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Edward Snowden: The Untold Story

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Re: Edward Snowden: The Untold Story

#111

Post by slg »

scrollaway wrote: post #108
devindotcom wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

No one is saying that it is ok because they started it. We are saying that we believe international espionage is a requirement for a country like the US and this operation seemed to be a standard and worthwhile one that happened to be a spectacular failure.

You are free to disagree, but I don't think any serious politician in the US would. Revealing something like this doesn't seem to advance Snowden's initial goals and makes it incredibly hard to gain any political support in the US. So my initial question stands, what positive value comes from Snowden releasing something like that?

Re: Edward Snowden: The Untold Story

#112

Post by freyr »

peterwwillis wrote: post #86
ARCarr wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every movement needs a figurehead. Plus, there's not much more that can happen to him. Others who aren't identified have more to lose.

First, the article clearly points out that there is quite a bit more that can happen to him and he's fighting to stay hidden. Second, what movement?

If he now, as a public figure, disappeared, it would be headline news and people might assume the U.S. government eliminated him, potentially making it look more sinister, validating his claims and turning him into a martyr. So exposure provides some security. Nonetheless, he stays hidden because better safe than dead.

But yeah, he also comes off like a grandiose megalomaniac.

Re: Edward Snowden: The Untold Story

#113

Post by DanBC »

waylandsmithers wrote: post #109
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 enha…

> but I do appreciate efforts to enhance the reading experience.

I don't. I just want the words. Ideally I want the words to be in a nice font and nice contrast and well laid out. In a perfect world there would be some diagrams and illustrations to support the text.

Re: Edward Snowden: The Untold Story

#114

Post by mabramo »

anon1385 wrote: post #83
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…

It's just the usual old American Exceptionalism. They believe they have the 'God given' right to disrupt the economies of other countries, destroy infrastructure, assassinate civilians, fix elections and fund military coups. The only reason ever given is 'Might is Right'. To be an American patriot is to be a psychopath.

To be what a politician calls a patriot is to be a psychopath...

Our founding fathers would not condone the practices of our country. Modern politicians certainly don't seem to abide by the convictions we were founded on. Or maybe they just conveniently warp their interpretation to forward their own agenda.

Re: Edward Snowden: The Untold Story

#115

Post by toyg »

cpwright wrote: post #64
toyg wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TAO bricking the Syrian main router and MonsterMind implementing a sort of cyber-MAD system, are explicitly called out as exclusive revelations. They are important because: * Until now, any loss of Internet connectivity in Syria has always been interpreted as "bad dictator censoring people". I'm not saying that's never been the case, but now we know the US can have more control on global internet infrastructure than…

> if Poitras really lawyered up when asked, chances are that there's something else as well). Or it is in her (and Snowden's) interest to not say exactly what came from where. If there is a second leaker, confirming it could create or increase the intensity of a witch hunt. If there is not, it would confirm that Snowden may have took more material than he claims. Either way, there is no benefit to her answering eithe…

> If there is not, it would confirm that Snowden may have took more material than he claims.

That's not really in their interest -- they have been very good at making the most out of the story, both from a political and personal point of view, so it would be in their interest to claim ownership of anything actually related to the leaked documents. The only reason I can see for covering the fact that there might not be another leaker, is if they (accidentally?) passed on the documents to somebody else and don't want to be legally accountable for that particular transaction. As long as Snowden was the only one moving stuff around, Greenwald and Poitras are mostly in the clear from a legal point of view, they are just reporters; the moment they provide them to third parties, they lose that protected status. However, this would not matter if their aim was just to involve another journalistic outfit like Der Spiegel (unless German law does not provide the same cover to journalism activities as US law), so I can't see why they'd want to have such a charade going on.

I personally find much more likely that there is a second (or even third) leaker but they don't want to put him/her under pressure, as you say.

Re: Edward Snowden: The Untold Story

#117

Post by cmdkeen »

scrollaway wrote: post #108
devindotcom wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Espionage and intelligence are vital if you want to do anything like the current relief operation in Iraq.

In Syria there was an ongoing international effort to stop the use of, and then secure, chemical weapons. You need effective intelligence in order to do that.

A 10 minute internet outage is an awful lot less bad than what happens when a human intelligence asset gets caught by the kind of actors involved in Syria.

Re: Edward Snowden: The Untold Story

#119

Post by a3n »

Noctem wrote: post #65
a3n wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AdBlock Edge. When I first installed it, my motivation was partly to fuck with The Man. But good lord what a great web experience I've had since then. It's almost a completely different web, with a completely different purpose, to inform me rather than to sell me.

I don't understand Adblock Edge. Why use a fork of an old version of Adblock Plus with "acceptable ads" disabled instead of just disabling them yourself in the original (and continuously updated) product? Are there any changes besides the preconfigured disabling of Adblock's whitelist?

TBH I couldn't figure out which of the variants was the "right" one to use, I'm not part of whatever community might surround those tools. I forget what swayed me to Edge; I might have just flipped the fuckit bit and tried something.

Whichever one works is probably good enough.

Re: Edward Snowden: The Untold Story

#120

Post by cmdkeen »

drez wrote: post #73
chatmasta wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In middle of a war zone > In peacetime So which is it? There was (is) a war raging in Syria, the US has interests there -- like it or not -- and the NSA is a US intelligence agency. This story sounds like an example of the NSA just doing its job. 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? What I do have a probl…

> 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…

Or it was part of the effort to stop Syria using chemical weapons, and deny their use to rebels (imagine ISIS with them). That is literally saving thousands of lives, not your hypothetical "I can't live without the internet" scenario.

The US was and is directly involved in the Syrian civil war. It may not be dropping bombs (though it was considering it, and that requires intelligence to plan) but it is trying to stop the violence - and guess what, that requires effective intelligence.

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