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Worth noting that you aren’t ever going to be on the receiving end of NSA malware by accident. Unless you have a reason to believe that somewhere the NSA is ha

• tjoff 2y ago
  ... but when the NSA malware gets out in the wild you might very well be targeted along with millions of others.
  • mdhb 2y ago
    Is there a single example of this ever happening that you could point to?
    • boomboomsubban 2y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EternalBlue https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EternalBlue
    • tjoff 2y ago
      Stuxnet alone had several...
    • oefrha 2y ago
      WannaCry is famously based on EternalBlue leaked from the NSA. If you don’t follow the highest profile news in this space, you probably shouldn’t make very confident statements on this topic.
      • mdhb 2y ago
        I think it’s actually you who is missing context here. We are talking about a single example Of the NSA hitting innocent people on mass and you gave me an example of North Korea in response and are trying to say that because they used an exploit that was originally developed by the NSA that it’s somehow the same thing. It’s not, it’s not even close.
        • tjoff 2y ago
          That is not the context at all. I said when an NSA exploit gets out in the wild. Not that NSA would actively target randoms.
          • mdhb 2y ago
            What would you have them do in this situation exactly? Do you want them to write a readme guide for North Koreans? Should they never write malware again? Should they send out signatures to AV companies. Please explain to me what you think should be different.
            • oefrha 2y ago
              One final comment from me on this topic to set the record straight, won’t respond further since I don’t sense a good faith discussion here. It rarely is when someone posts like a dozen comments on a single topic. The thread went like this: - Someone: Kaspersky is arguably the best at the job, was the only one capable of detecting NSA malware at one point. - You: NSA never targets anyone they don’t want to target, and antivirus is useless if you are a target. - Someone: NSA malware also gets leaked into the wild and end up infecting millions. - You: A single example? - Me: A single example (that was arguably digital security story of the year at the time). - You, two comments later: what should NSA do? They don’t need to do shit. Antivirus companies should up their game. In practice though, word on the street (probably backed up by leaked documents too but I’m not sure) is they — including the targeted software vendors, notably Google and Microsoft — often just greenlight their allies’ operations, and issue a low profile patch when it’s really bad.
• lupusreal 2y ago
  Why the hell should the American people trust the TLAs when they regularly lie to congress with impunity? I may be a boring nobody who will never rise to their attention, but what about the next big civil rights leaders and activists? OWS organizers, or anti-war politicians? What of American politicians who dare to go against the grain of neo[conservative/liberals] or even defy the zionist lobby? How can you guarantee none of them will be targeted? You can't, you're full of shit.
  • mdhb 2y ago
    I have very different feeling a about the FBI compared to everyone else precisely because their track record has given me reasons to suggest that they have way less oversight than others but the picture is actually pretty nuanced and you’re just throwing out random shit here that there’s nothing really to have a conversation about other than I think you should actively look into the checks and balances in place within the IC because even though HN likes to pretend that it’s totally unaccountable and they will go after anyone that just isn’t true at all.
    • lupusreal 2y ago
      They all lie to congress with impunity. The courts don't hold them accountable. They think themselves above the executive. They are completely out of control but you seem to think they're all squeaky clean except for the FBI? There is literally zero rational reason to believe that, because there are no effective mechanisms for making them honest. The CIA once proposed to commit terrorist attacks on American soil to create a justification for war a against Cuba. JFK turned them down but was anybody in the CIA ever punished for it? Hell no, and there is reason enough to think they may have even murdered him for that rejection. Even if you don't believe that, none of them have ever been punished for their abuses and there has never been reform.
• hazn 2y ago
  aren’t the NSA documents snowden leaked a complete rebuttal of your comment?
  • mdhb 2y ago
    Not at all. I think those docs showed that they have much better capabilities and collection, targeting and delivery platforms than what people had assumed at the time but there was zero evidence that I’m aware of where they were misusing that to go after illegitimate targets. I think the most controversial thing on that front from memory was Angela Merkel and other EU heads of state which inside of an intelligence agency isn’t particularly controversial at all, that’s just doing your job.
    • 0xEF 2y ago
      I don't think you actually read them.
      • mdhb 2y ago
        Well go on… enlighten me.
    • somenameforme 2y ago
      [flagged]
      • mdhb 2y ago
        I am going to quote your own article back to you verbatim because it says something entirely different to what you seem to be claiming. “The letter sent to Grassley reveals that there have been at least 12 recorded cases of spies abusing their powers since 2003”. So, no, the NSA is not out there abusing their powers to go after illegitimate targets. It’s also worth keeping the context that this was in a pre-Snowden era. In 2024 you can’t access a single thing without their being a log of who you are and why you are looking at it and under what legal statute that is allowed precisely to prevent something like that ever happening again. What you are implying simply isn’t true.
• boomboomsubban 2y ago
  >Worth noting that you aren’t ever going to be on the receiving end of NSA malware by accident. Wasn't their plan with stuxnet "spread this as far as we can and eventually it'll hit what we want?" Ignoring how frequently they will accidentally target the wrong people, that seems like intentionally creating something where there will be accidental victims.
  • mdhb 2y ago
    I’ve never once heard this claim before. Where did you get that from? Seems entirely inconsistent with what Stuxnet was which is perhaps the most targeted hack I’m aware of in history. You don’t do that by loudly spraying and praying. Not how any of that works at all.
    • boomboomsubban 2y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuxnet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuxnet >The worm initially spreads indiscriminately... And most of the rest of the article. They made a worm that was only supposed to activate in incredibly specific circumstances, but spread indiscriminately to find that specific circumstance. edit oh, and let's not forget those extremely specific circumstances still seemed to have hit a thousand other targets accidentally, which is the exact thing you said isn't ever going to happen.
      • mdhb 2y ago
        I think we are mixing two different things here and it’s worth pulling them apart to make things clearer. There is an element of you are going after a very specific system or set of systems but they are all air gapped and you need to find a way to get your malware onto those systems somehow. This part is actually how you describe it more or less. The plan was basically: spread everywhere you can but only do so if you are confident for some reason that you’re on a system belonging to the target country (I.e Iran) and if anyone ever sticks in a USB key to one of those systems you should take that as an opportunity to cross the air gap because people are sloppy and mistakes happen. So in that sense, yeah it is somewhat true, that’s literally the strategy they used to get where they needed to go. However, the controls they had around it I think were also reasonable. I fully expect the NSA and Mossad (who would later somewhat fuck up the operation) to be doing exactly that and I think it’s consistent with their job. The second part is the “actually malicious” payload. That had an entirely different set of checks and balances in place to make sure it wasn’t fucking up unreleated systems along the way but just using them as a launch point. That full context I think still firmly fits my original definition that unless you’re actively on a target list for some reason you have no reason to view NSA malware as something you should have on your threat model. Not sure if you agree or not?
• gehwartzen 2y ago
  First they came for my drug dealer…and I said nothing
  • mdhb 2y ago
    Could you please make whatever argument you are trying to make directly because I have no idea what this fortune cookie nonsense is supposed to be saying.
• tb_technical 2y ago
  Although the other points you raise are true - IE if the state sets their sights on you, there's little you can do about it - the idea that you have nothing to fear from rogue malware is shockingly naive. These rogue pieces of software do occasionally escape their intended target and do measurable damage to infrastructure. Many such cases. The idea that "I don't need quality antivirus, because I have nothing to fear from such threats" has similar energy to "I don't care about my privacy, I have nothing to hide."
  • mdhb 2y ago
    You’ve made a pretty significant change to my argument here. Malware is a real thing that people need to worry about. Being targeted by the NSA doesn’t happen by mistake. As some others have pointed out, there was an incident a few years ago where NSA lost a whole bunch of their malware thanks to I believe again it was a leaker in that case (Joshua Schulte if I remember correctly). That did in turn end up getting used in a North Korean operation shortly thereafter which by contrast didn’t seem to have good controls in place and absolutely spread like wild fire. But as far as I know it happened once, was an anomaly and just isn’t a thing that is likely to ever impact you which is why I’m making the argument that what the OP was saying that Kaspersky is the best anti virus just isn’t a good argument and people shouldn’t feel like they are missing out on anything in this instance.
    • tb_technical 2y ago
      I misunderstood. My mistake. Let me make another point. Having access to multiple computer security firms is good, and the services Kaspersky provides do not end with their antivirus software. Security firms regularly publish their work and work with each other. Perhaps I'm wrong here, but if memory serves, Kaspersky was one of the first firms to detect stuxnet and publish it's structure (I could be wrong here, trust but verify). Using this data, Symantec was able to begin studying the virus as well. Walling off security research will lead to more parallel research, rather than international collaboration in computer security. Whether or not this is a good or a bad thing is arguable - but I believe international efforts are a net good while the Internet is an international affair. Who knows, siloing of development might allow creativity and novel solutions in computer security like what happened with the USA/antibiotics and the USSR/phage theory - but I might be coping here.
• hulitu 2y ago
  > Unless you have a reason to believe that somewhere the NSA is having a meeting where your name is getting mentioned this isn’t actually something you need to worry about. Of course not. Only the criminals are punished. /s