Leaked Chats Show Alleged Russian Spy Seeking Hacking Tools (securityweek.com) 129
wiredmikey writes: The leak of an alleged Russian hacker's conversations with a security researcher shows more about the shadowy group of 12 Russian spies indicted by the FBI for targeting the 2016 U.S. election. The researcher, who gave her exchanges with the alleged hacker to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity, said she wasn't pleased to learn she had been corresponding with an alleged Russian spy. But she wasn't particularly surprised either.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm sorry, Russia is a global superpower with unlimited financial and human resources devoted to spycraft and hacking. To suggest that an international spy is using public Twitter posts and emails to a random researchers asking for zero-day exploits is beyond absurd. It's comical to anyone who knows anything about intelligence agencies or tech security, but of course the target of this propaganda tends to be the lowest common denominator who will just believe anything.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Because of how easily traceable it is.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Has it occurred to you that those bugs were introduced/engineered by state-sponsored intelligence agencies in the first place? The GRU has their own zero-days.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Russia is a global superpower? hahahaha good one!
Huh? (Score:3)
Because the NSA never taps the expertise of researchers outside of their own walls? That is preposterous.
Exploits are like any other commodity. You go to the people who have them, regardless of who they are.
Re:Russian spy? (Score:4, Insightful)
It's comical to anyone who knows anything about intelligence agencies or tech security,
Intelligence agencies or other covert operations quite often will try to use technology or equipment not sourced internally in order to hide who they are really working for and to provide deniability. Anyone who knows anything about intelligence agencies would know this.
Re: (Score:2)
Not publicly in an easily-traceable manner. Unless of course they're trying to make it look like another country is doing it...
Re: (Score:2)
If I had any mod points, I would mod this up. But since my return to Slashdot since the early days (mid-2000s), I never seem to get any mod points, despite my karma levels (and now that I have posted, it's a moot point, anyway).
Re: (Score:2)
No collusion! (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
And that story being entirely bogus. That story is pitched at the level of the average Faux News viewer, which the editors of slashdot seem to have us confused with.
Re: (Score:2)
It's more plausible that you're the Russian spy sent here to make Democrats look like imbeciles.
Re: (Score:2)
Not if you've seen social media in the past 2 years. It's probably a genuine post.
Re:How long will /. push this nonsense narrative?! (Score:4, Insightful)
Russia didn't hack the election. They hacked DNC emails and bought Facebook ads. Funny how Facebook was alright in taking that money until Hillary lost.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
The Clinton campaign was spending over $1 million per month in paid astrotrufing services. Correct the Record, Media Matters, etc, exist for the sole purpose of trolling online. They were celebrated for it.
Re: (Score:1)
The Russian "sharp force" campaign was not necessarily to get Trump the presidency. They hacked both the Democrats and the Republicans. There were attempts made towards the Bernie Sanders campaign as well. They just didn't go anywhere. The main point is to destabilize our democracy. Right now 57% of young adults do not see the Trump presidency as legitimate. They didn't need to help Trump win only to make it look like they did to have an effect. The danger is not in helping conservatives or liberals.
Re: (Score:1)
The only people who disagree with this assessment apart from Russia is Trump himself, pres
Re: (Score:2)
[Russia] hacked DNC emails
So we're continuously told by those with an obvious conflict of interest, against a mounting pile of evidence to the contrary. [consortiumnews.com]
Re: (Score:1)
SO let me get this straight.. You are claiming that Russia did two things..
1. Hacked the election - AS IN Changed the counted votes so they didn't match the actual votes cast...
2. Trolled on Social Media - AS in engaged in a disinformation campaign to change people's minds about who they'd vote for.
The problem with your assertions is as follows:
1. There is no evidence that any vote was counted differently than it was cast. NONE. This has been confirmed many, many times by the likes of Clapper and othe
Re: (Score:1)
It was more of a distraction so those in charge of the DNC weren't held accountable for losing the most winnable election in a century to a circus clown and to give Clinton a pretext to run again in 2020.
It also gives the Dems an excuse to dismiss most of the country choosing to vote for said circus clown instead of their policies.
Re: (Score:1)
2. This happened, but this is not new or unique with 20216's elections, it's been going on for centuries. Also, there is very little the USA can do about this. We can (and do) have laws that forbid foreign involvement, but we don't have jurisdiction to enforce these laws except on our soil.
Moreover, those laws only prevent spending expressly in support of a given candidate; a foreign entity can purchase all the "issue ads" they want, without any problem whatsoever. As long as you do not push a specific candidate, and keep it to issues-only, then you are 100% in the clear. So unless someone can show that Russia bought ads that said "Vote Trump", rather than "Vote for fair trade/build a wall/drain the swamp", there is NO problem whatsoever.
Re: (Score:2)
Are you saying there is no action to be taken between two nations between 'cut it out!' and going to war?
Re: (Score:2)
You mean like financial sanctions on them by us and our allies... Check, we've done that.
Expelling diplomats.. Check, Done that too..
Discussing the Issue between heads of state... Check, Even that we've done since 2016...
Yet here we go again...
I'm saying that what can you do to stop them if they refuse to comply with your laws when you ask them to? Military force, or at least the credible threat of it is pretty much where we are at this point. How bad do you want it to stop? THAT bad?
You see, that's re
Re: (Score:2)
I'd like to see Congress backed sanctions, which is pretty much where we are (I think).
The country needs a new boogeyman (Score:2)
Ever since 9/11 the country needed a new boogeyman to be scared of. We had the Taliban, then Saddam, then pedophiles, then ISIS, now it happens to be Russia. Trump used social media to get elected just like Obama did and now shit got real because the DNC gambled on Hillary and lost. I'm not a Democrat but I respect Bernie a hell of a lot more than Hillary.
Re: (Score:1)
This isn't simply about the West, Russia has been doing this for over a decade, they first really kicked this kind of thing off in Ukraine in the 2004, when they tried to poison one of the candidates.
They since continued doing this in places like Georgia, Azerbaijan, Moldova, Armenia, and so forth.
In by 2010 they were beginning to use the financial crisis to stir in countries like Greece, Hungary, Romania, Malta and so forth.
All that's changed is that they've now moved onto the big fish. They've been found
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The Russians did try to influence the election, and has very solid evidence behind it. This says nothing bad whatsoever about Trump or that he colluded with them. However, by refusing to acknowledge the evidence and continually denying that Russia did anything does look bad for Trump, it makes him look like an ego-driven child. Worse, when Trump tries to hinder the investigation it hurts him legally. It's in Trump's own best interests to acknowlege the Russian issue is a real thing.
Re: (Score:2)
It's always been a setup. The establishment has framed this from the beginning as Trump working with the Russians to steal the election, not the simple meddling that's always taken place.
Re: (Score:2)
You made the assertion, burden of proof is on you.
Re: (Score:2)
Rule also applies in debate.
Doesn't apply when trolling though, so you're good.
Re: (Score:2)
You made the assertion, burden of proof is on you.
Poll shows that 40% of republicans believe that Russians helping republicans keep control of Congress is either appropriate or not a big deal.
For the 2016 presidential election the figure is 33%.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news... [yahoo.com]
Re: (Score:3)
Reminder: This is not going away. (Score:4, Insightful)
Every time a story like this comes up, a large number of folks raise objections to the very idea of investigating right-wing election issues.
Well, this isn't going away. Benghazi investigations lasted for 3 years, with zero convictions or even serious cases. If you in any way accepted that process, you have ZERO legs to stand against on an investigation that had already lead to multiple convictions and guilty pleas, and is currently involved in a large number of major court cases, increasing constantly.
And if push too hard to try and force it to stop, the protests will shut down this nation. They will be larger than anything we've ever seen.
None of this is going away.
Ryan Fenton
Re: (Score:1, Troll)
How is this a "right-wing" voting issue? Which party has always been against voter ID laws and removing the deceased from voter rolls?
Re: (Score:3)
https://www.reuters.com/articl... [reuters.com]
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Yes I read it and this is the policy Democrats oppose:
"Under Ohio’s policy, if registered voters miss voting for two years, they are sent registration confirmation notices. If they do not respond and do not vote over the following four years, they are purged."
People who haven't voted on anything for 6+ YEARS and ignored notices 4 years prior to being purged...In other words, a lot of dead people.
Claiming that policy is racist is disgusting. You can't be serious about securing our elections if you don
Re: (Score:1)
More water-muddying horseshit from the right. From the article:
"In a dissenting opinion, Sotomayor said the ruling âoeignores the history of voter suppression against which the NVRA was enacted and upholds a program that appears to further the very disenfranchisement of minority and low-income voters that Congress set out to eradicate.
A 2016 Reuters analysis found roughly twice the rate of voter purging in Democratic-leaning neighborhoods in Ohioâ(TM)s three largest counties as in Republican-lean
Re: (Score:1)
Just because it impacted poor areas does not make it targeted at poor people! Why do you want poor people to stay poor?
Re: (Score:3)
How is this a "right-wing" voting issue? Which party has always been against voter ID laws and removing the deceased from voter rolls?
This about election hacking, both potential hacking of the actual apparatus used to conduct elections (voting machines, state governments, election vendors, etc) but also hacking of political actors in order to influence political outcomes.
Whining about non-existent voter fraud that is really just a transparent pretext for voter suppression efforts is a different discussion.
Re: (Score:1)
This is a pretext for voter suppression?
"Under Ohio’s policy, if registered voters miss voting for two years, they are sent registration confirmation notices. If they do not respond and do not vote over the following four years, they are purged."
A stronger argument can be made that opposition to this supports voter fraud.
Re: (Score:1)
How is this a "right-wing" voting issue? Which party has always been against voter ID laws and removing the deceased from voter rolls?
Damn right. If I have to show my ID every time I buy groceries I damn well should have to show ID when I vote.
Re: (Score:2)
If you buy beer/alcohol you do. Funny how wrong Trump is when he is completely correct.
Well, he was in FL when he said that, and I would be willing to bet most of his supporters there have been drinking and smoking for so long that they might actually think you need an ID to go grocery shopping.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Nice use of "unless" while proving the post you're replying to as correct.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
So you do need ID to purchase things that are typically bought on a trip to the grocery store. Glad we settled that. Personally I have been carded for buying: Alcohol, toilet paper on sale, glue, paint, cans of air, certain medicines, and other things commonly found at grocery stores.
Why is it that Trump's detractors have a problem with absolutes and subsets? Good people on both sides doesn't mean everyone on both sides was good. Criminals and rapists coming across the border does not mean that everyone cro
Re: (Score:2)
That's why Radio Shack went bankrupt, remember? Too many of their customers didn't have an ID
Re: (Score:2)
But is SHOULD go away because the Russians are on the "right" side now...
Facebook just busted the Russians for supporting anti-Trump demonstrations.
https://www.npr.org/2018/07/31... [npr.org]
Also, during the 2016 election, the Russians backed Bernie...
https://www.usatoday.com/story... [usatoday.com]
This should be enough to prove the Russia is one of the "good guys" and should be left alone to meddle -- as long as they are on the right side.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Isn't going away? You mean like the Clinton investigations?
These leaked emails are so much more credible than the leaked emails against the Clintons.
People should have been indicted on Benghazi, it was proven that we had assets in the area that could have stepped in and changed the entire outcome. But SOMEONE stopped them and it surely wasn't Trump....
Me thinks you've been living under Obama's rock for too long.
And once we have a Republican in the White House and running the DoJ we can finally get an investigation and Lock Her Up!. Oh....you mean Trump is......and Sessions is a.....hunh....
Re: (Score:2)
D and Rs are suck in mutually assured destruction.
We should all be hoping for them to destroy each other, so we can get on with starting some honest political parties.
Sessions is stopping this from happening, as he is an old school bible thumping R and is protecting his masters. Don't think for a second that Sessions wasn't imposed on Trump.
Re: (Score:2)
>
None of this is going away.
Ryan Fenton
The rest of your mishmash is questionable, but your final assertion is 100% true. Special council investigations never end until the target of that investigation leaves office. They just keep going, sucking up resources and FBI labor hours until they become absolutely pointless.
This investigation is not going away until Trump leaves office at Noon on January 20, 2025, maybe not even then depending on who replaces him.
Re: (Score:2)
They just keep going, sucking up resources and FBI labor hours until they become absolutely pointless.
Several guilty pleas and a half-dozen serious criminal charges is "pointless"?
Only if you are terrified that the "Make Russia Great Again" president ends up in jail.
Re: (Score:2)
They just keep going, sucking up resources and FBI labor hours until they become absolutely pointless.
Several guilty pleas and a half-dozen serious criminal charges is "pointless"? Only if you are terrified that the "Make Russia Great Again" president ends up in jail.
Guilty pleas where for lying to the FBI and for financial filings from 8 years before the election, which have nothing to do with Muller's mandate. The rest of the charges are for actual Russians and Russian entities, but zero Americans where involved.
Mueller sure is being meticulous about this "investigation" and it doesn't seem to me he's finding much related to the actual election and Trump or his people. He's not done, but I'd start preparing to be disappointed if I had your view of the world because
Pence would be worse (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Is anyone surprised? (Score:3)
Is anyone surprised?
The thing is, "Russian spy tries to spy" != "Trump is a Russian mole/dupe/partner/something, OMG lolz". Which is the implication we are apparently supposed to believe.
Re: (Score:2)
False Flag (Score:2)
Just like the hot 18/f/CA that used to hang out in all of those AOL chatrooms I'm willing to bet that it's a big fat hairy dude sitting behind a desk somewhere in Langley Virginia.
Re: (Score:2)
He was Rusky for sure, he was looking for 'nuclear wessels'.
BTW the guys fapping in lesbian chat rooms really are gay. There are no women there.
Re: (Score:2)
Just like the hot 18/f/CA that used to hang out in all of those AOL chatrooms I'm willing to bet that it's a big fat hairy dude sitting behind a desk somewhere in Langley Virginia.
Hey, I'm not fat and hairy! I'm just... festively plump. ;)
recently disclosed vulnerability codenamed (Score:1)
recently disclosed vulnerability codenamed CVE-2012-0002. Not a code name, article is invalid.
Random guy on Twitter/blog posts is not a "spy" (Score:2)
This person contacted her over a 'blog post' and posted to Twitter to find information on a CVE.
That is a script-kiddie, wannabe hacker teenager. A true spy, hell, even a halfway decent 'professional' knows where to find CVE descriptions and based on those descriptions, they can write their own exploits.
Why the GRU story? (Score:2)
The GRU did try to spy once in the UK and totally lost a well placed spy in the 1070's.
After that it was better felt to let the real spy experts in the Soviet Union and Russia look after international spying.
Now the West is to enjoy a story about the GRU that is back doing advanced cyber spying but it cant spy and needs help. When it can spy it got deep into US networks and was never found due to skills. Then went back to needi