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Snowden: Hack of an NSA server is not unprecedented, publication of the take is

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Re: Snowden: Hack of an NSA server is not unprecedented, publication of the take is

#141

Post by asveikau »

altcognito wrote: post #124
saiya-jin wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think many people of vietnam, cambodia, laos, indonesia, angola, nicaragua, grenada, most of the middle east, afghanistan, pakistan [1] and so on would strongly disagree. Potentially lesser evil out of 2 evils ain't no good choice. [1] http://academic.evergreen.edu/g/grossmaz/interventions.html

Most of these countries (or regions) never took up capitalism, free markets, and liberalism. Being partners on either side of a proxy war obviously didn't help.

So they deserved it then? Please keep in mind you're talking about many innocent bystanders being killed as an outcome of US foreign policy.

I don't think it's entirely black and white in the other direction either but your comment strikes me as crass and indifferent towards human life, dehumanizing, confusing people with their larger society and government.

Re: Snowden: Hack of an NSA server is not unprecedented, publication of the take is

#142

Post by marcosdumay »

balabaster wrote: post #50
pjc50 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So this seems to be the "Dr Strangelove" scenario playing out, but with (fortunately) exploits rather than nuclear weapons. It sounds like many countries have other significant exploits into other countries, but this isn't "admitted"; it's not an unignorable public fact (+). The Russian destabilisation plan is to get Western countries to see NSA attacks on them and lose trust in the US - plus an attack on the concept…

It takes Russia pointing this out to make us lose trust in the U.S.? I think the U.S. has done this all on their own. Snowden was just the latest whistleblower showing the world they can't be trusted. There were others before him, but it got swept under the rug. We all know the U.S. election system is flawed to a point of being broken and thus democracy as we like to believe it's supposed to work doesn't even exist.…

> But everyone just accepts that's the way it is and carries on with life because "at least it's not North Korea."

They aren't Brazil either, or even most places in Europe.

Were I an US citizen, I'd be very wary of people trying to fix Democracy¹. They have a pretty good quality of life, and any attempted change can go very badly very easily - the more "let's fix things" is the change, the easier it could go badly.

1 - Hell, I'm wary of them here at Brazil! Because, you know, we aren't North Korea either, nor Venezuela. That said, we recently got a very good and very safe fix applied - the trick is that nobody was claiming it was a fix for Democracy, it was some people "just doing their work" on unforeseen ways.

Re: Snowden: Hack of an NSA server is not unprecedented, publication of the take is

#143

Post by geggam »

dpark wrote: post #110
geggam wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do people insist on calling the US a democracy ? It is a Constitutional Republic with the only democratic process being the representatives you elect .... represent you ... sometimes... if they feel like it.... unless they have been bribe^H^H^H^H lobbied to do otherwise.

Because it is a democracy. When you democratically elect representatives, it's a democracy. If you elect incompetent, or corrupt, or evil representatives, it's still a democracy.

The law of the land is the constitution. A Republic is a land of laws. A democracy is a land of majority rule.

Democracy is a tyranny of majority. The founders did NOT want a democracy.

Re: Snowden: Hack of an NSA server is not unprecedented, publication of the take is

#144

Post by marcosdumay »

derpadelt wrote: post #9
2close4comfort wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A fire that they are showing they do not know how to control.

They do not know how to perfectly control it. Given the obviously huge scale at which they operate, it seems to work reasonably well. Yet the huge scale is exactly what scares the socks off of knowledgable people - even more than a fire here and there. Their PR problem is that the number of times they successfully work in the dark is somehow confidential...

It's the consequences, not their size.

"Look, we've put off 99.9% of the fires we started last week. Your complaint about we completely burning 2 cities down is baseless, you can't reasonably expect our fire-control to get any better."

Re: Snowden: Hack of an NSA server is not unprecedented, publication of the take is

#145

Post by pjc50 »

altcognito wrote: post #128
pjc50 wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

.. and there's the other half of the false dichotomy: if you're not with "us", you're against us. It's interesting that you choose to use the word "management" here - we in other countries are not left to make our own decisions, they're "managed".

If, you believe what you say. If you believe Russia releasing hacks and influencing US elections -- how is that any different than what the US does? If you believe all that, you have to consider the results of Putin's Russia: Oligarchy & Nationalization, direct imperialism (Ukraine), the support of extremists/facists in foreign countries...

Yes, Putin's Russia is terrible, and exporting problems. They're a contributor to the Syrian mess as well.

That doesn't make it OK for the US to do it as well! This is what I meant by "false dichotomy". If anything, the US (and especially UK) use of domestic surveillance and extraterritorial interference makes it harder for us to argue that Russia should not do those things either.

Re: Snowden: Hack of an NSA server is not unprecedented, publication of the take is

#146

Post by pjc50 »

altcognito wrote: post #124
saiya-jin wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think many people of vietnam, cambodia, laos, indonesia, angola, nicaragua, grenada, most of the middle east, afghanistan, pakistan [1] and so on would strongly disagree. Potentially lesser evil out of 2 evils ain't no good choice. [1] http://academic.evergreen.edu/g/grossmaz/interventions.html

Most of these countries (or regions) never took up capitalism, free markets, and liberalism. Being partners on either side of a proxy war obviously didn't help.

The classic example of a generally stable and democratic country being overthrown into illiberalism and mass murder by the US is Chile, which was missing from that list.

Re: Snowden: Hack of an NSA server is not unprecedented, publication of the take is

#147

Post by pests »

irishcoffee wrote: post #72
pests wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The quoted tweet uses two acronyms. Which is incorrect? You say acronyms as a plural. Can you please identify two or more specific usages (hopefully with citation!) of Snowden using acronyms incorrectly?

TAO is composed of much more than hackers, and hackers are in other groups besides TAO. No, I don't have link-able sources.

Yoy also need to realize his audience and this communication medium. He is speaking to the Americans public. He needs it as simple as can be.

Re: Snowden: Hack of an NSA server is not unprecedented, publication of the take is

#148

Post by linkregister »

jordigh wrote: post #28

Ed was a Booz Allen Hamilton employee only for a couple of months. He wasn't even out of his probation period as an employee. It's really amazing that in such a short time he was able to siphon all this information out of the NSA. I wonder what more information could he have collected if he had spent a longer time contracting for the NSA. I wonder how much more about the NSA we could know if people who have dedicated…

He did the majority of his data siphon over many months during his time as a system administrator as a Dell contractor [1]. He was only a Booz Allen Hamilton employee for 3 months [2], one of which where he was actually on the job (and ostensibly siphoning docs until his last day).

(According to reports; we haven't heard an official account yet.)

1. http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/08/us-govt-snowden-a...

2. http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/06/whistleblower-who...

Re: Snowden: Hack of an NSA server is not unprecedented, publication of the take is

#149

Post by pjc50 »

marcosdumay wrote: post #142
balabaster wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It takes Russia pointing this out to make us lose trust in the U.S.? I think the U.S. has done this all on their own. Snowden was just the latest whistleblower showing the world they can't be trusted. There were others before him, but it got swept under the rug. We all know the U.S. election system is flawed to a point of being broken and thus democracy as we like to believe it's supposed to work doesn't even exist.…

> But everyone just accepts that's the way it is and carries on with life because "at least it's not North Korea." They aren't Brazil either, or even most places in Europe. Were I an US citizen, I'd be very wary of people trying to fix Democracy¹. They have a pretty good quality of life, and any attempted change can go very badly very easily - the more "let's fix things" is the change, the easier it could go badly. 1…

Part of the question is the basic mechanics of democracy: does everyone actually get a vote, and does the count accurately reflect votes cast? "Fixing" that should be less controversial than it is.

Far too many voting machines are still insecure, and one of the candidates is pre-accusing the other of fixing the election.

Re: Snowden: Hack of an NSA server is not unprecedented, publication of the take is

#150

Post by copperheart »

pjc50 wrote: post #33
imglorp wrote: post #10

His complete post (just in case) original 4:40 AM - 16 Aug 2016 from @Snowden: The hack of an NSA malware staging server is not unprecedented, but the publication of the take is. Here's what you need to know: (1/x) 1) NSA traces and targets malware C2 servers in a practice called Counter Computer Network Exploitation, or CCNE. So do our rivals. 2) NSA is often lurking undetected for years on the C2 and ORBs (proxy ho…

So this seems to be the "Dr Strangelove" scenario playing out, but with (fortunately) exploits rather than nuclear weapons. It sounds like many countries have other significant exploits into other countries, but this isn't "admitted"; it's not an unignorable public fact (+). The Russian destabilisation plan is to get Western countries to see NSA attacks on them and lose trust in the US - plus an attack on the concept…

What is this 'Russian destabilization plan' you are talking about?
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