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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

#151
post #79

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.…

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.

Go to a town hall meeting - the local and state government level. Democracy is not just electoral process.

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

#152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A year ago you said you don't work for the NSA or DoD but know one person who does: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9297990 Are you seriously expecting us to believe that your friend is telling you how the NSA is internally structured and how sensitive foreign operation intelligence programs work? Plus in another comment of yours you claimed to know how General Atomics MQ-1C Gray Eagle worked behind the scenes b…

> Plus in another comment of yours you claimed to know how General Atomics MQ-1C Gray Eagle He spelled it "Grey Eagle". It's unlikely one can actually speak "professionally" about a program when they can't spell it correctly. If you're part of the program, you're seeing/typing/writing the name "Gray Eagle" day in/day out.

Heh, if you're part of the program, you may also call it 280, or 64-bit. But, you'd only know that if, ya know, you're actually part of the program.

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

#153
post #79

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.…

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.

> Why do people insist on calling the US a democracy ?

Because it is designed as a (representative) democracy. Its also a federal republic whose constituent units are mostly-representative [but some with significant aspects of direct] democracies.

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

#154
post #143
post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> A Republic is a land of laws.

A republic is a land where political authority isn't formally heritable personal property (e.g., basically a not-monarchy), a republic can also (like the US) be a representative democracy. It can also be an authoritarian dictatorship. It can also be a direct democracy.

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

#155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does anyone on earth not have an obligation to be ethical? (Yes, I know there is no universally accepted definition of "ethical".)

Yes, noone does. You are not bound by law to be ethical. There's no law about it. Are you _supposed_ to act ethical? absolutely. but you dont have an obligation

When the best thing you can say about your position is it's not literally illegal, you should probably stop digging.

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

#156
post #33
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…

>> The Russian destabilisation plan is to get Western countries to see NSA attacks on them and lose trust ...

That assumes that we 'the people' are part of the equation. We aren't. This looks like standard gamesmanship between intelligence agencies. They operate in a world above the cares and needs of the common people. Such messages normally pass quietly through known channels (servers known by both sides). The going public says to me that the message wasn't getting through, or wasn't being taken seriously by the right people. This is about communicating intention to someone who, perhaps, needed to be publicly shamed in order that they take the situation seriously. That would fit the pattern of many 'cold war' spy games.

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

#157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> If you hadn't already lost faith in the U.S. election system years ago, then you've got your head in the sand. The only check on this is the separation of powers, and even then, career politicians, special interests, and tons of money have way too much influence. Add in the fact that the press were supposed to be the check on government and now they're firmly in bed with the political parties. All you get is the i…

Career politicians, special interests and tons of money got comprehensively spanked in the Republic Primary process. Trump is an even worse choice - but he demonstrated that it is possible to beat the machine. Sanders came very close to doing exactly the same thing. The US system is significantly more favourable to insurgents than many.

It was interesting to see how the "establishment" Republicans tried at every turn to thwart and remove Trump from the process, but in the end relented (however much it pained them) because that's what the voters said they wanted.

The "establishment" Democrats were the same except they succeeded in placing their candidate ahead of what many believe their base really wanted.

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

#158
post #79

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.…

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.

off topic, but I keep seeing things in the format of "word^^^^^" and "bribe^H^H^H^H" things like that. In your case it seems to indicate sarcasm, but that doesn't always seem to be the case.

Can someone fill me in?

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

#159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate when people do that. Much like I hate when people looking for support send me screenshots - it's SO MUCH harder to transcribe ID#s, for example, or to record the details of the issue for future search.

If it's a question of a lesser of two evils - tweetstorms or one screenshot - which do you prefer? Consider also the fact that when people share a tweetstorm, they may even take a screenshot of it.

What about http://pastebin.com or http://www.twitlonger.com (latter requires sign-in, though)?

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

#160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Twitter started out as an SMS repeater. SMS has for ages, thanks to Nokia, had the capability of merging multiple messages into a single large one. Twitter could just make use of this and save themselves a whole lot of grief.

Let's be serious. No one reads twitter over sms anymore. This isn't at all the reason twitter continues to limit to 140 characters. (Before some smartass replies "I do read over sms", well even without sms merging, twitter could still split a tweet into multiple sms. 99.9999% of their userbase wouldn't care.)

That's not relevant to the OPs point. The point is that even SMS clients were capable of merging multiple messages together, yet Twitter has still failed to do so. So whether or not they were SMS doesn't matter.
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