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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

#61

Post by tomelders »

jackpirate wrote: post #50
tomelders wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what would be a winning strategy in this scenario? I don't think there is one. So let him know you think he's an arsehole while you have the chance because nothing you can say or do is going to change the general's stance on this issue. He's above the law and completely unaccountable. But he's not beyond being called out for being a bad person by another person, and I suspect that's the closest you're going to get…

Standing up and turning your back to him, and remaining in that position would have been a classy way to let the general know you disagree.

I wholeheartedly agree, and I made a similar point in another comment.

But no matter what you do, it's totally futile. The NSA knows what you think, and they don't care.

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

#62

Post by kunai »

tptacek wrote: post #48
josh2600 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think he went to Blackhat because the feds were 'banned' from Defcon.

I think he went to Black Hat because unlike Defcon, Black Hat is run by a large multinational media company with a PR department trained and motivated to secure keynote speakers who will attract the most press attention to the conference.

Alexander actually spoke at Defcon last year and garnered quite a bit of attention regardless, so I don't quite think this is the case.

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

#63

Post by replax »

Wow, I am really, really surprised. Especially as Gen. Alexander gave the keynote speech to DEFCON last year, and explicitly said, when asked after his speech:

Q: "[..]Does the NSA really keep a file on anyone? [...]"

A: "[..] Frist, no, we don't [...]"

Absolutely astonishing!

listen/watch here: http://youtu.be/tz0ejKersnM?t=33m2s

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

#64

Post by Cowen »

tptacek wrote: post #43
don_draper wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>What's interesting is why he attempted PR reconciliation at a relatively niche conference. He was recruiting. Don't let the tattoos and black shirts worn by the crowd fool you, many work and/or consult for the government.

NSA recruits from engineering universities. They are quite good at it. The idea that he needs to troll Black Hat for talent dignifies the audience at Black Hat and misses the truth of what was happening there.

> 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 most of us like to believe.

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

#65

Post by mturmon »

tomelders wrote: post #39
mturmon wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does not matter what Alexander deserves. What matters is choosing a strategy that will be effective in exposing this intel-gathering to public scrutiny. One person shouting is not such a strategy. It's the difference between individual catharsis and effective political strategy that produces an outcome.

So what would be a winning strategy in this scenario? I don't think there is one. So let him know you think he's an arsehole while you have the chance because nothing you can say or do is going to change the general's stance on this issue. He's above the law and completely unaccountable. But he's not beyond being called out for being a bad person by another person, and I suspect that's the closest you're going to get…

Well, you have to be prepared, and think out the consequences. You should have some leaders who are used to acting disciplined in public protest.

If you choose to shout him down (e.g., for a messy and still-controversial example, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIDS_Coalition_to_Unleash_Power...) you'd better have a united message and a goal, and media present. And it might still be a bit of a mess. (I had the privilege of attending a lecture on organizing by one of the leaders of this action.)

Other choices are to turn your backs on the speaker, or to walk out en masse.

I'm not sure there was time to prepare for this one, because these revelations are so fresh.

*

By the way, you seem pessimistic that this state of affairs can change due to grassroots action. I don't share your pessimism. When people find out the NSA has been scooping up their e-mail and Facebook chats?

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

#66

Post by tomelders »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #47

" Ninety-eight percent of society has issues with this " "The national survey by the Pew Research Center, conducted July 17-21 among 1,480 adults, finds that 50% approve of the government’s collection of telephone and internet data as part of anti-terrorism efforts, while 44% disapprove. These views are little changed from a month ago, when 48% approved and 47% disapproved." http://www.people-press.org/2013/07/26/few…

I think it's possible for some people to broadly approve of the collection, but still have issues with it. Not sure where that 98% number comes from, but I think the 50% "approval" number is misleading on its own.

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

#67

Post by arh68 »

moxie wrote: post #30
rthomas6 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It takes courage to be a whistleblower, or to make any decision different from your peers. It does not take courage to heckle someone on a stage from the safety of a crowd. It happens at almost every comedy show, concert, and sporting event. Heckling someone on stage when you're in the crowd isn't rare at all.

I disagree. This was a situation where a four star general was standing on stage in military uniform, flanked by secret service, with local security also making a visible show of force. It was an intimidating situation amidst a crowd that was largely unsympathetic to critique, and I think it took a certain amount of courage to be the first to yell something. I thought everything but the "read the constitution!" heckl…

Indeed. I hear 'protesting' near any member of the Secret Service has recently become a very, very big no-no.

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

#68

Post by mikegagnon »

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…

A half hour before the keynote Moxie encouraged attendees to disrupt the talk https://twitter.com/moxie/status/362596265034399746

   "Ubiquitous surveillance prevents millions from speaking 
   freely. BlackHat keynote attendees, let's not let Gen. 
   Alexander speak freely today."
I anticipated the protest to be effective, since black-hat hackers have somewhat of a culture of booing presenters who they morally object to. See for example an undercover reporter that was booed out of DEFCON in 2007. http://www.zdnet.com/blog/ou/undercover-nbc-dateline-reporte...

I think the thing that made this disruption ineffective is the majority of attendees weren't black-hat hackers. They were mostly corporate professionals. See Black Hat's own demographic survey http://www.blackhat.com/docs/bh-us-12/sponsors/bh-us-12-spon...

It's therefore not really surprising that most of the audience wanted to hear the general speak, and was annoyed by the disruption.

If, on the other hand, the general were speaking at DEFCON I think he probably would have been almost unanimously booed off the stage. But the feds are staying away from DEFON this year (for that reason).

So in retrospect, I think the disruption was a miscalculated PR move for the hacker community.

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

#69

Post by _delirium »

norswap wrote: post #37

Hackers applauded Alexander? He really has played them like pipes. You can argue all you want, but in the end, some boundaries have to be set. What the NSA did (does actually) is way past that boundary for most people, and I think with reason, but that's another debate. He hasn't supplied any argument that would make us reconsider the boundaries. All this terrorist talk is bullshit.

Despite the vaguely militant-underground name "Black Hat", it's a conference of mainstream security researchers, run by a large media firm (CMP Media, which also runs the Game Developer's Conference, and owns a bunch of magazines like InformationWeek). Many of the attendees are themselves in government positions, or serving as contractors. So I'm not sure I'd expect a particularly strong backlash. Heck, some attendees could well be in a position to have already known some of the things that were leaked.

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

#70

Post by MisterWebz »

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…

While I'm sure he's very capable and very much an expert in his field, I don't think he's this charming super politician that planned an elaborate scheme to sway the conference attendees' opinions by appearing to be sensible and calm in front of hecklers.

I mean, can you imagine how horrible this would have turned out if he didn't stay calm? It's basically standard procedure to stay calm and try to explain your way out of it. Sure, he got some applause, and the heckler got some applause too. I think anyone could have imagined something like that happening.

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