Posts by NSA
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Of course I am a bit sensitive to the implication that my colleagues have fallen down on the job.
Yeah that was what rubbed me the wrong way I think, I don’t imagine that them having fallen down on the job would be a widely held assumption, given the scope and frequency of these attacks. Anyway no offence intended Stephen and my apologies for any that was caused.
but clearly you are and could pass it on.
I’m still awaiting a reply to my first email, I’m not certain she’s that proficient yet. I hope that in some way clarifies the level of user I’m concerned for. Thanks for your understanding and taking the time to reply.
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Legal Beagle: A rather incomplete…, in reply to BenWilson,
the Rainbow Warrior
This telling piece by Jane Kelsey paints a remarkably different picture of NZSIS’s priorities compared to say the brief presented by the PM or any of the other propaganda folk are likely to run into. In running such a misguided and chaotic operation, it’s not difficult to glean how four of the six member Rainbow Warrior cell managed to completely elude even the NZSIS and escape the country. That Dominique Prieur and Commander Alain Mafart were only captured with the assistance of a Neighbourhood Watch group is damning evidence that the SIS were well out of their depth when it comes to that which they’re mandated to actually handle.
Taking into account more recent slip ups by the espionage sector, vis a vis Dotcom, the escapes of Ze’ev Barkan and David Reznic, the allegations against Rob Gilchrist, The Kitteridge report, the Gwyn report, the SIS’s requests that university staff tell tales on their colleagues in 2009, in this light, any assumption that the NZSIS are ethically endowed enough to handle the power they already hold is highly dubious.
This is an organisation that has clearly devolved, through lack of meaningful oversight by successive Governments, to a point where it’s now basically writing its own ticket. The fact that the New Zealand’s MPs are being put to work on legislation related to passport suspension within a hairs breadth of Kris Willoughby skipping the country, convicted murderer/pedophile Phillip John Smith skipping the country on a passport obtained under an alternate name, Paul Bennett and Simone Wright, wanted on fraud and sex charges, escaping the country using allegedly false passports (tracked down by a private investigator) makes an absolute mockery of the task ahead of the Government. This last case in particular exposes the absolute futility of the proposed rejigging of the legislation related to passport suspension before the Select Committee.
The charade is somewhat up, the New Zealand population have now received unequivocal evidence that we can, any one of us, either by acquiring fake passports that are convincing enough or by other methods get the hell out of dodge regardless. Very few could formulate a satire so brilliant, or a task so woefully futile as that which 121 Kiwis will turn up on Monday at the Hive to churn into honey.
In a professional context, greater competence is generally accorded greater responsibility. Traditionally or at least ideally, there is also the expectation that those granted the greatest responsibility are held to the highest of standards. The case of the NZSIS, an organization whose flagrant ineptitude and misplaced meddling has been clear to see for anyone who’s dared to look, more or less since its inception, somehow acquiring more responsibility and power, just a week out from the Gwyn report’s indictment of the SIS’s political neutrality, is ruefully ludicrous.
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Legal Beagle: A rather incomplete…, in reply to Stephen Judd,
Sorry I was at the murder house getting a crown. I'm aware my response above may have seemed abrupt Stephen, it's certainly nothing personal, and an explanation is in order. Please note that my reply is expressly contingent on this layperson's assumption that you may still be affiliated/ employed by or in some way accountable to Stuff.co.nz, quite possibly in a capacity related to IT. My response was made as (1) a consumer of (2) a news and information provider.
Stuff published the article linked to above entitled Why Stuff comments and log ins are missing. This article presented a similar account to that in your post, the onus was likewise on Gigya:
Gigya chief executive Patrick Salyer said at no point was any user data compromised.
Which is all well and good for those technically literate enough to parse that content, but in certain respects it sounds like the defensive mitigation one might expect from an entity intent on dodging accountability. Patrick Crewdson was clear enough in assuring the public that Stuff's data protection was intact:
"We treat any breach of services we use very seriously. We have no reason to believe any user information was compromised, and we're working with Gigya to make sure such a breach doesn't happen again."
But this doesn't really address the key concern some might have, that being; the message (screen capped above) received by users attempting to access stuff.co.nz at that time.
On receiving that message, this user's worry was not about the distinction of either stuff.co.nz or some 3rd party being hacked. or for that matter about whether our largely trivial user data kept by stuff.co.nz was compromised. The paramount concern on reading that was that it broadly implies that our own devices have been hacked. For the technically literate the truth soon outs itself, but for someone like my dad, this may result in him sending his computer to a shop who are only to happy to take his money, and as for my 91 year old grandma on her fresh iPad, well that could be a real cause for panic. So I hope you can understand why I'd feel that
Stuff, per se, was not hacked.
is not an ideal response by someone who may be employed by Stuff.co.nz, when there are users who have received the message:
"You've been hacked by the Syrian Electronic Army (SEA)"
I' couldn't care if it were the whole internet that had been hacked to bring up that message on stuff.co.nz, as long as there were at least some effort to provide reassurance either on their site or by their employees in their capacity as private individuals to us users that:
"you have not personally actually been hacked"
Stuff's relationship with 3rd parties is its own business and while some of the background is appreciated, the users' relationship remains with the website itself, the characteristics and the user experience were clearly affected to the extent that an insinuation that stuff.co.nz was not hacked, dependent on a more advanced understanding of how these platforms operate, would do little to enhance user confidence.
If, on the other hand, you are in no way affiliated with the stuff.co.nz then yes Stephen, the specific mechanisms of the attacks had already been outlined in the (then) first entry (The Guardian) of that Google link I provided in my initial post:The SEA is claiming to have hacked a number of sites, but evidence points to an ad network at the heart of the attacks
For whatever it's worth =)
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Legal Beagle: A rather incomplete…, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
Mea culpa
– The websites of British and North American media organisations and retailer Wal-Mart’s Canadian unit were hacked on Thursday in a suspected attack by the Syrian Electronic Army,
it’s common enough, depends on the choice of hat.
I also believe him to be someone who knows-of-what-he-speaks and whose clarification and insights I’m grateful for.
I feel likewise, but I do recall Stephen previously mentioned being employed by stuff.co.nz, which would, if its still the case, naturally inform my reading of his response.
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Legal Beagle: A rather incomplete…, in reply to Stephen Judd,
For the record: Stuff, per se, was not hacked.
Thanks for that Stephen, though I’m unsure of your professional affiliations here, so I raise an eyebrow at the strictness of interpretation of the term ‘hacked’ that you’re employing. For users, the site was compromised and unviewable for about fifteen minutes. Your description explains how it was carried out. It’s no secret that SEA target News sites:
The SEA claims responsibility for defacing or otherwise compromising hundreds of websites that it contends spread news hostile to the Syrian government. These include news websites such as BBC News, the Associated Press, National Public Radio, CBC News, Al Jazeera, Financial Times, The Daily Telegraph, The Washington Post
Fudging motives and scale is appropriate delivery for this thread:
Gigya, a third-party United States company which provides commenting and sharing services, had its domain registrar breached, which resulted in several websites [emphasis mine] pointing to a new website,
80 websites were compromised last night, and Stuff are listed by name.
What is topically missing from that stuff.co.nz article, is a brief mention, for the uninitiated i.e. the MSM’s target market; that the SEA are allegedly with us; enemies of ISIS.
Happy thanks giving, hope you didn’t miss us! The press: Please don’t pretend #ISIS are civilians. #SEA
I wasn’t poisoned per se, the cake was.
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Tangentially stuff.co.nz was hacked last night, I began receiving these messages there and only there at about 3:07NZ time. I thought I was a target(?), but a google search revealed that they, whoever they may be, hit news sites, so I blanked my post above, assuming it would be in the news but…
Clicking on the link took me here
Tech worm on Twitter claims:
Worried about “I’ve been hacked”, its not you, 80+ website was hijacked, by Syrian Electronic Army
SEAnuX 1.0 confirms.
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Legal Beagle: A rather incomplete…, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
Key and co are just using fear to dragoon the country into more draconian control,
Damn straight Ian, People seriously want to go fight abroad and the Government’s answer to that is confiscating their passports and what? Wait and see if they take kindly to that? Is there travel insurance cover?
Can’t wait 48 hours for a warrant to surveil who? Bob the muffler thief? Foreign Fighters? Are we going to film them packing their bags? Is this being touted as a measure to curb terrorism? If the situation is so urgent that we can’t wait 48 or even 24 hours as Palmer’s suggesting, to film suspected terrorists, then a warrant is the least of our god damned worries and a couple of video cameras is hands down the absolute most bloody shit for brains weapon one could ever conceivably fucking consider administering for the purpose of preserving the security of our country. tt’s preposterous. John Key and his team are a bunch of chronic bloodsuckers and it’s high time we turned all cameras on every one of those delusionally paranoid cunts and commence the neverending upload..
Key and his lot serve no purpose but to derail our democracy
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Hard News: Incomplete, inaccurate and misleading, in reply to Sofie Bribiesca,
Labour voted at the first reading to force it to go to select Committee stage so that it can be scrutinised . Write to your Mp or anyone you want to complain. Express yourself somewhere that might make a difference. Or, don’t. It is obvious that it’s pointless trying any National puppet though
For the first time ever and following Angela’s post I stepped up and made a Select Committee submission yesterday. It was pretty crap but we’ve all got to start somewhere. I appreciate Mr LIttle’s conscientiousness, but on this issue I stand right about here:
Though ‘complete confidence’ in my post above is exaggeration for effect, correct me if I’m wrong Sofie, but Labour don’t have the numbers to defeat the bill so it was inevitably going to Committee stage, whether Labour opposed or not?
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…And as a grand finale to this whole circus, Labour shows complete confidence that the SIS are a changed beast, trustworthy enough to be mandated to install video surveillance in New Zealanders’ homes for up to 48 hours without a warrant.
The bill passed its first reading by 107 votes to 14 – with the Green Party its only opponents.
Tune in here to see a room full of the filthiest perverts you’re ever likely to encounter*.
In case 48 hours of footage of our households seems a bit lengthy, Geoffrey ‘spycam’ Palmer to his credit(?!) is only advocating 24 hour Big Brother fishing expeditions. To the children of New Zealand, hope and pray your parents or the border don’t aspire to be terrorists as there are 107 voyeurs in Wellington gunning for gifting their spooks the right to capture your bits on candid camera without so much as a warrant being issued. Not for 1 minute, nor 2, but for a solid 48 hours of uninterrupted uncensored depravity.
*excluding (of course) The Greens.
