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The CIA Won't Admit It Uses Slack (vice.com) 81

Posted by msmash from the tussle-continues dept.
Given its traditional missions, which include subverting democracy around the world and providing U.S. leaders with unreliable intelligence analysis, it's understandable that the Central Intelligence Agency would be among our less transparent federal agencies. From a report: Now, though, it's gripping even more tightly to inconsequential information about what it gets up to than the ultra-secretive National Security Agency -- and for no evident reason. Last year, VICE filed a Freedom of Information Act request asking for any Slack domains in use by the CIA. The NSA, responding to a similar request, admitted that it had records responsive to the request -- that the agency uses the demonic chat app, in other words -- but said it couldn't release them because they were a state secret. Recently, the CIA replied to our request by saying this: "CIA can neither confirm nor deny the existence or nonexistence of records responsive to your request. The fact of the existence or nonexistence of such records is itself currently and properly classified."

In its response to our request, the CIA cited broad provisions in federal law that allow it to keep all sorts of information from the public by claiming it has to do with "intelligence sources and methods," which can mean anything from the identity of a spy in a foreign leader's inner circle to the podcasts a random bureaucrat listens to while driving to work. The agency is within its rights to do this, but it's just another in a long list of examples of why federal classification laws should be changed to give more weight to the public's right to get answers to even stupid questions relative to the right of public employees to keep what they do and how they do it entirely secret.
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The CIA Won't Admit It Uses Slack More

The CIA Won't Admit It Uses Slack

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  • Editorial (Score:5, Insightful)

    by enigma32 ( 128601 ) on Friday February 21, 2020 @02:27PM (#59751696)

    missions, which include subverting democracy around the world and providing U.S. leaders with unreliable intelligence analysis

    Okay, I might agree this is true, but is this sort of editorial really necessary?
    Can we just be grown-ups here?

    • missions, which include subverting democracy around the world and providing U.S. leaders with unreliable intelligence analysis

      Okay, I might agree this is true, but is this sort of editorial really necessary? Can we just be grown-ups here?

      Welcome to /.

      Also, as I'm sure none of *us* actually has any facts on the matter, speculating about the reliability of the intelligence analysis and/or whether one agrees with that speculation is, to put it politely, uninformed, at best.

      • If anyone one of us actually knew, we would probably have to kill you if we told.

      • As far as their freedom of information request: The only real facts that we know is that it's probably best that they don't share the domains of any communications applications they use and they shouldn't have wasted their time asking because common sense.

    • Well... The problem is that he told the truth, although not in a pasteurized and approved way by the mainstream media.

      • According to you, he told the truth. I'll agree with the first part (subverting democracy), but not the second - not all information provided by them is inaccurate.

    • Re:Editorial (Score:4, Insightful)

      by RightSaidFred99 ( 874576 ) on Friday February 21, 2020 @02:39PM (#59751754)

      It's also incredibly naive and displays a complete lack of understanding about international politics. It's pure childishness. It's like the rubes who say "But, but, the US has nuclear weapons, so it's hypocritical not to allow Iran to!". The only proper response to such idiocy is a slack-jawed, empty stare of disbelief that someone could be such an imbecile. International politics isn't like an interpersonal relationship, and is not based on fairness.

      Fairness, justice, etc.. is all a distant second place to one's own national interests. If "subverting democracy" in a nation that has made democratic choices that run very counter to the wellbeing of the US is required, then we will and should do it. Democracy has nothing to do with anything.

      Now, I'm not saying we always do the best things or that all of our choices are great. Obviously that's not true. But that doesn't change the facts...

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        I agree with others that TFS editorial "opinion' is a worthless dose of clickbait/flamebait bullshit and would be more appropriate as a typical Breitbart headline. Try to keep it in your pants, "editors"...

        As far as your post, Fred, two wrongs don't make a right. This sentiment is why we are almost universally hated around the world by other nations and their people now. Where we used to be a beacon of superiority (all that "American Exceptionalism" jingoistic horseshit, you know)....

        I'm not saying Iran

        • > I'm not saying Iran having nukes is either a good thing or a bad one, but it shouldn't be up to us to decide that for them.

          You seem to be missing one crucial fact -
          Iran has been very clear that they want to nuke us. They eant to kill you. They want to kill your family. They tell that to anyone who will listen.

          "Waaaa it's not fair that they don't get to kill me".

          • Btw, they've been trying to kill the infidels since long before George Washington crossed the Delaware, so no "maybe they'll be nice to us if we give them a hug" doesn't work. If you don't believe in their version of Allah, they'll do whatever they can to kill you. That's not going to change any time soon.

          • I don't want war with Iran, and I don't think it is necessary, but I admit it's disturbing how often they chant "death to America"

            • > I don't want war with Iran

              Neither do I. That's too bad, because they declared war on America 30 years ago or so.

              Until now they haven't been able to DO much about it - they haven't been able to hurt us much. Which is so unfair. We should let them kill aome Americans.

          • No they don't, dude. Any country smart enough to actually build a nuke, is smart enough know nukes are useless as offensive weapons. But they make one hell of a deterrent for other countries that might think about attacking you.

            The Iranians are a civilized and decent people. We should be friends not enemies. Yes, the government of the Islamic Republic is very hostile to the United States. But they're also unpopular with their own people. Our sabre rattling, if anything, keeps them in power.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward
        You know that it is because of that kind of thinking that most of the world would love to bomb the USA back to the stone age, right? Or do you really, honestly believe that the rest of the world should exist only for the benefit of the US?
        • Good thing they can't then, isn't it? No, I don't think they should exist only for benefit of the US, I'm saying that we, like any nation state, will always exert our power in ways that are beneficial to us. We should probably stop meddling in the ME and South America, for example, with the exception of non proliferation which is 100% critical to our interests and which we should enforce with an iron fist on countries like Iran and NK (we were already too weak with North Korea).

      • Re:Editorial (Score:4, Insightful)

        by guruevi ( 827432 ) on Friday February 21, 2020 @04:45PM (#59752240)

        I don't think that's at all true, the US is an example of a country gone well. It's been stable with the same values for 200+ years, similar to the UK. The US doesn't just invade willy nilly. When our values don't align with other countries, then we try to fix them, a sheen of democracy does not make a good country. Venezuela, the USSR, North Korea, China, Iran, they're all self-declared democracies but they're dangerous to the world, not because they happen to have some resource, but because their values are dangerous.

        And that's why we don't want Iran or North Korea to have the bomb, because their values are garbage and their leaders are garbage human beings, willing to kill just about anyone and anything to get their form of theocracy in place. We didn't even want the USSR to have the bomb and they probably wouldn't have gotten it and the cold war would've been relatively uneventful if it weren't for a cabal of communists through the US government literally giving them the plans.

        • Look I'm sorry (Score:5, Informative)

          by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Friday February 21, 2020 @05:08PM (#59752294)
          but I honestly don't know how to respond to your post, but I feel I should.

          What we do in other countries has nothing to do with values. We actively support most of the world's dictators. It's about economic interests. Mostly oil. But also fruit.

          Start here [wikipedia.org]. Also go look up those pictures of Iranian girls in skirts from the 50s before we overthrew their Democratically elected gov't. Then do some reading about the pipeline we built in Afghanistan.

          We are not doing this for values. It's about money. We are taking what doesn't belong to us.

        • You could make the argument that the USSR having the bomb is what kept the cold war, cold. (At least from the perspective of averting WWIII -- the proxy wars fought pretty much worldwide are another story of course)

          It's not quite so well publicized, but he Germans hadn't even surrendered yet, and Stalin was already preparing for a war with the US. Even on our side there was concern regarding what would happen when the Red Army met the rest of the allied forces met in Germany at the tail end of the war

        • I think the #1 issue with Iran/NK having nukes isn't even their leadership it's their instability. Same with Pakistan. It's like you have a neighbor with a huge arsenal of loaded guns just sitting around on his porch and he has a fence and it's locked and he sits on his porch most of the time.

          Sure, maybe he's stable enough (maybe) not to go on a shooting rampage but if he passes out drunk and the local hoodlums get his guns you may be in trouble.

          The security and stability of weapons that can kill hundreds o

      • folks take exception to. It's constantly overthrowing governments for the sake of US Corporate interests.

        We're about to send 18 year olds to Afghanistan who weren't born when our occupation started, off to a country that never once attacked us. And I'd like to think if you're reading this you know what we did in Iran...

        Enough is enough. No more regime change wars.
        • Agreed, enough regime change. And Afghanistan was a breeding ground for the terrorists that did attack us. But we need to get out of nation building. Try to avoid conflict when at all possible, but when required just bomb the shit out of them and let them rebuild on their own.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by sconeu ( 64226 )

      Came here to post this. Thanks.

    • Honestly, it is editorializing but if any person still believes the intelligence community to have any credibility and to be anything other than a detriment to the people of the US or other nations (with the exception possibly of one) then I think that person is the one that needs to grow up.

    • I have to agree.
      All this does is detract from the valid arguments.
      It is akin of me debating a stance of a local politician, then having to bring up unsupported stereotypes of their Race/Religion/Sexual Orientation/Political Identity which has nothing to do about the points I have objection with.

      When you bring up these biases, it can discredit any factual and valid points you may be making, because your tone has switch to being critical of the person because of these unrelated flaws, and your talking points

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Dusanyu ( 675778 )
      It's vice not the Atlantic or The Economist grown up went out the window

    • Nope. We can't. Those days are long gone. Even professional objective journalism is well dead and buried, underneath tons of reinforced concrete.
      Also, it's cooler and edgier to hate on the US than ever before as if it's the sole root of all evil in the world, and nearly every other country is painted as an innocent cherub victimized by the US' all consuming evil (and supposed thirst for oil).
      The CIA has done some very shitty things, for sure; but it's a double sided coin; it has done good as well. It's

      • Even professional objective journalism is well dead and buried

        I'm curious - when did this "objective journalism" exist? Certainly not this century, last century, or the century before....

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by eepok ( 545733 )

      I'm with you 100%. There's unquestionable evidence to support the assertion that the CIA has been a tool to subvert democracy, but doing so is not factually its mission nor is "providing U.S. leaders with unreliable intelligence analysis".

      We're smart enough people to stick to the facts and keep the commentary in the comments section.

  • Um no (Score:2, Insightful)

    by 110010001000 ( 697113 )

    I realize Vice is full of Millennial Snowflakes, but you don't have any right to information like that. You even admitted it was a stupid question. Why are you wasting people's time and money with your Millenial nonsense? Real people have to respond to your nonsense requests.

    • Well the Boomer Snowflakes are just scared of pissing off the government at their age, as they could loose the Social Security payments.

      Their should be a some sort of accountability by the public for agencies like the CIA, as they are suppose to be protecting us, we would want to make sure they are working for our self interests and not their own.

      Law enforcement and Intelligence is tough work, it is also very important. However we can't allow people with a lot of power to have their jobs too easy, even at

      • At least Boomers know how to spell "lose". Christ. And no, you don't need to know everything. They even admitted their request was "stupid", but they have nothing better to do and need some clicks so they did it anyway.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by rta ( 559125 )

        BTW, the Boomers aren't the ones who have to worry about Social Security running out, being devalued etc.

    • I kind of think it does.

      Also the CIA using Slack might give them all sorts of extra privileges on Slack's network. Slack isn't a charity, and the CIA would be a large, extremely profitable client. As a user I would want to know if Slack had close ties to the CIA. Especially if I wasn't an American.

  • Reasonable (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Necron69 ( 35644 ) <jscott DOT farrow AT gmail DOT com> on Friday February 21, 2020 @02:56PM (#59751822)

    It seems perfectly reasonable and obvious to me that the CIA isn't going to tell you what software they use for anything. It is hard to fathom why you were expecting something else.

    - Necron69

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by AHuxley ( 892839 )
      What vast OS design can be networked to be kept safe on tape every night? A total backup of all work and data sets that day.
      A command by one person to start the tape.
      That can be restored quickly, globally and without much delay if needed? By one person.
      No finding experts, calling contractors in. No loss of data due to the system not working for the last shift.
      Has a GUI the US gov/contractors understand and has approval to use. Works with tape.
      Find out that and you have the CIA method of computing
  • They would be inviting the world to try to hack their slack servers.... No way would I give that info out

  • The CIA (Score:1, Offtopic)

    by sexconker ( 1179573 )

    The CIA won't admit they assassinated JFK, either.

  • the ultra-secretive National Security Agency

    The CIA may have nothing on the NSA for being secretive but in turn the NSA is an open book compared to the National Reconnaissance Office.

  • Not constitutional FBI, CIA, NSA and the multitude of alphabet agencies should be defunded.

  • Yes, it does say vice.com right next to the click-bait subject, but it's like putting a little sign in dog poop that says "don't step here". Just pick up the poop!
    Vice is like TMZ and I feel dumber every time I accidentally click on one of their links.

  • Seriously - why would it matter one iota to me whether or not the CIA / Mossad / Revolutionary Guard uses Slack?

  • russianbotnethome

    where_the_swamp

    and

    dannyboi

  • We are talking about an offensive intelligence organization, right?

    Firstly, why on earth should anyone expect them to share information about if they slack, and if so, the identity of whatever channels they use? That's basically asking them to DOX themselves and reveal to the world exactly where people should focus their hacking efforts. I think I'm more surprised that they didn't throw up a dozen realistic-sounding fake channels with a few hundred chatbots generating traffic, and give people *that.*

    Secondl

  • "Is the CIA paying tens of thousands of dollars a year in public money so that spies can put secrets on a fundamentally insecure platform"

    What is this statement based on? Does VICE have access to Slack's source code?

  • I know that I'd never admit to using it let alone actually use it. I make a lot of $$$$ not using it and no matter what the angry outsiders say I'll never switch to Linux for work.

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