Core Secrets: NSA Saboteurs in China and Germany

I actually condone a lot of the NSA's activities, but I take serious issue with:

-Warantless surveillance of US citizens (this is bad whether it's by law enforcement, intelligence agencies, or anyone).

-Infiltration of foreign companies in allied or neutral nations purely for economic or geopolitical insight, not for military purposes (Brazil's Petrobras oil company, all sorts of spying in Germany and Norway and other places).

Personally I'm all for the kind of operations they're conducting in Iran and China, as these countries have been doing the same to us and to others for a long time. But they've become far too greedy in their desire for information domination and power, to the point where there is clearly no line that shouldn't be crossed. To them, if anything anywhere in the world is open for exploitation or surveillance, then they feel like they have a right to use it.

It's not all that speculative - it agrees what was in prior leaks that claim that American companies are routinely infiltrated. Also remember that the authors of these articles have read huge volumes of Snowden documents have have not been publicly released and that the security experts (likely referencing Schneier here) are not just guys working in private industry. If you work in the security space you very quickly begin to interoperate with past- and current- military and government personnel. Schneier testifies as an expert witness on these things before congress and Greenwald is an ex-Constitutional lawyer. In short they have the pedigree to make these assertions.

For the record I don't agree with the parent. I think the important thing about this document is that it lays out the broad tactical tools used in US cyberintelligence strategy. It's handing off some major tactical playbook material.

Oh nobody thinks they are saints. I hope not.

> they use their technical abilities to suppress dissent in frightening ways

I'm just going to mention so called "Fusion Centers", which have been used to investigate and disrupt the organization of The Tea Party movement and Occupy Wall Street but spare my usual rant. No it does not compare to Russia or China.

Oh and I'm also going to link this: https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/07/14/manipulating-o...

And this: http://minerva.dtic.mil/

> NSA threatening domestic jobs, companies, individuals, and most of all innocents, that leads to an upset.

The NSA's view, and in fact several of the last presidential offices, is that these programs and capabilities are important for the country because they give American companies and domestic jobs a leg up.

"The National Security Agency/Central Security Service (NSA/CSS) leads the U.S. Government in cryptology that encompasses both Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) and Information Assurance (IA) products and services, and enables Computer Network Operations (CNO) in order to gain a decision advantage for the Nation and our allies under all circumstances." - NSA Mission Statement

A good example is the hacking of Brazilian PETROBOL (PETROBRAS?). Or actually, here's a firstlook link: https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/09/05/us-governments...

> While there's definitely a cyber war going on, you have to ask, why isn't the NSA actively disseminating knowledge to Americans on how to secure themselves?

Because it is essentially impossible to secure yourself on the internet. This isn't a fine point. It's a blanket fact.

> Why are they instead actively weakening encryption standards?

They have a concept called "NOBUS" which means that the weaknesses they introduce should only be exploitable by them. DUAL_EC_DRBG, the goto example of an NSA backdoor, is a perfect example of NOBUS.

> In summary, the NSA should participate in the global cyber intelligence war by educating the American public, instead of weakening them.

Oh I agree. Actually if you look back Clinton and first term Bush era they kept proclaiming that there was a cyber intelligence war but it never really caught on. So they made it about 'cyber terrorists'. Nobody caught on. They made it about actual terrorists. Now we listen. I do hope that investments are made in defensive capabilities rather than offensive. The Obama administration released a series of strategic documents funding longer term research into the protection of domestic computer networks, programs and technologies. But right now you can't play the game of cyber intelligence war without attacking. When it comes to hacking, the attacker always wins. Just playing defense is a losing game.

> The NSA's actions since 9/11 have been more consistent with a power grab than any authentic desire to empower & protect Americans.

This has been going on much longer than since 9/11. PREDATOR and MAINWAY are examples of programs that existed years before the 9/11 attacks.

> Warantless surveillance of US citizens (this is bad whether it's by law enforcement, intelligence agencies, or anyone).

Agreed very strongly.

> Infiltration of foreign companies in allied or neutral nations purely for economic or geopolitical insight, not for military purposes (Brazil's Petrobras oil company, all sorts of spying in Germany and Norway and other places).

See this is where the NSA really shines. We (The US) delayed Iran's nuclear program by THREE YEARS with Stuxnet! Three! And after they finally figured out it was sabotage the US and Israel had the director assassinated for further delays.

Having Merkle's cell phone? During the Eurozone crisis? It would have been awful (financially) for the United States not to have that information. It's fun to look back and read the confused reports during the time "European Union suffering considerably from Eurozone crisis; America sees only limited effects."

PETROBRAS? We won offshore oil drilling locations because we had that information. Energy security for the country going forward decades.

Unfortunately geopolitics are important and you can't just not participate. Hacking is (one important way) that modern espionage, surveillance and sabotage are done.

I'm not saying it's retribution, I'm saying it's shortsighted to consider it damaging to themselves and be okay with the damage that was detailed in the leaks.

I'm not okay with either, but being blind to others' "suffering" doesn't get my sympathy. In this order of events, your sympathy gets mine. In this case, you pointing the finger at others hacking innocents as a justification for hacking innocents makes me entirely unsympathetic to your "damage". See how that works?