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Submitted via IRC for hopdevil
Special Report: Inside the UAE's secret hacking team of U.S. mercenaries
Two weeks after leaving her position as an intelligence analyst for the U.S. National Security Agency in 2014, Lori Stroud was in the Middle East working as a hacker for an Arab monarchy.
She had joined Project Raven, a clandestine team that included more than a dozen former U.S. intelligence operatives recruited to help the United Arab Emirates engage in surveillance of other governments, militants and human rights activists critical of the monarchy.
Stroud and her team, working from a converted mansion in Abu Dhabi known internally as "the Villa," would use methods learned from a decade in the U.S intelligence community to help the UAE hack into the phones and computers of its enemies.
Stroud had been recruited by a Maryland cyber security contractor to help the Emiratis launch hacking operations, and for three years, she thrived in the job. But in 2016, the Emiratis moved Project Raven to a UAE cyber security firm named DarkMatter. Before long, Stroud and other Americans involved in the effort say they saw the mission cross a red line: targeting fellow Americans for surveillance.
"I am working for a foreign intelligence agency who is targeting U.S. persons," she told Reuters. "I am officially the bad kind of spy."
The story of Project Raven reveals how former U.S. government hackers have employed state-of-the-art cyber-espionage tools on behalf of a foreign intelligence service that spies on human rights activists, journalists and political rivals.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by PiMuNu on Tuesday February 05 2019, @02:29PM (13 children)
There is a perception, outside of the US, that certain USians have a somewhat twisted moral code whereby USian or non-USian is more important than e.g. good or bad. TFA does a nice job of emphasising this, without pushing it too hard. Comments like
> "I am working for a foreign intelligence agency who is targeting U.S. persons," she told Reuters. "I am officially the bad kind of spy."
Another person might suppose that the bad kind of spy is the intelligence agency who targets human rights activists and journalists.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 05 2019, @03:30PM (7 children)
Ah yes, that twisted moral code in which security officers trained to protect the interests of their people against foreigners do their fucking job, formally written as follows: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness." Also known as camaraderie, Patriotism, Liberalism, or as it is trendy to call it these days, Alt-Right Nationalism.
Most of those "human rights activists and journalists" are the bad kind of spy. Take for example Jamal Khashoggi who was killed for attempting to overthrow a US-friendly Saudi government to replace it with one that would fund al-Qaeda again, while on the payroll of Qatar. Or the Transgender movement that is run by a few rich billionaire families and the British Army Bureau of Psychological Warfare. Or the entire Avaaz network. Or every enemy propagandist repeating the "Palestine" fiction [blogspot.com] in the New York Times. That is who you need to worry about.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by PiMuNu on Tuesday February 05 2019, @03:51PM (4 children)
> that twisted moral code in which security officers trained to protect the interests of their people against foreigners
I assert that "good or bad" trumps "foreign or not". Are you saying that one should support an (ethically) bad person in their own country over an (ethically) good person from another country?
For example, using your quote:
> That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the *consent* of the governed
*consent* means democracy, and freedom of the press, and all of those things that don't exist in UAE. Are you asserting that one should support the dictatorship in UAE (as long as USians are not victims)?
(Score: 3, Informative) by aristarchus on Tuesday February 05 2019, @07:38PM (3 children)
Plato, in his Republic, said that the Guardian class were like dogs, that their job is to identify friend or foe, and to react appropriately. One might think that modern "security forces" are a bit more human than that, but we are talking mercs here, the "dogs of War" of Henry the Eight's famous "Let's lose the dogs of war!" in his State of the Kingdom Speech.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 06 2019, @02:22AM (2 children)
Duuude! You do have a brain?
What, it's normally soaked in alcohol or something?
Yes, we've known about this for centuries.
Doing something about it is a while different exercise in optics management
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Wednesday February 06 2019, @09:41AM (1 child)
Yes, I had a brain. Then I tried to parse this sentence:
"doing something about it [for a ] while is a different exercise"? I fail to comprehend. Must have lost my whole brain for a while.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 06 2019, @05:26PM
#metoo
(Score: 5, Touché) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday February 05 2019, @05:20PM
So did you try to be a walking, breathing example of exactly the type of evil on discussion here or did it just happen naturally?
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 05 2019, @07:16PM
Wizzit hooza grabbleforp!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 05 2019, @04:47PM (4 children)
The experiences of World War 2 have conditioned many Europeans to doubt the innate positivity of their country of citizenship, but in the US it is still "my country, right or wrong."
(Score: 2) by nobu_the_bard on Tuesday February 05 2019, @09:15PM (3 children)
I think it helps that the US is huge and it's entirely possible to drive for 8 hours at 50 mph and never leave the US. It's easy to think badly of people you've never met, and never had a bad consequence of thinking badly of them. Every European I've met in the US has been blown away at the scale.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 06 2019, @02:24AM (1 child)
Is "50 mph" fast?
Down Under over here you can drive in a straight line at the max legal limit for a day straight and not run out of road
(Score: 2) by driverless on Thursday February 07 2019, @06:24AM
The Nullabor? You do have to watch for the speed bumps (roos) though.
(Score: 2) by datapharmer on Wednesday February 06 2019, @10:48AM
Forget the US you can drive 12 and a half hours at the speed limit on highways in one direction and not even leave the state of Florida. (Pensacola to Key West)