Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Edward Snowden: the whistleblower behind revelations of NSA surveillance

guardian.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 304 posts

Re: Edward Snowden: the whistleblower behind revelations of NSA surveillance

#101

Post by [deleted] »

dnautics wrote: post #92
riggins wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By the way, I don't know about anybody else, but for the first time I can think of, I'm seriously concerned about the consequences of posting support for somebody like this online. I don't know how things will play out years down the road and who will do what with this information this is exactly what's so scary. people have to think about posting on Hacker News.

there is also a network effect. The more people post support, the less likely that anyone posting support will get in trouble, AND the less likely it is that Snowden will wind up in trouble.

[deleted]

Re: Edward Snowden: the whistleblower behind revelations of NSA surveillance

#102

Post by hga »

mindcrime wrote: post #22
spodek wrote: post #9

" Once he reached the conclusion that the NSA's surveillance net would soon be irrevocable, he said it was just a matter of time before he chose to act. "What they're doing" poses "an existential threat to democracy", he said. " Thoughtful people brave enough to blow whistles seem to be the greatest check on what looks like a secret, unaccountable, illegal centralization of power based on lies from the top of the gov…

By the way, I don't know about anybody else, but for the first time I can think of, I'm seriously concerned about the consequences of posting support for somebody like this online. I don't know how things will play out years down the road and who will do what with this information. I don't know about you, but that's a chance I'm willing to take. As far as I'm concerned, Edward Snowden is an American hero and deserves…

Whatever your judgement about what to do is, the very fact that we have to start thinking about this is telling.

Re: Edward Snowden: the whistleblower behind revelations of NSA surveillance

#103

Post by dnautics »

tome wrote: post #56
jamesaguilar wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's almost certain the guy will have some problems not long in the future. One question that comes to mind is how a supposed intelligence organization allowed someone who subscribes to EFF thinking even come to know about this surveillance. Shouldn't the NSA be doing some kind of screening to make sure the people they hire don't have ideals diametrically opposed to their practices?

It's weird. On the one hand he makes them sound all-knowing. On the other hand they sound completely incompetent.

these are not mutually incompatible. Ever heard of idiot savants (I understand this is historically a derogatory term for autistic people).

Re: Edward Snowden: the whistleblower behind revelations of NSA surveillance

#104

Post by brown9-2 »

hannibal5 wrote: post #88
brown9-2 wrote: post #51

It's quite baffling that a low-level IT contractor is given this much access and also is making $200,000/year. Why is so much of government farmed out to contractors? Also, isn't there a large risk that someone at the bottom of the chain grossly misunderstands the materials he is leaking?

You can't do much sensitive stuff without systems administrators knowing the secrets, unless you want to do the actual work by yourself. To have access to all the stuff he has, he must have top-secret classification and he might be be part of few Special access programs (SAP). Having already classification and begin part of relevant SAP's when working in CIA/NSA might make him very valuable for private companies.

If the US government reads IT workers into the SAP programs then we really are doomed.

For now I'll stick with Occum's Razor - the guy had no idea what he was looking at and assumed the worst.

Re: Edward Snowden: the whistleblower behind revelations of NSA surveillance

#105

Post by joanojr »

tome wrote: post #45

"I sitting at my desk certainly had the authorities to wiretap anyone from you or your accountant to a federal judge to even the president if I had a personal email" "I had access to the full rosters of everyone working in the NSA, the entire intelligence community and undercover assets all around the world, the locations of every station, we have what their missions are" Wow, is this guy for real? It sounds crazy.

Yeah that part made me shutter, why the hell would he bring that up? Is he trying to bait the US Gov somehow?

Re: Edward Snowden: the whistleblower behind revelations of NSA surveillance

#106

Post by brown9-2 »

khuey wrote: post #93
brown9-2 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If he is actually in HK, he might be more of an inexperienced and naive idealist than anything else. Traveling to a territory with US extradition treaty and under Chinese control seems very unwise.

Actually it's probably not a bad move. China is one of the few countries in the world that would conceivably refuse to extradite him and protect him from retaliation. I think it's telling that Hong Kong is not in any way, shape, or form on the way from Hawaii to Iceland.

Pretty sure the Chinese would want to know everything he does in exchange for that.

Re: Edward Snowden: the whistleblower behind revelations of NSA surveillance

#107

Post by EthanHeilman »

brown9-2 wrote: post #82
EthanHeilman wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting fact, the low-level people in an intelligence org tend to have the broadest access. It is the high-level people that are put in compartmentalized verticals and plausible deniability (one of the latter DIRNSAs used to be famous for trying to know as little operational details as possible). IT needs to have access to all systems to install patches and such, strategic decision makers just have access to need…

Also ostensibly the people on the bottom are the easiest to recruit: disaffected, least paid (at least before 200k/yr salaries), perhaps uncommitted to mission or easy to mislead. I don't understand why a low level IT person needs so much access though beyond a need to fix systems - there's no audit control on who is accessing these systems?

200k/yr isn't that high for an IT person with a serious classification. A decent TS/SCI sys admin can be make +300k working for companies that want secret government contracts. It does make them more difficult to bribe though.

There was no real access and audit control with Bradley Manning, just unprotected SAMBA shares that contained sensitive data but not Secret data. Top Secret systems do tend to have an audit trail (I think it is required along with encryption) but I would expect that such systems can be accessed at a lower level by IT. For instance pulling a backup drive and associated keys to recover lost data from a "malfunctioning server". IT often has to work at a level below the level that you places security safe guards at. I'd bet 1000 dollars that the foreign intelligence agencies have friendly IT workers at the NSA that give them full spectrum access.

tl;dr Either you have IT that can do their job or you have systems which are secure against IT, you can't have both.

Re: Edward Snowden: the whistleblower behind revelations of NSA surveillance

#108

Post by rhizome »

gasull wrote: post #19
spodek wrote: post #9

" Once he reached the conclusion that the NSA's surveillance net would soon be irrevocable, he said it was just a matter of time before he chose to act. "What they're doing" poses "an existential threat to democracy", he said. " Thoughtful people brave enough to blow whistles seem to be the greatest check on what looks like a secret, unaccountable, illegal centralization of power based on lies from the top of the gov…

" I don't know about anybody else, but for the first time I can think of, I'm seriously concerned about the consequences of posting support for somebody like this online. I don't know how things will play out years down the road and who will do what with this information. " I've thought the same thing many times. I think there is really no choice since I don't want to live under a dictatorship, and if I don't voice m…

Foucault described one of the purposes of the Panopticon is to internalize the state's power to discipline and punish the individual. Evidence of this is seen in a restraint of expression due to its possible repercussions.

Re: Edward Snowden: the whistleblower behind revelations of NSA surveillance

#110

Post by weavejester »

cromwellian wrote: post #81

Seriously, Edward Snowden, China was your first choice to hide from the NSA? Holy shit that was a bad choice for many reasons. I can't think of a worse place to go, other than Russia or Iran with respect to the intense desire of those nations to extract as many secrets about NSA capabilities as possible. These are the most secret of the secret capabilities of US intelligence. He even boasted that he knows many more s…

It seems a reasonable choice to me. It's a technologically developed country which is unlikely to extradite him to the United States. His previous position at the NSA makes it unlikely he's stupid, and without knowing his reasoning for his choice, one might at least give him the benefit of the doubt.
Post reply on HN