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It took 8 years for the CIA to figure out what happened?? This certainly explains why China and Russia continue to conduct cyber operations basically at the sam
by yborg 8y ago
It took 8 years for the CIA to figure out what happened?? This certainly explains why China and Russia continue to conduct cyber operations basically at the same level of intensity they have been for years - US intelligence, despite its enormous, unaccountable budget is unable to stop them or even know where they are compromised. If there is an actual hot conflict between the US and either of these nations, I shudder to think what will happen.
I don't believe the US lacks in technical skill at the operational level. These failures are management and organizational failures.
- onetimemanytime 8y ago>>If there is an actual hot conflict between the US and either of these nations, I shudder to think what will happen. a hot conflict entirely dependent on satellites and other means of communications. The war can end right after the first shot is fired.
- achow 8y agoThe point that was being made is China/Russia perhaps is still not there with all their covert operation guns out and blazing. If situation does arise (hot conflict or otherwise) then one "shudders to think" what would be the implications.
- onetimemanytime 8y agoThat's I meant too,even in WWII communication was key, imagine today when all is computer controlled. China and Russia might be in the system already and waiting
- hulahoof 8y agoI think it's pretty safe to say, while these games are always cat and mouse, that globally cyber defense is not approached with the same determination as cyber offence, and perhaps it can't be with resources in the same order. I think personally it's pretty likely that they're in our systems, and we're in theirs, for almost any major nation - ally or not. It's just MAD all over again.
- jacobush 8y agoExcept accountability in Mutually Assured Destruction was always crystal clear. Today, there is much more (potential) room for confusion and false flag attacks. Relevant pop culture reference: https://www.imdb.com/videoplayer/vi4020353817?playlistId=tt5227746&ref_=tt_ov_vi https://www.imdb.com/videoplayer/vi4020353817?playlistId=tt5...
- Gustomaximus 8y agoI wonder if this is due to the ever increasing scale of the US intelligence services. From my working life perspective smaller teams of talented people are often more impactful than significantly larger teams. E.g. Large teams create bureaucracy. And 'weak links' become harder to spot and typically allowed to remain. I know nothing about this area so take my comment as curiosity only, but I wonder what USA gets/achieves for this $50-100bn intelligence budget? And what would they get at a $2bn funded group utilising a much smaller group of the best employees within the existing orgs.
- arminiusreturns 8y agoI don't think that's it. I personally think the best window into this world is William Binney and his thinthread project. He developed thinthread to protect Americans privacy, and it only was going to cost a handful of millions. His functioning program was scrapped for a billion dollar program that didn't protect Americans privacy and that didn't work because all it did was make the haystack so big finding the needle became neigh impossible. That is a clear example of the good ol boy kickback system being allowed to take over and actually reduced national security. There is a reason that since 9/11, multiple counties in VA have the most growth of millionaires in the country. As for the CIA, most sources I listen to (Ray McGovern, John Kirakou, Bob Bear, etc) indicate they have been getting rid of analysts who speak "truth to power" due to the over politicalization of intelligence, so combine that with good ol boy kickback cruft, it's no wonder incompetence is allowed to abound. This is only a part of the reason the military Intel community has tended to have an adversarial attitude to the company.
- mikeyouse 8y agoBinney is a complete crank.. I'd be very cautious of any first person narratives that he tells, especially when he paints himself as the hero.
- arminiusreturns 8y agoYou can't say shit like this without backing it up. I think you are full of it and just attempting character assassination.
- bsder 8y agoDefense is always harder than offense when it comes to computers.
- digi_owl 8y agoComputers at its core have no clue about offense or defense, that is in the realm of context (and lawyers).
- bsder 8y agoWhat? I am completely confused by your statement. Computer security VERY MUCH cares about offense vs. defense. The attacker only has to win once and he wins. The defender has to win every single time or he loses.
- qaq 8y agoFor starters they can't really pay market salaries for the skills they need so to some degree this has more to do with laws on the books than with management and organizational failures.
- repolfx 8y agoBingo. Larger budgets get poured into more people not better people.
- mikec3010 8y agoBut they have no qualms about paying "market rate" to defense contractors to build all their toys.
- qaq 8y agoHow is that relevant ?
- mikec3010 8y agoShows a contradiction/hypocrisy. They have the money, but just choose to spend it on corporations and not humans.
- qaq 8y agoAgain there a laws that cap gov. employee salaries they are not passed by CIA or NSA or whatever other 3 letter agency.
- pc86 8y agoNo, it shows that unfortunately you don't know what you're talking about. Federal employee salaries are set by legislation and may not be changed. They can't get bonuses or anything else. Contracts are bid and are paid out of completely different budgets.
- hunterjumper06 8y ago
- brown9-2 8y agoNote that just because we are reading about it eight years later does not mean it took that long for the CIA to figure out what happened.
- jessaustin 8y agoA decade from now, perhaps we'll learn about the CYA failure that resulted in news of this disaster being released to the public... I reckon that just like everything else about the unsupervised services, this is just the tip of the awful iceberg. Probably there are ten failures like this for every one we learn of.
- pjc50 8y agoThey had a similar failure in Iran: http://articles.latimes.com/2011/may/22/world/la-fg-iran-espionage-20110522 http://articles.latimes.com/2011/may/22/world/la-fg-iran-esp... The problem is that the real conflict the US faces is whether it should let its foreign policy be run by facts, or whether the intelligence agencies are simply there to manufacture consent for whatever the ruling party has decided to invade next. In the latter case the intelligence on the ground doesn't actually matter, so there's no political pressure to make sure it's done well.
- jessaustin 8y agoYeah the recent revelation of this episode certainly made it more difficult to stomach the various retired intelligence blowhards making the rounds of the news programs this morning to firmly declare risible canards like "Intelligence is about the Truth!" Somehow getting one's clearance lifted seems less draconian than overseeing the deaths of multitudes...
- EthanHeilman 8y agoIntelligence isn't just about human intelligence sources. Historically the US has been terrible at human intelligence and peerless at technical intelligence such as spy satellites, bugs, signals intercept, etc...