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NBC Story about Hacking at Sochi is 100% Fraudulent

497 pointsby julespittover 11 years ago

38 comments

NathanKPover 11 years ago
The longer version of the report shows more details:<p><a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/watch/nbc-news-web-extra/honeypot-tests-likelihood-of-hackings-in-russia-137595971642" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nbcnews.com&#x2F;watch&#x2F;nbc-news-web-extra&#x2F;honeypot-tes...</a><p>On the phone they went to a website and ignored warnings in order to download and execute a malicious APK. On the PC they followed a link in a scammy looking phishing email to download and open a malicious Office document. On the Mac they visited a website that had an ad suggesting that they needed an &quot;antivirus program&quot; so they downloaded and installed it.<p>So the devices were hacked not because Sochi is especially dangerous, but because of pure stupidity. Nothing can help you if you deliberately ignore warnings, and deliberately install Trojan horse malware. The exact same thing would have happened in the US.
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afreakover 11 years ago
One of the things that I think is going on here is that there is a bias (and for very good reason) towards Russia and other Eastern European countries due to the number of malicious activity encountered from the likes of malware and security attacks.<p>However, one thing that everyone should keep in mind is that Russians do not &quot;shit where they eat&quot;. It is not very common for any Russian group to specifically target people within their own borders as that would bring upon a lot of attention.<p>It is 100% likely that their connections are being monitored and 100% likely that a dossier is being built on reporters and officials visiting the country, but it is 100% for sure that they&#x27;re not being specifically targeted with malware. If they are, the person initiating the attack is going to find themselves in a lot of heat.<p>Engel&#x27;s Wikipedia article is quite fluffy on that note:<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Engel" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Richard_Engel</a>
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agwaover 11 years ago
At 2:37 in the video, the &quot;special software&quot; that allegedly showed that the computers had been hacked is a tcpdump revealing nothing but pings and DNS PTR queries.
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powertowerover 11 years ago
Can we please get back to discussing how Russia is abusing the US yogurt company Chobani by not letting its yogurt cups into the country.<p>This is all over the news wire, every outlet is reporting on it, the Obama administration has intervened, and it needs to be on top page of HN like now.<p><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/06/nyregion/russia-blocking-a-yogurt-shipment-from-reaching-us-olympians.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nytimes.com&#x2F;2014&#x2F;02&#x2F;06&#x2F;nyregion&#x2F;russia-blocking-a...</a><p>(*sarcasm)<p>Is there any story about Russia right now that&#x27;s not actively searching to criticize something?
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Demiurgeover 11 years ago
You can see huffingtonpost and drugereport post completely opposite, manipulative, news as far as American politics go. However, when it comes to international news, stories on both align perfectly, there is never a story that&#x27;s off of the USA-party line. Russia bad! Putin bad! Olympics bad! I haven&#x27;t seen a single positive thing, and I very much doubt there isn&#x27;t a single positive to report. I read plenty in Russian press, even anti-establishment.
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GigabyteCoinover 11 years ago
It&#x27;s quite obvious that old habits die hard when it comes to North America vs. Russia. We can&#x27;t seem to manage to utter a single decent word about them via public media.<p>I wasn&#x27;t even aware that sports competition begins today, until today.
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pieterhgover 11 years ago
What does he think he&#x27;s doing with that MacBook box! @ 1m10s
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znowiover 11 years ago
I yet to see a single positive report on the Sochi Olympics. If I was a conspiracy theorist, I might think there&#x27;s a semi-hidden agenda to discredit the games.
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primitivesuaveover 11 years ago
Most news stories about technology where a technologically-illiterate reporter relies on a so-called &quot;leading expert&quot; to tell him what to report are 100% fraudulent. They did this for a surprisingly long time with Bitcoin, where the &quot;expert&quot; would inform the reporter about SHA 256 collisions and the reporter would twist that around into a statement like &quot;so you&#x27;re saying that Bitcoins can be stolen?&quot; Obviously, they can and have been stolen, but not by some lucky bastard finding a SHA256 collision.<p>In the end, it is the general public that ends up with these ridiculous misconceptions, while only a handful of people (e.g. the readers of HN) actually see through these ridiculous stories.
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memracomover 11 years ago
So many of the news stories about Russia recently have been fraudulent. Like the uproar about the child protection law that is called an &quot;anti-gay&quot; law, but nobody has found any evidence of the law being enforced. How many silly laws get passed in the USA that never get enforced? That&#x27;s what democracy is all about. There is no wise all-knowing king who can rule by proclamation; instead we muddle through with a crowd of flawed human beings who got themselves elected by a bigger crowd of citizens who are at least as flawed as the legislators.<p>And how come the haters of that Russian law, never target any of their venom at the Russian legislators who wrote and passed that law with a large majority?<p>Investigative journalism is dead. Journalists are now bought and paid for by rich patrons. If you want to find a source of reliable news that you can trust, then sorry, you are out of luck. That era has long since passed.
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wildcardwwover 11 years ago
The NBC video definitely started to lose credibility when the security expert proved he couldn&#x27;t even open a box normally...
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protomythover 11 years ago
Well, its not like they haven&#x27;t lied before. The whole Chevrolet C&#x2F;K-Series pickup trucks Dateline story showed what they think of actual journalism. In technology, they had that DEF CON fun from a while back.
stevewilhelmover 11 years ago
The story wasn&#x27;t 100% fraudulent:<p>&quot;Personal Privacy Note: Travelers should be aware that Russian Federal law permits the monitoring, retention and analysis of all data that traverses Russian communication networks, including internet browsing, e-mail messages, telephone calls, and fax transmissions.&quot; [1]<p>&quot;Additionally, cyber criminals may use the games as a lure in spam, phishing or drive-by-download campaigns to gain personally identifiable information or harvest credentials for financial gain. Lastly, those physically attending the games should be cognizant that their communications will likely be monitored.&quot; [2]<p>Basically, while at Sochi, you will have very little digital privacy and if you visit Olympic game related websites, they may attempt to (broadly speaking) &quot;hack&quot; your computer.<p>[1] <a href="http://travel.state.gov/content/passports/english/go/Sochi.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;travel.state.gov&#x2F;content&#x2F;passports&#x2F;english&#x2F;go&#x2F;Sochi.h...</a><p>[2] <a href="https://www.us-cert.gov/ncas/tips/ST14-001" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.us-cert.gov&#x2F;ncas&#x2F;tips&#x2F;ST14-001</a>
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colinbartlettover 11 years ago
The security researcher posted a followup:<p><a href="http://blog.trendmicro.com/russia-experience-part-2/" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;blog.trendmicro.com&#x2F;russia-experience-part-2&#x2F;</a>
freshyillover 11 years ago
The real scandal is the way that jackass opened that MacBook Air. What the hell!<p>Also I&#x27;d <i>really</i> like to know exactly <i>how</i> they hacked Mac OS X. Because if he downloaded something and then gave it his administrator password, that doesn&#x27;t count as being hacked.
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darkrabbiover 11 years ago
It&#x27;s disheartening that in 2014 the original article wasn&#x27;t unanimously dismissed as the sensationalist click-bait that it is.
downandoutover 11 years ago
It&#x27;s sad that this investigation was misleading at best, fraudulent at worst. But let&#x27;s be serious for a moment. Using the local Wifi in Sochi, during the Olympics or or more likely than not at any other time, probably isn&#x27;t all that safe of a thing to do. MITM, content modification, etc is quite likely to occur at drastically higher rates than in many other parts of the world. Russia is a hotbed of this kind of thing, and the vast influx of relatively wealthy Olympic visitors make a prime target.
smsm42over 11 years ago
I was immediately suspicious when I heard that, and when I watched the clip which actually showed Moscow and not Sochi I just realized it&#x27;s some baloney of which news is full now and stopped watching. Good to confirm my decision was correct.
jccalhounover 11 years ago
NBC has a comment at the end of CNET&#x27;s story about it: <a href="http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-57618533-83/sochi-hack-report-fraudulent-security-researcher-charges/" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.cnet.com&#x2F;8301-1009_3-57618533-83&#x2F;sochi-hack-repo...</a> &quot; NBC, for its part, defended its report.<p>&#x27;The claims made on the blog are completely without merit,&#x27; according to a representative from NBC News.&quot;
jccalhounover 11 years ago
I just saw a tech news organization mention this and it just seemed entirely too alarmist to be true. Turns out it was...
JTenerifeover 11 years ago
This is hilarious. And the winner of the Olympic Gold medal for FUD is ... NBC.<p>But wait ... no need to be afraid:<p>&quot;So what can you do?&quot;<p>&quot;Purchase ... antivirus software ... before you leave the country&quot;<p>LOL<p>I can&#x27;t wait coming to the US. Then I finally can connect to a US WiFi and go to these famous websites named facebook.com and google.com.
josefrescoover 11 years ago
While I appreciate the debunking effort (the original article smelled fishy and lacked details), the advice at the end is laughable. &quot;don&#x27;t click on stuff&quot; <i>really</i>? That&#x27;s your security advice?!
frkncngzover 11 years ago
i think they just removed that hilarious unboxing scene. original here: <a href="http://youtu.be/CNfQwrtKxWk?t=1m10s" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;CNfQwrtKxWk?t=1m10s</a>
jmnicolasover 11 years ago
This is what happens when there&#x27;s no consequence when public figures are lying.<p>Politicians and journalists should lose their job &#x2F; title FOREVER when they are caught lying.
Geeeover 11 years ago
Well, I thought it was very fishy. It looked like propaganda.
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jpswadeover 11 years ago
I don&#x27;t think you mean Fraudulent.<p>adjective 1. obtained, done by, or involving deception, especially criminal deception.<p>I think you mean &quot;inaccurate&quot;.
pjeover 11 years ago
&gt; The only thing that can be confirmed by the story is &quot;don&#x27;t let Richard Engel borrow your phone&quot;
sehuggover 11 years ago
Leno&#x27;s quip tonight: &quot;I didn&#x27;t know they had Target stores over there!&quot;
commander_ahabover 11 years ago
Not surprised from NBC, this wouldn&#x27;t be the first time they were wrong.
rhizomeover 11 years ago
All in a day&#x27;s work.
Houshalterover 11 years ago
That&#x27;s not 100% fraudulent, that&#x27;s like 80% fraudulent.
zacinbusinessover 11 years ago
Wtf is up with how that guy opens the MBA box?
shangxiaoover 11 years ago
lol all 4 comments on that article are about the way the guy opens the MacBook box...
jackhulsomover 11 years ago
You never know there, could&#x27;ve actually happened. it&#x27;s he said she said ..
curious123over 11 years ago
Side note: The story is not fraudulent, it is false.
Cowicideover 11 years ago
My GF was watching that Comcast-NBC story and I stopped to look and I was very much perplexed by the end of it. It just screamed of ridiculous FUD and I loudly scoffed at it and walked away from the idiot box incredulous of what I&#x27;d just witnessed.<p>I&#x27;ve seen a lot of sensationalized bullshit via the corporate mass media before, but this took the cake. I wondered if it was &quot;just me&quot;, but now I&#x27;m seeing many others online and offline also noting how ridiculous it was with more than obvious, dishonest fear mongering at play.<p>It got me thinking about how much Comcast must serve others in order to maintain its corrupt, despised, anti-competitive oligopoly. Considering the fact that multiple polls show that Comcast is one of the most despised corporations in America, I don&#x27;t think it would be too difficult to get many Americans behind breaking up their oligopoly if the issue was pushed.<p>But, the government never pushes it. Comcast owes a great... no, massive debt to the government for its very existence, incredible anti-competitive growth and ability to continue to plunder Americans by becoming an increasingly gargantuan oligopoly and near monopoly (when it comes to higher speed Internet access in many areas).<p>I also don&#x27;t think anyone who&#x27;s been paying attention doubts that war profiteers have taken over our government from the outside (via lobbying) and the inside via their own politicians with Washington’s revolving door – legislators and their staff members becoming lobbyists, and vice versa.<p>That said...<p>Russia deserves a lot of criticism to say the least, but the anti-Russian propaganda from the mass media coming from the USA, etc. is getting pretty thick, heavy and over the top. It&#x27;s almost palpable at this point and it&#x27;s obviously stressing our relations with Russia. Between that and some interesting issues with the Ukraine I&#x27;m starting to think the war profiteers would very much like to push for and ramp up a new, profitable Cold War between Russia and the USA again.<p>The war on terror thing is getting old and harder to justify with limitless money and wars. With the Internet and average citizens utilizing it to spread info to each other, it&#x27;s becoming increasingly difficult to start deceptive, profitable (open) wars or even just air strikes on places like Syria, for example.<p>I&#x27;m not saying any of this is true and I sure hope it&#x27;s not true, but the propaganda is really getting laid on thick lately and I&#x27;m not sure what the end-game is here. Even though many of the criticisms are certainly true against Russia, it seems like it&#x27;s really getting &quot;poured on&quot; in the last few years and it&#x27;s increasing tension with Russia on a scale I haven&#x27;t seen since our last Cold War with them.<p>I know it seems like I&#x27;m wearing a tinfoil hat and I&#x27;ll understand if anyone thinks I&#x27;m sounding looney... but, I think the risk is something to watch for even if it is remote.<p>I mean, for all I know this is simply a bunch of geopolitical pushing around that has nothing to do with any long term war profiteer agenda. I sincerely hope that&#x27;s true. But, if there&#x27;s something else going on, I hope we&#x27;ve all got our eyes wide open here and make sure we&#x27;re not being led (yet again) into something that sucks away lives and treasure for the benefit of the very few. It&#x27;s happened before (see Iraq) and I see no reason why the war profiteers won&#x27;t keep trying and trying again.
mlvljrover 11 years ago
Finally, thanks from Saint-Petersburg :)
fuckpigover 11 years ago
So does this mean that NBC is fraudulent?<p>We should remember that... around the time of the next election.