back to article NSA: We're in YOUR BOTNET

The NSA quietly commandeered a botnet targeting US Defence agencies to attack other victims including Chinese and Vietnamese dissidents, Snowden documents reveal. The allegation is among the latest in a cache of revelations dropped by Der Spiegel that revealed more about the spy agency. The "Boxingrumble" botnet was detected …

  1. Little Mouse

    TrustNo1

    But where do Alice, Bob and Carol fit in to all this? Those meddling miscreants are always involved somehow.

    1. Roo
      Windows

      Re: TrustNo1

      "But where do Alice, Bob and Carol fit in to all this?"

      In this case you should be on the look out for Larry, Curly & Moe.

      1. Mark 85

        Re: TrustNo1

        I would think Dumb and Dumber....

    2. billse10

      Re: TrustNo1

      at least they aren't blaming poor Eve ....

      http://xkcd.com/177/

  2. Mark 85

    FBI to cleanse...?

    Amazing... they're now IT Support. Ok.. seriously... how would the FBI pull this one off? Show up at your door or hack in remotely?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: FBI to cleanse...?

      well if they control the malware, they control your computer, therefore easy to send a file to wipe out the nasty.

      It's been done before and other companies such as MS have wanted to do it for a long time, but legally, they cannot.

  3. Ronny Cook

    NSA says hacking other countries' computers is A-OK

    So hacking citizens from your own country is not allowed but hacking computers from another country is "collateral"? I'll have to remember that next time I'm hacking the Pentagon (or Sony).

    Today's news: NSA says hacking computers from our countries is perfectly OK. North Korea vindicated.

    1. Eddy Ito

      Re: NSA says hacking other countries' computers is A-OK

      Just because they say "bots found in the US would be referred to the FBI for cleansing" doesn't mean they define 'cleansing' the same way you and I would. I suspect cleansing means the entire contents was downloaded, the computer 'cleansed' and a remote back door installed, just in case. You can trust me when I say if I knew the FBI cleansed my computer, I'd instantly archive everything I could in the hopes it may provide some evidence of my innocence and get a new computer, router, ISP, etc.

    2. P. Lee
      Big Brother

      Re: NSA says hacking other countries' computers is A-OK

      *We* are the good guys

      *You* are a criminal

      *He* is a terrorist

      And yes, it appears Sony is acceptable collateral damage according to the rules of engagement.

      Go America! Morally better than the Axis of Evil!

      Or not.

    3. Dan 55 Silver badge
      Black Helicopters

      Re: NSA says hacking other countries' computers is A-OK

      North Korea vindicated or North Korea's computers completely owned and used to launch attacks from?

      Sony are Japanese anyway. Acceptable collateral damage.

      Two years ago this would have been high level tinfoil hattery, now it sounds perfectly plausible.

    4. CrikeyMoses

      Re: NSA says hacking other countries' computers is A-OK

      Here's a simple rule of thumb to figure this out;

      A) If someone is wearing a government costume and/or is receiving a government paycheck when they commit a crime...it's _not_ a crime! Magic!

      B) If anyone else commits the _same act_ ... it's a crime! Toss 'em in the dungeon!

  4. dan1980

    So infected PCs in the US were referred to the FBI for 'cleansing'. Settings aside the questions of exactly what 'cleansing' entails and exactly how the FBI did this, does this mean that infected PCs in other 'Five Eyes' nations were fair game?

    If so, and putting everything else aside, FUCK YOU.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Take my love

    Take my land

    Take me where I cannot stand:

    I don't care

    I'm still free

    You can't take the skies from me.

    1. William Boyle

      Gotta love

      Gotta love Firefly! Best short-lived series EVER!

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Gotta love

        It's a real pity they didn't do more...if it had happened today, we could've kickstartered the hell out of it.

        1. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

          Re: Gotta love

          It's a real pity they didn't do more

          Well, I suppose it's a pity they didn't do more of the same quality. But considering there are 14 episodes, with a good variety of plots, highlighting the various characters, and occasionally varying structure (eg Out of Gas), and a good film that resolves the overarching plotline, I think it's a pretty strong package, and I have to wonder if they'd have been able to keep it up.

          Even among those 14 episodes there are certainly some I think are stronger than others - I'll take War Stories or the aforementioned Out of Gas anytime over, say, Safe - though they're all watchable.

          Serenity (the film, not the pilot episode) gave the series a strong ending. I think I'm just as happy to see it go out that way rather than dwindle into a mess like some do.

    2. Trevor_Pott Gold badge

      Take me out to the black

      Tell them I ain't coming back

      Burn the land and boil the sea

      You can't take the sky from me

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I thought the NSA didn't do commercial espionage?

    "The theme continued under its mobile phone infection efforts designed to plunder data from businesses. Staffers with NSA-infected handsets were referred to as "unwitting data mules""

    Sounds like commercial espionage to me, unless this malware is being placed at companies associated with organized crime or terrorism. And of course the NSA won't come clean about who this is targeted at and why, and nobody would believe them if they did.

  7. William Boyle

    This is what happens

    This is what happens when those who can don't consider why they shouldn't! The NSA and GCHQ have no ethics at all. If they can, they will. It is as simple as that! And we are all damned...

    1. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

      They be damned when this happens. And if Current Fact and/or Future Fiction and Vice Versa, ...

      ....well, IT is a Present Virtual Reality with Questioning Communicating Quantum Enigma Solutions for CHAOSystems*

      This is what happens

      This is what happens when those who can don't consider why they shouldn't! The NSA and GCHQ have no ethics at all. If they can, they will. It is as simple as that! And we are all damned.. .... William Boyle

      Actually, both really and in apt APT and adept ACT and Command and Control of Creative CyberSpaces, the Computer and Communications, is one forewarned and forearmed and Effectively Invincible with a Virulent Omniscience for Greater IntelAIgent Games Play in Global Operating Devices with LearnedD Programming into the Joys of XSSXXXX ...... The Limitless Supply of Incredible Bounty and FantastICQ Booty. :-)

      And I Kid U Not :-) Poe's Law Rules:-)

      *Cloud Hosting Advanced Operating Systems

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    If true, respect

    You can say what you like about the methods, it at least indicates that TAO is not composed of bureacratic script kiddies....

  9. Palpy

    No one should be surprised.

    NSA and CIA have always operated outside American and international law. Their rap sheets include running drugs and guns (acuerda de "Iran-Contra", amigo?), bribery, torture, murder -- and now cyber-crime. Nothing to see here, just standard ops from one of the world's many government-run crime syndicates.

    1. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

      Re: No one should be surprised.

      Regarding "No one should be surprised", Palpy, here be a well known and widely documented mirror of the current genocidal purges in the Middle East and Eastern European dictatorships? .......

      But King also here implies a subtler thought – implies it so clearly that it need not be spoken. Unlimited power will do everything it can against those it has once dehumanized as a "total" enemy (an enemy that is a beast and also a thing). The brutalization of mind always takes place before the atrocity in which it proves itself. Nor is the capacity for such acts the attribute of a single nation or race. The same part of the mind that invented Zyklon B invented napalm. The same human nature that wanted to use the poison gas as soon as it saw the ingenuity of the thing also wanted to use the lethal burning jelly.

      Destruction has its own momentum and its own fascination. Things built over ages can be made to vanish in an instant under its annihilating stroke. That is what happened to the ancient culture, the farms, and the forests of Vietnam under the unleashed assault of American air power – which, by the end of the war, would subject a country the size of Italy to more than three times the tonnage of bombs dropped in all of the Second World War.

      "We have destroyed their two most cherished institutions: the family and the village. We have destroyed their land and their crops. We have cooperated in the crushing of the nation's only noncommunist revolutionary political force, the unified Buddhist Church. We have supported the enemies of the peasants of Saigon. We have corrupted their women and children and killed their men.

      "Now there is little left to build on, save bitterness. Soon the only solid physical foundations remaining will be found at our military bases and in the concrete of the concentration camps we call 'fortified hamlets.' The peasants may well wonder if we plan to build our new Vietnam on such grounds as these. Could we blame them for such thoughts? We must speak for them and raise the questions they cannot raise. These, too, are our brothers." ..... http://antiwar.com/orig/bromwich.php?articleid=12844

      No wonder such folk and their colluding and supportive allies create such lifelong mortal and immortal enemies intent on and content with delivering just desserts in spades. It be only natural and quite fully to be expected surely.

      1. Matt Bryant Silver badge
        FAIL

        Re: amanfrimmars1 Re: No one should be surprised.

        ".....Vietnam....No wonder such folk and their colluding and supportive allies create such lifelong mortal and immortal enemies....." So you missed the bit where Communist Vietnam signed a trade deal with The Man waaaay back in 2001 (http://vietnam.usembassy.gov/mobile//econ12.html). Or how the Vietnamese economy is benefiting and encouraging tourism from those Nasty Capitalists (http://m.english.vietnamnet.vn/fms/travel/121032/vietnam-tourism-holds-great-promise-for-millions.html#).

        1. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

          Re: amanfrimmars1 No one should be surprised.

          I suppose you imagine that all you read here about the POTUS SOTU address .... http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-01-20/president-obama-dictates-state-union-live-webcast ..... is not about a whole load of cock and bull, Matt?

          And I wasn't drawing particular and peculiar attention to joys and pains of capitalism but to the rampant abuse made of it by some with violence in and against countries with foreign attacks spun increasingly badly as homeland defence? I trust that clear up that misunderstanding of yours, Matt.

          1. Matt Bryant Silver badge
            FAIL

            Re: amanfrimmars1 No one should be surprised.

            "I suppose you imagine that all you read here....." Nope, didn't read that site's article, indeed I didn't bother watching the actual address either. Obambi is a lame duck POTUS even before we get to the bit about him being unable to stand for another term, so all his SOTU address was going to be was a measure of whether he could overcome his ambitions for personal glory to actually work with the Republicans for a change. Surprise, surprise, he failed again, instead taking glee in announcing how he was going to veto anything from the Republicans put forth that might interfere with his "legacy". Considering that the Republicans are in the majority in both houses due to the will of the US voters, he basically spent the SOTU address telling the World how little he actually cares for democracy. It was even more ironic that, after trying to take credit for the performance of the US economy, he then said he wanted to take more tax from the very people that actually made that economic success happen! The remaining two years of Obambi's presidency are going to be a bitter pre-electoral battle of grandstanding and sniping, which really helps no-one.

            BTW, the SOTU address had nothing to do with Vietnam and your being unable to comprehend that the state of US-Vietnamese relations have changed quite a bit since 1975.

            1. Mike VandeVelde
              Joke

              Re: amanfrimmars1 No one should be surprised.

              he's conversing with amanfrommars gibberish bot vs rightwingnut bot lol

              1. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

                Re: amanfrimmars1 No one should be surprised.

                Get it right, FFS, Mike VandeVelde. It is GBIrish and not gibberish.

                Please keep up. Thanks.

                1. Another Anonymous Dutch Coward
                  Terminator

                  Re: amanfrimmars1 No one should be surprised.

                  I'm not even sure anymore if you are a bot. At times you sound more like skynet doing poems...

        2. Roo
          Windows

          @ MB (Re: amanfrimmars1 No one should be surprised.)

          " So you missed the bit where Communist Vietnam signed a trade deal with The Man waaaay back in 2001"

          It appears that you are overlooking the 50+ years lost to weapons of mass destruction. Fair play to Vietnam though, they are making rapid progress.

          1. Matt Bryant Silver badge
            Facepalm

            Re: Roo Re: @ MB (amanfrimmars1 No one should be surprised.)

            ".... Fair play to Vietnam though, they are making rapid progress." Their economic progress having accelerated most since they dropped a lot of their Marxist claptrap, liberalised many elements of their economy, and opened up to Western (especially US) investment - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Vietnam.

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