I was virtually in tears watching "Hunted" on UK Channel 4 last night. There's a great many things to love about Russia, but as a obvious data point I would be entirely scared to set foot in that country if I were LGBT.
I'd say it most likely has to do with the history of US and Russia relations painting perceptions of Russia. But I've definitely noticed a fairly deliberate effort from some sources to paint the absolute worst picture of Sochi.
For example there was a popular Reddit thread in which one person was publicizing lots of pictures of the trashiest, roughest, most under construction areas of the city. Another Reddit poster claiming to actually live there followed up with a response full of his own pictures of nice areas criticizing the OP for cherry picking specific pictures to make Sochi look bad.
But frankly between the stray dog killings, the seemingly rough state of hotels as publicized by Olympic journalists, this hacking scare, and Russia's vehemently anti LGBT policies there is a lot to criticize about Russia and not as much for the social and news media to praise.
I think it is a simple collision of fledgling free market behavior and slightly more mature free market behavior (West). I kind of equate the bias too the same way teenage siblings look down on the younger siblings. They are both kids but the slightly older ones are hugely biased in there way of thinking.
I am mostly referring to the huge breadth of market laws in the West that have taken 75+ years to come up with, stuff ranging from OSHA to Titles 10, 31, 40, and 41.
Assuming this isn't just FUD, I want to see some more details about the devices used, whether they were properly patched with the latest security updates, and also some details about the attack vectors. Sure if you are searching the web and visiting sketchy websites that are hosting malware using an unpatched device with no security updates installed you are probably going to have a bad time. But that's the case in the US too, and not a distinctly Russian problem as this is trying to claim.
I highly doubt that a properly updated device being used to browse legitimate websites will be "hacked within minutes" as this sensationalized report claims.
Basically they went to a website on the phone 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 "antivirus program" so they downloaded and installed it.
So yeah the devices were hacked within 24 hours, but because of stupidity, not because Sochi is especially dangerous. Nothing can help you if you deliberately ignore warnings, and deliberately install Trojan horse malware. The exact same thing would have happened to him in the US.
I agree with your thought about properly updated device. I simply don't believe that more than 5% of people (making up a number) have all of their devices properly updated, so this type of report is a fair warning to all.
>>I highly doubt that a properly updated device being used to browse legitimate websites will be "hacked within minutes" as this sensationalized report claims.
I can think of a number of ways to accomplish this just from your vague description. Some of them aren't even technical. Never let your imagination limit you to what "can be," it's a false horizon.
that being said, it is trivial for a nation state to do automatic JS injection to the DOM using carrier grade MITM packet manipulation on any user-agent or cookies with en_us locale strings leaving a particular telecom provider. We now know this is standard practice even by western countries to foreigners.
Standard level of paranoia should apply if your concerned about privacy regardless if your in Sochi or Starbucks cafe in Cleveland.
Avoiding any televised segment that NBC...hell, any of the 3 major broadcast networks should be a rule of thumb for anyone. They're always filled with dumbed-down, sensationalist horseshit riddled with out-of-context soundbytes and talking heads. Wouldn't be a stretch to call it a variant of modern day yellow journalism.
The security consultant is on Twitter[1]. It looks like he's explaining things weren't "automatic"[2] and it was FUD ("TV's goal is to make it interesting.")[3] and "tv magic"[4]
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[ 4.5 ms ] story [ 113 ms ] threadNot that it's hard to find worthy things to criticize about them, but it's funny to see what the media focuses on.
For example there was a popular Reddit thread in which one person was publicizing lots of pictures of the trashiest, roughest, most under construction areas of the city. Another Reddit poster claiming to actually live there followed up with a response full of his own pictures of nice areas criticizing the OP for cherry picking specific pictures to make Sochi look bad.
But frankly between the stray dog killings, the seemingly rough state of hotels as publicized by Olympic journalists, this hacking scare, and Russia's vehemently anti LGBT policies there is a lot to criticize about Russia and not as much for the social and news media to praise.
I am mostly referring to the huge breadth of market laws in the West that have taken 75+ years to come up with, stuff ranging from OSHA to Titles 10, 31, 40, and 41.
I highly doubt that a properly updated device being used to browse legitimate websites will be "hacked within minutes" as this sensationalized report claims.
Edit:
I found this longer version of the story:
http://www.nbcnews.com/watch/nbc-news-web-extra/honeypot-tes...
Basically they went to a website on the phone 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 "antivirus program" so they downloaded and installed it.
So yeah the devices were hacked within 24 hours, but because of stupidity, not because Sochi is especially dangerous. Nothing can help you if you deliberately ignore warnings, and deliberately install Trojan horse malware. The exact same thing would have happened to him in the US.
I can think of a number of ways to accomplish this just from your vague description. Some of them aren't even technical. Never let your imagination limit you to what "can be," it's a false horizon.
that being said, it is trivial for a nation state to do automatic JS injection to the DOM using carrier grade MITM packet manipulation on any user-agent or cookies with en_us locale strings leaving a particular telecom provider. We now know this is standard practice even by western countries to foreigners.
Standard level of paranoia should apply if your concerned about privacy regardless if your in Sochi or Starbucks cafe in Cleveland.
I guess you can't really trust anything once the propaganda ministries are involved.
Seriously though... if the reddit is true... and it sounds VERY plausible... that report was just HORRIBLE journalism.
Here is a less edited version (via The Loop): http://www.nbcnews.com/watch/nbc-news-web-extra/honeypot-tes...
1. https://twitter.com/lowcalspam
2. https://twitter.com/lowcalspam/status/431086164905181184
3. https://twitter.com/lowcalspam/status/431114615893028864
4. https://twitter.com/lowcalspam/status/430883194380881920