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Edward Snowden: The Untold Story

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Re: Edward Snowden: The Untold Story

#151

Post by baddox »

debt wrote: post #146
e0m wrote: post #137

This mentioned the NSA's "Mission Data Repository" in Bluffdale, Utah. They mentioned it could hold 1 yottabyte of data. Let's put into perspective 1 yottabyte: All Gmail accounts (~500 million users * 10GB/user = ~5000 PB) + All Facebook photos (~2 billion users * 1GB/user = ~2000 PB) + All of Netflix's videos (1-5 PB) + Library of Congress (10-30 PB) + Wikipedia (0.0005 PB) = ~7000 PB = 7 Exabytes. = 0.0007% of 1 Y…

I know it seems crazy but they might have a storage technique that is unknown to the public.

That seems unlikely, considering that there is a massive incentive for private firms with tons of money to attempt to create such a storage technique. I doubt any government could beat them to the punch while keeping it a secret.

Re: Edward Snowden: The Untold Story

#152

Post by baddox »

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…

No, it's not a new phenomenon. But I think it's bad, and I don't think it's justified to say that each nation is "doing its job."

Re: Edward Snowden: The Untold Story

#153

Post by baddox »

tptacek wrote: post #80
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…

Do you really believe that France, China, and Israel haven't owned up US routers? Should we declare war on them?

We nuked Japan. Should they nuke us?

Re: Edward Snowden: The Untold Story

#155

Post by adventured »

baddox wrote: post #151
debt wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know it seems crazy but they might have a storage technique that is unknown to the public.

That seems unlikely, considering that there is a massive incentive for private firms with tons of money to attempt to create such a storage technique. I doubt any government could beat them to the punch while keeping it a secret.

Especially given the NSA borrows an awful lot of its software inspiration from the private sector (eg Google's BigTable). There's little reason to think their hardware efforts would be dramatically more advanced if their software effort isn't.

What the NSA has are three things: a lot of money coming in every year; a lot of relatively intelligent and highly skilled people working for it; and a license to do terrible things and get away with it (ie they can take incredible risks, and try outrageous things, with minimum concern, and or certainly previously could).

The NSA has a budget roughly the size of Microsoft's annual R&D budget, without needing an $80 billion highly profitable business to be maintained. It's amazing what you can do and or attempt with a 'free' $10 or $12 billion per year to burn.

Re: Edward Snowden: The Untold Story

#156

Post by adventured »

baddox wrote: post #153
tptacek wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you really believe that France, China, and Israel haven't owned up US routers? Should we declare war on them?

We nuked Japan. Should they nuke us?

They would have nuked us, if they had been able to. It was total-war. In a war for survival - which is what most of WW2 was - there are very few things off-limits.

How does that situation have anything to do with today?

Re: Edward Snowden: The Untold Story

#157

Post by lern_too_spel »

tomp wrote: post #102
chatmasta wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

We're discussing espionage. They screwed up and bricked the routers accidentally. If they had been successful, the routers would have appeared to function normally.

Re: Edward Snowden: The Untold Story

#158

Post by pekk »

electromagnetic wrote: post #144
differentView wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Wast majority of people who spied for China have had Chinese heritage. Though I also believe this to be true, what we know for sure are that most of the people CAUGHT spying for China had Chinese heritage.

Exactly, its easy to spot a Chinese spy when you investigate your Chinese workers. The notion that a spy is only someone loyal to a country is just quite frankly, silly.

No one says that spies are always loyal to a country. It's not surprising that made-up positions are silly.

Re: Edward Snowden: The Untold Story

#159

Post by pekk »

alrs wrote: post #145
toyg wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

your point 1 proves what I was saying: it's technically very easy to defend against Chinese spies -- just enact more stringent ethnic profiling. I'm not saying this is desirable, but even at very high level it clearly restricts attacking surface quite dramatically. The difficulties are political rather than technical in nature. I partially agree with your point 2, but "according to American counterintelligence" the s…

Be sure to block all of the white guys with yellow fever, while you're at it. No, it's not a "political" problem.

Susceptibility to honeytraps is indeed a problem.

Re: Edward Snowden: The Untold Story

#160

Post by tedks »

slg wrote: post #111
scrollaway wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

No serious politician would support universal health care, basic income, or full human rights for LGBT people, but that doesn't make those causes any less right.

What positive value comes from Snowden releasing the atrocities of the American government? Well, some people have a moral compass more developed than "espionage is a reality and the American government should be able to do as much of it as it wants, in any country, at any time, with any consequences."

Try to be on the right side of history. This is your chance to do that. Maybe you were alive in the 60s or even the 20s, but if you weren't, you're here now, and you can be a part of the struggles we fight today and tomorrow.

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