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NSA director heckled on stage at Black Hat security conference

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Re: NSA director heckled on stage at Black Hat security conference

#171

Post by wpietri »

saraid216 wrote: post #168
Cowen wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> NSA recruits from engineering universities. They are quite good at it. Given the nature of the technical problems they face, they would have to be pretty incompetent to not be good at recruiting from engineering universities. "Would you rather build yet another CRUD app, or build systems that trawl through 20+ TB of data every day?" Obviously there are ethical issues, but peoples' ethics are much more pliable than…

> Obviously there are ethical issues, but peoples' ethics are much more pliable than most of us like to believe. The irritating thing about this is that most of us aren't taught ethics. Most people don't take philosophy courses. Most people don't take civics courses. We're expected to just figure it out through osmosis. It's not about pliability. Most people never actually develop their own approach to ethics.

Yeah. As much as a flaming atheist as I am, I regret that people aren't spending as much time getting an ethical education as they once did.

I suspect that one could teach an excellent non-religious Sunday School class by only asking difficult questions. The only people who scare me more than people who have never thought much about ethics are the ones who think they know The Answer.

Re: NSA director heckled on stage at Black Hat security conference

#172

Post by tptacek »

lawnchair_larry wrote: post #162
tptacek wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The audience for this event is infosec professionals wearing t-shirts, for whatever that's worth to you. Demographically pretty compatible with Reddit, or at least the subset of Redditors with top-quartile (for IT) incomes. To the extent that this audience has any engagement with public policy, that engagement is likely to take a Ron Paul-ish flavor.

That's not the BlackHat audience that I've seen for many years now. It's basically RSA these days. I think that demographic exists at BH as a vocal minority. When you're actually on the floor, it's difficult to actually find anybody you're thinking of. Don't forget that attendance is over 8,000 lately, IIRC.

I'm not going to say the conference isn't vendor-y and commercial; it is definitely that, and more so than it started. But it's nothing resembling RSA. Also: Defcon is nothing like what it was in the 90's; it's had a trajectory reminiscent of Burning Man's.

Re: NSA director heckled on stage at Black Hat security conference

#173

Post by teeja »

narrator wrote: post #125
willholloway wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My main take away from your comment is that Keith Alexander is Enabran Tain & that I feel like the US is approximating the Cardassian Union more everyday. The existence of nuclear weapons has rendered traditional warfare unprofitable, except against the very weak, and even in those cases only military contractors benefit. We invaded and occupied Iraq and didn't even get any oil, just a trillion or so in national debt…

>We invaded and occupied Iraq and didn't even get any oil, just a trillion or so in national debt. At least in the time of Rome citizen soldiers were titled large swaths of land in the conquered territories. The trillions in national debt benefits somebody. Somebody somewhere gets those interest payments and they wouldn't have if the U.S had not borrowed from them.

Unfortunately those "investments" in war came at a time when investments in the US infrastructure and renewable energy would have paid MUCH bigger dividends.

Just a few days ago was the 75th anniversary of Henry Ford getting a medal from Hitler. I guess we learn from history that we don't learn from history.

Those boys aren't so interested in "starving the beast" as they are in feeding their wealthy constituent-donors. We need campaign finance reform.

Re: NSA director heckled on stage at Black Hat security conference

#174

Post by mr_spothawk »

cookiecaper wrote: post #133
vijayboyapati wrote: post #99

Funny how Alexander says he's read the Constitution, and implores the heckler to do the same. If one can read the Constitution and square the NSA's mass surveillance with the 4th amendment then one can square a circle. There really is no point in debating people like this on the technicalities of the Constitution. What they understand is power. He has it and we don't. He knows how to pull the levers that matter, and…

The NSA is filtering a public utility. The users of this utility choose what information they want to broadcast, and should do so with the full knowledge that this information is being bounced between dozens of routers every time it goes out, any one of which may be monitored by its owners. This information ultimately ends up at the destination IP address, whose owner is able to use this data in whichever manner he s…

>"The microphones in every nook and cranny are merely filtering a public good, the air. You should know that when you vibrate the air with your vocal chords to make the sound of words, you're willingly broadcasting information patterns in quadrillions of particles in the air. It's not our fault you're so stupid about your security."

Don't be dense. Letters are easily intercepted and read, but we still expect that the government is not doing so because the constitution forbids that sort of behavior and the judicial branch is supposed to protect us from it.

You're conflating privacy with security. Security requires encryption, etc... privacy exists in the absence of monitoring devices.

Re: NSA director heckled on stage at Black Hat security conference

#175

Post by ferdo »

SkyMarshal wrote: post #155
ferdo wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't politeness on Welch's part. This is how every member of the upper tiers of the MIC should be treated by the entire country: "Until this moment, Senator, I think I have never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness...Little did I dream you could be so reckless and so cruel as to do an injury to that lad...It is, I regret to say, equally true that I fear he shall always bear a scar needlessly inflict…

The examples you gave are of eloquent if harsh statesmanship from a sitting Senator, and I absolutely agree that is exactly what needs to be happening now. Ed Snowden is actually doing a really good job of it with his press releases, in fact. But that's a far cry from yelling "bullshit" at the back of a conference room.

Senators have time and access to be harsh statesmen. We, the Surveilled, have only enough time and access to let them know what we think.

What they're doing is bullshit and they should be reminded of it every second of every day by anyone that can tell them.

Re: NSA director heckled on stage at Black Hat security conference

#176

Post by mr_spothawk »

mjfl wrote: post #16

I don't care whether the director of the NSA is a bad guy, it just makes you look bad if you heckle someone on stage. There are probably few more scrutinizing audiences for the director of the NSA than a professional security conference. I would rather have him say what he has to say and be analysed by the many bright minds at the conference than for him to be childishly interrupted and waste time that could be spent…

> it just makes you look bad if you heckle someone on stage.

I disagree. It's important that we speak truth to power. If we don't then they won't hear our case. You don't think the president is wandering around Hacker News and Reddit looking for details do you? No. They employ PR firms or former employees of them to filter information back to reports which get filtered through various aides which finally makes it to the ear of the president.

However, when you stand and loudly speak your feelings, the message doesn't get filtered. That's an important part of the process.

Re: NSA director heckled on stage at Black Hat security conference

#177

Post by fragmede »

tptacek wrote: post #151
fragmede wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do a good job of it too. I also wish that Good Will Hunting were required viewing, if only for the NSA monologue. I think it's also worth mentioning that while sometimes indistinguishable, BlackHat != Defcon, even if tptacek wants them to be.

Give me a break. Black Hat was started as an excuse to get companies to pay for their infosec teams to attend Defcon. I was at Defcon in the '90s, and spoke at the second-ever Black Hat; my partner Jeremy spoke at the first.

I think that start is exactly why BlackHat != Defcon, a decade and half later. Defcon's a "Let's Spend a Weekend in Vegas", while BlackHat is now held around the world.

Abu Dhabi anyone?

Re: NSA director heckled on stage at Black Hat security conference

#178

Post by cookiecaper »

mr_spothawk wrote: post #174
cookiecaper wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The NSA is filtering a public utility. The users of this utility choose what information they want to broadcast, and should do so with the full knowledge that this information is being bounced between dozens of routers every time it goes out, any one of which may be monitored by its owners. This information ultimately ends up at the destination IP address, whose owner is able to use this data in whichever manner he s…

>"The microphones in every nook and cranny are merely filtering a public good, the air. You should know that when you vibrate the air with your vocal chords to make the sound of words, you're willingly broadcasting information patterns in quadrillions of particles in the air. It's not our fault you're so stupid about your security." Don't be dense. Letters are easily intercepted and read, but we still expect that the…

The proper analog is a letter v. a postcard. There is no reasonable expectation that the contents of a postcard will remain private -- the message is right there, and people will see it even accidentally. A typical plaintext packet is the same way. Stuffing your papers in a sealed envelope is analogous to passing your plaintext through an encryption algorithm.

If you are "vibrating the air" in public, then yes, you should realize that there could be a microphone nearby that records what you're saying (and in fact, in modern practice, there is a microphone on pretty much every person you see, any of which could be recording at any time).

Re: NSA director heckled on stage at Black Hat security conference

#179

Post by cookiecaper »

ibejoeb wrote: post #159
cookiecaper wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The NSA is filtering a public utility. The users of this utility choose what information they want to broadcast, and should do so with the full knowledge that this information is being bounced between dozens of routers every time it goes out, any one of which may be monitored by its owners. This information ultimately ends up at the destination IP address, whose owner is able to use this data in whichever manner he s…

That's a stretch. I don't expect privacy when I shout on the street corner; that's broadcasting. I do expect privacy when I send email, because that's totally bounded. The postal system is a public utility. Should it be filtered? What we're arguing now is why one envelope is special. I put my communications in paper envelope and I'm protected, but when I put it in an SMTP envelope, I'm not. I'd like someone to ration…

See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6138355

Re: NSA director heckled on stage at Black Hat security conference

#180

Post by whiddershins »

fixxer wrote: post #103
tptacek wrote: post #14

This entire event was a staged press op. Keith Alexander is a ~30 year veteran of SIGINT, electronic warfare, and intelligence, and a Four-Star US Army General --- which is a bigger deal than you probably think it is. He's a spy chief in the truest sense and a master politician. Anyone who thinks he walked into that conference hall in Caesars without a near perfect forecast of the outcome of the speech is kidding the…

I agree with the basic argument that Alexander is a savvy SOB and knew what he was in for... BUT, you're making it sound like getting heckled on stage was desirable. I don't agree. I think it is more appropriate to say that the NSA is between a rock and a hard place. They could either... * Get heckled and look culpable, but maintain the illusion that they give a shit what the general public thinks, or... * Not attend…

Or, they could hire a heckler (or manipulate a likely heckler in to being there) to make sure they get heckled, in just the right way, so they can respond and seem calm and win over some coverts to their cause, sow confusion and fracture the opposition.

In my mind, I imagine what I wrote above as being disinformation 101.

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