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Core Secrets: NSA Saboteurs in China and Germany

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Re: Core Secrets: NSA Saboteurs in China and Germany

#2
“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 future NSA investments, and the ability to exploit foreign adversary cyberspace while protecting U.S. cyberspace.”

Maybe they could have not published this one.

I'm very much interested in the Snowden Documents and am a strong advocate for civil liberties (look at some of my other posts, and the ones under the handle 'xnull').

I also repeatedly explain, on Hacker News, and other places, that there is a global cyber intelligence war and that the Snowden Leaks showed us key insights into what was going on, how it's not 'about terrorism' and a great number of other things.

But 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.

Any ideas?

Edit: Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras, Edward Snowden, etc all decide what material to publish and what material not to publish. Greenwald, by his own admission, works with US officials to redact information and to choose which stories make it out of the gate. He's also said that he isn't revealing (paraphrasing) 'the most horrendous material in the Snowden documents, for fear of the fallout'. My question should not be thought of a challenge to revealing Snowden documents as a whole. Contrary to this I think it is of the very highest service. My question is only 'why this document'?

Re: Core Secrets: NSA Saboteurs in China and Germany

#3

“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…

What happened to the ideals of transparency? Was that given up along the way to an enterprise sized government?

Re: Core Secrets: NSA Saboteurs in China and Germany

#4

“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…

Did you read it all? It talks about the NSA infiltrating companies and backdooring encryption. It's important to publish this.

Re: Core Secrets: NSA Saboteurs in China and Germany

#5

“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…

It is really damaging, but that's from a perspective that, as a superpower, they were benefiting from control and domination. The same perspective implies that the target was being damaged by these actions. Targets that are not always adversaries. Targets that could contribute if not being controlled, dominated, and damaged.

It's not easy to see, but damaging others denies them the contributions they could bring, ultimately damaging themselves.

Re: Core Secrets: NSA Saboteurs in China and Germany

#6

“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…

Did you read it all? It talks about the NSA infiltrating companies and backdooring encryption. It's important to publish this.

Yup.

Plenty of leaks before on infiltrating companies and backdooring encryption. Was there anything in particular?

Edit: Nothing in particular then I guess... :(

Re: Core Secrets: NSA Saboteurs in China and Germany

#7
post #5

“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…

It is really damaging, but that's from a perspective that, as a superpower, they were benefiting from control and domination. The same perspective implies that the target was being damaged by these actions. Targets that are not always adversaries. Targets that could contribute if not being controlled, dominated, and damaged. It's not easy to see, but damaging others denies them the contributions they could bring, ult…

Are you saying it's retribution for participating in the global cyber intelligence war?

Everybody is hacking everybody. Every major country has a cyberintelligence arm. The NSA is just one actor of dozens.

Re: Core Secrets: NSA Saboteurs in China and Germany

#8

“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…

Because of this. It's likely the NSA is actively subverting American companies.

"The most controversial revelation in Sentry Eagle might be a fleeting reference to the NSA infiltrating clandestine agents into “commercial entities.” The briefing document states that among Sentry Eagle’s most closely guarded components are “facts related to NSA personnel (under cover), operational meetings, specific operations, specific technology, specific locations and covert communications related to SIGINT enabling with specific commercial entities (A/B/C).”

It is not clear whether these “commercial entities” are American or foreign or both. Generally the placeholder “(A/B/C)” is used in the briefing document to refer to American companies, though on one occasion it refers to both American and foreign companies. Foreign companies are referred to with the placeholder “(M/N/O).” The NSA refused to provide any clarification to The Intercept."

Re: Core Secrets: NSA Saboteurs in China and Germany

#9

“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…

Because of this. It's likely the NSA is actively subverting American companies. "The most controversial revelation in Sentry Eagle might be a fleeting reference to the NSA infiltrating clandestine agents into “commercial entities.” The briefing document states that among Sentry Eagle’s most closely guarded components are “facts related to NSA personnel (under cover), operational meetings, specific operations, specifi…

Right. But that's not new information. Prior Snowden leaks (and leaks by others) have showed conclusively that the NSA targets and infiltrates American corporations and also partners heavily with them.

Re: Core Secrets: NSA Saboteurs in China and Germany

#10

“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…

Because of this. It's likely the NSA is actively subverting American companies. "The most controversial revelation in Sentry Eagle might be a fleeting reference to the NSA infiltrating clandestine agents into “commercial entities.” The briefing document states that among Sentry Eagle’s most closely guarded components are “facts related to NSA personnel (under cover), operational meetings, specific operations, specifi…

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 DUAL_EC_DRBG), but this does not provide definitive proof that they're actively infiltrating homeland companies with human spies.

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