25% of US Hackers Are FBI/CIA Informers 185
An anonymous reader writes "The Guardian reports that the FBI and CIA have 'persuaded' up to 25% of US hackers to 'work' for them. 'In some cases, popular illegal forums used by cyber criminals as marketplaces for stolen identities and credit card numbers have been run by hacker turncoats acting as FBI moles. In others, undercover FBI agents posing as "carders" – hackers specialising in ID theft – have themselves taken over the management of crime forums, using the intelligence gathered to put dozens of people behind bars. ... The best-known example of the phenomenon is Adrian Lamo, a convicted hacker who turned informant on Bradley Manning, who is suspected of passing secret documents to WikiLeaks.' What implications does this hold for privacy? Or is it just good work by the authorities?"
As you may have guessed, the estimate appears to be based only on the number of black hats, rather than all hackers.
In other news (Score:5, Insightful)
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In other other news, it has been discovered that 100% of remaining members of NAMBLA are moles from various government agencies, reporting on each other.
Re:In other news (Score:5, Funny)
In other news 47% [1] of all news articles are speculative bullshit with no grounding in reality. See we can all make up numbers.
1. "We can invent references, too, and nobody will bother to check them." - Gettysburg Address, 1812.
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But you didn't do it in official Wikipedia blue ... Does that still count?
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In other news 47% [slashdot.org] of all news articles are speculative bullshit with no grounding in reality. See we can all make up numbers.
There, Dyinobal....I fixed it for you. We can fabricate numbers as long as we want and have it sound legit as long as we make a wikipedia-style reference See xkcd #906 [xkcd.com] for details.
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Well here's the citation for the Guardian article: "So ubiquitous has the FBI informant network become that Eric Corley, who publishes the hacker quarterly, 2600, has estimated that 25% of hackers in the US may have been recruited by the federal authorities to be their eyes and ears."
Wow, I'm convinced. Clearly this "fact" needs to be shouted out in headlines for "news" articles around the world, along with inflammatory references to Adrian Lamo.
Lamo, by the way, denies being a pre-existing informant and sa
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Furthermore, 92.97% (95% CI: 83.67, 102.27) of all statistics and percentages are made up on the spot.
FTFY
how do they know? (Score:5, Insightful)
They say there are vast, anonymous networks of hackers, yet somehow they know they they've gotten 25% of them to work for the FBI? How do you calculate 25% of an unknown number? Or is there some Hacker registry at 2600 magazine that I'm not aware of (not being a hacker myself, I didn't get an invitation to join).
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While your complaint is legitimate, there's nothing inherently uncountable in a vast, anonymous group. Consider a group where (a) there are lots of members (b) you don't know the real identities of any of those members (c) you do have a complete listing of the fake identities of all of the members. It's vast, anonymous, and countable.
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While your complaint is legitimate, there's nothing inherently uncountable in a vast, anonymous group. Consider a group where (a) there are lots of members (b) you don't know the real identities of any of those members (c) you do have a complete listing of the fake identities of all of the members. It's vast, anonymous, and countable.
I have over a dozen online usernames and I'm not even trying to hide my identity, but these anonymous "superhackers" somehow decided to identify themselves with a single unique identifier?
There's very tenuous anonymity behind a unique identifier.
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I didn't say it was likely, I said it was possible. The summary, and perhaps the article, probably discard qualifiers. But, for that matter, I don't think the world of "real hackers" is particularly vast. Even the world of online criminals is often mentioned as being not particularly vast: one website will broker half of stolen credit card trades, three banks process the sales from most spam, one botnet is responsible for 75% of spam, etc.
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They probably don't know the actual numbers, but they would have good records on reported ID thefts. Given their investigative capabilities, they can probably determine to a certain amount of error how many hackers would be capable of 'x' amount of ID theft.
Additionally, they may have some very good individual profiles of many hackers out there, they just may not be able to link an actual identity to that presence yet. I mean, they can generally tell a lot about serial killers by their individual actions,
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x/4=number of FBI hackers
Duh.
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Lets try the math: 50 states, 1-4 fusion centers per state, a few 100 trusted workers. ~1-3 0000 real people with ~10-100 useful online user names that get pushed/kept warm/updated online during weekends, holidays, when forums/chatrooms get a hot topic.
Add in the people who have done deals, enrolled in patriotic cyber defence
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But I think the problem is that you can't identify the set of "all hackers" as "set A".
They are purposely trying to be invisible and hard to identify.
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always wondered why IRC was allowed (Score:2)
to stay afloat, full of warez, script kiddies, child pornographers, etc etc etc.
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It's not the tool, it's the people who use it.
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I'm not entirely sure if you're being serious, if you aren't disregard this post but I feel the need to explain some things anyway.
The largest IRC network (QuakeNet) is a gaming related network with about 180.000 users online at all times discussing everything game related (Clans, communities, development/mods, etc).
Then we have networks like Freenode, EFNet, etc filled with channels related to programming, operating systems, designing, etc. I am able to speak to developers from Splashdamage, id Software, Y
im just wondering who funded it for all the years (Score:2)
before the big corporations got involved. i am talking 1995-2000, when i used to hang out on there alot.
you would have constant server hacks, massive problems with servers going down, networks splitting, etcetera. the whole thing was run by a mysterious group of admins, who would GLine you for making controversial political statements and annoying operators of certain channels, but these admins would freely allow child porn channels and warez channels to stay up for years on end.
and who was hosting these se
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Your mistake is assuming there needed to be a thoroughly sound logical reason for the institution to engage in it.
In reality, these things tend to be rather accidental and chaotic. The people providing the funding for the computers were g
ok, what about this? (Score:2)
there has to be a thoroughly sound and logical reason for the FBI to allow child porn and warez to flow through government owned (universities are government institutions) computer networks, for years on end, meanwhile the FBI goes after countless john does for having child porn and/or warez networks running on their personal computers.
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i am talking 1995-2000
Not all servers are like this, it all depends on which servers you visit. I still don't see how it is any different from other public chat channel services on the web beside that it might look more obvious to you on certain networks when simply doing a list and seeing all sorts of strange channels pop up. And in my long history of IRC I can honestly say I've never seen any child porn channels on there (at least nothing that rang a bell with me judging from a public channel list), ever, so I'm honestly wonde
not exactly what i intended to say... (Score:2)
im not trashing freenet nor even IRC. I had many good times on #linux or #python or #c or #asm. I was mostly on Undernet, some EFnet, a little dalnet. Freenet did not even exist when i started, #linpeople was on undernet (or dalnet?). I remember lilo, god rest his soul.
However. On undernet, I personally witnessed people on childporn channels. I used to scream at them. Now I realize they were probably cops. I personally witnessed people get glined for silly reasons. I personally witnessed channel operators w
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However. On undernet, I personally witnessed people on childporn channels. I used to scream at them. Now I realize they were probably cops.
And back in those days such things were traded a bit more openly (just a bit, as in, you could actually stumble across it without looking for it, this really isn't possible to the same extent these days).
I personally witnessed people get glined for silly reasons. I personally witnessed channel operators who traded netsex for channel ops. I witnessed a lot of things that were improper and corrupt. Then there was the warez. And bestiality. And other things that are hard to explain in a 1996 context, when not 'just anyone' could set up a server.
Oh, those things have happened since back then up until today. Although I think in the frenzy of the '90s and the dotcom era when the internet was the cool new thing there was definitely a lot more "buzz" about IRC. Not to mention that as a medium it was a lot less mature.
Also, as others have pointed out, e
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Well I don't think there is 1 official google channel, check out #google, #chromium, #chromium-os, #android, #googleapps on Freenode, all google related and populated.
As for talking to actual employees and developers from companies like that, you will run into them every once in a while if you're in the major html, js/jq, css or general webapp development channels on either EFNet or Freenode.
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Actually, the Chromium related channels are official channels from the Chromium Developers.
And this is just 1 example, there are many official channels for a broad range of applications to be found on Freenode and EFNet.
Wait, wait, wait... (Score:3)
Mind blown.
Isn't it similar with pedos? (Score:3)
Re:Isn't it similar with pedos? (Score:4, Interesting)
Both the "dirty old man" and the "innocent pubescent girl" of urban lore are likely to be law enforcement officers, and possibly even colleagues at neighboring desks.
For some reason, this scenario brought to mind the occasions on which, as Dungeon Master, I've caught myself roleplaying both sides of an exchange between two NPCs. I try to avoid that whenever possible because it's seldom entertaining for the players, usually pointless, and more than a little bit disturbing...
Hm. That's analogy actually holds up.
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Reminds me of "Smith And Jones" by Ray Stevens
A highly forgettable song about two federal agents going undercover at night in a park to arrest a flasher. They ended up hand cuffed together naked and citizen's arrested by the real flasher.
Big surprise (Score:4, Interesting)
This is a natural by-product of the of a national gestapo using "useful idiots" as proxies for doing their dirty work. Federal informants are often permitted to break the law and are paid very handsomely, often with provided housing and up to hundreds of thousand dollars a year, for their work.
Since these informants work for money(what "hacker" works for the fame of being a snitch?!) , they are more likely to embellish or even fabricate evidence to back up their claims. The FBI don't care about that, because if charges are bogus they will entrap of go fishing to find another charge to justify the time and cost.
The real question is, how much money is being spent on informants("cyber" or otherwise)? Could that money be better spend on schools or infrastructure? Why is it that scumbags with questionable pasts are being paid forty-thousand dollars(or more) a year while we and our families are eating ramen noodles for dinner and wondering how we're gonna pay next month's rent?
The answer is part of the government's broader plan to turn half the population against the other half. The ones who drink the kool-aid get to feed their families. The rest are radicals and terrorist pedophiles who deserve to be jailed and even used as near-slave labor. The big security complex is the only future in an America with large numbers of returning warriors and no economy other than the unsustainable one of making and busting criminals. Greed eats itself.
Yes, all of those things are true. No, I will not look them up for you, use your Google Fu - start with "lodi ice cream man terrorist, " level/tier 1 informant," "FBI infiltrate environmental groups," "prison labor builds patriot missiles," and go from there.
Why are people wasting time whining about exposing foreign informants? What concerns us is the network of domestic informants, aka Stasi 2.0. McGruff the crime dog says - "If you snitch, you get a bullet in your dome for being a coward."
-- Ethanol-fueled
that THAT, FUCKERS! (Score:5, Interesting)
what's good for the goose is good for the gander...
Deja Vu (Score:2)
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What i don't understand... (Score:2)
Is why FBI/CIA needs so many gifted programmers
*Yeah i know its 2011 BUT IM STILL FIGHTING FOR THAT JARGON, DAMNIT!*
Oh really? (Score:2)
The underground world of computer hackers has been so thoroughly infiltrated in the US by the FBI and secret service that it is now riddled with paranoia and mistrust, with an estimated one in four hackers secretly informing on their peers, a Guardian investigation has established.
This sounds more like the voice-over narration to the introduction of a cyberpunk B-movie than a remotely decently written article...
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You don't have to know the absolute number. You just have to have a rough estimate, which you get by counting girls hanging out with their best female friend on Saturday night. Then you just go to a 2600 or lug meeting and drop a giant butterfly net from the ceiling. Next you simply count your sample and check how many wear dark suits. They are either FBI or IBM.
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Actually, it sounds to me like it should be followed by "and these, are their stories. DUM DUM".
Luring ... (Score:4, Interesting)
My biggest problem with this sort of scheme is that they are facilitating the very thing that they are claiming to combat.
Are they luring people into committing crimes that they would not have committed otherwise? I'm guessing that the answer is yes, even if it is unintentional. After all, a lot of wrong-doings wouldn't be done if there wasn't a social framework (e.g. forums) to reinforce the behaviour.
So if its intentional? (Score:2)
What then? You can't really do anything about it whether it's intentional or unintentional.
And if a team of informants want to set you up, there are enough laws and enough ways to make it happen.
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After all, a lot of wrong-doings wouldn't be done if there wasn't a social framework (e.g. forums) to reinforce the behaviour.
Shutting a site down won't stop people gathering, it's the internet. I think many people have an falsely close-ended view of law-enforcement -- that it's about ending network intrusion or some other beneficent finality. The fact is that the game is open-ended, and maintaining leverage and control is the only way to deal with the issue. The FBI knows and accepts this reality, and so they pursue the smarter strategy of containment and prevention rather than try to win the prize at the infinitely holed whack-a
Air America... (Score:4, Interesting)
I wonder how much of illicit credit card money finds its way back into FBI budgets. To fight crime, you know.
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Well, US federal law imposes a pretty low limit on credit card fraud liability -- which means banks, and thus the government, bear a fair share of the costs. It would not make much sense for any entity to rob from itself, though I wouldn't discount unscrupulous individuals doing something like you suggest for personal gain.
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It wouldn't make much sense if you think of the US government as a single entity with a single goal. It might make sense as a way to funnel money from one place to another without the inconvenience of arguing appropriations or raising taxes.
Lamo wasn't "turned" (Score:2, Insightful)
How do we know Lamo wasn't tortured? (Score:2)
When it's cases like Lamo's and the CIA gets involved they aren't beyond torturing somebody, or killing, or threatening to kill.
So if Lamo were going to be tortured alongside Manning unless he helped them, that would turn Lamo too.
Re:How do we know Lamo wasn't tortured? (Score:4, Informative)
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Why was Lamo involuntarily committed just prior to turning in Manning?
If he were tortured, being committed to a mental institution would be the perfect place to do it. And unlike you I will not pretend to know what Lamo thinks. Something happened, nobody really knows exactly what happened except for feds. Manning himself being a military fed at the time, we don't know what they were willing to do to interrogate.
It's certainly possible Lamo could be threatened and if he were it's very unlikely he'd ever admi
Re:How do we know Lamo wasn't tortured? (Score:4, Informative)
Lamo's thinking (Score:3)
You left out the possibility that Lamo decided his choices where 1) keep listening to manning and his classified leak plans and not tell anybody and hope his name
never gets discovered by the Feds or 2) alert the Feds and greatly lower you chances of going to prison for being an accessory for someone else's activity.
What if Manning had been the informant? If that turns out to be the case, 2 would be the better choice.
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Excellent. So they'll leave him in peace until everyone has forgotten about him.
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the guy who came clean to Lamo chose the wrong guy. If it came to light that Lamo knew this info. and didn't come clean, he'd probably get to live in the Mitnick Suite at the Hacker Hilton for 5-10. He was saving his own ass and I don't think I can blame him. Once you get a taste of what the Fed. has to offer in terms of justice and accommodations, you don't want no more of that. Ask Mitnick.
That is the point I'm making. I don't know whether or not Manning really was his friend, but any real friend wouldn't subject their friend to being tortured by the US government. Admitting that kind of shit to anybody guarantees that the government is going to do something really really bad to them. So why would Manning have done that to his friend?
I'm not saying Lamo was right but Manning had no reason to tell anyone he truly cared about what he did. That is the kind of thing you tell someone who you hate.
"Hackers?" (Score:2)
Please define "hacker" before I read your article and the associated advertisements. No, no, it's OK, I'll wait.
The other 75% (Score:4, Funny)
...aren't at liberty to say which agencies of which governments we're working for.
Headline is misleading (Score:2)
Any other motives? (Score:2)
The headline is a little misleading, in that the left off the last part. It should read "25% of US Hackers are FBI/CIA Informers After They are Caught". They are informing to get out of the previous shit they got caught for, much like drug informers.
I wonder.
Are they pressured, turned, reformed, or "healed"?
I guess, the motives would greatly depend on the circumstances. Someone, who started breaking into systems for the coolness or bragging factor would find it equally cool to be a secret undercover agent. If it was just technical curiosity, a little agreement lets you keep your toys. And someone who helps to stop criminals that steal credit information from unsuspecting grandmas might even get the feeling that they are making up for their past, much
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Not every hack is something which is clearly wrong.
And not every hacker got into it to be cool.
In fact I'd say the majority get into it just because they are curious and it's so easy. It's like leaving a jar of cookies and telling a young kid not to touch it while you go to sleep. You cannot be surprised if the jar is opened,and at least one cookie is missing.
I think the problem is that not every "hacker" has to get caught to get turned. A hacker could get turned after being set up. They might not necessari
Anyone can be "caught" (Score:2)
Because any informant can say you are the leader. Anybody can commit a crime, you could be in a chatroom, they could say you gave them the order and are the leader when they could be an informant all along setting you up to be "caught". Remember informants can commit crimes to catch criminals and that cops can give them permission to do it. This means they could commit the crime, frame you, and now you're "caught".
They tried this on me a few times... (Score:5, Interesting)
I've had my run-in with this before. I'm just a generic every day sysadmin and have no real involvement with the security community, short of idling on IRC with a bunch of more active people. Here are my experiences:
In 1997 or '98 I was the sysadmin for a mom 'n pop local ISP. We got hit by a massive DOS attack - keep in mind this was in the pre-smurf/DDOS era, so it really did warrant the attention of the feds. The owner contacted them, and they talked to me about getting any logs we might have (which of course I was ready to provide). I asked them where they wanted me to send them, and... "No, why don't you meet us out somewhere? We'll buy you lunch.". Despite the offer of free food, the alarm bells were going off by this point. So, I met them at a local coffee shop, and out of the 30 or so minutes I was there, they spent maybe two minutes discussing the DDOS with me, and the rest of the time attempting to get me to inform on the local 2600 group. I declined repeatedly, and they continued to make more forceful and threatening requests. Every time I disagreed with them, they looked at each other - and this was the creepiest (and obviously rehearsed) behavior I've ever seen. They never did get those logs from me.
After that I didn't hear anything until around 2005 or so when one of my ex-coworkers from another company called to tell me two men came by looking for me, and that they had government plates on their car. They left a card, but since I'm not under any obligation to call them, I never did. As the years went by, I received more calls from different people with a similar story.
And my last run-in with them was only a year or two ago - someone called me from a cell phone claiming he was with the FBI, and he had my computer and I needed to come to the local field office to pick it up. I found that to be rather unlikely since I tend to hang onto them until they're dead, I certainly wasn't missing one, and then they (minus the drives - I still have those) go into the bin. After a week of ignoring his calls he stopped bothering me.
To this day I have no idea what they wanted, but the entire thing reeked of ill-spent tax dollars.
I really don't care anymore, so the hell with posting as AC...
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If thats all they did then it wasn't as bad as it could have been. You weren't threatened with torture. You weren't entrapped and then threatened with prison as a sex offender. You weren't set up by your "friends".
Trust me, it could have been a lot fucking worse. If this is how they operate, if they went with the honorable civilized man to man talk approach, this actually makes the FBI or Agency look good. No ones rights were violated and no one was tortured, abused, or tricked.
So be good.. for goodness sake (Score:2)
That's their strategy for stopping LulzSec?
Actually, it doesn't astound me. It disappoints me.
I always though ... (Score:2)
Someone should learn history (Score:2)
Prominent and widespread use of agents-provocateurs by Tsar police caused in return police be influenced and used by agents-provocateurs. That situation culminated in assassination of Minister of the Interior Plehve [wikipedia.org] organized by police agents-provocateur Azef [wikipedia.org].Some historians think one of the reason of Plehve assassination was his inquiries into huge police spendings on agents-provocateurs.
Someone should learn history (Score:2)
Prominent and widespread use of agents-provocateurs by Tsar police caused in return police be influenced and used by agents-provocateurs. That situation culminated in assassination of Minister of the Interior Plehve [wikipedia.org] organized by police agents-provocateur Azef [wikipedia.org].Some historians think one of the reason of Plehve assassination was his inquiries into huge police spendings on agents-provocateurs.
Re:Option 2 (Score:5, Insightful)
It's effective work by the authorities. However, if people under FBI or CIA are actively encouraging or facilitating illegal activities that may not have happened otherwise, I may have some heavy objections as to whether it's "good" work.
I have similar concerns (Score:3, Interesting)
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There is no such thing as control over an informant. If they had control over them they would call them "Agents".
Your implied question here is: should the FBI recruit any informants, and by extension, take any information from someone not totally under their control.
I don't think that any of us want to live in a society where the police had enough manpower that input from the common man in the street was totally useless to the police. Therefore the question itself poses a veiled accusation.
Clearly police
Re:I have similar concerns (Score:4, Insightful)
You'd rather live in a society where everyone is so afraid that they're all looking for someone else to inform on?
Ask an East German how that worked out.
Better to set up rules for law enforcement that are no less strict than the ones the rest of us have to live by.
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Where murders are undertaken by criminal organization, informants deeply entrenched in the organization are hardly in a position to hold up a hand and say, look > guys, I don't think we should to this because it would be wrong...
It goes far further than that in some cases. Consider the IRA in Ireland. The terrorists / paramilitaries were riddled with informers; estimates are that 1/4 to 1/3 of all members were killed / beaten by internal security for being thought informers. The security forces (MI6, MI5 but also police and army) were successful in turning a number of high-profile people; a lot of those who joined for idealistic reasons were sickened by the bloodshed and criminality involved and turned against the IRA.
Now consider
Re:Option 2 (Score:5, Funny)
It's getting to the point these days where you just aren't sure which criminals you can trust.
Re:Option 2 (Score:4, Insightful)
I call shenanigans.
There is simply no way this is anything CLOSE to accurate. This is pure FUD and self-promotion. First, they don't have accurate stats on how many ID theft operators there are (if they knew who was doing the stealing, they'd be able to close them down, right?), so this is just a "guestimate" to make people who deal with bulk operators worried that they might be dealing with a "dishonest crook", and to justify their budgets.
Pitifully transparent.
pure FUD and self-promotion (Score:3)
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Re:Option 2 (Score:4, Funny)
To put that in perspective, here's the current FBI Agent breakdown:
0% of known men
0% of known women
25% of known hackers
100% of known little girls.
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Yes, they have very good statisticians, just like me.
I knew that 1 in 4 is an FBI-Informant.
That's why my Hacker-Group has only 3 members, so I'm secure.
Re:Option 2 (Score:4, Insightful)
What about ThinThread and other domestic surveillance programs? We know they're catching all US traffic at the ISP level. So if you're hacking computers in the US they can trace you back to the plug at the wall, from there they know you're either the person paying for the connection or someone leeching off his Wifi. A little detective work and they know if you live on the same block or if you're a roving wifi hacker who lives somewhere in downtown Portland.
Now how many non-US governments are doing the same thing and sharing this data with them? They already know who you are and what you're downloading, they simply don't have a reason to bust you right now.
So yeah, I bet they do have a pretty good estimate of the number of currently active hackers at least in the US. There's a profile on each one, and they know about zero-day attacks before anyone else does. It's just on the down-low since it's illegal. Do something big enough and they'll find a way to use it against you.
Re:Option 2 (Score:4, Insightful)
The thing that makes me actually partially believe them is the remarkable efficiency of department of homeland security's incredible ability to recruit "neighbourhood spies".
The numbers may be inflated, but make no mistake - authorities have noted just how efficient it is to essentially make a lot of small people into informants on minimal pay. Stalin would have had a major hard-on if he saw what they did in the States, he tried really hard to make the system in USSR to be similar, but it failed because of lack of ability to process large amounts of data at rapid pace.
We have that thanks to computerization and networking, and USA authorities can proudly state that they already have more spies then USSR spying on their own people. I really don't see why lessons from that can't flow into even more valuable hacker world, where informants are so important. Hell, case Manning makes for a great example - the #1 enemy of intelligence machine wasn't caught because of awesome hardware, awesome software or great investigation work. He was caught because someone Manning viewed as a friend and a "comrade in arms" so to speak was actually a snitch who fingered him.
And it's the importance of having snitches like that anywhere you can have them, and making sure that even if you don't have a snitch in a particular organisation, they THINK you do is the proven, effective control maintenance strategy for authorities. So yes, we can doubt the exact number, but the argument that a very large portion of US hackers are snitches is beyond reasonable doubt.
And if you ever doubt that snitches are the most important part of intelligence, look at case Bin Laden. Hunted with best equipment and millions of men for years, no luck. And in the end, the one who killed him wasn't a bunch of SEALs, or an advanced helicopter. It was some pakistani guy who was a snitch and fingered him. And funnily enough, to show just how well our media is penetrated by intelligence, in between massive dick waving about SEALs, helicopters and other thing that really didn't matter in the end, we didn't hear a word about the one thing that really did matter - THE SNITCH.
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Oh? I've been following reports pretty closely, and I remember seeing no such information. Early on it was military dick polishing, and later on it was general bullshit about intelligence working. No actual details, other then standard obfuscation to protect sources was ever released as far as I remember seeing.
Do you have a link to a source of any such information? I would be very interested in seeing it.
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This is the old one, I've seen it and it doesn't conflict with my original statement. Let me help you translate intelligence speak into english:
August 2010: American intelligence locates the brothers’ residence.
Translation: Informant sold out the residence's location. Informant not very reliable, but reliable enough to start collecting additional informant statements on site.
September 2010: The Central Intelligence Agency begins to work with President Obama on assessments that lead them to believe tha
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I'd prefer stats on the proportion of hi-tek(TM) identity thefts prevented or prosecuted compared to the total.
It seems to be having as much effect as the War On Drugs(TM).
100% of FBI Informers (Score:3)
Are quislings who'd sell their grandparents for an extra day's ration.
Re:PsyOps (Score:4, Interesting)
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This could just as easily be a false leak. It would be ridiculous to take these statements at face-value, given that misinformation is one of the CIA's strongest suits.
That is exactly the reaction they hoped for among the more tech savvy. ;-)
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Agreed. This could just as easily be a false leak. It would be ridiculous to take these statements at face-value, given that misinformation is one of the CIA's strongest suits.
I thought their chief weapon was surprise.
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And that's just 1 agency from 1 country (Score:2)
If you add up all the agencies from all the countries, you can pretty much extrapolate that almost every hacker is a double or triple agent.
Makes you wonder how much of the hacking is really just Pentagon vs DHS; or FBI vs CIA; or US vs UK; etc.
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Read about the origins of tor, the quality of exit nodes and then add in this 25% number, its really like making an international call/fax back in the 1940-80s - someone will be interested.
Its their network and seems to be loaded with a lot of honeypots and people who have be caught and made deals.
Given the size of the US population
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Deny what? Nobodys "denying" there are hackers in the US. Western Hypocrisy? You've injected a comment which has nothing to do with the conversation.
If you're trying to connect the two by claiming that the US government keeping informants, is somehow remotely equivalent to the Chinese government attacking other countries network infrastructure, you are crazy.
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Being an informat doesn't mean "working for". A Mafia informant still goes about their daily business, doing their Mafia business. It's not the Government's business. However, then they may use information they glean in their dealings to "inform" authorities of certain happenings they're interested in. Thats what informing is. You seem to have a misunderstanding of the term.
And btw, the actual report doesn't relate to a quarter of "all hackers". Its a quarter of those tried and prosecuted or plea bargained.
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and PS. When you have any evidence that Stuxnet was a US government operation, feel free to present it. It's amazing how so many conspiracy theorys gain so much credence without any evidence. Ever. Stupid, gullible people just like to feel like they "know" something.
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Maybe you're more accurately a hobbyist tinkerer, and maybe someone else is more accurately a network intruder.. but fuck that in any case. This is what you get for pigeon-holing yourself into broadly defined labels. If people at large recognize a label for a certain meaning, insisting otherwise isn't going to change things or benefit you in any way. This is why I hate foisting labels on myself -- better to enjoy the hobbies and people you relate to on your own terms without ideological associations.
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It's most likey 25% of convicted hackers turned. They are probably defining hackers as site operators AND black hats who dealt in wares, keys, hacks, etc... or worms, viruses, data theft. Think about it, they can only know "hackers" they've caught. I would have thought the turn rate would be a lot higher considering WHY most people choose to venture to that side (it's not for you), the offer isn't probably extended to everybody. And of course to add a little humor, the people they actually want as informants, they can't catch. Script kiddies ahoy.
Thats not true at all. Anyone who is in any chatroom or forum can be entrapped or otherwise contacted. Your IP address is on a list, the informants can invite you into a chatroom, commit a crime in your presence, and according to the law you are now a co-conspirator and just as guilty as them because you knew a crime was being committed and you didn't stop it.
Then of course the police can lie to you, and informants can lie about you, and make it seem like you were the leader all along and you ordered the op
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In that case, the parental guardian has to be the one to sign up their child for a lifetime of being a backstabbing betraying coward unwilling to do the time for the crime but more than willing to lead other people who often would not have committed a crime (entrapment) into the law enforcement promotion life destroying trap.
You might claim they serve law and order but anyone who betrays their word, deceivers others into crime and lacks the fortitude pay for their crimes but is more than content to get o
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You make it sound like they have broken some sort of moral code.
They didn't. Black hat hackers are common criminals. There is no moral code to break.
They're willing to screw anybody, so why expect them to not screw their mates?
What's worse; a thief who steals from innocent people or a thief who only steals from thiefs?
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Does the war on insert noun here in question render law enforcement immune to the law?
Imagine NSA setting up an FBI agent using a drugs for credit card numbers sting, and an FBI agent hooking an NSA agent in a credit card numbers for drugs sting.
If so, what happens if each agency simultaneously deems they have enough evidence to prosecute? Should the respective agents be prosecuted?
Seems like the law should apply equally to all of us.
That is a very interesting question. Does the FBI agent become an NSA informant? Does the NSA agent setup by the FBI become an FBI informant? That is what I'd imagine would happen, but who can answer this question except for people in these organizations?
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Yeah but they can always put you in jail after you work for them. Then what?