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The NSA: An Inside View

lorensr.me

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Re: The NSA: An Inside View

#311

Post by tripzilch »

lukifer wrote: post #22
Zigurd wrote: post #4

Is this the best defense of the actions of NSA employees publicly available? He spends a lot of time denying pervasive surveillance puts us in a panopticon where the FBI and other LEAs can observe everything we do. And never mentions parallel construction once. He tries to justify a Cold War sized, and then some, security state by invoking North Korea. This is a big bowl of very weak sauce. The director's standard of…

There's also little analysis (here or elsewhere) of the consequences of widespread data warehousing. Why pay agents to listen to personal calls, when you can stockpile intel for the day you might need it, and analyze it via algorithm? I foresee a day when every American has a dossier, a smear campaign, and a law enforcement attack plan on file, in case they decide to "make trouble" for the powerful. It's highly proba…

> I'm extremely psyched to try his mayo

Why. The only (vaguely) scientific argument the paleo diet has against legumes falls apart when you're just extracting the oils (which is not where the "toxins" are). Apart from that it'd just be an organic no-preservatives mayonnaise, and that's already widely available.

It's just another example that this guy will swallow anything you tell him with sufficient amount of authority.

Re: The NSA: An Inside View

#312

Post by tripzilch »

lorendsr wrote: post #29
mtgentry wrote: post #19

No offense to OP, but this reads like propaganda to me. It feels like someone at the Pentagon realized they weren't winning the war of the minds of hackers, so they encouraged some of their own to blog about their experiences. I hate to sound like a tin hat wearing conspiracist. I really do. But I wouldn't be surprised if there was some sort of concerted effort by the NSA to encourage a dialogue with hackers on platf…

No offense taken. I was not asked to write this, nor guided in its contents by the government.

You came up with all of these points by yourself?

I'm quoting m8urn's post from upthread:

> m8urn https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6911796

> It all seems so sincere. Except when you see how closely this matches the talking points the NSA sent home with employees https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.documentcloud.org/documents/8445...

I don't disbelieve you came up with all those points yourself, btw. Maybe you've never even seen that PDF hand-out. However, you couldn't have reworded this obvious piece of propaganda any better, if you did.

Re: The NSA: An Inside View

#313

Post by samstave »

scintill76 wrote: post #308
samstave wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was an article about how they prefer to hire Mormons. It was interesting because this was before it was revealed that the largest NSA DC was to be built in Utah.

Wow, way to throw an entire religion under the bus to "prove" that the NSA is only looking for mindless zealots. I have heard intelligence and law enforcement agencies like Mormons for things like being bilingual (many have learned a second language while serving a two-year mission full-time) and being drug- and alcohol -free. Disclosure: I'm a Mormon. I can't blame people too much for thinking we are all unquestioni…

You clearly missed the part of my comment that said "there was an article that said". - I am in no way throwing anyone under the bus.

I'm on mobile - but I have posted the article here before. If I remember later Ill find it and provide you the link

Re: The NSA: An Inside View

#314

Post by joshstrange »

mpyne wrote: post #304
joshstrange wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, because the government would NEVER plant agents in various online forums to further their own agenda..... /s While I would guess this is probably not the case here I would caution against making it seem so ludacris....

Did the government somehow manage to predict 746 days ago that they would need to have a PR flackey describing the workday of an NSA analyst to clean up for Snowden? I mean, that's some pretty special prognostication, right there.

Well anyone worth their salt should have known something like Snowden would happen eventually. Even if they didn't it would be smart to start infiltrating communities that they thought they might want "cred" in later.

Re: The NSA: An Inside View

#315

Post by njtechie »

One of the earlier statements by government spokesmen was that they're only collecting meta-data and no one should be concerned about that. Fine. Then every top-level NSA employee, and anyone else involved in the data collection process, should immediately and publicly publish THEIR meta-data. That means detailed phone bills showing what number they called, when, and for how long. That means to "to" and "from" plus timestamps on all email sent and received. That means the recipient name and address of every piece of Postal mail sent. We don't need to see the content of those communications, just the meta-data. Because that's harmless and not really private, right?

Re: The NSA: An Inside View

#316

Post by njtechie »

One of the earlier statements by government spokesmen was that they're only collecting meta-data and no one should be concerned about that. Fine. Then every top-level NSA employee, and anyone else involved in the data collection process, should immediately and publicly publish THEIR meta-data. That means detailed phone bills showing what number they called, when, and for how long. That means to "to" and "from" plus timestamps on all email sent and received. That means the recipient name and address of every piece of Postal mail sent. We don't need to see the content of those communications, just the meta-data. Because that's harmless and not really private, right?

Re: The NSA: An Inside View

#317

Post by alandarev »

> US citizens have nothing to worry about.

Oh, alright then, there is nothing except the trillions of spies queued up behind US borders.

There is a shocking news to be revealed: Not all non-US citizens are spies.

Re: The NSA: An Inside View

#318

Post by scintill76 »

samstave wrote: post #313
scintill76 wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, way to throw an entire religion under the bus to "prove" that the NSA is only looking for mindless zealots. I have heard intelligence and law enforcement agencies like Mormons for things like being bilingual (many have learned a second language while serving a two-year mission full-time) and being drug- and alcohol -free. Disclosure: I'm a Mormon. I can't blame people too much for thinking we are all unquestioni…

You clearly missed the part of my comment that said " there was an article that said ". - I am in no way throwing anyone under the bus. I'm on mobile - but I have posted the article here before. If I remember later Ill find it and provide you the link

The article is basically irrelevant. Someone said intelligence agencies select "primarily for loyalty, not critical thinking." Someone else wondered how this can be known. You said because they like to hire Mormons. (Maybe you didn't mean "because", but I can't imagine any other implied connection between the post you replied to and your own.)

See why it's offensive? at least without well-cited statistics demonstrating that many Mormons are more loyal than average and will not think critically if following an authority figure? It's like someone said banks value greed, and you answered "Yeah, because I read an article that they prefer to hire Jews." I don't know, maybe I'm reading too much into your post.

In context, you were taking it as read that Mormons are known "primarily for loyalty, not critical thinking" (not your quote, but from grandparent post) and assuming that is the only conceivable reason a government agency could want to have them. I doubt that a well-written article you read used that kind of presumptuous, circular logic. It probably just said intelligence agencies like to hire Mormons.

Re: The NSA: An Inside View

#319

Post by samstave »

scintill76 wrote: post #318
samstave wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You clearly missed the part of my comment that said " there was an article that said ". - I am in no way throwing anyone under the bus. I'm on mobile - but I have posted the article here before. If I remember later Ill find it and provide you the link

The article is basically irrelevant. Someone said intelligence agencies select "primarily for loyalty, not critical thinking." Someone else wondered how this can be known. You said because they like to hire Mormons. (Maybe you didn't mean "because", but I can't imagine any other implied connection between the post you replied to and your own.) See why it's offensive? at least without well-cited statistics demonstrati…

1. The article:

http://www.businessinsider.com/11-surprising-things-you-didn...

The apparent incorruptibility of Mormons' moral righteousness make them ideal candidates for the nation's law enforcement and intelligence agencies.

Mormons are disproportionately represented in the CIA. A recruiter told the Salt Lake Tribune that returned Mormon missionaries are valued for their foreign language skills, abstinence from drugs and alcohol, and respect for authority.

>See why it's offensive?

Why should I be so sensitive to what offends you when I am simply referring to something someone else wrote?

I can think of far better ways to offend you.

Re: The NSA: An Inside View

#320

Post by scintill76 »

samstave wrote: post #319
scintill76 wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article is basically irrelevant. Someone said intelligence agencies select "primarily for loyalty, not critical thinking." Someone else wondered how this can be known. You said because they like to hire Mormons. (Maybe you didn't mean "because", but I can't imagine any other implied connection between the post you replied to and your own.) See why it's offensive? at least without well-cited statistics demonstrati…

1. The article: http://www.businessinsider.com/11-surprising-things-you-didn... The apparent incorruptibility of Mormons' moral righteousness make them ideal candidates for the nation's law enforcement and intelligence agencies. Mormons are disproportionately represented in the CIA. A recruiter told the Salt Lake Tribune that returned Mormon missionaries are valued for their foreign language skills, abstinence from d…

Thanks for the article, but you still don't get it. It's not the words you said, or the existence of an article that said them first, it's that you said them in a context that seemed to circularly "prove" both that Mormons are known "primarily for loyalty, not critical thinking", and that NSA values those personality features above anything else, all under cover of an accurate statistic from a reputable article. If you care to understand or to convince me, look at my hypothetical Jewish thread analogy from last post and explain why it is either a) not offensive/illogical, or b) is not a fair analogy to the thread here. (To be honest, I probably would have said nothing if you had targeted another group, but I still would have found your post illogical and prejudiced.)

Either I am completely crazy here, looking for offense, or you can't empathize very well. I feel that I really don't care or get offended if individuals think I or any other Mormons are just loyal robots or gullible fools, or NSA et al. like hiring us for it, but it's totally illogical (and offensive to the spirit of healthy, honest discourse) for you to cite either as if they're a proof that the NSA only wants loyal robots. And maybe that is a completely misunderstood characterization of your original comment, but all your replies have been doing are re-emphasizing the parts I don't disagree with and seemingly ignoring the real issue. I'm not even demanding an apology or anything, but some sort of recognition of my real point or a nuanced rebuttal would be nice.

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