
| > But WikiLeaks had also shown, quite recently, a willingness to
| be a mouthpiece for foreign intelligence services: in 2016, the
| site had released e-mails from the Democratic National Committee
|
| That is certainly one perspective you can have.
|
| Another perspective is that if the DNC hadn't engaged in corrupt
| practices then foreign intelligence services wouldn't have
| anything to leak.
| formerkrogemp wrote:
| > Another perspective is that if the DNC hadn't engaged in
| corrupt practices then foreign intelligence services wouldn't
| have anything to leak.
|
| 'You have nothing to hide so what's wrong with everyone
| checking out what's there in your search history and what's on
| your hard drives.'
|
| You sound like the same people that want to make encryption
| illegal: politically naive and maliciously, selectively
| ignorant.
| brigandish wrote:
| How is encryption for individuals comparable to, in your
| account, wanting an organisation to be more transparent, or -
| given a fair reading of what you're responding to - hoping
| that an incredibly powerful and influential group that may
| provide a majority of top level politicians isn't engaged in
| corruption?
|
| Next you'll be arguing for less oversight for the 3 letter
| agencies because they should have strong privacy rights!
| fredgrott wrote:
| straw-men arguments are the least effective logic arguments
|
| Is there a stronger argument to be used in place of that one?
| pstuart wrote:
| You're implying that the GOP is devoid of corruption. Isn't it
| always "both sides are corrupt"?
|
| The key thing is that conservatives don't care about corruption
| itself, just the opportunity to smear their opponents.
|
| I'd be more than fine with even more sunshine exposing the
| workings of the DNC and addressing what was found. Can you say
| the same about the GOP?
|
| Edit: I'd like to be proven wrong, so tell me what I missed.
| DeWilde wrote:
| Please explain which part of my post led you to believe that?
|
| That is not my belief nor the point of my post. I am only
| stating that the way the NewYorker looks at this is not the
| same how some other people look at it.
|
| Also I'm not from the US nor do I really care about US
| politics, I do love pointing out obvious things like these
| :).
| pstuart wrote:
| > Another perspective is that if the DNC hadn't engaged in
| corrupt practices then foreign intelligence services
| wouldn't have anything to leak.
|
| There was no leakage of GOP emails, therefore there was
| nothing to leak, i.e., no corruption of concern.
|
| If I misread your intent I apologize, it can be challenging
| in the most benign situations and it's more so tricky when
| its a subject of disagreement.
|
| But my claim still unfortunately holds. The DNC leak was a
| political hit job that only intended to smear the opposing
| party. A better example is Hunter Biden -- his employment
| really was with corrupt intents and if there _really_ was
| evidence that corruption was rewarded it should be
| prosecuted.
|
| But if that very concern is legitimate, then it should be
| applied to all. There's plenty of evidence of that a
| certain son-in-law engaged in far more egregious affairs
| and there is not a peep about that.
|
| So I couldn't help but read your comment as yet another
| "gotcha" that fuels this false narrative.
| mellosouls wrote:
| _You 're implying that the GOP is devoid of corruption_
|
| I read no such implication.
| pstuart wrote:
| The implication was that DNC emails were evidence of
| corruption, yet no GOP emails were leaked, ergo no
| corruption there.
|
| Disclaimer: I have no party affiliation (political parties
| are a pox), but I do tend to vote for one side as the least
| bad option.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| That's a strained interpretation for sure.
|
| > Disclaimer: I have no party affiliation (political
| parties are a pox), but I do tend to vote for one side as
| the least bad option.
|
| Yes, most formally unaffiliated voters are still close to
| single ticket voters.
| l33t2328 wrote:
| That implication has no textual basis.
| jamespo wrote:
| Another perspective is WikiLeaks seems to be very selective
| about what it publishes
| kome wrote:
| Do you have any evidence they received leaks about
| republicans (or whatever you mean...) and they didn't publish
| it?
| martey wrote:
| - https://www.dailydot.com/debug/wikileaks-syria-files-
| syria-r...
|
| - https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2016/dec/18/john-
| podes...
|
| - https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/08/17/wikileaks-turned-
| down-l...
| ianhawes wrote:
| What exactly in the DNC emails would you call a corrupt
| practice?
|
| The purpose of the 2016 political email "leaks" was entirely
| embarrassment and to create the aura that the emails were proof
| of corruption.
| JacobThreeThree wrote:
| Giving one candidate debate questions in advance.
|
| https://www.politico.com/story/2016/10/donna-brazile-
| wikilea...
| ianhawes wrote:
| That would hardly qualify as corruption. The DNC is well
| within its rights to determine how they wish to conduct
| their debates. A single question that was not posed in the
| exact same form would not meet the definition of
| corruption.
|
| Ethically weak? Sure.
| Agamus wrote:
| As an outside observer, I never had the sense that it
| would be considered fair, or non-corrupt, for one of the
| candidates to have the questions in advance.
|
| To me, when I first saw this news story, I felt it was
| one of the most shockingly corrupt things I had ever
| seen. The fact that you could see this news and find that
| it "would hardly qualify as corruption"... this gives me
| hope that philosophers can gleefully debate reality
| forever without messing things up by accidentally
| tripping over the truth. No sarcasm implied!
|
| I struggle to think of a situation as public as this that
| could be more corrupt.
| mandmandam wrote:
| ...It's very, very hard to take your comments in good
| faith. MANY people have taken the time to point out other
| DNC corruption. Please consider aligning your position a
| little more with reality.
| eli wrote:
| Seems like it's just the one point repeated in different
| articles?
|
| No need to question anyone's sincerity.
|
| The reality is the emails were hacked and released in
| order to damage the Clinton campaign by a foreign power
| that wanted her to lose (or win but severely weakened).
| This is much more serious than some unseemly infighting
| within the DNC. Nothing in the Clinton emails was a
| crime, right?
| brigandish wrote:
| It would be a frightening world indeed if all unethical
| behaviour was covered by law, and worrying to think that
| the defence for unethical behaviour could possibly be to
| point to the absence of a law for it.
| president wrote:
| Lots of lawyers and CYA means you can do things that are
| bad but won't break the law and gives an out for people
| on online forums to defend you with "but it didn't
| qualify as legal corruption!".
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Why even have primaries? The DNC is well within their
| rights to return to the smoke-filled room.
| NoGravitas wrote:
| They'd probably be better off by doing so. After the 1968
| primary, the Democratic Party made a number of changes to
| how they hold primaries, mainly in order to avoid a split
| between the conservative and progressive wings of the
| party. But the 2016 and 2020 primaries were so visibly
| rigged that they may well have done _worse_ in that
| respect than simply choosing Clinton and Biden in a
| smoke-filled room would have done.
| JacobThreeThree wrote:
| Despite the headline, the article makes it clear that it
| was multiple questions, on multiple instances.
|
| >Brazile, on two separate instances, tipped off the
| Clinton campaign ahead of time on questions that might
| come her way at CNN events
|
| It's pretty wild that you don't consider this corruption.
| DeWilde wrote:
| Didn't they clearly show bias from the DNC against Bernie?
| [0]
|
| This also resulted in the DNC apologizing to Bernie. [1]
|
| And did it not result in the DNC chair CEO, CFO, and
| Communication Director resigning? [2]
|
| With actual email proof, public apology, and resignations it
| seems to me that there was more than just an aura of
| corruption. Or do you still disagree?
|
| [0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-
| fix/wp/2016/07/24/he...
|
| [1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-dnc-
| statemen...
|
| [2] https://edition.cnn.com/2016/08/02/politics/dnc-ceo-
| resigns-...
| shadowgovt wrote:
| There isn't anything corrupt about having bias against
| Bernie any more than it's "corrupt" that DNC leadership has
| a bias against Donald Trump.
|
| Party leadership is allowed to have preferences; the party
| isn't the public, it's a party. The primary election's
| purpose is to show the party who the public favors (because
| it is, ostensibly, politically-suicidal to run an unpopular
| candidate).
|
| And in the end, the actual votes favored Clinton over
| Sanders. These votes may have been influenced by the party
| leadership suggesting to the rank-and-file that Clinton was
| a better candidate, but as it's not a general election
| that's well within their purview to do.
|
| (Whether state machinery should be used to run elections
| for what is essentially a private political club is a great
| question that I think people should be asking about the way
| elections are structured in each state).
| willcipriano wrote:
| > Party leadership is allowed to have preferences; the
| party isn't the public, it's a party.
|
| It's a club and you ain't in it, isn't really going to
| get the young people to the polls.
| themacguffinman wrote:
| Young people will first have to demonstrate that they are
| capable of going to the polls for anything. Democracy is
| a civic duty, it's not some customer support department.
| "2/5, wasn't friendly, will not go to the polls again"
| trasz wrote:
| Why would they waste their time on something that's, as
| been found time and time again, simply doesn't work? US
| policy is shaped by lobby groups, not voter's beliefs.
| willcipriano wrote:
| That'll show em! You guys just need to have a few more
| disastrous election losses on they will come back begging
| to vote for the leaderships preferred candidate.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| N'ah. A few more disastrous election losses and they
| won't have to vote anymore at all.
| willcipriano wrote:
| If your thesis is correct we shall see in a few months.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| Looking at past historical trends, I'd give it about 8
| years.
|
| https://libraries.wm.edu/exhibits/irrepressible-conflict-
| or-...
| shadowgovt wrote:
| Indeed, and Sanders does seem to have a consistent
| problem with young people claiming they're going to vote
| for him and then just... Not.
|
| Every alleged slight the DNC made against Sanders would
| not have excluded him from the party nomination if voters
| had voted for him in the primary. But at the end of the
| day, the numbers didn't manifest.
| DeWilde wrote:
| If that bias leads to action, as shown in [0] of my
| earlier post, then isn't that corruption?
|
| EDIT: punctuation correction.
| Retric wrote:
| No, the party should be acting. If party leadership cares
| about winning the general election for example, they
| should promote the person more likely to win.
|
| Party leadership could very well prefer candidate X
| personally, but promote candidate Y strategically.
| Politics goes beyond the election into actually
| implementing the candidates proposals, which adds yet
| another dimension here.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| Corruption is something a government can have; what does
| it mean for a party to be corrupt?
|
| If people think it means the party doesn't reflect the
| will of the voters... Not exactly. That's always been the
| structure of the Democratic party. Popular will is
| tempered by party leadership. That's baked into the
| structure of the Democratic party itself. The party that
| lacks that kind of tempering is the GOP, and as a result
| it tends to run populists who may or may not actually
| have any government qualification (one won the Presidency
| in 2016; a couple have won state governorship over the
| years).
|
| The resulting apologies and resignations were an attempt
| to reconcile with voters who, fundamentally, did not
| understand how the party they support actually works. No
| shame in that; it's a big and complex machine. But it's
| never been a machine that just reflects the unmodified
| will of the people who toss ballots into the box with a
| 'D' next to their name in the primaries. That's one
| source of signal the party uses to decide who it will
| run.
|
| To give another example: in 2008, in response to the
| Florida party leadership running their primary earlier
| than the national committee authorized them to run it,
| the committee stripped _all_ the Florida delegates of
| their vote in the national convention (https://en.wikiped
| ia.org/wiki/2008_Florida_Democratic_presid...). Then, it
| compromised (at its discretion) by seating them but only
| counting half of each of their votes. That is the nature
| of the power the democratic party national leadership has
| to wield at its discretion, without oversight, as per its
| charter.
|
| People just don't know this because people don't know the
| parties.
| DeWilde wrote:
| I'm sorry, but this seems to me like you are advocating a
| point. of: "The peasants don't know what is good for
| them, the party will decide for them."
|
| This would have been fine the DNC came out and said that
| this is what they are doing. But the DNC has explicitly
| stated that is unbiased in action (in the [0] of my
| earlier post) and then they go and do the opposite. This
| is just plain corruption.
|
| If the contents of the food product you just bought are
| not the same as the label of the product then fines are
| levied against the company that sold it.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| It's not an argument _I 'm_ making; it's an argument
| lawyers for the DNC have effectively made in a court of
| law defending DNC against a class-action lawsuit by
| voters. https://observer.com/2016/10/dnc-lawyers-argue-
| no-liability-...
|
| "Courts have uniformly rejected attempts to litigate on
| the basis of purported political promises, including
| 'statements of principle and intent in the political
| realm'..."
|
| The DNC can say it's unbiased, but the rules-as-written
| allow broad, sweeping bias in how the Democratic party
| conducts its affairs. It's a party. They're biased by
| default. The whole point of parties is, basically, as you
| put it, "The peasants don't know what is good for them."
| There's a reason so many politicians throughout history
| have been anti-party. Unfortunately, they stick around
| and grow in power because they tend to work; focused
| political alignment beats unfocused noise consistently.
|
| What happened with the Sanders campaign is a whole bunch
| of voters crashed headlong into a system that works other
| than the way they assume it does.
| DeWilde wrote:
| Excuse me then, we were discussing semantics vs legality.
| My point was that by dishonest the DNC was corrupt as by
| the dictionary definition of corrupt: "having or showing
| a willingness to act dishonestly in return for money or
| personal gain.". Or the Latin origin of the word:
| corruptus (along the lines of broken)-
|
| Which seems to fit the description of the events and my
| arguments. You argue that because court rules this as
| political promises (regularly broken and legal to do)
| then it was not corruption as the court saw it.
|
| This then seems that politics can be legally corrupt
| (deceitful). You don't have to agree with me but I vote
| out candidates that lie even if they fit under my
| political umbrella. In my opinion this machevellian
| behavior will end up more painful down the line and it is
| better to lose one election than to have a broken
| political system long term.
| Retric wrote:
| People weigh in on elections all the time. The public is
| still ultimately making their choice.
|
| If anything the party always staying out of primaries
| would be a much larger issue.
| DeWilde wrote:
| Yes, the people weigh on elections and they make their
| choice. But if they make their choice according to a
| party that claims honesty yet betrays that honesty with
| lies, isn't that an issue with the party being corrupt
| and the people being lied to? Thus corruption, which
| these leaks ultimately have shown us.
| Retric wrote:
| In answer to your question, no.
|
| Being truthful isn't the goal, achieving the parities
| political goals is. Gerrymandering for example is a
| perversion of the core idea of democracy, but failing to
| use it when your opposition does is a problem. Politics
| exists in the real world and what should be often takes a
| back seat to what is.
| ianhawes wrote:
| It is common in political parties for the presidential
| candidate in a presidential election year to "install"
| their people within party leadership prior to the General
| Election.
|
| It is also not uncommon, as we've seen, for leadership to
| resign after large hacks occur. The infiltration and
| subsequent resignation of corporate leadership after data
| leaks does not indicate that there was any corruption. It
| may indicate some level of incompetence, but not
| corruption.
| DeWilde wrote:
| I'm not saying this is anything new, just pointing out
| that this is called corruption.
|
| If the party claimed that they are in-fact biased against
| Bernie, as the evidence mostly shows, then this would
| have been fine. However, if the party claimed it was
| neutral but yet secretly worked against Bernie then this
| seems to me like it is corruption.
|
| Or do you disagree?
| dctoedt wrote:
| You're playing Humpty Dumpty here: A word -- here,
| "corruption" -- supposedly means what _you_ say it means.
| This reminds me of a libertarian colleague who shouts
| "bigotry!" whenever someone disagrees with his views.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| I don't know what else to call having campaign insiders
| inside a media outlet feed debate questions to their
| affiliated campaign ahead of time so they can prepare.
| ianhawes wrote:
| A more apt term than corruption would be unethical.
| gentle wrote:
| Bernie Sanders wasn't even a Democrat at the time:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernie_Sanders#Party_affiliat
| i...
| cafard wrote:
| You may recall that Sanders caucused with the Democrats but
| had not run previously as a Democrat.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Is it policy to only leak debate questions ahead of time
| to candidates who have previously run as democrats? I
| must have missed it in the party platform.
| DeWilde wrote:
| I'm not denying that, but if the DNC claims that it is
| unbiased in this race, yet by actions isn't, isn't that
| lying?
| kome wrote:
| Rigging the primary against Bernie Sanders:
| https://www.vox.com/policy-and-
| politics/2017/11/14/16640082/...
| shadowgovt wrote:
| From the text of that article:
|
| "The 2016 Democratic primary wasn't rigged by the DNC, and
| it certainly wasn't rigged against Sanders."
| kome wrote:
| "But Democratic elites did try to make Clinton's
| nomination as inevitable, as preordained, as possible."
|
| so, i guess it was rigged
| shadowgovt wrote:
| Reasonable people can disagree on what "Rigged" means.
|
| For example, the 45th President of the United States
| never won the popular vote, yet was elected. Was the
| election "rigged?" Well, no; the laws of the US do not
| guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives
| the post popular votes and they never have. Or, yes,
| because the laws of the US are stacked against the
| demonstrated will of the people via the vote.
|
| It's the same with the DNC. The DNC leadership did some
| things that can be considered subjectively unsavory. But
| they broke no laws, nor party rules. The rules themselves
| do not favor a candidate like Sanders (the Democratic
| party tilts heavily towards something like seniority,
| especially relative to their peer major party; Sanders
| was an outlier who ran an outlier campaign).
| ianhawes wrote:
| Rigging a primary would, by definition, involve the
| alteration or removal of votes cast. There is no evidence
| of this in the stolen emails nor outside the stolen emails.
|
| The above article mentions leaked emails that bashed Sen.
| Sanders.
|
| That is not an example of corruption.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| >Rigging a primary would, by definition, involve the
| alteration or removal of votes cast
|
| There are many ways to rig an election without altering
| any of the votes cast. The clearest example is elections
| in one party states, where your only choice is to vote
| for the approved candidate. But there are much less overt
| ways too
| willcipriano wrote:
| How can the emails be both embarrassing and not embarrassing
| at the same time?
| permo-w wrote:
| a leak in and of itself is embarrassing. the content may
| not be
| dylan604 wrote:
| Sadly, today, I don't think an email leak itself is
| embarassing. It's more like "yup, email is weak, and we
| don't think about its security at all, so this is
| normal". Today, the only thing embarrassing is for the
| person whose job it is to leak specific emails didn't do
| the leaking.
| croes wrote:
| "The leaks resulted in allegations of bias against Bernie
| Sanders' presidential campaign, in apparent contradiction
| with the DNC leadership's publicly stated neutrality,[6] as
| several DNC operatives openly derided Sanders' campaign and
| discussed ways to advance Hillary Clinton's nomination. Later
| reveals included controversial DNC-Clinton agreements dated
| before the primary, regarding financial arrangements and
| control over policy and hiring decisions"
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