How is this whistleblowing? What benefit do we as the public gain from this knowledge?
I would ask the other way round. Why should this knowledge be hidden from the public?
New Snowden Docs Indicate Scope of NSA Preparations for Cyber Battle
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Re: New Snowden Docs Indicate Scope of NSA Preparations for Cyber Battle
#22How is this whistleblowing? What benefit do we as the public gain from this knowledge?
Snowden revelations have become a media franchise in their own right. This is not about public gain anymore, it's about fame and revenue on the part of the outlets covering the stories.
Re: New Snowden Docs Indicate Scope of NSA Preparations for Cyber Battle
#23I can understand the support of Snowden for blowing the whistle on domestic spying, but how is this defensible?
It does not. This stuff gives argument that Snowden went over to FSB long time ago and that the whole thing is a Russian op a lot more weight.
Re: New Snowden Docs Indicate Scope of NSA Preparations for Cyber Battle
#24To be fair here, the NSA should very well be doing these things, for the purpose of attacking other states. The reason is very clear as the Russian attacks on Estonia ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_cyberattacks_on_Estonia ) demonstrate a clear need for defensive capability in this area, and where you have defence you end up needing offence. This persistent confusion between legitimate NSA operations such as pre…
Agreed. I think the Snowden revelations have harmed the NSA's reputation to the point where most people on HN just assume NSA is a bond-level villain. The NSA serves a purpose, they are meant to be prepared offensively and defensively for the USA's security, which includes the internet. I have no problems with the NSA's purpose and would prefer they continue to exist and prepare against threats to the country. I do b…
The article addresses this very point.
It specifically explores the conflict of interest that the NSA must work both offensively and defensively. It makes the argument that the balance has shifted so drastically to the offensive that our defensive is being weakened.
Re: New Snowden Docs Indicate Scope of NSA Preparations for Cyber Battle
#25Everything at the lowest levels needs to be tightened up now.
Buffer overflows in trusted code have to go. This means getting rid of the languages with buffer overflow problems. Mostly C and C++. Fortunately we have Go and Rust, plus all the semi-interpreted languages, now, and can do it.
We need something that runs Docker-like containers and, all the way down the bare metal, has no unsafe code. We need dumber server boards, with BIOS and NIC code that's simpler and well-understood. The big cloud companies, Amazon, Facebook, and Google are already doing their own server boards.
Companies which put in "backdoors" should face felony criminal prosecution. That doesn't happen by accident.
Latest CERT advisory: "Vulnerability Note VU#936356 Ceragon FiberAir IP-10 Microwave Bridge contains a hard-coded root password ... Ceragon FiberAir IP-10 Microwave Bridges contain an undocumented default root password. The root account can be accessed through ssh, telnet, command line interface, or via HTTP. ... CERT/CC has attempted to contact the vendor prior to publication without success."
All Ceragon customers should demand their money back, and their products should be seized at US customs as supporting terrorism.
Re: New Snowden Docs Indicate Scope of NSA Preparations for Cyber Battle
#26To be fair here, the NSA should very well be doing these things, for the purpose of attacking other states. The reason is very clear as the Russian attacks on Estonia ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_cyberattacks_on_Estonia ) demonstrate a clear need for defensive capability in this area, and where you have defence you end up needing offence. This persistent confusion between legitimate NSA operations such as pre…
Agreed. I think the Snowden revelations have harmed the NSA's reputation to the point where most people on HN just assume NSA is a bond-level villain. The NSA serves a purpose, they are meant to be prepared offensively and defensively for the USA's security, which includes the internet. I have no problems with the NSA's purpose and would prefer they continue to exist and prepare against threats to the country. I do b…
precisely, and this is why I'm starting to think that snowden has - at least - caused as much harm as good by his revelations. if he had stopped at revealing the domestic surveillance he would be an undisputed hero/patriot. but with all of these unnecessary leaks that does nothing but harm to national interest I can understand how others might view him otherwise.
Re: New Snowden Docs Indicate Scope of NSA Preparations for Cyber Battle
#27I can understand the support of Snowden for blowing the whistle on domestic spying, but how is this defensible?
It does not. This stuff gives argument that Snowden went over to FSB long time ago and that the whole thing is a Russian op a lot more weight.
No, it doesn't. Snowden isn't the one who's been releasing these documents; the journalists are. For your claim to make any sense, you'd have to believe Der Spiegel is secretly working for the Russians.
Re: New Snowden Docs Indicate Scope of NSA Preparations for Cyber Battle
#28I can understand the support of Snowden for blowing the whistle on domestic spying, but how is this defensible?
that's why I never understood why he agreed to turn over all the docs to greenwald. he should've been in control of what's revealed and used the rest as insurance.
no one benefitted by revealing that the U.S. spied on merkle. that's what nations do, even Israel spies on the U.S. all the time. then this, how does this knowledge benefit anyone but the bad guys?
Re: New Snowden Docs Indicate Scope of NSA Preparations for Cyber Battle
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
Agreed. I think the Snowden revelations have harmed the NSA's reputation to the point where most people on HN just assume NSA is a bond-level villain. The NSA serves a purpose, they are meant to be prepared offensively and defensively for the USA's security, which includes the internet. I have no problems with the NSA's purpose and would prefer they continue to exist and prepare against threats to the country. I do b…
precisely, and this is why I'm starting to think that snowden has - at least - caused as much harm as good by his revelations. if he had stopped at revealing the domestic surveillance he would be an undisputed hero/patriot. but with all of these unnecessary leaks that does nothing but harm to national interest I can understand how others might view him otherwise.
Others have said as much. Here is a quote from William Binney, another NSA whistleblower, on advice that he has for Snowden:
> I would tell him to steer away from anything that isn't a public service — like talking about the ability of the U.S. government to hack into other countries or other people is not a public service. So that's kind of compromising capabilities and sources and methods, basically. That's getting away from the public service that he did initially. And those would be the acts that people would charge him with as clearly treason.
The whole interview is a great read: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/06/16/snowd...
Re: New Snowden Docs Indicate Scope of NSA Preparations for Cyber Battle
#30Looking at the comments in support of the NSA here makes me suspect an astroturfing campaign is happening.
Edit: I should add that my suspicion came from noticing that the vast majority of the comments when this was first posted seemed aligned in favor of the NSA's mission.
It wasn't the presence of pro-NSA comments that was interesting but rather that these opinions were the overwhelming majority. This is, of course, how astroturfing becomes effective, it is not the rhetoric that is important but the cognitive bias imparted by the facade of so many people falling to one side of an issue.
This is of course, only a suspicion, but it seemed worth noting.