21–30 of 96 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, that seems pretty simple: if NSA hacking caused a nuclear disaster, that would be an act of war. And?
No, that would not simply be an act of war. If that was the case, it would actually be a war crime, according to the international humanitarian law.
As an American, I feel like my country is actually putting me in long-term danger. The government is making America and Americans enemies of the entire world. If and when I ultimately have to feel the country, will I even be accepted into anywhere else? What if they are suspicious that I work for the NSA? Or what if they just decide to treat Americans the way the US treats would-be immigrants to the US now--no, you c…
That has been happening since forever; it's just that the NSA stuff has made that fact visible to people who didn't see America's hypocrisy before.
I mean, there are people who actually believe this ---> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6HOcLWP-Ls
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I guess that makes it ok then.
Sovereign countries interact in the state of nature. Your country has a problem with the NSA? Pick up a SAT solver and build yourself some ROP shellcode and hit us back. Oh wait: your country's already doing that . Do I like it? No. We don't work with the USG, and that's one of many reasons why.
The whole situation is uncomfortably asymmetric. Economies of scale I guess. Winner takes it all.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sovereign countries interact in the state of nature. Your country has a problem with the NSA? Pick up a SAT solver and build yourself some ROP shellcode and hit us back. Oh wait: your country's already doing that . Do I like it? No. We don't work with the USG, and that's one of many reasons why.
My country? Are you kidding, they couldn't hack their way out of a paper bag. Any expertise and equipment they have is provided by the NSA, and they're a bunch of B-players with no budget. The whole situation is uncomfortably asymmetric. Economies of scale I guess. Winner takes it all.
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>But it is intellectually dishonest to pretend that people are just now discovering that NSA was breaking into computers around the world. That is literally the charter of the NSA. It's why they exist at all. You're presenting a red herring here, tptacek. Any third grader who played played Splinter Cell would say, "No duh!" But the news isn't that the NSA is breaking into computers. The news is the scope of the intru…
The NSA was breaking into huge numbers of computers long before we were worried about a "caliphate", and the fact that they were doing it was showing up on people's resumes before 9/11 as well. And this isn't about "American Exceptionalism". China didn't hack Google because they were upset about NSA hacking; they did it because Google had information they wanted, so they took it.
[1] http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/09/nsa-spying-braz...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The NSA was breaking into huge numbers of computers long before we were worried about a "caliphate", and the fact that they were doing it was showing up on people's resumes before 9/11 as well. And this isn't about "American Exceptionalism". China didn't hack Google because they were upset about NSA hacking; they did it because Google had information they wanted, so they took it.
Then let's stop deluding ourselves and make it clear that the NSA's charter is about promoting what a small number of powerful unelected beaurocrats believe to be American interests, both politically and economically [1], without significant oversight. Then we can have an honest discussion on whether or not that's a good thing. [1] http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/09/nsa-spying-braz...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>But it is intellectually dishonest to pretend that people are just now discovering that NSA was breaking into computers around the world. That is literally the charter of the NSA. It's why they exist at all. You're presenting a red herring here, tptacek. Any third grader who played played Splinter Cell would say, "No duh!" But the news isn't that the NSA is breaking into computers. The news is the scope of the intru…
The NSA was breaking into huge numbers of computers long before we were worried about a "caliphate", and the fact that they were doing it was showing up on people's resumes before 9/11 as well. And this isn't about "American Exceptionalism". China didn't hack Google because they were upset about NSA hacking; they did it because Google had information they wanted, so they took it.
We don't need the Snowden disclosures to know this; it has for 15 years been the worst kept secret in computer security. People from the various groups in NSA that do this work talk about having done it on Twitter. Some of the smartest people in vulnerability research came from stints in NSA. Be outraged that we're spying on your country if that makes you feel better, I guess. I'd rather nobody spied on each other ei…
>But it is intellectually dishonest to pretend that people are just now discovering that NSA was breaking into computers around the world. That is literally the charter of the NSA. It's why they exist at all. You're presenting a red herring here, tptacek. Any third grader who played played Splinter Cell would say, "No duh!" But the news isn't that the NSA is breaking into computers. The news is the scope of the intru…
GCHQ have said for at least 15 years that their mission is to monitor all communications, world wide, at frequencies from DC to light. They've said that they provide intelligence for their customers, who are the Ministry of Defence and other parts of government. (MI5, MI6, etc).
> It's about global information dominance.
GCHQ / NSA have never ever said anything different.
> But this is about an executive power grab,
It's a grab that happened a decade or more ago.
As an American, I feel like my country is actually putting me in long-term danger. The government is making America and Americans enemies of the entire world. If and when I ultimately have to feel the country, will I even be accepted into anywhere else? What if they are suspicious that I work for the NSA? Or what if they just decide to treat Americans the way the US treats would-be immigrants to the US now--no, you c…
Has made. It's water under the bridge now. All there is left to do is watch how it plays out:
Which US companies will lose their overseas customers because they cannot assure their customers regarding back doors in their products and services? We have already seen IBM and Cisco take significant financial hits.
Which nations are sufficiently independent, or have people sufficiently restive, to take an official position against pervasive surveillance and actually purge their intelligence services of foreign liaisons and cooperation in surveillance? Conversely, we will see which governments agree with and accept pervasive surveillance.
Where will new centers of expertise in cryptography develop?
How much of this will flow back into other areas of diplomacy? Will nations be generally more wary of intelligence and military liasons with the US?
We don't need the Snowden disclosures to know this; it has for 15 years been the worst kept secret in computer security. People from the various groups in NSA that do this work talk about having done it on Twitter. Some of the smartest people in vulnerability research came from stints in NSA. Be outraged that we're spying on your country if that makes you feel better, I guess. I'd rather nobody spied on each other ei…
Can you point to some HN threads that discussed this in detail before Snowden? For example, when China was hacking Google, some people may off-handedly said, "well we do it too", but nobody gave specifics as Snowden did. His revelations were extremely useful.