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NSA Hacked French President’s House
- giosch 10y agoThis is quite scary. I know, it's not something new, but still...
- ceejayoz 10y agoWhy is this scary? This is what everyone's always assumed the NSA was doing. It's their explicit job - to monitor the rest of the world.
- dudul 10y agoI wonder how the US government would react if european nations were caught doing it to them (especially Considering the childish reaction after some countries decide to not get involved in the 2nd war in Irak). Note that I'm not saying they are not doing it (I actually assume everybody does it), but I don't recall seeing any formal proof.
- ceejayoz 10y agoI suspect the US catches its European allies doing this all the time. http://www.cbsnews.com/news/intel-insiders-europeans-spying-on-us-too/ http://www.cbsnews.com/news/intel-insiders-europeans-spying-...
- saryant 10y agoThe US government knows that our European allies spy on us all the time. That's been known since the founding of the nation. They don't make a stink about it because you don't rock the boat when you don't need to. Advise those with sensitive information of how to proceed and move on. Think about why French intelligence would give this to the press, rather than obviate it either technologically or diplomatically.
- pyrale 10y agoThis is scary because the direct implication of this event is a creep of power for intelligence agencies, which is not very good to have in a democratic system (because lack of oversight, accountability, significant means to alter democratic process, etc).
- dogma1138 10y agoWhy do you assume that this was done not at the direct orders of the executive branch? The director of the NSA is a general, the NSA is the only intelligence agency that is almost under the direct control of POTUS.
- pyrale 10y agoI don't see how this changes my point. A single man giving orders does not define a democracy. Democracy requires accountability and public oversight. What's the difference between an unelected man in charge and an elected one, if you can't know what they do, anyway ?
- heartbreak 10y agoThe difference is that we elected the guy doing the overseeing, Barack Obama. In fact we elected him twice. That's democracy. If we don't like what NSA is doing under the President's command, we'll elect a different president, or our elected men and women in Congress can hold the President accountable.
- pyrale 10y ago> If we don't like what NSA is doing under the President's command, [...] For that, you would need oversight, which intel shops typically don't provide. For instance, there's a history of scandals being revealed long after they were done in western democracies. There's also the matter of being able to effectively implement a political program reducing the powers of intel agencies. To my knowledge this has never happened outside of political upheavals. Even then, if you look at the Church committee report and the Snowden affair, advances seem to be quickly erased.
- martinko 10y agoSo do I understand this correctly - they intercepted the palace's web traffic and were somehow able to read it and inject malicious code? If so, how were they able to bypass ssl?
- kbart 10y agoThey used QUANTUM INSERT which is for HTTP not HTTPS. So they just needed to wait until someone accessed HTTP site. Here is more technical description on how QI works: https://blog.fox-it.com/2015/04/20/deep-dive-into-quantum-insert/ https://blog.fox-it.com/2015/04/20/deep-dive-into-quantum-in...
- labster 10y agoQUANTUM INSERT INTO box VALUES ('cat', 50%, 50%);
- eli 10y agoWhat percent of average web traffic was SSL in 2002?
- agd 10y agoThe hack is alleged to have taken place in 2012, not 2002.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- dorfsmay 10y ago> Quantum Insert requires the NSA and GCHQ to have fast-acting servers relatively near a target’s machine that are capable of intercepting browser traffic swiftly in order to deliver a malicious web page to the target’s machine before the legitimate web page can arrive. It looks like they reply to a request instead of a legitimate server (poisoning DNS, or routing tables, maybe by jus adding a server to an anycast service) to infect the target machines. Once the target machine is infected, ssl, passwords, etc... No longer matter.
- ourmandave 10y agoBarbier ridicules the idea of a “European CIA/NSA.” However, he believes that a joint French-German Intelligence Agency could be established and would be very efficient. Yeah, except you'd have to give the Germans time to remove all their malware from the French servers before you could green light that.
- Gmo 10y agoBecause you don't think it's also true the other way around ?
- ourmandave 10y agoOf course, that's apparently how the game is played. I assumed the French are spying on the Germans and every one else they can install malware on. They just don't have the resources like the NSA. The NSA enjoys a workforce 20 times larger (60,000 vs 3,000), and a budget 40 times bigger (US $50 Billions). Even the GCHQ (UK) & UNIT 8200 (Israel) have twice more resources. The NSA probably think its adorable when the French pop up on one of their honeypot servers.
- Gmo 10y agoSure, but you were talking about Germany previously.
- jacquesm 10y agoWith friends like that who needs enemies? Really, the whole concept of an 'ally' has gone out the window.
- ceejayoz 10y agoThe best ally is one you know for certain isn't plotting against you in secret.
- retox 10y ago"Trust, but verify"
- agumonkey 10y agoReminds me of a guy who planted loads of spyware in his girlfriend phone. He genuinely said it killed all doubts and made him happy and ensure he could make her happy.
- akerro 10y agoNSA has the same in all our phones. Thanks NSA for making us happy <3
- ourmandave 10y agoUntil she finds out he's a f'd up control freak with trust issues and runs screaming. EDIT: I'm pretty sure I've seen a variation of that dude in every Lifetime movie ever.
- nabla9 10y agoOnly Five eye countries are close allies to US. France and Germany act more independently and sometimes against US interests. They are watched with suspicion. US and France have been spying each other for ages. U.S. Intelligence and the French Nuclear Weapons Program – Documents Show U.S. Intelligence Targeted French Nuclear Program as Early as 1946 http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB184/ http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB184/ Former head of France’s counter-espionage understands what is the name of the game: http://www.france24.com/en/20131024-nsa-france-spying-squarcini-dcri-hollande-ayrault-merkel-usa-obama http://www.france24.com/en/20131024-nsa-france-spying-squarc... >“The French intelligence services know full well that all countries, whether or not they are allies in the fight against terrorism, spy on each other all the time,” he said. “The Americans spy on French commercial and industrial interests, and we do the same to them because it’s in the national interest to protect our companies.” “There was nothing of any real surprise in this report,” he added. “No one is fooled.” "Chancellor Merkel is important. If the NSA was not surveying her communications, it was only because it was unable to do so," "How could the NSA not want to listen in on the person rated by Forbes as the second most powerful person in the world after President Obama?”
- trendia 10y agoThe point of the "game" is to induce a chilling effect on private conversations to limit the available discourse about decisions. The French President becomes afraid not to just make a particular decision, but also to even discuss it. It should be obvious that knowledge of spying changes bevahior during diplomatic relations. This gives inordinate power to organizations that have greater spying capability--the United States with its NSA will have more influence in global affairs than France, even if we both have one vote in the UN security council. Whether this has "always gone on", though, is irrelevant to whether it is antithetical to democracy.
- krapp 10y ago> The French President becomes afraid not to just make a particular decision, but also to even discuss it. I doubt the French President or any world leader is so cowed by the premise of NSA spying that it paralyzes them into inaction and submission. Paranoid people on the internet who think that the CIA might black-bag them for typing "Snowden" into Google may be that naive, but the actual political elites are likely far more aware of, and accepting of, the global surveillance network than you or I. >Whether this has "always gone on", though, is irrelevant to whether it is antithetical to democracy. That's true, but an assertion of a global political chilling effect remains speculative at best. If anything, the constant leaks about NSA spying seems to have the opposite effect.
- plopilop 10y agoAlso, Barbier confirmed at the same conference that France had hacked Canada's house, which was denied by the French government. So yeah, the US are clearly not the only ones to do that.
- ourmandave 10y agoWell, the French are going to have their "Snowden Moment" one day. And the NSA will sh*t a collective brick when documents reveal the Michelle O. was a French operative the whole time. D=
- plopilop 10y agoMaybe. If I remember correctly, Barbier said that it was less likely, as french intelligence sysadmins (or people with the same access rights as Snowden) have been working for the Defense for ages, whereas Snowden was a young outside contractor from Dell.
- akerro 10y agoI love the part "you guys are good". It's like attacking someone with baseball bats on a dark street, break bones, kick face and say "sorry mate, you're good' and leave without consequences.
- pilooch 10y agoThe video was removed! Anyone with a copy ?
- GirlsCanCode 10y agoThis is exactly what American intelligence shoukd do: gather intelligence from other countries. It's when they spy on their own citizens that I get a little upset.
- Bakary 10y agoYou can't have your cake and eat it too. i.e. You can't have a security Leviathan and expect it to ignore inner threats
- SixSigma 10y agodon't worry, if Hillary becomes president and the French read her emails again, she will send in the ground troops
- Zigurd 10y agoWhat follows from the attitude that "Of course allies spy on each other" is that one would expect a greater effort to create secure systems and enable actual autonomy in decision-making and confidential communications in carrying out state decisions. In fact what we have in a US empire implemented in part through interlocking relationships in the Deep State: Militaries talk directly to the US military outside of control by elected officials and so do intelligence officers. The US sphere of influence uses US technology that enables US spying.
- bsaul 10y agoFunny part of the video, is that at one point he was starting to talk about how the chinese raided Areva (major french nuclear company). But this part got cut even before the video was completely removed. You can only see him starting the story, and then it stopped. Honestly, as a french i'm a bit scared to see someone mention all those recent "state secrets" in a campus, with cameras all around. He even described the working method (mixing human intelligence and electronic), the workplace ( it ressembles a lot the "Bureau des affaires secret" TV show, because they had access to the DGSE offices), and the limits of the service (number of men, lack of resource to treat the information, damages done by snowden to surveillance capabilities, etc.) At this point i only see two options : 1/ the guy's a bit old and senile. 2/ He knows exactly what he's doing, and he thinks France's intelligence capabilities are such in a mess that he needs to make this information public. Judging by the recent intelligence fiascos, and the ever increasing terrorist threats the country's facing, i'd say 2/
- erazor42 10y agoNSA is spying ? What a surprise... It's crazy how everybody seems surprised everytime news like that show up. Everybody spy on each other and i'm sure France does the same.
- yuja_wang 10y agoIsn't this what you _want_ the U.S. spy agencies to do? See what other countries are up to? I think the only problem is when they take this technology to look upon their own citizens outside the checks and balances of our system of judges and warrants for this sort of thing.
- GOSINT 10y agoDoes anyone know when the video of Barbier was removed from YouTube? Thanks