4 ms·

I have a similar experience, where Jetbrains is effectively banned. Do you have any updated source that I could circulate to clear their name?

rst 6y ago
Writeup of the actual attack malware running on the build servers: https://www.crowdstrike.com/blog/sunspot-malware-technical-analysis/ https://www.crowdstrike.com/blog/sunspot-malware-technical-a... It attacked MSBUILD.EXE processes on startup, and it didn't matter if they were started by TeamCity or by a homebrew script in Powershell.
mike_hearn 6y ago
They wrote about it on their blog. https://blog.jetbrains.com/blog/2021/01/07/an-update-on-solarwinds/ https://blog.jetbrains.com/blog/2021/01/07/an-update-on-sola... https://blog.jetbrains.com/blog/2021/01/08/january-8th-update-on-solarwinds/ https://blog.jetbrains.com/blog/2021/01/08/january-8th-updat... Summary: they have no idea what anyone is talking about, nobody has told them anything and there are no known issues with TeamCity. Later they did a blog post with security tips for locking it down but they're all pretty generic things that'd apply to any CI system. These companies that are banning JetBrains and thus locking themselves out of some of the best software tools out there are now suffering the consequences of years of mass hysteria over Russia, largely promoted by the New York Times. Every time someone read or quoted the New York Times as an authority on something and did not receive major pushback, it was another brick in the wall that has now led to this. It was all entirely predictable. In 2017 I wrote about an even more deceptive and malicious article in the New York Times on the topic of "Russian Twitter bots" and Brexit. The story was based on an academic paper that superficially made it seems like credible expertise, but was intellectual fraud from beginning to end. https://blog.plan99.net/did-russian-bots-impact-brexit-ad66f08c014a https://blog.plan99.net/did-russian-bots-impact-brexit-ad66f... After that I started compiling a list of stories I read about Russia that fell apart when fact checked. I gave up after doing sixteen of them because it was just endless. https://blog.plan99.net/%D0%BF%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%B2%D0%B4%D0%B0-6e24757a67ba https://blog.plan99.net/%D0%BF%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%B2%D0%B4%D0%B0... The thread article starts by saying, "Most educated people believe that premier news outlets are inherently trustworthy". This is probably true but just makes it clear that education doesn't make people smart. The total unreliability of anything Russia-related in the "educated" press has been obvious for years. The only way for things to get better are for people to repeatedly attack the credibility of these outlets, in public, on any topic where they engage in deceptive practices, in front of the sort of decision makers who are now making snap anti-Russian decisions on the basis of prior articles.
- brabel 6y ago
  > decision makers who are now making snap anti-Russian decisions on the basis of prior articles. This is how you get the public to support hostile actions later, including even armed conflict. We all know the only reason for the relative peace between the West and Russia has been nukes... But Russia is still seen as the enemy and anything criticizing them can go almost completely unchallenged in popular media. China is also on the same boat. Not that they do not deserve criticism, they certainly do... but when people don't need any fact checking at all to believe whatever allegations come to light (as you mention, examples of fake allegations going unchallenged are endless) you do need to start worrying that the rethoric can go too far and cause undue harm, eventually.
- cyberlurker 6y ago
  1. Thank you for the response and resources. 2. As a paid NYT subscriber, I am becoming increasingly aware that they make some big mistakes in their reporting. They deserve some criticism, absolutely. I continue to expand my sources outside of the bubble and think critically when reading the NYT. 3. In 2012, Mitt Romney was mocked after a debate with Obama for saying Russia was a threat to the USA. That has aged poorly. Let’s not make the mistake of dismissing Russia as a legitimate cyber threat. Not all of the reporting on Russia is incorrect.
  - mike_hearn 6y ago
    I agree the Russian government (as opposed to all of Russia) is absolutely a legitimate threat to the integrity of US networks, as are the governments of many other countries. And of course the US government is a proven threat to the integrity of both US and non-US networks. Unfortunately the reporting on purported Russian hacking events seems invariably to collapse when examined. My conclusion from all this is that the Russian equivalent of the NSA or GCHQ (the GRU?) must be pretty good at not leaking and not being caught with obvious fingerprints on its operations. Every plausible connection between a serious hack and Russia I've seen is extremely circumstantial, whereas for the NSA or GCHQ we actually have their internal training materials and presentation slides.
    - 6y ago

rst 6y ago

Writeup of the actual attack malware running on the build servers: https://www.crowdstrike.com/blog/sunspot-malware-technical-analysis/ https://www.crowdstrike.com/blog/sunspot-malware-technical-a... It attacked MSBUILD.EXE processes on startup, and it didn't matter if they were started by TeamCity or by a homebrew script in Powershell.

mike_hearn 6y ago

They wrote about it on their blog. https://blog.jetbrains.com/blog/2021/01/07/an-update-on-solarwinds/ https://blog.jetbrains.com/blog/2021/01/07/an-update-on-sola... https://blog.jetbrains.com/blog/2021/01/08/january-8th-update-on-solarwinds/ https://blog.jetbrains.com/blog/2021/01/08/january-8th-updat... Summary: they have no idea what anyone is talking about, nobody has told them anything and there are no known issues with TeamCity. Later they did a blog post with security tips for locking it down but they're all pretty generic things that'd apply to any CI system. These companies that are banning JetBrains and thus locking themselves out of some of the best software tools out there are now suffering the consequences of years of mass hysteria over Russia, largely promoted by the New York Times. Every time someone read or quoted the New York Times as an authority on something and did not receive major pushback, it was another brick in the wall that has now led to this. It was all entirely predictable. In 2017 I wrote about an even more deceptive and malicious article in the New York Times on the topic of "Russian Twitter bots" and Brexit. The story was based on an academic paper that superficially made it seems like credible expertise, but was intellectual fraud from beginning to end. https://blog.plan99.net/did-russian-bots-impact-brexit-ad66f08c014a https://blog.plan99.net/did-russian-bots-impact-brexit-ad66f... After that I started compiling a list of stories I read about Russia that fell apart when fact checked. I gave up after doing sixteen of them because it was just endless. https://blog.plan99.net/%D0%BF%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%B2%D0%B4%D0%B0-6e24757a67ba https://blog.plan99.net/%D0%BF%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%B2%D0%B4%D0%B0... The thread article starts by saying, "Most educated people believe that premier news outlets are inherently trustworthy". This is probably true but just makes it clear that education doesn't make people smart. The total unreliability of anything Russia-related in the "educated" press has been obvious for years. The only way for things to get better are for people to repeatedly attack the credibility of these outlets, in public, on any topic where they engage in deceptive practices, in front of the sort of decision makers who are now making snap anti-Russian decisions on the basis of prior articles.

brabel 6y ago
> decision makers who are now making snap anti-Russian decisions on the basis of prior articles. This is how you get the public to support hostile actions later, including even armed conflict. We all know the only reason for the relative peace between the West and Russia has been nukes... But Russia is still seen as the enemy and anything criticizing them can go almost completely unchallenged in popular media. China is also on the same boat. Not that they do not deserve criticism, they certainly do... but when people don't need any fact checking at all to believe whatever allegations come to light (as you mention, examples of fake allegations going unchallenged are endless) you do need to start worrying that the rethoric can go too far and cause undue harm, eventually.
cyberlurker 6y ago
1. Thank you for the response and resources. 2. As a paid NYT subscriber, I am becoming increasingly aware that they make some big mistakes in their reporting. They deserve some criticism, absolutely. I continue to expand my sources outside of the bubble and think critically when reading the NYT. 3. In 2012, Mitt Romney was mocked after a debate with Obama for saying Russia was a threat to the USA. That has aged poorly. Let’s not make the mistake of dismissing Russia as a legitimate cyber threat. Not all of the reporting on Russia is incorrect.
- mike_hearn 6y ago
  I agree the Russian government (as opposed to all of Russia) is absolutely a legitimate threat to the integrity of US networks, as are the governments of many other countries. And of course the US government is a proven threat to the integrity of both US and non-US networks. Unfortunately the reporting on purported Russian hacking events seems invariably to collapse when examined. My conclusion from all this is that the Russian equivalent of the NSA or GCHQ (the GRU?) must be pretty good at not leaking and not being caught with obvious fingerprints on its operations. Every plausible connection between a serious hack and Russia I've seen is extremely circumstantial, whereas for the NSA or GCHQ we actually have their internal training materials and presentation slides.
  - 6y ago