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Purveyor

(29,876 posts)
Mon Aug 22, 2016, 06:00 PM Aug 2016

Commentary: Evidence Points To Another Snowden At The NSA

By James Bamford

In the summer of 1972, state-of-the-art campaign spying consisted of amateur burglars, armed with duct tape and microphones, penetrating the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee. Today, amateur burglars have been replaced by cyberspies, who penetrated the DNC armed with computers and sophisticated hacking tools.

Where the Watergate burglars came away empty-handed and in handcuffs, the modern- day cyber thieves walked away with tens of thousands of sensitive political documents and are still unidentified.

Now, in the latest twist, hacking tools themselves, likely stolen from the National Security Agency, are on the digital auction block. Once again, the usual suspects start with Russia – though there seems little evidence backing up the accusation.

In addition, if Russia had stolen the hacking tools, it would be senseless to publicize the theft, let alone put them up for sale. It would be like a safecracker stealing the combination to a bank vault and putting it on Facebook. Once revealed, companies and governments would patch their firewalls, just as the bank would change its combination.

A more logical explanation could also be insider theft. If that’s the case, it’s one more reason to question the usefulness of an agency that secretly collects private information on millions of Americans but can’t keep its most valuable data from being stolen, or as it appears in this case, being used against us.

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http://www.reuters.com/article/us-intelligence-nsa-commentary-idUSKCN10X01P

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Commentary: Evidence Points To Another Snowden At The NSA (Original Post) Purveyor Aug 2016 OP
Another day saidsimplesimon Aug 2016 #1

saidsimplesimon

(7,888 posts)
1. Another day
Mon Aug 22, 2016, 06:33 PM
Aug 2016

Another "unsolved mystery" of "stolen" government data, this is mind boggling. In the last paragraph he says could be and if. It would be unwise for me to speculate on "insider theft" without proof.

it’s one more reason to question the usefulness of an agency that secretly collects private information on millions of Americans but can’t keep its most valuable data from being stolen, or as it appears in this case, being used against us.
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