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Edward Snowden: The Untold Story

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Re: Edward Snowden: The Untold Story

#221

Post by jsmthrowaway »

Dolimiter wrote: post #193
jsmthrowaway wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a user of both Reddit and HN, I have much more fulfilling conversations on Reddit in some areas, more fulfilling conversations on HN in some areas. In general, however, Reddit is typically a far more positive experience. The proof is in the pudding, right here: you've haughtily stated that HN is more intelligent, and come now, how is that even remotely an intelligent thing to say? I contribute to Reddit on a daily…

What confuses me is that you agree with my point, that there is no evidence whatsoever for the Syrian allegation, it is heresay. So why don't you also complain that everyone is discussing it as fact?

I would second alsetmusic. The veracity of ES as a source hasn't faltered since Day 1. Plus, why lie now?

Re: Edward Snowden: The Untold Story

#222

Post by dragonwriter »

Dolimiter wrote: post #193
jsmthrowaway wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a user of both Reddit and HN, I have much more fulfilling conversations on Reddit in some areas, more fulfilling conversations on HN in some areas. In general, however, Reddit is typically a far more positive experience. The proof is in the pudding, right here: you've haughtily stated that HN is more intelligent, and come now, how is that even remotely an intelligent thing to say? I contribute to Reddit on a daily…

What confuses me is that you agree with my point, that there is no evidence whatsoever for the Syrian allegation, it is heresay. So why don't you also complain that everyone is discussing it as fact?

> heresay.

heresy + hearsay = heresay?

Re: Edward Snowden: The Untold Story

#223

Post by Dolimiter »

alsetmusic wrote: post #207
Dolimiter wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What confuses me is that you agree with my point, that there is no evidence whatsoever for the Syrian allegation, it is heresay. So why don't you also complain that everyone is discussing it as fact?

Can't speak for anyone else, but I haven't been given any solid reasons to discredit things Snowden has brought to light, except by parties whose best interest is to undercut him. He may have got things wrong on a small or large scale and could have deliberately falsified information, but the evidence to suggest this is currently lacking. The NSA, on the other hand, has been shown to operate with questionable ethics…

Wait what? Snowden himself says that the source of the information was office gossip. This isn't a case of believing or not believing Snowden. It's a case of people taking a snippet of gossip and reporting it as true because they want it to be true!

People's reality distortion field when faced with the Snowden topic - it astonishes me.

Re: Edward Snowden: The Untold Story

#224

Post by Dolimiter »

jsmthrowaway wrote: post #221
Dolimiter wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What confuses me is that you agree with my point, that there is no evidence whatsoever for the Syrian allegation, it is heresay. So why don't you also complain that everyone is discussing it as fact?

I would second alsetmusic. The veracity of ES as a source hasn't faltered since Day 1. Plus, why lie now?

It was Snowden himself who said is was office gossip. The only people reporting it as fact are those caught in the Snowden reality distortion field.

Re: Edward Snowden: The Untold Story

#225

Post by nitrogen »

dntrkv wrote: post #214
belorn wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The job of spies around the world is to infiltrate infrastructure. The intelligence value of knowing how much power is being produce, and the option to turn them off in case of war is of high military value. So let say the French intelligence service decide to plant one on a nuclear power plan in the US. Sadly however it has a bug which goes off and partial shuts down the reactor. A meltdown happens, killing a few th…

Are you seriously equating the internet going out for a few hours to a nuclear meltdown?

Yes (not the OP); losing the Internet and phones in a country in a civil war could kill as many people as a meltdown.

Re: Edward Snowden: The Untold Story

#226

Post by belorn »

dntrkv wrote: post #214
belorn wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The job of spies around the world is to infiltrate infrastructure. The intelligence value of knowing how much power is being produce, and the option to turn them off in case of war is of high military value. So let say the French intelligence service decide to plant one on a nuclear power plan in the US. Sadly however it has a bug which goes off and partial shuts down the reactor. A meltdown happens, killing a few th…

Are you seriously equating the internet going out for a few hours to a nuclear meltdown?

During extreme crisis, communication networks are vital in order to minimize casualties.

Lets assume that radio and TV inside Syria informed the public where current fire fights happened, where people should go to seek shelter, and other warnings of dangers to the civilian population. Radio and TV get this information from sources inside government and reporters on the field, some using The Internet to transmit this information.

You cut that communication line and radio and TV do not have current information to broadcast. People dies as a result. A lot of innocent civilians dies. This singular event could have killed more people than horrific event like 9/11 or a meltdown at a power plant.

This is why I ask: How many casualties is a spy agency allowed to inflict until it is no longer acceptable.

Re: Edward Snowden: The Untold Story

#227

Post by e12e »

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.

I don't think they'd likely be way off what's available, but I also think if you're buying 5 Million drives (probably over X years) -- I'm sure you can get some customizations done. So, considering 4tb ssd drives are now arriving in consumer markets -- that does change the equation a bit. And if you plan for 16tb drives in the next 3 years?

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/04/29/sandisk_bigs_up_ssd_...

Re: Edward Snowden: The Untold Story

#228

Post by pflanze »

wldcordeiro wrote: post #212
pflanze wrote: post #60

I've made a reformatted copy for easier reading: https://github.com/pflanze/wired-snowden-untold-story/blob/m... (Plain text version in the history, at https://github.com/pflanze/wired-snowden-untold-story/blob/c... )

I find that harder to read. It's just one long wall of text.

The reason I did it was that (even with JavaScript off, as I always try to do) the layout made it hard to know how far in the text I was, and jumping back and forth was accordingly painful. Also, the huge pictures and "emotional" style of the layout distracted me.

The drawback of the Github formatting is that the lines are a bit too long, and narrowing the window size doesn't fix that (there's something in the layout that forces a certain width). I could have put the page on my own server, but I thought it's nicer for people to have direct access to the Github features in case somebody wants to edit or annotate it, also "integrating" it into my own website may violate copyrights, whereas this might not (IANAL).

Re: Edward Snowden: The Untold Story

#229

Post by tripzilch »

Dolimiter wrote: post #224
jsmthrowaway wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would second alsetmusic. The veracity of ES as a source hasn't faltered since Day 1. Plus, why lie now?

It was Snowden himself who said is was office gossip. The only people reporting it as fact are those caught in the Snowden reality distortion field.

> It was Snowden himself who said is was office gossip.

I just checked and read back that part of the article and that's not at all how it is portrayed.

He says he was "told" about it by an intelligence officer. With an amount of detail that makes it hard to discount as just "rumour" (for Snowden, if the story was false, these details wouldn't have checked out, also someone had to have been deliberately spreading misinformation damaging to this TAO crew).

Also, in the context of the entire article, Snowden recounts this story as one of a number of reasons why he took the steps he decided to take to become a whistleblower. That's not something done over just office rumours.

Therefore, apart from the assumption that Snowden is deliberately passing off disinformation as truth himself, there's really no reason not to accept this story as fact, or what Snowden believes to be factual.

Re: Edward Snowden: The Untold Story

#230

Post by idone6 »

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…

Ever heard of something called web service ? Why govt would duplicate data if it is already available somewhere ? These companies have built APIs and services that provide data directly to NSA ( allegedly ! ) Just because you can do multiplication and division doesn't mean they are doing way you are thinking. These are 1000 time smart-ass people than you who have pretty solid ways of petabytes of data. By the way 1 yottabyte is theoretical capacity you dumb ass. Next time think a little before you present your hypothesis and before writing off all claims made by others.
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