Jump to content

Western spies forced to pullout : Snowden to blame


BruceVC

Recommended Posts

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/terrorism-in-the-uk/11673533/British-spies-removed-from-operations-after-Russia-and-China-crack-codes-to-leaked-Snowden-files.html

 

So this is the result of the Assange and Snowden type attacks on the West...I hope all the people supporting Snowden are happy, this is irrefutable proof that Snowden has weakened certain Western countries and there intelligence gathering abilities 

 

In summary Western intelligence agencies have been forced to pull back spies in Russia and China as some of Snowdens leaked encrypted documents have been cracked. This is a disaster as the Russians and Chinese are actively spying on Western countries, as is normal for most countries,  so now the West is at a major intelligence gather disadvantage..hopefully this is restored in the future 

 

I hope this puts to rest finally the spurious view that  " what Snowden did hasn't really hurt the USA "   

"Abashed the devil stood and felt how awful goodness is and saw Virtue in her shape how lovely: and pined his loss”

John Milton 

"We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.” -  George Bernard Shaw

"What counts in life is not the mere fact that we have lived. It is what difference we have made to the lives of others that will determine the significance of the life we lead" - Nelson Mandela

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I would say that Snowden did service for NSA, CIA and GCHQ, by showing clear weaknesses in their ways to operate, ways their operations were ineffective, but same time cause public distrust, by exposing only data that those agencies know was leaked, how they were depended only one or couple ways to get information from certain targets and showing where their weaknesses were. Of course needing to close active operations is inconvenience, but it also makes them actually better their operations and procedures and information handling in future, as there was clearly problems in those in all said organizations as Snowden was able to stole that much information in first place in format that Russia and China were able to crack in couple years. 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

https://archive.is/NsJVt

 

It seems like it wasn't that difficult to hack when you do not even encrypt people's social security number. Here i thought that after Snowden they would've put things like this as top priority, but apparently not.

 

 

The Social Security numbers were not encrypted, the American Federation of Government Employees said, calling that "an abysmal failure on the part of the agency to guard data that has been entrusted to it by the federal workforce."

 

"Unencrypted information of this kind this is disgraceful -- it really is disgraceful," Brenner said. "We've had wakeup calls now for 20 years or more, and we keep hitting the snooze button."

"Some men see things as they are and say why?"
"I dream things that never were and say why not?"
- George Bernard Shaw

"Hope in reality is the worst of all evils because it prolongs the torments of man."
- Friedrich Nietzsche

 

"The amount of energy necessary to refute bull**** is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it."

- Some guy 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Bruce, you're to the US as tankies are to the Soviet Union.

  • Like 3

"Akiva Goldsman and Alex Kurtzman run the 21st century version of MK ULTRA." - majestic

"I'm gonna hunt you down so that I can slap you square in the mouth." - Bartimaeus

"Without individual thinking you can't notice the plot holes." - InsaneCommander

"Just feed off the suffering of gamers." - Malcador

"You are calling my taste crap." -Hurlshort

"thankfully it seems like the creators like Hungary less this time around." - Sarex

"Don't forget the wakame, dumbass" -Keyrock

"Are you trolling or just being inadvertently nonsensical?' -Pidesco

"we have already been forced to admit you are at least human" - uuuhhii

"I refuse to buy from non-woke businesses" - HoonDing

"feral camels are now considered a pest" - Gorth

"Melkathi is known to be an overly critical grumpy person" - Melkathi

"Oddly enough Sanderson was a lot more direct despite being a Mormon" - Zoraptor

"I found it greatly disturbing to scroll through my cartoon's halfing selection of genitalias." - Wormerine

"Am I phrasing in the most negative light for them? Yes, but it's not untrue." - ShadySands

Link to comment
Share on other sites

That report is bollocks. Breaking the encryption on Snowden's files requires breaking aes256- if that's broken then there are Major Problems since it is used very extensively by a wide range of internet applications and services for encryption- and, crucially, by the NSA itself. And a brute force penetration is statistically impossible.

 

That Bruce takes something said by an 'anonymous source' to Rupert Murdoch as gospel is unsurprising, as is the usual acritical repetition by the media; but the story, as a whole, isn't credible in the slightest. I can perfectly well believe that they're moving agents, but it's far more likely that one of the latest security breaches included something monumentally stupid like a list of active agents in plain text, or a list of crypto keys in plain text, or both. Oddly enough, one of Snowden's bigger but more ignored (well, by the NSA parrot choir) points was how much information is collected and how widely available and insecure it is. Which is pretty obvious, given the two breaches we know about came from someone not even employed by the NSA at the time but by a contractor, and a soldier with the lowest (?) regular rank possible. Frankly, China or Russia could just do it the old fashioned way and pay an equivalent person to get information surreptitiously if they need it, it would be up to date, easier and the person could do it multiple times.

 

Reminds me how it was leaked that David Miranda was carrying a password around on him when he got detained at Heathrow and all the tutting about how that was terrible and a security risk. Of course, GCHQ then went to court to try and hold his stuff longer, because they couldn't crack the encryption on his hard drive even with him supposedly carrying a password... Slander and misinformation, and still you get hapless drones without an independent thought in their minds saying how we should all trust the gummint, trust the NSA/ GCSB/ GCHQ etc and they have our best interests at heart. Yeah, they only lie to protect us, they only listen to everything they can for the same reason. Meh, all terrorists can do is kill you, those 'patriots' and their shills would make you a slave and not even let you know until they need to force your hand for something.

Edited by Zoraptor
  • Like 6
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Query, Zor: why did Snowden have to hand over everything he took? What did all the technical detail add to the debate, exactly?

"It wasn't lies. It was just... bull****"."

             -Elwood Blues

 

tarna's dead; processing... complete. Disappointed by Universe. RIP Hades/Sand/etc. Here's hoping your next alt has a harp.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Query, Zor: why did Snowden have to hand over everything he took? What did all the technical detail add to the debate, exactly?

 

He didn't. I've actually looked at stuff released by Greenwalt et al and it has redactions up the wazoo; you may be thinking of Assange/ Wikileaks who started out with redactions then basically went 'oh asterisk it' and dumped all the low value stuff sans redactions. He does have a, er, 'continued good health promotion' file which gets released should he 'accidentally' get hit by a JDAM aimed at Al-Jazeera the Chinese Embassy a known terrorist; but that obviously hasn't happened, yet at least.

 

The answer as to why detail was released is obvious, it makes it impossible to refute when you have the documentation and can read it yourself; you cannot just claim it's paranoid delusion/ made up or misunderstood. That's why apologists have moved from labelling anyone who dislikes governmental monitoring as tinfoil hat conspiracists- can hardly use that label when it's obvious they were right- to saying that they trust the government and thus everyone should, or the even more cretinous "I don't care, therefore nobody else should", or totalitarianisms favourite "if you have nothing to hide..."

 

Thing is, he didn't have the files on him when he went to either HK or Moscow, they don't even have physical access to the files- and GCHQ couldn't crack them even with physical access.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

"So this is the result of the Assange and Snowden type attacks on the West...I hope all the people supporting Snowden are happy, this is irrefutable proof that Snowden has weakened certain Western countries and there intelligence gathering abilities"

 

That's what Snowden and his supporters want. They are pro Russian and ME tyrants. More importantly, they  are full of self hatred which is why they are anti Amerika.

DWARVES IN PROJECT ETERNITY = VOLOURN HAS PLEDGED $250.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/terrorism-in-the-uk/11673533/British-spies-removed-from-operations-after-Russia-and-China-crack-codes-to-leaked-Snowden-files.html

 

So this is the result of the Assange and Snowden type attacks on the West...I hope all the people supporting Snowden are happy, this is irrefutable proof that Snowden has weakened certain Western countries and there intelligence gathering abilities 

 

In summary Western intelligence agencies have been forced to pull back spies in Russia and China as some of Snowdens leaked encrypted documents have been cracked. This is a disaster as the Russians and Chinese are actively spying on Western countries, as is normal for most countries,  so now the West is at a major intelligence gather disadvantage..hopefully this is restored in the future 

 

I hope this puts to rest finally the spurious view that  " what Snowden did hasn't really hurt the USA "

This is ultimately the fault of the same government that spout all those ideals that they fail to live up to. Is it such a surprise that people are disillusioned with the state of the West? Also, this is politics there are no clear black and white and it seems like the West is the darker shade of grey.
I'd say the answer to that question is kind of like the answer to "who's the sucker in this poker game?"*

 

*If you can't tell, it's you. ;)

village_idiot.gif

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/terrorism-in-the-uk/11673533/British-spies-removed-from-operations-after-Russia-and-China-crack-codes-to-leaked-Snowden-files.html

 

So this is the result of the Assange and Snowden type attacks on the West...I hope all the people supporting Snowden are happy, this is irrefutable proof that Snowden has weakened certain Western countries and there intelligence gathering abilities 

 

In summary Western intelligence agencies have been forced to pull back spies in Russia and China as some of Snowdens leaked encrypted documents have been cracked. This is a disaster as the Russians and Chinese are actively spying on Western countries, as is normal for most countries,  so now the West is at a major intelligence gather disadvantage..hopefully this is restored in the future 

 

I hope this puts to rest finally the spurious view that  " what Snowden did hasn't really hurt the USA "

This is ultimately the fault of the same government that spout all those ideals that they fail to live up to. Is it such a surprise that people are disillusioned with the state of the West? Also, this is politics there are no clear black and white and it seems like the West is the darker shade of grey.

 

I hear you but frankly I don't really care if people are disillusioned with the state of West. That isn't really the point I am raising. I have always maintained that Assange and Snowden have attempted to  damage the national security of the West, this was denied by some.

 

We now have a reality where spies have been recalled from China and Russia. These spies could have been in operation for years and now that information gathering has to start again. This clearly has a negative impact to the Wests information gathering ability, this really should concern all of us as it does undermine the West's overall security 

"Abashed the devil stood and felt how awful goodness is and saw Virtue in her shape how lovely: and pined his loss”

John Milton 

"We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.” -  George Bernard Shaw

"What counts in life is not the mere fact that we have lived. It is what difference we have made to the lives of others that will determine the significance of the life we lead" - Nelson Mandela

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thats probably more loud noise and finger pointing than anything else. They all will continue to spy on each other one way or another, if anything it forced them to come up with better or more creative ways than before.

 

Not to mention what Zoraptor said.  ;)

"A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies, the man who never reads lives one."

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Those agencies are like children without parental guidance. Sometimes they need a bloody nose to teach them to watch where they go.

 

Besides, I would be surprised if both the Russians and Americans didn't know exactly who is currently members of each others spy networks. Would be even less surprised if the info was another attempt at discrediting Snowden (especially if it's just hearsay without reliable sources).

 

As for Assange... well, he can rot in his embassy building. No sympathy for authoritarian figures trying to build a cult of personality around themselves.

  • Like 2

“He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would surely suffice.” - Albert Einstein

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Quote

How I have existed fills me with horror. For I have failed in everything - spelling, arithmetic, riding, tennis, golf; dancing, singing, acting; wife, mistress, whore, friend. Even cooking. And I do not excuse myself with the usual escape of 'not trying'. I tried with all my heart.

In my dreams, I am not crippled. In my dreams, I dance.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I would say that Snowden did service for NSA, CIA and GCHQ, by showing clear weaknesses in their ways to operate, ways their operations were ineffective, but same time cause public distrust, by exposing only data that those agencies know was leaked, how they were depended only one or couple ways to get information from certain targets and showing where their weaknesses were. Of course needing to close active operations is inconvenience, but it also makes them actually better their operations and procedures and information handling in future, as there was clearly problems in those in all said organizations as Snowden was able to stole that much information in first place in format that Russia and China were able to crack in couple years. 

 

That's like shooting yourself in the foot and so discovering that your gun still doesn't have enough hitting power because your foot didn't come off.  :p  The primary benefit of Snowden's activities went directly to states with low standards for personal liberty. He's an intelligent fool.

"It has just been discovered that research causes cancer in rats."

Link to comment
Share on other sites

His leaks didn't benefit Russia or China at all, practically- plenty of perfectly normal people had a good idea of what the NSA et al were doing, you can guarantee that the FSB/ SVR and equivalent Chinese agencies especially knew what was up. The famous example is Putin, ex FSB, who is known to be almost impossible to monitor because he avoids electronic communications as much as possible on principle, and always has. The only benefit to them was people knowing their governments were a bunch of privacy invading panty sniffers and the resulting drop in regard for those countries- it's suddenly not mass monitoring but mass collection, because they aren't going to look at it, promise; using the absolute classic pedophile defence technique.

 

If there's any practical benefit to Russia/ China it is from the pretty terrible security of the agencies collecting all the data that the NSA uses to monitor people, and there's nothing Snowden can do about that, indeed it's been one of his major points that they weren't using proper security and had very lax monitoring, per the stories of contractors passing around nudes and spying on their partners or exes with impunity.

 

And again, they haven't cracked aes256, it's as definite as anything can be. The anonymous source is clearly lying about the source of any leak. Frankly, if they'd broken aes256 and had a list of spies (monumentally stupid if there even was one) then it would be too late to move them anyway. Cracking aes256 would go a long way to bringing down the financial system even without evidence of an active breach, the necessity of security and the appearance of security is that serious.

 

In general though, they are relying on people being gullible with these sorts of stories. Same as the Miranda "we found his password written down!!!- actually we can't crack his file" and the Assange/ Manning "people are dying because of this!!!- actually nobody has died" they're perfectly willing to lie in the knowledge most people will just accept whatever they say. But still, I know it makes me feel secure, knowing the same people who lie blatantly for their own benefit and protection have access to everything everyone has said online, clearly they'd never abuse it...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

And again, they haven't cracked aes256, it's as definite as anything can be. The anonymous source is clearly lying about the source of any leak.

 

Just to clear up for some people who might be interested what AES256 is and why this is more than unlikely.

 

http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1279619

 

There is a reason why goverments and in particular intelligence agencies are not very happy with privat persons using encryption.

"A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies, the man who never reads lives one."

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

And again, they haven't cracked aes256, it's as definite as anything can be. The anonymous source is clearly lying about the source of any leak.

 

Just to clear up for some people who might be interested what AES256 is and why this is more than unlikely.

 

http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1279619

 

There is a reason why goverments and in particular intelligence agencies are not very happy with privat persons using encryption.

 

 

There are a number of attacks that can break any encryption, but they have a few things in common, mostly requiring hardware access at encryption or decryption time - a very interesting one analyzes the sounds made by the CPU during key generation and encryption*, but if that is the case and such an attack was used to break the encrypted files than the fault cannot lie with Snowden at all and would have happened anyway.

 

*Which means, whenever you encrypt something, listen to heavy metal amped to max for increased security. :yes:

 

So yeah, that story has a real whiff of eau de merde and propagated by someone who cleared watched too much NCIS. 'Twas probably a russian and a chinese guy hacking at the same keyboard at the same time easily breaking into heavily encrypted files. Like on TV. :biggrin:

Edited by majestic

No mind to think. No will to break. No voice to cry suffering.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

That's definitely a better counter article than the one I linked earlier. :p

Quote

How I have existed fills me with horror. For I have failed in everything - spelling, arithmetic, riding, tennis, golf; dancing, singing, acting; wife, mistress, whore, friend. Even cooking. And I do not excuse myself with the usual escape of 'not trying'. I tried with all my heart.

In my dreams, I am not crippled. In my dreams, I dance.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well, it is at least somewhat refreshing to hear a 'journalist' admit he's just a glorified governmental PR person even if it is simultaneously rather depressing that he basically just wrote what he was told as tritely as someone from 1938 Pravda denouncing an unperson would. Indeed, the lack of threat of receving a 7.62x25 to the skull from Beria if you refused makes it considerably worse.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

Well that is a huge relief ...but it doens't make sense that the government would want to him to print such a unbelievable story knowing it would be questioned ?

 

What would be the purpose? I should have scrutinized the facts more closely because looking back it does seem unlikely  :blush:

"Abashed the devil stood and felt how awful goodness is and saw Virtue in her shape how lovely: and pined his loss”

John Milton 

"We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.” -  George Bernard Shaw

"What counts in life is not the mere fact that we have lived. It is what difference we have made to the lives of others that will determine the significance of the life we lead" - Nelson Mandela

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

 

Well that is a huge relief ...but it doens't make sense that the government would want to him to print such a unbelievable story knowing it would be questioned ?

 

What would be the purpose? I should have scrutinized the facts more closely because looking back it does seem unlikely  :blush:

 

Because it muddies the water.  Because many people may see the first report but not the reveal that it's bollocks.  The Daily Mail here often publishes 'apologies' for headlines it has done that were utter lies yet most people don't see them, so while the truth 'gets out' not everyone will hear it.

  • Like 1

"That rabbit's dynamite!" - King Arthur, Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail

"Space is big, really big." - Douglas Adams

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...