Wired’s Kim Zetter, reporting from Army Pvt. Bradley Manning’s first hearing on charges of leaking classified documents to Wikileaks: “Manning asked “Nathaniel Frank,” believed to be Assange, about help in cracking the main password on his classified SIPRnet computer so that he could log on to it anonymously. He asked “Frank” if he had experience cracking IM NT hashes (presumably it’s a mistype and he meant NTLM for the Microsoft NT LAN Manager). 'Frank' replied yes, that they had 'rainbow tables' for doing that. Manning then sent him what looked like a hash.”

  • Guest

    Has Assange ever professed to being a “hacker”?

    “Nathanial Frank” sounds more like Adrian Lamo if he knows about cracking NTLM hashes with Rainbow Tables.

    And oh yeah, if Manning was cracking classified machines, they can get him for that, let alone anything he leaked. Idiot.

    • http://twitter.com/AndrewChamp Andrew Champ

      Adrian Lamo is hardly a hacker.  He’s just a guy that manipulates the url or string variables.  That’s not hacking, it’s tinkering.   Adrian doesn’t do (or know) cracking of hashes or encyption.

      • http://profiles.google.com/alphaminus Adam Kruckenberg

        Tinkering is hacking, and rainbow tables are widely available and easy to use. Assange would definitely know about them, as would Lamo, and any of millions of other people.

        • http://twitter.com/AndrewChamp Andrew Champ

          I would believe Assange would, but not Adrian.  I’m not even sure if he’s allowed a computer yet.  :)

      • Guest

        i’m pretty sure Lamo manipulates more than urls. 

      • Paul Renault

        Using Rainbow Tables doesn’t quite count as hacking either – there’s no cryptanalysis involved.  It’s just brute strength, but done in advance.

        I’d characterize it as script kiddie stuff

        • musesum

          Does that mean my cold isn’t considered hacking?

    • Aric Forbing

      Wait, we have classified information floating around on systems without salted hashes?!?

      • Thad Boyd

        Salting is just the beginning of the problem; they shouldn’t be using NTLM in the first damn place.

      • http://glitch.tl/ Michael Smith

        Not only that, they had a young person with loads of angst handling classified information.

        • Guest

          of course, there is the chance that he was just an idealistic young person and then saw the classified materials in question.

          I mean, I know I was changed by what I saw on Ogrish.com circa 2005, and my family is career military, with brass. This poor idealistic VOLUNTEER was suddenly swimming in the very harsh truth about what America does in our name.

          It made me question a lot, and I wasn’t swimming in it, and I grew up with a very realistic view of what our policies and their effects are.

          Or, you know, go for the shallow character assessment thing. Whatever keeps the torch in your hand.

    • Punchcard
      • http://glitch.tl/ Michael Smith

        I work with a guy who used to work close to Assange. He is the kind of guy who when given a choice between asking for access to something and (OTH) cracking security, will take the later option.

        • jerwin

          Some people aren’t great at social engineering.

    • inedible

      Cracking NTLM hashes with rainbow tables isn’t that hard at all these days. They even have a GUI made in Visual Basic.

      http://ophcrack.sourceforge.net/

      All point and click these days. Very simple. Don’t even have to know what you’re doing.

  • stasike

    The link in the article seems to be mangled

    • oasisob1

      It’s still mangled. Probably some weird DoS attack to keep us from reading about his trial/hearing/whatever it is.

      • neapel

        how crafty of the government, to make it look like the CMS messed up. they know their HTML as well as their black helicopters

  • http://twitter.com/markjohnh Mark John Hiemstra

    Try again with the link, homie.

    • Pedantic Douchebag

      Nice avatar! I’m imagining your towels now…

  • James Longstreet

    Please stop ungendering Pvt. Manning by referring to her as “Bradley” or using male pronouns.  It’s offensive and triggering.

    • http://twitter.com/flordelapalabra Tlahtolli

      What’s the alternative, then?

      • http://twitter.com/trempls tré

        “Private Manning” and “she/her” or possibly “ze/hir” would be good replacements.

        • oasisob1

          That’s a personal choice, and you must be told what to use. Assuming he/she/ze wants it a particular way isn’t correct, either. Until Pfc Manning tells us, him/her/hirself, we can’t know.

    • novium

      I’m not really sure about that. We’ve never heard from Private Manning…which is not to say we should necessarily use the default, I’m just not sure how comfortable I feel about declaring that we SHOULD use one set of pronouns over another to respect someone when we haven’t been able to ask. I’m all in favor of gender-neutral language until we can. I mean, it just feels a bit…..we only know about the trans stuff because of some heavily implied things that were told in confidence to third parties. That makes me uncomfortable treating it as if it were a public declaration. The poor kid deserves some privacy, you know? But I guess in this case nothing will be fair…it is already public.

      • ZikZak

        In Manning’s own words:
        “[I] questioned my gender for several years… sexual orientation was easy to figure out… but i started to come to terms with it during the first few months of my deployment”

        “i already got myself into minor trouble, revealing my uncertainty over my gender identity… which is causing me to lose this job… [...] i wish it were as simple as “hey, go transition”… but i need to get paperwork sorted…”

        “i wouldn’t mind going to prison for the rest of my life, or being executed so much, if it wasn’t for the possibility of having pictures of me… plastered all over the world press… as [a] boy…”

        • novium

          Yes, I’ve read the transcripts. Which were transcripts of a conversation that was had in the understanding that it was completely confidential. That’s where my discomfort comes from. What Lamo did was despicable- a violation of trust so complete that I am sick with it. This should be something that Bradley should have a say in, you know? I just wish we could ask. It’s so personal.

    • neapel

      I don’t understand why Lamo is being trusted anyway. Clearly, Manning being not straight (and especially the Lady Gaga-bit) was used to slander, just because Lamo says he’s gay himself doesn’t lower my suspicion… (he is, after all, someone who leaks private chat logs.)
      So, given this was during the DADT debate, didn’t it fit nicely that the evil traitor was also queer? (Actually this doesn’t need Lamo fabricating anything, it’s irrelevant if that narrative is based in truth or not…)

    • oasisob1

      Tell it to Wired. They don’t mind using male pronouns.

      • thaum

        And Wired are exemplars of journalism, amirite? What with them being chummy with Lamo and all.

        • oasisob1

          Wired is joined by CNN, BBC, Reuters, The Baltimore Sun, The AP, codepink(!), HuffPo, ah, I’m tired of looking, they call treat him as male.

          • thaum

            I’m sure they’ve all been in contact with Manning and have all asked Manning what pronouns they should all use in reporting. 

            *tries not to die of laughter*

            Seriously, we had issues recently with reporting on trans people _on this very blog_ and got it wrong the first time.

          • http://profiles.google.com/joshuabardwell Joshua Bardwell

            Pointing out that the mainstream media is referring to a person as “he” hardly indicates much about the person’s gender-identity. The mainstream media regularly refers to overtly trans people using the wrong pronouns.

    • Guest

      Triggering? We may not realize how that is so without further context. 

      • http://twitter.com/trempls tré

        Hearing others be misgendered can remind a lot of folks of times they have been misgendered. For some people, those times can amount to a lifetime of being perceived and treated as someone they simply didn’t feel they were.

  • Elisabeth Day

    And the misgendering of Manning by her alleged supporters continues. http://feministing.com/2011/12/22/why-does-the-media-and-her-supposed-supporters-continue-to-misgender-breanna-manning/

    • oasisob1

      I think we have to go back to the point that the person we’re talking about hasn’t made a public statement regarding preferred gender usage. Could be there hasn’t been a lot of opportunity for such reflection for said person, given the circumstances.

    • Pedantic Douchebag

      An interesting discussion on Manning’s Wikipedia talk page (second section/Manning and GID – article as stands violates MOS:IDENTITY): http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Bradley_Manning