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NSA revelations could hurt collaboration with 'betrayed' hackers

reuters.com

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Re: NSA revelations could hurt collaboration with 'betrayed' hackers

#91

Post by smtddr »

dmd wrote: post #88
smtddr wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, let me put it another way. If there is a variation for the amount of knowledge the brain can consume from human to human, assuming they're "healthy", it's gonna be something like Infinity x 99, infinity x 8, Infinity / 2. Whatever it is, it'll be a limit that's way beyond what a human being could ever reach in a lifetime.

So you don't believe that there's a spectrum of disability? You're either intellectually disabled to the point of not being able to dress yourself... or you're a potential Einstein - nothing in between?

I can't define what it means to be "Einstein". I can only say that "capacity for knowledge" in a "healthy" human brain is well beyond what it could ever be exposed to in a lifetime. Note that when I say "capacity", I thinking in terms of a computer harddrive(which is questionable). No "healthy" human being can fill up their brain within a lifetime.

This discussion is pretty difficult in that there are things we can't define. I don't even know if we're all talking about the same thing when we say "knowledge" and we can't define "healthy", and the term "capacity" for the human brain is assuming we all believe the human brain really does have a limit. I can only assume there is some kind of limit in the same way I assume if I traveled in a straight line forever I'd eventually reach the end of the universe. It's just imcomprehendably large and nothing we do in a lifetime, currently 100 years or so, will reach that limit.

Re: NSA revelations could hurt collaboration with 'betrayed' hackers

#92

Post by javajosh »

tptacek wrote: post #47
rdl wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generally I'd agree except for two points. 1) From what I've seen, at least on the military side, the "training people" concept was actually one of the things they've sacrificed over the past decade or so (and even in the late 1990s) -- it's still obviously done in areas where it's "inherently military or governmental" like flying fighter aircraft, but contractorization has caused the government sphere to revert to m…

I agree with you regarding defense. I do not think any part of the USG is truly competent at defending their own systems. I agree with you that the USG is contractorizing infosec --- though note that this makes it even easier for them to recruit --- and that contractorization degrades their capabilities. I disagree with you on offensive security. I also think you should be aware that the contractor resources the offe…

>I also think you should be aware that the contractor resources the offensive side has don't entirely overlap the defensive stuff; there are better contractors available for the offensive stuff.

This is an interesting comment because I would have thought that defense and offense would be fairly symmetrical. Is the asymmetry due to lack of interest in defense? Is it because it's easier to break things then to keep them from breaking? E.g. it's much easier to teach someone to shoot well than it is to teach someone to heal a bullet wound.

Re: NSA revelations could hurt collaboration with 'betrayed' hackers

#93

Post by smtddr »

saraid216 wrote: post #90
smtddr wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, let me put it another way. If there is a variation for the amount of knowledge the brain can consume from human to human, assuming they're "healthy", it's gonna be something like Infinity x 99, infinity x 8, Infinity / 2. Whatever it is, it'll be a limit that's way beyond what a human being could ever reach in a lifetime.

Optimism is good, but at this point, you're driving past believing in the intrinsic awesome of human beings into the territory of magical thinking. "Amount of knowledge" isn't a useful metric, as anyone in pedagogy can tell you. It's not even about "healthiness", which is meaningless, or disability, which is less meaningless. Brains are not hard disks. They aren't knowledge storage machines. That's just one of its mi…

You're completely right. This discussion is almost impossible since, for the human brain, I can't define "knowledge", "capacity", "limit", "intellect". I mean really, what does it mean for a human brain to reach capacity anyway? What function is it not able to do once it reaches that point? What does it mean to be smart or intellectual? Do we all agree that Stephen Hawking is those things? Why? I don't know and I can't even begin to debate it, I'm not smart enough. ;)

Re: NSA revelations could hurt collaboration with 'betrayed' hackers

#94

Post by vwinsyee »

smtddr wrote: post #58
seiji wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Math is math Physics is physics. We all know time is fixed, the universe has been around forever, and atoms are the smallest indivisible component of matter. The world, under the guise of "everybody is created equal," has fallen under the spell of "everybody has the same intellectual capacity" (which is clearly wrong). Yahoo isn't paying a high school dropout $100 million + $80 million because of his snazzy FU-my-mom…

> The world, under the guise of "everybody is created equal," has fallen under the spell of "everybody has the same intellectual capacity" (which is clearly wrong). Yahoo isn't paying a high school dropout $100 million + $80 million because of his snazzy FU-my-mom-dresses-me haircut — they're paying him that because he's different. He's better. He's done more in five years than you've done in 20. You can't train that…

>> He's done more in five years than you've done in 20. You can't train that. People just are.

> I do believe that all healthy human beings do have the same potential for the amount of knowledge they can consume, at least at birth.

If there's anything I've learned from my experience in neuropsychiatry research, it's that there's a whole lot of natural and environmental variation in human biology and psychology. I've seen kids who would otherwise appear healthy and sociable score astonishingly low on cognitive tests (e.g., on executive function, pattern recognition, block design, etc.). I've also seen kids who would otherwise appear completely healthy and normal score amazingly high, by way of extensive schooling and parental attention (and also very often, wealth).

So I'd disagree with both comments above that (1) intellectual capacity can't be trained and (2) healthy humans have the same intellectual potential.

Re: NSA revelations could hurt collaboration with 'betrayed' hackers

#95

Post by rdl »

javajosh wrote: post #92
tptacek wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you regarding defense. I do not think any part of the USG is truly competent at defending their own systems. I agree with you that the USG is contractorizing infosec --- though note that this makes it even easier for them to recruit --- and that contractorization degrades their capabilities. I disagree with you on offensive security. I also think you should be aware that the contractor resources the offe…

>I also think you should be aware that the contractor resources the offensive side has don't entirely overlap the defensive stuff; there are better contractors available for the offensive stuff. This is an interesting comment because I would have thought that defense and offense would be fairly symmetrical. Is the asymmetry due to lack of interest in defense? Is it because it's easier to break things then to keep the…

The government is a particularly painful place to do defense, but even in the commercial world, defense is pain and generally doesn't attract people who are as "awesome" as offense. It tends to be more a conventional IT function, just implementing standards on existing stuff, mainly policy, etc. (NSA/DOD uses totally conventional computers for almost all of its work, so it's really "how to secure large Windows networks")

It's different when you're designing/implementing security for a new system which is very limited in scope (e.g. I would have loved to have been on the PAL design team for nuclear weapons) and very important/high profile. If you're doing anything else, it's much more a conventional IT job.

In the commercial world, it's kind of like how bitcoin (being disruptive, even if relatively undeveloped and toylike) is super popular, and is exciting, while no one is really super-enthusiastic about implementing x9.9898908098, ACH, etc.

I actually had no idea about there being different contractors on the offense side, since my contact has been really with the defense/customer side (which is shared with most of DOD). It's somewhat reassuring, as I wouldn't actually trust the "defense" people I've met with the level of information and access NSA obviously has.

Re: NSA revelations could hurt collaboration with 'betrayed' hackers

#96

Post by vwinsyee »

dmd wrote: post #88
smtddr wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, let me put it another way. If there is a variation for the amount of knowledge the brain can consume from human to human, assuming they're "healthy", it's gonna be something like Infinity x 99, infinity x 8, Infinity / 2. Whatever it is, it'll be a limit that's way beyond what a human being could ever reach in a lifetime.

So you don't believe that there's a spectrum of disability? You're either intellectually disabled to the point of not being able to dress yourself... or you're a potential Einstein - nothing in between?

It doesn't seem like I can reply to smtddr's sibling comment here (probably nested too deep?). So here's my two cents:

I agree that in context of memory, the brain's capacity does appear limitless. However, the brain's capacity to process all of the information that it's exposed to is quite limited. For example, for most people, working memory is limited to 7 items plus/minus 2. One part of a standard cognitive test is to expose the subject to a list of numbers, and after hiding the numbers, ask the subject to repeat them back to you (and again, but backwards). A similar test of memory is to ask a subject to remember a list of items, then ask a series of other questions, then ask the subject to repeat the same list some time later. Some people do pretty well at these tests; some don't (approximating a normal distribution in ). So while it's theoretically possible that all subjects do have all of the numbers stored in their brain, it's quite clear that there's differing capability at least in memory encoding and/or retrieval.

I guess I also wanted to mention the concept of saliency. Different people will pay attention to different things even if all of the people are exposed to exactly the same stimuli. This is important because the brain only encodes to memory what it finds particularly important and/or interesting (i.e. salient). This can be trained to a degree: more experienced or trained people will be able to detect what's important, like a soldier being better able to "sense" the presence of an IED in a warzone. So even if everyone has exactly the same memory capacity, there'd still be variation in how well the brain itself decides to use that capacity.

Re: NSA revelations could hurt collaboration with 'betrayed' hackers

#97

Post by saraid216 »

vwinsyee wrote: post #96
dmd wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you don't believe that there's a spectrum of disability? You're either intellectually disabled to the point of not being able to dress yourself... or you're a potential Einstein - nothing in between?

It doesn't seem like I can reply to smtddr's sibling comment here (probably nested too deep?). So here's my two cents: I agree that in context of memory, the brain's capacity does appear limitless. However, the brain's capacity to process all of the information that it's exposed to is quite limited. For example, for most people, working memory is limited to 7 items plus/minus 2. One part of a standard cognitive test…

> It doesn't seem like I can reply to smtddr's sibling comment here (probably nested too deep?).

OT technical note.

The reason you do not see a "reply" link is because you viewed the comment within X minutes of its posting. HN disables the reply link for that period. However, if you click on the permalink (the "link" text), you will still get a usable text box for replying.

My strategy is generally to do this, but sometimes I actually just refresh to pick up any new contextual comments.

Re: NSA revelations could hurt collaboration with 'betrayed' hackers

#98

Post by saraid216 »

smtddr wrote: post #93
saraid216 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Optimism is good, but at this point, you're driving past believing in the intrinsic awesome of human beings into the territory of magical thinking. "Amount of knowledge" isn't a useful metric, as anyone in pedagogy can tell you. It's not even about "healthiness", which is meaningless, or disability, which is less meaningless. Brains are not hard disks. They aren't knowledge storage machines. That's just one of its mi…

You're completely right. This discussion is almost impossible since, for the human brain, I can't define "knowledge", "capacity", "limit", "intellect". I mean really, what does it mean for a human brain to reach capacity anyway? What function is it not able to do once it reaches that point? What does it mean to be smart or intellectual? Do we all agree that Stephen Hawking is those things? Why? I don't know and I can…

> I don't know and I can't even begin to debate it, I'm not smart enough.

Well, no. You lack the knowledge for having a useful discussion about it. Spend time brushing up on pedagogical techniques, neuroscience, cognitive science, psychology: all the fields that touch on growth in the mental dimensions of a human being. My own expertise is pretty minimal, but just seeing the cutting edge of the research is fascinating and can help keep you honest when making claims.

This isn't a political/stylistic discussion. It rests on factual foundations, where people have actually looked at fMRIs or done longitudinal studies on schools or scrutinized the brain composition of different age groups.

Re: NSA revelations could hurt collaboration with 'betrayed' hackers

#99

Post by walshemj »

oijaf888 wrote: post #72
walshemj wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would their friends know you you are working for the NSA? Shurly you sign the official secrets act (the US version of it) at the interview stage and have an agreed cover story for your referees.

I believe they let you tell people who ask since being evasive would raise more suspicion.

Thats why you have a cover story allegedly :-)

Re: NSA revelations could hurt collaboration with 'betrayed' hackers

#100

Post by diminoten »

tptacek wrote: post #29

The most dangerous and stupid meme percolating in pop tech culture is that the people engaged with tech culture have a unique claim to computer science, electrical engineering, cryptography, information security, and privacy technology. The Slashdot diaspora genuinely believes that most of the world's computer engineering talent reads their comments. The reality is that not only does money do a fine job of buying tal…

In the terms of the hacker sophistication, hactivists tend to rank lowest, below criminal organizations, and then nation states at the top.

Notice something? The folks who get paid (criminals and state workers) are more sophisticated.

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