
Glenn Greenwald Charged with Cybercrimes in Brazil - jmsflknr
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/21/world/americas/glenn-greenwald-brazil-cybercrimes.html
======
piadodjanho
In case someone is wondering how they hacked Telegram.

They used caller id spoofing and a telco vulnerability.

1\. Change your phone ID and try to login on Telegram;

2\. Telegram will send an SMS with an authentication number followed by a
phone call to the actual mobile phone;

3\. To avoid the message going through, spams the victim with many VoIP calls;

4\. The Telegram call will be recorded on the missed call voice messages;

In Brazil, you can listen to the recorded messages calling your own number.
Surprisingly, the telco only checks if the calling number was equal to the
called number.

5\. Again, with the call id spoofing, call your own number.

6\. Now you have access to the victim's Telegram (past conversations and
contact list)

7\. ???

8\. Profit.

EDIT: I translated part of the transcription used to accuse GG in another
thread.

~~~
jaifraic
I'm surprised that 2FA wasn't activated.

~~~
elicash
Isn't it possible _he_ used it but the person he was speaking with didn't?

At least from a U.S. perspective, it seems more likely that law enforcement
would try to get a court order to get into the hacker's conversations than a
journalist's.

~~~
piadodjanho
The supreme court judges already stated that Gleen Greenwald cannot be
investigated because the reporting. The police got this conversation from a
backup kept by the hackers. There is no chance this accusation will be accept
by a judge, it goes against the constitution.

Some people speculate the prosecutor was looking for exposure and might run
for some position in the next election.

------
airstrike
Before commenting, let's all pause for a minute and recognize that:

(a) we're not versed in Brazilian Law

(b) we don't really have all the facts of the case

(c) "charged with" and "found guilty of" are vastly different things

(d) one's opinion on the morality of a certain alleged episode has no bearing
on its legality

~~~
bawolff
> (d) one's opinion on the morality of a certain alleged episode has no
> bearing on its legality

While this is true, the related question over whether the law in question is
"just", is very much a relavent issue, and something worthy of comment.

~~~
elicash
Are folks actually questioning the "just" nature of a law, really? If so,
which law?

Or are folks questioning whether that law is being falsely applied in this
instance?

I _think_ it's the latter. Folks are saying, essentially, that he wasn't part
of the conspiracy to commit a cybercrime but that he was working as a
journalist who simply received information. That's a very fact-dependent
claim. I don't think folks here would say that journalists have blanket
immunity to commit cybercrime or anything like that -- this seems like a
dispute over the facts. Of which we have basically none.

~~~
rodolphoarruda
There are recordings of GG kind of "coordinating" actions of the hacker group
right in the middle of the process of extracting private messages. Hacker
would ask GG's opinion about what to do next: 1. expand the attack 2. stop and
assess what they've gotten so far. Then GG clearly advise them to continue to
extract more data. So state attorneys now think this attitude "crossed some
lines" with crime to which GG is an accomplice.

------
coliveira
The goal of this persecution is not necessarily to jail Glenn Greenwald. What
they want is to muddle the discourse and to discredit the journalists involved
in this reporting. Let's remember that the group of prosecutors in question
are supporters of the current government and the ex-judge is now the justice
minister, a position he occupied just after releasing "dirt" on the government
opponents to facilitate the presidential election. They have resorted in the
last few years to all kinds of political and judicial tricks to silence their
opponents through courts. This is exactly the kind of manipulation that was
exposed by Glenn Greenwald.

~~~
moralsupply
> a position he occupied just after releasing "dirt" on the government
> opponents to facilitate the presidential election

That judge went after one of the largest corruption scandals of our age.
There's no evidence he did so in order to acquire a political position: at the
heyday of the prosecutions against the workers party, the current president
(who made the judge one of his ministers) wasn't even widely known by the
population.

On the other hand, Greenwald, who works for The Intercept and is funded by
Pierre Omidyar (one of Ebay's founders), has a very strong leftist agenda
(he's a regular in communist conventions and whatnot, for that matter), and
has been working in all ways possible to discredit the current government
while praising the previous government which was impeached -- the one whose
party members have been convicted by various crimes, mostly corruption
related. It's hard to argue that Greenwald was exposing some sort of
manipulation by the judicial system. He was trying to manipulate the media by
creating a narrative using information that he acquired illegally, and that he
couldn't use to demonstrate wrongdoing in the end of the story.

~~~
alasdair_
>It's hard to argue that Greenwald was exposing some sort of manipulation by
the judicial system.

It's not hard to argue at all - it's exactly what he did.

The leaked texts make it clear that the prosecutor's office and the judge
(Moro) had clear political motivations for taking down the front-running
candidate in the last election and that they abused their powers to do so.

~~~
moralsupply
> The leaked texts make it clear that the prosecutor's office and the judge
> (Moro) had clear political motivations for taking down the front-running
> candidate in the last election and that they abused their powers to do so.

At the time the bulk of the investigations were happening, Lula wasn't even
running for president, and the elections were quite far away (4-6 years), so
you can't argue he was in the front-run of the election.

~~~
coliveira
That's false, Lula had always been the frontrunner in popular polls for the
2018 election. He was convicted by the ex-judge in the year before and jailed
a few months before the election. Moreover, just a few days before the
election ex-judge Moro and his group was actively providing"dirty" about
Bolsonaro's opponent to the press, even though he had already negotiated a
position in Bolsonaro's cabinet.

All this political activity is revealed by Greenwald's reporting on the leaked
messages.

~~~
moralsupply
The "dirt" you're referring to is a large amount of criminal activity that
lead to the the most important figures in the workers party to jail. Are you
implying that all the evidences that lead to the prosecution of those
politicians were created out of nowhere for political purposes?

~~~
coliveira
Bolsonaro's rival in 2018's election was Mr. Haddad. Conveniently, ex-judge
Moro and his group decided to prosecute him a few weeks before elections.
Greenwald's reporting shows that this was politically motivated, like most
actions of this supposedly "unbiased" group self-labeled "car wash operation".

~~~
moralsupply
Please provide sources showing that Moro prosecuted Haddad a few weeks before
the elections.

Also, do you really believe that could have changed the outcome of the
elections?

It's interesting to note that Greenwald keeps playing the key that Moro did
"politically motivated" actions (disregarding the fact the legal actions
against the worker's party went through about a dozen judges beyond Moro),
while Greenwald himself is doing "journalism" that is "politically motivated".

~~~
coliveira
That's a fundamental misunderstanding. Greenwald, think what you want about
his political ideas (which are not entirely on the left spectrum), has no
responsibility to be politically unbiased. On the contrary, he is very upfront
about his political thinking (against the powerful, as he puts it). He has
complete right to work on journalism independent of these views. This is part
of his freedom of activity and expression as a journalist and it is ensured by
the Brazilian laws. On the other hand, members of the judiciary, responsible
for handling criminal matters, have NO RIGHT whatsoever to act based on their
political preferences, as this goes directly against the mission of the
judiciary. They also have NO RIGHT to maintain hidden coordination with
prosecutors of the case. The prosecutors have NO RIGHT to maintain hidden
coordination with superior instances about cases they're handling, neither
they have the right to use the media to publish partial information that will
help make their case in the public view. These are all activities that have
been associated to the group lead by ex-judge Moro.

~~~
moralsupply
I'm still waiting to see the sources that show Moro interfering in the
elections by suing the workers' party candidate a few weeks before the
elections.

A few points:

1\. The judge can talk to anyone (freedom of expression here). He would incur
in a crime if his ruling favored one side disregarding the evidences

2\. Greenwald associated himself with a group that hacked Moro's phone so that
they could steal potentially incriminating information. He's being prosecuted
because of that act, not because of his political agenda, or because "the
government" is trying to cease his freedom of expression

3\. The uncovered conversations between Moro and the prosecutors didn't
uncover wrongdoing, as far as the law is concerned. Moro was open about his
talks with the prosecutors _and_ defense about 4 years ago, so that alleged
"coordination" wasn't exactly "hidden"

4\. Moro didn't "lead" any groups. All the cases that put many workers' party
leaders in jail were judged by many other judges, in different stances of the
judiciary, including the supreme court which is highly favorable of the
workers party to this day

In essence this whole story is a smoke screen to try to incriminate a Judge
and "forget" about the crimes committed by the workers party leaders by
stating that "because Moro talked to prosecutors, the rulings were biased",
and by stating that "a heroic journalist is having his freedoms of expression
persecuted" while that journalist committed a crime exactly on the grounds of
stopping other people to communicate by invading and stealing data from their
devices.

------
diegoholiveira
It's important to notice that he's not been charged for publishing those
materials. He's been charged for giving instructions to the hackers about
targets and contents, like a lider of the hackers. So, it's not a leak, it's a
content obtained illegally through a series of crimes.

~~~
crazynick4
This is something journalists do all the time. If a source comes to you, even
with illegally obtained materials, it is normal for a journalist to ask for
more, that's their job.

~~~
diegoholiveira
Well, that's something that we need to think about: should we allow
journalists to be free of charged when they know they sources is actively
hacking someone to get those content?

I truly don't have an answer, but I think this ethical question must be done.

~~~
sangnoir
> should we allow journalists to be free of charged when they know they
> sources is actively hacking someone to get those content?

Should journalists be free of charge when they know the source is breaking the
Espionage Act? _New York Times v United States (1971)_ says "yes"

~~~
diegoholiveira
I think the diference is that the source of this case is a person that choose
to colaborate.

In the case in question, we're talking about hacking private phones (not those
provided by the government as corporate phone).

I don't think the same principle can be applied here.

~~~
sangnoir
The Times, by publishing classified information, were _themselves_ potentially
violating the Espionage Act (according to the government's assertion) - so the
principle applies in more ways than by proxy. Which is why it was vital that
the courts ruling affirmed the importance of a free press, despite laws that
might be used to gag it.

~~~
diegoholiveira
Classified information is public information (belongs to the government and
have a deadline to be disclosed), so makes sense to apply the same principle
of New York Times v United States (1971).

But hacking private phones sounds like a new question to me.

------
freepor
Oof. I don’t know why he would stay in Brazil while publishing stuff that
embarrassed powerful interests in Brazil. You can do that shit in Canada, in
Brazil you’re lucky to not get a bullet.

~~~
xfalcox
He has husband and 4 kids in Brazil. Not easy to move when you have roots in a
place.

~~~
brazilianabroad
> Not easy to move when you have roots in a place.

As a Brazilian in voluntary exile due to the violence, I'd respectfully point
out that it's also not easy to move _when you 're dead_

~~~
detcader
"Many courageous Brazilians sacrificed their liberty and even life for
Brazilian democracy and against repression, and I feel an obligation to
continue their noble work." \- Greenwald to The Daily Beast today

------
mici
Mirror: [http://archive.is/Eoahu](http://archive.is/Eoahu)

------
buboard
Of course he would be. He recently talked about his adventures in brazil to
the Taibbi&Halper podcast :
[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=K05mVkmF8Bk](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=K05mVkmF8Bk)

I hope he manages to skip out of this cause his kind of reporting is rare.

------
piadodjanho
The accusation [1] is public. I will translate the highlight parts of the
conversation transcription between the hacker and Gleen Greenwald.

In another thread I discussed how they hacked the Telegram accounts.

Page 58:

> MOLIÇÃO: Like it happened with Danilo Gentilli, the MBL and Holiday. We got
> [their Telegram account] last october. They only started talking [on the
> news] about this [Telegram hacking] now.

Some context:

Danilo Gentilli is a liberal tv show host that was very vocal on the last
election; MBL is acronym to "Free Brazil Movement"; Holiday is a politician
with MBL affiliation.

In Brazil, the liberals are the right-wings. Their motto is "Liberal on the
economy and conservative on the customs", custom as traditional practice.

On page 58:

> GG: Because, for instance, if they knew that someone is getting ready to
> publish [the hacked conversations], or worst, that we [The InterceptBR] are
> ready to publish, they would get an judicial order to forbid the publication
> or reporting of this material. But so far, no one have done that. Therefore,
> it look like they don't know who has "this material".

> GG: They know someone have this, but they don't know who has it.

> M: Yes. We also want to know your opinion about something... Once you
> publish the articles, everyone will exclude their conversations, everyone
> will exclude their Telegram. We want to know what do you suggest us should
> to do. We have some names separated, we can get [their conversation from
> Telegram] this weekend or leave it for a while. [I ask this]because, there
> are some people that already changed their number, we can't get their
> conversations anymore.

Page 60.

> GG [black text included]: Yes. Look, we are going to [??], what is going to
> happen? They are going for sure try to accuse us in participating in the
> hacking. They are going to accuse that us of being part on the hacking
> attempt. For sure, they are going to accuse us. So, I'll keep the messages
> for myself, the messages are the proof that you only talked to us after you
> already done everything. This is very important for us as journalist to show
> that our source only talked after they already had everything.

Page 61.

> GG [only text in red]: We already saved everything, we received everything.
> I think you had any reason to keep any of this, understood?

In the bold text, Molicao asks if they should hack more people, he wanted to
know GG opnion.

Page 62.

> GG: Yes, yes. This is difficult because I can't give you advice but I've the
> obligation to protect my source and this obligation is a very serious
> obligation, very serious. We are going to do everything we can to do this,
> understood?

> GG [only red text]: Also, we are going to say we received everything before
> those articles from the other week about Moro [begin hacked], about the
> other hacking.

[1] [https://politica.estadao.com.br/blogs/fausto-macedo/wp-
conte...](https://politica.estadao.com.br/blogs/fausto-macedo/wp-
content/uploads/sites/41/2020/01/TARJADAdenuncia-spoofing.pdf)

------
AndrewBissell
It's funny to contrast Greenwald's situation with that of people in the US
press who hate his guts, all while they bemoan the Trump admin's threats to
press freedom. This is what happens to journalists who _actually_ speak truth
to power, rather than flatter it while indulging in a bunch of self-
congratulatory theater.

~~~
giacaglia
The fact is that he worked direct with the hackers to hack government
information. He is gonna go through the judicial system as everyone does

~~~
AndrewBissell
"Everyone"

Yes, we all remember when the CIA officers responsible for the torture program
were prosecuted, or when James Clapper was indicted for lying to Congress, or
when the Boeing executives who knowingly sold a plane with safety flaws were
brought up on criminal charges. Imagine the threat to the rule of law if we
allowed offenders like Greenwald to go unpunished!

------
detcader
In my city I often hear people joking that they'll "move to Canada" if
politics gets too annoying for them e.g. Trump is re-elected. I imagine for
them, spending a few minutes with Greenwald's principles would be a 2001: A
Space Odyssey-level of alien environment.

------
padseeker
Last time I checked Glenn Greenwald was saying that Russian interference had
nothing to do with results of the last election and Hillary lost because she
was a bad candidate. I have no quibble with the bad candidate line, but it's
pretty clear that the Russians we're actively involved trying to get Trump
elected. I think some people have legitimate disagreements with Glenn.

~~~
rhino369
Foreign interference is a big deal and shouldn't be overlooked.

But I just don't think its plausible that the identified Russian activities
swung the election. The Russian fake news trolls were a drop in the ocean of
social media/news. The russia spend on facebook was 0.05 percent of the
candidates (not even going to mention the free posting by individual
supporters). FB estimated that 1 out of ~20 thousand pieces of "content" it
served related to the election was russian.

In order to believe they had an impact, you have to believe russia ads/fake
news are almost infinitely more persuasive than other propaganda, ads, news,
etc.

~~~
snowwrestler
Asking whether they "swung" the election is an unnecessarily high bar. The
question is whether they influenced the election, and the answer is a pretty
clear yes. Russian hacks of the DNC and John Podesta, and the ensuing leaks,
drove front-page headlines and cable news coverage for weeks in aggregate, if
not more.

~~~
kaonashi
The DNC came out with the story about the Russian hack very quickly; they
can't possibly have known it was them with any accuracy.

It could easily have been a leak, and the Russia story was simply to deflect
from the content of the leak.

~~~
SlowRobotAhead
IIRC the DNC was using Crowstrike for their AV and security who interestingly
has a lot of their company based in Ukraine, and both CS and DNC refused to
allow the FBI access to servers and logs to verify the Russian attack.

IDK much about much, but that sure does seem questionable to me.

~~~
onecool
The Crowdstrike line is another primary talking point of the paid Russian
propagandists.

~~~
equalunique
A talking point belonging to a group one dislikes does not make it invalid.

------
epx
I don't think this will go far, for Greenwald. He didn't invade the Telegram
accounts; other people did, yet another people used (and propably paid for)
the service, one of them is a hard-left politician that happens to be
Greenwald's husband.

His involvement was to put the weight of his name to defend his husband's
actions. And yes, I look down on Greenwald now, while I used to look up to him
when I read 'No Place to Hide', for a variety of reasons.

Bolsonaro is a Trump-like clown but make a little research why people voted on
the clown first.

~~~
crazynick4
I was under the impression that people voted for Bolsonaro because they are
fed up with a corrupt system. Lula de Silva (who actually was massively
popular) was jailed for "corruption" in Operation Car Wash. However, as we now
know thanks to Greenwald, this anti-corruption fight was corrupt in itself,
and the person overseeing the investigation was cooperating with the
prosecutors to strengthen their case. And this same person now holds major
office under Bolsonaro.. So what does that say about the whole premise for
having a Bolsonaro to 'change the corrupt system'?

~~~
roynasser
Some would argue that when you have changing governments (as opposed to a
single "party"/"faction" for a long time), the level of corruption tends to be
more in check... (this is because new governments don't have "the reigns" on
every different area of the government, and also because this bolsters the
opposition to "dig for dirt"...

The level of corruption in Brazil now adays (as a product of the nearly 4
mandates under Lula) is extreme. It was enough of an extreme that the people
decided to elect an almost unknown, highly polarizing figure such as
Bolsonaro...

Politicians and underwear should be changed often imo!

~~~
crazynick4
Ok that's fine but should you change these politicians through what ends up
being an essentially corrupt and biased process?

