Snowden Doc Shows NSA Blamed Russia For Hack of Murdered Journalist (thehill.com) 110
The National Security Agency (NSA) knew that the Russian government hacked the email account of a prominent journalist the year before she was killed in Moscow, documents published by The Intercept show. The 2006 murder of longtime Kremlin critic Anna Politkovskaya -- who was gunned down in the elevator of her apartment complex -- is widely believed to have been a contract killing. Politkovskaya was a noted critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, and it has long been suspected that the murder was carried out on his orders. From a report: The NSA compiled an internal file on Politkovskaya, which was exposed as part of the Edward Snowden leaks. Much of the document is unclassified and public, except for one top-secret segment: "Russian Federal Intelligence Services (probably FSB) are known to have targeted the webmail account of the murdered Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya," the passage reads. "On 5 December 2005, RFIS initiated an attack against the account annapolitkovskaia@US Provider1, deploying malicious software which is not available in the public domain. It is not known whether this attack is in any way associated with the death of the journalist."
Obama pull your fucking head in. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Obama pull your fucking head in. (Score:4, Informative)
Seems you've confused Edward Snowden with Obama. This is not information that Obama released.
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Umm.. so lets see a sitting president wants to slap a foreign government's hands for obviously attempting to meddle/influence the election and by extension its own government.. a fact that to be fair, we've had for months/years (increasing evidence and cases) and this is "stirring up anti-russian" sentiment?
Your argument is akin to someone being abused for months in school and NOW that they are finally taking action towards the end of the semester (when a new teacher is coming in), you side with the blamed
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When was the last time the US actually annexed land? It's been centuries.
1898 (Puerto Rico, Hawaii, Guam, etc.) was barely more than one century ago. And then there's the Philippines: annexed 1902, sovereignty restored in 1946. And while the US never formally annexed Okinawa, we held complete control over the archipelago from 1945 until 1972.
And we've had plenty of nasty proxy wars, not to mention those we've been directly involved in.
Of course the sins of the US have little bearing on those of Russia (or the USSR before it, or Czarist Russia before that). But trying to claim th
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The motherfucking RUSSIANS are stirring up anti-Russian sentiment.
Don't want people to hate you? Stop stealing land, stop murdering people, and stop fucking lying about it.
To his credit [wordpress.com], Putin stopped murders of journalists that started well before him at much greater rate than anything that happened during his terms in power.
No the NSA did not blame Russia for death (Score:1)
https://theintercept.com/2016/12/29/top-secret-snowden-document-reveals-what-the-nsa-knew-about-previous-russian-hacking/
https://prod01-cdn07.cdn.firstlook.org/wp-uploads/sites/1/2016/12/Polit1.png
(TS//SI//REL TO USA, AUS, CAN, GBR, NZL) Russian Federal Intelligence Services (probably FSB) are known to have targeted the webmail account of the murdered Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya. On 5 December 2005, RFIS initiated an attack against the account annapolitkovskaia@US Provider1, by deploying malicious software which is not available in the public domain. It is not known whether this attack is in any way associated with the death of the journalist. [1]
What the NSA appears to know is that the Russians targeted the journalist's email account using malware that it believed was not in the public domain.
But teh internal wiki itself is a little problematic:
Unfortunately, in the case of this wiki there’s no indication of exactly what sort of SIGINT was collected with regard to Politkovskaya, or how it incriminated Russian intelligence — all we have is the allusion to the evidence, not the evidence. The NSA declined to comment.
TheHill article is terrible because it draws from alleged and unproven information produced by private security
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People should indeed follow the link to the original intercept article because the article in Thehill is just bad.
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More code not seen in the wild and the NSA telling other 5 eye nations that it knows the code has not been seen in the wild.. with the word probably.
wow! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:wow! (Score:5, Informative)
Seriously Obama you are starting to make Trump look sane. The last thing the world needs is a new cold war, never thought I would say it but Trump can't come soon enough before you do any more damage, I can only assume you or your party has big financial interests that are not supported by friendly relations with Russia.
Where did you shills see Obama's name in any of this?
Please get your own head of your own ass before you shill on.
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Come to thing about it, I've never seen Snowden and Obama in a room together...
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trump is a fucking retard, just because you call out Obama for being a cocksucker doesn't mean you support the other cocksucker.
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So a release by Snowden that was made more than 2 years ago and publicized as part of the ongoing review of those documents about a murder that occurred during the Bush administration is somehow Obama's fault?
Get over it, Trump will be president in less than a month. You have an unnatural obsession with blaming Obama for everything.
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No the timing of the finding and publishing of it is almost certainly Obama work though. unless you believe in amazing coincidences then it is near impossible to believe this wasn't published without some backdoor support from the whitehouse. comes immediately after Obama expels diplomats and states he is going to embarrass Russia in the press. If it was coincidence then Obama truly is blessed with incredible fortune and luck having the press respond to swifty in his favour a few hours after making his stat
Re:wow! (Score:5, Informative)
So now you're claiming the evil Obama mastermind is in control of what stories from the Snowden leaks are published even though Obama's government has gone to great length to prevent the publication of ANYTHING Snowden provided to the journalists?
Yea, Obama is such an evil mastermind. :roll eyes:
Just like my inlaws that blamed Obama for the $10K cash transaction limits that were put in place 30 years ago during the Regan administration. Everything is his fault and everything will be better under Trump. You're lying to yourself and you probably don't even realize it.
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Seriously Obama you are starting to make Trump look sane. The last thing the world needs is a new cold war, never thought I would say it but Trump can't come soon enough before you do any more damage, I can only assume you or your party has big financial interests that are not supported by friendly relations with Russia.
Unfortunately, cold war seems to be exactly what Russia wants. They've always had a chip on their shoulder as far as Europe goes and can be seen as the Abusive drunk uncle of Eastern Europe. Once the Union was broken up, they found themselves now surrounded by their former union mates who immediately tried to shield themselves from Russia. Their post break treaties with the Ukraine were broken once Russia had their nukes back. Rather than try to join the EU themselves, they are instead trying to create a ne
This is the foreign government ... (Score:3, Insightful)
... that now owns the White House.
We are truly living in interesting times.
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I don't think that a citizen of a country that was ruled by Dubya and his goons has a moral right to call any other head of state a savage.
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ORLY? So, what is the bodycount of Putin? More or less than the bodycount of Dubya? Because the Iraq war killed about half a million Iraqis and I don't count Afghanistan yet. If you add up the second Chechen war (about 25k), the war in Georgia (a few hundred people), the current conflict in the Ukraine (10k) and Russian bombing in Syria (8000 in worst case), Putin won't even come into proximity. Nixon is responsible for even more deaths.
So if Dubya isn't in your living memory then you are just a bloody kid
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Get some perspective. Putin murders and steals far more indiscriminately than any Western leader in living memory.
ORLY? So, what is the bodycount of Putin? More or less than the bodycount of Dubya?
Kudos, lol. I agreed then immediately agreed with the counter-argument.
But this shows the real problem is party not country here. In the last several decades, Reps have caused so much death and waste, I've been turned into a one-party person. Philosophically I'd be against that, but cmon I have no choice.
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Offtopic (Score:3, Insightful)
Thanks for the memories slashdot. Truely.
The intelligent discussions seem to have disappeared. Best wishes.
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The intelligent discussions seem to have disappeared
If you only look in convenient places you will never find it.
(grow some skin)
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This story is new and the comments are fresh. You need to wait a day before more comments pour in and they get moderated so you don't see all the bullshit and smart comments make it out. I do feel your pain though, Slashdot comments have gone down in quality overall. If you find a website with tech news and smart people commenting, come back and let us all know! And consider staying and contributing to the intelligent conversation!
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Why is this story even on Slashdot? (Score:2)
I gotta say that the level of anti-Russian xenophobia is continuing hitting ever higher levels of stupid. NSA alleges that somebody hacked into some journalists account.... 11 years ago. Shocking stuff.
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No link to her death (Score:2)
No real news here: as in many countries, domestic intelligence monitors opponents, and there is nothing more, as the classified stuff says:
It is not known whether this attack is in any way associated with the death of the journalist.
Statements that always raise flags for me... (Score:2)
"deploying malicious software which is not available in the public domain"
What the heck does that mean? Does this mean the hacking tools don't have a GPL or similar license that grants free use? Or not commonly used by hackers? If these tools have been deployed to machines, I am sure someone has picked them up and modified them. It's like the "I Love You" worm. It was quickly modified by many.
But how many individuals has our government hacked, listened in on, and killed?
Re:Vladimir Putin is a clone of Hitler (Score:4, Insightful)
Vladimir Putin is a clone of Hitler
Calling a Russian "Hitler" is probably a pretty good way to get your ass kicked.
Re:Vladimir Putin is a clone of Hitler (Score:4, Informative)
or roman like behavior... just being human is probably more like it.
i just read history and say meh, we have done worse.
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meh we have done worse, i hope to say the same at the end of Trumplethinskin's end of term
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Judging from American history I'd rather call it manifest destiny. I mean, the whole nation was built on stolen land and bones of natives.
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First, why not Stalin instead of Hitler? He arguably murdered more people over the course of his life - and even engaged in his own brand of ethnic slaughter.
Second, I'm just thinking that constant hyperbole means I don't have a clue what someone means when they compare a person to Hitler these days. Trump is regularly called "Hitler" or a "Nazi" too. So is Putin a real Hitler, intent on purging million of people and taking over the world, or a George Bush / Donald Trump type Hitler where you disagree wi
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It's about ports. Crimea goes back to WWII and the naughty document signed by Churchill.
Ah, that makes sense. Doesn't make it necessarily right, but does make sense.
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Vladimir Putin is a clone of Hitler
Calling a Russian "Hitler" is probably a pretty good way to get your ass kicked.
Actually, the closest Russia got to a Hitler was Stalin, if you include Communists, and Ivan the Terrible, if you wanna look at the Tsarists
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It depends a lot on the Russian in question. E.g. this guy [wordpress.com] is Russian, and was a prominent militia commander for Donbass separatists for a while. Note the flag he's holding on the first photo.
Re: So basically... (Score:1)
Snopes is a hardcore liberal site. If you think they're neutral I've got a bridge to sell you.
Why would that bother me? That was the point. (Score:2)
You'll note *I* fairly presented all sides of the argument rather than posting a biased link - whereas YOU want us to believe one particular thing.
I merely lead people to research and decide what they think is correct.
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I hope you're happy. You gullible morons have fucked us all.
It took 8 years to undo the damage caused by Bush. It might have taken another 8 years to undo the damage caused by Obama, if a sane conservative could have been found hiding under a rock somewhere and convinced to run for President. But now it will take 100 years to undo the damage caused by Trump... and that's without taking the half-lives of various fission products into account.
Good jorb.
Re:So basically... (Score:5, Insightful)
It took 8 years to undo the damage caused by Bush.
This just isn't accurate. We still have the TSA, we still have prisoners held without trial at Guantanamo Bay, we still have a Patriot Act (even though it isn't called the Patriot Act any more) and carte blanche spying on US citizens, we still have massive massive debt... The damage is most certainly not undone. This is Obama's greatest failure as president - he was elected pretty much with the sole purpose of undoing what Bush had done.
He managed to reduce it in some areas - there are fewer prisoners in Guantanamo Bay, the Patriot Act is marginally less bad than it was, the Bush tax cuts are mostly not bankrupting us anymore - but one cannot simply undo eight years of terrible legislation. You're right that we will be feeling the Trump administration 100 years from now, but we will still be feeling the Obama administration, the Bush administration, etc. Every legislator makes their mark, for good or ill, and when we vote we have to do so with the recognition that the decision we make is not a reversible one.
Re: So basically... (Score:1)
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Yes, the president is not part of the legislative branch - I said that because I wanted to be inclusive of not just the president, but I should have said something like "elected official."
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The man hasn't been President for eight years now. . . . . . and folks are still blaming everything on him.
Fact of the matter is this: If Obama had really wanted to clean up the mess, he could have eradicated most of it with a stroke of his pen. The fact that he didn't bother speaks volumes.
It's hilarious how when Team Democrat has the ball and doesn't get anything done, it's all Team Republicans fault.
Yet, when Team Republican is in play and fails to deliver, it's still Team Republicans fault.
I wonder if
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...Hillary is pretty similar [google.com] to Putin then.
Gad we dodged THAT bullet!
Then Anna Politkovskaya is to Seth Rich what Vladimir Putin is to Hilary Clinton
Did Putin murder Seth too? (Score:1)
No, Anna Politkovskaya said things that upset Putin, and Putin hacked her emails and had her killed.
And Seth Rich was robbed and shot on his way home, and you pretend it was a big Hillary Clinton conspiracy and pretend he secretly revealed the DNC emails.
But we know how the DNC emails were obtains. The NSA details how the hack was done, it was not Seth as you wish it was, you are simply smearing a dead man for political talking point:
https://www.us-cert.gov/sites/default/files/publications/JAR_16-20296A_GRI