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So China ran a network sniffer and captured and reversed some 0day that the NSA lobbed at them? I'd be pretty surprised if this sort of thing didn't happen all

So China ran a network sniffer and captured and reversed some 0day that the NSA lobbed at them? I'd be pretty surprised if this sort of thing didn't happen all the time in cyberwar, considering the NSA has a massive, worldwide sniffing operation and China has the GFW. I feel like this story is omitting some important fact that makes this a bigger deal.

fosco 7y ago
Agree, this reminds me of a 'limited hangout' [0] where a small bit of the big story was released for people to talk about so that the real story never gets revealed. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limited_hangout https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limited_hangout
- dev_dull 7y ago
  Lately this seems to be virtually every story related to “spygate” from the times. One persons “scoop” is another powerful person’s attempt to shape narrative.
  - yeahitslikethat 7y ago
    The ufo conspiracies are an example of this. The government promoted ufo stories to distract from the real stories.
    - Mtinie 7y ago
      As an insider please let us know, what are the real stories?
      - yeahitslikethat 7y ago
        "According to later estimates from CIA officials who worked on the U-2 project and the OXCART (SR-71, or Blackbird) project, over half of all UFO reports from the late 1950s through the 1960s were accounted for by manned reconnaissance flights (namely the U-2) over the United States. (45) This led the Air Force to make misleading and deceptive statements to the public in order to allay public fears and to protect an extraordinarily sensitive national security project. While perhaps justified, this deception added fuel to the later conspiracy theories and the coverup controversy of the 1970s. The percentage of what the Air Force considered unexplained UFO sightings fell to 5.9 percent in 1955 and to 4 percent in 1956. (46)" Source: https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/97unclass/ufo.html https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intellig...
  - sixothree 7y ago
    Listened to their daily podcast today on my way to work. It was about China's spying on it citizens. It focused on the number and type of CCTV cameras they are exposed to - specifically license plate readers at intersections. Not more than a mile later I passed an intersection with license plate readers for every lane in every direction. I seriously doubt there are strict controls on the police who have access to this data. But the article somehow suggested I should be worried about they spying China is doing.
  - noelsusman 7y ago
    This article is just a write-up of the report Symantec released today, giving some more context. https://www.symantec.com/blogs/threat-intelligence/buckeye-windows-zero-day-exploit https://www.symantec.com/blogs/threat-intelligence/buckeye-w...
jrochkind1 7y ago
Perhaps this is one of the few times evidence of it happening escaped to the public. That doesn't necessarily mean any particular powerful people wanted it to, they don't control everything; although it's possible, I agree. Either way, as you say, it does seem like this probably happens frequently. It's the nature of the thing. The article says "The losses have touched off a debate within the intelligence community over whether the United States should continue to develop some of the world’s most high-tech, stealthy cyberweapons if it is unable to keep them under lock and key." But we know: of course you can't keep valuable software 'under lock and key', that's not how software works (at least not if it's intended to run on non-secure networks). So that to me raises the question: Wouldn't it better for our national security if our well-funded military infosec aparatus were focused much more disproporationately on defense, instead of creating, perserving, and escalating available attacks? If the NSA knows about a 0day, how about they get it patched (so it can't be used against American and allied civilian networks, as it was in this story), instead of trying to keep it exploitable? I'd feel a lot safer if my tax dollars were used that way.

fosco 7y ago

Agree, this reminds me of a 'limited hangout' [0] where a small bit of the big story was released for people to talk about so that the real story never gets revealed. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limited_hangout https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limited_hangout

dev_dull 7y ago
Lately this seems to be virtually every story related to “spygate” from the times. One persons “scoop” is another powerful person’s attempt to shape narrative.
- yeahitslikethat 7y ago
  The ufo conspiracies are an example of this. The government promoted ufo stories to distract from the real stories.
  - Mtinie 7y ago
    As an insider please let us know, what are the real stories?
    - yeahitslikethat 7y ago
      "According to later estimates from CIA officials who worked on the U-2 project and the OXCART (SR-71, or Blackbird) project, over half of all UFO reports from the late 1950s through the 1960s were accounted for by manned reconnaissance flights (namely the U-2) over the United States. (45) This led the Air Force to make misleading and deceptive statements to the public in order to allay public fears and to protect an extraordinarily sensitive national security project. While perhaps justified, this deception added fuel to the later conspiracy theories and the coverup controversy of the 1970s. The percentage of what the Air Force considered unexplained UFO sightings fell to 5.9 percent in 1955 and to 4 percent in 1956. (46)" Source: https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/97unclass/ufo.html https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intellig...
- sixothree 7y ago
  Listened to their daily podcast today on my way to work. It was about China's spying on it citizens. It focused on the number and type of CCTV cameras they are exposed to - specifically license plate readers at intersections. Not more than a mile later I passed an intersection with license plate readers for every lane in every direction. I seriously doubt there are strict controls on the police who have access to this data. But the article somehow suggested I should be worried about they spying China is doing.
- noelsusman 7y ago
  This article is just a write-up of the report Symantec released today, giving some more context. https://www.symantec.com/blogs/threat-intelligence/buckeye-windows-zero-day-exploit https://www.symantec.com/blogs/threat-intelligence/buckeye-w...

jrochkind1 7y ago

Perhaps this is one of the few times evidence of it happening escaped to the public. That doesn't necessarily mean any particular powerful people wanted it to, they don't control everything; although it's possible, I agree. Either way, as you say, it does seem like this probably happens frequently. It's the nature of the thing. The article says "The losses have touched off a debate within the intelligence community over whether the United States should continue to develop some of the world’s most high-tech, stealthy cyberweapons if it is unable to keep them under lock and key." But we know: of course you can't keep valuable software 'under lock and key', that's not how software works (at least not if it's intended to run on non-secure networks). So that to me raises the question: Wouldn't it better for our national security if our well-funded military infosec aparatus were focused much more disproporationately on defense, instead of creating, perserving, and escalating available attacks? If the NSA knows about a 0day, how about they get it patched (so it can't be used against American and allied civilian networks, as it was in this story), instead of trying to keep it exploitable? I'd feel a lot safer if my tax dollars were used that way.