NSA Owns Everything (2015) • Hacker News Board

Re: NSA Owns Everything (2015)

#101

Post by WhyIsItLikeThis » Thu, Aug 13, 2020, 12:32 PM UTC

boomboomsubban wrote: post #55

mh_ wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As the original author of the piece... I agree :)

It was a great article, but that particular phrase is so often used with the "a mile away" idiom to refer to things that are obvious. Using it to refer to how people didn't spot any evidence was a bit confusing.

The whole thing is nonsense. Years before Snowden there was plenty of evidence that some gov agency was scooping up ALL At&T's data (for example). Just like now, idiots will ignore the obvious until they can't.

Right now you idiots are ignoring ALL the obvious signs of the Dollar collapsing (it already has). Then when your money is worthless you all will be asking, how did we not see it coming?

Re: NSA Owns Everything (2015)

#102

Post by jacquesm » Thu, Aug 13, 2020, 12:32 PM UTC

agumonkey wrote: post #92

wil421 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would the NSA do anything about COVID or any illness for that matter?

Well... if you can hear every convo on the planet (allegedly) you surely can detect an increase cough / sick / emergency related calls in the same area.

But then your chosen government would still have to act on that information.

Re: NSA Owns Everything (2015)

#103

Post by daodedickinson » Thu, Aug 13, 2020, 12:33 PM UTC

"Skilled adversaries operating under cover of a rioting mob is hardly a new tactic".

It's also hardly an old tactic.

All I will say is that when I was forced by personal experience to inexorably learn the scope of what can be covered up is at least two orders of magnitude beyond what I'd thought possible... it gave me and still gives me waking nightmares and sleep deprivation.

Re: NSA Owns Everything (2015)

#104

Post by jacquesm » Thu, Aug 13, 2020, 12:37 PM UTC

The difference between a theory, a conspiracy theory and the truth are best described by varying levels of evidence. A theory is not currently accepted as the truth, but it might be the truth. A conspiracy theory is something that has been proven to be untrue, but people still believe it and pass it on. The truth is the internally consistent and fact supported state of the world as it was and as it is.

There were many people who were going out on a limb with the assertion that the NSA was probably vacuuming it all up, they had means, motive and opportunity handed to them on a golden platter, on top of that it corresponded with what we would expect to do ourselves when in that position (not that there was any such temptation). The hacker community was well capable of seeing this as a theory, rather than as a conspiracy simply for absence of proof. That didn't stop others from labeling the hacker community as a bunch of conspiracy theorists simply because they could not imagine it to be the truth, but a lack of imagination is not the same as proof and the output of such a process is better described as wishful thinking than rational thought.

Snowden changed all that. All it took was one person willing to burn their career to provide the proof. But beyond that nothing much has changed.

Re: NSA Owns Everything (2015)

#105

Post by monocasa » Thu, Aug 13, 2020, 12:40 PM UTC

wil421 wrote: post #77

agumonkey wrote: post #67

One thing I'm curious is what's the source of energy behind all this. NSA failed to stop many important accidents (9/11, covid) .. Is it a survival bias and they're still keeping people safe without saying it or is it some finance/intelligence blackhole spinning due to some political quicksand ?

How would the NSA do anything about COVID or any illness for that matter?

The successful early attempts to shut down covid relied on contact tracing of international travelers. Very much in the purview of the NSA.

They even failed to keep it from literally putting a carrier out of commission.

Re: NSA Owns Everything (2015)

#106

Post by agumonkey » Thu, Aug 13, 2020, 12:41 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #102

agumonkey wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well... if you can hear every convo on the planet (allegedly) you surely can detect an increase cough / sick / emergency related calls in the same area.

But then your chosen government would still have to act on that information.

True, my question is quite vain since we'll never know at what level the information got stuck. monitoring, intelligence, political .. pick any

Re: NSA Owns Everything (2015)

#107

Post by andy_ppp » Thu, Aug 13, 2020, 12:46 PM UTC

I’m really interested in how low level the hacking is, specifically network card and hard disk firmware. Does anyone have breakdowns of how these work or copies seen in the wild?

I particularly liked the bit in the article about hiding data in packets intended for other hosts and harvesting them through passive relays. Is there a way to detect this sort of thing?

Is everything really compromised?

Re: NSA Owns Everything (2015)

#108

Post by boomboomsubban » Thu, Aug 13, 2020, 12:52 PM UTC

pmachinery wrote: post #84

boomboomsubban wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While that practice is common, this article does say >The purpose of this post isn’t to discuss the legality of the NSA's actions or the morality of the leaks, what we are trying to answer is: "Why did we never see it coming?" They clearly made it the central theme. With enough context what they are saying makes sense, but that phrase is so often used to describe how people predicted something without evidence. I'm s…

> but that phrase is so often used to describe how people predicted something That's really the only thing it means. It certainly doesn't mean "why did we never see it happening" (those words mean that) or "why didn't we identify the perpetrator". Edit: for example I saw the downvote coming, because some people here love downvoting simple factual statements, but I don't know who did it, because why would they want to…

The phrase makes sense given the surrounding context, so that is what it means. Language does not have concrete factual statements like that.

Re: NSA Owns Everything (2015)

#109

Post by nix23 » Thu, Aug 13, 2020, 12:57 PM UTC

feralimal wrote: post #76

The Snowden stuff was the event that shook me to my core. I was a happy technologist till then, thinking that such was the nature of life and progress simply was unfolding in front of me. However, the way the event was covered by the media - told a different story. The media focussed on the man rather than the info he provided, so the conversation was 'where was he?', 'where was his girlfriend?', etc - that told me e…

> I think this was an intentional release of data, an orchestrated event.

Maybe maybe not, but it can also be that you are a "opinion magnet" ;) See that's the fun in politics, agencies, diplomats and game of thrones, you can play mind/war-games. But often Secret services work much leaner and cleaner than you probably think, first you don't need complicated stuff to find a 'secret' and second, the more complicated the more errors can happen.

Re: NSA Owns Everything (2015)

#110

Post by amiga_500 » Thu, Aug 13, 2020, 12:58 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #104

The difference between a theory, a conspiracy theory and the truth are best described by varying levels of evidence. A theory is not currently accepted as the truth, but it might be the truth. A conspiracy theory is something that has been proven to be untrue, but people still believe it and pass it on. The truth is the internally consistent and fact supported state of the world as it was and as it is. There were man…

> All it took was one person willing to burn their career to provide the proof.

So many of the below posts are about all kinds of crazy conspiracy theories (most of them vastly overreach the competence of the USA), but this part hits the nail.

USA's problem is the culture. The idea that if each person pursues their own self-interest it will amount, in aggregate, to the best possible outcome - this is totally flawed.

Your individualism leads not to "freedom" but to accountants who help companies dodge (not avoid) tax, to politicians who don't speak up because it will damage their career, to bankers who extend credit when they know it's unsustainable in pursuit of their bonus, to news anchors who hold their tongue to avoid upsetting sponsors, on and on.

Just reading the biography of Washington right now. I doubt he'd have taken one bullet in the hat for you guys if he could see you now. Snowden is his heir, the rest are not.

Your problem is cultural. That's a big problem. It won't be addressed as the first hurdle is jingoism. Anyone attempting to converse is labelled an anti-American, even though the current America isn't American.