Edward Snowden book coming out Sept. 17 • Hacker News Board

Re: Edward Snowden book coming out Sept. 17

#31

Post by A4ET8a8uTh0 » Fri, Aug 02, 2019, 12:47 PM UTC

verizonuser wrote: post #13

Snowden is a top scumbag. Bring him to justice. He could have just disclosed domestic spying operations. Instead, he lit a match and torched the NSA to the ground, while kicking off a global subversion movement directed primarily at the USIC. That he fled to adversaries while, for instance, disclosing USIC hacking efforts against them indicates his motives. He's anything but a patriot. He's a traitor against the Unit…

Writing your own story is what every human does. Then we mediate our perceptions with others. It does get amusing that we apparently live in times where there is already an established hivemind perception people are expected to adhere to. I could have understood it in former USSR. I do not understand or accept it for US. I moved here by choice and I am stupid and naive enough to believe founding fathers dreams.

Snowden is still a hero to me. At least he shone light on it. Before that, Wyden tried to do it through official channels, but Clapper outright lied in public.

So what do you do? Collect paycheck, keep your head down, not make waves and listen to elected critters make statements you know to run counter to reality.

Alternatively, you can tell the truth and risk government wrath for telling how things really work.

Yeah. What a scumbag that Snowden is.

Re: Edward Snowden book coming out Sept. 17

#32

Post by octosphere » Fri, Aug 02, 2019, 1:08 PM UTC

str33t_punk wrote: post #3

What I find interesting is that my opinions on Edward Snowden have drastically changed over time. When the leaks first came out, I regarded him as a hero, for exposing what the US Government was doing. At this time my view of the world was extremely America centric, where all other countries were pretty powerless and the US was the only one doing such deeds. I think this view was fairly naive. In the last decade my t…

> I've come to think of Edward Snowden as a traitor

For me he made the Great Game of Privacy a lot fairer. You should read the excellent entry on Wikipedia about the aftermath of the leaks[0]. If the leaks meant that privacy-loving folk went 'dark' in light of the leaks, then this is a net plus. Snowden's actions possibly hindered NSA in catching undesirables, but it's a small price to pay for a bolstered Internet and privacy-respecting comms. And who's to say that the apparatus even worked that well in foiling the efforts of plotters? Bill Binney[1] consistently drives his message home that the NSA's surveillance apparatus is very inefficient at foiling plots, and I agree with him.

Even if it stopped one plot in all the time of its existence, it's still an enormous effort and an enormous amount of money spent just to foil one plot. Old fashioned police work is better at foiling plots because it doesn't have to rely on big data algorithms sifting through the noise of Internet traffic (most of which is innocuous). Old fashioned methods work because they employ simple detective work - it doesn't need the NSA at every choke point and decrypting countless crypto.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowden_Effect

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Binney_%28U.S._intelli...

Re: Edward Snowden book coming out Sept. 17

#33

Post by lern_too_spel » Fri, Aug 02, 2019, 3:09 PM UTC

A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: post #31

verizonuser wrote: post #13

Snowden is a top scumbag. Bring him to justice. He could have just disclosed domestic spying operations. Instead, he lit a match and torched the NSA to the ground, while kicking off a global subversion movement directed primarily at the USIC. That he fled to adversaries while, for instance, disclosing USIC hacking efforts against them indicates his motives. He's anything but a patriot. He's a traitor against the Unit…

Writing your own story is what every human does. Then we mediate our perceptions with others. It does get amusing that we apparently live in times where there is already an established hivemind perception people are expected to adhere to. I could have understood it in former USSR. I do not understand or accept it for US. I moved here by choice and I am stupid and naive enough to believe founding fathers dreams. Snowd…

Most of what Snowden said was the nonsensical ravings of a conspiracy theorist. You would think he would have documents to prove his conspiracies, but the only illegal program he revealed was phone metadata collection, which was borderline enough that the second court to look at it ruled that it was legal.

Re: Edward Snowden book coming out Sept. 17

#34

Post by torified » Wed, Aug 14, 2019, 5:47 AM UTC

lern_too_spel wrote: post #30

torified wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>taking the paranoid rants of a barely literate high school dropout at face value? Have you heard Snowden speak? I've not heard many people in my life who are more educated and eloquent.

If he's so educated why couldn't he pass an analyst test and have to work as a SharePoint admin? Why did he think PRISM was some all-consuming surveillance system, when the documents so clearly stated it wasn't? Why did he think Hong Kong would grant him asylum for leaking Chinese targets? Why couldn't he pass high school? Why is he a libertarian? I've known many people like that who can convince laypeople that they'…

Even if all that is true, who cares? Also, all libertarians are stupid?

He exposed the US government illegally spying on their own citizens (and lying about it), at massive personal risk. He's a hero of true democracy. That's all I need to know.

This layperson is also convinced he's smart, BTW.