

Google Engineer Wins NSA Award, Then Says NSA Should Be “Abolished” - SingleFounderCo
http://www.tikkun.org/tikkundaily/2013/07/25/google-engineer-wins-nsa-award-says-id-rather-have-it-abolished-than-persist-in-its-current-form/
Dr. Joesph Bonner&#x27;s quote:<p>I’d rather have it abolished than persist in its current form. I think there’s a question about whether it’s possible to reform the NSA into something that’s more reasonable…But my feeling based on what I’ve read is that I don’t want to live in a country with an organization like the NSA is right now.
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pixie_
Is World War II so far away that everyone forgets how fucked up the entire
world can become - and it doesn't take long for it all to go to hell either.
The NSA has to get their shit together, but we still need real
strategical/tactical intelligence inside and outside of the US. So when it
does happen (and it will eventually happen) we're prepared not to lose our
country, or even the world to the super nuclear powered genetically modified
nazi cyborgs.

~~~
derefr
A country starts a war, fundamentally, when they see a resource (land; oil;
people) that they think they can claim without destroying its value in the
process. However, all the technologies we've developed since WWII that make us
more efficient at mass-killing (chemical/biological weapons et al) are
politically-blind; Anthrax will infect the conqueror as much as the conquered.
The only real advance we've made in the "things that will kill the enemy but
leave you alone to sit in their houses and farm their land" field, in the last
70 years, are drones--and, tactically-speaking, they haven't increased the
_difficulty_ of war much for the side of the invaded, just made waging a war
_safer_ for the invader. So, it's not any _easier_ to win a war against a
nation at technological parity with your own than it was 70 years ago.

On the other hand, over the last 50 years, besides there having been built
within every world-leader a strong awareness of the "final solution" (nukes)
available to the major powers to put down any sufficient threat, a true global
trade economy has also emerged, with strong economic interdependence between
the major powers (China holding US debt &c). Every power is now just as much
beholden, economically, to each other power, as if they were an export colony;
the US going to war with China, for example, would be cutting off one's nose
to spite one's face in the same way that Britain choosing, without
provocation, to start warring with America in 1775 would have been. In this
situation, I don't see much chance of a major power instigating an empire-
building war.

Also, unlike in WWI, a country that _isn 't_ a major power doesn't have the
political weight to instigate a major war--nobody will follow it into battle.
Attacking a country in a union with a major power is implicitly attacking that
power, and military strategists now treat it that way, instead of thinking
they can "just" take the country. Instead, we merely see individual unallied
states getting nasty to their unallied neighbors--free radicals bumping into
one-another--and having to be calmed down by some third party. I would guess
future "wars" all across the globe will look more like the US's dealings in
Afghanistan/Iraq than it will like some sort of confrontation between NATO and
some new Axis.

Another way to put it, is that national political borders across much of the
globe have basically annealed down to a rest-state. The resignation to this
fact is what seems to have spurred the EU into existence; if you can't invade
your neighbor any more, you may as well cooperate and trade. I see this sort
of idea spreading (though perhaps without the shared monetary policy aspect,
which doesn't seem to be working out too well) as more regions of the world
"settle", leaving basically four or five pretty-similar political bodies in a
de-facto world-government union, and individual break-away states here or
there which are filled up with "peacekeeping forces" by the one or another of
the powers.

I think this logic is pretty common to people who don't have a dystopian view
of the future. Do you see some major flaw in it?

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greedo
Take a look at how interconnected the economies of the major combatants in WW1
were. You might be surprised. Even rational actors can be propelled into
conflict that seems easily avoidable.

And if you don't think small countries can drag larger ones into war, take a
good look at the Korean peninsula. If that goes pear shaped, it could easily
drag the US into a war with China.

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ihsw
How do you abolish something that the entirety of the federal and state
governments rely upon? Intelligence resources are being pooled to the NSA, and
cyber-intelligence reports are being sourced wholly from the NSA. They're the
single most powerful intelligence agency in the US, and there's absolutely no
sign of it slowing down.

If there's anything that Obama shall be remembered for, it's that under his
administration there was an _astronomical_ consolidation of power. The DHS has
progressively been getting more and more involved in pulling the strings of
all levels of law enforcement.

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mullingitover
In hindsight, it's probably telling that Obama said he was heavily inspired by
Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln vastly consolidated federal power during his
presidency, and had some dubious issues with the Constitution as well.

~~~
bishnu
"some dubious issues with the Constitution as well."

Is there a President this is not true for?

~~~
Zigurd
Carter?

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8ig8
The winning engineer is currently doing an AMA on Reddit:

[http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1j6qo4/i_am_joseph_bon...](http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1j6qo4/i_am_joseph_bonneau_2013_nsa_award_winner_for/)

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znowi
This guy has the balls. Kudos, Mr Bonneau.

I'm curious if he will get a private reprimand from Google execs for
unpleasant commentary on their partner :)

~~~
proexploit
I honestly don't understand people's opinion around this. I'm not trying to
refute your comment, just understand and see if I missed something. As far as
I have read, Google complies with NSA letters (which seems to be required by
law, although perhaps not a favorable one) and PRISM is said to give the NSA
additional direct access (but I haven't seen any indication of this being
proved or confirmed to be known to the companies involved). Has there been
some information proving Google and other companies are actually working with
the NSA or is it simply based on the idea that you think it might be likely
and they'd deny it either way (if they confirm it, they work with the NSA and
if they deny it, they work with the NSA).

I'm not suggesting blindly trusting any company or person but do we have
actual knowledge in this subject I missed or simply opinions?

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MrKurtz
I think he's being cute. For me this quote sums up what PRISM is really about:

"Nobody wants a box in their network...[Companies often] find ways to give
tools to minimize disclosures, to protect users, to keep the government off
the premises, and to come to some reasonable compromise on the capabilities."

[http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57593538-38/how-
the-u.s-fo...](http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57593538-38/how-
the-u.s-forces-net-firms-to-cooperate-on-surveillance/)

Basically: in order to prevent the feds from installing boxes on their
networks companies offer to do their own interception, which in my opinion is
the far better alternative. "Direct access" isn't accurate.

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bgentry
tikkun.org seems to be down. Here's the Google cache:
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://www.tikkun.org/tikkundaily/2013/07/25/google-
engineer-wins-nsa-award-says-id-rather-have-it-abolished-than-persist-in-its-
current-form/&strip=1)

Here's the blog post from the Google Engineer (Joseph Bonneau) about accepting
the award: [http://www.lightbluetouchpaper.org/2013/07/19/nsa-award-
for-...](http://www.lightbluetouchpaper.org/2013/07/19/nsa-award-for-best-
scientific-cybersecurity-paper/)

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ChrisAntaki
>> Like many in the community of cryptographers and security engineers, I’m
sad that we haven’t better informed the public about the inherent dangers and
questionable utility of mass surveillance.

Thought provoking.

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dobbsbob
Is this guy a google engineer because he thanks the people at Yahoo in his
blog. Not that it matters, just happy he told them to go fuck themselves while
accepting the award

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northwest
> Google Engineer Wins NSA Award, Then Says NSA Should Be “Abolished”

That's one thing. Now make these 2 events happen in the opposite order.

;-)

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agilebyte
The NSA announcement is here:
[http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/press_room/2013/2013_sos_comp...](http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/press_room/2013/2013_sos_competition.shtml)

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Daniel_Newby
This is silly coming from a company whose trusted computing base was nearly
eaten by China. If any company needs the tightest possible OODA loop w.r.t.
cyber-threats, it is Google.

There has been a lot of utter horseshit about how the NSA's activities will
make Europeans distrust American cloud computing. Well the NSA is _nothing_
compared to the Communist Party espionage organizations.

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pvdm
>trusted computing base was nearly eaten by China

Citation ?

~~~
Daniel_Newby
[http://news.cnet.com/8301-27080_3-10434721-245.html](http://news.cnet.com/8301-27080_3-10434721-245.html)

