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Senators Offer to Let NSA Hunt Cyber Actors Inside the US

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Re: Senators Offer to Let NSA Hunt Cyber Actors Inside the US

#31

Post by austincheney »

jl2718 wrote: post #27
austincheney wrote: post #21

https://www.esd.whs.mil/Portals/54/Documents/DD/issuances/do... I provided their charter. It seems like many people want to falsely over simplify the NSA mission into something different than what the document states. In summary: * NSA derives authority as a component agency under the DOD, a defense agency * The primary mission is to collect signals intelligence and conduct information assurance * perform as executiv…

Charter is irrelevant. The Posse Comitatus Act is the binding doctrine. We used to take this extremely seriously. The gulf between what technical measures are legal in domestic vs foreign interventions is enormous. The reason is simple. No American is ever supposed to be ‘the enemy’.

Posse Comitatus only limits certain limited portions of the military from enforcing domestic policies, such as law enforcement. It does not limit SIGINT collection or other prescribed governmental functions.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posse_Comitatus_Act

This comment, like the GP comment, serves to illustrate many people hold strong opinions on subjects where those opinions do not align with any evidence.

Re: Senators Offer to Let NSA Hunt Cyber Actors Inside the US

#32

Post by austincheney »

parsimo2010 wrote: post #26
austincheney wrote: post #21

https://www.esd.whs.mil/Portals/54/Documents/DD/issuances/do... I provided their charter. It seems like many people want to falsely over simplify the NSA mission into something different than what the document states. In summary: * NSA derives authority as a component agency under the DOD, a defense agency * The primary mission is to collect signals intelligence and conduct information assurance * perform as executiv…

This is because the things people are worried about is found in Executive Order 12333. From section 2.3 of the EO, “ Agencies within the Intelligence Community are authorized to collect, retain or disseminate information concerning United States persons only in accordance with procedures established by the head of the agency concerned and approved by the Attorney General, consistent with the authorities provided by P…

From reading comments by the current NSA commander during his meeting with congress election security is not a top priority. I don’t believe he even raised the subject. He did comment on the SolarWinds and MS Exchange comprises as top concerns.

From those points I suspect the concerns are foreign government intrusion into US information systems and data exfiltration generally speaking.

Re: Senators Offer to Let NSA Hunt Cyber Actors Inside the US

#33

Post by parsimo2010 »

austincheney wrote: post #32
parsimo2010 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is because the things people are worried about is found in Executive Order 12333. From section 2.3 of the EO, “ Agencies within the Intelligence Community are authorized to collect, retain or disseminate information concerning United States persons only in accordance with procedures established by the head of the agency concerned and approved by the Attorney General, consistent with the authorities provided by P…

From reading comments by the current NSA commander during his meeting with congress election security is not a top priority. I don’t believe he even raised the subject. He did comment on the SolarWinds and MS Exchange comprises as top concerns. From those points I suspect the concerns are foreign government intrusion into US information systems and data exfiltration generally speaking.

securing infrastructure for s/elections/whatever/

My thesis is that the existing rules and authorities aren't the problem, and Congress doesn't need let the NSA have any more authorities. Especially so because the NSA director didn't even ask. They can/should work within their existing orders to secure the nation's critical systems, to reduce the vulnerabilities to a level that the FBI can handle them. Congress pushing to enable government overreach is not the solution.

Re: Senators Offer to Let NSA Hunt Cyber Actors Inside the US

#34

Post by throwaway210222 »

austincheney wrote: post #30
throwaway210222 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Posse Comitatus Act … is binding … we used to take this extremely seriously. Huh? The Ohio National Guard was putting bullets into 13 unarmed students as long ago as 1970. That ship has sailed.

Posse Comitatus does not apply to the National Guard.

Clearly.

Re: Senators Offer to Let NSA Hunt Cyber Actors Inside the US

#35

Post by splithalf »

ebcode wrote: post #17

"The problem here isn’t our privacy laws, but that the government is failing cybersecurity 101." -- Ron Wyden

Or Microsoft is failing. Why would any semi informed person expect our government to be competent at cyber security? Why is more government the answer to every question? Isn’t that how we find ourselves here in the first place?

Re: Senators Offer to Let NSA Hunt Cyber Actors Inside the US

#36

Post by colordrops »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #15
colordrops wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The NSA can attack foreign assets without compromising a single american asset. Mind you, I'm playing devil's advocate here to understand the reasoning. The NSA is abhorrent to me.

No, that's not how software works. An attack that works against foreign assets works just as well against American assets, because they run the same software. So once you have the attack, you know that (1) The evil Turks have a hole in their defenses, and you can use it to spy on them; (2) The righteous Americans have a hole -- exactly the same hole -- in their defenses, and you can use it to spy on them ; (3) Everyo…

Someone else already responded in kind, but to emphasize, not all attacks are zero-sum - there are vulnerabilities specific to a particular asset and are not universal. Why couldn't these attack vectors be used?

Re: Senators Offer to Let NSA Hunt Cyber Actors Inside the US

#37

Post by colordrops »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #19
unishark wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you talking about the introduction of backdoors or just exploiting vulnerabilities that are there? Because the latter sounds analogous to the creation of a tank bomb which might theoretically used against your tanks also. The parent poster said the NSA "can" do attacks that don't reduce the security US assets. They didn't claim that all possible attacks fit this description. For example they can try to guess at b…

Root comment: >>> how about the NSA used its powers to defend Americans instead of hoarding zero days and spying on them? >> why does this have to be XOR? Because these are opposed goals. Defending Americans means invalidating zero-days. You could restrict yourself solely to attacks that don't rely on flaws in the software. In that case, you would have no reason to hoard zero-days, because you are ideologically commi…

But this isn't answering my question - why aren't they opposed goals for other parts of the military? Why just cyber? And we've already addressed the question of exposing ourselves - attacks can targeted and not universal, just like physical attacks. This property is not specific to cyber. For the inverse, the military could decide to use a bioweapon, but it would also attack ourselves.

Re: Senators Offer to Let NSA Hunt Cyber Actors Inside the US

#38

Post by 1000mA »

adventured wrote: post #20
tehjoker wrote: post #11

This is flatly illegal and in violation of their charter. The US state is becoming more desperate as they violate their own rules to hunt our own citizens using military intelligence.

The domestic war on terrorism is their next big front after the war on drugs. Now that that fake war is coming to an end they need a new invented war to leverage as an excuse to expand their power. And if there aren't enough domestic terrorists, they'll take care of that, just as they did with the war on drugs (not enough criminals? make some). They'll turn the US military industrial complex inward as they do it, mau…

Police and those that support them (their families) are the real domestic terrorists

Re: Senators Offer to Let NSA Hunt Cyber Actors Inside the US

#39

Post by seaourfreed »

jl2718 wrote: post #27
austincheney wrote: post #21

https://www.esd.whs.mil/Portals/54/Documents/DD/issuances/do... I provided their charter. It seems like many people want to falsely over simplify the NSA mission into something different than what the document states. In summary: * NSA derives authority as a component agency under the DOD, a defense agency * The primary mission is to collect signals intelligence and conduct information assurance * perform as executiv…

Charter is irrelevant. The Posse Comitatus Act is the binding doctrine. We used to take this extremely seriously. The gulf between what technical measures are legal in domestic vs foreign interventions is enormous. The reason is simple. No American is ever supposed to be ‘the enemy’.

The NSA now calls Americans the enemy if they want to fix problem in the establishment. Americans are called "Domestic Violent Extremists" (DVEs), even when they are non-violent if they articulate problems in the establishment. See Glenn Greenwald article on it: https://greenwald.substack.com/p/the-us-intelligence-communi...

Re: Senators Offer to Let NSA Hunt Cyber Actors Inside the US

#40

Post by thaumasiotes »

colordrops wrote: post #36
thaumasiotes wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, that's not how software works. An attack that works against foreign assets works just as well against American assets, because they run the same software. So once you have the attack, you know that (1) The evil Turks have a hole in their defenses, and you can use it to spy on them; (2) The righteous Americans have a hole -- exactly the same hole -- in their defenses, and you can use it to spy on them ; (3) Everyo…

Someone else already responded in kind, but to emphasize, not all attacks are zero-sum - there are vulnerabilities specific to a particular asset and are not universal. Why couldn't these attack vectors be used?

Are you just asking for me to repeat myself? Here you go:

Saying "when these two goals come into conflict, I believe the first one should always take priority over the second one" does not actually amount to a claim that the two goals are not in conflict.

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