The way Israel owns American military and foreign policy should be a national shame. Reminds me of this other story about Israel going behind Obama's back to get weapons straight from the Pentagon. http://online.wsj.com/articles/u-s-sway-over-israel-on-gaza-...
Israel’s N.S.A. Scandal
41–50 of 146 posts
Re: Israel’s N.S.A. Scandal
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can't expect reforms made in the seventies to constrain intelligence agencies indefinitely. The Church Committee imposed real, effective limits on domestic surveillance that it took the best part of three decades to weasel out of. Why not do it again, and do it more regularly? You seem to be arguing that because the Church Committee didn't fix the problem of government overreach once and for all, it accomplished…
Why is constantly maintaining political agreements a superior solution to building crypto solutions that can't be broken (economically)
Because humans are always the weakest link in any security mechanism. In the context of the government spying on you, it doesn't matter if you encrypt all your communication. The government can still force you (and/or your friends and loved ones) to give them what they want, and do it in a way that is completely secret (e.g. gag orders). When viewed in this light, encryption is simply an inconvenience for them.
Re: Israel’s N.S.A. Scandal
#43Sounds like U.S. has not been a sovereign country for sometime. It's intelligence service has been working for another country, passing sensitive information of its own citizens to Israel. Interesting. Even more interesting is that the bulk of the comments are on somewhere else whether this is a witch hunt or not, if it resembles to what Mr. Hoover did or did not do, if the committee in the past succeeded or not.
Re: Israel’s N.S.A. Scandal
#44Re: Israel’s N.S.A. Scandal
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
Those working within the system should follow Snowden's example, IMHO. Force the government to either stop these practices altogether, or reveal their true cost to the American way of life.
Why should any insider do that? Snowden did it, and look what happened. Nothing. Sad truth is, the majority don't care. If they did, then it would be reflected in voting, and things would change. But no. Mean while, Snowden is a wanted man in exile. Don't get me wrong, I don't like this one little bit, but it seems I'm in a minority.
I can see 2 major things happened. One good and one bad.
1) The bad is that the average person didn't seem to be outraged enough to do anything or they were outraged but incapable of doing anything. That is not even the bad part. The bad part is that NSA and others have learned that even with such obvious things people are powerless. They will likely ramp up their capabilities in the future.
2) The good thing is that we are discussing it and some who create and are knowledgeable about security and technology have started developing and enhancing their tools. Because a lot of the techniques are open now. We can defend better from them.
Sometimes tools created by a few can be used by the large population. That is a nice side effects.
Notice "us" vs "them". I think that is how "they" see the situation and how we should see it. It is a war between the American public and the NSA so to speak. It is important to keep this adversarial position because the other side already has that position.
It is also important to mention NSA is not monolithic and talking about "it" vs "us" is not quite accurate. Many decisions are probably made based on bureaucratic concerns -- sunk costs, contractor kickbacks and so on, rather than some inherent evil conspiratorial cabal. But for the propaganda domain, I think it is effective in portraying it that way. Because looking at its behavior as a whole it kind of exhibits those traits.
Re: Israel’s N.S.A. Scandal
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can't expect reforms made in the seventies to constrain intelligence agencies indefinitely. The Church Committee imposed real, effective limits on domestic surveillance that it took the best part of three decades to weasel out of. Why not do it again, and do it more regularly? You seem to be arguing that because the Church Committee didn't fix the problem of government overreach once and for all, it accomplished…
Why is constantly maintaining political agreements a superior solution to building crypto solutions that can't be broken (economically)
To have the best defense of our freedoms, we need both. We need to be vigilant in the political system and in the courts to protect our rights, and we need to be using the best technical means--and developing better technical means--to protect our privacy not only from overreaching governments but also from careless private businesses and common criminals.
Re: Israel’s N.S.A. Scandal
#47Palantir has their hand in all of this.
Palantir has their hand in all of this.
What is the evidence for this statement? (I read the fine article, and didn't see a lot of discussion of the business corporation Palantir there.)
Re: Israel’s N.S.A. Scandal
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can't expect reforms made in the seventies to constrain intelligence agencies indefinitely. The Church Committee imposed real, effective limits on domestic surveillance that it took the best part of three decades to weasel out of. Why not do it again, and do it more regularly? You seem to be arguing that because the Church Committee didn't fix the problem of government overreach once and for all, it accomplished…
Why is constantly maintaining political agreements a superior solution to building crypto solutions that can't be broken (economically)
Because this is ultimately a social problem. You're not going to make conflict or oppression obsolete with encryption; even if a tyrrannical government can't get any actionable information out of someone it perceives as an antagonist, it may feel free to abuse or torture people simply to keep the rest of the population in line - by terrorizing some people and catering by proxy to the sadistic instincts of others.Many different societies are quite happy to tolerate viciously oppressive governments as long as the oppression is concentrated upon a distinct minority population.
Re: Israel’s N.S.A. Scandal
#49A discussion of Unit 8200 I read today: http://strategypage.com/htmw/htintel/articles/20140923.aspx
(I read other sources because my Swedish media is like some inverse of Fox News. Stories like that Hamas had admitted murdering the three teens that started the last war is not... emphasized. The biggest morning newspaper didn't even mention that the accused murders of those teens died in a firefight today. Pallywood was never mentioned. Neither torture between Palestinian groups. Etc.)
Re: Israel’s N.S.A. Scandal
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
HN's Guidelines say to use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
The article clearly states the NSA is cataloging porn visits of ordinary Americans exercising their rights to free speech. How was the title not appropriate?
Because that is peripheral to what the article is mainly about.