Snowden Claims That NSA Collaborated With Israel To Write Stuxnet Virus 491
andrewa writes "In an interview with Der Spiegel Snowden claims that the NSA, amongst other things, collaborated with Israel to write the Stuxnet virus. Not that this is news, as it has been suspected that it was a collaborative effort for some time. When asked about active major programs and how international partners help, Snowden says: 'The partners in the "Five Eyes" (behind which are hidden the secret services of the Americans, the British, the Australians, New Zealanders and Canadians -- ed.) sometimes go even further than the NSA people themselves. Take the Tempora program of the British intelligence GCHQ for instance. Tempora is the first "I save everything" approach ("Full take") in the intelligence world. It sucks in all data, no matter what it is, and which rights are violated by it. This buffered storage allows for subsequent monitoring; not a single bit escapes. Right now, the system is capable of saving three days’ worth of traffic, but that will be optimized. Three days may perhaps not sound like a lot, but it's not just about connection metadata. "Full take" means that the system saves everything. If you send a data packet and if makes its way through the UK, we will get it. If you download anything, and the server is in the UK, then we get it. And if the data about your sick daughter is processed through a London call center, then ... Oh, I think you have understood.'"
I am not really surprsed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:For a field that is compartmentalized... (Score:5, Insightful)
Or maybe it's not as compartmentalized as you theorise.
Or maybe Snowden was working at a higher level than the US government has admitted.
Or maybe Snowden simply used the skills he was taught to use against the Chinese against his own government.
Either way, what he says has enough validity that world leaders are listening and issuing formal statements over it, and the US isn't denying it, so it's obviously got a reasonable degree of validity to it and isn't just about parroting speculation like you claim.
No shit (Score:5, Insightful)
I knew that pretty much from the get-go. Only the truly deluded didn't immediately realize that Mossad and/or the CIA were behind that. Of course, there are always those idiots out there who reflexively deny that the U.S. government is behind ANYTHING--who seem to think that the tens of thousands of employees of the CIA and NSA just sit and stare at walls all day, I guess.
Re:Can stuxnet victims ... (Score:5, Insightful)
They can't because the world one learns about in law school, where courts are impartial arbiters of justice and where any tort deserves compensation, doesn't exist. We live in a world where Bush/Cheney's lawyers wrote the flimsiest of legal justifications for torturing prisoners and got away with it not because of their justifications but because of who they are.
Mossad is the sort of organization that will drive up next to you on a motorcycle in traffic and throw a magnetic grenade on your car. What are you going to do, sue them for wrongful death?
Re:Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, duh. (Score:5, Insightful)
An amazingly well written worm designed to target a particular brand of hardware PLCs that most hackers have never even heard of (and certainly couldn't afford), and not only target them, but target them in a way specifically designed to destroy the attached equipment under a VERY specific set of curcumstances.
That has "nation state" written all over it.
Not only that but it has "very high tech nation state" written all over it.
Basically about the only people with the will, the resources, and the ability are US + Israel. There's basically no one else that was likely to have done it.
But honestly, it was one of the most amazingly awesome high tech attacks ever perpetrated. I mean seriously they managed to successfully target machines that weren't connected to the public internet and physically destroy them.
Re:No shit (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:For a field that is compartmentalized... (Score:2, Insightful)
Snowden is not really revealing anything that is not widely known. He's just sensationalizing it. Low level access like Snowdens is a general knowledge of whats going on. High level access would be specific knowledge of results and what those results are achieving, which it seems Snowden doesn't have.
I'd personally be a little disappointed if a Western Intelligence agency wasn't making every effort to data farm all communications in and out of the country. However the counterpoint to this is that individuals and companies should be making every effort to ensure their data and communications cannot be trivially breached.
Re:Doesn't that violate copyright law, DCMA, etc? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:For a field that is compartmentalized... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:No shit (Score:5, Insightful)
I knew that pretty much from the get-go.
No, you strongly suspected that from the get-go. It was a good hunch which panned out. Many tech geeks understood this was likely, but most common folks didn't even know about it. Most press was happy to not make a big deal about it.
But now everybody knows what's been going on with near certainty (due to the corroborations, including Senators, lack of denials, and willingness to use a NATO air blockade, an act of war, to apprehend Snowden (just "a 29-year-old hacker")).
Everybody now knowing has changed the public debate, causing the Snowden Effect [pressthink.org].
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Really? (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah it's BS and he made it up, that's why they're hunting him.
Maybe they are hunting him down for divulging information about the email surveillance program that he was under contract to interpret the information. This one fact that he revealed doesn't make the other facts any more credible. It is more likely that his 15 minutes of press exposure is almost up and he'll claim to know more than he actually knows to either remain in the spotlight or make himself appear more valuable to potential host countries.
No one is questioning the information he leaked that was directly handled by him. We are questioning all this new insight that he claims to have on old subjects that were already speculated heavily in the news.
Re:Someone tell me (Score:5, Insightful)
Stop fucking focusing on the person and look at the facts instead. If what he has leaked harms the US government or any other government, so be it - you reap what you sow. Snowden would not have any means to harm the US if the US had not conducted itself in a way that left it open to harm. Shut the fuck up with this person pro/con agenda.
Re:For a field that is compartmentalized... (Score:5, Insightful)
The paper must not have thought much about the credibility of their informant since they chose not to run the story until after Snowden made himself known to the public in Hong Kong.
Wow, its like your only objectively reality is that Snowden sucks.
First it was Snowden doing whatever he could to keep publicity on himself and when that theory went over like a lead balloon you trot out the exact opposite. Now it isn't Snowden's decision to hold off because he sucks, it's the newspaper's decision to hold off because he sucks.
The important part of coming up with an explanation is that it must include the fact that Snowden sucks, everything else is mutable...
Re:Really? (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe they are hunting him down for divulging information about the email surveillance program that he was under contract to interpret the information.
You don't call in the military to deal with a 5 year old shoplifter.
The measures taken so far pretty much confirms that everything Snowden has said is true.
Re:Someone tell me (Score:5, Insightful)
The messenger always has as much to do with the facts as the facts themselves, as well as how they project the facts. Get a report that global warming has been overstated? Might want to check to the back of the report to see if the words "Koch Brothers" are somewhere in there.
Got a poll saying that Americans think unions cost jobs and can't be trusted, might want to see if the Chamber of Commerce wrote it, got a sensationalistic headline that 1 in 4 Women have been raped, might want to find out how those facts were come up it and who came up with them (NOW, and included things like having sex after having 2 Aspirin or Tylenol).
You can't separate the message from the messenger or the facts from the source. That's why scientific data is considered worthless if it can't be repeated completely independently. You need to know the methodology, you need to know the circumstances, the motive, the chain of custody, you need to see if there is corroboration or not.
Now I realize none of this applies if your trying cause political damage where evidence doesn't mean a damn thing and your simply trying to slander someone. After all when your trying to do political damage the facts don't matter and if they come out later well it's too late. Now, if you actually give a damn about the truth, than you'll care about everything I said.
Re:For a field that is compartmentalized... (Score:4, Insightful)
incidents stopped: 0
incidents not stopped: 2
Re:I am not really surprsed (Score:5, Insightful)
Russia views him as not their problem...
And indeed he isn't. Nor should he in fact be a problem to the US. After all, a government that is doing nothing wrong has nothing to fear from whistleblowers.
Although I'm not a US voter, I am mightily disappointed in Obama's stance on this issue. His election platform was supposed to represent transparency in Government dealings, but instead he has perpetuated and compounded the worst excesses of the former Republican administration.
Not that I'm surprised, mind you. An election promise is as empty as a politician's soul.
Re:For a field that is compartmentalized... (Score:2, Insightful)
No, that's a valid question. If the government has all this information then why can't they make anything better with this information? The govt needs to lay their cards on the table there is too much injustice in this country and the citizens have no recourse most times. The government which has been monitoring all of this the whole time which is completely unwilling to help its own citizens using this same information.
Re:Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe they are hunting him down for divulging information about the email surveillance program that he was under contract to interpret the information. This one fact that he revealed doesn't make the other facts any more credible.
Of course it does, that is the basis of all human trust relationships. If you tell me true things, and I've never caught you in a lie, then that makes you more believable. It doesn't make me automatically accept everything you say as fact, but it means that I trust you more than I otherwise would. So in fact that one fact does make the other facts more credible. However, it wasn't just one fact. He got the EU to search all their offices for bugs. If they had found nothing, I'm sure there would be a lot of European countries who would be happy to score a mountain heap of brownie points with the US by saying so and thereby discrediting Snowden. They haven't said so. He so far has a perfect record. He is now the single most believable source on secret government spying that you have ever had access to. That could change, but for now it hasn't.
Re:Doesn't that violate copyright law, DCMA, etc? (Score:5, Insightful)
Comments like this aren't actually cynical anymore. The rule of law is breaking down all over the Western world as connected people are increasingly allowed to live outside it.
Re:Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Someone tell me (Score:5, Insightful)
True, any information you get must be run through the bullshit filter, and that includes evaluating the source(s), this is taught in high schools - at least where I come from, although it may have changed, it's been a while.
Science isn't produced by people, it is discovered by people. It doesn't matter who reports the facts, because the funny thing about facts, and the reason the scientific method works, is that they don't care what you think about them, they just are. You can reproduce someone's experiment, or you can't.
This situation is unique though, since Snowden hasn't produced the information, only handed it over. We can eliminate everything he says and still have a treasure trove of information available. That is my point, and one I get modded down for on a regular basis, that's ok though, karma is not important for anything other than mental masturbation.
The debate needs to shift from Snowden this, Snowden that, or any other figurehead, because it detracts from the actual substance of the case. If what he leaked is damaging, it is because people in power did things that were damaging, not because someone exposed it. You also need to get over yourself and realise this is not about the rights of the American people, but the rights of everyone, everywhere. Frequently, only the American side of these leaks are discussed, but that is only part of the story, and only the tip of the iceberg.
Re:I am not really surprsed (Score:3, Insightful)
It's no different here in the UK though, the Conservative part of the coalition government got into power in large part on a ticket of rolling back the surveillance state and excesses of the previous government but once in power it hasn't taken them long to push the interception modernisation programme from the previous government.
I think the problem is that it's easy to make promises when you don't matter, but once in power you have the likes of the security services lying to you - "There's a real threat that if you don't get this law passed for us that there'll be a major terrorist incident and then it'll be all your fault, do you really want that on your head Home Secretary?".
I've actually watched a few of the select committees on the BBC's parliament channel for the UK and it's interesting seeing the questions asked by MPs and answers given by police and such, the MPs are actually quite probing but the problem is there isn't enough plurality of opinion, one example was about changes to dangerous dog laws, specifically that under current law if you're attacked by a dog on private property that is out of control the owner can't be touched, they want to change it so that the owner can be prosecuted unless you were trespassing so that for example you can get in trouble if your dog bites the postman, but not a burglar. The police were pushing for more than that and it was frustrating to watch - they were saying well there are different types of trespassing, what if little Timmy jumps the fence to get his ball? The owner should still be prosecuted if little Timmy gets bitten they argued, but there was no one to offer the counter-balance to that - what if little Timmy was trying to break in and steal shit and just used throwing his ball over the fence as an excuse? Private enclosed garden is a private enclosed garden and little Timmy should learn to knock on the door, not jump the fence.
As a result I could see how bad law could be written such that an owner of a dog could be prosecuted if it bit a criminal who tried to break in or who even got bitten trying to attack the dog itself. There was no malice, the MPs were trying to get a balanced view and were asking fair questions, and the police were just giving their opinion, but what none of them did was consider differing opinions, or look at the other side of the equation and sought to weigh up both sides - it wasn't malice, it was just laziness/incompetence. The lady asking the questions was asking some good questions but she wasn't asking enough good questions, she just simply wasn't smart enough to see where contradictions in the law could arise and to probe the people giving answers as to how they'd square those contradictions against their proposals and so forth to get more balanced objective view.
I think the problem is that we just don't get enough smart people into these sorts of positions, people who can rationally weigh up the pros and cons without bias and who can genuinely take a step back and look at whether something is a good idea with no unforeseen consequences or not. Too many politicians are the type of people who are too easily caught up in sentiment, bias, and subjective personal opinion.
There are of course corrupt politicians too, but I don't think they're all like this, I think a lot genuinely are just incompetent from what I've seen of them at work.
Stuxnet claim reduces credibility (Score:5, Insightful)
At this point, I'd say he's proven himself to be a credible source. Confirming something that was already believed to be true doesn't change that, or make it any less true.
Actually no. Confirming something **believed** to be true is a tactic of deception, a tactic of creating the **perception** of credibility. Perception may not match reality.
In truth, extraordinary claims without an explanation of how such information was obtained is a warning sign. How would a low level employee dealing with email surveillance know anything about stuxnet? Frankly claiming such knowledge without any real proof or credible explanation reduces his credibility.
Re:None of it matters...at all. (Score:1, Insightful)
I find it comical that people are still arguing over the validity of Snowden's claims, as he continues to be hunted down by the very government who is attempting to dismiss him as a mere nothing.
That really isn't true, is it? The government has said that his conduct was both serious and damaging. They have arrest warrants out for him for breaking the law.
I'm not sure where you come up with this, "attempting to dismiss him as a mere nothing." The people acting dismissively aren't the government, but Snowden's advocates. There are more than a few of them posting here dismissing the very possibility that anything he has done could be damaging.
And regardless of Snowden's claims, proof, facts, or evidence, not a damn thing will change for the better. Not a damn thing.
No, but they may change for the worse. Compromising major intelligence programs isn't likely to end well.
Re:Really? (Score:3, Insightful)
The measures taken so far pretty much confirms that everything Snowden has said is true.
Like forcing a presidential plane to land in search of the person, and thereby ignoring all diplomatic conventions...
Re:Really? (Score:2, Insightful)
He got the EU to search all their offices for bugs. If they had found nothing, I'm sure there would be a lot of European countries who would be happy to score a mountain heap of brownie points with the US by saying so and thereby discrediting Snowden.
I don't think you understand how the world of intelligence works. The EU members knows their offices are bugged by the US, the US knows their offices are bugged by their allies in the EU. Everybody continuously hunts for those bugs long before Snowden revealed water is wet, and they stay quiet when they find them because the value is not knowing that there are bugs, it's in knowing where they are. Nobody wants to opt out of the game, and it's all about playing along, pretending you don't know about it while simultaneously accepting it as a fact of international politics. Everybody except Ecuador, who recently claimed they were surprised their embassy was bugged. Of course, it was bugged, it was an embassy. That's where most of the spying goes on. Bug was probably there long before Assange ever walked in.
Re:Doesn't that violate copyright law, DCMA, etc? (Score:5, Insightful)
"Breaking down" implies that they were, at some point int he past, stronger. This would tend to disagree with the recent leaked document detailing a comment by Henry Kissinger: http://www.salon.com/2013/04/08/wikileaks_dumps_1_7_million_kissinger_cables/ [salon.com]
Was this comment the only evidence that the past was anything but the story of the rule of law being strong and the government restrained in its activities, then I might brush it off, but I see little evidence that this has been anything but the standard MO throughout history.
Law is for the public, and things done in public. Law exists to be applied to the little people, as it is convinenet or profitable to do so.
What has changed is the little people, or at least the ones who care too, are able to see so much more than ever before. Over time, the ability of individuals to store and share information globally has reached a point that secrets are much much harder to keep, and so....when secrets get out we now get to view things that we never got to see before.
As we have seen with the legitimization of indefinite detention and dogged persual of whistle blowers is simply the result of a desire to not change but, to turn back time to a situation where the powerful could act with impunity and public opinion be damned and maliciously manipulated to the ends of those in power.
Re:Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
No, given the fact that travelling from point A to point B through country C means that you are in country C's airspace, then country C can deny you use of their airspace unless you comply with their conditions.
That said, there are agreements that countries have signed regarding use of airspace, so this is indeed highly irregular, even if it is not actually an act of war.
What would be an act of war is attempting to apprehend that world leader or probably to remove materials belonging to them which were property of the diplomatic delegation. It is not clear to me if Snowden himself would have been so protected. My guess is that he could have been removed from the plane, or a standoff might have ensued to get the Bolivians to hand him over. I can't see that having a happy ending for anyone, so I am not sure what they would have done even if he was on the plane.
And to be sure, while we don't feel threatened by Bolivia, there is a lot more at stake in removing their president from his plane than simply the threat of war with Bolivia. Such an action could open up harassment of US diplomats all over the world. Presumably, these consequences must have been understood and deemed acceptable, but I would love to hear their reasoning.
Same admin password on all NSA servers? (Score:4, Insightful)
He was a sysadmin at the NSA ...
You are expecting that all servers at the NSA have the same admin passwords? That one admin has access to everything, all departments, all projects?
Re:Russian Spy. (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem here is that there aren't any appropriate channels. Secret agencies, acting under secret laws, overseen by secret courts, where does one blow the whistle? His only course of action was to report potential (likely) constitutional violations to the same people who put them into place or to go public. Several NSA whistleblowers have already gone the former route and they got nowhere.