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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

#161

Post by mikeash »

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.

Yes, but the cost far outweighs the benefits. The world (and the economy) is not a zero-sum game. People usually say that when they want to state that value can be created, but it cuts both ways. The fact that it's not a zero-sum game means that value can be destroyed.

We blew a trillion bucks on nothing useful. That's destroyed value. That somebody is benefitting in some small way from the side effects of this doesn't change that fact overall.

To reduce it to more comprehensible terms, imagine that I take out a $10,000 loan to buy a car, then crush that car into a cube. That's one less car in the world than before. That's a waste of $10,000 in value. That my creditors benefitted because they got interest off the loan doesn't change that fact.

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

#162

Post by lawnchair_larry »

tptacek wrote: post #88
griffordson wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And his detractors look like a bunch of OWS hooligans even if only subconsciously. I haven't actually seen the Black Hat talk yet, but I can imagine the audience does not compare favorably to another recent PR event: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fawN4OZEt-Y This kind of thing helps build up the conscious and unconscious associations in the minds of many that favor the NSA a great deal.

The audience for this event is infosec professionals wearing t-shirts, for whatever that's worth to you. Demographically pretty compatible with Reddit, or at least the subset of Redditors with top-quartile (for IT) incomes. To the extent that this audience has any engagement with public policy, that engagement is likely to take a Ron Paul-ish flavor.

That's not the BlackHat audience that I've seen for many years now. It's basically RSA these days. I think that demographic exists at BH as a vocal minority. When you're actually on the floor, it's difficult to actually find anybody you're thinking of. Don't forget that attendance is over 8,000 lately, IIRC.

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

#163

Post by lawnchair_larry »

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.

There are not really any hackers at BlackHat. Some go to give a talk for their own interests, some go to see their friends talk, but the "hackers" largely skip the conference and go hang out on their company dime and go to the private after-parties. It's a running joke that the real conference is at the Galleria Bar.

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

#164

Post by HoochTHX »

moxie wrote: post #107
mjfl wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about civil disobedience rather than childish disobedience?

We shouldn't be criticizing the heckler for not being a good enough or different enough heckler, we should be criticizing everyone else who did nothing at all.

Something along the lines of those who remain silent when powers that be discuss Freedom and Security deserve neither?

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

#165

Post by losethos »

War is supposed to be fun.

Navy games... something about Navy games.

If you had a perfectly real space war game...

cyber stuff

Are you sure you can't just make uncrackable codes pretty easy. No! They might have flaws. Use a good one.

God says... C:\TAD\Text\QUIX.TXT

be it to strive to become a king, and make me a count."

"So it shall be," answered Don Quixote, and raising his eyes he saw what will be told in the following chapter.

CHAPTER XXII.

OF THE FREEDOM DON QUIXOTE CONFERRED ON SEVERAL UNFORTUNATES WHO AGAINST THEIR WILL WERE BEING CARRIED WHERE THEY HAD NO WISH TO GO

Cide Hamete Benengeli, the Arab and Manchegan author, relates in this most grave, high-sounding, minute, delightful, and original history that after the discussion between t

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

#166

Post by adammichaelc »

mikeash wrote: post #161
narrator wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

Yes, but the cost far outweighs the benefits. The world (and the economy) is not a zero-sum game. People usually say that when they want to state that value can be created, but it cuts both ways. The fact that it's not a zero-sum game means that value can be destroyed. We blew a trillion bucks on nothing useful. That's destroyed value. That somebody is benefitting in some small way from the side effects of this doesn…

Your argument only works if the cost and the benefit are to the same entity.

In this case of a trillion dollar war, the cost is to the US taxpayer, and the soldiers who fight the war.

The economic benefits go to military contractors, the various war departments of the USG who need reasons to keep their budgets intact, and holders of the US Government's debt (http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/politicalcalculations...)

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

#167

Post by mikeash »

adammichaelc wrote: post #166
mikeash wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but the cost far outweighs the benefits. The world (and the economy) is not a zero-sum game. People usually say that when they want to state that value can be created, but it cuts both ways. The fact that it's not a zero-sum game means that value can be destroyed. We blew a trillion bucks on nothing useful. That's destroyed value. That somebody is benefitting in some small way from the side effects of this doesn…

Your argument only works if the cost and the benefit are to the same entity. In this case of a trillion dollar war, the cost is to the US taxpayer, and the soldiers who fight the war. The economic benefits go to military contractors, the various war departments of the USG who need reasons to keep their budgets intact, and holders of the US Government's debt ( http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/politicalcalculatio…

I don't understand. My argument is simply that value can be destroyed, and that people can still benefit during this process even when the value being destroyed greatly dwarfs the benefit. There's nothing about that which requires the cost and benefit to go to the same place.

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

#168

Post by saraid216 »

Cowen wrote: post #64
tptacek wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NSA recruits from engineering universities. They are quite good at it. The idea that he needs to troll Black Hat for talent dignifies the audience at Black Hat and misses the truth of what was happening there.

> NSA recruits from engineering universities. They are quite good at it. Given the nature of the technical problems they face, they would have to be pretty incompetent to not be good at recruiting from engineering universities. "Would you rather build yet another CRUD app, or build systems that trawl through 20+ TB of data every day?" Obviously there are ethical issues, but peoples' ethics are much more pliable than…

> Obviously there are ethical issues, but peoples' ethics are much more pliable than most of us like to believe.

The irritating thing about this is that most of us aren't taught ethics. Most people don't take philosophy courses. Most people don't take civics courses. We're expected to just figure it out through osmosis.

It's not about pliability. Most people never actually develop their own approach to ethics.

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

#170

Post by wpietri »

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.

If one were especially paranoid, one could note that the massive increase in debt from the Iraq war makes the "starve the beast" approach to government [1] much more plausible.

I don't think the US far right is quite that farsighted or quite that cynical. However, I've historically been too optimistic about the American power elite, so I wouldn't take my word for it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starve_the_beast

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