
NSA director heckled on stage at Black Hat security conference - tjaerv
http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2013/07/31/nsa-director-heckled-at-conference-as-he-asks-for-security-communitys-understanding/
======
tptacek
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 themselves.

Heckling Alexander played right into the strategy. It gave him an opportunity
to look reasonable compared to his detractors, and, more generally (and
alarmingly), to have the NSA look more reasonable compared to opponents of NSA
surveillance. It allowed him to "split the vote" with audience reactions,
getting people who probably have serious misgivings about NSA programs to
applaud his calm and graceful handling of shouted insults; many of those
people probably applauded simply to protest the hecklers, who after all were
making it harder for them to follow what Alexander was trying to say.

There was no serious Q&A on offer at the keynote. The questions were pre-
screened; all attendees could do was vote on them. There was no possibility
that anything would come of this speech other than an effectively unchallenged
full-throated defense of the NSA's programs.

Even the premise of the keynote was calculated to wrong-foot NSA opponents.
However much you might want to hear Alexander account for the activities of
the NSA, the NSA itself is not the real oversight mechanism for the NSA! My
guess is that no pol with meaningful oversight over NSA would have consented
to address a room full of technology professionals about NSA's programs; they
were happy to send NSA's own supremely well-trained figurehead to do that for
them.

I think a walkout might have been effective, had it been organized well enough
in advance (perhaps with some of the same aplomb as the [I think misguided]
opposition to CISPA); at least you'd get some stinging photos.

~~~
kunai
Agreed; his extensive infosec background and smooth-talking politician talents
meant that he probably had full knowledge of how this was going to go down.
What's interesting is why he attempted PR reconciliation at a relatively niche
conference. Black Hat doesn't have much connection to the mass public, and
trying to make yourself look good in front of a mass of angry hackers is
pointless anyhow because hackers tend to stay angry about topics like privacy.

Now, if he had a full blown press conference with civilian attendees, then,
well...

~~~
josh2600
I think he went to Blackhat because the feds were 'banned' from Defcon.

~~~
tptacek
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.

~~~
kunai
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.

~~~
replax
Exactly! Actually, Alexander was asked the Question of NSA datacollection
after his talk, basically it went down like this:

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](http://youtu.be/tz0ejKersnM?t=33m2s)

~~~
Im_Mr_Manager
What is astonishing by that? They can easily be splicing fiber cables taking a
copy of most Internet traffic and recording either the actual call or just the
from/to/length info and his answer is totally correct. It is actually a really
terrible question.

------
dmix
> Alexander also noted the 6,000 NSA cryptologists who have deployed to
> Afghanistan and Iraq, 20 of whom were killed in the line of duty according
> to Alexander. “Think about people willing to go forward to Iraq and
> Afghanistan, to make sure our soldiers, airmen and marines get the
> intelligence they need,” he said. “I believe these are the most noble people
> we have in this country.”

Having lost a brother who deployed as a signals operator in Afghanistan (to an
IED), it always makes me cringe whenever they use forward-deployed soldiers as
a defense of the higher-level states "nobility". There is nothing noble about
mass surveillance or the invasion of privacy of non-enemy combatant
nations/citizens.

The fact citizens signed up to risk their lives in combat-zones at the bottom
end of the chain does not legitimize the actions of those at the top.

~~~
jessaustin
Hear, hear! When the top brass evoke these deaths, it's like they're saying
"if our sainted dead soldiers followed these orders, how can _you_ possibly
disagree?" Frankly, the last general worthy of making that sort of comparison
was Eisenhower, and he would have been the _last_ man in the military to do
so. He was already sickened at this leadership culture when he was President.
If he were alive today he would cross the street to avoid a conversation with
Alexander.

------
norswap
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.

~~~
_delirium
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.

~~~
jaekwon
Well, a militant-defensive-underground would call themselves "Grey Hat" or
something. Black Hat implies exploiting flaws for personal gain, doesn't it?

I imagine a bunch of these Black Hat people fancy their big payout using their
skills for evil.

------
vijayboyapati
Funny how Alexander says he's read the Constitution, and implores the heckler
to do the same. If one can read the Constitution and square the NSA's mass
surveillance with the 4th amendment then one can square a circle. There really
is no point in debating people like this on the technicalities of the
Constitution. What they understand is power. He has it and we don't. He knows
how to pull the levers that matter, and which Congressman and executive branch
bureaucrats to lean on to make sure his bailiwick is not reduced by a single
inch. The rest of us, sadly, are left flailing around hoping that pointing to
a piece of paper is an effective check on evil.

~~~
cookiecaper
The NSA is filtering a public utility. The users of this utility choose what
information they want to broadcast, and should do so with the full knowledge
that this information is being bounced between dozens of routers every time it
goes out, any one of which may be monitored by its owners. This information
ultimately ends up at the destination IP address, whose owner is able to use
this data in whichever manner he sees fit, including submittal of said data to
a major governmental intelligence organization as occurs with PRISM.

The problem is that people foolishly assume that the plaintext packets they
send online are private by default. As in real life, good privacy can only be
assured by significant effort on the part of the communicants. Is it evil to
observe something occurring on a public street corner? It is not different to
observe something occuring on a public IP router.

~~~
mr_spothawk
>"The microphones in every nook and cranny are merely filtering a public good,
the air. You should know that when you vibrate the air with your vocal chords
to make the sound of words, you're willingly broadcasting information patterns
in quadrillions of particles in the air. It's not our fault you're so stupid
about your security."

Don't be dense. Letters are easily intercepted and read, but we still expect
that the government is not doing so because the constitution forbids that sort
of behavior and the judicial branch is supposed to protect us from it.

You're conflating privacy with security. Security requires encryption, etc...
privacy exists in the absence of monitoring devices.

~~~
cookiecaper
The proper analog is a letter v. a postcard. There is no reasonable
expectation that the contents of a postcard will remain private -- the message
is right there, and people will see it even accidentally. A typical plaintext
packet is the same way. Stuffing your papers in a sealed envelope is analogous
to passing your plaintext through an encryption algorithm.

If you are "vibrating the air" in public, then yes, you should realize that
there could be a microphone nearby that records what you're saying (and in
fact, in modern practice, there is a microphone on pretty much every person
you see, any of which could be recording at any time).

~~~
tlrobinson
The problem is people don't necessarily know know they're sending a postcard
when they think they're sending a sealed envelope.

~~~
cookiecaper
This is a great opportunity for education, then, correct? Tools have existed
that would ameliorate this entire issue for a long time. We need to get people
to start using them!

------
IanDrake
>the four-star general presented a timeline of terrorist attacks around the
world, from the 1993 World Trade Center bombing to the _Boston Marathon
attack_.

Can anyone speak as to why, with the NSA's systems, they were not able to
thwart an attack by the ass clowns in Boston? Russia even warned us about them
and they made frequent contact with foreigners.

I'm sorry, but that terrorist event seems like low hanging fruit if their
system really works to protect us.

~~~
northwest
The question is: Did they _want_ to thwart the attack?

One obvious possibility is that the system that has been erected simply needs
_fear_ to be able to continue to exist.

Let some attacks happen (and some Taliban prisons break) from time to time and
people can be and will be manipulated via fear, so the powerful stay powerful
and the rich become richer. Same old, same old...

Next stop: Middle Class Gone.

Then, people will have nothing to lose _again_ and wake up. Next, we'll have
riots and one day, the old system is dead and history will repeat itself once
more. So much for the long term.

~~~
lukifer
In wartime, it's not uncommon to not act on intel to stop an attack, so as to
preserve its strategic value and save more lives later. For any insiders who
truly believe in the NSA's mission (which is being generous), "let a few die
today to preserve a system that will save thousands tomorrow" is not a big
leap.

------
mjfl
I don't care whether the director of the NSA is a bad guy, it just makes _you_
look bad if you heckle someone on stage. There are probably few more
scrutinizing audiences for the director of the NSA than a professional
security conference. I would rather have him say what he has to say and be
analysed by the many bright minds at the conference than for him to be
childishly interrupted and waste time that could be spent talking about the
actual role of the NSA in the security of the nation.

~~~
moxie
General Alexander doesn't have to act rude when he has the power of the NSA
behind him. The only power we have in a situation like that is to be
disruptive and to be rude. Why should we treat him with respect given all the
disrespectful things that he's instrumental in?

Those in power keep trying to present this as a "conversation" or a "dialog,"
but that's absolute bullshit. They're not actually trying to have a
conversation, so we shouldn't behave as if that's what's happening. The most
powerful thing we could have done would have been to boo him off the stage.

~~~
mjfl
How about civil disobedience rather than childish disobedience?

~~~
moxie
We shouldn't be criticizing the heckler for not being a good enough or
different enough heckler, we should be criticizing everyone else who did
nothing at all.

~~~
HoochTHX
Something along the lines of those who remain silent when powers that be
discuss Freedom and Security deserve neither?

------
rbanffy
I find particularly hard to believe the "6,000 NSA cryptologists who have
deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq" part. Why would anyone want to deploy
cryptologists into a war zone?

I also found disheartening the applause given to the general for his clever
answers. "I have. So should you"?! I expected more from the Black Hat crowd.

And, finally, I applaud Jon McCoy for his sacrifice. His willingness to endure
all the cavity searches he'll be subjected to before and after every flight
inspires us all.

~~~
omegaham
Military here.

They aren't really the same cryptologists that we think of, and they aren't
the same guys who are writing programs to go through our phone records.

The majority of cryptologists who are forward deployed are there to ensure
that the cryptography is used correctly. Despite many years of attempts to
make it easier to use, cryptography. especially for portable radios, is a pain
in the ass to use. People have to be trained. Areas have to be made where
crypto equipment is stored and secured. Deficiencies in use have to be
identified. That's what those people are for.

With the fact that we've had more than two million troops deployed during the
War on Terror, I'm actually surprised that the number of NSA cryptologists is
at 6,000. They must be very senior people.

------
JumpCrisscross
" _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-see-adequate-
limi...](http://www.people-press.org/2013/07/26/few-see-adequate-limits-on-
nsa-surveillance-program/)

~~~
dmix
I highly recommend reading "The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies
Choose Bad Policies" [1].

Even if polling shows a lack of discontent, it does not mean they were voting
rationally. The emotional fear machine of terrorism will always sway towards
totalitarianism policies. But if the majority of those citizens were honestly
questioned about having their phones (and their entire families) monitored, I
doubt they would be for it.

Irrationality and logical fallacies are flourishing on both ends of the
spectrum (citizens and politicians), and there are few vocal voices in between
correcting the bullshit.

What's missing are leaders (aka media) evaluating and promoting policies based
on rationality reasoning rather than what emotional ploys that sell.

[1] [http://www.amazon.com/Myth-Rational-Voter-Democracies-
ebook/...](http://www.amazon.com/Myth-Rational-Voter-Democracies-
ebook/dp/B007AIXLDI/)

~~~
fragsworth
> What's missing are leaders (aka media) evaluating and promoting policies
> based on rationality reasoning rather than what emotional ploys that sell.

Leaders in media have no external incentive to promote rationality. They make
money by appealing to their audience, to increase the size and loyalty of that
audience.

There is no solution.

~~~
pyrocat
Don't make the news beholden to ratings.

~~~
krapp
News is a commercial product. Ratings represent the value of the program to
advertisers as a measure of viewership, and the news exists as a way to
generate those ratings. No ratings, no advertisers, no news. As with so many
other forms of media, you are not the consumer, you're the product (or more
specifically, the likelihood of your attention in those all important spaces
between the segments.)

Unless you want the state to control everything, how do news organizations
make the money they need to put on the broadcasts, if not with ratings? They
have to sell _something_ to _somebody_ right? Should the US have a licensing
system like they have in Britain?

There are newscasts on PBS but almost nobody watches them (I do, but then I
used to work at a small PBS station) and tote bags can only get you so far.

------
northwest
> “No, I’m saying I don’t trust you!” shouted McCoy.

I believe that's pretty central here. I don't see how we can ever be able
again to trust an organism such as the NSA - or even the government.

Transparency is the only solution here. Will we get it?

If we don't, the only _other_ solution would be to cut budgets so drastically
that such an enterprise will simply not be possible financially, anymore.

And maybe, as a general improvement: Decentralize the government and give the
States back their autonomy (and here you have your link between technology and
politics - see the recent cry for less "political posts" on HN).

~~~
joering2
> I believe that's pretty central here. I don't see how we can ever be able
> again to trust an organism such as the NSA - or even the government.

We won't. This cancer is a one-way street. It will kill the organism and kill
itself with it. And they know it. That's why they buy billions of ammunition
rounds and dispatch lightweight tanks throught the states borders. They know
that history repeat itself and they don't want another fourth of July to be
celebrated in 500 years now (this time US 2.0 that bunch of clever people used
GIT to form a better government). NSA systems are not in place to save you and
your family from terrorist -- terrorism needs to be wisely guided; some need
to leak through so that you and your family keep being scared, submit to the
State and pay more taxes for more "safety". Terrorism is not on their agenda.
Had they not let shoe bomber and Boston bombers do what they did, me and you
would protest against more surveillance (with Boston bombers officials were
inconveniently kept notified by russian government) because we would have been
felt safe.

> Transparency is the only solution here. Will we get it?

We won't and we can't. They will oppose it saying that if we tell you what we
do, bad guys will use it. Nothing will change this approach. Manning did a
huge leak of gov docs and military officials said many lives will be lost as a
result; other than Arab spring that did not happen on US soil, nothing
happened at all. It was a bluff that they will continue using.

> If we don't, the only other solution would be to cut budgets so drastically
> that such an enterprise will simply not be possible financially, anymore.

Its not that simple. Even President of United State does not know how many
black-ops agencies exist within the goverment. Some entities of the gov
sponsor themselves God only knows doing what. If you cut their air supply,
they will go to CIA and say: "here are the tapes when you and other officials
are negotiating deals with drug cartels in Afganistan, here is a conversation
where smuggling is being organized to move tons of heroine into US on a
military aircraft, sponsor our venture or we will leak the info". And there
you have it. Most likely dirty branches of gov do not need public money but of
course they will take it anyways.

~~~
northwest
> That's why they buy billions of ammunition rounds and dispatch lightweight
> tanks throught the states borders.

I didn't know this, but I was thinking along the same lines when I read about
the "anti-missile blimps" being deployed over DC. I mean it's as if they
"prepared for what's coming".

So you seem to think that there is actually no real solution apart from
letting things fall apart and then "start from scratch"?

I'd be really interested to hear what other people see as potential solutions
for all this.

------
northwest
> “I haven’t lied to Congress,” Alexander responded

And WTF was that, now?

EDIT: I guess this is true because actually, he lied to the chairs in the
room. Or some coffee mugs that were also present.

Is that how one evades a lie detector, btw?

It really can't get any sicker. We have now reached the bottom.

~~~
mpyne
Last I checked he wasn't James Clapper (they guy who lied to Congress). But
maybe I'm wrong.

~~~
whiddershins
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYNXVgYhPOc#at=61](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYNXVgYhPOc#at=61)

~~~
northwest
Just watched it again - it's so instructive to see how Keith Alexander is well
equipped to function and lie like probably only psychopaths can.

And then, is Obama part of the same category? The contrast between how he's
been selling to us and what's really happening is just too much.

------
kyzyl
Looks like I'm a little late for this comment party, but I'd just like to
highlight one comment from the Forbes website that I thought was good:

"In general I agree with McCoy in his ad-hoc debate with Gen Alexander as well
as his post presentation remarks about the distorted perspective of national
security. At the same time, I do conceed that the NSA is acting in good faith
and ‘within the law’ as presented to them via the Patriot Act. I have similar
feeling about the value of TSA, but whereas the TSA is a publicly disclosed
program, my most pressing concern with the NSA is the secrecy of it. First,
the secrecy presents an extremely high degree of risk (in terms of both the
probabilty of occurance as well as the dangers) of mission creep. I doubt
Congressional nor FISC oversight are adequate to mitigate this risk. Second,
secrecy is not really a valid tool for deterence. Anti-terrorism programs are
like a doomsday devices: it’s a good deterence only if it is widely known
about (see Dr Strangelove). Moreover, while secret programs might be good for
support of kill/capture programs, it is far from clear that such efforts
reduce terrorism.

For all I know, the government spy/drone program is to terrorists as a hammer
is to an ant colony. If you have a spilled pot of honey in the kitchen, it
doesn’t matter how good you are at spotting and smashing ants. I want to know
these things, so that I can help shape public policy through the ballot box."
\--uspatriot2001

I think that's a good assessment of the high-level picture, and it's much more
informative than "NSA BAD! Freedom good!" (not to belittle anyone's comments
here) in that it reflects a road forward.

------
dutchbrit
Audio here: [https://soundcloud.com/larrymagid/nsa-director-general-
keith](https://soundcloud.com/larrymagid/nsa-director-general-keith)

~~~
UVB-76
The exchange in question starts around 33:40

~~~
EvanAnderson
I listened starting a couple minutes before that and felt like I was going to
fall asleep. I'm sure it loses something not being there in person but Mr.
Alexander's delivery sure seems ponderous.

------
JonFish85
All things considered, it seems like Keith Alexander did a pretty good job of
handling the situation. Personally I think the heckler sounded like a douche
("read the Constitution" sounds like a dumb thing to say to a 4 star general
who probably has better knowledge of it than your average hacker), even if he
(the heckler) had some good points.

It would have been easy for the situation to devolve into something much
uglier, but fortunately it seems like things stayed pretty calm!

~~~
wavefunction
I'm curious why you claim that a 4-star general would have a better knowledge
of the Constitution than an average hacker?

Especially one who seems to be running an illegal and unconstitutional program
like Gen. Alexander.

~~~
mindslight
For the same reason that an average hacker would have a much better knowledge
of the code for various daemons than the sysadmins who administer them -
they're reading critically and looking for vulnerabilities where the actual
semantics differ from the purported ones. I've no doubt that what the NSA does
actually _is_ "constitutional" under the common corrupted interpretations of
it - government programs are structured to avoid mortal conflicts with the
constitution, sympathetic or even just probabilistic courts then assert that
specific facets aren't actually over the line, and severable agents acting
"independently" informally make up the difference.

Law is akin to code, and suffers from the same complexity-induced limitations
that end up as the halting problem. With enough indirection, meanings and
definitions divert wildly from what they purport. This divergence starts as
soon as abstraction enters the picture - for example the widespread tendency
to see rights as "primitives" that are acceded when forming higher-level
emergent structures. Participation in the higher-level structure becomes de
facto mandatory, and those purported rights end up nowhere to be seen. And
once this erosion process starts, it becomes harder and harder for anybody to
see that their rights should apply universally, rather than just in a
nondescript wood shack on unincorporated land in Wyoming.

~~~
wavefunction
Certainly I agree with your perception of how the NSA and General Alexander
believe that they are "conforming" to a proper interpretation of the
Constitution, though I disagree with that particular interpretation they hew
to.

I guess I feel that the average hacker has a better understanding of the
platonic ideal or "most correct" interpretation of the Constitution than Gen.
Alexander.

------
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](http://youtu.be/tz0ejKersnM?t=33m2s)

------
podperson
No idea how accurate a depiction of the speech this is, but the article is --
contrary to the title -- portraying the speech as having been warmly received,
applauded, with one lone heckler. Now, whether or not one agrees with General
Alexander, there are more courteous and productive ways to express yourself
than yelling "bullshit".

~~~
methehack
> there are more courteous and productive ways to express yourself than
> yelling "bullshit".

I disagree. When chatting with Faust, I think it's better to avoid the drawn
out conversation and just tell him to fuck off. This Alexander guy is a liar
and a felon (lying under oath to congress) and has earned our collective
disrespect. He deserves a lot more than "bullshit!" He's a domestic terrorist
that's infiltrated the government as far as I'm concerned.

~~~
cracell
What has he done that makes him a terrorist? Or are you just inferring that
mass spying is a form of terrorism?

~~~
methehack
It was kind of a flip thing to say; I was on a bit of a roll.

The argument, such as it is, would go something like this: Instead of physical
terror, the policies Alexander pursues create a psychological terror that
jeopardizes "our way of life". Instead of a fear of being blown up, we have a
fear of persecution for what we say.

A terrorist thinks he is beyond the law and uses his limited power to create
fear in a population in order to achieve his ends, which the majority does not
support. That's a description that seems to apply to Alexander.

I know he's different, but he's definitely not as different as he thinks.

------
etiam
Keith Alexander's way of bending words, and his facility with swinging a crowd
and lying skillfully under pressure once again reminds me disturbingly of
accounts I've read about psychopaths, and of probable psychopaths I've
encountered. Those patterns could of course be stuff you pick up anyway as a
top player for power, but I find the parallels highly worrisome. For those who
have never read anything about the subject, may I suggest browsing e.g.
"Without conscience" by Robert D. Hare. The sections with court proceedings in
particular illustrate well what I mean.

------
generj
I think this underscores Defcon's decision to exclude the Feds this year.

~~~
jenandre
Defcon and Blackhat were founded by the same dude. Why didn't they exclude
feds from BlackHat as well? Guessing it was probably because that is their big
money maker with all the corp/fed support.

~~~
flyt
BlackHat is a more "professional" event for the security industry. People that
ostensibly work in the security industry go there just like people go to
o'reilly conferences for various technical areas.

DEFCON is a community event for anybody and is totally anonymous (entry fee is
only payable by cash in person) and has a more freewheeling, community feel.

------
YellowRex
I hate Forbes - interstitial ads and persistent headers are super annoying.
Can we stop posting Forbes links?

Boing Boing has the same coverage with a much more reader-friendly site
design: [http://boingboing.net/2013/07/31/nsa-capo-heckled-at-
black-h...](http://boingboing.net/2013/07/31/nsa-capo-heckled-at-black-
hat.html)

~~~
YellowRex
Grrr, the Boing Boing article just links to Forbes.

------
rinon
Video seems to be up at
[https://www.blackhat.com/us-13/archives.html#Alexander](https://www.blackhat.com/us-13/archives.html#Alexander)

~~~
stevenrace
*Note the above links to an MP4.

The 2013 Keynote is now on Youtube:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvVIZ4OyGnQ&t=5m](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvVIZ4OyGnQ&t=5m)

\-- Alexander begins at 5 minutes in

\-- no slides visible in video

\-- 'heckling' @ 39minutes in)

\-- TLDR: One cropped screenshot of 'telephone metadata', assurances of
internal audits, a thumbup from a Senate sub-committee.

Slides: [https://media.blackhat.com/us-13/us-13-Alexander-
keynote.pdf](https://media.blackhat.com/us-13/us-13-Alexander-keynote.pdf)

------
abalone
In fairness, the title could just as well be "NSA director _applauded_ on
stage at Black Hat security conference".

The crowd's reaction was definitely mixed.

------
wil421
From the article: “Everyone’s thinking this, but no one’s saying it public, so
everyone thinks they’re alone,” he said. “Ninety-eight percent of society has
issues with this…But no one speaks up.”

While I think some people don't how to speak up, beside calling/writing my
congress person, many don't care either way. In fact, many older people I have
talked to (I am in my twenties) dont have a problem with what the NSA is
doing. They dont really mind if their data is being sifted through as long as
its being used to "Find Terrorists or what have you."

My problem is the lack of oversight and the fact court that has approved 1,789
out of 1,748 requests (97.7%!!!!). Not only that but they have legal
justifications for what they are doing, therefore since its legal its allowed,
forget the morals/ethics involved.

Who's to say they won't turn this around on the public at large because it
will prevent smaller crimes instead of terrorists. Also whats to stop the
government from calling people who oppose their views terrorists and then just
spy directly at American people.

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jotm
“And if you disagree with what we’re doing, you should help us twice as much.”

Right, so they end up like Snowden...

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leke
All this bad press is a great incentive for people to develop encryption
skills. I'm now looking into javascript client to client encryption of certain
social sites and services using greasemonkey to organise the contacts and keys
database.

