China Surveillance Company Hacked
Last week, someone posted something like 570 files, images and chat logs from a Chinese company called I-Soon. I-Soon sells hacking and espionage services to Chinese national and local government.
Lots of details in the news articles.
These aren’t details about the tools or techniques, more the inner workings of the company. And they seem to primarily be hacking regionally.
echo • February 27, 2024 8:33 AM
A lot of security issues are really “security” issues. The gadgets and maths are a distraction because it’s really a governance and social problem. Pervasive surveillance can also work both ways. I get the feeling people miss that. The articles themselves are an exercise in pointing a bigger telescope at a dust cloud and discovering more… dust, or knowing more and more about less and less. Hold that thought.
I’ve commented on organisations and systemic discrimination issues this week along with a view on the psychology and limits of mindsets. Not a ripple off anyone although I did get shouted at by one person. I think my thesis that people (in the electronic and information security industry) can’t context switch context is close enough. And people wonder why they can’t attract women into STEM jobs or the security industry. I have read articles by men advocating for more women in STEM and security and the poor dears don’t get that they can actually be offputting. It’s why organisations or fields need prominent women to attract other women. Why? Men and women psychologically work to different security models which you’d think science and security would get but they don’t. Hey, ho.
A high profile lobbyist for US/Russian/Etcetera dark money just compromised themself. A bit like S.P.E.C.T.R.E. in the Bond movie there was an operative in the room. Encryption didn’t save them as the operative had indirect access to the plaintext. The information has been exfiltrated. A report will be made public soon. And yes all perfectly legal before I get shouted at again.
Chatham House is noted in one article. I linked to one Chatham House online panel discussion on security and gender. Not a peep out of anyone because nobody gets the subject nor do they realise its significance.
Authoritarian states are 99% male dominated and male designed and male policed from top to bottom. By mostly legacy organisations continuing to engage with them you give them legitimacy so they’re just going to do this more and more. It seems especially prevalent with dogmas or cultures where life is cheap or at least indirectly commoditised. You will also note they tend to be from an intelligence point of view more “dark”.
Listening to Judith Butler’s essays she has a fairly consistent bio-social-security model underpinning her talks. Men go “Huh” (because men…). It’s indicative that linking human rights and development to economic and social interaction can work and that has implications for a purely “security” and “sanctions” response as well as the self-serving business orientated con job called “lend lease”.
Case in point: Afghanistan. The war was lost before it began because top leadership thought bombs and electronic surveillance was it. The Taliban just OODA looped their way under the bar at a local and pervasive level. Everyone pulled out of a country which wasn’t very confident in itself and betrayed the people who fought for them and women. So now we have a gang of men running around with guns to the point where they’re paranoid about women daring to wear (gasp) jeans. Women are now scared to go out and because nobody is shopping the economy is collapsing further and the intelligence picture is darker than a dark thing. No techno thrill and no go through the motions intelligence gathering. No leaks. Nothing.
The post war international security model has failed. That makes me think more effort should be put into (hold onto your hats) something new like, oh I don’t know, gender not just as a technology or social tool as Judith Butler advocates but gender as a security technology.
At least that’s my theory… I know nobody listens but we’ll be here in ten years time with everyone making out like they invented it. In twenty years time it will be policy. Fifty years time commonly accepted practice.