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NSA Owns Everything (2015)

blog.thinkst.com

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Re: NSA Owns Everything (2015)

#21

Post by redis_mlc »

harry8 wrote: post #14
azinman2 wrote: post #12

Yet somehow Russian / China are hacking the US left and right. If the NSA is so good, then at some point dont they have the responsibility to actively defend?

But are they really though? Could well be a threat there but I want actual evidence when the threat bogeyman is invoked in the name of more power. I believed the WMD lie. I hope I have learned from that. If we believe the NSA then your question is exactly the right one to ask and has some obvious implications.

> I believed the WMD lie.

Iraq did have WMD - they used poison gas on Kurds. They also had an absolutely massive army that had to be confonted at some point.

The Bush administration and their "aluminum tubes" was silly though.

> I hope I have learned from that.

What you haven't learned is that every bad thing reported has basically been true in recent history, if you pay attention.

Re: NSA Owns Everything (2015)

#22

Post by boomboomsubban »

dleslie wrote: post #5

The basic premise is false. > "Why did we never see it coming?" Many people saw it coming. I was warning about the possibility of dragnet surveillance, the existence of ECHELON, the use of the American security apparatus to steal trade secrets, the surveillance of non-American politicians, et al... For many, many years before Snowden. And I'm just some rando on the internet who follows the mainstream news! We were ca…

>Many people saw it coming.

This article is asking how the NSA managed a hacking empire leaving practically no evidence. Many people correctly assumed it was happening, they just couldn't prove much.

"Why did we never see it coming?" Is a poor way of phrasing their premise, but it's not false.

Re: NSA Owns Everything (2015)

#23

Post by grey-area »

_8j50 wrote: post #8
dleslie wrote: post #5

The basic premise is false. > "Why did we never see it coming?" Many people saw it coming. I was warning about the possibility of dragnet surveillance, the existence of ECHELON, the use of the American security apparatus to steal trade secrets, the surveillance of non-American politicians, et al... For many, many years before Snowden. And I'm just some rando on the internet who follows the mainstream news! We were ca…

There were others before snowden, like: James bamford https://media.ccc.de/v/31c3_-_6600_-_en_-_saal_2_-_201412281... What snowden did was provide independently verifiable content and details of their activities. His leaks were outdates by half a decade by the time they were public too. Everyone sort of accepted the IC will do shady stuff to stop terrorists after 9/11 because "american lives" so it was a solid conspi…

If the tools are there, they will be used for evil.

When you can surveil and blackmail the entire world, including your political taskmasters, what sort of person will that role attract?

Re: NSA Owns Everything (2015)

#24

Post by guerrilla »

dleslie wrote: post #5

The basic premise is false. > "Why did we never see it coming?" Many people saw it coming. I was warning about the possibility of dragnet surveillance, the existence of ECHELON, the use of the American security apparatus to steal trade secrets, the surveillance of non-American politicians, et al... For many, many years before Snowden. And I'm just some rando on the internet who follows the mainstream news! We were ca…

Indeed and consequently "your experts failed you" is also ahistorical. Maybe some talking heads did but not experts in general.

The better questions then would be "why didn't people listen? and "why didn't the general public see it coming?" It would be useful to understand these well to prevent future occurrences and even possibly to escape the current situation and future unfolding.

Re: NSA Owns Everything (2015)

#25

Post by panny »

Thorrez wrote: post #19
panny wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're running fully free software, you're not running x86, since it can't boot without backdoored binary blobs.

What about Libreboot? Doesn't that allow booting x86 without binary blobs?

Yes, very old hardware that's no longer on the market. I don't consider that a solution. Eventually that pool of hardware dries up.

Re: NSA Owns Everything (2015)

#26

Post by boomboomsubban »

waihtis wrote: post #18

2. You thought they were someone else Attribution in the cyberspace is still pretty shaky, even though there have been some high profile accusations flying around lately. Sometimes you see links being drawn to GRU on the basis of things like some executable having a compile time matching to a Russian time zone or a file being last modified by a user called "Dmitry." Seeing as the IC cyber business is already murky as…

> I think only the PLA plays with slightly more open cards, mostly because they just don't give a damn about being caught

This kind of reputation makes them the an easy target for every other actor to take advantage of.

Re: NSA Owns Everything (2015)

#27

Post by boomboomsubban »

azinman2 wrote: post #12

Yet somehow Russian / China are hacking the US left and right. If the NSA is so good, then at some point dont they have the responsibility to actively defend?

From the article, attacking is much cheaper than defense. If they were splitting their budget evenly between the two you wouldnl still hear about the US being hacked constantly.

Re: NSA Owns Everything (2015)

#28

Post by numpad0 »

Thorrez wrote: post #19
panny wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're running fully free software, you're not running x86, since it can't boot without backdoored binary blobs.

What about Libreboot? Doesn't that allow booting x86 without binary blobs?

They still need some parts of blobs to configure/initialize the system and that “some” now means full MINIX kernel along its userland

Re: NSA Owns Everything (2015)

#29

Post by oefrha »

boomboomsubban wrote: post #22
dleslie wrote: post #5

The basic premise is false. > "Why did we never see it coming?" Many people saw it coming. I was warning about the possibility of dragnet surveillance, the existence of ECHELON, the use of the American security apparatus to steal trade secrets, the surveillance of non-American politicians, et al... For many, many years before Snowden. And I'm just some rando on the internet who follows the mainstream news! We were ca…

>Many people saw it coming. This article is asking how the NSA managed a hacking empire leaving practically no evidence. Many people correctly assumed it was happening, they just couldn't prove much. "Why did we never see it coming?" Is a poor way of phrasing their premise, but it's not false.

Exactly. The other emphasized question, while less sexy and less quotable, is a much more accurate representation of the question TFA tries to answer:

> If the NSA was owning everything in sight (and by all accounts they have) then how is it that nobody ever spotted them?

It’s sad that people routinely find the first disagreeable thing in any submission then derail the whole discussion based on an out-of-context misrepresentation of that.

Re: NSA Owns Everything (2015)

#30

Post by darawk »

dleslie wrote: post #5

The basic premise is false. > "Why did we never see it coming?" Many people saw it coming. I was warning about the possibility of dragnet surveillance, the existence of ECHELON, the use of the American security apparatus to steal trade secrets, the surveillance of non-American politicians, et al... For many, many years before Snowden. And I'm just some rando on the internet who follows the mainstream news! We were ca…

Everyone saw the mass surveillance coming. What the premise of this article is, is that nobody ever detects the NSA in their systems.
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