check out this incredible, appalling article from businessweek mag. if you thought that bradley manning and wikileaks were some kind of treat to US national security, you ain't seen nothing yet!
when anonymous hacked HBGary's e-mails and published 60,000 pieces online, among the revelations were huge attacks against some of the US' biggest, best-known corporations -- you might call 'em the crown jewels. and as the story goes to great lengths to stress, most companies keep successful intrusion private if they can.
to put it into perspective, how about this from a US senator:
“We are on the losing end of the biggest transfer of wealth through theft and piracy in the history of the planet,” said Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, who chaired a U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence task force on U.S. cyber security in 2010. Its classified report addressed weaknesses in network security.
some names of the targets: Walt Disney Co., Sony Corp., Johnson & Johnson, and GE. earlier, bloomberg dug out more victims' names: Exxon Mobil Corp., Royal Dutch Shell Plc, BP Plc, ConocoPhillips, and Marathon Oil Corp, as well as Morgan Stanley. and, of course, this follows the theft of trade secrets from google last year, too -- lost to the same mysterious forces. to show how callow and clueless the american corporate powers are about their challengers in the 21st century, we learn how dupont got punked:
Earlier, a DuPont internal investigation had discovered that some of its computers were implanted with spyware during a business trip to China where the PC’s were stored in a hotel safe, according to a Feb. 4, 2010, e-mail by HBGary’s Rich Cummings.
while the "white hats" are trying to catch the bad guys:
some names of the targets: Walt Disney Co., Sony Corp., Johnson & Johnson, and GE. earlier, bloomberg dug out more victims' names: Exxon Mobil Corp., Royal Dutch Shell Plc, BP Plc, ConocoPhillips, and Marathon Oil Corp, as well as Morgan Stanley. and, of course, this follows the theft of trade secrets from google last year, too -- lost to the same mysterious forces. to show how callow and clueless the american corporate powers are about their challengers in the 21st century, we learn how dupont got punked:
Earlier, a DuPont internal investigation had discovered that some of its computers were implanted with spyware during a business trip to China where the PC’s were stored in a hotel safe, according to a Feb. 4, 2010, e-mail by HBGary’s Rich Cummings.
while the "white hats" are trying to catch the bad guys:
“I’ve been battling with APT for the last 6 months,” Matthew Babcock, an employee of the CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield, a health insurance provider in Maryland and Washington, wrote in an e-mail to HBGary investigators as he sought help with the intrusion. APT refers to an “advanced persistent threat,” a sophisticated form of hacking that is difficult to identify and remedy.
it doesn't seem as if they're even much of a challenge to the chinese -- and russians -- who are pilfering their secrets:
all of which brings us back to bradley manning and wikileaks.
you'd think from all the press attention at the height of the wikileaks explosion in the world's press, as well as the subsequent inhumane detention and treatment of PFC manning, that the cache of secrets unveiled for the world's inspection was the result of the breach of iron-clad security systems guarding the nation's most closely held intelligence.
to read the government's response was to be showered with overwrought hang-wringing at the breach of a super-sensitive intelligence goldmine, while the perpetrators -- manning and assange -- cast as super-villains and master hackers overwhelming the nation's defenses in a most nefarious and stealthy manner. you would've thought they were on a par with genocidal maniacs and the most detestable war criminals.
read the businessweek story, however, and you soon come to realize that SIPRNet, the network manning had access to, was probably no challenge at all to the chinese hackers. if there are any secrets worth knowing on US government networks, there's no doubt in my mind that the chinese and other interested nations or groups have found it no challenge to help themselves to it. hell, manning's security clearance is held by a couple of million other people within the US military-industrial complex -- as well as selected allies -- so it isn't as though any of it is what you'd call closely held.
the government, however, persists in persecuting a select few troublemakers who go to the trouble of exposing "secrets" that will embarrass politicians and others involved in advancing the business interests of the ruling oligarchy. these "secrets" are probably well known to governments around the world -- after all, why bother to setup a complex criminal hacking enterprise, if not to sell the secrets uncovered? -- so the US government protests too much on that score.
what really galls them, and has led to the vendetta against the leakers and leaks from wikileaks, is the audacity shown by the perpetrators in attempting to air the US government's dirty laundry in public around the world. that carefully crafted public image that hillary clinton recently alluded to, in her remarks requesting more money for state department propaganda, has taken a beating at the very same time when the US is besieged by challenges on all sides -- puppet regimes falling, economy collapsing, challengers for global status and power arising while popular unrest simmers in the homeland.
it's a tough time to be selling a defective product to a skeptical world. the last thing the US needs is someone showing the world how cynical, two-faced and cheaply manipulative the US government is in its dealings with the rest of the planet.
at the same time, as is standard operating procedure, we take on the enemies we know we can lick -- like saddam, or julian assange -- while the challenges we don't have the courage to face are swept under the rug, and left to blow up in our faces at a later date.
Security experts say that the hackers’ techniques now surpass the ability of even the most sophisticated companies to catch them easily. The e-mails show that hackers routinely bypassed firewalls with so-called spear-fishing e-mails that target executives, tricking the companies’ own employees into downloading malicious software and infecting their own networks.DARPA and the US research labs may have invented the internet, but the US government appears to have lost control over it, and now there's an army or two of talented and well-equipped hackers out there who operate more or less with impunity.
all of which brings us back to bradley manning and wikileaks.
you'd think from all the press attention at the height of the wikileaks explosion in the world's press, as well as the subsequent inhumane detention and treatment of PFC manning, that the cache of secrets unveiled for the world's inspection was the result of the breach of iron-clad security systems guarding the nation's most closely held intelligence.
to read the government's response was to be showered with overwrought hang-wringing at the breach of a super-sensitive intelligence goldmine, while the perpetrators -- manning and assange -- cast as super-villains and master hackers overwhelming the nation's defenses in a most nefarious and stealthy manner. you would've thought they were on a par with genocidal maniacs and the most detestable war criminals.
read the businessweek story, however, and you soon come to realize that SIPRNet, the network manning had access to, was probably no challenge at all to the chinese hackers. if there are any secrets worth knowing on US government networks, there's no doubt in my mind that the chinese and other interested nations or groups have found it no challenge to help themselves to it. hell, manning's security clearance is held by a couple of million other people within the US military-industrial complex -- as well as selected allies -- so it isn't as though any of it is what you'd call closely held.
the government, however, persists in persecuting a select few troublemakers who go to the trouble of exposing "secrets" that will embarrass politicians and others involved in advancing the business interests of the ruling oligarchy. these "secrets" are probably well known to governments around the world -- after all, why bother to setup a complex criminal hacking enterprise, if not to sell the secrets uncovered? -- so the US government protests too much on that score.
what really galls them, and has led to the vendetta against the leakers and leaks from wikileaks, is the audacity shown by the perpetrators in attempting to air the US government's dirty laundry in public around the world. that carefully crafted public image that hillary clinton recently alluded to, in her remarks requesting more money for state department propaganda, has taken a beating at the very same time when the US is besieged by challenges on all sides -- puppet regimes falling, economy collapsing, challengers for global status and power arising while popular unrest simmers in the homeland.
it's a tough time to be selling a defective product to a skeptical world. the last thing the US needs is someone showing the world how cynical, two-faced and cheaply manipulative the US government is in its dealings with the rest of the planet.
at the same time, as is standard operating procedure, we take on the enemies we know we can lick -- like saddam, or julian assange -- while the challenges we don't have the courage to face are swept under the rug, and left to blow up in our faces at a later date.
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