Giving away methods for hacking/spying ensures your country is at a disadvantage.
Comment on Ex-CIA computer engineer gets 40 years in prison for giving spy agency hacking secrets to WikiLeaks
Carvex@lemmy.world 9 months ago
They take the man’s entire life away because he revealed us terrible things our non-elected leaders are doing to us. Who was hurt by his actions?
Kalkaline@leminal.space 9 months ago
Deceptichum@kbin.social 9 months ago
It also enables innocent people to be protected from foreign governments.
S410@kbin.social 9 months ago
Disclosing found exploits allows developers to patch them out and improve security of everyone, which includes all the other alphabet boys and regular citizens.
There's no way to know that you're the only one who found any given exploit. Letting an exploit stay unpatched opens up an attack vector for everyone, not just you.Kalkaline@leminal.space 9 months ago
Disclosing found exploits to the development team is far different than exposing those exploits to unfriendly countries or in this case those that would expose state secrets.
linearchaos@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Tune extent yes, but it also makes us all more secure. Even if you think our own government is doing a good job all the other governments have these holes too.
theodewere@kbin.social 9 months ago
must be nice not having to understand things
glowie@h4x0r.host 9 months ago
Please add citations where people were killed as a direct result
theodewere@kbin.social 9 months ago
again, more blissful ignorance on the internets
linearchaos@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Realistically, it’s doubtful anybody died directly because of that particular leak.
Probably the shutting down of the phone reading methods could eventually compromise operations. It probably cost them money and a great deal of time which could totally have an impact on somebody’s life. But that’s how espionage works.
I kind of get that you have to keep your secrets secret. And there need to be repercussions for leaking secrets. Especially trade secrets like this. If not for the CP stuff I would think 5 or 10 years would have been a more reasonable number.
But with the hole unapologetic CP thing. I’m not even sure 40 is enough.
birthday_attack@lemm.ee 9 months ago
When people claim that leaks “get people killed,” they’re referring to when undercover agents are identified while they’re in the field. The only secrets exposed in these leaks are the computer hacking techniques used by the US to spy remotely through compromised devices.
The so-called Vault 7 leak revealed how the CIA hacked Apple and Android smartphones in overseas spying operations, and efforts to turn internet-connected televisions into listening devices.
You could maybe say that closing off those surveillance channels prevented the CIA from learning about some attack, but that’s really tenuous. It alap assumes that the CIA isn’t constantly developing new zero-day exploits so that they can continue to spy on just about everyone on the planet.
rockSlayer@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Did Edward Snowden kill people too?
linearchaos@lemmy.world 9 months ago
The class of information that Snowden had was substantially more dangerous. He didn’t just walk out of there with Prism secrets.
There’s a reasonable chance that some of the data Snowden had would have had more dire impacts on remote agents.
theodewere@kbin.social 9 months ago
we will know more when he goes to trial
rockSlayer@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Why should he go to trial? It’s not going to be a fair trial, and the people have a right to know that the US government is illegally surveilling them. If he truly did directly kill people as a result of his leak, there would already be preliminary evidence.
puchaczyk@lemmy.blahaj.zone 9 months ago
And for possessing child porn…
jonne@infosec.pub 9 months ago
Holy crap, dude was even watching child porn in prison. Clearly the CIA is hiring the cream of the crop.
Doorbook@lemmy.world 9 months ago
It wouldn’t be far fetched that they put that themselves.
Spot@startrek.website 9 months ago
Except the part where he was quoted saying that it was a victimless crime. Ick
Sagifurius@lemm.ee 9 months ago
And if you’ll buy that, I’ll throw the Golden Gate in free
linearchaos@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Need to read the article man, He unapologetically had cp
Sagifurius@lemm.ee 9 months ago
How many bridges you want?