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Russia, China Alledgedly Crack Snowden Files

posted by janrinok on Monday June 15 2015, @08:39PM   
from the he-said,-she-said dept.

Hugh Pickens writes:

Reuters reports that according to the Sunday Times Britain has pulled out agents from live operations in "hostile countries" after Russia and China cracked top-secret information contained in files leaked by former US. National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden. According to Rupert Murdoch's Sunday Times unnamed officials at the office of British Prime Minister David Cameron say China has also cracked the encrypted documents, which contain details of secret intelligence techniques and information that could allow British and American spies to be identified "Western intelligence agencies say they have been forced into the rescue operations after Moscow gained access to more than 1m classified files (paywalled) held by the former American security contractor, who fled to seek protection from Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, after mounting one of the largest leaks in US history."

However David Davis, the Conservative MP who is one of the leading campaigners for privacy, says: "We have to treat all of these things with a pinch of salt." Davis says the use of an anonymous source to create scare stories was a typical tactic and the timing was comfortable for the government. "You can see they have been made nervous by Anderson. We have not been given any facts, just assertions." Andrew Mitchell, a former cabinet minister, says he is sure the Sunday Times got the story because of the Anderson report and added "I think we have to be very careful of the argument 'listen sonny, we know what you don't know and therefore you should do what we say'. That is not a good argument; we need to have a proper debate about all of this. I don't approve of what Snowden did, but I have to say having been to Washington recently that there has been a massive change of view in the United States, not just people like Rand Paul and so on, there's a massive change of view about the debate and that has resulted from Snowden, whether you like it or not."

[Editor's Comment: There is media interest in the UK regarding this story. It originated from an unnamed source and is without any corroboration.]

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Original Submission

• Re:SN just sad now Re:SN just sad now (Score: 2) by kaszz on Tuesday June 16 2015, @03:09PM

  by kaszz (4211) on Tuesday June 16 2015, @03:09PM (#196883) Journal

  Too lazy to click new link cheat:

  AnonTechie [soylentnews.org] writes:

  Techdirt has already written about the massive problems with the Sunday Times' [techdirt.com] big report claiming that the Russians and Chinese had "cracked" the encryption on the Snowden files (or possibly just been handed those files by Snowden) and that he had "blood on his hands" even though no one has come to any harm. It also argued that David Miranda was detained after he got documents from Snowden in Moscow, despite the fact that he was neither in Moscow, nor had met Snowden (a claim the article quietly deleted). That same report also claimed that UK intelligence agency MI6 had to remove "agents" from Moscow because of this leak, despite the fact that they're not called "agents" and there's no evidence of any actual risk. So far, the only official response from News Corp. the publisher of The Sunday Times (through a variety of subsidiaries) was to try to censor the criticism of the story with a DMCA takedown request.

  Either way, one of the journalists who wrote the story, Tom Harper, gave an interview to CNN which is quite incredible to watch. Harper just keeps repeating that he doesn't know what's actually true, and that he was just saying what the government told him -- more or less admitting that his role here was not as a reporter, but as a propagandist or a stenographer.

  Reporter who wrote sunday times 'Snowden' propaganda admits that he's just writing what UK gov't told him [techdirt.com]

  [Video]: Reports: Russia, China have files leaked by Snowden [cnn.com]

  [Also Covered By]: The Intercept, The Sunday Times’ Snowden Story is Journalism at its Worst — and Filled with Falsehoods [firstlook.org]

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• Re:SN just sad now (Score: 2) by kaszz on Tuesday June 16 2015, @03:12PM

  by kaszz (4211) on Tuesday June 16 2015, @03:12PM (#196884) Journal

  Bonus link with the key snippet: https://vine.co/v/eedM73dwDzj [vine.co]

  Seems the link doesn't work right now. Perhaps someone got C&D, DMCA, black men visit? ;-)

  Oops, Will Smith has no involvement in this! ;-) ..

  Parent