

Russia Just Hacked into the Pentagon’s Email System - andygambles
http://time.com/3988697/russia-hacked-pentagon/

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Someone1234
I cannot read articles like this (or the US's weekly "China hacked us again")
without just dismissing it as outright propaganda.

First off, let's be absolutely 100% crystal clear about something: the Russian
and Chinese governments hack things sometimes (both economic and security
related).

That being said it seems like blaming the Chinese/Russian government for
random hacks is more a political move (in the USG's continued "China/Russia
bad" campaign, since "Communism bad" no longer works as well).

I justify this belief due to three factors:

\- The USG is extremely quick to blame them, so quick in fact that it seems
implausible that they conducted any type of technical investigation before
finger pointing. Under a day in some cases.

\- Not every attack coming physically from China/Russia is from the
governments in those countries. A lot of lone blackhats exist all over the
world, it is insane to assume it is different there. Just as when you see an
attack from the US, it MIGHT be the USG, or it MIGHT just be a lone wolf or
wolves. People could also be using endpoints located in China/Russia to hide
their true origin.

\- Due to the way the internet works anyone with some skill can hide their
true origin pretty well. We're meant to believe that Chinese/Russian hackers
are this uber threat, but at the same time that they lack the 101s of hiding
their identity and location. Seems contradictory.

As to why the US blames China and Russia for "hacking" I believe they have two
motives (as an over-simplification):

\- They can paint these hacks as being highly sophisticated, and therefore
avoid the implication that the break-ins are primarily due to incompetence or
neglect within the USG (which is almost always the case).

\- Keeping Russia/China/NK/Iran/etc on a constant "war footing" with the US
public seems like standard operating procedure. I guess "just in case" war
broke out, half of the PR is already done. Watching the NBC Nightly news in
the US is very similar to watching Russia Today in, well, Russia.

------
baseballmerpeak
Russia Just Found a Neglected Weakness of the Pentagon's Nonclassified Email
System

