Snowden’s First Move Against the NSA Was a Party in Hawaii • Hacker News Board

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

#41

Post by acqq » Thu, May 22, 2014, 9:46 PM UTC

lepht wrote: post #40

acqq wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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." No, the actual words are just "That was a huge risk for him to teach a crypto party while he was working for the NSA." It was a risk for him, the kind of like organizing "don't drink sugar water" event while working for Coca Cola which has effectively its own police, and that at the t…

> Coca Cola which has effectively its own police Link with more info?

I'm not claiming that Coca Cola has its own police but suggesting to imagine a hypothetical Coca Cola which has police at their command, and a hypothetical employee working for a such company, who just took secret documents, contacted a journalist, then making a "let's not drink sugar water" event, and then to try to imagine if his behavior could trigger such police to investigate him more and maybe in the process discover what he did. Sorry if it wasn't clear enough.

Snowden organized a "let's use Tor" event after he apparently already downloaded some secret documents and contacted a journalist. And the top commenter disputes the claim "That was a huge risk for him to teach a crypto party while he was working for the NSA" falsely claiming that the 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." It doesn't. But I also claim that it was a potential risk for him as there was some chance that somebody in charge for security starts to investigate what he does or already did.

And if I understood other sources, at that time Snowden actually worked for a private company (Booz Allen Hamilton Inc.)

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1000142405270230462680...

which had the contracts with NSA. Still, apparently exactly working in that company gave him access to the secret documents he wanted to take.

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

#42

Post by Centigonal » Thu, May 22, 2014, 11:39 PM UTC

lepht wrote: post #40

acqq wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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." No, the actual words are just "That was a huge risk for him to teach a crypto party while he was working for the NSA." It was a risk for him, the kind of like organizing "don't drink sugar water" event while working for Coca Cola which has effectively its own police, and that at the t…

> Coca Cola which has effectively its own police Link with more info?

The parent wasn't making that point, but if you want to read about all the scary Coke conspiracies, there's always http://killercoke.org/

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

#43

Post by thesimpsons1022 » Fri, May 23, 2014, 8:31 AM UTC

drzaiusapelord wrote: post #23

ryanmarsh wrote: post #20

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…

not everyone is guilty. most people there work on stuff completely unrelated to the unconstitutional crimes they commit. it is also well known that soon after he found out the true extent of the invasions of privacy he did try to change the system from the inside. it was only after it failed that he decided to leak info.