The CIA Secretly Ran a Star Wars Fan Site (404media.co)
- Reference: 0177789611
- News link: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/05/26/2238214/the-cia-secretly-ran-a-star-wars-fan-site
- Source link: https://www.404media.co/the-cia-secretly-ran-a-star-wars-fan-site/
> The site looks like an ordinary Star Wars fan website from around 2010. But starwarsweb.net was actually a tool built by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to covertly [2]communicate with its informants in other countries .
[1] https://slashdot.org/~alternative_right
[2] https://www.404media.co/the-cia-secretly-ran-a-star-wars-fan-site/
How could they be so stupid (Score:2, Insightful)
Assuming "US pop culture" to be an adequate facade for secret US informants in typically anti-US countries is at a level of arrogance orignorance that one would call criminally negligent.
Re:How could they be so stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
In 2010, Star Wars was already one of the world's most popular franchises in a wide variety of countries, including many that would be seen often as anti-US. This is only shortly after the Star Wars prequels were extremely high grossing in the international markets [1]https://www.boxofficemojo.com/showdown/sd3762222596/ [boxofficemojo.com]. Russia and the other post-Soviet states absolutely love Star Wars for example [2]https://www.new-east-archive.org/articles/show/5158/star-wars-film-post-soviet-darth-vader-internet-party-ukraine-red-padawan [new-east-archive.org] although the films have not done well in China [3]https://internationalcenter.ufl.edu/why-%E2%80%98star-wars%E2%80%99-keeps-bombing-china [ufl.edu]. But even in China, this is more than popular enough that visiting a Star Wars website is reasonably plausible.
[1] https://www.boxofficemojo.com/showdown/sd3762222596/
[2] https://www.new-east-archive.org/articles/show/5158/star-wars-film-post-soviet-darth-vader-internet-party-ukraine-red-padawan
[3] https://internationalcenter.ufl.edu/why-%E2%80%98star-wars%E2%80%99-keeps-bombing-china
Re: (Score:2)
Of course Star Wars is popular but that's still very suspicious. If you'd have to point at possible US spies, where would you look? "Fans of the US" would be top of my list. In fact the site was uncovered and tens of informants were executed. The logical thing would be to create a website about a mundane topic with no particular connection to a foreign country.
Re: (Score:2)
> visiting a Star Wars website is reasonably plausible.
They're not getting a fair trial where a plausible excuse is enough to go free. They're getting onto a watch list, intelligence agencies do their metadata crossing thing, identify a few dozen which get questioned or worse.
Say if you intend to commit murder, you don't want to have an alibi, you want to end up on a suspect list at all, the risk is too high.
Re: (Score:2)
If they aren't getting a fair trial, then nothing matters does it.
Re: (Score:2)
What matters is to stay alive. Entering a first level suspect list is the end of it. Even totalitarian governments cannot monitor tens of millions of residents. But if they have a watch list with some thousand names, they'll do the necessary to find out who is a spy. That's how it works.
Re: (Score:2)
That's true, but unless you have a lot of high quality data tracking, a single website, especially for a popular franchise, can easily get lost in the noise. But my comment was specifically about popularity, not any other aspect. Having everyone do this on the same website in general, seems like poor spycraft.
Re: (Score:3)
I'd say you've just demonstrated a huge level of both arrogance and ignorance. US media is popular basically everywhere. It's by far the biggest reason why most countries set quotas for domestic content for e.g. streaming services, broadcast TV, cable, movie theaters, radio, etc. This is also perhaps the largest reason why Hollywood has an insane preference for content being internationally focused, even when it really doesn't make sense at all for the IP, like when they changed GI Joe to be some stupid acr
Re: (Score:1)
I know it's popular, I was a Star Wars fan as a kid like everyone else. Still it's a terrible choice for a cover. The fact that the site was uncovered and informants using it were executed was an expected result for such an unprofessional choice
Re: (Score:2)
I like that some schmuck on /. thinks they've got the international spy game on lock. You believe that one-line in a paywalled article on a no-name bullshit site citing a source as "an amateur security researcher" is the real story? That this particular site can be traced back to the "wave of deaths of CIA sources" in China 15 years ago? C'mon man.
Re: (Score:2)
I file this one under "If it looks stupid but works, then it's not stupid".
Then ask yourself why 4chan actually came back online after several days after it was being taken down due to a considerable security issue.
Silly (Score:2)
Could've just uploaded steganographic payloads to github or instagram.
Re: (Score:2)
If their internet traffic were monitored, then accessing weird files on GitHub would be more conspicuous in logs than reading a Star Wars forum where some messages had special meaning.
All of your counter points are less nefarious.... (Score:3, Insightful)
> At least that's something, right? It could be worse. They could still be running operations where they drug unwitting US citizens with LSD for "research". Or extrajudicial killings, torture and/or "renditions". Or flooding US ghettos with crack cocaine to fund nefarious operations abroad. JFK had the right idea for the CIA: "splinter it into a thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds".
...than what the Soviet Union or even Britain did. The more I learn about other countries, the more I realize this anti-USA bullshit spewed by self-loathing middle-class and upper-middle-class Americans is ignorant and foolish. Did the CIA do shitty things?...most likely....but nothing compared to what the KGB and FSB did and still do today.
Everything has to be evaluated in context and relative to peers, not in isolation. No country will be perfect, but the USA is better than it's peers and it's legac
By your logic, Africa would be the most peaceful (Score:2, Insightful)
> Nice false dilemma fallacies. How about the US, British, and everyone else leave other sovereign nations the f alone!?
Learn more history...when's the last time someone in power left everyone alone? The USA is currently leading in the ethics dept...a very low bar...but again. Show me a nation that has gained the level of power the USA has and been more ethical.
Also, how certain are you Afghanistan and South America would be peaceful if the USA did nothing? The USA has no interest in most of Africa. It must be a bastion of peace! When the USA takes an interest in a region, people get upset...when the USA doesn't, the
Re: (Score:2)
>> At least that's something, right? It could be worse. They could still be running operations where they drug unwitting US citizens with LSD for "research". Or extrajudicial killings, torture and/or "renditions".
How do you know they aren't? We know that [1]at least three US citizens [pbs.org], including Anwar al-Awlaki, were killed by a drone strike under the direct authority of President Obama on September 30, 2011, [2]violating their rights [westpoint.edu] under the Fifth Amendment (and maybe the Sixth). al-Awlaki's 16-year-old son Abdulrahman was killed by another drone strike on October 14, in, officially, an "accident". Have they stopped?
> Would you rather be Gaum under US rule or India under British rule? Haiti under French rule?
How about Iran under the Shah Reza Pahlavi? The US did that: helped the UK to overthrow the parliamentar
[1] https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/judge-dismisses-case-u-s-yemen-drone-strikes-3-u-s-citizens
[2] https://mwi.westpoint.edu/ten-years-after-the-al-awlaki-killing-a-reckoning-for-the-united-states-drones-wars-awaits/
Re: (Score:2)
> How do you know they aren't? We know that at least three US citizens, including Anwar al-Awlaki, were killed by a drone strike under the direct authority of President Obama on September 30, 2011, violating their rights under the Fifth Amendment (and maybe the Sixth). al-Awlaki's 16-year-old son Abdulrahman was killed by another drone strike on October 14, in, officially, an "accident". Have they stopped?
slight diversion, but I hope you dont mind...
Remember a year or so ago when that stupid supreme court dec
Probably where they recruited... (Score:2)
What were they called ? The three horsemen? The 3 geeks that popped up on the X-Files (tv show). They did background research and came up with wacky theories ?
Re: Probably where they recruited... (Score:3)
[1]The Lone Gunmen [wikipedia.org]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lone_Gunmen
Talk in code, we will! (Score:2)
And of course, the Bad Guys (tm) won't be able to figure it out...
Jedi Mind Tricks (Score:3)
This is not the site you're looking for...
Re: (Score:2)
Anything with more than two slashes and more than one dot is also suspicious.
Misdirection and Redirection (Score:2)
I like that if you visit the domain now, you get redirected to cia.gov.
Re: (Score:2)
Musk probably cancelled their hosting contract.
Re: (Score:2)
> I like that if you visit the domain now, you get redirected to cia.gov.
Even the CIA is afraid of Disney.
I mean is it going to be subtle? (Score:2)
The wookie is in the henhouse. repeat. The wookie is in the henhouse. Go to Endor for Extraction. There will be no further messages.
That explains those weird "fans" (Score:1)
Agent 1: "Pssst, Mr. Vader, how's the Death Star"?
Agent 2: "Robin Tango Alpha Slash Peter Bot Snot"...
What are they doing now? (Score:2)
I can picture agents posting on social media with predetermined code words to communicate. Even liking certain combination of posts could also be a signal.
So ... (Score:2)
... no hologram of Princes Leia loaded into an R2 droid? No wookie code talkers?
True fans are going to know that it's a fake.
Re: (Score:2)
You mean that deepfake of Princess Amidala getting it on with Jar Jar Binks had some super secret CIA meaning?
PAYWALL (Score:1)
The 404 media link is a paywall.
Why would you send millions of slashdotters to a paywall. Did you not check out the link?
Oh yeah, Slasdhot on a holiday weekend. /smdh incompetent
Of course they where (Score:2)
the evil empire