
Western intelligence hacked Yandex to spy on accounts - jbegley
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-cyber-yandex-exclusive-idUSKCN1TS2SX
======
gloflo
'Western' meaning the usual aggressors, the _“Five Eyes” intelligence-sharing
alliance of the United States, Britain, Australia, New Zealand and Canada_.

~~~
tantalor
Here it's vague enough to be meaningless to the point of irresponsible
journalism. _WHICH COUNTRY?_

~~~
kss238
The article mentions, that sources could not confirm which nation launched the
attack.

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mc32
Unsurprisingly Yandex say that this was detected early, no damage was done and
no user data was accessed via the hacking.

Obviously that rings hollow... but, I wonder, what kind of security protocol
do high gov officials in RU use, do they follow better security hygiene than
the West?

This release coincides with G20 meetings. Intentional or happenstance?

~~~
gbuk2013
Something like this maybe?

[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/11/russia-
reverts...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/11/russia-reverts-
paper-nsa-leaks)

;)

~~~
knicholes
I could swear there was something recent I've read about determining which
keys are being pushed by hearing the sound of the keyboard...

~~~
Reelin
Are you thinking of this recent paper about acoustic side channel attacks on
smartphones?

Hearing your touch: A new acoustic side channel on smartphones
([http://arxiv.org/abs/1903.11137](http://arxiv.org/abs/1903.11137))

~~~
knicholes
Oh wow! This wasn't the one I was talking about, but very cool nonetheless.
It's similar, but with keyboards. I hate posting this without evidence, but I
think there was also something having to do with watching a plant or a pane of
glass vibrate to know what is being said inside a room. The keyboard noise and
the vibrations may also be unrelated. If I can find these articles, I'll come
back and post them here.

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billfruit
Kind of ethically dubious to this type of work. There is moral outrage when
Google tries to do military contracting, but none against when federal
government doing this type of extra-legal actions.

~~~
wavefunction
I expect my government to spy on foreign citizens and governments. If they do
something truly terrible like kill civilians or disrupt the natural society of
a country I'd have to take a hard look. Google is a private firm and subject
to market forces like boycotts over military contracting. It's because
governments and Google are two very different things.

~~~
avs733
And you also rely on them for information as to who is truly terrible.

~~~
sonnyblarney
"And you also rely on them for information as to who is truly terrible."

No, not at all. Thankfully we have many people in press, innumerable sources
of information, and a lot of public discourse on these things.

Unlike in some regions, where journalists are murdered, sometimes by the
state.

~~~
escanda
You guessed:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Couso](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Couso)

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stirfrykitty
I'm rather fond of Yandex. They have great engineers and make a solid product.
Being Russian doesn't bother me, as I have nothing against the Russians.
Yandex search has a fantastic image search that rival most others. And the
fact that one does not have to provide a mobile number is a plus.

~~~
webmobdev
Their search engine is not bad too, and I use it as my primary search engine.
They also helpfully provide a link to other search engines so that if you are
not satisfied with their search result you can search on the other search
engines with just a click. This ensures that they get crucial data (the search
query) to improve their search results and also doesn't leave their user
disgruntled due to non-relevant search result.

On the flip side, they are just as intrusive as Google. When I installed their
browser or mail app (don't remember which one) it asked for my ios PIN /
password (no ios app ever requires a PIN / password for installation - and no,
I am not talking about an iCloud password which is required for app
installation if you have enabled it for app installation).

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Bakary
That's sad. One of the main features of Yandex mail was that your data was
reasonably safe from Western intelligence.

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notthegov
In my view, if you’re hacking for espionage purposes as a nation who defends
classical liberalism, then I’d argue your actions are justified. I do not
understand why sources involved with this (or related stories) would talk to
reporters.

Despite our flaws, there’s a difference in Russia or China hacking and the US.
To suggest otherwise is advocating moral relativism in my opinion.

I do, however, support a pardon for Snowden and Assange.

~~~
astazangasta
Err? So, suggesting a uniform standard that says hacking is bad is advocating
moral relativism?

There is no end to this "ends justify the means" crap. "Well, we're the good
guys, so it's ok for us to torture, depose governments, nuke civilians, fix
elections, assassinate foreign leaders, spy on our citizens..." Etc.

~~~
Veen
It doesn't matter whether "we're" the good guys or even if there are any good
guys. Where there are groups with different interests there will always be
conflict.

Given that there will always be conflict, you can choose to do nothing and be
out-competed, you can act in the interest of the group to which you belong, or
you can act in the interest of the other side.

It's possible to argue that these actions are not, in fact, in the interest of
your group, but that has nothing to do with some facile Hollywood conception
of international relations as good guys vs. bad guys.

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labster
One of these days, New Zealand will turn on us, and we will all be speaking
Eeenglish and living in hobbit holes.

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pugworthy
Are we at all surprised by this?

Really, it's a lot like the allowable amount of insect parts that the US Govt.
Food and Drug Administration allows in food. You're shocked a bit to read it,
but the truth is you've been living it (and eating it) for some time.

See
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Food_Defect_Action_Levels](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Food_Defect_Action_Levels)
for example for what I mean about "allowable amount of insect parts"

~~~
sprafa
If we weren’t hacking into Yandex, I’d be asking for new chiefs at the
intelligence agencies who would. What the heck of the point of an agency if
you’re not gathering intelligence?

~~~
saagarjha
What does hacking into Yandex give us other than a reason for Russia to do the
same?

~~~
empath75
They are doing the same. Intelligence is dirty business but it has to be done.

~~~
fwip
Must it be done?

~~~
astazangasta
No. The intelligence is crap; the CIA has missed basically everything
important in its history. It is frequently politicized. It only goes to the
President, who might ignore it or misinterpret it. We do much better just by
reading newspapers well.

~~~
sk0g
> missed basically everything important in its history

Or the things it has caught don't make newspaper headlines. Because the plots
were defused, and thus can't be used to cause chaos and fear in citizens,
something newspapers seem to delight in.

~~~
luckylion
> Or the things it has caught don't make newspaper headlines. Because the
> plots were defused, and thus can't be used to cause chaos and fear in
> citizens, something newspapers seem to delight in.

That sounds like conspiracy thinking. The media isn't able to suppress the
CIA's good deeds, and I don't believe they'd try. "Big alien invasion averted
thanks to heroic CIA agent" is a great headline. So great in fact, that
fiction books are written on that premise.

With all the minor and major leaks from the intelligence community, they're
supposed to have a super tight and successful conspiracy going to hide the
fact that they are actually effective? I have some doubts, both on the
technical part (large conspiracies are hard) and the reasoning.

~~~
sprafa
The CIA constantly says “we have prevented X terrorist attacks in the last Y
years“ and nobody believes them

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ionised
We have no reason to believe them.

They have a demonstrable history of lies and terrorist-style anti-democratic
activities themselves for political and economic purposes.

~~~
sprafa
There’s no arguing with you. You’d rather believe that you’re being persecuted
than in the complexities of actual reality.

~~~
dang
Please don't cross into personal attack on HN. It doesn't help, and provokes
worse from others.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

