"Besides the NSA being in North Korean systems but not warning Sony about the attack, leaked documents indicate that the NSA covertly uses innocent victims’ infected PCs when hijacking botnets, secretly redirects blame to scapegoats as well as taps into 'unwitting data mules' to pass along exfiltrated information."
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NSA Secretly Uses Scapegoats, Data Mules and Innocent Victims' PCs for Botnets
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(Score: 4, Insightful) by Horse With Stripes on Wednesday January 21 2015, @05:09PM
NSA Secretly Uses Scapegoats, Data Mules and Innocent Victims' PCs for Botnets
I think it's safe to safe it's not really a "secret". We all suspect the TLAs of doing this and much much worse. All in the name of freedom, democracy and the American way. Oooh, and let's not forget about "terrorists!" and "think of the children".
(Score: 3) by Jeremiah Cornelius on Wednesday January 21 2015, @05:49PM
NSA is an illegal, cyber-crime cartel. Sponsored by the state, in service of establishment wealth and power interests.
A spade is a spade.
You're betting on the pantomime horse...
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 21 2015, @10:19PM
Beyond overrated name calling to satisfy the circle-jerk you'll enjoy around here, how do you propose they do their mission? Or should they be disbanded and not have a mission? If so, should there be no spy agencies? How do you propose the US operate in such a mode? Let's pretend President Jones has tapped you to head the NSA. What is your vision or sales pitch when you face Senate confirmation?
Bonus points if you can start a sentence without "They shouldn't . . ." Tell me what they should do, and suggest a practical way to do it.
(Score: 2) by Pav on Wednesday January 21 2015, @11:12PM
Right you are!
These actions, plus the slipping and/or ignoring of legal protections/controls is perfectly fine! If enemy dictators and terrorists aren't controlled by easily comprehensible law or ethics why should we be? That would just be putting ourselves at a huge disadvantage!
For the scarcasm impared : Sun Tzu included the "moral law" into his Five Constants of war for a reason. US enemies have known ever since Vietnam that this is the way to fight. For some reason though other metrics such as "body count" (military) or "maximum pwnage" (NSA) trumps the USA actually winning. Perhaps losing is simply more profitable (for some). Answer me this - why shouldn't taxpayers be angry at this sh*t?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by c0lo on Thursday January 22 2015, @12:25AM
Act in a strictly defensive way.
Having defence and offence under the same roof expose them to a conflict of interest: they need to rely on zero-days which are also present in the computers of, say, Sony. Instead of working towards patching those vulns to make the "home computers" secure, they are using those vulns for pwnage of domestic and foreign computers not owned by them.
In regards with attacking foreign computers, your own agencies see this as "can constitute an act of war" [wsj.com].
In regards with the domestic computers, let me see the extent of your support to them: are you really willing to volunteer your own computer(s)/smartphone(s)/etc for them to do their (offensive or not) job?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 22 2015, @01:55AM
Well for starters, they shouldn't spy on their own citizens and related to topic, they shouldn't victimize innocents and scapegoats irregardless of whether they're US citizens or not... Its not an all or nothing here mate or are you intentionally dense?
They can do whatever they want in secret as long as there's some semblance of human decency.
Just because you're a spy agency doesn't mean you have a full license to do evil. Every job has challenges and risk limits, these guys just seem to ignore it and take the easy way out and apparently you too. I sure hope I'm not your colleague
(Score: 4, Insightful) by sjames on Thursday January 22 2015, @05:26AM
They can start by obeying their charter and not collecting data on U.S. Citizens. They could confine their hacking to foreign systems that they have some reason to believe are involved in activities that are harmful to national security (so not pot growers in Colorado). They could quit weakening their own country by proposing and supporting fatally flawed encryption.
They could start reading public fora and blackhat boards.
They could quit wasting money building replicas of the bridge of the USS Enterprise.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 22 2015, @09:07AM
I'm not a US citizen, but if I were I would think it's expected for the NSA to spy on other countries.
But they should strictly NOT be allowed (without external court order or similar), to spy on congress and whoever who is supposed to rein them in or regulate them. That gives them way too much power (leverage, influence, blackmail etc).
As for spying on the rest of the US people, IIRC the NSA was not supposed to spy on US citizens. But if you're going to do that, come clean on it (and let the US people figure out whether they care enough).
Personally I suspect the NSA isn't really stopping that many terrorist stuff for all the crap they do and the resources they use and for the potential abuse of power. In recent and past history you see so many intelligence failures. How many successes? Not worth it in my opinion.
If the USA really wants to reduce the risk of foreign terrorist attacks, stop pissing people off that much (yes I know many crazies get pissed off easily, but stop invading countries for trumped up reasons and let the crazy muslims kill each other if they want to- especially when you can't even decide which side you really want to win ;) ).
As for preventing local terrorist attacks - that's the FBI's jurisdiction right? Maybe the FBI should stop trying to create local terrorists to make themselves look good.
(Score: 1) by Anal Pumpernickel on Thursday January 22 2015, @09:40AM
(and let the US people figure out whether they care enough).
Since it's unconstitutional, it doesn't matter whether the US people want it or not; it isn't allowed.
Successes or no successes, our fundamental liberties and constitution are more important than safety. As "the land of the free and the home of the brave," we should not make the conversation about whether these privacy violations are effective at keeping us secure, but about the fact that they violate our liberties and constitution and are therefore intolerable.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday January 22 2015, @06:36PM
Beyond overrated name calling to satisfy the circle-jerk you'll enjoy around here, how do you propose they do their mission? Or should they be disbanded and not have a mission? If so, should there be no spy agencies? How do you propose the US operate in such a mode?
US spy agencies are fine they just need to operate within the confines of the US Constitution. It's not that confusing...
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 22 2015, @01:08AM
Is this not a violation of the third amendment to the U.S. Constitution if U.S. residents computers are used?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by c0lo on Thursday January 22 2015, @02:34AM
So, if it's not that secret, why aren't the US citizens doing anything?
Do they like it?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Thursday January 22 2015, @03:03AM
Could you be a bit explicit about what you think could be done?
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 22 2015, @03:31AM
Don't ask me what to do with the indigenous population, last time you managed them pretty well.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday January 22 2015, @03:37AM
Not living there, so I can't tell you the specifics.
Otherwise, fight back [vice.com] or you'll get worse [soylentnews.org].
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Insightful) by BananaPhone on Wednesday January 21 2015, @05:29PM
I'm sure they use people, too
"Take tomorrow off and follow that guy. Send texts of where he is going or else your brother will have pot found in his car..."
Other countries already do it:
http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/1fv4r6/i_believe_the_government_should_be_allowed_to/cd89cqr [reddit.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by c0lo on Thursday January 22 2015, @01:12AM
Mod parent +++Informative.
I grew in a communist regime country in EE: I can say that the linked describe pretty accurate the life in police/surveillance states.
Especially note the warning:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1) by zugedneb on Wednesday January 21 2015, @05:37PM
This world is a mercenaries game...
Remember the biology lessons? The part that stated that in abundance of resources the number of individuals rise, and when there is lack of resources the number falls?
What it forgot to mention is that the number does not just "go" down, probably...
It's not like "yo, my friend jimbo, there's not enough berries on the bushes, help me dig a grave and cover the bottom with roses, time has come for me to lay me down...let's make love for the last time..."
Humanity needed some to fight and kill, they got them...
Humanity needed some to game and hack various systems, and got them...
Humanity needed some to have asperger and tinker with shit, and guess what, they got them...
Now, this world is filled with clueless folks and unscrupulous folks...
Seems we are heaving a nice party here =)
And for those who wonder, I kinda look like an east european criminal, was even called "the burglar" in school, and am of the violent mercenary type... English is my third language, so forgive me if I don't sound like a bad mother fucker... (energy consumed by difficult grammar and spelling)
Nice to meet u :D
old saying: "a troll is a window into the soul of humanity" + also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ajax
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 22 2015, @12:14PM
It's more like: We cannot afford to have more children.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by ikanreed on Wednesday January 21 2015, @06:11PM
I'm gonna take a different tack and say that this is just responsible tradecraft. More harmless looking intermediaries is good for security.
I mean, the ends might be evil, but a means of using hijacked botnets to disguise spy work isn't crazy or evil.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Nerdfest on Wednesday January 21 2015, @07:04PM
If it presents the danger of having the person they are *using* being arrested, etc, it most certainly is evil. How would you like your computer hijacked for their use, especially if you work for government or somewhere where your reputation is important?
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Thursday January 22 2015, @02:04PM
On the other hand, why would the NSA want a trial that might expose their association with an action happening?
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 21 2015, @07:49PM
The next time you are arrested for having [Insert Illegal Data Here] on your hard drive or hacking [Insert Institution Here] you can simply tell your local authorities that you were probably a victim of the NSA botnet. And it will be totally plausible.
(Score: 2) by Pav on Thursday January 22 2015, @12:07AM
...ie. that his computer was hacked [theage.com.au]. Not sure if it would have made any difference, but it sure makes his argument worth considering in this context... especially since this area has been a major US trade policy focus.
(Score: 2) by zeigerpuppy on Thursday January 22 2015, @09:48AM
This sort of activity, combined with state sanctioned mercenaries was known as extra-judicial death squads.
Interesting how history repeats and those with it under their noses pretend nothing is amiss.