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NSA director heckled on stage at Black Hat security conference

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

#151

Post by tptacek »

fragmede wrote: post #149
moxie wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I speak at one of those universities almost every year, primarily so that I can talk in opposition to the NSA recruiter who is always there giving a talk at the same time. Those young people look strongly to the culture defined in large part by conferences like Defcon and BlackHat in order to make their choices. For many of them, the trip to LV is the highlight of their year. If the culture of those events changes to…

You do a good job of it too. I also wish that Good Will Hunting were required viewing, if only for the NSA monologue. I think it's also worth mentioning that while sometimes indistinguishable, BlackHat != Defcon, even if tptacek wants them to be.

Give me a break. Black Hat was started as an excuse to get companies to pay for their infosec teams to attend Defcon. I was at Defcon in the '90s, and spoke at the second-ever Black Hat; my partner Jeremy spoke at the first.

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

#152

Post by Im_Mr_Manager »

replax wrote: post #76
kunai wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alexander actually spoke at Defcon last year and garnered quite a bit of attention regardless, so I don't quite think this is the case.

Exactly! Actually, Alexander was asked the Question of NSA datacollection after his talk, basically it went down like this: Q: "[..]Does the NSA really keep a file on anyone? [...]" A: "[..] Frist, no, we don't [...]" Absolutely astonishing! listen/watch here: http://youtu.be/tz0ejKersnM?t=33m2s

What is astonishing by that? They can easily be splicing fiber cables taking a copy of most Internet traffic and recording either the actual call or just the from/to/length info and his answer is totally correct. It is actually a really terrible question.

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

#153

Post by tptacek »

moxie wrote: post #104
tptacek wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Moxie Marlinspike truly and deeply cares about these issues, isn't an outrage tourist, and has done more for online privacy than I probably ever will. I think he truly believed that attempting to disrupt the talk could be an effective strategy. But I also think he was wrong about this.

I'm actually less interested in our external perception than in how we see ourselves. I think the value of being disruptive isn't necessarily to show the world anything, but to define ourselves as a community with a cultural narrative that is unsympathetic to government surveillance. If that's the narrative we want to create, then I think we need to take every opportunity we can to inject whatever cultural influence…

In the end, I don't think it matters much either way.

I think the walkout would have had the benefit of creating a wall of peers waiting outside the conference hall watching their peers who refused to participate. Also, again, good photo op.

It's funny, you and I are on the same page about wanting to disentangle software security (and I guess infosec) people from USG/SIGINT/LEO work, but for I suspect are somewhat different reasons. So many people on HN seem to think the whole industry is in the back pocket of the USG, which just isn't true; I think a lot of people considering careers helping with online privacy think they need to surrender their moral qualms about assisting the USG, which just isn't true.

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

#154

Post by McGlockenshire »

IanDrake wrote: post #79

>the four-star general presented a timeline of terrorist attacks around the world, from the 1993 World Trade Center bombing to the Boston Marathon attack . Can anyone speak as to why, with the NSA's systems, they were not able to thwart an attack by the ass clowns in Boston? Russia even warned us about them and they made frequent contact with foreigners. I'm sorry, but that terrorist event seems like low hanging frui…

> Can anyone speak as to why, with the NSA's systems, they were not able to thwart an attack by the ass clowns in Boston?

Dzhokhar and Tamerlan were granted legal permanent residence in 2007. Dzhokhar became a nautralized citizen in 2012. Tamerlan's application was on hold due to the DHS being a little suspicious of him.

If the system is working as it should, the NSA could have been prohibited from monitoring the brothers.

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

#155

Post by SkyMarshal »

ferdo wrote: post #137
podperson wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what way was Joseph Welch impolite? McCarthy was horribly rude, Welch patiently waited for his turn and spoke simply and eloquently. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Po5GlFba5Yg

This isn't politeness on Welch's part. This is how every member of the upper tiers of the MIC should be treated by the entire country: "Until this moment, Senator, I think I have never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness...Little did I dream you could be so reckless and so cruel as to do an injury to that lad...It is, I regret to say, equally true that I fear he shall always bear a scar needlessly inflict…

The examples you gave are of eloquent if harsh statesmanship from a sitting Senator, and I absolutely agree that is exactly what needs to be happening now. Ed Snowden is actually doing a really good job of it with his press releases, in fact.

But that's a far cry from yelling "bullshit" at the back of a conference room.

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

#156

Post by sixothree »

norswap wrote: post #37

Hackers applauded Alexander? He really has played them like pipes. You can argue all you want, but in the end, some boundaries have to be set. What the NSA did (does actually) is way past that boundary for most people, and I think with reason, but that's another debate. He hasn't supplied any argument that would make us reconsider the boundaries. All this terrorist talk is bullshit.

I could not agree more. This terrorism talk is complete bullshit. Our lives are in danger in so many ways and terrorism is far down the list.

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

#157

Post by lukifer »

talmand wrote: post #135
lukifer wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is that their Constitutional dodge is rooted in Scalia's originalism: the 4th says "papers", which means specifically physical pieces of paper, not phone calls or emails. What I've been wondering about though, is the legal definition of "effects" (noun, not verb). That term seems very broad to me, and should include emails, but I'm not a lawyer.

They don't need a dodge, they just ignore the law or get new laws that circumvent previous laws. With little or no oversight this is easily accomplished. Especially since the group that requires oversight is gathering information and information is power. This is nothing new, read up on J. Edgar Hoover with his wiretapping and files on almost everybody. Sometimes with White House knowledge and approval, sometimes wit…

Oh, I agree. But they do successfully maintain the veneer. Regardless of how, the Supreme Court is complicit, and they engage in some tortured linguistic judo in the process.

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

#158

Post by gallerytungsten »

foobarqux wrote: post #138
lurchpop wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...and the point wasn't to "get the oil" necessarily, but to take control of it so Hussein wouldn't flood the market and make the price go down .

Control of the oil in Iraq is more strategically important than in the one scenario you describe. As an aside I never read that Hussein had threatened to flood the market, I read that he threatened, as a negotiating tactic, to withhold oil. Do you have a source for the "flooding the market" claim?

It wasn't about flooding the market, it was about pricing in Euros, thus taking aim at the dollar as the sole reserve currency. (Among other things.)

Example: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,998512,00.h...

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

#159

Post by ibejoeb »

cookiecaper wrote: post #133
vijayboyapati wrote: post #99

Funny how Alexander says he's read the Constitution, and implores the heckler to do the same. If one can read the Constitution and square the NSA's mass surveillance with the 4th amendment then one can square a circle. There really is no point in debating people like this on the technicalities of the Constitution. What they understand is power. He has it and we don't. He knows how to pull the levers that matter, and…

The NSA is filtering a public utility. The users of this utility choose what information they want to broadcast, and should do so with the full knowledge that this information is being bounced between dozens of routers every time it goes out, any one of which may be monitored by its owners. This information ultimately ends up at the destination IP address, whose owner is able to use this data in whichever manner he s…

That's a stretch. I don't expect privacy when I shout on the street corner; that's broadcasting. I do expect privacy when I send email, because that's totally bounded.

The postal system is a public utility. Should it be filtered? What we're arguing now is why one envelope is special. I put my communications in paper envelope and I'm protected, but when I put it in an SMTP envelope, I'm not. I'd like someone to rationalize that.

As far as I'm concerned, let's do it one way or another. Either protect email or start OCRing the post.

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

#160

Post by tptacek »

chris_wot wrote: post #147
mtgx wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can you still believe that guy anymore? He could be petting bunnies, while he sings with an angel's voice about how they're protecting the nation and that their spying is really not that bad - and I wouldn't believe him . Obama's promises sounded very compelling and believable, too - until we learned the facts of his actions after he already won his 2nd mandate. I think it's important to remember that whenever yo…

I'm an Australian. Obama is the most disappointing politician I've ever seen. He talks of Hope, then he takes it away. He talks of Freedom, but doesn't allow it. That's very sad.

Australia has significantly worse Internet regulation than the US.
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