Further ties of NSA to Equation Group hackers

Not an astroturfer or an apologist here. I've never had any employment connection with NSA or any other intelligence agency of any government. I'm a United States citizen who has spent six years of my adult life living outside the United States. I'll agree with a previous lower-level comment here that it is possible to publicly protest NSA abuses (as I did, with my whole family, in view of news media cameras and police officers in downtown Minneapolis on the Restore the Fourth protest evening in 2013) while still thinking that the United States must, in an imperfect world, have a national signals intelligence agency with powerful tools. Individual computer users--all over the world--ought to have access to powerful tools to ensure private communications and to prevent black-hat hacking of their data or their computers, but I'm also happy for governments to be informed (within strict legal limits) about what's going on in the rest of the world, because that kind of background knowledge actually builds trust and realistic levels of doubt, and helps prevent hasty decisions to go to war or to promote state-sponsored terrorism. The world system has been more stable and less lethal to the common people of the world with strong national intelligence agencies (especially strong national intelligence agencies operated by democratic governments) than it was with weak intelligence capabilities that let countries surprise their adversaries more often.

Anticipating a comment that comes up in threads like this most of the time on Hacker News, I will mention why I am not overly afraid of NSA controlling the whole country by blackmailing politicians. I don't believe NSA blackmail can or will happen in general, for reasons I have mentioned before here on HN. One of the most common kinds of comments here on Hacker News about issues like this is a comment that ASSUMES that if government leaders are under pervasive surveillance they are all afraid of blackmail. But I don't believe that, because some government leaders and some political candidates are essentially shameless. Even after they are caught (by old-fashioned journalism, or by a jilted lover or some unrelated criminal investigation) doing something unsavory, they are still willing to run for office, and SOME ARE REELECTED. United States Senator David Vitter was reelected in 2010 even after a scandal involving behavior that I would consider shameful,[1] and the antics of former DC mayor Marion Barry[2] are probably still notorious enough that they don't need further discussion here. In short, I call baloney on the idea that NSA can keep politicians on its leash simply by knowing their secrets. Some politicians have PUBLIC lives full of dirt, and still get elected and influence policy anyway.

The other reason I don't believe this HN hivemind theory of politics is that I by no means assume that everyone in politics lacks personal integrity. Some politicians, I am quite sure, could have all their secrets revealed only to have voters think "Why is that person such a straight-arrow? Why not have some fun once in a while?" The simple fact is that there is value system diversity in the United States electorate, and there is personal conduct probity variance among United States politicians, and there isn't any universal way to unduly influence politicians merely through even the most diligent efforts to discover personal secrets. If politicians think that NSA is going too far (as evidently several politicians from more than one party do think), then they will receive plenty of support from the general public to rein in the surveillance. (Obligatory disclaimer: Yes, I am a lawyer, who as a judicial clerk for my state's Supreme Court used to review case files on attorney misconduct, and, yes, some of my law school classmates are elected officials, including one member of Congress. I am absolutely certain that there are enough politicians ready to mobilize to roll back NSA surveillance programs if they really think the programs are excessive in their scope.)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Vitter#D.C._Madam_scanda...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marion_Barry#1990_arrest_and_d...

Yesterday's legit NSA operation and toolkit is tomorrow's cybercrime and hacking toolkits.

Spreading malware is a big deal, and I am sure many people would get quite upset if important US infrastructure was targeted. What would the reactions be if the 911 system got hit by untested malware, or some traffic control systems crash because of spying activities.

What repercussion should the US have received if the Iranian uranium enrichment had exploded and thrown fine radioactive dust into the environment? Would NSA take responsibility for the deaths and environment damage for their spying, or would they hide and put the blame on a third-party?

The answer to your question is that the potential for damage that malware has, and the responsibility we expect from those who make it is extremely disproportional. It is a big deal, and the risk/cost to human lives is why we should be very careful allowing organizations to spread malware.

They have an immense amount of power to crush anyone regardless of whether it is interest of the United States or not. Their methods are so clandestine and underhanded that they are almost to fight against. Given what we know about the discriminatory practices of public servants who operate in the public's eye do we really believe that giving the intelligence communities this amount of power that they wouldn't abuse this power and operate descriptively against ethnic and political minorities? They are essentially robbing the public blind right now and sacrificing our national security so they can have more power domestically.