
Edward Snowden and spread of encryption blamed after Paris terror attacks - NN88
http://www.dailydot.com/politics/paris-attack-encryption-snowden/?fb=dd
======
myth_buster
This is expected response if you follow the American media.

There is a very interesting video [0] of Noam Chomsky, after the 9/11 attacks,
where he says that any government and regime worth it's salt will use 9/11 as
an excuse to push their agenda over the public.

And they will do so using their fear.

[0] <For the life of me, I couldn't locate the video. Will update the post if
I do.>

~~~
nickff
Perhaps 9/11 allowed the bureaucracy to push its agenda, but it is very clear
that it took Bush completely off his plan; Bush campaigned for a less activist
foreign policy (which many criticized as being isolationist).

~~~
khed
How often do you think a politicians campaign platform represents their actual
intentions. You should read about the project for a new american century.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_C...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_Century)

10 of 25 signing members of PNAC were high level bush administration workers.
PNAC was explicitly neoconservative and most definitely wanted to be involved
in more wars abroad.

~~~
nickff
I have come to believe that most politicians believe their platforms and
campaign speeches. This may sound difficult to believe given all the
doublespeak, contradictions, and fallacies they recite on the campaign trail,
but it is the simplest way to explain how they can keep up all these strange
ideas while encountering challenging questions, tough situations and dilemmas.

It seems to me that just as the NBA is full of (some of) the tallest people in
the country, the Congress and White House are full of the people who are most
capable of believing whatever they have to at any given moment.

~~~
fastandfurryous
You're attributing incompetence to what can be easily explained by malice.

When that amount of money and power is at stake, there's no room for people
who are earnest.

------
Sealy
I blame Bush for declaring war in the middle east for what happened in Paris.
Not Edward Snowden.

Note how the government also uses times like these to rush through new
policies around privacy.

Did phone tapping stop the US from preventing 9/11? No.

~~~
chroma
> I blame Bush for declaring war in the middle east for what happened in
> Paris. Not Edward Snowden.

Wait, what? It's been almost seven years since Bush left office. 100% of the
blame rests on the men who donned suicide vests and massacred innocent
Parisians. It doesn't matter how horrific US foreign policy is. Responding by
killing a bunch of French civilians is not even remotely reasonable.
Seriously, how does someone go from "US foreign policy killed my countrymen"
to "let's slaughter random French people"?

~~~
0xFFC
7 year? Do you understand geopolitical consequences has time interval ? you
invade a country , okay? you should expect whole generation of terrorist who
want you dead not tomorrow , 20 year later . 7 year I would say is so small
time in things like these.

~~~
omonra
I don't think Bush invaded France.

------
jimrandomh
It's barely been twelve hours - too soon for the results of any real
investigation to have influenced the editorials coming out. What we're hearing
is the positions that were prepared prior to the attacks themselves.

It's possible that the perpetrators evaded surveillance with encryption. It's
also possible that the perpetrators did have their phones tapped, but
investigators dropped the ball. It's possible that they avoided phones and did
all their planning in person. It's even possible that someone made an
executive decision to not intervene and stop them, for political reasons.

As far as I know, none of Snowden's criticisms have been addressed at French
organizations. While there's some possibility US intelligence agencies could
have picked up on this, it's primarily a European matter and not the NSA's
responsibility. This makes Snowden's having undermined the NSA quite unlikely
to have been relevant.

~~~
tonfa
When the article says: > In response to the Charlie Hebdo attacks that hit
Paris in January of 2015, France adopted one of the most aggressive
surveillance laws in the Western world. That was not enough to stop these
attacks.

That's very misleading, as the law was just voted and isn't in application
yet.

------
uniclaude
That smells pretty bad.

First we lose our friends, then we'll lose our privacy? I was horrified by the
reaction of some of my acquaintances back home in France: "Let's imprison all
those who went to Syria", "We should forbid Tor if this is what those
terrorists used to kill our people", and the now classic "if you don't do
anything wrong, you shouldn't have anything to hide".

What's next?

~~~
tomjen3
Why shouldn't we imprison those who went to Syria to fight? They were fighting
for the enemy, so they could be charged with treason, but even if not they
could be charged with war crimes.

Unless I missunderstood the question and they wanted to imprison all those who
have been in Syria.

~~~
dingaling
> Why shouldn't we imprison those who went to Syria to fight?

You could certainly do that on the basis of membership of a proscribed
organisation, but...

> They were fighting for the enemy

Which enemy is that? The USA and UK are not currently at war with anyone in a
legal sense.

------
njharman
Terrorists don't randomly spawn. They are made.

Much terrorism is an externality of Western foreign policy and a nation's
abuse of it's citizens (domestic).

Whether Snowden or encryption enabled terrorism or not is TOTALLY missing or
deflecting the real conversation that should be occurring. Do not fall into
the trap of arguing. Ignore statements like OA. Instead ask "Why are people
willing to kill themselves and others?" "What has France done / is doing so
that people believe that is their best redress?" "Why do people become
terrorists?". Most import of all (and the only way we will end terrorism).
"How can we change the world so less people are compelled to such drastic
action?"

~~~
netcan
I this "western foreign policy" plays a complex role, some of it has been
negative. In some cases, like Iraq, it is more a failure of that policy that
has had a negative effect.

However, I think this features far too prominently in a lot of people's
outlooks than it should. Nothing, including terrorism is born in a vacuum but
I don't think American involvement in Middle Eastern conflicts is the primary
cause. Various Tsarist policies at the turn of the century are responsible for
the conditions that gave rise to revolutionary communism in Russia, but
communism was a greater force than Tsarist policies.

We are talking about a spectrum of religious-nationalist beliefs that are
turning other wars, conflicts, slights, frustrations, rivalries and any other
available fuel and putting it to use. This includes American policies in Iraq.
They are fuelling it, but I really do not think they are creating it.

------
pheroden
Yea, Snowden is responsible. Because we never knew about phone monitoring
before?? Glad the terrorists never watched the wire or any other police
procedural going back to the 70's.

~~~
facetube
Osama Bin Laden avoided electronic communication well before the NSA's illegal
domestic spying activities were revealed. He passed notes and relied on
trusted couriers. This is nothing but political opportunism.

~~~
mc32
Right, but did that rigor go down to the field? Unlikely that his rigor would
percolate all the way down, however with it now being common knowledge rather
than paranoia most anyone downstream would also observe the same paranoia due
to the revelations.

~~~
zardo
Snowden just provided the proof. It was already common knowledge that the
government had massive communications monitoring programs. They were building
an enormous data center, and previous programs had been uncovered.

~~~
collyw
Lots of people talked about it and were dismissed as tin foil hat wearers.
Likewise RMS has warned about a lot of stuff that slowly seems to be coming a
reality, yet he is still dismissed as a bit of a nutter.

------
forgotmypassw
I'll quote Kim Dotcom as a counter argument:

>Our Governments: "We spy on all of you to keep you safe". But why have your
mass surveillance systems failed to prevent the Paris attacks?

~~~
mwti
If you've ever seen the spies running those programs you'll understand why it
happened. They look and act much like the terrorists. Drunk on power with a
feeling of invincibility (e.g. sociopaths).

~~~
ilaksh
They ARE the terrorists.

------
6Jr9FvafEjvg
"Blame Snowden and Encryption" is starting to look as coordinated as the Paris
attacks.

~~~
scrollaway
Exactly what I was thinking. Goodie on the media, using the bad guys' tactics
on their audience. This day is really not getting better.

------
rwmj
A few cherry-picked tweets form the basis for an article now?

~~~
jnbiche
Well, a tweet from a former press secretary of a US president. I'd say it's
pretty news-worthy, since this seems to be a coordinated campaign by some
(albeit a disgusting one).

~~~
maxerickson
It's probably more germane that she makes a living on Fox News, hosting a show
that more or less spends it's time pandering to a segment of the American
population that is afraid of everything (I don't mean Republicans or the right
wing of American politics, I mean the people who watch "The Five"...). It's
not entirely clear to me if the hosts themselves are afraid of everything or
simply effective in their cynicism.

------
hal9000xp
I remember an article written by Pavel Durov (founder of Telegram) which I
read a few months ago.

The name of the article calls for itself:

Dragon Slayer Becomes The New Dragon

[https://medium.com/@durov/dragon-slayer-becomes-the-new-
drag...](https://medium.com/@durov/dragon-slayer-becomes-the-new-
dragon-1881b7f67080)

------
ciokan
So we fight for liberty and privacy but blame the ones that risk their lives
bringing it. I fear these attacks will convince everyone that mass
surveillance is a necessary thing.

Surprisingly, you only need a few terrorists to change international laws and
double those military budgets. Snowden or not, it's the virus that comes first
and the anti-virus after. I don't think any mass surveillance program can stop
such actions unless you become a militia state which I highly doubt (and hope
not) will ever happen.

------
SeanDav
Political Interference, Religious intolerance, Social injustice - no those had
nothing to do with terrorism - it's all about encryption.... /sarcasm

------
Canada
Before Snowden came along no terrorist ever heard of electronic surveillance,
right?

If anything, mass surveillance is to blame for lack of intel. Before spying
was so ubiquitous, terrorists might have said something on the phone or by
email.

------
ck2
Oh f __* people who even think that way, let alone proclaim it.

France has porous borders. They spent $1 BILLION over the past year on
security "enhancements".

If evil people want to be evil, they are going to find a way.

~~~
rogeryu
Closing borders isn't going to help if you have thousands of people who have
no future and who are looking for revenge out of frustration. This is not to
blame anyone, but it's more a matter of fact. Paris has seen many riots in the
past years, where hundreds of cars have been destroyed by these people. It's
not surprise that you can find some people in that group that are vulnerable
or attracted to the tactics of IS.

~~~
zazazazu
Germany partially suspended registration of refugees, the head of one of the
parties in government is on record saying that currently about 40-50% of them
_are not even registered at all._

([http://www.focus.de/politik/deutschland/spd-chef-
gabriel-40-...](http://www.focus.de/politik/deutschland/spd-chef-
gabriel-40-bis-50-prozent-der-fluechtlinge-werden-derzeit-gar-nicht-
registriert_id_5056930.html))

Supposedly, this is not a problem - even though it is people from the country
where ISIS terrorists operate.

At the same time, we have a continuous push for and actually new surveillance
laws such as the dreaded 'Vorratsdatenspeicherung'.

That doesn't really fit together at all anymore...

------
gtpasqual
That's actually an amazing scapegoat!

Blame encryption and omit the violent nature of Islam.

------
beedogs
That article reminded me once again what an utter scumbag Dana Perino is. The
worst press secretary for the worst President of all time.

------
return0
More propaganda from the american Gestapo?

------
tdkl
They forgot to blame Russia in this one.

------
dmihal
I'm only comforted by the fact that there's really nothing any government can
do to stop crypto. The technology has become simple enough that anybody can
encrypt their communications or files with open-source software, and that's
basically impossible to stop.

~~~
elipsey
They can criminalize it, so that only criminals use crypto by definition.
Think about tor. As a fraction of network traffic, almost no one uses it, so
if you do you have singled yourself out.

Running an exit node is already a great way to end up in jail, and I would not
have a warm fuzzy feeling about using tor for innocent traffic at this point,
although it's perfectly legal.

Imagine how easily flagged users could be singled out if simply using crypto
were a crime, and probable cause for search: e.g. you get caught using FDE on
your phone or laptop at a traffic stop or the airport. Either your info is
trivially purused at will by LE, or you've committed a crime by makeing it
difficult and can be compelled on that basis. Either way, they're reading your
mail if they feel like it.

The real value of this would be that almost no normal person would want to
risk prosecution, so the overwhelming majority of user data could be easily
mined. These are just a couple of crypto tools, but the technical details
don't really matter here, I think this is a legal and social strategy that
will generalize well, and it I think this is where we're inevitably headed.

~~~
shkkmo
Your game theory is accurate, but I think your systems design understanding is
lacking.

We will have an extremely difficult time making all crypto illegal.
Cryptography is crucial to important pieces of infrastructure we use for trust
and security.

We may reach the point where certain implementation or tools are outlawed. In
which case people with stuff to hide will piggyback it inside legal tools.

I suspect we will be more likely to see a combination of these approaches:

1) Forcing entities that sell products that provide encryption capabilities to
maintain access for the government.

2) Pass laws that make it illegal to avoid or materially assist others in
avoiding government surveillance without authorization

~~~
elipsey
I agree that this seems likely. What if said "unauthorized crypto" will be
illegal?

E.g. you can use SSL for commmerce, but it's got to "approved", in other words
either technically, or organizationally backdoored.

------
Tharkun
Well that didn't take long ...

~~~
etiam
Many of the people orchestrating it have probably been pining for this for
years. Insinuations like "When the next attack comes, maybe some people will
start to think differently about these leaks" was in the talking points from
the start.

Tangentially related: [https://theintercept.com/2015/09/11/today-14th-
anniversary-e...](https://theintercept.com/2015/09/11/today-14th-anniversary-
enormous-opportunity/)

------
joesmo
An article reporting what FOX News said is not an article worth posting, let
alone worth reading. FOX News is not news and other news outlets need to stop
quoting them as if they were legitimate. They're not. In fact, very few
American based "news" organizations are news. Other sites need to stop giving
such faux news organization credibility by completely ignoring their comments
or at the very least publicly ridiculing them without mercy.

------
mikeash
Blamed... by whom?

Oh, idiot talking heads on TV news. Who cares?

If I wanted to know what idiots on TV think, I'd watch TV.

------
rdancer
Fuck off already, fearmongers!

------
tokai
I thought that security through obscurity was no security at all.

------
elipsey
That was quick.

------
ilaksh
Eye-witnesses report trained soldiers in uniforms that then were allowed to
escape.

This is a false flag attack that serves a number of purposes. Slowing the push
for encryption and generally boosting surveillance and domestic operations is
one. As the western debt grows and the military position becomes thinner, it
will become increasingly difficult to maintain the fiat that demands massive
resource distribution imbalances. This will lead to serious shortages in
western countries. In order to maintain power, the state turns its guns and
spies inward.

But in the meantime the covert operations in Syria have not been completely
successful, and since they need to do Syria before Iran (as has been planned
for many years) they need to move to overt operations. This requires the
propaganda to motivate it which needs a real event behind it.

------
drdeca
Ok, (edit: not new. Idk why I said new.) New conspiracy theory: the attacks
were allowed to happen (not intentionally caused, just allowed to happen, or
perhaps just not worked quite as hard to prevent) in order to get public
support for further government powers.

It's known that governments have had plans as to how to get support from a
tragedy if one happens. Is it that far fetched that preventing tragedies which
are more likely but have a benefit to them for the government, would be
considered at a somewhat lower priority than one which is less likely, but
does not have any side benefit for the government?

Now, I'm not claiming that this is the case, not really, but it is something
that comes to mind, and the most likely version of it does not seem that
absurd?

~~~
jusben1369
Is this really a new conspiracy theory? This is pretty much the same thing we
hear after any major terrorist attack.

~~~
drdeca
Yes, that's true. I suppose it isn't new.

I guess it's new in the sense that it was applied to a particular attack, but
that's not really a great reason to call it new. Good point.

However, I do think the minimal form of it I expressed in a way that seemed
more likely than most of the time I see it?

