

Live on C-SPAN now: NSA Chief Testifies at Cybersecurity Hearing - gravitronic
http://www.c-spanvideo.org/event/220078

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cwilson
This is like watching a super awkward scene in a movie or TV show that just
won't end.

The word "cyber" has been applied to every noun, and I've apparently been out
of the loop on terms like "techno-boondoggle".

This is just a little terrifying.

~~~
sliverstorm
What about cybernouns? Do we have those yet?

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pvnick
Cyberhope, cyberchange, etc

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fungi
im !american so really not backing hope and change here... but should not
you/we be directing our vitriol in a bipartisan fashion?

with regards to the mass expansion of surveillance, shit seems pretty fucked
up across the political divide.

~~~
yen223
It's really funny. Civil liberties seem to be the one thing that both
Democrats and Republicans can agree is worth protecting, but both Democrat and
Republican _politicians_ tend to give bipartisan support towards programs that
infringe on them.

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eightyone
In this hearing there has been so much smearing in reguards to Snowden's
educational background. There are plenty of smart people who didn't graduate
from high school.

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jacoblyles
It may be true that people without traditional education credentials are
likely to be less conformist/more likely to cause trouble.

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zxcdw
Whether that so-called "trouble" is good or bad and for whom is another thing,
which can be quite subjective even.

Problems at school aren't necessarily an indicator of a failure. There are
many examples of bad school performance which doesn't result in bad
performance in whatever the person pursues. As far as I am aware, even
Einstein didn't really like being in school and had problems concentrating,
yet his scientific achievements are undeniabe.

Hence the problem with focusing on educational background is that it gives the
false impression that bad background -> bad person. What Snowden did is, as
far as I am aware, considered an extremely good thing when it comes to privacy
of US and non-US citizens alike. So again, Snowdens lack of educational
background could be viewed in similar light that of those others who haven't
been hindered by the lack of school performance in the past(and in the
future).

I claim that school and educational performance doesn't mean a shit in
individual basis(as in case of Snowden, he's an individual after all),
although it might mean when one evaluates people collectively as a group. And
even then exceptional individuals come up.

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dizzystar
_As far as I am aware, even Einstein didn 't really like being in school and
had problems concentrating, yet his scientific achievements are undeniabe._

Not sure about that:
[http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2004/06/23/1115185.ht...](http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2004/06/23/1115185.htm)

~~~
zxcdw
He certainly excelled in many scientific subjects but the rest didn't interest
him.

I don't have anything to cite this with(apart from knowing that there's talk
about this in Wikipedia) due to time constraints right now, but many very well
developed individuals get bored at school because the education is outright
boring for them, the rest are so far behind to them that they are forced to
deal with stuff which they already excell at very well and thus they get
bored. I think this is how people like Einstein must have felt, and there are
many cases of this happening all the time.

People simply are different, others learn faster and are more developed than
others, and for many of those the slower pace of education feels outright
boring and demotivational -- it's not the lack of intelligence, willingness or
ability to learn but rather the school system itself.

Such people are among school dropouts for sure. I too dropped vocational
school because of the mere reason that I'd rather study math and compsci on my
own than about metal surfaces and lubricants with a bunch of retards. Yet, I
have "failed" the most basic secondary education in this country. Yay, what a
failure with tons of willingness to learn and understand. This is partly the
reason why I hate it when people judice others based on their education, there
are cases where it tells absolutely nothing about the person's ability and
motivation to learn when the subjects match it.

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whiddershins
Oh, this is awesome: Keith Alexander explaining how what we really should do
is let the NSA have a database that stores absolutely everything, and then
they promise only to search through it when it is "reasonable."

~~~
jsonne
See, I'm personally of the same opinion. I couldn't figure it out, but then it
hit me. It's the same line of logic that the military uses in their security
clearances. Back in the day I used to work for a JAG lawyer, and have several
friends that are/were in the military. So I do have some knowledge of the
matter.

The way they do things is this. There's clearance and then there's need to
know. So for instance one of my friends worked in network IT for the military.
So had access to computers with "top secret" information on them. However, he
wasn't allowed to access any of the information on the computers. Simply to
use them for his job. Sound familiar to what the NSA is saying?

If there's other people on here that are closer to the military than I was
please correct me, but it all starts to make "sense" when you think about it
that way. I'm not saying it's right, in fact I think this system is likely
problematic in a non military setting (and perhaps even within one as well)

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ismarc
I was in the military, with a clearance. You describe it reasonably well. A
clearance means you can have access, if needed. I am completely against
collection of information as they are doing because of time. A warrant gives
them access to data from all time. This is a departure from current warrants
that allow them to collect and examine data starting now (or as far back as it
was stored by external parties). It's the difference between getting a warrant
to wiretap a phone and getting a warrant to listen to every phone call ever
made with a phone. In my mind, a warrant says we have have reasonable
suspicion to collect more information as it stands right now, not reasonable
suspicion to examine past behavior. Then again, I believe that the U.S.'s
definition of rights are great and should be extended to all humans by the
U.S., not just citizens or those on U.S. soil.

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macmac
I find it deeply disturbing that Sen Mikulski clearly does not understand the
meaning of the words she is reading.

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Zirro
Since I am unable to access the stream at this time, in which way is her lack
of understanding noticeable?

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darxius
Mostly the words she's using and how she seems to stumble over them. Every
single noun has been affixed with "cyber" and I keep hearing the word
"technoboondoggle". I have no clue what that is.

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polarix
Every time she says "protect the american people from" I keep filling in "the
NSA and other overreaching government agencies" in my head.

This is really an incredible spectacle of audacity.

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whiddershins
Keith Alexander is a true politician, regardless of his title. When asked a
question "could these powers be used in this way" answered the question he
wanted to answer "we only use the power in this way."

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asperous
He also dodged the question "can you get Google contacts?" by rambling off.
And then he apologized and said he was afraid he'd reveal something important
and that he'd answer the question in a private non-public meeting.

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narrator
It's as if all the important decisions have already been made and they are
just going through the motions.

~~~
willurd
Yeah. They are all reading from scripts. "This is something that we take
_looks down at script_ very seriously." Also, it appears that they were all
privy to what each other was going to say before the hearing. " _looks down at
script_ As you said ..." Does that disturb anyone else?

~~~
betterunix
It is already known that the NSA chief received the questions Sen. Wyden
planned to ask him _in advance_ , to give him time to prepare a response, a
few months ago. This is said as if it is business as usual (and used to paint
him in a worse light, since he lied before Congress after being given time to
plan his answers), and I have no reason to think it is not.

Yet another reason to vote third party.

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declan
It was a clever move by Wyden to try to catch him in a perjury trap.

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betterunix
Maybe so, but the fact that nobody even seemed surprised that someone would be
sent questions in advance of their appearance before Congress is what concerns
me. This seems to be a normal, expected thing that happens when powerful
people are questioned by Congress -- the whole thing is just for show. If you
are going to email your questions to the person in advance, you might as well
just have them email their responses.

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willurd
I don't know what I find more disturbing: the complete and utter disregard for
the rule of law by our elected and appointed officials, or the fact that some
people find no fault with that.

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rdl
The depressing thing is Durbin wasn't smart enough to articulate it, but when
he tried to ask "do you collect metadata or other data about non-telephone
communications", GEN Alexander did a great job of misdirecting to being about
court orders and getting access to a specific individual's information.

Knowing if metadata is collected broadly, and what metadata is collected, is
key. There's probably no chance of that in unclassified congressional
hearings; only via leaks.

We know they collect credit cards and some other records (air travel and
customs/immigration for sure, and probably hotels and DMV and other government
records, what else).

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rdl
Oregon's senators are far better than I reasonably would have expected. Watch
Senator Merkley question at 1:21 "exactly how did you get from these
restrictions to collecting EVERYTHING, including my god-damn cellphone right
here" (or something more polite, possibly). GEN Alexander decides to defer to
the Feinstein classified hearing; i.e. not answering, by saying, "let me make
sure I get this exactly right, because it is a complex area."

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WestCoastJustin
Mikulski keeps calling "identity theft" war. This is a crime, it is not an act
of war!

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laumars
They're talking about their battle against cyber-crime as war - which is a
reasonable statement to make. It's just the same as when governments and new
agencies talk about the "war on drugs" etc.

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venomsnake
That kinda makes me want to see everyone that uses that rhetoric from the
president downwards sent to base camp and then few tours of duty to
Afghanistan to see exactly what war is.

Then they probably would use something softer.

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laumars
I don't particularly like that particular symbolism either, but I do think
you're overstating things somewhat as the term is clearly meant as a metaphor
rather than a literal analogy.

It's not even as if they're glorifying nor trivialising real life war. It's
just an expression.

However I do agree with you (and the OP) that the term was clearly picked
because it has more impact than just saying "our project to cut down on _x_ "

But anyway, I'm sure there's more relevant things we can discuss on this topic
than arguing the justification for one word. :)

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MichaelGG
"Protect our domains .gov .mil .com" \-- so it's all about DNS attacks?

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rdl
I guess I intellectually knew, but didn't fully appreciate, just how _old_ all
of those people are. Working in Silicon Valley, I'm used to seeing 20-45 year
olds in lots of useful roles. Everyone in that room seemed to be late-40s or
older (the military people were the youngest).

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bilbo0s
Well...

No offense...

but I wouldn't want the younger crowd sitting around deciding when to launch a
nuke.

It's fine to put us in charge of the "like" buttons, Farmville tractors, or a
web pages like Yahoo or Facebook. But some things are a bit more important.

It's fine to have younger aids or advisers. Probably good to have youthful
energy INFORM certain decisions. Not so sure it's a good idea, however, to
have youthful energy MAKING certain decisions.

And I say that, I guess, as part of what's considered the "younger crowd".

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nullc
There is also a difference between not having younger people (like, ahem,
'30') in charge vs not even having them as part of the discussion at all.
Experience has value, so does a diversity of backgrounds.

~~~
JackpotDen
I really want artists to decide solutions to my power and infrastructure
problems.

~~~
rdl
Now you get lawyers and a social worker doing so! (well, after they spent ~30
years in Washington mainly fundraising).

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plainhold
The conclusion seems to be that in order for the NSA chief to answer any
interesting questions they have to declassify information. Which the NSA chief
believes is a good idea as long as it doesn't harm the american people. What
pieces of information they should declassify and make available to the public
will be discussed in the closed hearing.

Edit: Spelling

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ihsw
Sounds like we're going to see CISPA and CALEA-2 pass, especially with such a
large emphasis on public-private partnerships and 'embedding' security
methodologies/frameworks into products and services.

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whiddershins
Mikulski has no idea what she's saying.

~~~
macmac
Nope. Oddly enough it comes across as even more bizarre because she appears
reach a level of semi consciousness during the passages where she talks about
her apparently highly competent colleagues.

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willurd
A notable quote from our public servants:

"The executive order, as you know, is this administration's effort after an
attempt to get legislation last year."

Let that soak in for a bit.

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masoninthesis
A 65 year old lady starts using words like Techno-boondoggles, and everyone
bought it. It's worse than I thought.

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MarkHarmon
What the heck is a techno boondoggle? What a hillbilly sounding term that only
makes me cringe at what kind things the US government is going to cook up for
us cyber pros, lol.

~~~
JackpotDen
>techno boondoggle

A government organisation that wastes money making a piece of technology.

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jemka
"Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain." -Wizard of Oz

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julespitt
Hope someone out there will post a Youtube link once it's over, or something
comparable - can't seem to access it at all.

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dmead
"oh woops, NIST has never seen 215 billion. thats' the defense guys"

is this real life?

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xegroeg
Who is the woman behind Keith Alexander passing him notes?

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cinquemb
This is pretty much a circle jerk…

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mtgx
Yeah. They probably made it before the one _against_ NSA starts, to show that
what NSA is doing is useful.

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cinquemb
"We want the nation to know that we are being transparent. For example, We
don't look into what is going into Wall St." \- Gen. Alexander

Note to "Terrorists": go IPO :P

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gravitronic
Lol - don't worry citizens we're only monitoring you, not banks or big
business.

~~~
jivatmanx
Reminds me how the FBI will only do sting operations to illiterate, 16 year
old Somali immigrants. Nobody every sting ops bankers with insider
information, even though doing this even occasionally would drastically reduce
it.

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milin
Facepalm! Does she even know what she is talking about?

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contingencies
Key quotes: "Techno-boondoggles" "The government is very good at spending
money" "Protect our domains: .mil, .gov and .com" "This is a committee that is
loaded with talent!" "Rarely has a committee had so much talent!" "We are in a
cyberwar every day. Every time someone steals our identity." "...continue to
warn us against 'cyber', as a continuous threat." "I bring to your attention,
the President's budget document" "The President has asked congress for 13
billion dollars in order to execute the cybersecurity strategy" "Protecting
the taxpayer, in their role as both citizen and taxpayer." General Alexander
introduced @ 8:00. General Alexander begins @ 13:30. General Alexander quotes:
"So this is a bright future that we have! But it's complicated by
cyberespionage, by cyberhacking..." Interesting @ 18:30 .. General Alexander
mentions operating lawfully and the chairwoman's evil knowing grin is filmed.

~~~
willurd
I was wondering if anyone else noticed the chairwoman's grin when General
Alexander talked about operating lawfully. Made me sick. The whole charade
made me sick...

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WestCoastJustin
FYI: interesting discussions happening at 45:00+ minutes. Talking about
Snowden's education and training, phone tapping and investigation, various
authorities, etc. Interesting that they keep asking Alexander about what he
thinks he is allowed to do or is doing?!

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davemaya
Grand-ma Milkuski seems to have a good understanding of what she is talking
about...

