I fully understand that the operation is classified and details cannot be revealed, but I have to say: the description of the technical details is still a bad Hollywood movie [0]...<p>> After that, the momentum started to build. One team would take screenshots to gather intelligence for later; another would lock ISIS videographers out of their own accounts.<p>> "Reset Successful" one screen would say.<p>> "Folder directory deleted," said another.<p><i>Folder directory</i>??? Did they also delete the "file document"?<p>> The screens they were seeing on the Ops floor on the NSA campus were the same ones someone in Syria might have been looking at in real time, until someone in Syria hit refresh. Once he did that, he would see: 404 error: Destination unreadable.<p><i>404 error: Destination unreadable</i>??? At least, use "unreachable"...<p>> <i>"Target 5 is done," someone would yell.</i><p>> <i>Someone else would walk across the room and cross the number off the big target sheet on the wall. "We're crossing names off the list. We're crossing accounts off the list. We're crossing IPs off the list," said Neil. And every time a number went down they would yell one word: "Jackpot!"</i><p>[0] TV Tropes: Hollywood Hacking is when some sort of convoluted metaphor is used not only to describe hacking, but actually to put it into practice. Characters will come up with rubbish like, "Extinguish the firewall!" and "I'll use the Millennium Bug to launch an Overclocking Attack on the whole Internet!" <a href="https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HollywoodHacking" rel="nofollow">https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HollywoodHacking</a>
Here's another account in the form of an extended interview with one of the commanders of US Cyber Command at the time.<p><a href="https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/50/" rel="nofollow">https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/50/</a>
> "The United States is the country most highly dependent on these technologies," Deibert said. "And arguably the most vulnerable to these sorts of attacks. I think there should be far more attention devoted to thinking about proper systems of security, to defense."<p>It's all fun and games until someone melts down a reactor.<p>The journalist is probably playing with Cunningham's Law, but I distinctly recall the doomsday gap scene ( <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24481298" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24481298</a> ) as having been closer to the middle of <i>Dr. Strangelove</i>. The end came after the referent of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K10pdj5YOy0" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K10pdj5YOy0</a> .<p>Bonus clip (note the lack of any source attribution problem in these cases): <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZ8oA9-OQrg" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZ8oA9-OQrg</a>
It's kind of odd to think what ISIS' media operations brought it. Initially they seem to have garner a variety of international recruits, I most from a Muslim background but some not. But either way, a lot of their appeal was an absolute nihilistic rejection of "modernity". It seems like the appeal involve a kind of fundamental alienation combined with being a flavor of the month - sort of the appeal of leftism but lacking any sense that things can be improved.<p>I suspect shutting down their media probably stopped having an effect through novelty wearing off, all the best recruits being recruited and the world moving on to (inadvertently or not) selling some other reactionary rebellion - and the group being militarily defeated in Syria.
>Six years ago, it rather famously discovered that China had been hacking into the Dalai Lama's computer networks<p>why does china care so much about the dalai lama?
Really Hackernews, do you have to repost this neocon BS on a respectable technology forum.<p><a href="https://theintercept.com/2018/01/29/isis-iraq-war-islamic-state-blowback/" rel="nofollow">https://theintercept.com/2018/01/29/isis-iraq-war-islamic-st...</a>
Heres an account from the view of one of the allies involved in the same operation.<p><a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-12-18/inside-the-islamic-state-hack-that-crippled-the-terror-group/11792958?nw=0" rel="nofollow">https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-12-18/inside-the-islamic-st...</a>
Darknet diaries covered this story in a podcast ages ago. NPR is just recycling the content. Full episode here for those interested: <a href="https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/50/" rel="nofollow">https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/50/</a>
For the audio version of this story from a different source, I highly recommend the Darknet Diaries podcast episode: <a href="https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/50/" rel="nofollow">https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/50/</a>
Not sure if the article mentions it (haven't read it yet) but JTF-ARES was the force tasked with sabotage and often it was against targets such as the militants video (propaganda) productions.<p>Edit: Really not sure why I got downvoted, as I provided accurate info?
> I mean, I’m just guessing here but here’s an attack I think they probably did; first, imagine if they hacked into the phone of one of these ISIS media people and then on that phone, they stole the private decryption keys for that phone. This would be the key used to decrypt messages to that phone. Then, imagine they hacked into the WiFi network that phone was on and somehow captured all the traffic to that phone. Somewhere in that traffic are the private chat messages to that phone and with these private keys, I’m guessing it’s technically possible to decrypt those messages. This would be a pretty complex hack but I bet it’s something that US Cyber Command could do.<p>Yeah.. probably not how it happened.
> He asked us to use only his first name to protect his identity<p>There was 80 persons inside one of the most powerful room of the world so they just use his first name to protect his identity.
TL;DR: "Fire" (from the first sentence) wasn't shooting something but the beginning of a cyber exercise. Started with a successful phishing email and got lucky because an ISIS operative was re-using the same password in several places.<p>That article was painfully too long.
In a way doesn't this just cause the adversary to adopt better operational practices? Persistent access and monitoring would probably be better long term.
Friendly reminder: the US basically created ISIS through it's hamfisted invasion of Iraq. Cheerleading tbis sort of effort is like congratulating a child when they decide to eat their peas.
What is the point of using an <a href="http://" rel="nofollow">http://</a> URL with a website like NPR. These popular sites all redirect to <a href="https://" rel="nofollow">https://</a><p>Headers will be sent over the wire in the clear before any redirection can occur.<p>A localhost-bound proxy can fix this before the request leaves network interface.<p>I guess the "modern" browser fixes this for everyone else not using a ("modern") proxy.