
How Snowden's Disclosures Made All Our Data Safer - zerognowl
https://pardonsnowden.org/news/snowden-effect-on-tech
======
readhn
On a personal level the disclosure was that "little additional push" (a wake
up call) that made me abandon use of main Google services (email and voice). I
advocated my close friends and associates to do the same and some of them are
following the lead.

~~~
theGimp
[edit: the downvotes aren't warranted...]

Aren't email and phone calls monitored anyhow since they're not encrypted (by
default)? Why wouldn't the three-letter agency capture all email traffic if it
can?

~~~
DavideNL
If the three-letter agency would be the only one invading our privacy that
would be a lot better already;

Of course this is not the case, many companies are invading our privacy for
commercial reasons, they sell our personal data for their own financial profit
(Google, Linkedin, Facebook, etc.)

~~~
oldmanjay
The companies that publish policies and give you control over the "invasion"
of privacy, up to and including not interacting with them. The saintly three-
letter agencies simply consider all the information their right to take. I
have a hard time seeing your point of view in light of that reality.

~~~
DavideNL
what i meant was that i agree with what @readhn said;

i think many people (around me) have become more privacy aware because of
Snowdens disclosures, which i think is a good development, even though no
matter how hard they try they are still not protected, and probably never will
be, from three-letter agencies collecting their data...

------
Zigurd
The most important impact will be difficult to gauge: The US and Five Eyes
have built a world-spanning interlocking hierarchy of lords and vassals of
surveillance. This means none of the important governments in the world has
true autonomy in decision-making, without their decisions being anticipated
and influenced by the US and its closest allies.

Security efforts will get serious if state actors decide to try to escape this
web.

------
HugoDaniel
It would be nice to see how companies like
google/twitter/facebook/apple/microsoft/etc got negatively affected by these
disclosures. Probably by checking usage drop or some other relevant metrics.

I know a few people (non it related) that dropped gmail.

~~~
erentz
On a technical front it has influenced their hardware decisions, forcing
adoption for example of MACSec, adding some minor capital cost. Mostly though
the cost has been in the resulting data sovereignty laws forcing them to set
up sovereign clouds in places like Germany, UK, Canada, etc. I can tell you
this makes a real mess of things - you can't share your management
infrastructure or anything across the infrastructures. In Germany you are
using remote hands to do everything because they have to be Germans. Etc.

~~~
late2part
My understanding based on actual reports from people is that the companies you
speak of did not go to MACSEC, but did start doing host-to-host IPSEC, as well
as L1 AES256 encryption (not macsec).

Agreed with the balkanization of the clouds/infrastructure.

------
jamisteven
The reality is even if they pardon him, the guy will never be safe in his home
country. Thousands of so called "patriots" believe this man is a traitor. Very
sad especially considering what little has changed since the leak.

~~~
AdmiralAsshat
Thousands believe that Dick Cheney is guilty of war crimes, but as far as I
know, no one has tried to kill him yet.

I wouldn't completely rule out the idea that someone might take a shot at
Snowden were he to return, but at the same time I doubt that the vast majority
of people who label him a "traitor" feel strongly enough about it to
personally try to kill him.

~~~
0xFFC
You are wrong. Those two are completely different. People who believes Cheney
is war criminal are mostly liberal, non violent side of country.

But the other side is nothing like that.

~~~
optimuspaul
it's not fair to either side to generalize like that. Also, we're all Liberals
in the US, just different flavors of it.

~~~
ionised
The problem with that statement is a lot of Americans would be foaming at the
mouth if you labelled them a liberal due to a severe misundertanding of the
meanings of words like 'liberal', 'progressive', 'communist', 'socialist'.

~~~
optimuspaul
so help me in fixing that or we'll end up with another literally here :)

~~~
ionised
I'm not saying your understanding is wrong, but theirs.

------
readhn
It has not made our data safer - rather it confirmed that our data "is not
safe" anymore!!

Snowden confirmed that we have 0 (zero) privacy and that government has
unrestricted access to all of your personal data, and if needed that data
could be "pulled" and used against you.

~~~
readhn
Anyone does not agree? If you are a person of interest, Do you think
government would not use an opportunity to fabricate evidence against a
citizen using collected data?

~~~
return0
Our upvotes are being tracked as well

------
api
In my experience they caused people to get slightly more serious about
security, but the effect was minimal beyond crypto heads and maybe enterprise
users.

UX continues to dominate all other market factors in computing by a huge
margin.

~~~
apeace
Would Whatsapp and Facebook Chat been end-to-end encrypted had it not been for
the Snowden leaks? It's hard to say. But personally I believe it wouldn't have
happened if the public perception of security had not been altered by his
leaks.

Another example that affects billions: after the Snowden leaks, Google
scrambled to encrypt their intra-datacenter traffic. Before they did so, those
billions of end-users would get the green padlock when visiting Gmail, only to
have their data snooped as it travelled over Google-owned dark fiber.

You are right that UX still dominates all other factors. But I think post-
Snowden, there have been many significant improvements to security that affect
billions of people.

~~~
wruza
If you dig into security world details, you'll see that Whatsapp's is not even
considered as a competitor. They could just claim they're now encrypted
without actually doing anything to get the same total effect.

Today's encryption and security are not features, these are marketing tags
like these "without chlorine" on salt packs. Thanks to guess who?

------
oconnore
[quickly] Reading through:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_surveillance_disclosure...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_surveillance_disclosures_\(2013%E2%80%93present\))

If you say that disclosing surveillance on US citizens was ok, how do you
explain these leaks:

* """The Norwegian Intelligence Service (NIS), which cooperates with the NSA, has gained access to Russian targets in the Kola Peninsula and other civilian targets. In general, the NIS provides information to the NSA about "Politicians", "Energy" and "Armament"."""

* """In France, the NSA targeted people belonging to the worlds of business, politics or French state administration."""

* """the NSA had been monitoring telephone conversations of 35 world leaders"""

* """In an effort codenamed GENIE, computer specialists can control foreign computer networks using "covert implants," a form of remotely transmitted malware on tens of thousands of devices annually."""

* """According to Edward Snowden, the NSA has established secret intelligence partnerships with many Western governments."""

* """revealed NSA spying on multiple diplomatic missions of the European Union (EU) and the United Nations Headquarters in New York."""

How are these matters relevant to the citizens of the United States? Aren't
these things exactly what spy agencies are supposed to do? Why should Snowden
get a pardon for disrupting normal intelligence work?

~~~
DiabloD3
Because their versions of the NSA spy on Americans doing the same things we do
_for_ them, and then trade the information.

Their NSA spies on us, our NSA spies on them, they trade to subvert their
local laws.

That is maybe the most important disclosure that Snowden helped make happen.

~~~
oconnore
> their versions of the NSA spy on Americans doing the same things we do for
> them, and then trade the information.

Disclosing the things I listed is not required to tell us that.

~~~
EdHominem
Actually, it is. We've had whistleblowers before who tried to censor what they
told us and it didn't have half the impact. As long as the leadership of the
NSA keeps treasonously lying, _all_ leaks are necessary and thus justified.

~~~
oconnore
Whisleblower protections typically don't have clauses that protect dumping a
bunch of juicy, exciting tidbits so that people pay attention. You're
informing the public of what they need to know, not making a Jason Bourne
movie.

~~~
EdHominem
In this case Snowden was legally required to refuse and report illegal orders.
He knew the leaders were well aware of their infractions and wouldn't stop, so
he couldn't just report the abuse internally.

Unfortunately, dumping juicy tidbits is the only way to get the attention
needed to change things. The bad guys are spending our money lying to our
politicians about it. Without showing them to be liars again and again (with
the release) of these tidbits, they'd simply spin their way out of it.

------
smkellat
Why do we always assume that the NSA (including its allies) is the only bad
guy to worry about?

------
vaadu
Snowden's revelations about domestic spying made the US safer. Snowden's
revelations about non-domestic spying made the US weaker.

If all he'd done was the first he should be pardoned. Because he did the
second he should get life without parole.

~~~
gribbly
I've never understood patriotism, what is that make you identify with a piece
of the earth's surface which has due to haphazard historical events fallen
under a particular governance.

~~~
daveFNbuck
Wanting the country you live in to be safer and stronger against outside
threats is not patriotism. It's just basic self-interest. Even the least
patriotic people generally prefer not to be murdered by terrorists.

~~~
gribbly
>Even the least patriotic people generally prefer not to be murdered by
terrorists.

What exactly in Snowdens leaks would increase the chance of terrorist attacks
on the US ?

~~~
daveFNbuck
I didn't say they would, but I think that the person you're accusing of
patriotism did.

------
sickbeard
This is nothing but a propaganda piece with some nice graphics. How exactly
has it made all our data safer?

~~~
milkytron
I don't think that Snowden releasing documents directly made anyone's data
safer, but indirectly it did. Now that people are aware that we are being
spied on at a massive scale, many are more cautious about which services they
choose to use, what information to put on the internet, and are more
considerate of encryption. There's a few anecdotal comments in this thread
saying so, and I certainly have made different choices now because of the
revelations of Snowden. So maybe Snowden didn't make our data safer, but we
are because of what he showed us.

~~~
zerognowl
> Now that people are aware that we are being spied on at a massive scale

Here's an EFF.org press conference video detailing NSA wiretapping, from 10
years ago, as of writing:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqEfMMUbfQw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqEfMMUbfQw)

Whilst the efforts of the NSA were known for some time, the Snowden leaks were
very aggressive and a lot more information could be gleaned from them. It's
not enough to casually mention Echelon and then dismiss these revelations as
trivial. There is an enormous trove of details in the Snowden Archive that
describes the apparatus and machinery used to spy, not just some vague
reference to "Tapped Undersea Cables" which is an oft-used scene people use to
describe the NSA. I just wish the leaks had more detail, like code samples, or
even pictures of the facilities used to spy. (You'd be surprised how much can
be gleaned from just one picture or a line of code).

------
djyaz1200
Does anyone else think this Snowden as a hero stuff is a bit much? The guy
revealed government programs that ANYONE who cared to look knew existed
decades before
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON)).
I'll grant he sure raised awareness but does that make him a hero? ...and the
recent increased attention to security seems to be heavily influenced by
commercial hacking concerns rather than a response to government surveillance?
Also... does anyone seriously think the government can't decrypt your data? Do
we want every soldier, employee and contractor working in our government to
use giant data dumps as a legit way to lodge their objections? Convince me why
this guy shouldn't be in prison?

~~~
my_ghola
> Convince me why this guy shouldn't be in prison?

You said it yourself, "The guy revealed government programs that ANYONE who
cared to look knew existed decades before."

All he did was raise awareness.

~~~
djyaz1200
Yes but he didn't tweet out the wikipedia link he data dumped classified
materials.

~~~
EdHominem
As your responses say, you can't have it both ways. If you tell us the
material was all well known then it doesn't deserve to be called classified,
and it isn't a crime to leak. If the information is classified and contains
evidence of ongoing crimes, then it must be leaked if the crimes can't be
stopped in another way.

> he didn't tweet out the wikipedia link

Obviously you don't know how classified data works. The Wikipedia pages in
question were written based partly on earlier leaks, meaning that they count
as classified for this purpose. Had Snowden sent you the WP page on the NSA
and said "Read paragraph 3" it would have been an illegal disclosure, but it
wouldn't have had any impact.

> The guy revealed government programs that ANYONE who cared to look knew
> existed

Without proof that knowledge was essentially a conspiracy theory. I knew of
ECHELON but there's no way I could prove it to anyone else. Snowden gave us
data we could use to prove it.

> Does anyone else think this Snowden as a hero stuff is a bit much?

No, heroism is essentially concern for others / concern for self. He put
himself in much risk, for no personal gain, so he's pretty clearly a hero.

~~~
djyaz1200
Here is a 60 minutes story about Echelon from well over a decade ago...
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfdm78zcv8o](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfdm78zcv8o)

He is famous now which I think constitutes personal gain.

Clearly you all love him and believe he is a hero. Good for you... I am not
impressed.

~~~
EdHominem
He followed the law when it was difficult and personally dangerous. I am
impressed.

