Elon Musk regularly communicates with Putin since late 2022 – WSJ
www.pravda.com.ua
American billionaire Elon Musk has been regularly in contact with Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin since late 2022.
    • fluxion@lemmy.worldEnglish
      52·
      2 months ago

      There’s also the FTC investigation and potential Enron/Theranos-like collapse of Tesla. The election isn’t the only area where Elon is prone too wildly misleading claims, and fortunately the finance sector is regulated a bit better than less essential things like electing the leader of the free world and not letting traitorous criminals topple democracy

      • snooggums@lemmy.worldEnglish
        311·
        2 months ago

        I would guess they mean american media in general instead of just one of them.

        The general public didn’t read the WSJ, and being behind a paywall hasn’t increased the number of people who do.

        • Omodi@lemmy.worldEnglish
          163·
          2 months ago

          It’s a WSJ exclusive from 9 last night. It’s not surprising there are not a lot of articles about it yet. The media sucks there is no reason to bitch about nothing.

      • Optional@lemmy.world
        4·
        2 months ago

        Probably also that it’s been a full two years plus and nobody’s said anything while he’s raking in billions from the US government for sensitive national programs including the Ukranian army’s internet connectivity.

  • MyOpinion@lemm.ee
    461·
    2 months ago

    Elon talks to Putin and Putin is Trumps master. I have a feeling we are being played by Putin.

    • CitizenKong@lemmy.world
      281·
      2 months ago

      The whole Western world is being played by Putin. Right wing parties are on the rise in pretty much every Western country and every single one has had suspicious connections to Russia.

    • floofloof@lemmy.caEnglish
      91·
      2 months ago

      Probably, but whether they can understand it depends on whether Musk and Putin used decent end-to-end encryption. You’d expect they would, in which case the NSA may effectively have only the metadata.

        • floofloof@lemmy.caEnglish
          9·
          2 months ago

          I think it’s possible they can’t, depending on the algorithm used and whether they have low-level access to hardware and/or firmware. It’s possible that some of the recommended algorithms were chosen for subtle NSA backdoors, and I’m sure they have a lot of resources to throw at high-value communications, but I’d be surprised if every algorithm in current use, with large enough keys, can be cracked by them. A low-level backdoor in the hardware device itself would be a different matter, and this seems like a more practical approach for the NSA than cracking the encryption directly, particularly where the participants are taking extra care. So I’d say it’s possible but not certain that they can hear/read these conversations.

            • floofloof@lemmy.caEnglish
              3·
              2 months ago

              To get around end-to-end encryption the tap would have to be in the phone handset itself or a vulnerability in the code. I wouldn’t rule either out.

          • Rapidcreek@lemmy.world
            13·
            2 months ago

            I can’t say much, but I do know they have every computing capacity you can imagine, as well as at least one of every piece of HW, even the stuff that’s built in a basement.

            • floofloof@lemmy.caEnglish
              3·
              2 months ago

              Still, as far as is commonly known, mathematically cracking encryption where the algorithm is good and keys are large and unique remains impractical for conventional computers. If they’re secretly way ahead on quantum computing (which seems unlikely), or if they have discovered mathematical vulnerabilities in common algorithms that have not been published, then that’s a different matter. But as far as we know, it must still be difficult for them to attack encryption directly. You suggest you know more than you can say, but if I were them I’d be looking at putting backdoors into phone/computer hardware to get hold of communications before they are E2E encrypted, and/or placing subtle vulnerabilities in open-source code.

        • AbidanYre@lemmy.worldEnglish
          41·
          2 months ago

          AES is freely available and if they knew of any weaknesses it probably wouldn’t be approved for use on TS data.

                • pivot_root@lemmy.world
                  4·
                  2 months ago

                  Nah, just a guy that read the entire comment tree.

                  While I agree with you that there’s a very very high likelihood of the conversation being recorded in some form or another and likely through a side channel, I feel that your “my sweet child… do you not think the NSA can break encryption” comment to be both condescending to the person you replied to, and hypocritical to the comment I replied to.

                  Neither you nor I are cryptographers. We can’t attest to the security or lack thereof of published cryptographic algorithms.

              • Rapidcreek@lemmy.world
                14·
                2 months ago

                I worked decades in the phone business. So, I kinda know how it works. Back in the day, we’d call this an invitation to a dick measurement. Not interested

                • AbidanYre@lemmy.worldEnglish
                  1·
                  2 months ago

                  That’s very exciting for you I suppose, my dad works at Nintendo. People can claim whatever they want on the Internet. You’ll have to forgive me for not being impressed by your unverifiable bona fides.

        • Gerudo@lemm.ee
          42·
          2 months ago

          If you don’t understand what the government/military technology is capable of, I’m sorry. I had a coworker who worked in and around extremely high level military surveillance years ago. Back then, they had the capability of turning on any cell phone microphone or camera and real time listen in. He wouldnt go beyond that, but did say/ the surveillance satellites in movies have nothing on current (even back then) capabilities. Imagine now

          We are just now learning of Locate X who can pinpoint almost any phone location, tie it to advertising id’s and view its movement history, and build an entire picture of what virtually any person on this planet is doing. That’s just a company, not the government.

          At this point in my life, I view anti tracking, ad block, encryption, alternate OSs etc. as keeping honest people honest. Military/govt. tech has ways around it all.

          • Rapidcreek@lemmy.world
            11·
            2 months ago

            I once enabled some of of those things for a particular customer years ago.

            I always liked the idea of leaving a text at a specific location for a specific phone.