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Core Secrets: NSA Saboteurs in China and Germany
61–70 of 130 posts
Re: Core Secrets: NSA Saboteurs in China and Germany
#62[deleted]
Re: Core Secrets: NSA Saboteurs in China and Germany
#63The document titled "ECI Compartments" is interesting: * It's possible work out the geographic region of certain compartments based on the organizational code attached to it. * The redactions in the "Control Authority" column are variable size, possibly even proportionate to character length. * The fact that document was merely classified "confidential" is odd. * I was able to identify[0][1] all but one item listed i…
What could "NSA/CSS Commercial Solutions Center (NCSC)" (from [1]) actually do? They write on their public web page:
https://www.nsa.gov/business/programs/ncsc.shtml
"The NSA/CSS Commercial Solutions Center (NCSC) addresses the strategic needs of NSA/CSS and the national security community by harnessing the power of U.S. commercial technology."
Re: Core Secrets: NSA Saboteurs in China and Germany
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
Having Merkle's cell phone? During the Eurozone crisis? It would have been awful (financially) for the United States not to have that information. The cost of this sort of machiavellian policy is of course the opprobrium of former allies and friends, and a loss of moral standing. The US loses a lot of soft power if it chooses this route, and the consequences will be felt for decades in mistrust and distance from her…
I fluxuate with how I feel about it (it = 'machiavellian policy'). I'm not going to defend US policy in this case, nor claim to understand all of the nuances required to make global strategic geopolitical decisions. But I will say that the NSA's perspective is that: it is only because of the Snowden leaks if we have lost face with allies. To the NSA, the secrets were kept well enough until Snowden and friends disclos…
This is my basic issue with this article. America and the NSA ate mud pie for the actions disclosed in the leaks. This article has the very real possibility of doing a lot more damage.
Not because of the leaks, but because of their actions. That's an important distinction.
If you take actions like this, you should be prepared for them to be exposed, and if you use the argument the NSA and you yourself have made here (it would be ok if we were evil and no-one knew about it), you should expect no one to trust you. You've just declared yourself untrustworthy and a bad ally in perpetuity, because you think this is ok as long as no-one knew about it.
Re: Core Secrets: NSA Saboteurs in China and Germany
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
You summarized already in your sentences ("I'm bewildered by this article. It seems really damaging, and like it doesn't really add very much to the corpus they've already published") how you feel and why you feel that way: it appears damaging because it contains the paragraphs that explicitly contain the words "it's damaging." But it's just a general introduction to the "juicy bits" without the bits themselves. In f…
To clarify I mean that I don't believe it adds much to the corpus of information about domestic and civil rights infractions. On the other hand it deals a pretty big blow geopolitically/internationally. The big deal about this article is that it reveals the major tactical capabilities and efforts the NSA has invested in the intelligence war. Edit: Right now HN is limiting the number of replies I can initiate. Will re…
> To clarify I mean that I don't believe it adds much to the corpus of information about domestic and civil rights infractions.
As a foreigner, I'm actually more interested in non-domestic stuff.
Re: Core Secrets: NSA Saboteurs in China and Germany
#66“The facts contained in this program constitute a combination of the greatest number of highly sensitive facts related to NSA/CSS’s overall cryptologic mission,” the briefing document states. “Unauthorized disclosure…will cause exceptionally grave damage to U.S. national security. The loss of this information could critically compromise highly sensitive cryptologic U.S. and foreign relationships, multi-year past and…
There is nothing damaging in these latest documents. The documents reference programs that if revealed (which they were not) would be extremely harmful to national security.
Re: Core Secrets: NSA Saboteurs in China and Germany
#67“The facts contained in this program constitute a combination of the greatest number of highly sensitive facts related to NSA/CSS’s overall cryptologic mission,” the briefing document states. “Unauthorized disclosure…will cause exceptionally grave damage to U.S. national security. The loss of this information could critically compromise highly sensitive cryptologic U.S. and foreign relationships, multi-year past and…
> global cyber intelligence war
I'm really starting to take an issue with declaring all this stuff as "cyber war" or "cyber warfare" (here and everywhere else in this thread). It's not a war if there is no intend of actually killing people. Even something as intense as the "cold war", had the qualifier cold in it, because there was no open confrontation. And what is now summarized as cyber (intelligence) warfare is orders of magnitude less deadly (though not necessarily less damaging to our civil rights). It's not a war if I steal your trade secrets and undermine your negotiation positions in international treaties.
If you frame it as a "war" you get a whole different solution space. Instead of strengthening the IT security of domestic companies that build your core infrastructure you end up with "offense is the best defense" strategies and undermine the IT security of everyone. If you stop using war rhetoric this kind of statement:
> If you didn't see it, there's a link on another branch of the conversation containing (at least) 37 other countries involved in cyber [espionage].
becomes far less of an existential threat.
Re: Core Secrets: NSA Saboteurs in China and Germany
#68The NSA has clearly recruited employees from companies like Google, Facebook, Cisco, etc to compromise and place vulnerabilities that the NSA can exploit. The fact that the NSA has decided that the legal channels to acquire data through warrants and actual investigations no longer applies must be stopped.
Re: Core Secrets: NSA Saboteurs in China and Germany
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
This article seems a bit speculative. They don't seem to know for sure that "(A/B/C)" means American companies in this case. Everything else just seems like commentary from themselves and other security experts. As for foreign companies, it's pretty obvious that NSA and CIA have been conducting operations like these for many decades. I'm not going to argue that the NSA has not subverted American companies before (see…
It's not all that speculative - it agrees what was in prior leaks that claim that American companies are routinely infiltrated. Also remember that the authors of these articles have read huge volumes of Snowden documents have have not been publicly released and that the security experts (likely referencing Schneier here) are not just guys working in private industry. If you work in the security space you very quickly…
It looks pretty speculative to me. Directly from this article: "The most controversial revelation in Sentry Eagle might be a fleeting reference to the NSA infiltrating clandestine agents into “commercial entities.”", "It is not clear whether these “commercial entities” are American or foreign or both." and "The document makes no other reference to NSA agents working under cover. It is not clear whether they might be working as full-time employees at the “commercial entities,” or whether they are visiting commercial facilities under false pretenses."
The author is also picking quotes from different programs and mashing them together to come up with their speculation. Note how the commercial entities are discussed under the "Sentry Owl" program on page 7, but the "covert or under cover" quote comes from the "Sentry Osprey" section on the last page, which appears to be talking about the NSA working with the CIA. If NSA employees were working with the CIA on anything outside the US, it would make sense that they'd be undercover. Maybe they are infiltrating companies, but the source document doesn't support that assertion.
Schneier isn't name-dropped at all in the article. I find it odd that they would quote Matt Green and Chris Soghoian by name, but mix in the opinions of someone as well-known as Bruce Schneier without mentioning his name anywhere.
Re: Core Secrets: NSA Saboteurs in China and Germany
#70“The facts contained in this program constitute a combination of the greatest number of highly sensitive facts related to NSA/CSS’s overall cryptologic mission,” the briefing document states. “Unauthorized disclosure…will cause exceptionally grave damage to U.S. national security. The loss of this information could critically compromise highly sensitive cryptologic U.S. and foreign relationships, multi-year past and…
Come on, it's been 13 years now of this "grave damage to national security" talk. They claim it for everything.
I'm reasonably sure every thinking person has started, in their mind, to replace any invocation of "national security" with "covering up either incompetence, negligence or breaches of law". Theres zero reasons we should be paying any attention to that label.
(I like to remind people of the case of Ibrahim vs. DHS, where the government spent all its time invoking various secrets related laws and privileges, citing national security, even having Holder sign a declaration to that purpose, and what for? To cover up the clerical error of some lowly FBI agent, who checked a wrong box.)