
Signs of a Creepy Government Conspiracy at Standing Rock - MertsA
http://www.cracked.com/personal-experiences-2418-the-standing-rock-hacks-cracked-unravels-real-conspiracy.html
======
SwellJoe
The tricky thing about stuff like this is that the majority of people at
protests (and in the general population) are incredibly tech illiterate. They
are easily exploitable, but also prone to misunderstanding what they're seeing
when things go weird with their devices.

We know that hacking and spying on protestors happens, because there are FOIA
(and similar state level public information act) requests that have revealed
it. We also know there is collusion between private tech firms and the
government at all levels that utilize questionable tactics (Stratfor leaks;
Barrett Brown just got out of jail for covering this collusion as a journalist
and Jeremy Hammond is still in jail for leaking it). So, something is
certainly happening at Standing Rock. It is a protest against perhaps the most
powerful interests in the world (oil and gas and international finance) so
surely every tool available is being used against them.

So, this is probably half paranoia and half correct. It's hard to know which
parts are correctly diagnosing the symptoms, however.

Also, some of the practices are likely unconstitutional, by most reasonable
interpretations, but we long passed the point where the US government gave a
damn about that when it comes to tech privacy.

~~~
ZenoArrow
> "So, this is probably half paranoia and half correct. It's hard to know
> which parts are correctly diagnosing the symptoms, however."

If you believe the story, then tech-savvy people have caught attacks whilst
they were happening (the article mentions they spoke to someone that
demonstrated a Wireshark re-enactment of ARP attacks performed on networking
equipment at the camp).

~~~
SwellJoe
Even those parts of the story leave much to guessing and theorizing. I believe
wholeheartedly that the government at many levels is spying on these folks,
probably using illegal techniques. I just don't know that the explanations
given in this article are right.

~~~
ZenoArrow
Whilst it's healthy to have some cynicism about news stories (and the reasons
they're spread), I wonder what level of proof you'd be looking for before you
were convinced. Aside from finding equipment involved in the alleged signal
jamming, what sort of information is likely to convince you? If someone took
the time to triangulate the source of these attacks and could link those
locations to government officials, would that suffice?

~~~
SwellJoe
Oh, I think you're assuming I'm more skeptical than I am. I believe they have
one or more Stingrays on site. It would be silly to assume they don't, given
the history of use of Stringrays at protests.

I also suspect the number of active cell phones on the networks in that area
is probably a hundred times higher than usual; there's probably enough cell
traffic happening there to saturate the current capacity many times over. This
can lead to cell phones dying faster than usual (searching for signal), cell
phones coming online and off, failing to send large files, etc. It can look
like "jamming", even when there is no nefarious activity actually happening.

So, I'm not trying to argue nefarious shit isn't going down. I have absolute
confidence it is; I know too much about our nation's history with protestors
to think otherwise. I don't know that airplanes are carrying the Stingrays (or
other cell phone hacking devices) or WiFi honeypots. I don't know that all of
the unsecured networks are honeypots put up by law enforcement. etc. I'm
saying the specifics of their assessment may be wrong, not that the hacking
and spying isn't happening. It's picking nits, in some regards.

But, the motivations of law enforcement are sometimes misinterpreted by
protestors, and the capabilities of law enforcement are sometimes over-
estimated, even by people that understand the technical side of things. Law
enforcement does shady stuff all the time, particularly in dealing with
protestors, but, local police also don't have particularly strong technical
teams. If the FBI is involved, then things get murkier. They have the
resources and the expertise to do probably more than the worst thing we can
imagine them doing (and possibly the will, as well).

But, to be clear: I support the protestors, and think that the abuses they've
endured in all of this have been criminal. Indigenous peoples in the US have
been treated like garbage from the very beginning, and it continues today;
this very reservation has been shrunk and unilaterally "renegotiated"
(sometimes with guns) multiple times due to profit motives. The reservation
has been shrunk on behalf of gold miners, and for major river re-routing,
flooding, and damming projects. Even if these folks were making huge and
unreasonable demands (which they aren't) I would _still_ support them.

I'd like to see a more thorough investigation of what's actually happening, by
someone with a bit more expertise than Cracked. Wireshark dumps are great, but
that's just the beginning of an exploit post-mortem.

------
Teichopsia
There are a few comments questioning the journalistic abilities of the article
and despite that they did mention that someone else with more resources ought
to take over, they could have done a bit more. A few days ago I came across a
youtube video regarding this protest. It showed Peaceful protestors getting
shot by rubber bullets, attacked by dogs and I don't remember what else
against a heavy militarized police force. Wanting to know a bit more, I was
surprised how good their website looked. And also, under special cases like
this one, instead of criticizing certain pain points, support in any way
should be given. Whether it be fact checking, increase awareness, whatever.
What I saw on that video should never happen, anywhere, no matter the reason,
and much less over the protection of WATER.

~~~
paulddraper
> should never happen, anywhere, no matter the reason

Okay. But to make it concrete, what alternative are you proposing?

~~~
devoply
Ship in the water in big tankers. Like they do in the Middle East. In any case
heavy handed military sort of dealing with people can massively backfire.
Right now it's American Indians with small numbers in the future it might be
alt-right conservatives with millions of supporters and lots of guns. It's a
two way street with violence, you could start an insurgency if the other side
had enough numbers and felt that you were acting out a war scenario. This is
not good for any sense of democracy or civil rights to engage in this sort of
behavior with locals. Which again points to a sort of racism when dealing with
rights of minorities, especially economically disadvantaged minorities,
compared to advantaged minorities like Corporations.

~~~
paulddraper
> compared to advantaged minorities like Corporations

Do you have particular protests by corporations in mind?

------
jimrandomh
If everything in this story is true (and I see no reason to doubt it), then
there is a 0-day being used here in the wild to hack gmail accounts for
political purposes. There really need to be some security engineers (ideally
Google security engineers) on-site investigating, both to identify and fix the
exploits being used, and to establish their use later for legal purposes.

~~~
ihm
I don't think so. The phones connect to a honeypot network and send over their
credentials. The person who controls the honeypot now has their gmail password
and so can use it to login and change their password.

~~~
ynniv
Gmail credentials are supposed to be delivered over an encrypted connection.
Controlling the network should be insufficient to see passwords in transit.
That said, passwords are a poor form of authentication that is prone to
interception by poorly configured clients, HTTP downgrade attacks, and
typosquatting login forms. I wouldn't jump straight to "0day".

~~~
csdrane
If you're using a browser without certificate pinning wouldn't a MITM attack
suffice? E.g. sslstrip

~~~
airza
gmail uses HSTS so sslstrip is unlikely.

------
mmastrac
I've seen this particular article before and despite me being fairly liberal,
seems kind of lazy for journalism. It's a bunch of heresay with no conclusion,
but clearly wants to draw the reader's opinion. The author admits that they
aren't a place with an investigation budget and "someone else" should look
into it. This damages the story - which seems likely to be happening to some
degree - to the point where it is completely lost to someone who isn't fully
aligned with the conclusion ahead of time.

I mean, a simple technical fact check of one paragraph that they could have
enhanced by speaking with someone who understands these things:

> would talk about their cellphone signals cutting out just as drones circled
> above.

OK, plausible

> Mobiles would switch themselves off and on again -- not in pocket but in
> hand.

If they mean turn on and off, unlikely. Maybe rebooting via DDoS on the
baseband, but we're jumping into suppositions and inventions here.

> Camera apps were opened out of nowhere

Pretty unlikely

> and batteries would drain by enormous percentages, killing the phones in
> minutes, rather than the steady decline of any device pinging back and forth
> searching for a signal

That seems plausible. DDoS on a phone by making the bandwidth burn power.

~~~
pdkl95
> seems kind of lazy for journalism

Note this important comment at the end of the article:

    
    
        ... we've really got to get back to writing about
        Back To The Future. Some site with an "investigation"
        budget should probably take it from here.
    

This is _Cracked_. While their writing is often a lot better than their
clickbait headlines suggest, they are still primarily a comedy/culture based
site. This story is _way_ outside their usual style, _and they know that_.

Why isn't this story being covered by other reporters that do have experience
investigating government, technology, the oil industry, etc? Cracked is
reporting on this because it's _important_ and the only coverage the larger
media has given to the pipeline protests has ranged from "nothing" to "reading
the police press release".

~~~
asciimo
Yeah, this isn't the Cracked I grew up with. The only journalism of theirs I'm
familiar with featured Nanny Dickering
([http://cracked.wikia.com/wiki/Nanny_Dickering](http://cracked.wikia.com/wiki/Nanny_Dickering)).

------
breatheoften
If some or all of this is real -- someone in the command chain above these
resources needs to reshape their thinking and fast! Talk about a quick way to
radicalize individuals against the society in which they are embedded:

\- Visitors from all over the country come to a welcoming self-supporting
nature camp with friendly people behaving peacefully and protesting the
destruction of nature for profit

\- Apply violence to those people

\- Attempt to disrupt these people's ability to communicate about their
experience

That kind of visceral experience is the stuff of which revolutions are made.
Lately I can't stop thinking about this quote from JFK:

Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution
inevitable

~~~
ZenoArrow
I've been following the DAPL protests for a couple of weeks now. The actions
of the police have already begun to backfire massively. For example, around
2000 veterans are due to be arriving at Standing Rock over the next couple of
days in support of the water protectors. Whilst these veterans have said they
won't be bringing weapons, I suspect their presence will increase the
mainstream media attention on the protests.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
It's sad that the only thing way to appeal to mass media is to be of a
sympathetic social status.

All they need now are (white) single moms and some cute puppies.

~~~
ZenoArrow
I agree it's sad that the MSM has largely ignored the protests so far, but
sympathetic social status is not the only way to get attention.

The thing that really gets the MSM interested in a big story like this is when
it fits into a narrative that doesn't undermine their corporate funders. For
example, if the protesters had turned violent they'd be all over this like
white on rice, as it let's them paint the protestors in a less favourable
light. They're only reluctant to get involved because they'll find it hard to
spin the story the way they want to.

------
arca_vorago
Relevant part of the Constitution, the first amendment:

"Congress shall make no law [...] abridging [...] the right of the people
peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of
grievances."

Full first amendment:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or
prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or
of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to
petition the government for a redress of grievances."

The real problem is, when all you need to justify a crackdown is to make a
peaceable assembly unpeaceful, it's relatively trivial to insert agent
provocateurs to instigate violence and fade into the background or through the
police lines as they push. Therefore I think there needs to be a massive
congressional inquiry into the use of agent provocateurs domestically, and
laws passed to prevent that usurpation of our Constitutional rights.

~~~
ZenoArrow
> "The real problem is, when all you need to justify a crackdown is to make a
> peaceable assembly unpeaceful, it's relatively trivial to insert agent
> provocateurs to instigate violence and fade into the background or through
> the police lines as they push."

It has been suggested that this tactic has already been tried in the DAPL
protest, with an DAPL-linked employee called Kyle Thompson:

[http://thedailyhaze.com/kyle-thompson-
knightsbridge/](http://thedailyhaze.com/kyle-thompson-knightsbridge/)

------
forgotpwtomain
Relevant: Lack of a Cipher Status Indicator on Android has been an open issue
since 2009
([https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=5353](https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=5353))

There is also an open-source android app to detect fake base-stations:
[https://github.com/CellularPrivacy/Android-IMSI-Catcher-
Dete...](https://github.com/CellularPrivacy/Android-IMSI-Catcher-Detector)

~~~
BuildTheRobots
Just to expand, lack of cipher status is a massive problem on every phone
produced in the last decade. I've not had a warning on any smartphone I've
used (Apple, HTC, Samsung, Microsoft etc) or for that matter on any feature
phone I've used, including going back to things as old as the Nokia 3310,
6310, 8100 or as new as things like the Nokia 105 or E51.

Even on a handset that supports the indicator (the spec says all should) the
spec also says this can be overridden by the SIM card and apparently most sim
producers and macro operators disable the warning by default anyway.

It's also worth pointing out that I'm only aware of this being part of the GSM
spec. I don't know what happens with CDMA (which I believe is prevalent in the
USA) and 3G and 4G _can't_ run without encryption so it should (theoretically)
be a non-issue there too.

------
pdkl95
Speaking of radio... one of the water protectors has been flying a small drone
with a camera to try to monitor the pipeline progress. He explained that
sometimes this was difficult because he would lose control when the drone was
within a small-ish (10-20m? maybe?) radius of a specific building or work
site. The drone was programmed to auto-return if it lost signal, so the
operator was usually able to regain control a few seconds later.

Does anybody know what legal status is for jamming? I believe the FCC usually
considers interfering with other transmissions to be some sort of violation,
but it's been a very long time since I studied radio law (my amateur radio
license expired >20 years ago).

------
sitkack
When humor sites are the best source of "the news", things are mostly likely
in the shitter.

~~~
ZenoArrow
I'd suggest there has been far better coverage of the protests that can be
found from non-comedic sources, but you're not going to find insightful
coverage from the mainstream news.

Overall, the best coverage I've found has been from TYT Politics. Whilst I
dislike the clickbaity nature of the main TYT channel, the TYT Politics
channel is surprisingly decent. Here's one example of the coverage from TYT
Politics, giving clear evidence that the police have been lying to the press:

[http://youtu.be/TarWzK2Swxs](http://youtu.be/TarWzK2Swxs)

------
dsfyu404ed
I'm not really on board with the whole anti pipeline narrative but this kind
of action is really inappropriate. The FBI can't catch two Russian kids with a
pressure cooker before they become a problem but they can spend god knows what
screwing around with protesters. If it was just doing "back-end" stuff to help
out the state police who should be running the show then I'd be less not ok
with it. If it was the typical dragnet eavesdropping bs applied to everyone
they see come or go then I'd chalk it up to business as usual but I'm going to
call foul on using cell site simulators anything but sparingly. The FCC should
be very pissed off about the FBI for this. The Telecom companies should be
very pissed off at the FBI anialiating their QoS.

------
vlunkr
In other strange news, Cracked is on the front page of HN.

~~~
nilved
Maybe they're going the way of Buzzfeed

~~~
dbg31415
It's... less good for Hacker News that click-baity article titls are getting
more upvotes. This story was reported 3 times in the last 2 days...

[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=standing%20rock&sort=byDate&pr...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=standing%20rock&sort=byDate&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=story)

~~~
DiabloD3
It has been reported, yet the government has still not backed down in
attacking its own citizens over legal and morally correct actions.

The news should continue to be reported until it is no longer news, especially
given the large scale anti-American technological effort being mounted by our
own government to protect the interests of Big Oil.

~~~
dbg31415
Morally correct? That's a pretty questionable statement.

The protesters tried to cause a privately owned herd of buffalo to stampede
into the construction site... This resulted in a number of buffalo and a horse
being killed.

The protesters are causing damage to construction equipment owned by
individual owner-operators. Small businesses. This isn't right. This isn't
standing up to the government, or civil disobedience, it's destruction of
private property.

And before someone accuses me of not caring about the people there... I grew
up about 30 miles away from where the main protest is happening. These are my
family members... on both sides.

You going to give up your car and not use any oil? If so, great, you've got a
leg to stand on. But we have thousands of miles of pipelines across this
country. Pipelines are more efficient than trains or trucks... as long as
people still use oil, we still need oil pipelines. What's the alternative?

~~~
DiabloD3
The Oil industry has no future, and anyone who continues to invest in it or
further the goals of that industry isn't a very good investor and is
prioritizing short term profits over long term investments.

One of the largest drains on the US economy is the fossil fuels industry.
There is no future for them. We, as a society, need to admit this, and move
on.

How do we appologize to future generations, "Sorry, we raped the land, we
killed innocent people, you're dying of cancer, because temporary money was
more important instead of using better energy production methods"?

I've never heard of a solar farm having a sunlight pipeline leak, or
earthquakes caused by fracking the ground for wind reserves, or people mining
renewable energy and the mines collapsing and killing dozens.

People's lives have monetary value: they are assets that are worth something.
It is not profitable to sacrifice assets of such high value for such
unimportant things.

So, yes, morally _and_ financially correct.

And the alternative? Tesla. Either buy their car, buy a car from someone that
licensed their technology, or buy a brand new... ancient relic from the past.

~~~
dbg31415
Do the math. It's going to take time to switch off of petroleum. Even if
Teslas were free, it'd take decades to replace all the existing cars with
Teslas. You want us to do nothing in the interim?

We're in the process of moving on, but we can't stop everything while it's
happening.

The fact that you think people in North Dakota should be driving Teslas...
it's pretty shitty uneducated thing to say. Compassion, right? Understand what
people need to do, what they want to do, and suggest alternatives. You aren't
even trying, just spewing, "Oil is bad!" sound-bites. This isn't Reddit...

Please note that there isn't a single Tesla supercharging station in the
entire state of North Dakota. 0. So... I guess you want those people to
just... move? Die off? What exactly is your plan here for the people who live
in North Dakota? Give up oil tomorrow, give up jobs that provide for their
families, and... what exactly do they do next? It's a process, it'll take
time.

[https://www.tesla.com/findus#/bounds/49.38,-66.94,25.82,-124...](https://www.tesla.com/findus#/bounds/49.38,-66.94,25.82,-124.39?search=supercharger&name=us)

You're clearly clueless and haven't ever been to North Dakota. Understand that
most roads aren't paved, many people live in rural areas, when it rains...
we're talking massive washouts and mud you can't drive a car through. Mud that
a 4-wheel drive pickup gets stuck in.

And you're there saying those people, and everyone, should just instantly
overnight drive a Tesla. Smart.

~~~
marssaxman
Refusing to authorize the construction of more petroleum-extraction
infrastructure is a great way to spur market-based activity toward switching
away from petroleum. If fossil fuels are cheap, people will keep using them.
When fossil fuels become more expensive than the alternatives, people will
switch. We do not have very much time left - we've been hanging out in the
"interim" you propose for at least thirty years now, which is as long as I've
been aware of the issue - so we really do need to push on both ends of this
equation.

~~~
dbg31415
First, it hasn't been 30 years. The Tesla is the first sort-of-viable
alternative to most cars that hit the market. And... I say "sort-of-viable"
because you can't tow a horse trailer or throw hay bales off the back of a
Tesla. So... see my previous comment, it's not a viable alternative.

The oil pipeline represents the kind of economic engine that allows the people
of North Dakota to be able to afford Teslas. Look at the state... it's filled
with industrious people (very very low unemployment rate), who make not a lot
of money (very very low average wage). Besides, nobody is talking about NOT
having a pipeline, they're just talking about moving it. One way or the other
a pipeline is getting built, it's just a matter of 10-15 miles one way or the
other.

If I'm hearing you right, you'd rather ship oil from over seas (the amount of
carbon released is staggering), or ship it via truck, because building a
pipeline is wrong and bad and evil. Because... why exactly? It'll be a
generation or more before we're off petroleum, won't happen over night. Does
it make sense to be less efficient, and make it harder for the people in that
state to earn money, while we wait?

The pipeline will function for the rest of our lives... we aren't getting off
fossil fuels that quickly. Think about not only cars, but pickups, tractors,
construction equipment... on our ranch we had a 50+ year-old bulldozer that we
still used. Those sorts of big-engine items won't be replaced by solar power
for a lifetime or more. Not like we could have afforded to buy a new
bulldozer... fossil fuels... plan on them being here for our lifetimes. I
understand climate change, I don't think it's a great thing, but it's just the
world we live in.

~~~
marssaxman
It's been at least 30 years since we've known that we need to stop burning
fossil fuels. The fact that it has taken this long to actually begin the
transition reveals a terrible failure of global political leadership - and the
US government is one of the worst culprits.

The cost of solar power dropped as rapidly as it did because governments - in
particular the government of Germany, though others followed along with
similar programs - chose to heavily subsidize solar panel installations. This
stimulated a rapid increase in the level of investment in solar panel
technology and in the factories which produce them, which led to a rapid
improvement in both power-generation efficiency and manufacturing efficiency;
the whole industry scaled up, and now we live in a world where generating
electricity via solar is cost-competitive with fossil fuels, with no further
need for subsidy.

The fact that "the pipeline will function for the rest of our lives" is
exactly why we need to stop building pipelines. We don't _have_ the rest of
our lives to wean ourselves off this petroleum addiction. It's not about
replacing the pipeline with ships or trains; it's about making petroleum
expensive and inconvenient so that non-petroleum-based solutions can become
more competitive. We need petroleum to become more expensive, and we need the
cost to rise quickly, because that's the only way we're going to stimulate the
kind of investment that will enable the kind of scale-up that will let us
accomplish the enormous infrastructure reinvestment we should have started
working on long ago.

Yes, it sucks for the people of North Dakota that their lifestyles are
unsustainable, and it's going to be hard times ahead for them as they figure
out other ways to live. It's going to suck much, much more for the many
millions of people around the world on the verge of being displaced,
impoverished, and probably even killed as a result of the climate change we
are creating by continuing to burn petroleum products.

No, it won't happen overnight, but _this is not overnight_. We've known this
for decades. We have already been running down the clock. We can't just
magically demand more time, and more time, and more time, while continuing to
do things the way our parents and grandparents did them.

If you think we can continue living this way for the rest of our lives, you
really don't understand climate change. One way or another, our lives are all
on the verge of changing. Do you want to choose how that change happens now,
or wait til it is forced on you?

~~~
dbg31415
There's a difference between knowing we need to stop, and having an
alternative. The way you paint it... people should have just woken up in the
70s and said, "Yup, guess it's time to let my kids starve... I can't be
driving this car to work any more... it'll be better for the planet if we all
just die off since we inconvenience people on the coats."

What's kind of funny... North Dakota has a LOT to gain from global warming.
Look at their location. A flip to what you're saying is... "Hey, maybe all
those people who live on the coasts should move someplace that could stand to
have an extra 4-6 degrees added to the average annual temperature." I say that
tongue in cheek, mostly to point out how silly it is to mandate change.

People have to decide for themselves, right? Freedom and all that. Telling one
of the poorest states that they need to forgo economic improvement because
people in coastal states say that global warming is bad... it's exactly like
me saying you should move away from the coasts. You don't get to decide how
others live any more than they get to decide how you live.

It gets old hearing, "oil is bad" \-- we've certainly heard all the doom and
gloom for a long time. People need viable alternatives. Just saying, "Yes, it
sucks for the people of North Dakota that their lifestyles are
unsustainable..." you aren't going to get anyone to side with you. Not your
point, but you also realize that the power of government derives from the
consent of the governed -- right?

I split my time growing up in Seattle and North Dakota... and I'm quite purple
as a result. It's important to see the big picture. The reason Tesla is tying
in self-driving cars to electric cars. They know that as soon as more people
start driving electric cars... the price of oil is going to tank. Even with
amazing strides towards solar, wind, hydro... because of those strides even...
we're faced with 50+ more years of oil. As oil prices fall... it's just that
much harder to buy an electric car. They need a hook... and self-driving is
just that.

But it's not like we have to cut off all oil use tomorrow. Especially in more
rural areas, places that can absorb the CO2, places like North Dakota... the
places that have too many people, where nature can't possibly hope to keep
up... those are the places that need to stop using oil. Right? So putting the
burden on North Dakota... cities, people in cities should bear the lion share
because they're the ones causing the most damage.

------
mtgx
More details here:

[http://www.idsnews.com/article/2016/11/protestors-at-
standin...](http://www.idsnews.com/article/2016/11/protestors-at-standing-
rock-subject-to-24-hour-police-surveillanc)

------
MertsA
I really wish they would have confirmed that the attacker was in a plane. If
this really was the FBI, has there ever been a case where the U.S. government
was this flagrant at hacking citizens?

------
bogomipz
I have a question:

At the beginning of the article they author mentions that there is no cell
signal once you reach the camp.

Wouldn't a Cessna with a Stingray on board show up on your cell phone as a
signal?

It was my understanding that the way the Stingrays works is that they
broadcast a pilot signal just like a regular cell tower albeit a spoofed one.

Wouldn't you be able to see that your cell phone all of sudden has x bars
signal when you hear or see the Cessna and then that signal would disappear
when the Cessna leaves?

Cessnas are not that quiet and they aren't capable of flying that high to the
point that you couldn't hear or see them right?

~~~
throwaway729
They could just as easily be jamming cell signals.

~~~
MertsA
There's no way they would stoop that low. They can just as easily block
service with a stingray and avoid causing interference for everything other
than the target. There's also the issue that a jammer will also block 911
calls so I don't really see why the FBI or any domestic law enforcement would
want a simple jammer instead of using a stingray to selectively block service.
There's really only downsides to it when compared to using a cell site
simulator.

~~~
arca_vorago
"There's no way they would stoop that low."

I'm not sure you are familiar with the history of the police state. Just when
you think they won't go below a certain bar, then do. Why do you think, when
performing any other manner of illegal and unconstitutional things, they
wouldn't add one more to the list, especially when there seems to be no
repercussions?

I'm also reminded of occupy wall street, in which is was found out after the
fact that:

"Banks sat down with FBI officials to pool information about OWS protesters
harvested by private security; plans to crush Occupy events, planned for a
month down the road, were made by the FBI – and offered to the representatives
of the same organizations that the protests would target; and even threats of
the assassination of OWS leaders by sniper fire..." \- Revealed: how the FBI
coordinated the crackdown on Occupy - Naomi Wolf

Much later we even found out the CIA had some involvement, and that's an
organization which is not supposed to operate domestically! So, I think you
are being naive in putting the abuse of zero-day cell exploits past them,
especially when it might not even be the police forces themselves, any number
of three-letters could just be seeing this as a good realistic _training
exercise_ to test out their latest toys.

~~~
MertsA
"Why do you think, when performing any other manner of illegal and
unconstitutional things, they wouldn't add one more to the list, especially
when there seems to be no repercussions?"

Because there's just no incentive for them to use a jammer as opposed to a
cell site simulator. With all of the news of government corruption I
absolutely wouldn't assume that the government isn't doing something
nefarious, but with corruption, it has to be driven by some incentive, there
isn't really one here.

"So, I think you are being naive in putting the abuse of zero-day cell
exploits past them"

I'm not saying that they wouldn't do this, just that they wouldn't ever bother
with jamming specifically other than maybe for a bomb scare.

~~~
imchillyb
I believe your analysis to be flawed.

Confusion and fear are the _actual_ tools being utilized here.

Blocking some service, and targeting others is _exactly_ the type of attack
that foments both fear and confusion.

~~~
MertsA
I was referring to a literal jammer as opposed to using a cell site simulator
and null routing everyone's data. Using an actual jammer is simple and cheap
but it's also illegal and I don't believe the FBI could use one outside of
exigent circumstances.

------
wlkr
Reading this I was immediately reminded of the Del Rio Water scenes from Sleep
Dealer [0]. I find the prescience of that film quite remarkable, although I
suppose events like these have played through before, just without the
technology aspect.

[0]
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_Dealer](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_Dealer)

------
protomyth
First, someone should look at the coverage map of the area. Verizon and AT&T
are iffy, and Sprint and T-Mobile are non-existent.

Second, the article starts with "The demonstration at Standing Rock, North
Dakota is the largest gathering of indigenous people in modern American
history." which is taken from the source material's statement "The largest
gathering of indigenous nations in modern American history".

The article cannot even get its first fact correct, and frankly I would
dispute NBC's statement as well. I guess we haven't heard of Pow Wows and
government meetings.

I also notice that both articles seem to gloss over the indigenous versus non-
indigenous ratio. Not good for the narrative I guess.

Also, to be truthful there was a fairly sustained attack on all North Dakota
networks when that damned actor from the avengers said the state should be
hacked. I guess he forgets that all the tribal schools are on the ND network.
Maybe some of the protesters were caught in that?

[okay fine, cracked is factually untrue, but I get down voted for being here -
wtf?]

------
forgotpwtomain
Invalid SSL cert on the site.

> There were even reports of people's Gmail accounts being hacked.

This sounds suspiciously false - even if they are phones were forced to
downgrade to A5/1 this should have no effect on TLS.

~~~
karambahh
They mention unsecured Wi-Fi? Either way, openly attacking citizens accounts
seems... surprising for a government agency confronted to peaceful protesters?

I don't doubt the US (or German, or UK, etc) have the technical capacity to do
such things, but would they risk it be discovered for such a "low" target as a
natural site?

If true that probably means they have much more powerful tools at their
disposal for "true emergencies"...?

~~~
dsfyu404ed
However bad you think the government's actions are double your expectations
and it's still worse than that.

------
puppetmaster3
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eminent_domain](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eminent_domain)

~~~
DiabloD3
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_assessmen...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_assessment)

------
flour_power
cracked.com is a humor website is this definitely real?

