Hacktivism and State-Sponsored Knock-Offs. Attributing Deceptive Hack Operations | Hacker News Reader

Hacktivism and State-Sponsored Knock-Offs. Attributing Deceptive Hack Operations

sentinelone.com

35 pointshippich8 comments

What worries me more is state sponsored info ops that foment further divisions within the US, which is more divided than ever before. If I was a foreign power that considers the US an enemy, where my goal is to weaken them, that is where I’d focus my online energy.

Executive Assistant Director of National Security Branch Jill Sanborn was called up to testify before congress regarding the capitol riot.

When asked if fbi agents or informants committed crimes of violence, she responded "I can't answer that."

When asked "Did any FBI agents or FBI informants actively encourage and incite crimes of violence on January 6?" she responded "I can't answer that."

The answer to both should be an absolute, a line not crossed under threat of life in prison, or execution, for all officials responsible - "no, we do not do that. "

The FBI has a history of playing games with people, pushing them into actions and situations that otherwise would not have occurred or escalated into illegal activity. This has included partisan brinksmanship and politically advantageous maneuvering beneficial to whichever party currently holds sway at the fbi.

The FBI shouldn't be the dirty deeds department, but it's used as such far too often.

Then there's the whole five eyes situation in which intelligence agencies play a cute game in which they pretend it's ok to spy on other countries' citizens and share that intelligence. With no oversight or due process, to the extent that all phone and text activity is surveilled.

Throw Google's total obeisance to us government into the mix, and combine that with Centurylink's control or access to of more than 80% of global internet infrastructure.

The cctv prevalence in different areas varies widely, but Nest and Ring and Clearview AI are becoming ubiquitous.

Brave New World and 1984 were almost unambitious in comparison to the current reality of mass surveillance.

It may be too late to fix.

Divide and conquer is a tried and true strategy.

If I were one of 100 people ruling 100s millions, it would be a handy recipe to apply.

Curious that the Belarusian Cyper-Partisans are mentioned as an example of an authentic group, given their demands[1]:

- Release of the 50 political prisoners who are most in need of medical assistance.

- Preventing the presence of Russian troops on the territory of #Belarus.

As for the first demand: How are these people to know which 50 political prisoners are most in need medical assistance? Doesn't that make it very easy for the government to release 50 political prisoners that it doesn't care much about anyway? This is what makes me suspicious that the second demand is the "real" one. Wouldn't a real opposition group prioritize freeing all political prisoners - their friends and comrades - over removing foreign troops?

[1]: https://twitter.com/cpartisans/status/1485618881557315588

Over 1000 people are recognized as political prisoners in Belarus (1) (not by regime of course). The idea is to get a chance for the regime to find an excuse to release just 50 of them (50 is better than zero). Regime so far did not respond to the attack or the demand, nor released a single political prisoner.

Can't say much about stopping troops demand. I am pretty sure it is outside of lukashenko control now even if he was willing to negotiate.

[1] https://www.state.gov/political-prisoners-in-belarus/#:~:tex....

I'm Belarusian and follow these matters closely. I'm pretty sure they know there's exactly 0% chance of either of these demands being met. I bet the hack happened because they had the opportunity (stumbled upon a vulnerability, or much more likely, an insider). And the rest is a somewhat clumsy PR effort to tie it to the current agenda.

>A possible coincidence? Sure. But we can add ‘overlap with a state-sponsored operation’ as another soft indicator in our assessment matrix for hacktivist covers.

If anything this is convincing me that the sheer ephemeral nature of hack attacks makes hack attribution is a fool's errand at the best of times.

That's what the author is thinking too it seems:

Our ability to assess these operations with certainty remains weak and is untimely compared to the speed with which their information is disseminated and amplified.

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