Live data from Hacker News

Snowden’s First Move Against the NSA Was a Party in Hawaii

wired.com

21–30 of 43 posts

Re: Snowden’s First Move Against the NSA Was a Party in Hawaii

#22
post #21

So Snowden is basically Marcus Yallow from "Little Brother" by Cory Doctorow. Great book even if it is young adult sci-fi.

Does Marcus end up Putin's lapdog against the West? As good as his disclosures are, fleeing to a state with much worse human rights records and pretty much a one-party klepocracy obsessed with annexing territories and controlling its neighbors isn't how most good stories end.

Why isn't he railing against Russia's SORM-1, SORM-2, and SORM-3? My concern here is that his disclosures won't change business as usual and will provide political cover for nations with just as bad, if not worse, human rights violations because the US's critics can just point to Snowden and deflect the conversation, which is EXACTLY what's happening now.

Re: Snowden’s First Move Against the NSA Was a Party in Hawaii

#23

He was running one of the largest Tor exit nodes at 2Gbps. Meanwhile the NSA was reading everyone's Facebook posts. The irony is so thick you could cut it with a knife.

Except prior to his whistleblowing he was the NSA and helped enable that kind of data collection. It always seemed odd that defectors suddenly get absolved of their crimes. If the NSA, as an organization, is guilty of felonies, then their employees must face time, including Snowden. That's justice right? Or does the "I was just following orders/paycheck" defense suddenly work as well?

Serious question, if we do round-up the NSA, who gets in trouble and who doesn't? Just the leaders? Are we also absolving Congress and POTUS? Please explain.

Re: Snowden’s First Move Against the NSA Was a Party in Hawaii

#24
post #21

So Snowden is basically Marcus Yallow from "Little Brother" by Cory Doctorow. Great book even if it is young adult sci-fi.

Does Marcus end up Putin's lapdog against the West? As good as his disclosures are, fleeing to a state with much worse human rights records and pretty much a one-party klepocracy obsessed with annexing territories and controlling its neighbors isn't how most good stories end. Why isn't he railing against Russia's SORM-1, SORM-2, and SORM-3? My concern here is that his disclosures won't change business as usual and wi…

Bullshit. He didn't flee to Russia. He was fleeing through Russia, and we made it plain we'd down any plane we thought he might be on. What is he supposed to do? Leak Russian secrets? At this point, there's no good he can do better than remaining free and remain vocal - and that's what he's doing.

Re: Snowden’s First Move Against the NSA Was a Party in Hawaii

#25
post #21

So Snowden is basically Marcus Yallow from "Little Brother" by Cory Doctorow. Great book even if it is young adult sci-fi.

Does Marcus end up Putin's lapdog against the West? As good as his disclosures are, fleeing to a state with much worse human rights records and pretty much a one-party klepocracy obsessed with annexing territories and controlling its neighbors isn't how most good stories end. Why isn't he railing against Russia's SORM-1, SORM-2, and SORM-3? My concern here is that his disclosures won't change business as usual and wi…

depending on what you believed he either ended up there as a result of having his passport revoked en route to ecuador (his story) or that was a ruse and he intended to stay in russia because it was the only state that could and would stand up to US pressure to extradite him (assange's claim); neither of these interpretations lend any credence to the idea that snowden condones the russian regime's policies. he has openly criticized putin's pre-scripted response to his question regarding russian state surveillance.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/apr/18/vladimi...

Re: Snowden’s First Move Against the NSA Was a Party in Hawaii

#26
post #21

So Snowden is basically Marcus Yallow from "Little Brother" by Cory Doctorow. Great book even if it is young adult sci-fi.

Does Marcus end up Putin's lapdog against the West? As good as his disclosures are, fleeing to a state with much worse human rights records and pretty much a one-party klepocracy obsessed with annexing territories and controlling its neighbors isn't how most good stories end. Why isn't he railing against Russia's SORM-1, SORM-2, and SORM-3? My concern here is that his disclosures won't change business as usual and wi…

He didn't flee to Russia, he became stuck there.

As for why he isn't railing against other policies I suspect he recognizes how lucky he is to not be in the position Bradley Manning is in even after leaking so much. Snowden has done enough good for one lifetime anyway.

Re: Snowden’s First Move Against the NSA Was a Party in Hawaii

#27
post #18

This article keeps saying in many words that the NSA would put Snowden on a boat to gitmo if they found out he hosted a CryptoParty. I don't see why, given that educating the US public about security best practices perfectly aligns with their mission. Back in 2001 they even released the first version of SELinux: http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/press_room/2001/se-linux.shtm... It is only in the post 9/11 world that we…

The NSA has (at least) two separate missions: keep domestic systems secure, and break into foreign systems. These systems come into conflict a lot because it has become nearly impossible to secure domestic systems without also securing foreign systems. For a while, NSA appeared to favor securing domestic systems when the two came into conflict. Thus events like the withdrawal of SHA-0 and its strengthening and re-rel…

It (caution/paranoia/hypocrisy/indoctrination) runs both ways:

“If I’d known it was someone from the NSA, I’d have gone and shot myself,” [Wolf] says.

Re: Snowden’s First Move Against the NSA Was a Party in Hawaii

#28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does Marcus end up Putin's lapdog against the West? As good as his disclosures are, fleeing to a state with much worse human rights records and pretty much a one-party klepocracy obsessed with annexing territories and controlling its neighbors isn't how most good stories end. Why isn't he railing against Russia's SORM-1, SORM-2, and SORM-3? My concern here is that his disclosures won't change business as usual and wi…

depending on what you believed he either ended up there as a result of having his passport revoked en route to ecuador (his story) or that was a ruse and he intended to stay in russia because it was the only state that could and would stand up to US pressure to extradite him (assange's claim); neither of these interpretations lend any credence to the idea that snowden condones the russian regime's policies. he has op…

For one thing, he was studying Russia in Geneva. With British help.

Re: Snowden’s First Move Against the NSA Was a Party in Hawaii

#29
> A recent Wall Street Journal column argues that Snowden might have been working for the Russians and Chinese at the same time.

This sounds straight out of The Onion. "Controversial figure found to be working for the Chinese, the Russians, Al-Qaeda, the KKK and Nazi Germany at the same time"

Re: Snowden’s First Move Against the NSA Was a Party in Hawaii

#30

> A recent Wall Street Journal column argues that Snowden might have been working for the Russians and Chinese at the same time. This sounds straight out of The Onion. "Controversial figure found to be working for the Chinese, the Russians, Al-Qaeda, the KKK and Nazi Germany at the same time"

There has not been a single shred of evidence about this claim which is an attempt to discredit his motives.

Here is the article mentioning this claim: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:1cwq_2e...

Post reply on HN