ICE Reluctantly Releases A Small Number Of Heavily Redacted Domain Seizure Docs, Holds The Rest Hostage

DHS: Our Reports To Congress Are Successful Bullshit

from the yeah,-we-already-kinda-figured dept

Tue, Oct 9th 2012 10:27am — Timothy Geigner

Okay, it's official. I no longer believe that our Department of Homeland Security is an actual government agency with important work to do. No, I now believe that it is a series of highly subtle performance art pieces designed to make us laugh at the sheer audacity of dumb government. We already know about the agency's boss, who is in charge of cybersecurity, not bothering to use the internet. And then there is the DHS's highly touted fusion centers being both a waste of money and a detriment to the very freedoms they're supposedly protecting.

But Tim K writes in about a rather stunning admission by DHS officials of a bogus DHS report on a water pumping facility. It essentially amounts to: "sure the report is a complete lie, but it was a successful lie." Don't believe me?

Officials behind the false claims told Senate investigators that such reports weren’t meant to be “finished intelligence” and that despite their report’s inaccuracies and sloppy wording they considered it to be a “success.”

“[It did] exactly what it’s supposed to do – generate interest,” DHS officials told Senate investigators.

Now, let's do some quick background on this report, less because it informs you and more because it's hysterical. About a year ago, a water pump failed in an Illinois water facility. In response, almost immediately, an Illinois fusion center (part DHS, part Illinois State Police) circulated a report blaming a hacking attack from Russia. Not soon after that report was circulated, the greater DHS office rebuffed the fusion center's hacking allegation as absolute nonsense. It pointed out, as does the linked article, that the allegation was pure conjecture based on the fusion center's inability to do even the most basic investigation.

Someone did access the water district’s SCADA system from Russia, but it was a water district contractor who was asked to access the system by water district employees, as Wired first reported. They had called him to seek his opinion on something while he was on vacation in Russia, and he had logged into the system remotely to check on some data for them.

When the pump broke five months later and someone examined the network logs to determine the cause, they found an IP address from Russia listed in the logs next to the username and password of the contractor. No one ever bothered to call the contractor to see if he had logged in from Russia; they just assumed someone in Russia had stolen his credentials.

It's worth noting that the water pump busted 5 months after this Russian IP logged in. In other words, none of this makes a lick of sense, except if it's the case of someone looking for a convenient scapegoat. "Hackers! Russians!" is apparently what these people went with, for reasons unknown to this author.

But the DHS report circulated to Congress, which DHS says is a success even though it's bullshit, was written up after they called out their own fusion center for making stuff up. I think most reasonable people would suspect that such successful excriment is part of the fear mongering around so-called cyberwars and the trumped up need for Congress to pass some kind of cybersecurity bill. But even the least cynical person would at least expect the DHS to correct their report and alert Congress to the pure made-up-iness of it. DHS has thus far declined to do so, because, paraphrasing DHS itself, the lie is more effective than the truth. Yay, government!

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Filed Under: congress, cybersecurity, dhs, fear mongering, fud, homeland security

47 Comments

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Ninja (profile), 9 Oct 2012 @ 9:49am

So let us just think for a minute here.

The FBI sets up imaginary terrorist plots and successfully defuse said schemes.

Congressmen and executive members including Obama talk about some fantasy apocalyptic scenario where planes rain from de skies because of equally fantastic cyber attacks from some unknown source.

The DOJ along with some other Govt help keeps spewing statistic taken out of MAFIAAS collective imaginary arses and use it to seize domains that theoretically cause more financial harm than a tsunami or a horde of angry green leprechauns.

DHS spreads fictional reports on how their seemingly double-agent fellow American pump engineer time traveled from the past and broke a pump by hacking it 5 months in the future.

Gentleman, I think the United States Government is a case that even Freud would find difficult to solve.
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MrWilson, 9 Oct 2012 @ 10:42am

Re:
"Gentleman, I think the United States Government is a case that even Freud would find difficult to solve."

I don't know. It doesn't seem difficult to diagnose antisocial personality disorder and pseudologia fantastica (pathological lying), even without a degree in psychiatry.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Oct 2012 @ 10:46am

Good Holywood training shows, but their imagination is lacking.
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Chuck Norris' Enemy (deceased) (profile), 9 Oct 2012 @ 10:50am

Hope to High Heavens
I sure hope that it was only a historical database or something this contractor was able to login. Sure, you wouldn't want your data out for all to see but if the company actually allows remote access to the SCADA controls network then the FUD-makers in government will have more of a leg to stand on...meaning there are network admins dumb enough to allow critical infrastructure to be connected to the internet. Now we all must suffer because of their ineptitude (which is usually why bad laws are passed).

Also, spellcheck - excrement. =]
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Oct 2012 @ 10:51am

Successful Bullshit
has mushrooms growing out of it
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Oct 2012 @ 10:57am

When you read stuff like this, is it any wonder that the typical US citizen doesn't trust it's government at all?
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Oct 2012 @ 10:59am

How odd, I just submitted a response, only to receive a notice that it would be reviewed by the staff... New changes?
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Oct 2012 @ 11:02am

What kind of drugs was the DHS on and how as one go about purchasing them?!
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Michael, 9 Oct 2012 @ 11:05am

Re:
They're just pretending to be useful. In reality they're a huge waste of taxpayer money and resources.
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Atkray (profile), 9 Oct 2012 @ 11:06am

Re:
It's that Russian IP you are using.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Oct 2012 @ 11:10am

Re:
Did the reply you submitted consist only of a link?
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ChrisB (profile), 9 Oct 2012 @ 11:15am

Re: Hope to High Heavens
Most utility companies (e.g., pipelines) have remote access to the "Data" part of SCADA. This is common to see what's going on. The "Control" part is heavily locked down, and usually routed through a central secure control centre.

But, of course, why is the government involved at all? Pipeline companies are much more concerned about their pipelines going down than governments are. This idea that if companies make mistakes, the government has to come in and regulate is absolute nonsense. Governments are full of bureaucrats who have little or no experience running a business. They are the last people we want making more laws and regulations. Let the businesses be responsible for running the businesses. If governments need to make laws, make sure they are about the results (e.g., power grid online 99.9% of the time), not procedures (e.g., power companies shall do this, this, and this).
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Oct 2012 @ 11:20am

Re:
It happens sometimes. Happened to me, like, twice in the last 6 months or so. Usually the comment shows up after a while.
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gorehound (profile), 9 Oct 2012 @ 11:21am

Looking forward to the Day when this Government falls and those who are there get Tarred & Feathered Publicly.
I really hate this Government Nowadays and see no Solution but to Shitcan the lot of them.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Oct 2012 @ 11:58am

Re: Re: Hope to High Heavens
Wait wait wait... are you actually saying that you believe that expectations (99.9% up-time) without basic procedural regulation (employees shall take breaks and/or limit shift lengths so they don't botch a simple routine maintenance and kill themselves) is a good idea?

You're talking about the Gilded Age with added law requiring results. Financial penalties if they fail (I assume, because otherwise why have a law?) Without basic regulation, what would keep these companies from working their employees (read: wage slaves) to their literal deaths?

I'm thinking you just didn't think this through. There should absolutely be BASIC and FUNDAMENTAL regulation on what companies and certain industries must do at a minimum to deal with safety and basic human fallibility issues.

Issuing tightly-focused regulations is a waste of everyone's time and money, it's true - but you absolutely must have a foundation, because without it, people get exploited in the name of profit. It still happens today, in America, the "greatest country in the world"... just with undocumented workers instead of citizens.
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jupiterkansas (profile), 9 Oct 2012 @ 12:08pm

It succeeded in making it look like the DHS needed more money. What other purpose could there be?
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Oct 2012 @ 12:12pm

on top of which, Congress find it so much easier to believe complete bullshit than the truth and are then more capable of instigating some new law, any new law, that they think may help something, even if it's nothing to do with the bullshit released at the time
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loaderboy (profile), 9 Oct 2012 @ 12:17pm

Re:
The MAFIAAS arses aren't imaginary, just their statistics.
It's quite obvious that they are TOTAL arses.
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loaderboy (profile), 9 Oct 2012 @ 12:23pm

Re: Re:
see the successful bullshit post above and git ya some of them mushrooms.
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loaderboy (profile), 9 Oct 2012 @ 12:25pm

Re: Re: Re:
My bad. This was to the AC wanting to know where DHS gets their drugs.
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Spaceman Spiff (profile), 9 Oct 2012 @ 12:26pm

Yea Assange
This is why we need Wikileaks now more than ever!
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AJBarnes, 9 Oct 2012 @ 12:28pm

Really?
And these are the people you want to run your healthcare? Bureaucrats? Really???
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Ninja (profile), 9 Oct 2012 @ 12:33pm

Re: Re:
Yes, I meant their imaginative arses! Pardon me!
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Anonymous Numbskull (profile), 9 Oct 2012 @ 12:53pm

Fusion centers
Timothy, every time you mention a 'fusion center' I start wondering if we've already succeed at creating fusion power plants at a commercial scale. Though I'm pretty sure what's really going on there is denser than even a supernova can fuse..
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Tunnen (profile), 9 Oct 2012 @ 12:58pm

Re: Re:
Are you sure the answer is that America just wants to eliminate the UK Parliament and get in bed with the Queen? =P
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Tunnen (profile), 9 Oct 2012 @ 1:01pm

Re: Fusion centers
I think it could either be referring to:

1) The center where we'd all like to drop a fusion bomb.
2) The location where a bunch of crap is fused together to attempt to form the ultimate piece of crap.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Oct 2012 @ 1:31pm

Re: Really?
And these are the people you want to run your healthcare? Bureaucrats? Really???

As if bureaucrats aren't running health insurance and health care now?
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SlickR, 9 Oct 2012 @ 1:39pm

No kidding
Of course the DHS is a joke at its core, joke on the American people. I mean from the TSA sticking their hands down people's pants, especially kids, to they labeling "returning veterans, constitutionalists, concerned with privacy, paying with cash" as terrorists.

Of course what is real though is the giant police state underneath it, the FEMA camps, the spying grids, all to tackle the American people when they find out 9/11 was a false flag operation, the treasury not only is it bare its gone and printing money has created huge inflation and the whole economy breaks.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Oct 2012 @ 2:38pm

Re: Re: Re:
I think you nailed it, or in other words they did!
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Chuck Norris' Enemy (deceased) (profile), 9 Oct 2012 @ 2:49pm

Re: Re: Hope to High Heavens
Agree with your first statement...since the article is unclear I was just hoping that they hadn't made the mistake the government hopes we're making.

If you look at most utility numbers on power grid reliability you will see 99.985% (Average Service Availability Index) online for the year. Even a day long outage doesn't put much of a dent in that number. Outages will happen, every once in a while they are more widespread and gain big headlines but regulations will not make a significant dent in improving reliability. Outages caused by negligence are such a small percentage of that number. Weather contributes more to widespread outages. So until we can regulate the weather then we are just throwing money down the toilet (the bureaucracy rejoices).
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Oct 2012 @ 2:49pm

Re:
I think DHS is looking at itself as an organ designed to identify and clarify what possibe threads USA can face. The report is obviously seen as a succes because it is showing a possible future threat!

I do not like their methods at all, but if DHS is really meant to come up with possible ways the US security could be compromised, it is not bullshit at all.

Do not get sucked into the utilitarian thought of: The report is bullshit = The DHS is bullshit.

It is a question of identifying the weaknesses in the system. Who in their right mind would make a homepage without even considering how to avoid hackers?

How politicians and media react to the knowledge of the weaknesses is the real problem!
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Tunnen (profile), 9 Oct 2012 @ 4:13pm

Re: Re: Re: Re:
That's what she said? =P
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John Fenderson (profile), 9 Oct 2012 @ 4:52pm

Re: Re:
I think that you're being far to generous to the DHS. If the report was intended as you suggest, then it should have clearly said as much. It did not.

This is fear-mongering, nothing more.

Do not get sucked into the utilitarian thought of: The report is bullshit = The DHS is bullshit.

Why not? The report isn't just bullshit, it's a lie. An agency that lies is bullshit.

However, pretty much everything else about the DHS screams that it's bullshit (and dangerous bullshit at that), so even if the logic of that utilitarian thought is wrong, the conclusion still holds.
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John Fenderson (profile), 9 Oct 2012 @ 4:54pm

Re: Really?
Just to reinforce what the AC replied...

These people would certainly be no worse than the bureaucrats currently running the health care system.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Oct 2012 @ 6:00pm

Re:
It's happened to me four times in the last month. It seems to be tied to using a VPN.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Oct 2012 @ 6:03pm

Re:
Tis the system that's broken. Anyone new pulled into the vortex will come out the other side the same way.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Oct 2012 @ 6:06pm

Re: Re: Re:
Then admits it's fibbing, claims said fibbing was a success, and gets not so much as a slap on the wrist. WTF?
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Oct 2012 @ 6:09pm

Re: No kidding
Is this spam?
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Oct 2012 @ 6:09pm

Re: Re: No kidding
I think it's spam.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Oct 2012 @ 6:10pm

Re: Re: Re: No kidding
Smells like spam, tastes like spam, clogs the arteries like spam,

Ya, I think it's spam.
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jupiterkansas (profile), 9 Oct 2012 @ 9:25pm

Re: Re:
In that case they should just call Hollywood, or round up a gang of science fiction writers. It's not too hard to dream up scenarios where something might happen.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Oct 2012 @ 9:31pm

Re: Re: No kidding
Actually, if you look into it, the above statements are nothing short of reality.
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That Anonymous Coward (profile), 9 Oct 2012 @ 11:05pm

Re:
To paraphrase Freud...
Sometimes assholes are just assholes.
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Steve, 10 Oct 2012 @ 1:05am

Re:
Actually, Freud would have no problem with this one. As, in the whackjob world, it takes one to know one.
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Iman Azol, 10 Oct 2012 @ 7:30am

Re: Yea Assange
Yes, because Assmange's marcissistic self-aggrandizing for leftist pussy TOTALLY destroyed the US government.

Oh, wait...
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EyesOfTruth (profile), 11 Oct 2012 @ 5:12am

Citizen Spy Syndicates
Local neighborhood watch networks are recruited into citizen spy syndicates and trained by Fusion Centers to spy, fabricate and frame bogus national threat alerts against law abiding American patriots. Here's a peek into the underworld of citizen spies trained to report, harass and violate America's Civil and Constructional rights. Check out the following links
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOiK9MdlYBo&feature=colike
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJqz 8HtyoCc&feature=colike
and there's much more about their incredible, brazen, daylight racketeering.
Best Regards,
ogs-silentcrimes.com
ogs-silentcrimes.blogspot.com
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EyesOfTruth (profile), 14 Oct 2012 @ 4:26am

Citizen Spy Syndicates
ALERT: Local neighborhood watch networks are recruited into citizen spy syndicates, trained and coordinated by Fusion Centers to spy, fabricate and frame bogus national threat alerts against law abiding, liberty promoting American patriots. Here's a peek into the underworld of citizen spies trained to report, harass, mob target and violate America's Civil and Constitutional rights.
Check out the following links
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOiK9MdlYBo&feature=colike
next link ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cj1iK397zDk&feature=colike
And the next link illustrates the "modern", Fusion coordinated, cult-hate groups hating all law abiding, liberty promoting American patriots ...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJqz8HtyoCc&feature=colike
and there's much more expose about their incredible, brazen, daylight racketeering.
The 72 Threat Fusion Centers Were Designed To Threaten You
http://www.infowars.com/the-72-threat-fusion-centers-were-designed-to-threaten-you/
Best Regards,
ogs-silentcrimes.com
ogs-silentcrimes.blogspot.com
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