Some experts don't buy the FBI claim that North Korea hacked Sony
latimes.com
latimes.com
Bruce Schneier is one of these skeptical experts.
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/the-best-thing-we-can-do-ab...
The IP address blog post by Dr Krypt3ia makes the FBI look silly beyond words.
http://krypt3ia.wordpress.com/2014/12/20/fauxtribution/
The Marc Rogers post makes a lot of sense to me.
http://marcrogers.org/2014/12/21/why-i-still-dont-think-its-...
I remember a time when a discussion like this on Hacker News would have concerned itself with the technical details of the analysis, in an honest attempt to discern the truth of the matter, rather than a bunch of opinionated political rambling, and although that was a very long time ago, I still consider that type of discussion more worth our time here.
Not to mention we have a massive history of NK and Chinese cyberwars against the west. Often both countries working hand in hand, with the NK hacker team reported to be headquartered in a hotel in a Chinese city under the auspices of the Chinese government. Shenzhen I believe.
I think a lot of this "debate" is centered on how people feel about the USG and specifically its foreign policy. I think a lot of black-hat and grey-hats tend to idealize autocratic regimes like Russia, China, N Korea, Syria, Iran, etc because they are "counters" to US foreign policy, so they often will take an anti-US spin on things. This isn't technology or informed commentary. Its just the same lazy outrage politics that has taken over any other type of discourse on the internet. From a rational perspective, this attack obviously points to the NK regime. Its fits their MO, their history, and, if we take the FBI's claims as true, their technology and capabilities.
The same way many anti-US/anti-Western commentators were telling us that those weren't Putin's troops in Crimea or in Eastern Ukraine. They kept saying "more proof" when it was obvious no amount of proof would convince them. They just had an anti-US bone to pick and liked the attention of being contrarian.
I also think its emotionally comforting to pretend there isn't a massive multi-party cyberwar going on, all the time. I think people want to believe its just some bad apples, not nation states and their leadership ordering attacks left and right, with impunity. Its a little scary to think what is possible from a determined attacker and how little of our industry and practices are focused on security.
Also the US gov and its intelligence agencies have earned their share of distrust here. I would be more worried if HN as a whole would automatically trust the US intelligence agencies after all of their lies from the past two years. The US agencies are like the boy that cried wolf. If they want us to trust them when something actually happened, then they should stop lying all the other times, too.
All actions have consequences, but the US gov has acted way too many times as if they do not. The recent execution of the two cops is also a consequence of the US gov acting lawlessly and saving their murderous cops from prosecution. I have no doubt the person that did it had mental issues, but I don't think he would've gone and executed two cops without the murderous cops being saved from justice by the US government (two times too many).
I think that it's not entirely irrational to believe the opposite of whatever USG says about foreign policy.
Whether this is North Korea or not, the fact is, the only information appearing to confirm that has thus far appeared to come from or have perhaps been coerced by the Government... given the Government has proven themselves time and again not to be trusted, what are we supposed to believe? Is it North Korea? Is the evidence credible? Has it been fabricated?
What are we supposed to think?
Sometimes they lie. Sometimes they're innocently wrong. Sometimes they're right. It is irrational to knee-jerk believe the opposite of what they say just because they're sometimes lying or wrong.
If you don't trust them, fine. I don't trust them either. But that means that you should evaluate for yourself, not simply believe the opposite of what they say.
Which leads us to an interesting question.
What weighting should be given to unsubstantiated claims from the FBI?
They don't exactly have an unblemished record for accuracy, so it is tempting to weight them negatively.
I guess I probably weight them slightly positively, but not by very much at all, which is why I am taking the opinions of independent security professionals over the FBI on this.
This is how dishonest bills get piggybacked through while everyone is looking in the wrong direction, this is why political arrests are made, this is why the Government backtracks on Whistleblower protections and they condemn countries that use torture to achieve their ends... until they themselves are caught doing it, only to throw their hands up and say "Hey, it was necessary!" You can't have your cake and eat it too.
Life isn't black and white, it's grey. Nobody is innocent, everyone has capability of good and evil (if you choose to look at it that way). But when you can only trust someone as far as their political agenda, how do you know when to trust them and when not to?
I agree with your point though of not automatically believing or disbelieving in what they have to say, you have to look at whether it is more politically advantageous to be truthful or deceitful... but with more and more information coming out that shows the level of their deceit, you have to wonder if anything they say is true or if it's all spun for political advantage.
But I don't think I can agree with your comment. Whether the group in question is new or has a new moniker I don't think says anything about whether NK was behind this.
Because of the strange evolution of the case (first demanding ransom) it's pretty clear that the identities of the hackers have looked to be different groups with different goals. There is either collusion or there is a false flag:
A.) #GOP is a false flag operation for NK state controlled or sponsored attacks (this has been done before by other states - e.g. SEA)
B.) NK is a false flag used by #GOP for lulz or to confuse law enforcement/forensics (this has been done before by other hackers - e.g. Gary McKinnon)
C.) There is a real group #GOP active in the East (why we haven't heard of them) who either hacked Sony in isolation and then got NK support or was encouraged but not propositioned by NK to perform the compromise in the first place
My bets are currently on C, as the objective of the hack changed a week after ransom was not provided and because from what I can tell the tools that are purported to be state sponsored only appeared some time after the initial compromise and along with the change in demands.
Many good questions are raised by critics of the FBI's published evidence. That isn't outrage politics. I don't think that "from a rational perspective... obviously points to NK" - and I think you would have a lot of difficulty defending the case that you are the one with the access to the 'rational perspective'. (It's sophistry to speak in terms of authority like that, without providing an argument that stands on its own...)
Re: troops in Crimea. It most certainly was some of Putin's troops in support of East Ukrainian separatists. What isn't seen is the 'pro-West' (?) side admitting to the equivalent - NATO troops and supplies supporting West Ukrainian separatists. Or the conversation include the discussions about the European presence at the protests and riots, the aggressive financial deal that the EU knew could/would split the country, EU membership offer, and leaked audio plans to 'select' a pro-West Ukrainian presidential candidate. Russia isn't innocent and neither is the West. Neither is China for that matter. (This is realpolitik, we don't have the luxury of innocence.)
I'm glad you mention the fact that there is a global cyberwar. The types of operations seen in the global cyberwar thus far are for the most part very different from the kind we saw at SONY. Some of the stuff SEA did was similar in kind, but didn't see as much blatant destruction. I've read several global cyberpolicy recommendations and all of them recommend against the type of vicious and overtly destructive activity demonstrated by the SONY hacks (all of the papers I have read are about US cyberpolicy).
I guess my point is please stop posting this stuff. Whenever anything newsworthy happens the 'experts' (in any field) come out in force debunking stuff when they don't have all the evidence. It drives me nuts. I know this is a community and if people find it interesting it'll end up on the front page - that's fine, it's just getting a little annoying.
I think it's worth having that discussion. Nobody is proposing any conspiracies - just due diligence.
This is one of my pet peeves on sites like this, the assumption that if a story was discussed once then everyone for all time can just refer to the appropriate thread and heaven forbid an alternate thread pop up. It's as if having a different discussion at the same time or at some point later by people who have not heard of the story before and most likely have no clue the previous thread exists is a serious problem.
https://www.riskbasedsecurity.com/2014/12/a-breakdown-and-an... has a decent overview of what you may have missed if you are only paying attention to FBI or SPE press releases.
It's really strange, actually. In secondary school history you see a trend of authoritarianism being the most widespread form of governmental structure, yet for some reason we've been told to accept that during the past few decades the world leaders all had a change of heart and first world governments suddenly became all benevolent.
Or maybe it's a US-specific thing related to their sense of exceptionalism.
Many (most? all?) of the contrarians on this issue are basically saying, the FBI can't be trusted, and they are wrong. That's not skepticism, that's just being contrary.
North Korea is a "best bet" to report, much like the previous "Google Hacks" were probably China. But in the world of hacking, you never really know.
Please, this is the same people who said Iraq had nuclear guns, a much more serious claim.
What I do find interesting and objectionable, though, is that these articles have, in my view, been of uncharacteristically low quality. Ironically, it would seem that the collective HN wisdom and skepticism becomes dormant when confronted with an article seeming to confirm their antecedent skepticism towards the U.S. government.
The trend continued in the 50s and 60s with McCarthyism being a "soft censor". It wasn't technically illegal to talk about Communism or other governments... but if you did, you'd probably lose your job.
We've got freer speech today compared to back then. So naturally, anti-government claims are going to be louder today than ever before.
It was much more honest.
> It was much more honest.
The Department of War was only really analogous to the modern Department of Defense for about a decade from 1789 until 1798 when the Department of the Navy was pulled out to its own department. From 1798 to 1947, the "Department of War" was at least as misleading as the modern Department of Defense, since a whole lot of war was conducted under the auspices of another department (the Department of the Navy.)
The 1798 Sedition Act outlawed speech, outlawed prominent authors who were critical to the Adam's administration. Hundreds of dollars in fines and months in prison. (worth a lot in today's money)
The First Amendment was passed in 1791. And only seven years later, the US Government was already censoring its citizens who were critical of the presidency.
The Bill of Rights only has as much power as the people who watch over the government. It was a battle to get the government to recognize our rights in the 1700s, just as much as it is a battle to get them recognized today. Welcome to politics, this sort of thing _never_ changes.
And don't just look at the past with rose-colored lenses. Look at it critically. Politics / government has always been a dirty business.
"Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all others"
May I remind you: the Government (and Media) lied about the USS Maine so that we'd get into the Spanish-American war. "Remember the Maine, to Hell with Spain". We also lied about a number of facts in WW2, but fortunately history proved that we were in the moral right to do so in that war.
The US Population is far wiser and smarter today. The difference is that we're no longer ignorant to blatant lies from our government. So I'd argue that today's government is more honest than our ancestors / forefathers even.
The real question is: why are these "experts" - including some here on HN - taking such extreme and unfounded positions on this? I think it's quite likely that they didn't do the hacking themslves. Perhaps they paid members of Lulzsec to do this on their behalf. But to deny that NK is behind this is absurd and makes the whole security community look crazier than Kim Jong-Un.
I'm struggling to see how you don't see the irony or hypocrisy in what you are saying.
In this context the two narratives of "north korea did it, okay?" and "perhaps one of the 8,000 laid off tech department workers at Sony did it" are easy to understand.
Sony's multiple layoffs of its digital unit workers gave certain employees time to orchestrate this.
And on the cry wolf side, the big 3 American media companies started going down their own rabbit hole of speculation and fear mongering.
Do you remember the last time (if ever) any of these "News Outlets" have rescinded their accusations (especially regarding 'war') after making such strong accusations for so long ?
These two narratives are not mutually exclusive. NK could easily have hired one of these people. I don't know who carried it out but I'm 99% sure I know who is behind it.
And how confident are you that this isn't the Dunning–Kruger effect in action?
I'm definitely skeptical that NK is behind it for the simple reason of who benefits from that narrative. Obviously it sounds better for Sony if they were hacked by a rogue state rather than a handful of disgruntled individuals. The media loves a good story and is ecstatic to whip this up into a major political frenzy, dragging in the US government and whomever else they can in order to drive page views. NK wants more than anything to be taken seriously and feared; so even if they deny it you can't see them being too upset about the allegations.
It seems to me interests are aligning in a perfect storm here, and that makes me very very skeptical. That doesn't mean I firmly believe they weren't involved, but just that I don't think we have any reasonable chance of getting at the truth.
Then talk came up of it being related to the movie (in the Press, or from Sony), and unsurprisingly, the next contacts suggested that the movie had something to do with it.
The original group also seems to have said that they did not send threats to Sony employees after the docs were uploaded, and the contact to the movie theaters was different than that to Sony.
Unfounded basis? Possibly, but no more unfounded than the assumptions being made, which basically amount to "Last saturday, a black Ford Fiesta was involved in a bank robbery, driven by a guy wearing black pants and a blue top. Today, I saw a black Ford Fiesta with a guy wearing black pants and a blue top, he must be going to rob a bank".
Fairly nice timeline here https://np.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/2puo8h/bittorrent...
Source for the original email, a plain extortion http://mashable.com/2014/12/08/hackers-emailed-sony-execs/
Other sources for skeptical views: http://www.tomsguide.com/us/sony-hack-skeptics,news-20037.ht... http://www.wired.com/2014/12/evidence-of-north-korea-hack-is...
The original group deny the threats: http://recode.net/2014/12/08/sony-hacker-leaks-more-internal...
The alleged initial group also says here it is not about the movie: http://www.csoonline.com/article/2853893/disaster-recovery/f...
My reading of it is that it is not 1 attack, but several different ones (no surprise given Sonys crappy security), and people are assuming it is all one group, and taking the first option given to be the actual one, as, let's face it, the group behind it is unlikely to ever be caught, and during this whole thing, since Sony bought up the fact they thought it was about the movie, NK has been low hanging fruit as an obvious choice.
Now that is absurd.
http://time.com/2921071/kim-jong-un-seth-rogen-the-interview...
Edit: In July they made a complaint to the UN about the film, saying: "To allow the production and distribution of such a film on the assassination of an incumbent head of a sovereign state should be regarded as the most undisguised sponsoring of terrorism as well as an act of war," http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/jul/10/north-korea-un-t...
<sarcasm>I'm sure they had nothing to do with what happened to Sony</s>
They may not have started WWIII, but they do act out violently. They are not all talk, unfortunately.
Of course North Korea and South Korea have violent exchange. They are countries founded by settling down opposing armies on a border neither thinks is fair. I do not see how this 'squares' the fact that they are known for making empty threats?
They don't invade the South because they know they'd lose. They don't turn the US into a lake of fire because they're unable to do so.
But hacking an entertainment company is within their means, and the consequences are not too bad.
The fact that they sometimes threaten things they can't do adds no information to the question of whether they did this thing.
I think it does. I think it calls into question that when NK makes a threat, we can't just assume that they're going to follow up on it. That is, their making a threat adds no information to the question of whether they did this thing. And that's my point. OP argues that since they made a threat we can eat dessert and wash our hands.
EVERYONE - we found the guilty party; they had motive.
No other parties could possibly also have had motive (and motive===guilt), so we can stop looking now.</s>
motive: something (as a need or desire) that causes a person to act
There is a difference between a motive and stating you intend to take an action.
North Korea has a motive AND has publicly stated they intend to take action. They should not be surprised if they are the prime suspect when that action occurs.
Wow, thanks! Bookmarked.
> There is a difference between a motive and stating you intend to take an action.
Barely. You've made your motive public and added a threat on top of that.
> North Korea has a motive AND has publicly stated they intend to take action.
NK has a long history of threatening everyone and their mothers with doom and gloom and nuclear boom, and we're all still here (i.e. they rarely follow through).
But even then - let's look into the threat a bit, shall we? I can't actually find the original source, best I could do (I gotta run - apologies) is:
> "If the US administration allows and defends the showing of the film, a merciless counter-measure will be taken," the spokesman was quoted as saying. [1]
So, their merciless counter-measure, that they vowed to on a world stage, was in fact:
"We'll pay someone to hack Sony, then deny it"
..? Really? (Let alone that the original threat was obviously aimed at the US administration).
[1] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-28014069
PS: Back in June, Rogen responded on Twitter: "People don't usually wanna kill me for one of my movies until after they've paid 12 bucks for it.". That's exactly what I would do.
You're welcome (I can tell that's not sarcasm, since it doesn't have any sarcasm tags ;)
> "We'll pay someone to hack Sony, then deny it"
NK doesn't always admit to things they do. They denied kidnapping japanese citizens for 25 years, until they admitted it 2002.
The Cheonan was sunk by an NK torpedo.. NK denies it.. but an international investigation said NK sunk it.. condemned by the UN security council. (later a defector from NK said the crew that sank it were honored as heros.)
Assuming NK to act rational is sometimes asking for too much.
Do people /honestly/ think that they have to have haircuts "in line with a socialist lifestyle"? Even after their national TV network reported that it was slander?
Regardless of what you think about NK, it's a product of the circumstances that led to its creation, and it's a bit rich for the American government in particular to say these kinds of things about NK.
My father grew up in communist Bulgaria and long hair was prohibited. I don't doubt that long hair and extreme hairstyles are also prohibited in North Korea.
Yes. [0],[1]
>Even after their national TV network reported that it was slander?
Setting aside the implicit credibility you're ascribing to North Korea, I think you may have been confused with another story. [2]
>Regardless of what you think about NK, it's a product of the circumstances that led to its creation, and it's a bit rich for the American government in particular to say these kinds of things about NK.
I agree, the US clearly does not have the moral standing to sully North Korea's good name with accusations so serious as computer hacking. [3]
---
[0] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4157121.stm
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let%27s_trim_our_hair_in_accord...
[2] http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2014/03/26...
And I hate to resort to whataboutery, but let's not forget Guantanamo Bay and the recently released reports about the US's torturing of prisoners.
As I said, believe what you want about NK, but their current situation did not develop in a vacuum.
As far as Guantanamo Bay, I don't agree with torture in any form and believe the detention facility there should not exist.
That said, something like Yodok isn't really on the same plane of existence. I would class it as somewhere in between the Nazi concentration camps of WW2 and Unit 731's atrocities. Guantanamo Bay may as well be Club Med compared to that level of sadism and suffering.
I dont think its news to most of us here that the NK connection to the hack is circumstantial; Sony's security has been penetrated by non-state actors before, and without a lot of effort from what I can tell.
Every time there's an attack on intellectual property of Western companies, fingers are raised straight to state sponsored groups in China and Russia. It's bewildering to me that privately sponsored attacks are hardly considered seriously.
With the Sony attack we have been focusing on the movie, while the movie could've been just an excuse for an attack that was aimed to financially dismantle Sony, which it did.
With the Sony attack we have been focusing on the
movie, while the movie could've been just an excuse
for an attack that was aimed to financially dismantle
Sony, which it did.*
But these guys attacked Sony Pictures Entertainment... not just any part of Sony. The scope of the hack IIRC doesn't go any further out than Sony's Hollywood branch. Frankly, there aren't any corporations in the world who actually care about a (probably) awful movie being made at some studio. And the Chinese corporations that make movies are distinctly not competing against Sony Pictures.
Sony Pictures Entertainment is the parent company of "Columbia Pictures" and "MGM". Tell me, who the hell would attack "Columbia Pictures" ??
Largely outside of the hacker community, the true definition of hacker is lost. If you only look at popular culture there aren't a lot of in-roads to the correct definition of hacking. Therefore how would the average person know?
I think there is much truth to your sentiment. My only qualm would be applying it universally. I am sure there is malice in the world that is masked as stupidity.
This grew out of Enlightenment thinking in the 18th century. And its why our modern courts have such foundation on understanding the circumstances, evidence, etc. Also why we have "degrees" of murder.
That would often be true, though not in a way analogous to the topic under discussion. Blacks aren't the only darker-skinned people in America, and Black vs. White isn't the only divide along which racism occurs in America.
To the general public, a hacker is someone who breaks into a computer system with bad intentions.
We are offended because the general public doesn't understand that we mean something different with the term "hacker".
I'm suggesting to just adopt the meaning of the word that the general public uses, especially when talking to the general public. This way we can avoid misunderstandings.
However, it would be even better to just use more specific terms. "Hacker" is such a catch-all term with different meanings for everyone.
For example: If someone performs an elaborate practical joke, call them a "prankster" instead of "hacker". When you talk about a lab with a bunch of 3D printers, call it a "makerspace" instead of "hackerspace". And when you quote someone about the latest vulnerabilities in OpenSSL, just call them a "security expert".
No one will be offended, everyone will understand what you are trying to say, problem solved.
But I understand that many hackers like to call themselves hackers, and they like the secretive-undergroundish tone that comes with it, and they will continue to use it and they'll continue to be offended when mainstream media use the term in a different way.
Well, except that the meanings of both "woman" and "black" are very much debated.
In both cases, the main debate is between personal self-identification and some form of externally imposed, notionally objective rule (for "woman" gender identity versus various definitions of "biological sex" [in quotes because while they are various biological sex-related features, they don't all actually necessarily line up with each other], for "black" racial identity versus external ancestry-based criteria like the "one-drop rule".)
The US has been seeking a tangible threat in cyberterrorism for years. Anonymous is too ethereal and China is too big of a sleeping dragon for them to poke. Enter a hack loosely tied to a movie about North Korea and BINGO; you have an enemy to fight on the cyberfront.
https://www.facebook.com/unknownnewWarstrategies?hc_location...
The real Iraq war strategist + known secret strategies and not done strategies.
* It might make the investigation easier if the culprits think that the FBI is looking at NK and thus are less careful than they might otherwise be.
* NK is an easy scapegoat. If the reality is that the perpetrators cannot be uncovered, the FBI looks more competent by pointing the finger (unprovably) at NK than saying "We have no idea."
* The FBI doesn't care if NK actually did it. If they can merely tangentially prove that NK was involved, it prevents a massive security breach from being an unsolved crime. To have a breach the size of Sony's remain unsolved would bolster every would-be hacker in the world.
https://www.facebook.com/unknownnewWarstrategies?hc_location...
AFTER EDIT: Someone's silent disagreement with my comment is evidence as I type in this edit. On my part, I'd be glad to hear from people who have all of the relevant forms of information about what happened recently to Sony and about how various governments have responded to that before making up my mind. So please join in the thoughtful discussion here if you have knowledge of the geopolitics involved or of other issues I didn't even bring up above. What's most persuasive in any discussion is actual evidence, and thoughtful discussion of evidence from reliable sources is what I like best about Hacker News.