
New Snowden Docs Indicate Scope of NSA Preparations for Cyber Battle - zmanian
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/new-snowden-docs-indicate-scope-of-nsa-preparations-for-cyber-battle-a-1013409.html
======
lawnchair_larry
Here's a story for you.

I'm not a party to any of this. I've done nothing wrong, I've never been
suspected of doing anything wrong, and I don't know anyone who has done
anything wrong. I don't even mean that in the sense of "I pissed off the wrong
people but technically haven't been charged." I mean that I am a vanilla,
average, 9-5 working man of no interest to anybody. My geographical location
is an accident of my birth. Even still, I wasn't accidentally born in a high-
conflict area, and my government is not at war. I'm a sysadmin at a legitimate
ISP and my job is to keep the internet up and running smoothly.

This agency has stalked me in my personal life, undermined my ability to trust
my friends attempting to connect with me on LinkedIn, and infected my family's
computer. They did this because they wanted to bypass legal channels and spy
on a customer who pays for services from my employer. Wait, no, they wanted
_the ability_ to _potentially_ spy on _future_ customers. Actually, that is
still not accurate - they wanted to spy on _everybody_ in case there was a
_potentially bad person_ interacting with a customer.

After seeing their complete disregard for anybody else, their immense
resources, and their extremely sophisticated exploits and backdoors - knowing
they will stop at nothing, and knowing that I was personally targeted - I'll
be damned if I can ever trust any electronic device I own ever again.

You all rationalize this by telling me that it "isn't surprising", and that I
don't live in the [USA,UK] and therefore I have no rights.

I just have one question.

Are you people even human?

[1][https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/09/14/nsa-
stellar/](https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/09/14/nsa-stellar/)

[2][https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/12/13/belgacom-
hack-...](https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/12/13/belgacom-hack-gchq-
inside-story/)

~~~
karmacondon
This agency gathered information on you, attempted to friend you on linkedin
and infected your family's computer.

I don't think any of those actions warrant accusations of inhumanity. I can
understand that it's disturbing to feel that you're being stalked, or even
just monitored. But it doesn't sound like anyone took action to intervene in
your private affairs or intentionally lead you to feel threatened. It's legal
and at least arguably moral to hire a private investigator to follow a private
citizen around, so long as they follow certain rules. Attempting to friend
someone on linkedin under false pretenses is also legal and arguably moral.
Infecting a computer with a virus is not legal as far as I know, but I think
the real concern there is the nature of the software and not it's existence.
As long as they did not harm, the morality of even infecting a computer is
questionable.

These people are spies, their job is to spy. To them at least, it isn't a
question of the rights granted to you by your citizenship status. It's a
tradeoff between the emotional discomfort that you may feel and their job
requirement to develop resources that will allow them to stop bad people from
doing bad things. I think they made the right decision. If influencing an
employee at an ISP can give them more insight into the capability and intent
of people they suspect to be up to no good, and the main cost is the distress
that said employee or employees will feel as a result of being spied upon,
then do it. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.

I understand that we disagree on that, and there is ample room for both sides
of the disagreement to be right or one of them to be utterly wrong. But I
don't think that either decision is inhumane in any way.

~~~
maximilian2
>Infecting a computer with a virus... As long as they did not harm, the
morality of even infecting a computer is questionable.

This is bullshit. Even if a virus doesn't intentionally harm, it does anyway
harm.

Connections will become very slow, because high priority is given to uploading
stuff from one's computer to nsa. User will get inexpicable blue screens or
exotic error messages that nobody can help to fix: asking for help in forums
will just bring annoying answers of "experts" suggesting to upgrade
Windows/Flash/HW/programs versions. Installation or execution of some programs
will be prevented, making computer usage a pain.

Infecting a computer is legally and morally a crime.

------
pa7ch
Looking at the comments in support of the NSA here makes me suspect an
astroturfing campaign is happening.

Edit: I should add that my suspicion came from noticing that the vast majority
of the comments when this was first posted seemed aligned in favor of the
NSA's mission.

It wasn't the presence of pro-NSA comments that was interesting but rather
that these opinions were the overwhelming majority. This is, of course, how
astroturfing becomes effective, it is not the rhetoric that is important but
the cognitive bias imparted by the facade of so many people falling to one
side of an issue.

This is of course, only a suspicion, but it seemed worth noting.

~~~
diminoten
There is absolutely no reason for the NSA to give a flying fuck about what you
or I think.

There just isn't, and it'd be a waste of resources to even attempt something
like this.

People do exist (I am one of them) who think the NSA is doing a nasty job that
isn't very appealing, but is absolutely necessary for me to be able to sleep
in my bed at night safely. They may not have the best guidance from the
government, but there are people who do believe they're doing the best they
can.

Why must there be a conspiratorial astroturfing campaign taking place? Why
can't there just be people who actually agree with some/most of what the NSA
has done, based on the laws that govern it?

~~~
benaiah
> Why must there be a conspiratorial astroturfing campaign taking place?

Regardless of how you feel about it, there _is_ a conspiratorial astroturfing
campaign taking place - it's a well documented NSA activity. Whether it
accounts for specific comments is impossible to say, but it does exist. Why
then is it so absurd to think that it may be in play?

~~~
diminoten
Why is it absurd? Because there's no evidence of it taking place. It's the
same reason we don't believe in unicorns.

~~~
smtddr
[https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/02/24/jtrig-
manipula...](https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/02/24/jtrig-
manipulation/)

EDIT: Added firstlook url per reply, originally pointed to
[https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140224/17054826340/new-s...](https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140224/17054826340/new-
snowden-doc-reveals-how-gchqnsa-use-internet-to-manipulate-deceive-destroy-
reputations.shtml)

...not really sure I see a substantial difference between the 2 articles, but
there you go.

~~~
diminoten
Why link to the blogspam and not the firstlook.org article it's sourced from?

Oh right, because it doesn't support what you're saying. Got it.

~~~
DanBC
Are you saying that GCHQ don't do it?

Or that GCHQ does do it, but because they're GCHQ and not NSA that it's
irrelevant?

Because now you have evidence that GCHQ does it you should allow the
possibility that NSA does it. The reason you don't have evidence that NSA does
it might be because NSA is a secret organistion.

~~~
diminoten
So Snowden decided to leak the GCHQ presentation, but chose not to show any of
the evidence he had that the NSA does it?

~~~
DanBC
Snowden did not gather everything. Maybe he just missed it? Or maybe GCHQ does
it but NSA doesn't? We know that other bits of the US government have
different levels of online presence so I'm not sure why you're so hostile to
the idea that NSA has people that disrupt online conversation about NSA.

~~~
diminoten
I for one try to only accuse folks of doing things I actually have evidence of
them doing, and I know this sounds crazy, but there's currently no evidence
the NSA is on HN astroturfing comments, so maybe we shouldn't pretend like we
know things we don't.

~~~
rhizome
_I for one try to only accuse folks of doing things I actually have evidence
of them doing_

That's not true.

------
pdknsk
There was a long interview with Snowden posted recently, which didn't make it
to the frontpage. I guess because of Snowden penalty on HN and Snowden
fatigue. Anyway, he kept repeating a point which is quite easy to understand
for the public I think.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8859606](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8859606)

 _And the reality is when it comes to cyber conflicts [...], we have more to
lose.

We spend more on research and development than these other countries, so we
shouldn’t be making the internet a more hostile, a more aggressive territory.
We should be cooling down the tensions, making it a more trusted environment,
making it a more secure environment, making it a more reliable environment,
because that’s the foundation of our economy and our future.

[...]

The concept there is that there’s not much value to us attacking Chinese
systems. We might take a few computers offline. We might take a factory
offline. We might steal secrets from a university research programs, and even
something high-tech. But how much more does the United States spend on
research and development than China does? Defending ourselves from internet-
based attacks, internet-originated attacks, is much, much more important than
our ability to launch attacks against similar targets in foreign countries
[...].

[...]

When you look at the problem of the U.S. prioritizing offense over defense,
imagine you have two bank vaults, the United States bank vault and the Bank of
China. But the U.S. bank vault is completely full. It goes all the way up to
the sky. And the Chinese bank vault or the Russian bank vault of the African
bank vault or whoever the adversary of the day is, theirs is only half full or
a quarter full or a tenth full.

But the U.S. wants to get into their bank vault. So what they do is they build
backdoors into every bank vault in the world. But the problem is their vault,
the U.S. bank vault, has the same backdoor. So while we’re sneaking over to
China and taking things out of their vault, they’re also sneaking over to the
United States and taking things out of our vault. And the problem is, because
our vault is full, we have so much more to lose. So in relative terms, we gain
much less from breaking into the vaults of others than we do from having
others break into our vaults._

~~~
ed
There's no reason to pick Offense vs. Defense any more than there is Social
Security vs. Education. It's just a question of budgeting. Why wouldn't we
invest in both?

~~~
pyre
In this situation, you can't pick both. The offensive measures we are
discussing exist by breaking the defensive measures. The problem is breaking
the defensive measures breaks not only _their_ defensive measures, but _ours_
as well. Hence Snowden's analogy to making a secret entrance to _all_ bank
vaults, even ours.

In this case, the idea is that the NSA will keep knowledge the secret door to
the bank vault to themselves, and we'll all be secure. The problem with this
is that other countries can inspect the bank vault and discover the secret
door for themselves, or steal said knowledge from the NSA via espionage. Now
our bank vault is just as exposed as theirs.

------
fidotron
To be fair here, the NSA should very well be doing these things, for the
purpose of attacking other states. The reason is very clear as the Russian
attacks on Estonia (
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_cyberattacks_on_Estonia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_cyberattacks_on_Estonia)
) demonstrate a clear need for defensive capability in this area, and where
you have defence you end up needing offence.

This persistent confusion between legitimate NSA operations such as preparing
to intercept communications of foreign governments and illegitimate such as
mass slurping of everyone's email merely serves to discredit the entire
privacy defending position, and in the long run will just play into the hands
of those that want to read everyone's email for nefarious purposes.

~~~
Afforess
Agreed. I think the Snowden revelations have harmed the NSA's reputation to
the point where most people on HN just assume NSA is a bond-level villain. The
NSA serves a purpose, they are meant to be prepared offensively and
defensively for the USA's security, which includes the internet. I have no
problems with the NSA's purpose and would prefer they continue to exist and
prepare against threats to the country.

I do believe the NSA overstepped their mandate in domestic surveillance, and
should be held accountable, but let's not forget that this world does have bad
guy's - plenty of nations would lose no sleep at night if they hurt America.

~~~
TheOsiris
precisely, and this is why I'm starting to think that snowden has - at least -
caused as much harm as good by his revelations. if he had stopped at revealing
the domestic surveillance he would be an undisputed hero/patriot. but with all
of these unnecessary leaks that does nothing but harm to national interest I
can understand how others might view him otherwise.

~~~
jallmann
Others have said as much. Here is a quote from William Binney, another NSA
whistleblower, on advice that he has for Snowden:

> I would tell him to steer away from anything that isn't a public service —
> like talking about the ability of the U.S. government to hack into other
> countries or other people is not a public service. So that's kind of
> compromising capabilities and sources and methods, basically. That's getting
> away from the public service that he did initially. And those would be the
> acts that people would charge him with as clearly treason.

The whole interview is a great read:
[http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/06/16/snowd...](http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/06/16/snowden-
whistleblower-nsa-officials-roundtable/2428809/)

~~~
nitrogen
The US public has a legitimate interest in knowing about NSA's hacking
abilities, because vulnerabilities used by the NSA abroad can just as easily
be used domestically by foreign or criminal attackers.

~~~
jallmann
Against a well-prepared adversary, a vulnerability can only be exploited once
-- a zero day. After disclosure, or evidence of an exploit in circulation,
such vulnerabilities become useless towards the agency's mandate, whether or
not you agree with that mandate. Realpolitik? Definitely.

------
Animats
Everything at the lowest levels needs to be tightened up now.

Buffer overflows in trusted code have to go. This means getting rid of the
languages with buffer overflow problems. Mostly C and C++. Fortunately we have
Go and Rust, plus all the semi-interpreted languages, now, and can do it.

We need something that runs Docker-like containers and, all the way down the
bare metal, has no unsafe code. We need dumber server boards, with BIOS and
NIC code that's simpler and well-understood. The big cloud companies, Amazon,
Facebook, and Google are already doing their own server boards.

Companies which put in "backdoors" should face felony criminal prosecution.
That doesn't happen by accident.

Latest CERT advisory: "Vulnerability Note VU#936356 Ceragon FiberAir IP-10
Microwave Bridge contains a hard-coded root password ... Ceragon FiberAir
IP-10 Microwave Bridges contain an _undocumented default root password_. The
root account can be accessed through ssh, telnet, command line interface, or
via HTTP. ... CERT/CC has attempted to contact the vendor prior to publication
without success."

All Ceragon customers should demand their money back, and their products
should be seized at US customs as supporting terrorism.

~~~
bhouston
One problem with most "interpreted languages" you cite as preferable is that
they rely on C/C++ run-times for now. This means these languages are only as
safe as the underlying C/C++ run-times and the core libraries they rely upon
(glibc and the like.)

We need to start to think of replacing underlying runtimes and core libraries
with Rust and Go-based alternatives (or similar) to make them safer. Ultra-
large goal and probably impossible in the near term, but it should be done.

~~~
Animats
It may not be that big a task. How much code do you really need to run a
container instance? If you could get an airtight Xen-like system, you might
not need much of an OS inside each container. Xen already does memory
allocation, CPU dispatching, I/O handling, timer handling, and message
passing, which is all an OS really needs.

Rust programs running on "libnative" do not, I think, use "libc" any more.

------
zmanian
There are a number of objectionable elements to the NSA foreign operations.

\- Mass surveillance of all humans is objectionable on human rights terms.

\- Attacks on civilian infrastructure. The NSA is executing military
operations against civilian infrastructure even in NATO countries.

It isn't conventional foreign policy or warfare for a military agency to be
actively and continuously attack the civilian cultural and economic
infrastructure in preparation for war.

~~~
yourad_io
Attacking the economic infrastructure in preparation of War has been the US'
m.o. since at least the 50's. Economic Hitmen, and what-not.

~~~
higherpurpose
Of _all_ countries? I doubt that. Many people don't seem to realize the
_scope_ is the main problem here, and they are equating spying on _one person_
in targetted surveillance, with spying on 4 billion people and saying "NSA has
already been doing that!". No they haven't. So stop confusing the message.

Another big problem is that NSA has started undermining crypto. Before 2001
you could maybe actually trust NSA that they're releasing crypto that is safe
because you thought they actually have an interest in "security". Not anymore.
Anything and everything NSA has touched now has to be considered corrupt.

------
jacquesm
Judging by the scope of the attack on Belgacom in 2011 that battle is already
underway, the surprise I guess should be that it is the allies attacking each
other. If China or North Korea would have made an attack like this it would be
trumpeted as an act of war, but because it is the UK with NSA assistance it's
downplayed as much as possible.

------
jakeogh
The premise that we need "beneolvient power" to "protect us" from "evil doers"
is the oldest trick in the book. If there is no threat, one will be generated.
Almost organically, it does not even take overt orginization. The players know
cui bono.

~~~
xnull2guest
_She has abstained from interference in the concerns of others, even when the
conflict has been for principles to which she clings, as to the last vital
drop that visits the heart. She has seen that probably for centuries to come,
all the contests of that Aceldama, the European World, will be contests
between inveterate power, and emerging right.

Wherever the standard of freedom and independence has been or shall be
unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she
goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to
the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only
of her own. She will recommend the general cause, by the countenance of her
voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example._ \- John Quincy Adams

It was until recently (the early 1900s) that the policy of the United States
to stay entirely out of any foreign affairs other than her own. It was
acknowledged that America could spread her virtues and values by being the
paragon example of them as inspiration to others to follow suit.

Today she holds the opposite view - that it is her unquestioned duty and
obligation to interfere everywhere with the justification and rationalization
that she seeks justice - and that discarding some of these principles for her
own people is necessary for this noble mission.

~~~
Rapzid
It's kinda odd that our politicians in the past used to be, for lack of better
words, poets. I have often wondered about this and wondered what has happened.

~~~
xnull1guest
This is sort of off topic, but it is amusing.

I would guess that it is a combination of:

\- A deemphasis of poetry and literary studies in the concept of being
educated and cultured

\- The rise of writing staff and PR professionals in the practice of engaging
with the public

\- The relative lack of importance writing has today compared to newer picture
and video delivery (media is message, etc)

\- Inherited nostalgia for forms associated with 'classic' art styles

------
Briguy2k
Speaking as a citizen, the problem with the US's newest brand of digital
weapons, is that they can be used on US population under the radar and w/o
killing anyone. This may justify legally their extended use for surveillance
unfortunately. The development of the atom bomb and chemical weapons had no
"convenient" use on the USs own citizens, and they clearly couldn't get away
with it. However, these weapons do, and they are being developed with all the
same force, purpose, and financial backing as the a-bomb and chemical weapons
were ~100 years ago.

~~~
JoachimS
Not only could use. These weapons are built using either weaknesses introduced
into civilian domestic systems, or found in domestic civilian systems and not
fixed. This means that the basic premise for this weapons created to protect
US citizens is to weaken their security.

------
squozzer
I won't pretend to know what's going on here or its implications. So far
humanity has lucked out considering our capacity for building some pretty
nasty weaponry. We'll probably go through a series of cyberwars before we come
to our senses.

I don't blame the NSA for trying to be ready to fight a cyberwar. Other
nations probably wouldn't stop their programs even if the US did. Our culture
isn't the only one infected with a sense of Manifest Destiny.

Where we might consider drawing the line begins with necessity. Deciding which
actions are necessary and which are gratuitous might prove difficult, assuming
we even know, which is why I find it hard to fault Snowden for leaking this
information.

As fearsome as the NSA sounds, certainly they have some limits. For instance,
why don't they just clean out everyone's bank accounts? Might pay their bills
for a few days anyway. But why haven't they gone after certain criminals? Many
shady operations keep their money in jurisdictions that probably can't compete
with our cyberwar capabilities. Maybe these operations enjoy the protection of
a powerful entity but probably not all of them do. And probably many
operations still use cash and couriers but the US and others seem to have
gotten better at tracking movements of people so it's doubtful such tactics
will remain viable forever.

Maybe in the end we have to somehow conquer the notion of distrust. Not sure
how it can be done except through telepathy and even then the transition to a
telepathic society will probably be full of misery.

------
benstein
How is this whistleblowing? What benefit do we as the public gain from this
knowledge?

~~~
moe
I would ask the other way round. Why should this knowledge be hidden from the
public?

~~~
EpicEng
The obvious answer is that it becomes much harder for the NSA (and related
entities) to do their job when their tactics and capabilities are known to the
world. And yes, this _is_ their job, and there's nothing wrong with it.
Domestic spying is something that needs to be reigned in and tightly
controlled, but to think that everyone should know everything is just naive
and shows little understanding of how the real world actually operates.

~~~
moe
_The obvious answer is that it becomes much harder for the NSA (and related
entities) to do their job when their tactics and capabilities are known to the
world._

Harder as in how?

That handwavy excuse gets thrown around a lot, I have yet to hear someone back
it up with anything tangible.

 _Domestic spying is something that needs to be reigned in and tightly
controlled_

Well, we tried with blind faith for a while. Turns out that didn't work all
too well.

So, how do you propose we control something that we are not allowed to know
anything about?

~~~
EpicEng
"Well, we tried with blind faith for a while. Turns out that didn't work all
too well.

So, how do you propose we control something that we are not allowed to know
anything about?"

Agreed, with the first sentence at least. Let's be real though; no incarnation
of oversight is going to have you and I involved directly, nor should it. You
cannot expect the populous to be sufficiently educated on the intricacies of
foreign policy and global threats.

So my proposal would be for the lawmakers to propose a better form of
oversight which includes strict provisions for surveillance, especially the
domestic variety. These provisions also cannot hamstring the NSA or the like;
there has to be balance.

The parent comes off as a proponent of opening up the floodgates. That's
ridiculous and it will never happen (nor should it). You cannot have a system
which A) allows for full disclosure, and B) does not weaken our ability to
defend ourselves.

~~~
bandushrew
"You cannot expect the populous to be sufficiently educated on the intricacies
of foreign policy and global threats. So my proposal would be for the
lawmakers to propose a better form of oversight which includes strict
provisions for surveillance, especially the domestic variety. These provisions
also cannot hamstring the NSA or the like; there has to be balance."

but then, if you and I (the "populous") aren't allowed to know what they are
trying to achieve, or how they are doing it, how on earth are we supposed to
have any faith in the oversight that "lawmakers" provide?

I cannot overstate how strongly I abhor the "you cannot expect the
populous..." type arguments when used to continue keeping them in the dark
about matters for which THEY HAVE ULTIMATE RESPONSIBIILITY.

if "the populous" is expected to select lawmakers based on the quality of the
job they do, then "the populous" sure as HELL needs to have the information on
the intricacies of foreign policy and global threats made available to them,
and the response that their lawmakers support.

------
thefreeman
The NSA should just leak documents showing all of the other governments doing
this stuff so we can move on from the Anti US/UK circle jerk. Seriously if you
think your government hasn't invested serious time and money in digital
subterfuge you are living in a dream world and need to wake up.

~~~
woah
Classic straw man. Many of the documents leaked have shown that our allies are
doing the same, usually with the NSA's help. Of non U.S. allies most countries
are too small to have serious programs, or are plainly doing much worse. I
suppose this is some sort of perverse defense of the NSA, but the fact is that
luckily most people would like to hold their government to a higher standard,
instead of saying "the other guys are worse". If more people had had your
attitude a few hundred years ago, we wouldn't even have democracy, as there
would have been plenty more brutal and totalitarian regimes to point to.

------
tete
What I find really frightening is where they write:

 _From a military perspective, surveillance of the Internet is merely "Phase
0" in the US digital war strategy._

[...]

 _This enables them to "control/destroy critical systems & networks at will
through pre-positioned accesses (laid in Phase 0)." Critical infrastructure is
considered by the agency to be anything that is important in keeping a society
running: energy, communications and transportation. The internal documents
state that the ultimate goal is "real time controlled escalation"._

This isn't about fighting terrorism. It's also not about the usual warfare
it's more like the infrastructure or a set of tools to control nearly every
other country or the planet or at least make sure that the US will always be
able to keep them from disagreeing.

------
tosser002
I can understand the support of Snowden for blowing the whistle on domestic
spying, but how is this defensible?

~~~
tlear
It does not. This stuff gives argument that Snowden went over to FSB long time
ago and that the whole thing is a Russian op a lot more weight.

~~~
username
No, it doesn't. Snowden isn't the one who's been releasing these documents;
the journalists are. For your claim to make any sense, you'd have to believe
Der Spiegel is secretly working for the Russians.

~~~
tlear
They can disclose it because they were given it. Do you think he did not know
this will get published sooner or later?

Also depth of Russian penetration of security services and media in Europe..
in many places it is quite complete. It would not actually be surprising at
all if Spiegel had someone working for FSB/GRU.

Having said that it is not 100% certainty. If he was not turned before the
disclosures then US whistleblower witchhunt that drove him into arms of FSB is
even worse because he really had no choice once US started hunting him.

------
ancarda
> the only law that applies is the survival of the fittest.

Is this such a problem? In a world where exploits are used to break
infrastructure, isn't the best solution simply to build increasingly more
secure code? If that won't solve the problem I don't know if legislation will.
Right now a determined hacker can harm a company via the internet (e.g. Sony).
Are laws really going to stop that from happening?

If not, please correct me. I know little about cyber warfare and would love to
know more.

~~~
CaveTech
Legislature can't prevent bad people from doing bad things. But it can prevent
good people from doing bad or ignorant things, and it provides a framework to
punish those who cause harm.

Every law can and does get broken, but that doesn't mean laws are useless.

~~~
throwaway349823
There are other ways to have an impact with laws than punish the aggressor.
Airplanes aren't safe because the pilot or mechanic gets punished when
something happens, it's because (very simplified) the airlines and
manufacturers do.

------
stickhandle
The last 2 articles I read were this one and the earlier piece on Google and
neural nets [1]. It's easy to connect the two, add the pervasive integration
of technology in our lives, mix in a healthy dose of paranoia --> see a SkyNet
future.

[1][https://medium.com/backchannel/google-search-will-be-your-
ne...](https://medium.com/backchannel/google-search-will-be-your-next-
brain-5207c26e4523)

------
junto
I'm pretty late to the party here but there are some fascinating parallels
between the USG's actions in the physical world, as in the digital one.

First to USG has made a concerted and successful attempts to place secret
digital strongholds and black sites across the globe, including some 'behind
the enemy lines' so to speak. In the physical world these are the equivalent
to CIA black sites and safe houses, from which you can attack and spy on the
enemy, feed in extra weaponry to partisans and rebels (similar to the CIA
Benghazi compound, sorry 'consulate', sorry 'embassy'.

The NSA has all these smart dangerous and arguably immoral minds employed to
defend the digital borders of the US. But in truth these minds are busier
establishing secret pathways through the digital trenchlines in order to have
a definive and effective advantage when the cyberwar comes (which of course
they are actively encouraging to validate their position, historical actions
and future funding).

At the same time they are making a concerted effort to make sure that the
security protocols everyone uses are undermined and backdoored. In effect they
are making sure that the digital nuclear weapons held by their enemies aren't
going to get in the air when the time comes.

Through strong encryption we could make sure that we have the digital
equivalent of mutually assured security, but as ever the US isn't interested
in this, because the reality is that the military industrial compound aims to
make billions of dollars from the industry.

In a world where all communications and hardware devices were secure, they
wouldn't make any money. A secure, stable and safe world just isn't
profitable.

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amirmc
At best this seems like an arms race but at worst, there are actually battles
being fought (of a kind). I wonder what the digital equivalent of a nuke would
be such that govts decide that diplomacy is better. Some kind of Digitally
Affected Mutual Destruction (DAMD).

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philip1209
Domestic surveillance was controversial and surprising. Is a spy agency
preparing ways to attack and cripple foreign infrastructure that unexpected or
contentious?

~~~
Cakez0r
> Is a spy agency preparing ways to attack and cripple foreign infrastructure
> that unexpected or contentious?

In light of current revelations, it may or may not be all that surprising.
Surprising or not though, it is most definitely contentious!

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ajcarpy2005
How should NSA spying figure into the public's view of Obama's efforts to help
municipalities build out competitively priced broadband networks?

~~~
stefantalpalaru
Add some legal pot and it will all be forgiven and forgotten.

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SCHiM
One thing to be said about the offence vs defence side of this story is that
the adage the best defence is a good offence definitively applies here. It's
so much easier to attack another system than defend your own. It's inherent to
the way systems are set up:

A computer system has many services, programs and tasks running on it. Only
one of these needs to contain a flaw for a system to be vulnerable, obviously
this means that on a secure system everything must be perfect, for 1 flaw
compromises everything.

Therefore I don't find it strange that the NSA allocates the resources it does
to research and expand it's offensive capabilities, since trying to defend the
systems of the US is probably a lost cause. The question remains if this is
ethical and/or legitimate. Being a non us-citizen I'm certainly opposed to the
practises of weakening standards and harvesting/exploiting services on the
internet.

I also find the double-speak of the US government deplorable, on the one hand
we have the government declaring that in many ways a cyber-attack will, and
can, be reacted upon as if it were a conventional attack. And on the other
hand we have the US government attacking and targeting civilians (Belgacom
Sysadmins). I fail to see how attacks against the US can be labelled as a
conventional attack, but that attacks from the US against civilians are
apparently OK.

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kgarten
seems to me a lot of people flaged the story (443 points, 1 day ago, on page 3
with a couple of stories with 200 points also 1 day ago) ... wondering why
_conspiracy theories_ ;)

------
UhUhUhUh
There is also this very American reassuring belief that quantity will somehow
take you to quality.

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qatester
For me the only bunch of people who wants and loves to start war is USA
government, note I am not saying americans, I am saying US government. Why
should you prepare if you dont have intention of war? "defense", from whom?
from people where you started war? directly with Afghanistan, Iraq and some
others, indirectly with Syria, even with Russia (started economically) and
many others where they got governments with bribes. Now preparing for D war.
Every war started with flag of "Demo hypocracy", defense and some other pseudo
defensive words, reality is USA starts war and government fuckingly loves when
people die. Probably you are going to downvote, thats because you didnt lost
any of your brother, sister or even relatives and friends in such wars which
just started because they wanted more oil and more money.

