US Air Force probes targeted malware attack, blames... er, the US Navy? What?

The US Air Force has opened an investigation into a "malware" infection – which it is blaming on lawyers employed by the US Navy who are working on a war crimes case. The bizarre case hinges around an alleged attempt by a US Navy prosecutor to plant malware on the devices of US Air Force lawyers defending a US Navy SEAL over …

[Richard Boyce]

Active emails

It's not unusual to recieve emails that attempt to download all or part of their content from a remote server, which implicitly gets to see all the IP addresses of the recipients, and to record the time when the email was read.

It's always good security and privacy practice to only use the plain text content of emails and to disable the fetching of new content.

[Frank Bitterlich]

Re: Active emails

As usual, the description of the "computer code" reportedly contained in the email is somewhat lacking.

I wouldn't be surprised if it was just a tracking pixel.

[Tigra 07]

I approve...

Step 1: Infect computer to harvest data.

Step 2: Gain access to (possible) incriminating data from the malware.

Step 3: Realise you're an idiot unable to use the data as evidence since it was gained illegally.

Step 4: Get prosecuted yourself for breaking the law.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: I approve...

FTFY:

Step 2: Gain access to (possible) prosecution data from the malware to see how much they know and how much you might be able to omit from any trial.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: I approve...

Step 3: Leak the information to the press and get the whole trial thrown out

[Peter X]

Re: I approve...

I give up. Sounds more like Lawyer insider trading to me! :D

[macjules]

How touching

That they should have a defence lawyer for a navy seal. Quite what an aquatic mammal was doing in one of the few land-locked countries on the planet is another thing altogether, let alone committing a warcrime.

[vir]

Re: How touching

Well the Navy does have a marine mammal program:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Navy_Marine_Mammal_Program

Still doesn't solve the mystery of what they were doing in Afghanistan.

[StargateSg7]

Re: How touching

SEAL means SEA, AIR, LAND which means it's part of SOCOM (Special Operations Command) AND/OR Joint-Special Operations Command (JSOC) which is headed by the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon.

THEY task what Operators/SpecOps personnel goto what country doing WHICHEVER designated warfighting tasks. They literally ARE the Top-of-the-Spear for ALL branches of the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD)

Delta Force, Navy SEALS, MARSOC, Green Berets, Rangers, etc. are ALL tasked with specific areas of responsibility in terms of force application. Those tasks can be counter-terrorism operations, foreign forces training, battlespace observation and area of operations reporting, execution of enemy kill list orders, special systems and personnel guard duties, reconnaissance operations and plain old guerrilla-style warfighting operations which include blowing up things and killing people REAL GOOD !!!

In Afghanistan, the MOST likely duty was special equipment and personnel guarding duties and ensuring those on their kill list are DEAD DEAD and DEAD !!!! It seems, as of late, that training of local police and Afghan forces has been handed over to U.S.-based security-force contractors!

(i.e. Academi aka Xe Services aka Blackwater)

.

OH! I forgot, they are ALSO TASKED with capturing and/or killing those 8-to-15-foot tall red-headed and white-haired humanoid giants encountered within some of the mountainous regions of Afghanistan and surrounding countries so they (Alive or Dead!) can be transported back to US laboratories for further scientific study!

.

That is ANOTHER one of their tasks!

.

[caffeine addict]

Re: How touching

What the fork did I just read?

[BebopWeBop]

Re: How touching

I suspect he does not not read El Reg on a regular basis and did not realise his leg was being pulled - probably accounts for the downvotes (the sense of humour failure)

[Tigra 07]

Re: How touching

"I suspect he does not not read El Reg on a regular basis and did not realise his leg was being pulled - probably accounts for the downvotes (the sense of humour failure)"

I would say Whooooosh! But he might mistake it for a fighter jet passing overhead...

[caffeine addict]

Re: How touching

I don't know... he's got a bronze coin next to his name...

[Michael Wojcik]

Re: How touching

I suspect he does not not read El Reg on a regular basis

I don't know if StargateSg7 reads the Register on a regular basis, but he's a fairly prolific poster. One of our Resident Kooks, in fact. (See various rants about HPC, compiler design, etc, not to mention the EXTENSIVE use of BLOCK CAPITALS which everyone knows are THE BEST KIND OF EMPHASIS.)

[Kane]

Re: How touching

Wut?

.

.

.

.

.

Whilst the first four paragraphs made some sort of sense (admittedly in the style of Bob), I am most intrigued about the last paragraph:

"OH! I forgot, they are ALSO TASKED with capturing and/or killing those 8-to-15-foot tall red-headed and white-haired humanoid giants encountered within some of the mountainous regions of Afghanistan and surrounding countries so they (Alive or Dead!) can be transported back to US laboratories for further scientific study!"

Both red headed and white haired, eh? Marvellous!

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: How touching

"Both red headed and white haired"

Perhaps he meant "white headed and red haired"...But then what are Scottish people doing in Afganistan?

[A.P. Veening]

Re: How touching

I'd say it is an attempt at an adjusted quote from Starship Troopers (R.A. Heinlein).

[Huw D]

Re: How touching

"But then what are Scottish people doing in Afganistan?"

Getting sunburnt, probably.

[x 7]

Re: How touching

Humanoid giants?

So special forces hunt trolls? That should clean up the interwebs

[Cynical Pie]

Re: How touching

Whoosh....

[Anonymous Coward]

CAPS LOCK

.The post is required, and must contain letters.

[CrazyOldCatMan]

Re: How touching

Still doesn't solve the mystery of what they were doing in Afghanistan

What every seal is doing - looking for fish. And, like most of the US Navy, their navigational skills seem somewhat lacking :-)

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: How touching

It was looking for Russian belugas armed with Go-Pros and head mounted lasers. Nobody had told it that you don't find them in runoff ponds.

[JeffyPoooh]

Re: How touching

"This call may be recorded for training porpoises."

[x 7]

but......aren't all journalists criminals anyway?

[Oliver Mayes]

Only when they're reporting on crimes committed by the lizard in charge.

[A.P. Veening]

but......aren't all journalists criminals anyway?

You are confusing journalists with Congress critters.

[macjules]

No, not all journalists are criminals. Some never get caught.

[Mahhn]

Laws lol

"weaponised use of malware by state agencies is something that is, by law and custom, restricted to being used against actual criminals and not journalists."

Criminals don't obey laws. Laws will never, ever, stop a criminal.

[Jim Mitchell]

Re: Laws lol

" Laws will never, ever, stop a criminal."

This is all good and true. Laws, however, tell people the boundaries of acceptable behavior and that society will punish certain acts. A law without a penalty or enforcement is useless. Yes, a world without laws will have zero crime, but do you want to live there?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Laws lol

"Laws will never, ever, stop a criminal."

Well, you know, aside from the part where the criminal gets sent to prison.

[Marshalltown]

Re: Laws lol

Getting sent to prison for crime is like attending an advanced seminar in how to be a criminal.

[BebopWeBop]

Re: Laws lol

Probably not given the number of reoffenders who are promptly picked up.

[A.P. Veening]

Re: Laws lol

Those just flunked the re-exam.

['s water music]

Re: Laws lol

>> Getting sent to prison for crime is like attending an advanced seminar in how to be a criminal

Probably not given the number of reoffenders who are promptly picked up

Getting sent to prison for crime is like attending an advanced seminar in how to be a criminal at Trump University!

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Laws lol

> Getting sent to prison for crime is like attending an advanced seminar in how to be a criminal.

If receiving lessons from other failed criminal is called an "advanced seminar", then sure.

[c1ue]

Re: Laws lol

What a marvelous statement.

According to the author, laws never stop criminals.

Therefore countries with no laws have no crime?

Sure doesn't seem that way to me - if anything, the correlation is inverse. The nations with the most laws: US, EU - have the least proportion of crime.

Any given law may not deter any given criminal, but the true purpose of the law is to emplace a level of risk of loss, ideally at the point where a criminal *is* deterred.

Strictly speaking, even deterring a fraction of criminals still makes a law potentially worthwhile. It is always a tradeoff of cost of enforcing/emplacing the law vs the potential damage prevented.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Laws lol

> According to the author, laws never stop criminals.

>

> Therefore countries with no laws have no crime?

Obviously true.

If nothing is against the law, then nothing is a crime.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Laws lol

"The nations with the most laws: US, EU - have the least proportion of crime."

No, the most. Only difference is that most aren't never caught and stats show *only those caught*.

Here in North ~50% of motorists are speeding, that's literally more than 30% of the population and *all of these people are criminals*. *30% of population*.

But you can't put 30% of the population to jail, so they just fine about 5% and rest don't get anything.

Add all of the other laws we have and I'm sure *every one here is a criminal* by the time they are 10-year-olds. Every one. Not a single exception exists.

Whole idea that more laws would result less criminals is thoroughly absurd as *all* of those laws *exist solely to make more criminals*, not less.

Not even professional lawyers know all the laws or latest additions to those so it's guaranteed that ordinary people don't even know they are criminals. Law spewing machinery is running fully amok in EU and most EU-countries too.

[Blockchain commentard]

My oh my, makes Julian look like a good guy :-)

[BigSLitleP]

Nothing makes Julian look like a good guy.........

[BebopWeBop]

Well, odious slimeball though he is, the US is doing a fine job of attempting to rehabilitate him

[NoneSuch]

Well...

At least Americans are spying on Americans now. Now they know how it feels.

Hope they got a FISA warrant first claiming they are tracking a 'militarist threat'.

[Alister]

Re: Well...

of course the RAF was far more interested in bombing German civilians than hunting the U-boats

That's a stupid statement.

The tactics, weapons, training and aircraft required to hunt and sink U-boats are completely different to those required for the mass-bombings the RAF (and USAF) carried out.

[DCFusor]

Re: Well...

The RAF lacked some things needed so they used what they had for what it could do. Been studying WWII for other reasons (understanding the simpler propaganda techniques used - they are a basis for what is being used on us today, better documented than earlier or later uses) but this does come up from the more credible sources. Range was a huge issue, the sub pens were bombed a lot but were really hard targets, and as usual, Air Force boasting about accuracy and the lack of need for any other force was just that - boasting.

[TDog]

Re: Well...

The sub pens were, in general, bombed after completion. Up to 10m. of re-enforced concrete then made the bombing ineffective; and hitting the subs in the brief time of entering or leaving the pens, which they rapidly learned to do underwater was not a trivial task.

I have seen pictures purporting to be the remnants of a tallboy (or grand slam) which penetrated the pens at Brest, I think, but that was some 2 1/2 years later.

So bombing the pens in the construction phase was viable; although many French would have been killed a little earlier than otherwise, after construction useless. Although many French were killed.

Bomber Command, whom in general I support, did put the kybosh on Liberators which they claimed were imperative, so that Coastal Command did not get replacements for their VLR (Very Long Range) ones of which they had about 24. This was silly.

BTW converting a Liberator into a VLR Liberator took several months, not a simple task.

[BebopWeBop]

Re: Well...

Staying in Trondheim recently, I walked around the old U Boat pens - too big to bother demolishing even now. I can understand why the RAF, and others, had problems.

[drewzilla79]

Re: Well...

In World War II it was United States Army Air Force, so technically the United States Army gets credit for those heavy-handed bombing tactics. Our beloved Chair Force was not the "USAF" until 1947.

The more you know!

[JeffyPoooh]

Re: Well...

ViM commented, "...hunting the U-boats..."

Unlike with U-boats, one doesn't need to conjure up a plausible cover story to explain how one might have stumbled across the location of a German city, again and again.

I trust that this 'Ultra' obvious reference doesn't present an 'Enigma' to anyone.

[Julz]

Re: Well...

More a RADAR thing. Getting H2S to work properly took a while. Once in service though, lots of U-boats were sunk.

[JeffyPoooh]

Re: Well...

Julz attempted, "More a RADAR thing."

Compare the detection range of the very earliest airborne radar, roughly ten miles, to the size of the Atlantic ocean.

It's not just line of sight from altitude, it's also the tough radar equation 1/r^4.

Airborne radar might help over those last few miles. But you would still need to provide an explanation for how and why the deployment of aircraft happened to arrive in that very sector at that very time.

So it's less of a radar thing, and more of an Enigma Ultra quandary thing.

[BebopWeBop]

Non cooperation

Interservice rivalry seems to have been at least partially responsible for the failed raid to release US hostages in Iran, as well as failures to pick up the 9/11 bombers en route.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Non cooperation

It was more like historic interservice rivalry prevented cooperation when they finally needed, and wanted, to. The biggest mistake of the operation was to cave to the insistence that all 3 branches have a role. The Navy's helicopters were the weak link, as they weren't suitable for the desert crossing. Had they used Army helos, the result would have been different. There's no way of knowing if the plan they had for the actual assault would have worked. It was a very risky op whose failure during that assault would have had far worse results than what happened at Desert One. Hate to admit it, but Secretary of State Christopher was right: the best course was diplomacy. As it happened that ultimately worked, although delayed by the meddling of the opposition Presidential candidate's campaign. I actually met some of the hostages not long after their release around the time news of the "October Surprise" broke. While they didn't talk about that directly, they all made a point of emphasizing their gratitude to President Carter for his efforts on their behalf. To the chagrin of many Reaganiites in the room, there was no mention of Carter's successor.

[WonkoTheSane]

Re: Well...

"Hunting" U-boats was the responsibility of the Fleet Air Arm (Royal Navy aircraft), not the RAF.

[Spanners]

Re: Well...

responsibility of the Fleet Air Arm

Coastal command did a lot of this too!

How many Swordfish would it have taken to carry 1 tallboy?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Well...

> How many Swordfish would it have taken to carry 1 tallboy?

Is that an African or European Swordfish?

[Anonymous Coward]

The weaponised use of malware ..

‘the email had "contained hidden computer coding designed to extract the IP address of the Navy Times computer network and to send that information back to a server located in San Diego’

Otherwise known as a web beacon, if your email client comes with a built-in HTML engine that attempts to connect back to a remote server.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: The weaponised use of malware ..

"if your email client comes with a built-in HTML engine"

And who is the idiot doing that? Not a backdoor but a flood gate to harvest anything from the machine with javascript.

Smells like Microsoft (but it's not the only one stupid enough to do that).

[a_yank_lurker]

A New in Interservice Rivalry

The flyboys and swabbies have had an ongoing mutual loathing since Billy Mitchell's farce in the 1920's. The flyboys claimed the swabbies were to ignorant to grasp bombs and torpedoes dropped by planes could sink ships, actually an outright lie. But swabbies in the bombing tests want bomb damage inspection so they knew how a bomb would damage a ship; they already knew what torpedoes could do. But Mitchell would not let the swabbies inspect the damage. What the flyboys ignored is the swabbies were genuinely concerned about bomb damage and desperately needed data. So it is not surprising the levels of skulduggery both will sink to.

[disgruntled yank]

Re: A New in Interservice Rivalry

The ships (old German warships, I believe) did sink. This had the unfortunate effect of convincing the USAAF that high-level bombing was effective against ships, including those that were not moored or undefended. That got a number of B-17 crews killed while inflicting no harm on the enemy.

[Anonymous Coward]

And in other US Navy related news.....

US Navy Wants To Archive 350 Billion Social Media Posts:

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-05-22/research-us-navy-wants-archive-350-billion-social-media-posts

[Maelstorm]

Wait...What?!

So let me see if I got this straight....

Naval JAG prosecutors used malware against Air Force JAG defense lawyers and military journalists in violation of the law, during a trial of a Navy SEAL who is charged with war crimes while on tour in Afghanistan. Did I read that correctly?

All together now:

Prosecutorial Misconduct.

At the minimum, this would be a mistrial. However, the prosecutor should be disbarred for pulling such a stunt. If someone is leaking documents, then that is a separate investigation to be conducted by NCIS, not JAG. If it's custom malware, it doesn't surprise me because TOR is a US Navy project.

[Primus Secundus Tertius]

Other rivalries

In a German newspaper I once saw a headline that translated as "RAF bombs US Air Force Base". It turned out the story was about the Red Army Faktion [German, faction].

[A.P. Veening]

Re: Other rivalries

This is only a surprise to and a problem for mono-lingual people. Just about everybody else knows abreviations are not only context sensitive but also language sensitive. Having said that, I must admit I've been caught out by Rote Armee Faktion vs. Royal Air Force more than once as well.

[Cederic]

Re: Other rivalries

The traffic tends to go the other way.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._friendly-fire_incidents_since_1945_with_British_victims

[disgruntled yank]

Navy Times

The Navy Times bit seems to have been nothing in particular--a pixel in place so that one could issue a cookie.

Most of the rivalry between the USAF and the Navy regards cash and kudos. Spying on each other's JAG staff is a new one.

[Tom Paine]

Really???

the email had "contained hidden computer coding designed to extract the IP address of the Navy Times computer network and to send that information back to a server located in San Diego".

A web bug, as used by every marketing mail ever sent since about 2002? CODE RED! CALL THE PRESIDENT!!

*eyeroll*

[Anonymous Coward]

Unworkable

The whole idea of having military lawyers represent service members changed in the military system is unworkable. Although efforts have been made to insulate military defense counsel from the prosecution's chain of command, I don't think it's possible in serious cases for them to be as independent as needed to conduct an effective defense. Bringing in civilian lawyers from the outside is problematic because in many cases they run up against security barriers to getting evidence and access to what's needed. It would be better to spin off a special division of the civilian federal courts to try cases under the UCMJ. Of course secrecy would be compromised, but it seems to me that the whole concept of state secrets in a democracy needs to be re-examined. A significant effort at de-classifying not only individual matters, but whole categories of subject matter is the only way to ensure that the state and all its agencies are answerable to its citizens.

[Anonymous Coward]

There is nought new in this. The inter US arms have been playing these games semi officially for years. I worked for a Department of Defense and did something that was not really kosher and got a bit of a bollocking, however I got a thanks from the army. The IG team that picked this up told me that it was just games and not to worry it would not be a problem to me as effectively I had saved the Army and the airforce several 1000. This was almost 50 years ago!

[Anonymous Coward]

Splunk tool?

The "tracking device" appears to be an external image, a simple tracking beacon. The "malware" angle hinges on whether there was anything special to that image.

"He (lawyer McCue) was instructed that the embedded image contained a cyber-tool known as a ‘splunk’ tool,’ which can allow the originator full access to his computer, and all the files on the computer"...

https://www.militarytimes.com/2019/05/17/secret-tracking-device-found-in-navy-email-to-navy-times-amid-leak-investigation-raises-legal-ethical-questions/

[Michael Wojcik]

I blame Gibbs

The NCIS jokes practically write themselves.

"Experts believe the malware was written by an elusive hacker known only as 'Probie'."

"Rule 187, McGee: Don't send malware by email!"

"Analysis of the malware source suggests it was created by two people typing on the same keyboard."