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Edward Snowden: The Untold Story

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Re: Edward Snowden: The Untold Story

#101

Post by exelius »

tokenadult wrote: post #15

I read through all the comments here before beginning to read the article. The comments that say that the usability of the article format is very bad are correct. The online format is too cute by half, and impairs readability. But the article is well worth reading. As Danso points out, the journalist who did the reporting on this article is a renowned independent investigative reporter, James Bamford, who has broken…

> As a substantive comment on the article, let me say that I find it interesting that Snowden himself thinks it is appalling that NSA's internal security auditing is so poor that NSA can't even tell which documents Snowden disclosed to journalists, nor can it tell how many other leakers may still be on its staff. This seems to be a completely plausible claim, and that would be a reason why many American voters or leaders of countries allied to the United States might desire the current leadership of NSA to resign and be replaced with more competent leaders.

There is a troubling problem with any increase in government firepower: be it heavy weaponry in our police stations, advanced monitoring capabilities that can be used on the entire populace at once, or drones that can hit targets on the other side of the planet.

What happens when these weapons are used against us?

Let's just assume for a minute that our government has our best interests in mind and is basically benevolent. With a database of potential intelligence against every person in the US, you create a dangerous situation: what happens if the Chinese or Russian government has covert access to this system and strategically leaks information with the purpose of influencing US elections? This feels completely plausible in my mind: there are real risks to having so much information available in one place. The fact that the controls were so weak to begin with makes me almost certain that foreign intelligence has continued access to these databases.

Every weapon we develop can potentially be used against us. In the case of cyberwarfare, those weapons can be used against us without our knowledge. The scariest part of Snowden's leaks is how awful the government is at technology: most people on the Internet were pretty sure the government was spying on everyone anyway. Geopolitics gets messy, so that stuff is forgivable. But when a single government contractor is able to walk away with so much information and they don't even know what he has?

Re: Edward Snowden: The Untold Story

#102

Post by tomp »

chatmasta wrote: post #85
drez wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have no problem with the NSA spying on foreign communications or disrupting them. After all, that's their job. What else would we use the NSA for? Really? You don't have an issue with a foreign intelligence agency disrupting core infrastructure for a nation in the midst of a civil war? Especially against a nation we are not even at war with? What if the Chinese (or anyone else) did something similar? Would that n…

> You don't have an issue with a foreign intelligence agency disrupting core infrastructure for a nation in the midst of a civil war? Especially against a nation we are not even at war with? Intelligence agencies operate in foreign countries during peacetime. This is not a new phenomenon. Espionage is not limited to war, and it never has been. Peacetime espionage is 99% of all espionage, and much of the time, it's ne…

We're not discussing espionage here. We're discussing the bricking of routers - destruction, or at least disruption, of core national infrastructure. It's like the difference between spying at a power station, and taking it offline for 5 hours.

Re: Edward Snowden: The Untold Story

#103

Post by devindotcom »

scrollaway wrote: post #94
slg wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is in revealing things like this that make me question Snowden. While both points are interesting and maybe a little troubling, they are certainly not whistleblowing in the name of protecting the rights of American citizens. He has moved from simply exposing the breadth of the domestic spying apparatus to exposing the tactics the United States uses in legitimate espionage operations. Isn't trying to compromise the…

> Isn't trying to compromise the communication network of a country like Syria the exact thing the NSA is supposed to be doing? What is wrong with you; what the hell do you have against Syria? What if this was France? The UK? Germany? This was a mistake that happened while "attempting to bug Syria". Knowing the NSA, they bug almost every country out there — so yes, this could have happened to any of the ones I've lis…

Getting intelligence out of a country in the middle of a civil war, in a powderkeg of a region, seems pretty critical to me. We also have spies and malware installed all over the world, and the world is doing its best to spy on and infiltrate us. This is the reality of espionage, intelligence, and counter-intelligence.

Re: Edward Snowden: The Untold Story

#104

Post by marktangotango »

cyorir wrote: post #92
yardie wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The cost of setting up good HUMINT must be fraction of the cost of the NSA infrastructure. Considering the fact that the US was completely caught off guard by the scope and effectiveness of ISIS I have to question the effectiveness of SIGINT programs like the NSA. I have to assume honestly that these programs outlandish budgets are not for tracking terrorists but to control the domestic populace.

>Considering the fact that the US was completely caught off guard by the scope and effectiveness of ISIS I have to question the effectiveness of SIGINT programs like the NSA. I have to assume honestly that these programs outlandish budgets are not for tracking terrorists but to control the domestic populace. I must disagree with this interpretation. I think that only the American public and (some) American media were…

I'm sure they love the perception they were caught off guard. A critical piece of espionage is to keep the capabilities you do have secret. At the risk of sound conspiracy/fanatical, all this sigint stuff is a red herring, they're just glad the REAL capabilities haven't been revealed.

Re: Edward Snowden: The Untold Story

#105

Post by josu »

scrollaway wrote: post #94
slg wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is in revealing things like this that make me question Snowden. While both points are interesting and maybe a little troubling, they are certainly not whistleblowing in the name of protecting the rights of American citizens. He has moved from simply exposing the breadth of the domestic spying apparatus to exposing the tactics the United States uses in legitimate espionage operations. Isn't trying to compromise the…

> Isn't trying to compromise the communication network of a country like Syria the exact thing the NSA is supposed to be doing? What is wrong with you; what the hell do you have against Syria? What if this was France? The UK? Germany? This was a mistake that happened while "attempting to bug Syria". Knowing the NSA, they bug almost every country out there — so yes, this could have happened to any of the ones I've lis…

Internet is no longer just a public service, it's a Human Right http://www.wired.com/2011/06/internet-a-human-right/

Re: Edward Snowden: The Untold Story

#106

Post by tptacek »

nitrogen wrote: post #97
tptacek wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What a strange comment. You appear to believe that you can sum up the human rights characteristics of entire countries by the answer to a single question about routers. Here's a characteristic of Chinese human rights that isn't captured by that question: it is the official policy of China that the police can convict and sentence its citizens to a year of labor camp ("reeducation through labor") without a trial. I fin…

International politics' favorite excuse for everything comes straight from the grade school playground: "He started it!" We ought to do better.

If you reread my comment, you'll see I didn't employ that logic at all. I asked a simple question. Should we declare war on France, China, and Israel?

Re: Edward Snowden: The Untold Story

#107

Post by celticninja »

BgSpnnrs wrote: post #50
Maxious wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Press coverage of the Syrian internet outage at the time: http://www.cnet.com/news/blackout-syria-vanishes-from-intern... "The Middle Eastern country has been experiencing an Internet outage for several hours, and many people on Twitter are reporting that phone lines are down as well." http://www.renesys.com/2012/11/syria-off-the-air/ "There was one brief whole-country outage of less than ten minutes on 25 November.…

Didn't the chap who hacked FinFisher mention something about Syrians somehow acquiring the software. I'm sure I read that the other day

Maybe, but it is completely unrelated.

Re: Edward Snowden: The Untold Story

#108

Post by scrollaway »

devindotcom wrote: post #103
scrollaway wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Isn't trying to compromise the communication network of a country like Syria the exact thing the NSA is supposed to be doing? What is wrong with you; what the hell do you have against Syria? What if this was France? The UK? Germany? This was a mistake that happened while "attempting to bug Syria". Knowing the NSA, they bug almost every country out there — so yes, this could have happened to any of the ones I've lis…

Getting intelligence out of a country in the middle of a civil war, in a powderkeg of a region, seems pretty critical to me. We also have spies and malware installed all over the world, and the world is doing its best to spy on and infiltrate us. This is the reality of espionage, intelligence, and counter-intelligence.

This school playground logic of "it's ok because they started it" sickens me. OK. I get it; espionage is a reality and only espionage can deal with it. But for god sake there's people in here commenting that Snowden is a traitor because he leaked information that didn't directly concern the american people.

Really, now.

Compare those two situations:

"A group of hackers have targeted Syrian ISPs and, in an attempt to wiretap the nation, have brought down internet services in the entire country" "The NSA has targeted Syrian ISPs and, in an attempt to wiretap the nation, has brought down internet services in the entire country" I call BS. Some people here either lack the most basic critical thinking skills, or are NSA shills.

Re: Edward Snowden: The Untold Story

#109

Post by waylandsmithers »

normloman wrote: post #16

What the hell. I start scrolling with my mouse wheel, but nothing moves. I'm thinking my mouse must be broken, until 30 seconds later, I notice the "cover image" fade in and out. I swear, crappy flash intros are alive and well. They just don't use flash anymore.

I think they might have been attempting to simulate a magazine-like experience, where the pictures that required more scrolling than normal were supposed to be like turning the page to a full page image. I feel like I've seen this attempted before but with flashing down arrows to tell you that you need to keep scrolling. Based on the reactions here, I don't think it was successful, but I do appreciate efforts to enhance the reading experience.

Re: Edward Snowden: The Untold Story

#110

Post by john_b »

peterwwillis wrote: post #78

Can someone remind me why Snowden became a public figure in the first place? The second leaker is anonymous and practically invisible, and here Snowden is, constantly getting more press. It's like he wants to be as visible as possible while other leakers want the opposite. Edit: Can somebody tell me what was downvote-worthy about this comment? This is getting ridiculous.

Have you considered that other leakers may still be working for their employers? Snowden was willing to leave everything behind and move to another country, but not everyone has that option (family obligations, etc).

You're probably getting downvoted because your first question is a matter of public record and your assumption that he wants to be extremely visible is inconsistent with the number of interviews of a biographical nature he has conducted. Almost all of his interviews with the press have focused on the NSA, GCHQ, and the like. He explicitly redirects journalists to the real news when they probe too much into his personal life. In this light, your comment could be interpreted as a poor attempt at character assassination.

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