LOL mr Krugman, that’s not how the interwebz work

[Ben]

but would it be possible for a government organization to put compromising material on your computer remotely?

Without 100% use of a virtual machine, I think it would be relatively easy for them to do it if you rate high enough, or piss them off enough, for them to bother.

Even if you have both good hardware security and good user protocol, it could be relatively easy. Using me as an example, I might receive an official (really official, not spoofed) email from the OPM retirement division telling me to click on the link to log into my retirement account (e.g., "click here to log into your monthly statement") and the next thing you know, I have incriminating crap on my computer courtesy of the NSA.

[cordex]

I apologize if this is a stupid question, but would it be possible for a government organization to put compromising material on your computer remotely?  I recall an episode of 'Sherlock' in which Mark Gatiss threatened some people with uploading material to their computers that would put them away for 20 years.

Depends on a lot of things, but for some groups with the kind of zero day exploits that we know they have used previously I would say absolutely.  Or if not remotely they could break into most of our homes pretty easily and insert it that way.

But why bother?  If the government is compromised at that level and willing to plant evidence then the easiest thing to do would be to get a search warrant on some false pretext and have a crooked tech "find" it.  For that matter, they wouldn't be limited to planting electronic evidence.

[brimic]

Without 100% use of a virtual machine, I think it would be relatively easy for them to do it if you rate high enough, or piss them off enough, for them to bother.

Even if you have both good hardware security and good user protocol, it could be relatively easy. Using me as an example, I might receive an official (really official, not spoofed) email from the OPM retirement division telling me to click on the link to log into my retirement account (e.g., "click here to log into your monthly statement") and the next thing you know, I have incriminating crap on my computer courtesy of the NSA.

Our corporate IT tests us constantly on this sort of thing. They send very convincing social engineering emails asking you to click on something or asking for information. We are the point where we look at every little detail of the email's origin before opening it or default to hitting the  'report phish' button. Out of a few dozen of these in the last year or so, I got tripped up once- to be fair, I hadn't drank my coffee yet.

[MechAg94]

Our corporate IT tests us constantly on this sort of thing. They send very convincing social engineering emails asking you to click on something or asking for information. We are the point where we look at every little detail of the email's origin before opening it or default to hitting the  'report phish' button. Out of a few dozen of these in the last year or so, I got tripped up once- to be fair, I hadn't drank my coffee yet.

We get those occasionally.  It can be confusing when the anti-spam filter puts a message at the top saying "This email was sent to you at the request of your IT department." 

[K Frame]

Back 2000 or so the project I worked on had a stand-alone e-mail system outside of the corporate system.

One of the freaking engineers, a guy who should have known better, got an e-mail from a "friend" with pictures of Anna Kournikova (the unbelievably hawt tennis player).

Except the pictures had a dot and three extra letters after the dot and g i f...

Those letters were... v b s. Anyone with a little experience knows that those are executable files -- visual basic script.

Walter was HIGHLY experienced. And he still clicked the file. And dropped our in house computer system for nearly a week.

Talked to one of the admins, and he said that when the virus got loose it immediately propagated to the e-mail list and started sending out multiple messages to everyone in the address book. A couple of other people also clicked the file, and it snowballed to the point where, at its worst, the various iterations were trying to send something like 1.7 million e-mails every second...

[lee n. field]

I apologize if this is a stupid question, but would it be possible for a government organization to put compromising material on your computer remotely?

Probably.

Depends what state-actor backdoors are in place, or other dirty tricks.   Most people aren't paranoid enough.

  I recall an episode of 'Sherlock' in which Mark Gatiss threatened some people with uploading material to their computers that would put them away for 20 years.

[dogmush]

Back 2000 or so the project I worked on had a stand-alone e-mail system outside of the corporate system.

One of the freaking engineers, a guy who should have known better, got an e-mail from a "friend" with pictures of Anna Kournikova (the unbelievably hawt tennis player).

Except the pictures had a dot and three extra letters after the dot and g i f...

Those letters were... v b s. Anyone with a little experience knows that those are executable files -- visual basic script.

Walter was HIGHLY experienced. And he still clicked the file. And dropped our in house computer system for nearly a week.

Talked to one of the admins, and he said that when the virus got loose it immediately propagated to the e-mail list and started sending out multiple messages to everyone in the address book. A couple of other people also clicked the file, and it snowballed to the point where, at its worst, the various iterations were trying to send something like 1.7 million e-mails every second...

The power of boobs has laid many an otherwise intelligent man low.

[MillCreek]

The power of boobs has laid many an otherwise intelligent man low.

Quoted for classic remarks.

[Perd Hapley]

I don't know if it really happened to him, or he got caught doing something, or whatever.  

I dislike the guy very much. That said, if someone actually was trying to set him up with something like child porn, they should immediately be put against a wall and shot. That's the kind of thing that would absolutely ruin an innocent person's life forever.

Well, it's not execution, but...
https://www.dailywire.com/news/police-officer-jailed-for-three-years-after-falsely-accusing-neighbor-of-sexually-assaulting-a-child-following-hedge-trimming-dispute

[gunsmith]

   Anna Kournikova, omg , I love her

[RoadKingLarry]

I don't know who Krugman is. But, the fastest way to eliminate your victims support base is to accuse them of sex crimes against a child. And how hard would it be in the case of the average computer user to surreptitiously install incriminating materials onto their computer?
While i believe actual child predators are fully deserving of a quick but painful death it's just far to easy to set some one up. And far too often all it takes is one malicious lie to destroy a person's life with little to no risk of repercussion even if the lie is found out. The damage has already been done.
In the case of the story Fisful linked to 3 years is no where near enough.

[brimic]

I don't know who Krugman is.

He's a smarmy little progressive A-hole who writes for the NYT and who has never been right about anything related to economics, but won a nobel prize in economics.

[Angel Eyes]

He's a smarmy little progressive A-hole who writes for the NYT and who has never been right about anything related to economics, but won a nobel prize in economics.

... like Obama and his Peace Prize?

[K Frame]

... like Obama and his Peace Prize?

like Obama and his Peace Prize Participation Trophy?


Fixed if for you.

[Perd Hapley]

He's a smarmy little progressive A-hole who writes for the NYT and who has never been right about anything related to economics, but won a nobel prize in economics.

Didn't he say the market would never recover from Orangemanbad?

[Ben]

Didn't he say the market would never recover from Orangemanbad?

Yes. We're supposed to be in an economic apocalypse right now with like a 5000 Dow.

[K Frame]

Yes. We're supposed to be in an economic apocalypse right now with like a 5000 Dow.

We ARE in an economic apocalypse, you white privilege bastard! You're just not woke enough to realize it!

 

[Perd Hapley]

We ARE in an economic apocalypse, you white privilege bastard! You're just not woke enough to realize it!

 

Of course. As a condition of my white privilege, big stacks of money are brought to me on a daily basis. My butler is getting tired of carrying it around and counting it up.

[K Frame]

Is he a butler of a minority extraction?

[MillCreek]

Is he a butler of a minority extraction?

I am putting in my request to have Michael Caine (Alfred) assigned as my butler.

[Perd Hapley]

Is he a butler of a minority extraction?

Like white people would ever be butlers. We're too busy gentrifying, and colluding with Russia.

[K Frame]

Like white people would ever be butlers. We're too busy gentrifying, and colluding with Russia.

Fair point, yeah fair point...