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New Snowden Docs Indicate Scope of NSA Preparations for Cyber Battle

spiegel.de

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Re: New Snowden Docs Indicate Scope of NSA Preparations for Cyber Battle

#51

Post by saryant »

Animats wrote: post #25

Everything at the lowest levels needs to be tightened up now. Buffer overflows in trusted code have to go. This means getting rid of the languages with buffer overflow problems. Mostly C and C++. Fortunately we have Go and Rust, plus all the semi-interpreted languages, now, and can do it. We need something that runs Docker-like containers and, all the way down the bare metal, has no unsafe code. We need dumber server…

The chair of the computer science department at my university liked to say that CS could just as easily be considered the Computer Security department. This guy wasn't a pragmatic programmer whatsoever, he always claimed he didn't even know how to code (he was a theory guy), but he was right.

Re: New Snowden Docs Indicate Scope of NSA Preparations for Cyber Battle

#52

Post by throwaway349823 »

CaveTech wrote: post #9
ancarda wrote: post #4

> the only law that applies is the survival of the fittest. Is this such a problem? In a world where exploits are used to break infrastructure, isn't the best solution simply to build increasingly more secure code? If that won't solve the problem I don't know if legislation will. Right now a determined hacker can harm a company via the internet (e.g. Sony). Are laws really going to stop that from happening? If not, p…

Legislature can't prevent bad people from doing bad things. But it can prevent good people from doing bad or ignorant things, and it provides a framework to punish those who cause harm. Every law can and does get broken, but that doesn't mean laws are useless.

There are other ways to have an impact with laws than punish the aggressor. Airplanes aren't safe because the pilot or mechanic gets punished when something happens, it's because (very simplified) the airlines and manufacturers do.

Re: New Snowden Docs Indicate Scope of NSA Preparations for Cyber Battle

#53

Post by stefantalpalaru »

dogma1138 wrote: post #45
askmike wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The NSA behaves very hostile against everyone not from the US. As an EU resident I think it is very important to have an idea on the lines the NSA is crossing to protect US citizens that might put me at risk.

But that puts it under espionage not "whistleblowing", we don't call a N. Korean scientist that defected to the west who spills light on N. Korea's nuclear program a whistleblower, we call him a defector and a spy. Intelligence Agencies act on the behalf of their respective nations, there is nothing surprising about the US spying on the EU and vice versa. As we already know the extent of the collection programmes the…

> there is nothing surprising about the US spying on the EU and vice versa

Yes, the comforting normality of the cold war between the US and everybody else. Just don't be surprised when US products and services become a target of widespread boycotts around the world.

Re: New Snowden Docs Indicate Scope of NSA Preparations for Cyber Battle

#54

Post by Cakez0r »

fidotron wrote: post #16

To be fair here, the NSA should very well be doing these things, for the purpose of attacking other states. The reason is very clear as the Russian attacks on Estonia ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_cyberattacks_on_Estonia ) demonstrate a clear need for defensive capability in this area, and where you have defence you end up needing offence. This persistent confusion between legitimate NSA operations such as pre…

I don't understand why there are so many comments saying that the NSA needs offensive digital capabilities. What valid reasons does the NSA have to ever be committing a cyber attack?

Re: New Snowden Docs Indicate Scope of NSA Preparations for Cyber Battle

#55

Post by caycep »

fidotron wrote: post #16

To be fair here, the NSA should very well be doing these things, for the purpose of attacking other states. The reason is very clear as the Russian attacks on Estonia ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_cyberattacks_on_Estonia ) demonstrate a clear need for defensive capability in this area, and where you have defence you end up needing offence. This persistent confusion between legitimate NSA operations such as pre…

I agree. The DoD/NSA and other agencies should be developing these capabilities. IT's really the oversight and legal use of weapons against civilians that is the question

Re: New Snowden Docs Indicate Scope of NSA Preparations for Cyber Battle

#56

Post by zmanian »

There are a number of objectionable elements to the NSA foreign operations.

- Mass surveillance of all humans is objectionable on human rights terms.

- Attacks on civilian infrastructure. The NSA is executing military operations against civilian infrastructure even in NATO countries.

It isn't conventional foreign policy or warfare for a military agency to be actively and continuously attack the civilian cultural and economic infrastructure in preparation for war.

Re: New Snowden Docs Indicate Scope of NSA Preparations for Cyber Battle

#57

Post by [deleted] »

Afforess wrote: post #20
fidotron wrote: post #16

To be fair here, the NSA should very well be doing these things, for the purpose of attacking other states. The reason is very clear as the Russian attacks on Estonia ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_cyberattacks_on_Estonia ) demonstrate a clear need for defensive capability in this area, and where you have defence you end up needing offence. This persistent confusion between legitimate NSA operations such as pre…

Agreed. I think the Snowden revelations have harmed the NSA's reputation to the point where most people on HN just assume NSA is a bond-level villain. The NSA serves a purpose, they are meant to be prepared offensively and defensively for the USA's security, which includes the internet. I have no problems with the NSA's purpose and would prefer they continue to exist and prepare against threats to the country. I do b…

[deleted]

Re: New Snowden Docs Indicate Scope of NSA Preparations for Cyber Battle

#58

Post by stefantalpalaru »

ajcarpy2005 wrote: post #14

How should NSA spying figure into the public's view of Obama's efforts to help municipalities build out competitively priced broadband networks?

Add some legal pot and it will all be forgiven and forgotten.

Re: New Snowden Docs Indicate Scope of NSA Preparations for Cyber Battle

#59

Post by dogma1138 »

stefantalpalaru wrote: post #53
dogma1138 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that puts it under espionage not "whistleblowing", we don't call a N. Korean scientist that defected to the west who spills light on N. Korea's nuclear program a whistleblower, we call him a defector and a spy. Intelligence Agencies act on the behalf of their respective nations, there is nothing surprising about the US spying on the EU and vice versa. As we already know the extent of the collection programmes the…

> there is nothing surprising about the US spying on the EU and vice versa Yes, the comforting normality of the cold war between the US and everybody else. Just don't be surprised when US products and services become a target of widespread boycotts around the world.

The same newspaper reported that Germany's BND had active wire taps on 2 US secretaries of state, (Hillary) Clinton and Kerry, as well heavily spying on NATO members like Turkey.

Snowden's own documents showed many EU countries (including all of the enlightened Nordic ones) who actively supported the US spying in order to gain intelligence on their own citizens and on other EU members, heck Denmark joined the NSA programme to spy on freaking Belgium.

The harsh truth is that everyone spies, even Iceland has some dude in an office some where who's in charge of their intelligence gathering. The means and effectiveness vary between nations but considering that the UK, Germany and France have intelligence services which are considered amongst of the best in the world only a fool would write this off as some US fling due to post cold war PTSD.

Re: New Snowden Docs Indicate Scope of NSA Preparations for Cyber Battle

#60

Post by hox »

stefantalpalaru wrote: post #53
dogma1138 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that puts it under espionage not "whistleblowing", we don't call a N. Korean scientist that defected to the west who spills light on N. Korea's nuclear program a whistleblower, we call him a defector and a spy. Intelligence Agencies act on the behalf of their respective nations, there is nothing surprising about the US spying on the EU and vice versa. As we already know the extent of the collection programmes the…

> there is nothing surprising about the US spying on the EU and vice versa Yes, the comforting normality of the cold war between the US and everybody else. Just don't be surprised when US products and services become a target of widespread boycotts around the world.

You are living with blinders on if you don't think every state in the world has espionage programs for both offensive and defensive purposes.
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