

Qaeda Plot Leak Has Undermined U.S. Intelligence - aet
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/30/us/qaeda-plot-leak-has-undermined-us-intelligence.html

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ChuckMcM
_" In recent months, senior administration officials — including the director
of national intelligence, James Clapper Jr. — have drawn attention to the
damage that Mr. Snowden’s revelations have done, though most have been
addressing the impact on national security more broadly, not just the effect
on counterterrorism. "_

Is it just me, or do they just not get that if they hadn't been walking way
outside their charter in building a surveillance state that Snowden wouldn't
have leaked the information he did? Can nobody see the cause and effect here?
None of their infrastructure would be getting forced exposure _from their own
employees_ if they had not gone down this path? Ok, enough ranting.

~~~
GHFigs
_Can nobody see the cause and effect here?_

Danger! Danger! Narrative fallacy ahead!

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narrative_fallacy#The_narrative...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narrative_fallacy#The_narrative_fallacy)

 _None of their infrastructure would be getting forced exposure from their own
employees if they had not gone down this path?_

Careful! Note that Snowden was not an analyst. He didn't actually have access
to the programs he has leaked information on. They weren't part of his job.
(Similarly with Manning, as it happens.) The people that have first-hand
knowledge, and those that are actually involved in the work, _aren 't_ the
ones leaking.

~~~
ChuckMcM
I realize he wasn't an analyst. But his motivation for leaking the information
that he did, was (granted according to his own testimony) because the agency
was violating the civil rights of people it was supposed to be protecting.

I have watched large organizations attempt to re-cast the narrative about a
series of events as being 'caused' by a rogue employee, without acknowledging
the motivations of that employee.

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ds9
Is there any way to be sure that "al quaeda" is anything more than an
imaginary bogey-man trumped up by the State department as a pretext for wars?

I mean, clearly there are various parties doing bombings, etc. in the middle
east, and other things attributed to the supposed organization. But for the
existence of such an organization as described - is there any evidence, or
only corporate media parroting what they're told by the US government and its
allies?

~~~
sliverstorm
What's your alternative explanation for the carefully-planned world-wide
bombing etc attempts? Grassroots?

Maybe it isn't called what we are told it is called, maybe it isn't led by who
we are told it is led by, but I see no reason in particular to believe there
_isn 't_ an underground organization here.

~~~
ds9
How about, various groups acting independently for their own various reasons,
and some of them sometimes claiming the name, and others having it attributed
to them?

~~~
krapp
So basically they're as real or unreal as Anonymous.

~~~
jlgreco
That is exactly what I suspect is going on.

Feel like hacking something? Do it, then call yourself "Anonymous" to make
sure you get attention for it. Have a new 'hacker group' and want something to
give yourselves some credibility? Call yourself "Anonymous". Got hacked and
need somebody to blame? Blame it on "Anonymous", who can prove it wasn't?
Caught some 'hacker group' and want to make yourself seem impressive? Say you
caught the head of "Anonymous".

Basically everyone involved loves the idea of there being an "Anonymous"
because that concept is so useful to everyone.

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bediger4000
I don't buy this. Why wouldn't people who know that the entire US
"Intelligence Community" is focused on them do things like:

(A) Get underlings to regularly generate traffic on all comm channels, so as
to prevent traffic analysis.

(B) Rotate accounts, computers, phones and underlying technology to keep the
US on its toes?

(C) Randomly (dice, cards, yarrow stalks whatever is theologically
permissible) quit using a channel. Occasionally claim the channel is
compromised while you're at it.

(D) Act as if all channels are compromised, and poke fun at the wiretappers
with "sigs" that thank the NSA for doing what 9/11 airplanes could not do on
their own: take away liberties.

~~~
grimtrigger
Security is hard and (to most people) boring. Do you really doubt that
Snowden's leaks prompted internal discussions about securing communications
channels? After all, they prompted the exact same discussions right here on
HN.

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mturmon
I hurt my head trying to figure out the subtext for why this story was told by
"senior intelligence officials" to the NYT at this moment. Is it trying to
change the story line from Snowden to something else?

~~~
naterator
My reading of it was that "Senior intelligence officials" could mean anyone
that actually agreed with Snowden but didn't have the balls or opportunity to
go through with what he did. Now they're taking the opportunity to twist the
knife so maybe real change will come about. In other words, it's possible that
not everyone in the NSA/government thinks what the NSA is doing is good, and
will take the opportunity to point out its ineptness. I doubt Snowden was the
only person in the NSA who didn't like what he was seeing.

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forgotAgain
At the time this story was in the news in August I thought it was most likely
leaked on purpose by the government in an attempt to shine the image of the
NSA.

Now My thoughts are 1) I hope I was wrong and 2) karma's a bitch.

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adolph
_Since then, each issue of Inspire has offered a how-to section on encrypting
communications, recommending MS2 as the main encryption tool._

Awesome, Inspire has a 2600 how-to section.

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jstalin
Does anyone know which particular platform these guys were using that was
intercepted?

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jhales
it's interesting they use there own custom encryption. Can't help but wonder
how they compare to gpg, otr etc.

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syncerr
> the damage that Mr. Snowden’s revelations have done

This is of course all Snowden's fault.

