Google Security Team Member on NSA: "Fuck These Guys"

Post by jlgreco » Wed, Nov 06, 2013, 7:55 PM UTC

largehotcoffee wrote: post #316

drzaiusapelord wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's quite a claim. Right now the NSA holds privileged information for millions of Americans. What happens if one of those people becomes some populist political entity. It would be trivial for the NSA to leak dirt of any kind (sexual fetishes, hangups, private emails to wife, other private things that when taken to the public would look bad, trash talking others, etc) to help discredit this person. Imagine that th…

That's quite a claim.

Post by kamjam » Wed, Nov 06, 2013, 8:05 PM UTC

astrange wrote: post #131

bhrgunatha wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you mean - as unlikely as not spotting the weakening of encryption standards - for example by another branch of the same government (NIST/NSA)?

Those were spotted.

Post by lsh123 » Wed, Nov 06, 2013, 8:11 PM UTC

ajross wrote: post #311

rsync wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The assumption isn't bad - it's a private network line, not a public internet connection. Nobody else had access to that line, at least they weren't supposed to." You don't use telnet when you access your home server(s) from your laptop ... that's basically what they were doing. They skipped over a zero-cost, obvious best practice, and I think we should be suspicious. Either they've run that part of their network in…

No, it's not. Telnet sends packets in the clear over many networks controlled directly by third parties and accessible to them as an inherent part of operating their business. This was a point-to-point cable. The only access possible was physical, by digging it up and splicing it. Obviously that attack was possible, but arguing that this is somehow "the same kind of attack" as running tcpdump on a router to sniff pac…

Post by pyrocat » Wed, Nov 06, 2013, 8:14 PM UTC

Joeri wrote: post #309

pnathan wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'vw been thinking about this pretty hard this summer - I've been involved in some local tech activist stuff. My take on it is as runs: Fundamentally, what's needed here is the ability to have confidence that the intelligence system is not overstepping its bounds. The US founders' framework for building that confidence is to have multiple parts of power, whose interest is roughly aligned with countering each other. S…

It's wrong to portray this as a trade-off between more risk or less risk. In reality it's a trade-off between two kinds of risk. Without the NSA snooping there is a higher risk of terrorist attacks, but with the NSA snooping there is more risk of attacks on democracy. Imagine j. edgar hoover or richard nixon able to use all that NSA data for illegitimate purposes. How easy would it have been to supress dissenting pol…

Post by craigyk » Wed, Nov 06, 2013, 8:37 PM UTC

bowlofpetunias wrote: post #76

Oh, the hypocrisy.... > "Bypassing that system is illegal for a good reason." Yes, so is invasion of privacy. Yet Google has no problem breaking the law and violating civil rights for profit. > "Unfortunately we live in a world where all too often, laws are for the little people." Yeah, like tax laws and privacy laws... If you want to get on this high horse, you shouldn't be working for Google.