Edward Snowden book coming out Sept. 17 • Hacker News Board

Re: Edward Snowden book coming out Sept. 17

#11

Post by jascii » Thu, Aug 01, 2019, 5:27 PM UTC

lern_too_spel wrote: post #8

dTal wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not about inter-nation spying. It was about the NSA secretly spying on the US's own citizens, on its own companies. This is not acceptable, and that is why it's illegal - it subverts democracy. "China and Russia are doing it" is not an excuse for that - they are examples of countries we should not aspire to be like. Also, regarding this geopolitical information warfare business - none of us were told about this,…

[flagged]

There is a bit more then that: https://www.eff.org/nsa-spying

And no, he didn't flee to china, he transited through Hong Kong, which seems to be a sound tactical choice considering Hong Kongs unique position in international politics.

Re: Edward Snowden book coming out Sept. 17

#12

Post by antoniuschan99 » Thu, Aug 01, 2019, 5:42 PM UTC

jascii wrote: post #11

lern_too_spel wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

There is a bit more then that: https://www.eff.org/nsa-spying And no, he didn't flee to china, he transited through Hong Kong, which seems to be a sound tactical choice considering Hong Kongs unique position in international politics.

I have been waiting to hear his take on the protests going on there because back then he said he chose HK because of the freedoms it exercised.

Re: Edward Snowden book coming out Sept. 17

#13

Post by verizonuser » Thu, Aug 01, 2019, 5:58 PM UTC

Snowden is a top scumbag. Bring him to justice. He could have just disclosed domestic spying operations. Instead, he lit a match and torched the NSA to the ground, while kicking off a global subversion movement directed primarily at the USIC. That he fled to adversaries while, for instance, disclosing USIC hacking efforts against them indicates his motives. He's anything but a patriot. He's a traitor against the United States, against the oath he took. His profits from the book should be seized.

Why does Snowden's twitter only follow @NSAGov? Are they his sole "target" forever? His entire social presence is centered around this idea of the NSA being his sole "adversary"? He torched the NSA to the ground.

Why did someone who is so calculating execute an ostensibly haphazard plan to end up overseas? Intentional or not, Snowden went to HK then Russia. He stays in Russia to avoid facing justice.

How much time did Snowden have to plan for his escape? At least since December 2012. It was enough time for him to think through and coordinate the biggest part of such a plan: the diversion. It would not be surprising to discover that he had help domestically during this process.

The forthcoming book does allow Snowden to write his own history.

Re: Edward Snowden book coming out Sept. 17

#14

Post by jascii » Thu, Aug 01, 2019, 6:01 PM UTC

antoniuschan99 wrote: post #12

jascii wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a bit more then that: https://www.eff.org/nsa-spying And no, he didn't flee to china, he transited through Hong Kong, which seems to be a sound tactical choice considering Hong Kongs unique position in international politics.

I have been waiting to hear his take on the protests going on there because back then he said he chose HK because of the freedoms it exercised.

I think it did at the time, I see the protests as a response to mainland China's efforts to reduce those freedoms.

Re: Edward Snowden book coming out Sept. 17

#15

Post by dTal » Thu, Aug 01, 2019, 6:05 PM UTC

lern_too_spel wrote: post #8

dTal wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not about inter-nation spying. It was about the NSA secretly spying on the US's own citizens, on its own companies. This is not acceptable, and that is why it's illegal - it subverts democracy. "China and Russia are doing it" is not an excuse for that - they are examples of countries we should not aspire to be like. Also, regarding this geopolitical information warfare business - none of us were told about this,…

[flagged]

Wow. Can you really not remember the infamous Prism PowerPoint slide? https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Prism_slide_5.jpg

And China/PRC != Hong Kong, whatever Beijing would have you believe. Why are you posting propaganda?

Re: Edward Snowden book coming out Sept. 17

#16

Post by dTal » Thu, Aug 01, 2019, 6:12 PM UTC

mindslight wrote: post #10

str33t_punk wrote: post #3

What I find interesting is that my opinions on Edward Snowden have drastically changed over time. When the leaks first came out, I regarded him as a hero, for exposing what the US Government was doing. At this time my view of the world was extremely America centric, where all other countries were pretty powerless and the US was the only one doing such deeds. I think this view was fairly naive. In the last decade my t…

The simple answer is that you have been consuming too much mass media, and have succumbed to its insidious bias. This "weaponization" of the Internet narrative is based around casting vulnerabilities as if they're "nobody's fault", rather than mundane gross negligence. The digital realm inherently favors defenders - if there is no logic error, packets just bounce off. And this applies even in the less-certain psychol…

>Everybody involved in tech should have already known

Yeah, I knew back in 2008 or so, well pre-Snowden, and it freaked me out. Room 641A was the major giveaway, but there were lots of little things. I told all my friends about it - and got shrugs. They either didn't care, or didn't believe me and wrote it off as conspiracy-theory nonsense. The sad fact is that it takes the media telling people something is a scandal before they'll believe it is one, and for that to happen there has to be an event to report on. Snowden's role was more that, and making the evidence really incontrovertible. Before that, what could we, as tech people, have done?

Oh, and, witnessing the inevitable flip from "that can't possibly be happening" to "of course that's happening, I knew it all along, no big deal" was a frustrating experience. Only one of my friends came to me and was big enough to say "you were right". It taught me an unpleasant fact of people's psychology: people have such astonishing status-quo bias that they will rewrite the past to match the present.

Re: Edward Snowden book coming out Sept. 17

#17

Post by lern_too_spel » Thu, Aug 01, 2019, 6:18 PM UTC

jascii wrote: post #9

lern_too_spel wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I find it telling as well that he fled to Russia He didn't flee to Russia. He fled to Hong Kong, hoping to live a good life outside the great firewall by getting into the PRC's good graces via transfer of classified material to them. https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1266777/exclusiv... Unfortunately for him, China just laughed at him and kicked him out. If there's a lesson in all this, it's to pay attent…

The linked article talks about Snowden publishing data on US operations in China as parts of the leaks, it does not seem to corroborate your claim that he was trying to be "getting into the PRC's good graces via transfer of classified material to them".

He "published" that data by specifically leaking it to a Chinese newspaper. He was seeking asylum in Hong Kong at the time. Of course, Beijing did not want a prolonged diplomatic tussle with the US, so they could not let him stay. Their choices were to extradite to the US or to let him go somewhere else, and both options make it not their problem, so they let him (forced him to) go. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/10/hong-kong-edwa...

Re: Edward Snowden book coming out Sept. 17

#18

Post by lern_too_spel » Thu, Aug 01, 2019, 6:23 PM UTC

dTal wrote: post #15

lern_too_spel wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Wow. Can you really not remember the infamous Prism PowerPoint slide? https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Prism_slide_5.jpg And China/PRC != Hong Kong, whatever Beijing would have you believe. Why are you posting propaganda?

Yes, I remember how badly Snowden misread it. Prism is a system that ingests data the FBI requested under court ordered wiretaps for specific accounts. The FBI's Data Intercept Technology Unit is right there in the slides. https://i.imgur.com/setOJIm.jpg

This was well-known and commented on at the time Greenwald's articles were being published, with the NYT reporting on the program correctly the very next day by interviewing people actually involved in the program (verifying claims like real journalists — why didn't The Guardian think of that instead of taking the paranoid rants of a barely literate high school dropout at face value?).

https://www.cnet.com/news/no-evidence-of-nsas-direct-access-...

https://medium.com/@alecmuffett/how-to-talk-about-prism-and-...

https://medium.com/prism-truth/the-prism-details-matter-82a1...

> And China/PRC != Hong Kong, whatever Beijing would have you believe.

Too bad for Snowden. He immediately leaked intelligence valuable to PRC, thinking that they could help him stay in Hong Kong. If only he had known "PRC != Hong Kong."

> Why are you posting propaganda

Why are you spreading well-known lies, and why are you calling the truth "propaganda?"

Re: Edward Snowden book coming out Sept. 17

#19

Post by lern_too_spel » Thu, Aug 01, 2019, 6:38 PM UTC

jascii wrote: post #11

lern_too_spel wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

There is a bit more then that: https://www.eff.org/nsa-spying And no, he didn't flee to china, he transited through Hong Kong, which seems to be a sound tactical choice considering Hong Kongs unique position in international politics.

> There is a bit more then that: https://www.eff.org/nsa-spying

EFF has no evidence that it was anything more than that. If it was anything more than that, don't you think Snowden would have leaked it?

> he transited through Hong Kong

Not by choice. He wanted to stay in Hong Kong, but Hong Kong wanted nothing to do with him.

“I have had many opportunities to flee HK, but I would rather stay and fight the United States government in the courts, because I have faith in Hong Kong’s rule of law.”

https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1259422/edward-s...

Re: Edward Snowden book coming out Sept. 17

#20

Post by lern_too_spel » Thu, Aug 01, 2019, 6:43 PM UTC

dTal wrote: post #16

mindslight wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The simple answer is that you have been consuming too much mass media, and have succumbed to its insidious bias. This "weaponization" of the Internet narrative is based around casting vulnerabilities as if they're "nobody's fault", rather than mundane gross negligence. The digital realm inherently favors defenders - if there is no logic error, packets just bounce off. And this applies even in the less-certain psychol…

>Everybody involved in tech should have already known Yeah, I knew back in 2008 or so, well pre-Snowden, and it freaked me out. Room 641A was the major giveaway, but there were lots of little things. I told all my friends about it - and got shrugs. They either didn't care, or didn't believe me and wrote it off as conspiracy-theory nonsense. The sad fact is that it takes the media telling people something is a scandal…

> Oh, and, witnessing the inevitable flip from "that can't possibly be happening" to "of course that's happening, I knew it all along, no big deal" was a frustrating experience.

It certainly was frustrating because "that" still isn't happening. It taught me the unpleasant fact that people will believe any conspiracy theory as long as a newspaper prints it, even if every other newspaper points out everything wrong with the conspiracy theory.