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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

#151

Post by diminoten »

benaiah wrote: post #143
diminoten wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is absolutely no reason for the NSA to give a flying fuck about what you or I think. There just isn't, and it'd be a waste of resources to even attempt something like this. People do exist (I am one of them) who think the NSA is doing a nasty job that isn't very appealing, but is absolutely necessary for me to be able to sleep in my bed at night safely. They may not have the best guidance from the government, b…

> Why must there be a conspiratorial astroturfing campaign taking place? Regardless of how you feel about it, there is a conspiratorial astroturfing campaign taking place - it's a well documented NSA activity. Whether it accounts for specific comments is impossible to say, but it does exist. Why then is it so absurd to think that it may be in play?

Why is it absurd? Because there's no evidence of it taking place. It's the same reason we don't believe in unicorns.

Re: New Snowden Docs Indicate Scope of NSA Preparations for Cyber Battle

#152

Post by Juz16 »

Animats wrote: post #25

Everything 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…

>Companies which put in "backdoors" should face felony criminal prosecution. That doesn't happen by accident.

Hard to do that when refusing to put in a backdoor can have even worse consequences.

Re: New Snowden Docs Indicate Scope of NSA Preparations for Cyber Battle

#153

Post by patcon »

pa7ch wrote: post #30

Looking 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…

Assume that since there is something to be gained by the more powerful on one side, that a certain portion of the comments siding with the more empowered source are owned. It's not worth calling out individual commenters, because you can't know. But assume that some portion is shilling.

The hard part is guessing what portion. 10 percent? 30 percent? What's the time-graph? Is it 50% of initial comments, tapering off to just us Real Folk to dither around with the wondering phase of the conversation? The important thing is to assume that you're often witnessing a deceit in some capacity, in most any important conversation.

Needless to say, all this is pretty fucked up.

EDIT: Changed percentages, because I honestly don't know what's reasonable :/

Re: New Snowden Docs Indicate Scope of NSA Preparations for Cyber Battle

#154

Post by smtddr »

diminoten wrote: post #151
benaiah wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why must there be a conspiratorial astroturfing campaign taking place? Regardless of how you feel about it, there is a conspiratorial astroturfing campaign taking place - it's a well documented NSA activity. Whether it accounts for specific comments is impossible to say, but it does exist. Why then is it so absurd to think that it may be in play?

Why is it absurd? Because there's no evidence of it taking place. It's the same reason we don't believe in unicorns.

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/02/24/jtrig-manipula...

EDIT: Added firstlook url per reply, originally pointed to https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140224/17054826340/new-s...

...not really sure I see a substantial difference between the 2 articles, but there you go.

Re: New Snowden Docs Indicate Scope of NSA Preparations for Cyber Battle

#155

Post by rhizome »

diminoten wrote: post #149
rhizome wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course not, and that's a highly uncharitable reading bordering on bad faith. 1) the current state of affairs does not remove threats, because the agencies are starting trouble, too; 2) the people are the ones who have to live with the effects of something, in the US a result of a democratic system where the agencies may prioritize their own imaginations over citizens' actual lives, where the agencies may have perv…

Just to be clear, is there any form of this conversation where you admit to being anything except absolutely correct on all points you're attempting to make? I get the feeling you're one of those folks who won't accept anything except what you've already concluded.

Well you don't have to be rude about it.

Re: New Snowden Docs Indicate Scope of NSA Preparations for Cyber Battle

#156

Post by alextgordon »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #144
alecco wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, Obama and US congress made it clear we foreign people are just fair game for targeting. At least I'm lucky not to live in a country where targeted assassinations are going on. Also, it's pretty obvious terrorism is an excuse. The main reason is power and control. Corporate espionage and controlling US-unfriendly political movements is very likely the main goal.

>we foreign people are just fair game for targeting That's not exactly true in that not every non-U.S. citizen is an interest to the U.S. Government. To your broader point though, the idea that a state's Security, Defense or Military arms are singularly focused on foreign "threats" or potential threats is a fundamental assumption of nearly every international relations theory. Why would you think it would be otherwis…

What the US is doing is extraordinary, mainly because it is the only country with the resources to run the operation that it's running, but also because everybody seems to be infected with fear.

If we were talking about Georgia, or Israel, or Ukraine, or Japan, I would understand the fear. But the USA has no enemies, there are no threats. It's a tragic case of paranoia.

Re: New Snowden Docs Indicate Scope of NSA Preparations for Cyber Battle

#157

Post by diminoten »

smtddr wrote: post #154
diminoten wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it absurd? Because there's no evidence of it taking place. It's the same reason we don't believe in unicorns.

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/02/24/jtrig-manipula... EDIT: Added firstlook url per reply, originally pointed to https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140224/17054826340/new-s... ...not really sure I see a substantial difference between the 2 articles, but there you go.

Why link to the blogspam and not the firstlook.org article it's sourced from?

Oh right, because it doesn't support what you're saying. Got it.

Re: New Snowden Docs Indicate Scope of NSA Preparations for Cyber Battle

#158

Post by diminoten »

rhizome wrote: post #155
diminoten wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to be clear, is there any form of this conversation where you admit to being anything except absolutely correct on all points you're attempting to make? I get the feeling you're one of those folks who won't accept anything except what you've already concluded.

Well you don't have to be rude about it.

I think your attitude deserves the response I gave, if not something much harsher. You kill intellectual debate.

Re: New Snowden Docs Indicate Scope of NSA Preparations for Cyber Battle

#159

Post by moe »

dogma1138 wrote: post #87
moe wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

not 1000's of documents [...] of which many probably contain actionable information which i would dare to say puts the EU as a organisation, and you as an individual at more risk than anything the NSA will ever did or do. Fearmonger much? So far my statistical risk to be killed in a train accident is significantly higher than being killed in a terrorist attack. And somehow it has been this way since before the intern…

What do terrorists have to do with anything? Nation states are far more likely to launch a cyber attack against the EU than a terrorist organisation. And since when mass surveillance is a new thing? The US, some European allies, Russia and any other capable country were conducting mass surveillance since pretty much WW2 if not earlier. Tapping phone lines including the transatlantic phone cables since the 50's, openi…

And since when mass surveillance is a new thing? [...] Countries were conducting mass surveillance since pretty much WW2

Since when are nukes a new thing? Countries have been going to war for centuries!

Can you see how absurd a notion that is?

The NSA will soon be able to record every move you make and every word you speak or write during your lifetime, in realtime. Not much later it will be able to do this for entire populations.

None of this has been possible until very recently. Conflating this kind of mass surveillance with the past practices of manually opening letters and wiretapping phones would be very naive.

About your PS 2.0...

Since you apparently still don't realise how completely irrelevant that number is; Twice as many people were killed by lightning strike in the same timeframe.

Re: New Snowden Docs Indicate Scope of NSA Preparations for Cyber Battle

#160

Post by srj »

krapp wrote: post #36
pa7ch wrote: post #30

Looking 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…

You're probably right. No need to consider the arguments made by people who don't agree entirely with a particular point of view, or even discuss it at all. They're obviously just shills. Edit: Much of the 'pro NSA' comments I see here seem merely to suggest that not everything the NSA does is evil, and not every disclosure is necessarily useful. As often happens in threads like these, any such comments are dismissed…

The parent poster didn't advise ignoring the pro-NSA opinions but gave his opinion that he felt there might be an astroturf campaign. And why follow a comment agreeing that astroturf campaigns are employed with one slanting those pointing it out as 'spooks' and 'paranoid'?

I think it's worth reminding fellow readers that this sort of manipulation happens, and likely on HN.

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