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Going Through Snowden Documents, Part 1

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Re: Going Through Snowden Documents, Part 1

#151

Post by AstroNutt »

jeffbee wrote: post #56
timschmidt wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

William Binney, former technical director of NSA disagrees: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3owk7vEEOvs I see further down the thread you claim that surveillance data is deleted without ever being looked at. Must be why they need a half dozen gargantuan datacenters full of storage and compute.

This is the correct point of reference, but you are misinterpreting it and I urge you to think about it again. All of the government's facilities put together amount to almost nothing in the data center landscape, therefore it should be quite obvious that they certainly are not equipped to broadly intercept, store, and search "everything".

Why should they when they have access to FAANG? No need for massive data centers.

Re: Going Through Snowden Documents, Part 1

#152

Post by notepad0x90 »

Since it's been a while now, what are the thoughts on the snowden leaks contributing to the rise of distrust in the government and governmental institutions in the US?

I'm wondering if trump could have ever succeeded without that path being prepared for him by snowden's leaks and occupy wallstreet. I'm not saying snowden did anything wrong, to the contrary, he thought things would change and they didn't, I'm wondering whether that contributed to the feeling of americans feeling disenfranchised. Relations with europe also started souring around that time.

I think snowden did the right thing, but like many in tech (especially here on HN), he didn't understand that American's didn't care about what's in the leaks all that much. it wasn't his burden to weigh the pros and cons, his burden was to do what he thought was right. But looking back, nothing good came out of the leaks, I wish they didn't happen to begin with. Of course if you're not an American lots of good things came out of it. I'm certain we have less privacy now, more governmental spying, and even more support for it. at least before we had the illusion that we had some rights to privacy from the government. Now that they're exposed and gotten away with it, I fear they've become more emboldened.

I guess I am glad the whole thing was exposed, but I am regretful of how things turned out. Would it have been better if there was more trust in governmental institutions, and if the US IC kept their capabilities secret for longer? would they have been able to interfere with russian influence campaigns in 2015-16 if so? Is the world better of now?

I suppose in 5-10 more years these things will be historical events and historians might answer these questions with a more objective perspective.

Re: Going Through Snowden Documents, Part 1

#153

Post by keiferski »

notepad0x90 wrote: post #152

Since it's been a while now, what are the thoughts on the snowden leaks contributing to the rise of distrust in the government and governmental institutions in the US? I'm wondering if trump could have ever succeeded without that path being prepared for him by snowden's leaks and occupy wallstreet. I'm not saying snowden did anything wrong, to the contrary, he thought things would change and they didn't, I'm wonderin…

The trends that elected a populist leader were more economic in nature and can be more traced to the 2008 crisis. I doubt the average person can even name Snowden or what he did.

Re: Going Through Snowden Documents, Part 1

#154

Post by keiferski »

sunaookami wrote: post #60

This comment section is strange, a lot of people trying to discredit Snowden, saying he shouldn't have released the files, should be in prison, etc. 12 years ago this was HUGE news and had a major impact on the internet and everyone thanked Snowden for these documents! I certainly am thankful. Disappointed in my country that they literally said that "spying between friends is a no-go" but then did nothing and intimid…

Hacker News would be better named Tech Industry Professional News. Most people here are very invested in corporations and government organizations, are very well paid for being so, and have little interest in anything “hacker” in the traditional sense of the word.

Re: Going Through Snowden Documents, Part 1

#155

Post by DANmode »

nasaeclipse wrote: post #105
GuinansEyebrows wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i think a lot of people on this site work on the same types of projects snowden worked on and blew the whistle over, for the same organizations, and feel good about it. i wonder how many users here are happily employed by booz allen hamilton?

unrelated, but I recently saw an ad by booz allen that proudly said "Stopping Fentanyl" as part of their mission. Like, really? Are people really that gullible to believe that?

The people that didn’t know the name before the ad?

Yeah.

Re: Going Through Snowden Documents, Part 1

#156

Post by mikeyouse »

timschmidt wrote: post #46
ginush wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We know now that communications are being intercepted in bulk as a matter of intelligence gathering, but that does not equate to everyone being surveilled by the government. What this actually provides, first and foremost, is the capability to perform targeted surveillance more rapidly, and to do so temporally by reaching into datasets already recorded. Obviously this provides a much-needed capability for legitimate…

William Binney, former technical director of NSA disagrees: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3owk7vEEOvs I see further down the thread you claim that surveillance data is deleted without ever being looked at. Must be why they need a half dozen gargantuan datacenters full of storage and compute.

Unfortunately Binney has absolutely lost it and can’t be considered credible.. literally hanging out with Alex Jones and talking about Stolen elections using math a precocious middle schooler could rebut.

His pinned Tweet is still referencing a “directed energy weapon” assassination attempt of him by the US Air Force (which took place during the Trump administration, who he was supporting, so apparently some rogue DEW plane or deep state operative?)

Re: Going Through Snowden Documents, Part 1

#157

Post by sunaookami »

sholain wrote: post #126
sunaookami wrote: post #60

This comment section is strange, a lot of people trying to discredit Snowden, saying he shouldn't have released the files, should be in prison, etc. 12 years ago this was HUGE news and had a major impact on the internet and everyone thanked Snowden for these documents! I certainly am thankful. Disappointed in my country that they literally said that "spying between friends is a no-go" but then did nothing and intimid…

One cannot just release whatever one wants, and some of the docs should not have been released. There were huge variations in the nature of the content that he released, and this is the problem with the narrative. He's a 'whistle blower' and 'broke the law' at the same time. A lot of people seem to have difficulty with that. Edit: we need better privacy laws and transparency around a lot of things, that said, some st…

As the other commenter said, the crimes the NSA did/still does far outweight any "crimes" Snowden did. And whistleblowing is by definition illegal since you have to release confidential files. That's why functioning countries should have laws protecting whistleblowers.

Re: Going Through Snowden Documents, Part 1

#158

Post by sunaookami »

ginush wrote: post #132
DennisP wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So your claim is that this massive data collection, done at massive public expense, is not used at all? That seems unlikely. And given how good computers are at natural language processing these days, the data is more usable than ever.

Of course it is used. But unless you're a target of interest to intelligence analysts, the metadata generated by your online activities will be of no interest whatsoever. It won't even be looked at.

It leads to a Chilling Effect which has a huge negative impact on society.

Re: Going Through Snowden Documents, Part 1

#159

Post by amypetrik8 »

alphazard wrote: post #98
sunaookami wrote: post #60

This comment section is strange, a lot of people trying to discredit Snowden, saying he shouldn't have released the files, should be in prison, etc. 12 years ago this was HUGE news and had a major impact on the internet and everyone thanked Snowden for these documents! I certainly am thankful. Disappointed in my country that they literally said that "spying between friends is a no-go" but then did nothing and intimid…

"User" generated content on the internet is mostly bots, HN included. Opinions that seem too radical or stupid to be believed are often bots, or NPC humans repeating bot content that they read somewhere else.

>Opinions that seem too radical or stupid to be believed are often bots, or NPC humans repeating bot content that they read somewhere else.

You forget to mention trolls. The best way to handle a NPC propaganda parrot is to deliver them an even more foul piece of propaganda and observe .. vs disagreeing with them, that they would enjoy.

Re: Going Through Snowden Documents, Part 1

#160

Post by timschmidt »

mikeyouse wrote: post #156
timschmidt wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

William Binney, former technical director of NSA disagrees: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3owk7vEEOvs I see further down the thread you claim that surveillance data is deleted without ever being looked at. Must be why they need a half dozen gargantuan datacenters full of storage and compute.

Unfortunately Binney has absolutely lost it and can’t be considered credible.. literally hanging out with Alex Jones and talking about Stolen elections using math a precocious middle schooler could rebut. His pinned Tweet is still referencing a “directed energy weapon” assassination attempt of him by the US Air Force (which took place during the Trump administration, who he was supporting, so apparently some rogue DE…

Every human has ideas and opinions others disagree with. However, as Technical Director and later geopolitical world Technical Director of NSA with over 30 years of SIGINT service, literally no one is in a better position to know about NSA surveillance activities.
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