Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

NSA Coworker Remembers Edward Snowden: "A Genius Among Geniuses"

forbes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 174 posts

Re: NSA Coworker Remembers Edward Snowden: "A Genius Among Geniuses"

#141

Post by simoncion »

malandrew wrote: post #135
simoncion wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exploiting human weakness is totally fair game. I am not an NSA policy setter. I have never directly worked for any government agency, but I have worked as a computer security auditor. If you don't account for human weakness in the threat models for your high value assets, you've already lost. While there are no silver bullets, there are auditing policies [0] and technological mechanisms [1] that attempt to prevent i…

Exactly. Exploiting the human elements of a system is often the best way into any system that is trying to be secure. It's been that way since forever. There's even an entire book on the subject by Kevin Mitnick that is very well known, "The Art of Deception: Controlling the Human Element of Security"

Aye. Would one think that the computer security guys at the NSA are unaware of the vast body of literature on social engineering? ;) (I don't think that you do, it's a rhetorical question.)

I suspect that it's very likely that the NSA fucked up, big-time when they designed their internal security and auditing system. With the system in the state that it must have been, would they even know if an agent from $ENEMY_COUNTRY_OF_THE_MONTH had siphoned off sensitive data, shipped it back home, and vanished into the night?

I mean, the only way we became aware of this leak was the Guardian's announcement of it. It kinda feels like the NSA became aware of the situation at about the same time that we did.

Re: NSA Coworker Remembers Edward Snowden: "A Genius Among Geniuses"

#142

Post by aplusbi »

sliverstorm wrote: post #136
sitkack wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not infringing on freedom isn't a perk, it is a natural born right. We don't live in feudal states, with live in the United States. "The People" formed the Union and wrote the exact rules that the government could operate under. You aren't granted rights by the Constitution. They are removed from federal government, the Constitution takes rights away from the federal government. A very important distinction.

I'm not a constitutional scholar, but as I discussed in my other reply in this little alcove of the discussion- the Constitution appears to operate on US citizens (The People), not humanity: We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union...

The constitution makes a distinction between "person" and "citizen" and is careful to grant rights to "people" and not just "citizens". This is why freedom of speech applies to illegal immigrants and visitors and not just US citizens.

Re: NSA Coworker Remembers Edward Snowden: "A Genius Among Geniuses"

#143

Post by sliverstorm »

aplusbi wrote: post #142
sliverstorm wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not a constitutional scholar, but as I discussed in my other reply in this little alcove of the discussion- the Constitution appears to operate on US citizens (The People), not humanity: We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union...

The constitution makes a distinction between "person" and "citizen" and is careful to grant rights to "people" and not just "citizens". This is why freedom of speech applies to illegal immigrants and visitors and not just US citizens.

This is why freedom of speech applies to illegal immigrants and visitors

Not if we read the text:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Extracting the relevant bit:

Congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom of speech

Illegal immigrants and visitors "have" free speech because no laws may be enacted against it, period.

Re: NSA Coworker Remembers Edward Snowden: "A Genius Among Geniuses"

#144

Post by michaelt »

dragonwriter wrote: post #119
sliverstorm wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

as if that doesn't just make him more qualified for the job Maybe. Maybe not. Do we want the NSA to be rule-breaking cowboys that get the job done, or do we want them to have a rigid code of ethics? I honestly don't know. Rigid ethics impair their effectiveness; cowboyism gives us what we have now.

> Rigid ethics impair their effectiveness Does it? How, specifically? > cowboyism gives us what we have now. Which also impairs effectiveness at doing anything that is legitimate role of any component of the US government, which necessary includes adhering to rather than subverting the Constitution of the United States.

All rigid systems of checks and balances impair effectiveness if your definition of "effectiveness" ignores the problems the checks and balances are designed to prevent, as checks and balances almost always involve checking and balancing.

For example, think how much the president could get done if we got rid of congress, the senate, the supreme court and the constitution and we just had an all-powerful dictator. None of this mucking about with government shutdowns and filibusters and pork and vetos and negotiating. No excuses for "I just couldn't get it done due to washington politics". It would be so agile. Probably save a lot of money as well.

Re: NSA Coworker Remembers Edward Snowden: "A Genius Among Geniuses"

#145

Post by sliverstorm »

michaelt wrote: post #144
dragonwriter wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Rigid ethics impair their effectiveness Does it? How, specifically? > cowboyism gives us what we have now. Which also impairs effectiveness at doing anything that is legitimate role of any component of the US government, which necessary includes adhering to rather than subverting the Constitution of the United States.

All rigid systems of checks and balances impair effectiveness if your definition of "effectiveness" ignores the problems the checks and balances are designed to prevent, as checks and balances almost always involve checking and balancing. For example, think how much the president could get done if we got rid of congress, the senate, the supreme court and the constitution and we just had an all-powerful dictator. None…

You do make a good example. Benevolent dictators do appear to be extremely effective.

Of course they are hard to come by, but that isn't the question here.

Re: NSA Coworker Remembers Edward Snowden: "A Genius Among Geniuses"

#146

Post by jessaustin »

simoncion wrote: post #141
malandrew wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. Exploiting the human elements of a system is often the best way into any system that is trying to be secure. It's been that way since forever. There's even an entire book on the subject by Kevin Mitnick that is very well known, "The Art of Deception: Controlling the Human Element of Security"

Aye. Would one think that the computer security guys at the NSA are unaware of the vast body of literature on social engineering? ;) (I don't think that you do, it's a rhetorical question.) I suspect that it's very likely that the NSA fucked up, big-time when they designed their internal security and auditing system. With the system in the state that it must have been, would they even know if an agent from $ENEMY_COU…

I think we're on the same page here; sorry for misunderstanding before. b^)

If NSA have failed as hard in securing their systems as they seem to have, it makes me think that in the past they've relied on the vetting process to screen out decent Americans like Snowden. I don't think that's enough to keep out determined nations with cosmopolitan citizens, so it's a good bet that Snowden was preceded, and will be followed, by spies of all stripes. If we don't really need an NSA capable of keeping secrets, we probably don't need an NSA at all.

Re: NSA Coworker Remembers Edward Snowden: "A Genius Among Geniuses"

#147

Post by lafar6502 »

I suppose they're trying to persuade us that Snowden is a superhuman, and only his superpowers allowed him to get access to all the information. It has nothing to do with incompetence of his coworkers and bosses, nobody could have prevented that and it's nobody's fault.

Re: NSA Coworker Remembers Edward Snowden: "A Genius Among Geniuses"

#148

Post by WettowelReactor »

lukev wrote: post #34
Theodores wrote: post #6

Snowden differs from many of the whistleblower ilk in that there is nothing to dislike about his character (yet). The media have not dished any dirt, none of his friends/family/ex-lovers have came forward with anything untoward about him and he hasn't shown any signs of being deluded. Even if you try your hardest to 'believe', a lot of whistleblowers have been deluded one way or another. They can be overly indoctrina…

I think the fact that he leaked a lot of details about NSA surveillance of foreign governments diminishes his moral high ground. That is the stated mission of the NSA and while the details are highly classified, everyone knows that they're doing it and agrees it should be done as a matter of policy. Embedding himself in the NSA specifically to find the details regarding these activities and release them looks more li…

Part of what he may be trying to get at is that the US population has no idea of just what the stated mission of the NSA is. Do we as a population think that spying on our allies is OK? This is a discussion that needs to happen publicly and not under a classified umbrella.

Re: NSA Coworker Remembers Edward Snowden: "A Genius Among Geniuses"

#149

Post by dragonwriter »

sliverstorm wrote: post #134
dragonwriter wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But surely you have experienced the ways bureaucracy can drag down a good project. Surely I have -- and all of those have been about personal empire building, which wasn't the issue being discussed.

You are familiar with the story of Kirk (Star Trek), and his exam at his academy? He cheats on the exam to beat an unwinnable simulation. This (well, Kirk in general) is portrayed as an example of the cowboy attitude at its best. I know it's fiction, but you want examples and those are some of the first that come to mind.

> I know it's fiction, but you want examples

No, I don't want fictional examples of something posited as a loose analogy. I want an explanation of how rigid ethics would impair the effectiveness of the United States National Security Agency in fulfilling its duties under the laws and Constitution of the United States.

Re: NSA Coworker Remembers Edward Snowden: "A Genius Among Geniuses"

#150

Post by aplusbi »

sliverstorm wrote: post #143
aplusbi wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The constitution makes a distinction between "person" and "citizen" and is careful to grant rights to "people" and not just "citizens". This is why freedom of speech applies to illegal immigrants and visitors and not just US citizens.

This is why freedom of speech applies to illegal immigrants and visitors Not if we read the text: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. Extracting the relevant bit: Congress shall make…

You're missing the forest for the trees, but if it will make you happy, "congress shall make no law...abridging...the right of the people peaceably to assemble".

Illegal immigrants and visitors have the right to assembly because no laws may be enacted against people assembling, not just citizens assembling.

And perhaps more significantly, let's look at the 14th amendment (which I really should have started with in the first place):

>All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Here there is a clear distinction between citizen and person

Post reply on HN