
Snowden: WikiLeaks document dump on CIA hacking capability 'looks authentic' - sverige
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/edward-snowden-wikileaks-document-dump-on-cia-hacking-capability-looks-authentic/article/2616670
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lern_too_spel
Has anybody asked Snowden if the Uber greyballing documents look authentic
yet? This is just lazy journalism at its laziest.

~~~
btilly
There is no reason to expect him to have any particularly valuable insight on
that.

~~~
lern_too_spel
Yet his Twitter posts show he has worse insight into these documents than a
complete outsider like myself. This is not the "first public evidence USG [is]
secretly paying to keep US software unsafe." The government has already
explained that it keeps some vulnerabilities for itself and has even publicly
explained the process.
[https://epic.org/privacy/cybersecurity/vep/](https://epic.org/privacy/cybersecurity/vep/)

~~~
btilly
Everyone, including experts, makes mistakes. In fact less than an hour ago I
corrected a respected intellectual property lawyer in an email discussion
about patent law. Yet it is clear to everyone, including me, that he has
better insight into the law, and intellectual property law specifically, than
I do.

Edward Snowden's special expertise is on the state of our covert cyber
operations as of when he fled in 2013. He said that this leak is naming real
departments whose existence is classified. I pay close attention to that
because he is the one saying it, and there are very few sources on that topic
that I trust. He may be wrong, but his judgement is more likely to be accurate
than mine.

When you move away from that topic, lots of people can have similar expertise.

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lern_too_spel
> He said that this leak is naming real departments whose existence is
> classified.

The example he gave is the IOC, whose existence is not classified.
[https://fcw.com/articles/2015/10/01/cia-digital-
directorate....](https://fcw.com/articles/2015/10/01/cia-digital-
directorate.aspx?m=1)

He has confirmed nothing that more credible sources haven't already confirmed,
and he has added clearly false interpretations of documents that others like
Rob Graham have already explained correctly.

As far as his "special expertise," he got so many things wrong in his own
leaks that he hardly seemed credible in 2013. Now that we've heard from those
around him (see the last two paragraphs of
[https://www.thecipherbrief.com/article/exclusive/first-
ciphe...](https://www.thecipherbrief.com/article/exclusive/first-cipher-brief-
snowdens-boss-shares-lessons-learned-1095) and his failed analyst test in
[https://news.vice.com/story/exclusive-snowden-tried-to-
tell-...](https://news.vice.com/story/exclusive-snowden-tried-to-tell-nsa-
about-his-concerns) and subsequent success after getting the answer key off
the intranet), I can understand why he gets so many things wrong.

