NSA director heckled on stage at Black Hat security conference • Hacker News Board

Re: NSA director heckled on stage at Black Hat security conference

#121

Post by bendoernberg » Wed, Jul 31, 2013, 9:27 PM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #47

" Ninety-eight percent of society has issues with this " "The national survey by the Pew Research Center, conducted July 17-21 among 1,480 adults, finds that 50% approve of the government’s collection of telephone and internet data as part of anti-terrorism efforts, while 44% disapprove. These views are little changed from a month ago, when 48% approved and 47% disapproved." http://www.people-press.org/2013/07/26/few…

From the same poll: 56% say that the courts do not provide adequate limits on these programs, and 47% say the programs go too far in restricting civil liberties. It's about 50-50, but the trend lines are ALL in the right direction, whether you compare to 2,5, or 10 years ago.

Re: NSA director heckled on stage at Black Hat security conference

#122

Post by northwest » Wed, Jul 31, 2013, 9:28 PM UTC

willholloway wrote: post #80

tptacek wrote: post #14

This entire event was a staged press op. Keith Alexander is a ~30 year veteran of SIGINT, electronic warfare, and intelligence, and a Four-Star US Army General --- which is a bigger deal than you probably think it is. He's a spy chief in the truest sense and a master politician. Anyone who thinks he walked into that conference hall in Caesars without a near perfect forecast of the outcome of the speech is kidding the…

My main take away from your comment is that Keith Alexander is Enabran Tain & that I feel like the US is approximating the Cardassian Union more everyday. The existence of nuclear weapons has rendered traditional warfare unprofitable, except against the very weak, and even in those cases only military contractors benefit. We invaded and occupied Iraq and didn't even get any oil, just a trillion or so in national debt…

> profit handsomely from insider trading.

...a "business" which companies like Google, Facebook, Twitter et al. are certainly doing/planning on doing too, at least indirectly, privately or otherwise under the radar.

They can also simply look at the correlations between the movements of their data and the market movements, and then make their predictions and thus investment decisions. It's not even rocket science.

Given their "Big Data" treasures, I don't think they will be able to resist that temptation.

This is another reason why I generally see a future of decentralization: it's simply a concept that's less prone to corruption and failure.

Re: NSA director heckled on stage at Black Hat security conference

#123

Post by omegaham » Wed, Jul 31, 2013, 9:29 PM UTC

rbanffy wrote: post #52

I find particularly hard to believe the "6,000 NSA cryptologists who have deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq" part. Why would anyone want to deploy cryptologists into a war zone? I also found disheartening the applause given to the general for his clever answers. "I have. So should you"?! I expected more from the Black Hat crowd. And, finally, I applaud Jon McCoy for his sacrifice. His willingness to endure all the cav…

Military here.

They aren't really the same cryptologists that we think of, and they aren't the same guys who are writing programs to go through our phone records.

The majority of cryptologists who are forward deployed are there to ensure that the cryptography is used correctly. Despite many years of attempts to make it easier to use, cryptography. especially for portable radios, is a pain in the ass to use. People have to be trained. Areas have to be made where crypto equipment is stored and secured. Deficiencies in use have to be identified. That's what those people are for.

With the fact that we've had more than two million troops deployed during the War on Terror, I'm actually surprised that the number of NSA cryptologists is at 6,000. They must be very senior people.

Re: NSA director heckled on stage at Black Hat security conference

#124

Post by lukifer » Wed, Jul 31, 2013, 9:30 PM UTC

pyrocat wrote: post #109

fragsworth wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What's missing are leaders (aka media) evaluating and promoting policies based on rationality reasoning rather than what emotional ploys that sell. Leaders in media have no external incentive to promote rationality. They make money by appealing to their audience, to increase the size and loyalty of that audience. There is no solution.

Don't make the news beholden to ratings.

I agree that it is a terrible system, but I literally can't think of a viable alternative. Information is so powerful, I'd say it deserves to be a fourth branch if government, except that it's power would quickly eclipse all others. As bad as Fox News is, I have no expectation that Gov News would be any better. And as long as we have the 1st, we'd still have Fox News anyway.

The best I could think of is tightening the reins through FCC licenses, revoking them for intentional deception (although good luck proving this in a way that can't backfire.)

Re: NSA director heckled on stage at Black Hat security conference

#125

Post by narrator » Wed, Jul 31, 2013, 9:32 PM UTC

willholloway wrote: post #80

tptacek wrote: post #14

This entire event was a staged press op. Keith Alexander is a ~30 year veteran of SIGINT, electronic warfare, and intelligence, and a Four-Star US Army General --- which is a bigger deal than you probably think it is. He's a spy chief in the truest sense and a master politician. Anyone who thinks he walked into that conference hall in Caesars without a near perfect forecast of the outcome of the speech is kidding the…

My main take away from your comment is that Keith Alexander is Enabran Tain & that I feel like the US is approximating the Cardassian Union more everyday. The existence of nuclear weapons has rendered traditional warfare unprofitable, except against the very weak, and even in those cases only military contractors benefit. We invaded and occupied Iraq and didn't even get any oil, just a trillion or so in national debt…

>We invaded and occupied Iraq and didn't even get any oil, just a trillion or so in national debt. At least in the time of Rome citizen soldiers were titled large swaths of land in the conquered territories.

The trillions in national debt benefits somebody. Somebody somewhere gets those interest payments and they wouldn't have if the U.S had not borrowed from them.

Re: NSA director heckled on stage at Black Hat security conference

#126

Post by kyzyl » Wed, Jul 31, 2013, 9:33 PM UTC

Looks like I'm a little late for this comment party, but I'd just like to highlight one comment from the Forbes website that I thought was good:

"In general I agree with McCoy in his ad-hoc debate with Gen Alexander as well as his post presentation remarks about the distorted perspective of national security. At the same time, I do conceed that the NSA is acting in good faith and ‘within the law’ as presented to them via the Patriot Act. I have similar feeling about the value of TSA, but whereas the TSA is a publicly disclosed program, my most pressing concern with the NSA is the secrecy of it. First, the secrecy presents an extremely high degree of risk (in terms of both the probabilty of occurance as well as the dangers) of mission creep. I doubt Congressional nor FISC oversight are adequate to mitigate this risk. Second, secrecy is not really a valid tool for deterence. Anti-terrorism programs are like a doomsday devices: it’s a good deterence only if it is widely known about (see Dr Strangelove). Moreover, while secret programs might be good for support of kill/capture programs, it is far from clear that such efforts reduce terrorism.

For all I know, the government spy/drone program is to terrorists as a hammer is to an ant colony. If you have a spilled pot of honey in the kitchen, it doesn’t matter how good you are at spotting and smashing ants. I want to know these things, so that I can help shape public policy through the ballot box." --uspatriot2001

I think that's a good assessment of the high-level picture, and it's much more informative than "NSA BAD! Freedom good!" (not to belittle anyone's comments here) in that it reflects a road forward.

Re: NSA director heckled on stage at Black Hat security conference

#127

Post by northwest » Wed, Jul 31, 2013, 9:36 PM UTC

narrator wrote: post #125

willholloway wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My main take away from your comment is that Keith Alexander is Enabran Tain & that I feel like the US is approximating the Cardassian Union more everyday. The existence of nuclear weapons has rendered traditional warfare unprofitable, except against the very weak, and even in those cases only military contractors benefit. We invaded and occupied Iraq and didn't even get any oil, just a trillion or so in national debt…

>We invaded and occupied Iraq and didn't even get any oil, just a trillion or so in national debt. At least in the time of Rome citizen soldiers were titled large swaths of land in the conquered territories. The trillions in national debt benefits somebody. Somebody somewhere gets those interest payments and they wouldn't have if the U.S had not borrowed from them.

And then, it's of course also about redistributing these tax dollars to your own benefit. It's about politicians taking money out of the tax pot and giving it to their friends.

Re: NSA director heckled on stage at Black Hat security conference

#128

Post by temphn » Wed, Jul 31, 2013, 9:40 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #86

samstave wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>" I have no idea why anyone outside of the DoD would fear him. " It was said, which is basically confirmed with this latest revelation, that he has all the information on everyone and can blackmail anyone.... I am trying to recall where I heard that though, originally.

I don't think anyone as savvy and successful as Keith Alexander wants to bake J. Edgar Hoover's image into their legacy.

http://jontaplin.com/2008/03/11/eliot-spitzer-the-nsa/

"I’ve been tough on Spitzer, but we can’t forget that the reason he got in trouble was because of the new NSA domestic surveillance apparatus that was so brilliantly depicted in the Wall Street Journal yesterday. Here’s the Lede.

  Five years ago, Congress killed an experimental Pentagon 
  anti-terrorism program meant to vacuum up electronic data 
  about people in the U.S. to search for suspicious 
  patterns. Opponents called it too broad an intrusion on 
  Americans’ privacy, even after the Sept. 11 terrorist 
  attacks.

  But the data-sifting effort didn’t disappear. The National 
  Security Agency, once confined to foreign surveillance, 
  has been building essentially the same system.

Spitzer was what the data-mining experts at the NSA call a PEP–a politically exposed person. Banks now monitor PEP’s money wiring activities figuring they are classic targets of blackmail or bribery. Spitzer got caught in the data mining screen. I know people will probably say that even Mukasey had to sign off on an investigation as explosive as this. Spitzer was a self-detructive idiot, but at the end of the day, we have to realize that nobody has any privacy anymore."

Re: NSA director heckled on stage at Black Hat security conference

#129

Post by dkuntz2 » Wed, Jul 31, 2013, 9:49 PM UTC

sneak wrote: post #116

josh2600 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think he went to Blackhat because the feds were 'banned' from Defcon.

The feds were not banned from Defcon.

What? Defcon basically said "Hey feds, don't show up here". They may have said someone who works for the feds can show up, but they asked that they not represent their employeers, and to only represent themselves.

Not technically the same as a blanket ban, but they were pretty clear that they didn't want anyone attending while representing federal agency...

Re: NSA director heckled on stage at Black Hat security conference

#130

Post by etiam » Wed, Jul 31, 2013, 9:58 PM UTC

Keith Alexander's way of bending words, and his facility with swinging a crowd and lying skillfully under pressure once again reminds me disturbingly of accounts I've read about psychopaths, and of probable psychopaths I've encountered. Those patterns could of course be stuff you pick up anyway as a top player for power, but I find the parallels highly worrisome. For those who have never read anything about the subject, may I suggest browsing e.g. "Without conscience" by Robert D. Hare. The sections with court proceedings in particular illustrate well what I mean.