6 ms·

Anyone else find it ironic that the country that is responsible for democratizing access to scientific research (via support of SciHub), the country protecting

by breck 6y ago

Anyone else find it ironic that the country that is responsible for democratizing access to scientific research (via support of SciHub), the country protecting a whistleblower against government overreach (Snowden), the country pointing out how fundamentally insecure closed source, proprietary software is (SolarWinds), is...Russia? How did we get here?

ipython 6y ago
So you're saying that Russia's interests are entirely altrustic? That's quite a stretch. I don't think they hacked SolarWinds to "prove how insecure closed source, proprietary software is". Why don't they prove how "insecure" Kaspersky AV is, in that case? Seems strange to pick a software package that nobody's heard of, but happens to be used by thousands of juicy industrial espionage targets of their primary political enemy.
- breck 6y ago
  I have no idea what Russia's interests are. I'm just genuinely curious and in the dark. I've never been to the country and grew up in the West during the Cold War, so when I think of Russia I was indoctrinated to think of "the bad guys". The country is an enigma to me—very good at math but from what I read a corrupt place with rule by power and not law. So yeah, I'm just genuinely asking, how are they the ones doing these things which make the world a better place, and why isn't it us leading the charge in these 3 issues? Maybe it is just a coincidence that those 3 things align with their selfish interests, and their is no altruism involved? Or maybe there's a group in Russia that loves the ideals of the USA, and is able to actually help implement those ideals from there, because if you tried to do those 3 things from here you would be thrown in prison due to some bad laws/people here?
  - efdee 6y ago
    This comment, along with the original comment of the same person, is laughable at best and downright Russian astroturfing in a less favorable reading. Obviously, Russia has a policy to support whatever the US is angry about (SciHub, Snowden, ...). To paint these as altruistic is just silly - there is no chance on earth they would support Snowden if his leaks were about Russia rather than about the US. To paint the SolarWinds hacking as "showing the world proprietary systems are dangerous" is intellectually dishonest at best. You are not genuinely curious. You are not genuinely asking. You do not genuinely wonder if there is altruism involved. GTFO with your doublespeak.
    - breck 6y ago
      Big words coming from an anonymous coward.
    - danielovichdk 6y ago
      On a side note. I Wonder why Snowden chose Russia as his safe haven, thinking about the politics and rulings the country is known for. Have Snowden ever told why he chose Russia?
      - stevenicr 6y ago
        I vaguely recall that he had chosen somewhere else - but in the midst of the flights from HK(?) to other places, his passport was nulled by the US so he had to stay in Russ, could no longer board int'l flights or something (?)
      - mjevans 6y ago
        As a sibling comment notes; Snowden didn't get to choose much once their passport was revoked (made a non-person). You might recall that for a while (number of months?) they were stuck inside of the border-zone limbo of the International section of some airport in Russia. Eventually Russia decided they'd allow the poor guy inside, presumably to snub the US.
      - e12e 6y ago
        > [Snowden] had been on his way from Hong Kong via Russia and Cuba to what he hoped would be sanctuary in Ecuador when the US cancelled his passport, leaving him stranded in Russia. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2019/sep/13/edward-snowden-interview-whistleblowing-russia-ai-permanent-record https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2019/sep/...
    - larvaetron 6y ago
      > You are not genuinely curious. You are not genuinely asking. You do not genuinely wonder if there is altruism involved. What the hell kind of comment is this? Who are YOU to make that assertion?
  - marcosdumay 6y ago
    Hum... Most of it seems sarcastic, but a simple antagonistic view towards the US explains a lot: > protecting a whistleblower against government overreach Becomes protecting an enemy of their enemy, and one that commands a high press influence. > pointing out how fundamentally insecure closed source, proprietary software Becomes just exploiting the enemy infrastructure. The one thing that I'm not comfortable with a simple explanation of "the Russian government doesn't like the US" is their support of SciHub. It can explain the support quite well, but it is not the only simple explanation available, so there may be other reasons.
- mjevans 6y ago
  OP's comment should likely be read as satiric self criticism.
DethNinja 6y ago
I assume huge percentage of this site is IT professionals and software engineers. I’ll have to ask then, what proof is there that Russia did this hack? Do you realise how hard it is to track professional hackers? You will have to trace the entire network commands up to a source and hope that it is registered under their name. I genuinely cannot believe people here think that government managed to find the source of the hack in couple of days, that is just pure propaganda aimed for people with little to no knowledge about computer security.
- breck 6y ago
  A hack this big is bound to have plenty of HUMINT. I think it would be hard for either government to cover that up.
- cogs 6y ago
  Attribution is not from tracing connections or domain ownership, it's from looking at the coding style, the "Tactics, Techniques and Procedures" and the choice of targets.
  - meowface 6y ago
    It's a complex combination of all of those things, in addition to more "offensive" type intelligence collection (spying on GRU/SVR buildings, communications, and officers, essentially, and compromising their infrastructure). You might be surprised about how even the world's top intelligence agencies sometimes do make simple mistakes with domain and network registration which really are just genuine fuckups rather than false flag subterfuge. This is very rarely a matter of something silly like "Russian IP = Russian intelligence" and more like sloppily re-using an ostensibly non-attributable network or nameserver they didn't realize was already burned. We're still kind of in the infancy of cyberwarfare. Attribution will probably be harder in a few decades. But, yes, it's generally a matter of TTPs, target selection, goal analysis, and style.
    - yread 6y ago
      You can see it in Bellingcat's investigations - carelessly reusing burners, calling from GRU offices, reusing passports, calling from two burners one immediately following the other.
tigerBL00D 6y ago
It's only ironic of you buy into the narrative that Russia is somehow more evil or malicious than your average superpower.
DharmaPolice 6y ago
Not really a new thing. The Soviets would point out the defects in US society as much as the US would highlight defects in the USSR. And granting asylum to persons who have fallen out of favour with an enemy/rival has a been a thing back to at least the time of the Peloponnesian War and probably before.
bayindirh 6y ago
> The country pointing out how fundamentally insecure closed source, proprietary software is (SolarWinds), is...Russia? I think this research was pioneered by US with Stuxnet/Flame? No?
TheOperator 6y ago
I feel this is tongue in cheek but at the same time I've personally benefited from 2/3 of these already. I find that very interesting that I'm benefiting from the shit stirring that Russia is doing.

by breck 6y ago

ipython 6y ago

So you're saying that Russia's interests are entirely altrustic? That's quite a stretch. I don't think they hacked SolarWinds to "prove how insecure closed source, proprietary software is". Why don't they prove how "insecure" Kaspersky AV is, in that case? Seems strange to pick a software package that nobody's heard of, but happens to be used by thousands of juicy industrial espionage targets of their primary political enemy.

breck 6y ago
I have no idea what Russia's interests are. I'm just genuinely curious and in the dark. I've never been to the country and grew up in the West during the Cold War, so when I think of Russia I was indoctrinated to think of "the bad guys". The country is an enigma to me—very good at math but from what I read a corrupt place with rule by power and not law. So yeah, I'm just genuinely asking, how are they the ones doing these things which make the world a better place, and why isn't it us leading the charge in these 3 issues? Maybe it is just a coincidence that those 3 things align with their selfish interests, and their is no altruism involved? Or maybe there's a group in Russia that loves the ideals of the USA, and is able to actually help implement those ideals from there, because if you tried to do those 3 things from here you would be thrown in prison due to some bad laws/people here?
- efdee 6y ago
  This comment, along with the original comment of the same person, is laughable at best and downright Russian astroturfing in a less favorable reading. Obviously, Russia has a policy to support whatever the US is angry about (SciHub, Snowden, ...). To paint these as altruistic is just silly - there is no chance on earth they would support Snowden if his leaks were about Russia rather than about the US. To paint the SolarWinds hacking as "showing the world proprietary systems are dangerous" is intellectually dishonest at best. You are not genuinely curious. You are not genuinely asking. You do not genuinely wonder if there is altruism involved. GTFO with your doublespeak.
  - breck 6y ago
    Big words coming from an anonymous coward.
  - danielovichdk 6y ago
    On a side note. I Wonder why Snowden chose Russia as his safe haven, thinking about the politics and rulings the country is known for. Have Snowden ever told why he chose Russia?
    - stevenicr 6y ago
      I vaguely recall that he had chosen somewhere else - but in the midst of the flights from HK(?) to other places, his passport was nulled by the US so he had to stay in Russ, could no longer board int'l flights or something (?)
    - mjevans 6y ago
      As a sibling comment notes; Snowden didn't get to choose much once their passport was revoked (made a non-person). You might recall that for a while (number of months?) they were stuck inside of the border-zone limbo of the International section of some airport in Russia. Eventually Russia decided they'd allow the poor guy inside, presumably to snub the US.
    - e12e 6y ago
      > [Snowden] had been on his way from Hong Kong via Russia and Cuba to what he hoped would be sanctuary in Ecuador when the US cancelled his passport, leaving him stranded in Russia. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2019/sep/13/edward-snowden-interview-whistleblowing-russia-ai-permanent-record https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2019/sep/...
  - larvaetron 6y ago
    > You are not genuinely curious. You are not genuinely asking. You do not genuinely wonder if there is altruism involved. What the hell kind of comment is this? Who are YOU to make that assertion?
- marcosdumay 6y ago
  Hum... Most of it seems sarcastic, but a simple antagonistic view towards the US explains a lot: > protecting a whistleblower against government overreach Becomes protecting an enemy of their enemy, and one that commands a high press influence. > pointing out how fundamentally insecure closed source, proprietary software Becomes just exploiting the enemy infrastructure. The one thing that I'm not comfortable with a simple explanation of "the Russian government doesn't like the US" is their support of SciHub. It can explain the support quite well, but it is not the only simple explanation available, so there may be other reasons.
mjevans 6y ago
OP's comment should likely be read as satiric self criticism.

DethNinja 6y ago

I assume huge percentage of this site is IT professionals and software engineers. I’ll have to ask then, what proof is there that Russia did this hack? Do you realise how hard it is to track professional hackers? You will have to trace the entire network commands up to a source and hope that it is registered under their name. I genuinely cannot believe people here think that government managed to find the source of the hack in couple of days, that is just pure propaganda aimed for people with little to no knowledge about computer security.

breck 6y ago
A hack this big is bound to have plenty of HUMINT. I think it would be hard for either government to cover that up.
cogs 6y ago
Attribution is not from tracing connections or domain ownership, it's from looking at the coding style, the "Tactics, Techniques and Procedures" and the choice of targets.
- meowface 6y ago
  It's a complex combination of all of those things, in addition to more "offensive" type intelligence collection (spying on GRU/SVR buildings, communications, and officers, essentially, and compromising their infrastructure). You might be surprised about how even the world's top intelligence agencies sometimes do make simple mistakes with domain and network registration which really are just genuine fuckups rather than false flag subterfuge. This is very rarely a matter of something silly like "Russian IP = Russian intelligence" and more like sloppily re-using an ostensibly non-attributable network or nameserver they didn't realize was already burned. We're still kind of in the infancy of cyberwarfare. Attribution will probably be harder in a few decades. But, yes, it's generally a matter of TTPs, target selection, goal analysis, and style.
  - yread 6y ago
    You can see it in Bellingcat's investigations - carelessly reusing burners, calling from GRU offices, reusing passports, calling from two burners one immediately following the other.

tigerBL00D 6y ago

It's only ironic of you buy into the narrative that Russia is somehow more evil or malicious than your average superpower.

DharmaPolice 6y ago

Not really a new thing. The Soviets would point out the defects in US society as much as the US would highlight defects in the USSR. And granting asylum to persons who have fallen out of favour with an enemy/rival has a been a thing back to at least the time of the Peloponnesian War and probably before.

bayindirh 6y ago

> The country pointing out how fundamentally insecure closed source, proprietary software is (SolarWinds), is...Russia? I think this research was pioneered by US with Stuxnet/Flame? No?

TheOperator 6y ago

I feel this is tongue in cheek but at the same time I've personally benefited from 2/3 of these already. I find that very interesting that I'm benefiting from the shit stirring that Russia is doing.