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It's Time to Break Up the NSA (2014)

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Re: It's Time to Break Up the NSA (2014)

#81

Post by drjesusphd »

jasonzemos wrote: post #8

Is it possible to hold the position that the NSA should be conducting signals intelligence, data collection, and code-breaking (and yes, email snooping) -- yet at the same time hold the position that the blatantly malicious activities: 0day exploits, software and hardware backdooring, etc should not be allowed? Why commit ourselves to a massive overhaul of the entire NSA when we can address the actual problem here wi…

> Why commit ourselves to a massive overhaul of the entire NSA when we can address the actual problem here with some granularity and minimal cost yielding an impact almost all of us would enjoy?

Because they've been exposed as untrustworthy. Any attempt at reasonable reform will be met with obstruction, obfuscation, and lies.

> 0day exploits, software and hardware backdooring

Up until it was proven, they denied doing these kind of things. What makes you think they'd tell the truth in the future?

Re: It's Time to Break Up the NSA (2014)

#82

Post by justcommenting »

esMazer wrote: post #72
nickysielicki wrote: post #61

I don't understand why society thinks that certain things can be contained, while certain other things cannot be. The liberals will always be telling you that the drug war is a failure, and that drug users will be able to get their hands on drugs anyway, and we should embrace that fact so we can retain some level of control, and so otherwise innocent people don't have to interact with criminals. But guns on the other…

1- tor is broken. 2- they know and use ways to get around encrypting. We got to give them some credit they knew encryption was an issue that at some point they had to dealt with. And they found ways to do just that from the beginning.

>1- tor is broken.

For what definition of "broken"?

Re: It's Time to Break Up the NSA (2014)

#83

Post by tomjen3 »

lkbm wrote: post #69
nickysielicki wrote: post #61

I don't understand why society thinks that certain things can be contained, while certain other things cannot be. The liberals will always be telling you that the drug war is a failure, and that drug users will be able to get their hands on drugs anyway, and we should embrace that fact so we can retain some level of control, and so otherwise innocent people don't have to interact with criminals. But guns on the other…

People being inconvenient in pushing for social change are insufficiently protected. The CIA spied on MLK Jr., discovered he was having affairs, and used that to try to blackmail him into committing suicide. If he had, that would have been a major loss to society. And now we have reports of the NSA developing dossiers of minor crimes and non-crimes of inconvenient people's behaviors for future use in discrediting the…

>discovered he was having affairs

claimed he was having affairs. As you said he was politically inconvenient, why would I trust them?

Re: It's Time to Break Up the NSA (2014)

#85

Post by tomjen3 »

logn wrote: post #29

Regarding NSA and CIA, what do they have to do to get shut down completely? Do we wait until genocide? It doesn't seem like a re-org is the proper response to institutionalized torture, semi-automated assassination campaigns, and creation of a panopticon.

>Regarding NSA and CIA, what do they have to do to get shut down completely?

The US signs a complete unconditional surrender on the deck of the $SHIP of $NEW_WORLD_POWER - at least that would be my guess based on history.

We don't stop for genocide.

Re: It's Time to Break Up the NSA (2014)

#86

Post by at-fates-hands »

nickysielicki wrote: post #61

I don't understand why society thinks that certain things can be contained, while certain other things cannot be. The liberals will always be telling you that the drug war is a failure, and that drug users will be able to get their hands on drugs anyway, and we should embrace that fact so we can retain some level of control, and so otherwise innocent people don't have to interact with criminals. But guns on the other…

>>> The NSA internet data collection is perhaps the most frivolous government program in the history of the United States.

This.

If you listen to the old NSA guys who worked during the heights of the Cold War, who keep tabs on Russians and all the chaos in the Middle East, and had some of these tools at their disposal, they all say the NSA was a great machine for intelligence. It was a great machine for developing assets and tracking bad people. As soon as those weapons and the machine were turned inward on the people they were supposed to protect, they all said it was the worst possible scenario.

Also, if you look at some of the higher profile hacker cases, and to some degree the Ross Ulbricht case, how were they all cracked? Not by the NSA and all its tools, they were all done with your standard, "feet on the street" agents developing leads, connecting dots, and capturing human surveillance.

It wasn't some Flame or Stuxnet bug that brought down these guys, it was just solid detective work.

Re: It's Time to Break Up the NSA (2014)

#87

Post by ripb »

lkbm wrote: post #69
nickysielicki wrote: post #61

I don't understand why society thinks that certain things can be contained, while certain other things cannot be. The liberals will always be telling you that the drug war is a failure, and that drug users will be able to get their hands on drugs anyway, and we should embrace that fact so we can retain some level of control, and so otherwise innocent people don't have to interact with criminals. But guns on the other…

People being inconvenient in pushing for social change are insufficiently protected. The CIA spied on MLK Jr., discovered he was having affairs, and used that to try to blackmail him into committing suicide. If he had, that would have been a major loss to society. And now we have reports of the NSA developing dossiers of minor crimes and non-crimes of inconvenient people's behaviors for future use in discrediting the…

>The CIA spied on MLK Jr., discovered he was having affairs, and used that to try to blackmail him into committing suicide.

Have you got any more on this? Would be interested to read.

Re: It's Time to Break Up the NSA (2014)

#88

Post by convivialdingo »

derefr wrote: post #41
beambot wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ...any time they pushed an update that sent data somewhere new... So you think making the NSA (or any govt agency) the gatekeeper for all data, public and private, would be a good idea? As if there's no way that could be abused? No thanks.

The data wouldn't go through them, nor would they be responsible for auditing the algorithms themselves. The comparison with the FDA was exact: they would simply require the company to execute a study proving (to peer review) the data-integrity of each change they were going to make. The one interesting thing is that this would likely enforce an open-core-SOA software development model: companies would be incentivize…

That's fairly analogous to the current NIST regulations.

Unfortunately, NIST has been dragging 140-3 in draft form on for years. 140-2 was written in the 1980's and reflects very badly on current hardware and software practices.

Another area you could look into is Common Criteria. I find these certifications to be much more modern.

I've taken products through both processes. If you're going for more than the basic levels they can be quite rigorous and thorough.

Re: It's Time to Break Up the NSA (2014)

#89

Post by insensible »

mbauman wrote: post #3

I think an even better argument for breaking up the NSA is that there's a fourth category of work they (should) do that's totally unrelated to surveillance and that I'd classify as "very good:" actively working to secure the communications of US government and companies against the NSA-equivalents of other nation-states and rogue actors. Having this is on the same list as encryption sabotage is a recipe for mismanage…

Isn't the PCI standard a better, although certainly imperfect, model for addressing this without roping the Beltway into the process?

Re: It's Time to Break Up the NSA (2014)

#90

Post by cryptophreak »

tomjen3 wrote: post #83
lkbm wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People being inconvenient in pushing for social change are insufficiently protected. The CIA spied on MLK Jr., discovered he was having affairs, and used that to try to blackmail him into committing suicide. If he had, that would have been a major loss to society. And now we have reports of the NSA developing dossiers of minor crimes and non-crimes of inconvenient people's behaviors for future use in discrediting the…

>discovered he was having affairs claimed he was having affairs. As you said he was politically inconvenient, why would I trust them?

You shouldn’t trust them, but it’s hardly an extraordinary claim. We can extrapolate from King’s heroic figure, charm, and constant traveling that he would been positively drowning in opportunity, to say nothing of the temptation that comes of being away from home for extended periods.

If you care enough to explore the matter—although why you would consider it consequential I don’t know—you might start with Ralph David Abernathy, Sr., a close friend of King’s and a fellow civil rights leader, who confirms King’s alleged “weakness for women”.

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