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Snowden: Hack of an NSA server is not unprecedented, publication of the take is

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Re: Snowden: Hack of an NSA server is not unprecedented, publication of the take is

#201

Post by arca_vorago »

geggam wrote: post #79
balabaster wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It takes Russia pointing this out to make us lose trust in the U.S.? I think the U.S. has done this all on their own. Snowden was just the latest whistleblower showing the world they can't be trusted. There were others before him, but it got swept under the rug. We all know the U.S. election system is flawed to a point of being broken and thus democracy as we like to believe it's supposed to work doesn't even exist.…

Why do people insist on calling the US a democracy ? It is a Constitutional Republic with the only democratic process being the representatives you elect .... represent you ... sometimes... if they feel like it.... unless they have been bribe^H^H^H^H lobbied to do otherwise.

I like to call it a Constitutional Democratic Republic.

Re: Snowden: Hack of an NSA server is not unprecedented, publication of the take is

#202

Post by linkregister »

jmnicolas wrote: post #25
JustSomeNobody wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Question: Does the NSA have an obligation to be ethical?

The naive point of view would be that if you're an American citizen the NSA agents are supposed to be YOUR employees so they have an obligation to be whatever you ask them.

They are indirectly doing exactly what the citizenry have asked them to do. It's just that the HN community (and me) don't agree with it.

1. The most pressing issue for debates is terrorism response. [1]

2. Lawmakers and the Executive are elected on this mandate and spend significant resources (estimated $100Bn per year). [2]

3. The NSA performs all of its functions based off of requirements generated by ODNI, DoD, the Chief Executive, and congress. [3]

4. Most individuals care deeply about privacy and think there should be greater limits to what the government collects. However, less than 10% have changed their habits to improve their privacy posture. I conjecture that this suggests that privacy is not a priority compared to physical and financial security to most citizens. [4]

In this case I think it is fair to say that the best interests of American society and its economy are being thwarted by security concerns of a plurality of citizens. The right course of action is for privacy debates to be publicized. The Pew report referenced in #4 shows a far greater skew toward privacy action after being informed of government and commercial surveillance.

[1] http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/08/15/in-debates-v...

[2] http://money.cnn.com/2015/11/16/news/economy/cost-of-fightin...

[3] http://fas.org/irp/offdocs/int023.html

[4] http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/05/20/americans-attitudes-ab...

Re: Snowden: Hack of an NSA server is not unprecedented, publication of the take is

#203

Post by Declanomous »

ge0rg wrote: post #127
digi_owl wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also blogs often mean fancy HTML etc, something that rarely produce a good reading experience on mobile devices.

In my experience, twitter is one of the worst offenders here, with an exorbitant amount of HTML, Javascript and pop-ups just to prevent me from reading 140 characters.

Ironically, I find Facebook's webpage way better on mobile than their actual app. I believe their app may originally have been designed for cellphone battery endurance testing. After a bit of hacking, someone figured out it could access Facebook and they decided to release it as an app.

Re: Snowden: Hack of an NSA server is not unprecedented, publication of the take is

#204

Post by solipsism »

irishcoffee wrote: post #152
runjake wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Plus in another comment of yours you claimed to know how General Atomics MQ-1C Gray Eagle He spelled it "Grey Eagle". It's unlikely one can actually speak "professionally" about a program when they can't spell it correctly. If you're part of the program, you're seeing/typing/writing the name "Gray Eagle" day in/day out.

Heh, if you're part of the program, you may also call it 280, or 64-bit. But, you'd only know that if, ya know, you're actually part of the program.

Oh no, I'm part of the program now!

Re: Snowden: Hack of an NSA server is not unprecedented, publication of the take is

#205

Post by solipsism »

ajdlinux wrote: post #20
JustSomeNobody wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Question: Does the NSA have an obligation to be ethical?

Does anyone on earth not have an obligation to be ethical? (Yes, I know there is no universally accepted definition of "ethical".)

This is a circular question. One's obligations derive from one's ethics.

Re: Snowden: Hack of an NSA server is not unprecedented, publication of the take is

#206

Post by geggam »

balabaster wrote: post #200
geggam wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The law of the land is the constitution. A Republic is a land of laws. A democracy is a land of majority rule. Democracy is a tyranny of majority. The founders did NOT want a democracy.

It doesn't matter what the founders wanted, they're dead and buried. Their whims and dreams codified in this Constitution that everyone lives and dies by. What matters is what the people want now and for the future of their United States... are you going to live forever more adhering to the rules of dead people? Seems er... pointless.

“Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other, and scarce in that.”

Re: Snowden: Hack of an NSA server is not unprecedented, publication of the take is

#207

Post by solipsism »

then_you_wink wrote: post #166
matt_wulfeck wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tying them together wouldn't be very interesting. Am I wrong on this? Don't we already "know" that the US is behind stuxnet? I don't think that makes the front pages. Struxnet was used against a foreign adversary to disable nuclear bomb-making capabilities. That sounds pretty useful to me. What would be interesting is learning where these came from and how they were used. If Ed's musing is right and there's evidence…

I logged back into this one just for you! That is a big no-no, so I sure hope I don't go mysteriously missing after this! Anyways, I don't "know" anything that isn't out there to be found. It's a reasonable assumption to assume that you've already assumed that I work in/around the intelligence industry/community, but this is hardly the reason I'm so interested in all of this. Anyways, to your remark, yes absolutely S…

Wait, important question.. there are multiple Mary Poppins films?

Re: Snowden: Hack of an NSA server is not unprecedented, publication of the take is

#208

Post by doctorshady »

sys32768 wrote: post #181

I suspect it was an inside job. The NSA.GOV site is down ATM probably as they do a sweep. A Twitter user inactive since 2005 said it was an inside job and the file naming conventions in the leaks are internal only.

But Twitter was founded in 2006...

Re: Snowden: Hack of an NSA server is not unprecedented, publication of the take is

#209

Post by matt_wulfeck »

msane wrote: post #182

There are a lot of little gems in the wording of the auction message. ( http://pastebin.com/raw/JBcipKBL ) If it is Russia there will be some content that only the US gov will understand. I wonder which portions those would be. The "message to wealthy elites" portion of the auction message is also interesting. "Do you feel in charge?" in quotes suggests a reference with a pretty relevant top hit ( https://www.google.…

It's ridiculously written to the point of being a parody at guessing who did it. That's my takeaway.

Re: Snowden: Hack of an NSA server is not unprecedented, publication of the take is

#210

Post by morley »

balabaster wrote: post #193
pjc50 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We all know That was the point I was trying to make with "unignorable public fact" - "we" don't "all" "know" that, for various values of those words. Would you expect TV anchors to say things like "Well, I'm standing outside this polling place, but I'm not really sure what the point is because elections are broken"? Millions of people get involved in fighting elections like they mean it. Consensus about this kind of…

Oh, I don't mean it's rigged or hacked or subject to intimidation. I feel like it's legitimately hamstrung/broken. Equally I haven't lost faith in the U.S. - there are millions of amazing Americans. I've just lost faith in the U.S.'s a). ability to elect the person they really want in charge because the voting system is broken and b). the person they _do_ elect doesn't have any meaningful power anyway because the sen…

The US political climate is most certainly not in a great place, but I wouldn't blame our system of checks and balances. In fact, I'd say that it's working as intended. It would be a horrible scenario if a president could easily override the will of Congress or the Supreme Court.
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