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Reflections on Ten Years Past the Snowden Revelations

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Re: Reflections on Ten Years Past the Snowden Revelations

#81

Post by Zetice »

bee_rider wrote: post #67
user6723 wrote: post #58

When I tell someone to use Signal app and they say "I'm not that important" all I can do is smile and nod: "no.. you are not that important".

I prefer to point out: if only “interesting” people encrypt their messages, then encrypting your messages becomes a signal that you are interesting. As a boring person who thinks the state shouldn’t be allowed to focus the Eye of Sauron on anybody, I have a responsibility to encrypt my boring brunch plans. I think “I’m not that important” is basically either the result of someone not thinking very hard, or it is a di…

What about as a boring person who does think the state should be allowed to focus the Eye of Sauron on people?

And that person doesn't have to be anti-encryption, just anti-bad opsec.

Re: Reflections on Ten Years Past the Snowden Revelations

#82

Post by api »

bboygravity wrote: post #76
landryraccoon wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A decade later, participation in elite circles like media, academia, and politics is based on how convincingly one can be seen to parrot obvious untruths, not because anyone believes them at all, but because it signals status to be able to lie to the faces of people who know you are doing it, and still say nothing. I don’t understand this. Can you elaborate on what untruths you mean? Who’s parroting these lies?

Random examples that I can think of: Trump has/had (strong) ties with Russia, needed those Russian ties to win the election and used them to win the elections. People still believe this to this day. Globally.

Trump openly asked for help from Russia on national TV. I don’t see how the existence of some degree of Russian collusion is debatable given that it was done in the open.

I do agree that there are people who vastly overestimate the extent or effectiveness of whatever Russia did do. Trump won due to general discontent with the status quo coupled with the fact that Hillary Clinton was a politically tone deaf candidate who ran a terrible campaign. If anything Russia did succeeded it’s because it was able to capitalize on this dynamic.

Re: Reflections on Ten Years Past the Snowden Revelations

#83

Post by mardifoufs »

dijit wrote: post #36
CrazyStat wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suppose this is supposed to make Snowden look bad. It doesn't. The author is James Clapper, who Snowden's revelations proved lied in Congressional testimony about whether the NSA was collecting information on millions of Americans. So when he says that "multiple executive branch agencies, Congress, and federal courts [...] were all aware of and conducted oversight of the very programs that concerned [Snowden]," he'…

I haven't heard many criticisms of Snowden that fall outside of: A) He's a Russian plant, HE IS IN RUSSIA!one!11 Which is easily disproven because he could have done a lot more damage from the inside and it's the US that forced him to stay in Russia, Snowden was provably en route to Ecuador when his passport was revoked. "But he doesn't criticise Russia"; well, he can't leave and it's not his fight, his fight was for…

And honestly, those put at risk by what was actually leaked deserved it. In the sense that yes, running massive surveillance networks against your own citizens should be dangerous and if anything they got away with it very very easily.

Re: Reflections on Ten Years Past the Snowden Revelations

#84

Post by tootie »

hgsgm wrote: post #20
tootie wrote: post #6

Serious question, why are the Snowden leaks so revered and not the reporting of James Risen several years earlier? Risen exposed operation Stellar Wind which was the grossest abuse of spying apparatus approved by the Bush admin over the express objections of their own DOJ. Risen also appeared in court for every summons about his activities and was dutifully defended by the NYT until he was ultimately exonerated.

2004, far less Internet connectivity to sustain awareness and outrage, and less impact. Our lives weren't nearly as completely mediated by online services. "Total Information Awareness" made a splash in the news around 2004 also, but then faded. Also, Bush's team was busy outraging everyone so many other ways, like blowing up Iraq for oil money, and making up nonsense legal defenses for kidnapping and physical tortur…

I don't think that's it. I think it's more that the public was just more accepting of this kind of thing closer to the wake of 9/11. But regardless, that may explain the muted reaction when the story broke, but not why everyone seems to have forgotten about it. I honestly have a hard time understanding what it is that Snowden even exposed given that the PATRIOT ACT was public record.

Re: Reflections on Ten Years Past the Snowden Revelations

#85

Post by mardifoufs »

EA-3167 wrote: post #35
CrazyStat wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suppose this is supposed to make Snowden look bad. It doesn't. The author is James Clapper, who Snowden's revelations proved lied in Congressional testimony about whether the NSA was collecting information on millions of Americans. So when he says that "multiple executive branch agencies, Congress, and federal courts [...] were all aware of and conducted oversight of the very programs that concerned [Snowden]," he'…

[flagged]

Yeah he should've martyred himself when those who actually ran these programs got away with it completely. And it's amazing that you attack Russia for being what it is, an authoritarian country ran by its intelligence agencies... While using the exact same rhetoric that is always used to justify authoritarianism. Actually, you might very well be surprised by how much you'd agree with the Russian government if we go by your last sentence.

I hope you realize that all of this was justified because of the war on terror. It had nothing to do with Russia. They weren't going against a super power (which you could at least argue might justify the means), they were trying to find boogeyman terrorists that may or may not have existed in the US. If as you said they did their damn job, they wouldn't need to cast such a wide net like they did with their surveillance. And we would also have had more example of said surveillance actually saving lifes or leading to results.

What we do have instead is countless example of suspects being listed as at risk but nothing being done since the lists are so huge and impossible to act upon. it's not even a form of survivorship biais either; authorities are very very happy to announce that they thwarted some terrorist plot before it happened. Its just that it happens very rarely.

Re: Reflections on Ten Years Past the Snowden Revelations

#86

Post by tlow »

motohagiography wrote: post #52

When the Snowden docs came out, the main thing that surprised me wasn't the tech, it was the scale. I thought I had seen the tip of the iceberg doing security work for over 15y prior, but I had barely seen ripples in the surface. Most of what I saw would have been in the category of "BULLRUN," which I incorporate into client threat models today, but also some of the ISP interception equipment I saw at peering points…

Would that require CIPP/G to be able to participate at the state, muni or fed level?

Re: Reflections on Ten Years Past the Snowden Revelations

#87

Post by lern_too_spel »

ineedausername wrote: post #47
iJohnDoe wrote: post #14

I think people would be surprised and sickened to know just how cooperative the big tech companies are with the intelligence agencies. Microsoft is especially cooperative, even as going so far to make sure their systems are compatible with surveillance systems. Yes, Telcos have had to this as well, but I don’t think many people know that Microsoft has proactively done this.

Honestly, people couldn't care less.

Or people care, but they don't care in the direction that GP wants. I want US spy agencies to spy on non-American living outside the US who have information that affects national security without being slowed down by too many procedures. I don't want them to spy on Americans, but the government actively works to prevent the agencies from doing this, so it's working as intended.

Re: Reflections on Ten Years Past the Snowden Revelations

#89

Post by monocasa »

EA-3167 wrote: post #65
pixelbash wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is anyone to say what most of the activity of these agencies are without any oversight. That’s why the leaks happened in the first place, it was the only way to say ‘hey we need more controls on this stuff’. Unless you’re suggesting that was going to happen anyway somehow?

They have enormous oversight, just not by the general public.

That's hard to believe when Clapper literally perjured himself before his oversight and faced no consequences.

Re: Reflections on Ten Years Past the Snowden Revelations

#90

Post by iJohnDoe »

andsoitis wrote: post #26
iJohnDoe wrote: post #14

I think people would be surprised and sickened to know just how cooperative the big tech companies are with the intelligence agencies. Microsoft is especially cooperative, even as going so far to make sure their systems are compatible with surveillance systems. Yes, Telcos have had to this as well, but I don’t think many people know that Microsoft has proactively done this.

> Microsoft is especially cooperative, even as going so far to make sure their systems are compatible with surveillance systems. What is a good example?

https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/11/microsoft-nsa-...

Kind of an older article, but illustrates the situation pretty nicely.

Microsoft has also done development work in recent years to enrich the data with more identifiable information and to make the data easier to process for surveillance.

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