4 ms·

Of course we do. And so do the french, germans, russians, brits, koreans, australians - well, you get the point. And it's far from just against traditional ene

by trotsky 15y ago

Of course we do. And so do the french, germans, russians, brits, koreans, australians - well, you get the point. And it's far from just against traditional enemies. Did you catch the incident where the Americans informed the Australians that the Chinese were in their federal minister's computer systems? [1] Wait, how did US intelligence know what what was going on in .au computers better than they did? [1] http://www.news.com.au/technology/federal-ministers-emails-suspected-of-being-hacked/story-e6frfrnr-1226029713668 http://www.news.com.au/technology/federal-ministers-emails-s...

Estragon 15y ago
It's entirely plausible that US intellignce services have totally owned the entire IT infrastructure of the Australian Government, but this incident does not imply that. Google didn't have to hack other companies to know they'd been hacked by the same perpetrators. They learned of it when they traced back the hack on their own system.
- trotsky 15y ago
  If you're looking for smoking guns in state intelligence matters you either need to not be a civilian or wait 40 years after the event. For everyone else there is reading between the lines.
  - Estragon 15y ago
    Sure, read between the lines, but discounting perfectly benign, more plausible explanations like the one I outlined is silly. (Why would the US hackers tip their hands to the Australian Government, if they got the information from hacking Australian Government computers? That would spark an international incident for no real benefit.)
    - trotsky 15y ago
      Pretty out there for a "more plausible explanation" that hackers would be launching attacks from desktop pcs of high level australian government officials. I'm not even sure what you're arguing about - you actually think either a) the US doesn't conduct cyber espionage or b) the US doesn't spy on it's friends?

by trotsky 15y ago

Estragon 15y ago

It's entirely plausible that US intellignce services have totally owned the entire IT infrastructure of the Australian Government, but this incident does not imply that. Google didn't have to hack other companies to know they'd been hacked by the same perpetrators. They learned of it when they traced back the hack on their own system.

trotsky 15y ago
If you're looking for smoking guns in state intelligence matters you either need to not be a civilian or wait 40 years after the event. For everyone else there is reading between the lines.
- Estragon 15y ago
  Sure, read between the lines, but discounting perfectly benign, more plausible explanations like the one I outlined is silly. (Why would the US hackers tip their hands to the Australian Government, if they got the information from hacking Australian Government computers? That would spark an international incident for no real benefit.)
  - trotsky 15y ago
    Pretty out there for a "more plausible explanation" that hackers would be launching attacks from desktop pcs of high level australian government officials. I'm not even sure what you're arguing about - you actually think either a) the US doesn't conduct cyber espionage or b) the US doesn't spy on it's friends?