Former NSA Hacker Describes Being Recruited for UAE Spy Program

https://zetter.substack.com/p/former-nsa-hacker-describes-being

by jbegley • 5 years ago

194 74 5 years ago

zetter.substack.com

docdeek• 5 years ago

> Who were they giving the laptops to?

Other leaders. Leaders who were coming to visit [UAE] sheiks... “Thanks for coming. Just as a sign of our appreciation, here’s a bunch of stuff.” One of those things happened to be a laptop. We do know that they were turned on sometimes. What happened after that we don’t aways know the answers to.

Got to be some sort of basic rule of being a leader not to take electronics from a foreign government and turn it on - or even do more than accept it to be gracious and then ensure it never goes anywhere near you.

blitzar2• 5 years ago

You would think so. Or perhaps they chuck it to their kid as a freebie.

Goodie bags with phones and cameras etc are popular at celebrity events. Perhaps this is how the celebrity nudes get leaked?

Get free phone at party > go home and film a sex tape > featured on internet.

2OEH8eoCRo0• 5 years ago

Chuck it to their kid? Now you're on their LAN.

mrkickling• 5 years ago

The celebrity nudes (if you're referring to the fappening) were mainly phishing attacks from someone claiming to be icloud.

I believe this episode talks about it: https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/34/

qeternity3• 5 years ago

Given that decades ago, the Russians embedded completely passive microphones inside paintings and have them as gifts, undetectable to most equipment…yeah a full blown laptop should almost be an admission that “hey we’re trying to bug you”.

MomoXenosaga• 5 years ago

Dont take a laptop from a stranger!

joshuaissac• 5 years ago

There was The Thing, a Soviet passive transmitter that was a replica of the Great Seal and gifted to the American embassy in Moscow.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_(listening_device)

aborsy• 5 years ago

The laptop part made me laugh :)

Even at work we are not allowed to accept electronics from other companies.

I can’t imagine government officials or security people of a country using a full blown laptop provided by the government officials or security people of other countries!

Sounds like a joke!

0xdeadb00f• 5 years ago

Perhapse most would just regift them or something. "Here, young nephew, a laptop I don't need"

atlasunshrugged3• 5 years ago

Yeah, this is absolutely insane. I worked briefly for an eastern european government (low level person, def not a senior official) and they even warned against having certain foreign apps on your personal/work mobile device. I don't remember them ever explicitly mentioning not to take and use electronics from a foreign government, probably because they thought it was so obvious it wouldn't be worth mentioning!

noptd2• 5 years ago

There were no red flags because I was so naive. But… there’s a ton of red flags [in retrospect]…. [For example] when you’re in the interview process and you’re talking about defending [the UAE] and … doing tracking of terrorist activity,… but then you’re [being asked] very specific questions about integrated enterprise Windows environments and [how you might hack them]. Guess who doesn’t have those type of networks? Terrorist organizations. So why [is the recruiter] asking these kinds of questions…?
So had I been really cognizant of where or what I was stepping into, I probably would have known during even the interview process that something is a little bit amiss here.

Given the number of trainings that he would have attended while working at the NSA, I find it hard to believe that his OpSec radar wouldn't have been going off at that point.

Having read the remainder of the interview, IMO the entire series of events can be summarized as follows:

Things were fishy from the start, but the compensation was good so I was happy to collect a paycheck until all plausible deniability went out the window. Knowing the gravy train wouldn't last forever and that the US govt would one day come knocking, I denied a position at DarkMatter and moved back to the states.

qeternity3• 5 years ago

Given the number of trainings that he would have attended while working at the NSA, I find it hard to believe that his OpSec radar wouldn't have been going off at that point.

These types of training tend to be very specific, and certainly do not involve questioning chain of command.

This is why he immediately noticed things like possible surveillance, but it took him much longer to question the mission and his commanding officer.

noptd2• 5 years ago

These types of training tend to be very specific, and certainly do not involve questioning chain of command.

True, but this excerpt was describing his initial interview process with CyberPoint. I agree with the general sentiment though.

sneak• 5 years ago

I think a lot of the external view of the NSA's training is tinted by Snowden's books and writing.

It is important to remember that Snowden was also CIA before he worked at NSA, and went through full CIA training for CIA staff stationed in foreign embassies (he was in Geneva, and I think Japan?).

kome2• 5 years ago

imho NSA people is technically skilled but politically naive... and that's clearly why they work for NSA in the first place...

Technical training can make you good a something, but it doesn't necessarily make you aware of why you are doing something and what are the political consequences.

That's why also social science education and critical thinking is needed... to avoid those kind of situations.

atlasunshrugged3• 5 years ago

I don't think that's the only reason people work for the NSA. Lots of people who are patriots (in their mind) go because they think it's a good cause. And I'm sure there are also political operators who do it because they think it's a way up whatever ladder they're climbing.

ganoushoreilly• 5 years ago

I would argue it's pretty naive to assume the positions of people internal to an organization such as the NSA. The NSA, just like the D.o.D., and the greater government employs people from all walks of life. They have representation of almost all major religions, atheists, democrats, republicans, libertarians, etc. It's no less diverse than other offices. I would also argue that the number of college educated to include PHD's is astronomical.

Plenty of critical thinking happens to avoid situations. In this case, a service member that probably made 50k all in, was given a juicy contracting offer above the local market rate for the time (though for good operators, $200k local wasn't unheard of at the time). He saw the money, went to Dubai.

Everyone in the agency knew of this contract, almost everyone said the same thing.. Screw that. A few took it, cashed in for a year or two, then left.

The fringe number of people that took this contract are far fewer than the vast number that said no. I know I said no, and about a dozen others that said the same. On the same shoe I knew two that did, most didn't last over a year.

zelphirkalt• 5 years ago

Must indeed have been quite naive, working for UAE, a dictatorship, where they still have what basically constitutes a modern form of slavery.

Perhaps not even former NSA employees are immune to the stuff influencers on social media pump out. Have a nice life in beautiful Abu Dhabi? Why not? It takes little to inform oneself about the country and the people in power though. I cannot understand, how one can move to another country and not look such stuff up. My guess about this is, that other people are simply way less hesitant to make such a move. Then of course there is the payment matter. With proper payment, perhaps we are willing to overlook certain things more easily or to not look too closely in the first place.

dopidopHN• 5 years ago

His payment do not seems so crazy. 200k for devs and 500k for manager.

londons_explore• 5 years ago

The same moral reasoning can make nearly anything immoral. For example, is it morally right to pay taxes to Uncle Sam, knowing he will use them to pay for drone strikes in wars he started killing millions in the third world? Is the only moral option to give up ones citizenship and move to another country?

Yet, very very few people do this.

Is writing code for the UAE to help them kill people so different to paying money to the USA to help them kill people?

afpx• 5 years ago

If you're in Northern Virginia, you'll see that many ex-NSA employees have evolved to also sell personal location data to Saudi Arabia and other despots. There are a dozen of these companies all working in the "ad" space.

behringer• 5 years ago

Honestly it takes a certain kind of person to work in government in the first place. That person is not you or me.

tw04• 5 years ago

I can believe it. I remember hurting my back right before a trip to Singapore. I was prescribed hydrocodone by my doctor knowing that was the only chance I had of getting any sleep on the flight. I land and my coworker reminds Me Singapore has death penalty level punishment for “hard” drugs so I immediately flushed it all down the toilet despite having a valid prescription which probably would have been fine.

It’s easy to forget to do research on a country before you go there when it’s not something you’d consider “third world”.

shell0x• 5 years ago

The US doesn't have the moral high ground either. Every country has issues.

As a German who's currently in Dubai, I find it amusing when an American judges the UAE.

The US has tons of undocumented/illegal immigrants which live in horrible conditions, but companies still employ them because they're cheap. How's that not modern slavery? How about all the H1B abuses?

In the UAE some companies may abuse the situation of foreign workers too, but the government clearly says you should not hand out your passport.

My American coworkers get taxed on their worldwide income, which basically only one other country does. Dictatorship?

The US started killed so many innocent people in the Middle East to get their hands on the oil.

everdrive• 5 years ago

Given the number of trainings that he would have attended while working at the NSA, I find it hard to believe that his OpSec radar wouldn't have been going off at that point.

I've seen a similar line of thinking with regard to federal employees (who should have known better) and were successfully recruited, but then later arrested. You have to wonder to what degree they're telling the truth, or to what degree they really had blinders due to being so successfully charmed. Either way, this is common. I think it's hard for people to say "yes, I knew deep down this was a problem but hoped it wasn't true somehow."

jrochkind1• 5 years ago

Given the number of trainings that he would have attended while working at the NSA

Right, so he was used to doing sketchy things and not questioning the ethics of what his superiors told him to do, just the right kind/level of sketchy for the right people, and didn't realize this was going to be a different kind/level of sketchy that would ultimately make him uncomfortable.

BTCOG4• 5 years ago

Bingo. This is essentially the "PR" cover story that all ousted government employees seem to use once they're caught out. "Oh, I didn't realize I was even working for a murderous regime! I liked the paycheck though!"

StrLght• 5 years ago

Previous discussions from last week on this topic:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28541117

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28530963

macevilc• 5 years ago

Obviously he thought it was for defensive purposes when charged for breaking a law.

aphroz• 5 years ago

I find it hard to believe that you can work for the NSA without being given proper training to detect this kind of maneuver.

raducu• 5 years ago

Quite the opposite. The NSA would not provide the type of training that would make its own employees question the NSA itself, I'm sure you receive the exact amount of training to do your job and not more.

jjitz• 5 years ago

this is untrue

wil421• 5 years ago

They were making over $200k a year and probably had stipends for living expenses. Money will make you blind.

rishabhd• 5 years ago

Reminds of the ordeal of Simone.

https://www.evilsocket.net/2016/07/27/How-The-United-Arab-Em...

aosaigh• 5 years ago

There is a great Darknet Diaries podcast episode about this (I assume it's the same "David"):

https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/47/

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/ep-47-project-raven/id...

tmearnest• 5 years ago

I just looked up the link to share this, but you already got to it so I’m going to sell Darknet Diaries to y’all.

This podcast series is one of my favorites. It some how manages to find a balance between being technical and accessible to the average person. Jack Resider is a great story teller. The level of care and detail they put into their research is incredible and they share the primary sources if you want to go even deeper.

If you like podcasts, give this a listen. Physical pentest episodes are my favorite.

AlwaysRock2• 5 years ago

Another thumbs up for darknet diaries. I love the show. The host balances technical talk and telling a story incredibly well and he covers all types of stories. Really anything "hacking" related you can think of there is probably an episode on.

pluc• 5 years ago

Way to make sure that the next ones don't make it out alive

joshsyn• 5 years ago

If we are not okay with foreign countries spying, why are we okay with our own government spying on us?

pageandrew• 5 years ago

We're not. There was huge outrage when the Snowden documents were released, and the warrantless surveillance program was judged to be unconstitutional in 2020.

Former NSA Hacker Describes Being Recruited for UAE Spy Program

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