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Going Through Snowden Documents, Part 1

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Re: Going Through Snowden Documents, Part 1

#101

Post by e12e »

randallsquared wrote: post #82
ProllyInfamous wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right before Snowden, I met a "fiction" author whose DefCon presentation was about government attempts at management of conspiracy theorists. His SciFi writings were the technically-dense ramblings you'd expect from somebody who'd spent much of his early decades contracting for secretive government agencies. During both his speech and in the introduction to his book Mindgames, he mentions that most DoD-funded personn…

Here's the book: https://www.amazon.com/Mind-Games-Richard-Thieme/dp/09383262...

Homepage:

https://www.thiemeworks.com

Re: Going Through Snowden Documents, Part 1

#102

Post by tehjoker »

Very interesting and useful analysis. I am looking forward to more. It was very strange that the Snowden documents didn't get more analysis than they did (even though there was some significant analysis).

I wonder what this organization is though. The stated purpose seems a little anachronistic, similar to the ideas of the early 2010s, which were amply covered by Surveillance Valley: The Secret Military History of the Internet (2018). A number of organizations of that type ended up being funded by U.S. intelligence as it ended up benefiting military intelligence in various ways, e.g. the Tor Project is funded like this and provides chaff cover for intelligence operations (if all Tor traffic was military, there would be little point to it since it would stick out like a sore thumb) and e.g. NSA can de-anonymize Tor traffic since they can correlate entry and exit traffic with total system awareness (an asymmetric capability no other nation or sub-national organization has).

There's a great podcast + transcript with Chris Hedges and author Yasha Levine about this book here: https://consortiumnews.com/2025/04/13/chris-hedges-report-th...

Doing this analysis is a great way to get some credibility, but it also doesn't reveal anything that wasn't publicly available. Nonetheless, I still appreciate it!

Re: Going Through Snowden Documents, Part 1

#103

Post by opo »

timschmidt wrote: post #55
xbmcuser wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tom Clancy also had a similar plot in the Jack Ryan series

Don't forget "Rebuilding America's Defenses" a paper published by Project for the New American Century, a think tank who's founding statement of principles was signed by 25 individuals, 10 of whom went on to serve in the George W. Bush administration, which calls for "A New Pearl Harbor": https://www.visibility911.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/reb...

> ...which calls for "A New Pearl Harbor":

Reading through your link, I don't see how one can say it "calls for a "A New Pearl Harbor":

>...Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor. Domestic politics and industrial policy will shape the pace and content of transformation as much as the requirements of current missions.

...

>...Absent a rigorous program of experimentation to investigate the nature of the revolution in military affairs as it applies to war at sea, the Navy might face a future Pearl Harbor – as unprepared for war in the post-carrier era as it was unprepared for war at the dawn of the carrier age.

Re: Going Through Snowden Documents, Part 1

#104

Post by jokoon »

I've read people say that some of the documents were fake to sensationalize the story.

With Putin and China, honestly I prefer feeling like the US has the best cyber weapons available, and I am not even american.

"Privacy" is different in the digital age. Computers make it easier for criminals to do what they do, so it's fair if the government tries to peek into it.

Re: Going Through Snowden Documents, Part 1

#105

Post by nasaeclipse »

GuinansEyebrows wrote: post #84
bandofthehawk wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My memory is that Hacker News comments were even more anti-Snowden at the time, but I could be mistaken. I would have thought people here would be very supportive of his whistle blowing, but I think a lot of people on this site unfortunately have a strong loyalty to the government organizations that were exposed.

i think a lot of people on this site work on the same types of projects snowden worked on and blew the whistle over, for the same organizations, and feel good about it. i wonder how many users here are happily employed by booz allen hamilton?

unrelated, but I recently saw an ad by booz allen that proudly said "Stopping Fentanyl" as part of their mission. Like, really? Are people really that gullible to believe that?

Re: Going Through Snowden Documents, Part 1

#106

Post by Hikikomori »

jokoon wrote: post #104

I've read people say that some of the documents were fake to sensationalize the story. With Putin and China, honestly I prefer feeling like the US has the best cyber weapons available, and I am not even american. "Privacy" is different in the digital age. Computers make it easier for criminals to do what they do, so it's fair if the government tries to peek into it.

Whats china invading again?

Re: Going Through Snowden Documents, Part 1

#107

Post by ProllyInfamous »

ginush wrote: post #32
asdefghyk wrote: post #5

Some what (vaguely) related to this topic About surveillance. I recall a local political and business figure making statements you and/or I are being surveilled by the government. Everyone thought that's not likely , its not possible, he is a bit imbalanced.. After the dumping of documents' from Snowden and Assange it was shown to be possible Things like, if its even possible , it could plausibly be happening. The go…

We know now that communications are being intercepted in bulk as a matter of intelligence gathering, but that does not equate to everyone being surveilled by the government. What this actually provides, first and foremost, is the capability to perform targeted surveillance more rapidly, and to do so temporally by reaching into datasets already recorded. Obviously this provides a much-needed capability for legitimate…

I was sitting in the auditorium, early 2010s at DEF CON ~X[¿I?]X~, when General Alexander gave the headlining speech of that conference (then-Director of NSA).

Within the speech he defined the world "intercept," within the intelligence community, as meaning a human operator has (in some manner) catalogued some piece of information.

The implication was that all data in stored forever, and machine learning tasks were making associations without meeting their definition of "having been intercepted" — even with the elementary ML of fifteen years ago, this was a striking admission.

----

This was among the first things I thought about during my initial weeks using GPT-3.5 (~January 2023): that most of these conversations wouldn't be considered "intercepted" despite this immense capability of humanless understanding.

Now, almost three years later, I_just_hope_our_names_touch_on_this_watchlist.jpg

Re: Going Through Snowden Documents, Part 1

#108

Post by mistrial9 »

DamnInteresting wrote: post #85
bandofthehawk wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My memory is that Hacker News comments were even more anti-Snowden at the time, but I could be mistaken. I would have thought people here would be very supportive of his whistle blowing, but I think a lot of people on this site unfortunately have a strong loyalty to the government organizations that were exposed.

This was the main thread about Snowden on the day his identity was revealed: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5850590

https://hn.unlurker.com/replay?item=5850590

Re: Going Through Snowden Documents, Part 1

#109

Post by mistrial9 »

jjordan wrote: post #7

If you've ever watched the movie "Enemy of the State", which came out in 1998, I don't know how you can come away from that movie thinking anything other than someone in that script writing pipeline had some insider knowledge of what was happening. So many of the things they talk about in the film were confirmed by the Snowden releases that it's kinda scary. Today, it's almost a national societal resignation that "yo…

> almost a national societal resignation that "you have no privacy, get over it."

no it is not. This is parroting the helplessness you probably dislike. There are many factors at work in a complex demographic of modern America. It is worse than useless to repeat this incomplete and frankly lazy statement.

Re: Going Through Snowden Documents, Part 1

#110

Post by ProllyInfamous »

randallsquared wrote: post #82
ProllyInfamous wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right before Snowden, I met a "fiction" author whose DefCon presentation was about government attempts at management of conspiracy theorists. His SciFi writings were the technically-dense ramblings you'd expect from somebody who'd spent much of his early decades contracting for secretive government agencies. During both his speech and in the introduction to his book Mindgames, he mentions that most DoD-funded personn…

Here's the book: https://www.amazon.com/Mind-Games-Richard-Thieme/dp/09383262...

To be clear I am NOT endorsing this author/book (even though I've met him, enjoyed conversation, and read this book), I just thought his introduction (10% lies) was a clever way to avoid government censorship. Was actually surprised the rating is >4 stars =P

>>"Not for those whose feet are firmly planted on a single planet" —IMHO Best Amazon Review

Even more clearly (related to author's reputation): although I do believe in panspermia (theory of life transfer via interstellar comets), the part I consider definitely "Thieme's 10% Lies" heavily overlaps with my non-belief in extraterrestrial visitors (why would any civilization advanced-enough waste their limited resources colonizing dumb apes?).

But military drones doing absolutely unbelievable aerials!? Absolutely...

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