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Casually thrown into the article is this rather startling claim: > Meanwhile, the FBI were allegedly complicit in DDoS (distributed denial-of-service) attacks
by Clewza313 5y ago
Casually thrown into the article is this rather startling claim:
> Meanwhile, the FBI were allegedly complicit in DDoS (distributed denial-of-service) attacks on the websites of several Iceland government institutions. The FBI had then approached Icelandic authorities, promising to assist them in preventing any future such attacks.
Is these any evidence backing up this claim of what would essentially be an act of (cyber)war against a NATO ally?
- ianhawes 5y agoFWIW, some DDoS attacks against political targets, you could argue, are the 21st century equivalent of a protest sit-in.
- prepend 5y agoNot when done by the FBI. Unless we think it’s ok for government employees to be paid to sit in for a political protest.
- jessaustin 5y agoEvery large-enough political protest in USA since the creation of FBI has been well-attended either by FBI agents themselves or by CIs in their employ. Infiltration of groups who posed a "threat" to the status quo was one of JEH's priorities. Of course you're right, though. This isn't OK, and on balance FBI is like any other federal TLA. The average citizen will be better off on the day they are disbanded.
- leephillips 5y agoReformed, yes. But disbanded? Who’s going to go after child traffickers crossing state lines? Bank robbers?
- jessaustin 5y agoThis reminds me of the arguments for bank bailouts. There are lots of capable police and investigators in USA. Most of them don't work for FBI. Some of them who do work for FBI would do better work in a better organization. FBI isn't the only authority focused on crime. Other authorities could take over more duties, or new authorities could be created. It's fine for things to change occasionally, especially when toxic organizations are replaced by something better. And please, it's not as though FBI really focuses on the two concerns you highlighted.
- prepend 5y ago> The average citizen will be better off on the day they are disbanded. I’m not sure about this. Can you provide some more info? The FBI isn’t perfect but I don’t think they are a net negative. The FBI does lots of good stuff like investigate Ferguson, MO and other corrupt local police departments.
- jessaustin 5y agoThat investigation was a good thing. Definitely not something that could have been performed by the governments of Ferguson, St Louis County, or Missouri. I'm not convinced that FBI is the only federal body that could have performed that investigation, however. Considering FBI's animus for Black Lives Matter [0] (and, frankly, for every civil rights organization in USA history), it's hard to believe that all of them have their hearts in the right place. [0] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/11/28/documents-show-us-monitoring-of-black-lives-matter/ https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/11/28/documents-show-us-...
- prepend 5y agoWhat other federal body has jurisdiction? The reason the FBI investigated is because the city, county, and state weren’t. No one is claiming that all of the FBI “have their hearts in the right place.” I’m just refuting your statement that the average person in the US would be better off without them.
- jessaustin 5y agoAny other part of the Justice Dept. could have done it. Perhaps the Civil Rights Division? You can't use the current organizational structure to "refute" anything. I'm proposing changes to that structure.
- alwayseasy 5y agoFor a website that links to it's sources a few times and talks about ethics in media, it's quite surprising they don't back this accusation.
- boomboomsubban 5y agoIt's in the Stundin article they link to.
- freshhawk 5y agoThe Stundin article they are quoting has the source, it's Ögmundur Jónasson, who was Iceland's minister of interior at the time. Also ... maybe there is a problem with censored news in the US. Because outside the US mainstream media reporting on the latest "US intelligence caught spying on everyone again" is as common as the latest "Russia caught mistreating dissident artist" story.
- Clewza313 5y agoSpying is one thing, DDOSing government websites of a notionally allied country is another.
- Dah00n 5y agoYes. Spying is way worse but they still do so.
- freshhawk 5y agoNah, that's well within the normal range. This is the Federal Bureau of oops-that-terrorist-actually-was-an-informant-of-ours after all. It really does seem like you all aren't aware of the (deserved) reputation of the FBI outside the US.
- darig 5y agoLiving in a country that expects us to use guns to overthrow corrupt leaders is one thing, being cowards is another.
- 5y ago
- briefcomment 5y agoProblem - reaction - solution
- jrsj 5y agoThe U.S. does sort of have a habit of treating NATO allies as such publicly while privately violating their sovereignty and treating them as vassal states or something so I wouldn’t really be surprised. There are regularly stories of us getting caught spying on allies etc
- wonderwonder 5y agoNot a popular opinion but I think most countries at this time are vassal states of the US, China or Russia. That power is wielded in different ways by each and with different levels of openness but I think its true.
- sudosysgen 5y agoMany countries position themselves in between and the play the three against each other. It's the only way to maintain a semblance of sovereignty.
- Joeri 5y agoDDoS is the least of it. The US regularly commits cyber warfare against NATO allies, because they know they can without major consequences. They injected malware into belgium’s core telecommunication infrastructure: https://theintercept.com/2014/12/13/belgacom-hack-gchq-inside-story/ https://theintercept.com/2014/12/13/belgacom-hack-gchq-insid... They spied on angela merkel’s calls and texts: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/the-us-reportedly-spied-on-angela-merkel-and-other-top-european-politicians-with-denmarks-help/ar-AAKyQAK https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/the-us-reportedly-spied...
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- tootie 5y agoThat article says Britain injected malware in Belgium, not the US
- pinko 5y agoWhen it comes to Five Eyes, which one of the five actually executes an action is somewhat secondary. They plan and share the intel together, formally or informally (depending on legality).
- tootie 5y agoAs much as they definitely could be doing that I doubt they automatically share every single operation. It's not clear what the target was in Belgium or who wanted it done.
- jeroenhd 5y agoPerhaps this wasn't covered by the American media, but PRISM didn't just target American citizens. In most of the world, especially in "allied" nations, the controversy was about America spying on their supposed allies, especially Merkel's phone, much more than it was about some known-shady government agency monitoring phone calls. An FBI DDoS against the USA's allies is nothing out of the ordinary. Russia, the EU, the USA, everyone is waging cyberwar against each other. Nobody wins if actual, physical, violent war is declared, so nobody admits anything. When it comes to national security, America is not an ally that can be trusted. Just look at the sabotage the US government is applying to the European gas pipeline to Russia; afraid of losing control over the European power market, the US government is doing everything in its power to stop its allies letting them make their own decisions about the power grid when it doesn't benefit themselves. I'm no fan of Russia, its government, and I'm not exactly happy with the added influence Moscow gains over Europe with this project, but America's actions show that their government is just as bad when it comes to national sovereignty of its allies. For many western countries, America doesn't need to very trustworthy or reliable; the bar is "better than trusting Russia or China", and that's a pretty damn low bar to set. Many of these countries are no better themselves, of course, and they would do the exact same thing if they'd have the power and influence the American government has.