8 ms·

I don't think calling a thief putting up hacking tools for the highest bidder "another Snowden" is particularly accurate. (I realize this was the article title

by adamc 10y ago

I don't think calling a thief putting up hacking tools for the highest bidder "another Snowden" is particularly accurate. (I realize this was the article title and am not complaining about the post here. I fault whomever crafted the original title.)

tombert 10y ago
I agree; Snowden, whether you agree or not, was doing something he thought was right. He wasn't just trying to extort data and sell it.
- s_dev 10y ago
  Perhaps Chelsea Manning is a better comparison. Perhaps not so well intentioned or forward thinking but rather a protest outburst against a perceived regime.
  - jMyles 10y ago
    Chelsea Manning risked even more, was rewarded far less, and successfully liberated far more of the data belonging to the public. Very little of what she revealed passes any sort of common sense test about what is rightly held secret by a public entity, but rather showed that the government keeps secret anything that is politically dangerous for the narrative it tries to maintain. I see nothing but good intentions. Forward-thinking? Maybe you're right there, at least in terms of her own well-being. Perhaps she was counting on us for more than we're willing to do in terms of rescuing her from a life of torture at the hands of the state.
    - imglorp 10y ago
      Regarding selective disclosure, at least Snowden and Greenwald made an attempt to keep people from getting killed. There's a big difference between leaking methods and leaking the identities of assets.
      - nitrogen 10y ago
        IIRC Wikileaks asked for assistance redacting the leak and did not receive any.
        deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
    - jomamaxx 10y ago
      "and successfully liberated far more of the data belonging to the public." This is completely false. The information Manning released absolutely did not belong in the public domain. Period. Governments, like any other private entity are allowed to keep confidential information. Much of what manning released was private conversations between state department officials and their counterparts in the Middle East. The damage could have been much worse. It's really sad to see so manny people think that 'individual privacy is paramount' but then can't grasp that other actors, including state actors, don't have reasonable rights to privacy. It's beyond naive.
      - judemelancon 10y ago
        Governments aren't (supposed to be) private entities.
        jomamaxx 10y ago
        "Governments aren't (supposed to be) private entities." Governments are not 'private entities' but they certainly can have 'private information'. It's really quite difficult to debate this with you guys. If you can't imagine that diplomats can't have private conversations with their counter parts, that bureaucrats can't have private conversations with employees - then I have nothing to say to you. Once you accept that there is a lot of information that should not be publicly available, both 'secret' and 'mundane' (HR records etc..) - then you accept the government can keep private information - and then it becomes a matter of how that is regulated: oversight by congress, committee, judiciary - and access to information wherein it's appropriate. And once you accept that - you accept that Manning's release was totally immoral and unlawful. There is nothing in his cable releases that should have been released - though you could debate the release of the video of reporters dying in friendly fire.
        jMyles 10y ago
        > If you can't imagine that diplomats can't have private conversations with their counter parts, that bureaucrats can't have private conversations with employees - then I have nothing to say to you. Just to be clear: I think many people here believe that "diplomats" and "bureaucrats" are subject to deprecation. You are holding on to the notion that the government is going to keep existing (and bungling society, economy, and environment) alongside the internet, but it's perfectly reasonable to surmise that this is not so. Government has been a necessary evil for a stage of human evolution that is now coming to a close. And it will wither with a whimper, not a bang. So, per your directive, it may just be that you have nothing to say to us.
    - tptacek 10y ago
      Chelsea Manning took vast numbers of documents she never read and then sent them to a stranger on the Internet who happened to have branding congenial to her politics. I think the handling of the Snowden leak was also irresponsible and, from the vantage point of doing the most public good with the disclosure, has for the most part been a fiasco (notice how much more we learn about the contents of these documents after attacks and incidents become public?). But Snowden's leak handling was surgical compared to the shitshow surrounding the Manning leak.
      - thoughtifnot 10y ago
        Yes, and; while Snowden gives conference talks from exile, she's facing charges and indefinite solitary confinement as punishment for a suicide attempt. Naive and misguided, perhaps, but you really can't argue she didn't risk (and lose) far more while basically trying to do the right thing.
        tptacek 10y ago
        People who bomb abortion clinics also believe they're doing the right thing. We need to be careful about judging actions solely by motivations.
        dragonwriter 10y ago
        > People who bomb abortion clinics also believe they're doing the right thing. We need to be careful about judging actions solely by motivations. The second sentence may not be true, but is unrelated to the first, which illustrates more that we need to be careful about judging actions solely by accord with the alignment to the actors' view of "the right thing" than anything else.
        thoughtifnot 10y ago
        If we lived in the same moral universe as them, they would be doing the right thing. The thought does give me pause, from time to time. But the point is not to redeem Manning's actions in a utilitarian sense. The facts are that she saw something (war) she found unconscionable, she wanted to do something about it, and she sacrificed about as much as she possibly could without dying-- maybe more, now that she's one of the least free people on the planet. It's not that hard to comprehend a moral philosophy where she does actually deserve points for effort. If you're asking me to just look at utility, it's very hard for me to get around the fact that the book is still being written. I can see the argument that indiscriminate leaking causes damage, and damage to well-functioning systems is bad, but I can also see the argument that the historical record is full of state secrets kept for banal or evil reasons and the proper functioning of the current intelligence apparatus may be doing more harm in a human sense than could possibly be justified, if we just knew it were happening. The irony is that ultimately, I just have to trust that there are enough people with good hearts working in the system that if something unconscionable is going on, it won't stay secret for long. So in these circumstances I'm actually much more worried about not judging by intentions enough, lest the well-intentioned decide to stay home.
- jMyles 10y ago
  I assert that, whether someone agrees or not, Snowden was doing something that was actually right.
  - tombert 10y ago
    I don't disagree, but I know that the issue is divisive; my point is that his intentions were clearly pure regardless.
    - jMyles 10y ago
      Yeah yeah, absolutely I agree. I'm also saying that (or at least putting the idea out to test drive it) it's a good time for us to shift our language to talk about things that, in some deeper way, are politically and civically just.
    - jomamaxx 10y ago
      "my point is that his intentions were clearly pure regardless." I would tend to concur, but we don't know that. Also - intentions are not that important. Manning's motivations I surmise were probably innocent, but his incredible naivte of releasing gigabytes of information of information when he didn't even know what the contents were ... were seriously damaging. Tons of undredacted cables in there meaning a number of Afghan and Iraqi citizens helping the US were needlessly put at risk, for example.
      - jMyles 10y ago
        Listen, I don't mean to dismiss the kind of sober thinking you are putting forward here. There is a reality to these sorts of actions that, for the perhaps most optimistic or utopian among us, bears repeating mention of. However, this: > Tons of undredacted cables in there meaning a number of Afghan and Iraqi citizens helping the US were needlessly put at risk, for example. ...reads to me like a celebration of opposite day in the bizarro world. Manning did nothing to put these people at risk; the state put them at risk with its murderous and greedy tendencies and foreign policy errors. Announcing someone's name and affiliations, in the case of a decent, non-violent, dare I say "everyday" person does not in any way put them at risk. It is only because these people are touched by the long finger of empire that the appearance of their name in a text file is compiled into danger. Manning's heroism tends toward ending that empire and making these people (and those in a similar role in generations to come) safer and freer.
- progressive_dad 10y ago
  I feel as though I've been sent to sit in the corner with a dunce cap for daring to criticize a piece of journalism that equates releasing NSA spy tools on the black market with government whistleblowing. As long as we're all stuck in the "Breakfast Club" for veering away from "the facts" might as well read something relevant: http://www.openculture.com/2015/03/huxley-to-orwell-my-hellish-vision-of-the-future-is-better-than-yours.html http://www.openculture.com/2015/03/huxley-to-orwell-my-helli...
mst 10y ago
If you re-read the post a little more carefully, that's a reference to the ANT leak, followed by a "well, it could maybe be the same person" about the malware auction. Seems more likely to me that the ANT leak gave the auctioneers an idea what to look for to exfiltrate once they got hold of an NSA staging server.
- drvdevd 10y ago
  Brilliant. I believe from this vantage the whole situation becomes much less clear which is of course very interesting.
DigitalJack 10y ago
I had the same thought, but I'm thinking that the person(s) auctioning the stuff aren't the same person(s) that obtained it in the first place. It was taken years ago, and just now found its way to the auction block. I think there is an interesting story about the intervening years we are missing.
dang 10y ago
Ok, we s/Snowden/leaker/'d the title in the hope of making it a little more neutral.
- Bud 10y ago
  Not sure how that helps, since the real article still bears its original title. How does it help to misrepresent the actual article?
  - dang 10y ago
    When an article's title is misleading or linkbait, the HN guidelines call for it to be changed. Alas we can do nothing about misleading titles in the big wide world, but we can at least tend to our little corner of the internet.
  - colechristensen 10y ago
    Removing the clickbait title from an article that is otherwise valuable is a good thing.

by adamc 10y ago

tombert 10y ago

I agree; Snowden, whether you agree or not, was doing something he thought was right. He wasn't just trying to extort data and sell it.

s_dev 10y ago
Perhaps Chelsea Manning is a better comparison. Perhaps not so well intentioned or forward thinking but rather a protest outburst against a perceived regime.
- jMyles 10y ago
  Chelsea Manning risked even more, was rewarded far less, and successfully liberated far more of the data belonging to the public. Very little of what she revealed passes any sort of common sense test about what is rightly held secret by a public entity, but rather showed that the government keeps secret anything that is politically dangerous for the narrative it tries to maintain. I see nothing but good intentions. Forward-thinking? Maybe you're right there, at least in terms of her own well-being. Perhaps she was counting on us for more than we're willing to do in terms of rescuing her from a life of torture at the hands of the state.
  - imglorp 10y ago
    Regarding selective disclosure, at least Snowden and Greenwald made an attempt to keep people from getting killed. There's a big difference between leaking methods and leaking the identities of assets.
    - nitrogen 10y ago
      IIRC Wikileaks asked for assistance redacting the leak and did not receive any.
      - deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
  - jomamaxx 10y ago
    "and successfully liberated far more of the data belonging to the public." This is completely false. The information Manning released absolutely did not belong in the public domain. Period. Governments, like any other private entity are allowed to keep confidential information. Much of what manning released was private conversations between state department officials and their counterparts in the Middle East. The damage could have been much worse. It's really sad to see so manny people think that 'individual privacy is paramount' but then can't grasp that other actors, including state actors, don't have reasonable rights to privacy. It's beyond naive.
    - judemelancon 10y ago
      Governments aren't (supposed to be) private entities.
      - jomamaxx 10y ago
        "Governments aren't (supposed to be) private entities." Governments are not 'private entities' but they certainly can have 'private information'. It's really quite difficult to debate this with you guys. If you can't imagine that diplomats can't have private conversations with their counter parts, that bureaucrats can't have private conversations with employees - then I have nothing to say to you. Once you accept that there is a lot of information that should not be publicly available, both 'secret' and 'mundane' (HR records etc..) - then you accept the government can keep private information - and then it becomes a matter of how that is regulated: oversight by congress, committee, judiciary - and access to information wherein it's appropriate. And once you accept that - you accept that Manning's release was totally immoral and unlawful. There is nothing in his cable releases that should have been released - though you could debate the release of the video of reporters dying in friendly fire.
        jMyles 10y ago
        > If you can't imagine that diplomats can't have private conversations with their counter parts, that bureaucrats can't have private conversations with employees - then I have nothing to say to you. Just to be clear: I think many people here believe that "diplomats" and "bureaucrats" are subject to deprecation. You are holding on to the notion that the government is going to keep existing (and bungling society, economy, and environment) alongside the internet, but it's perfectly reasonable to surmise that this is not so. Government has been a necessary evil for a stage of human evolution that is now coming to a close. And it will wither with a whimper, not a bang. So, per your directive, it may just be that you have nothing to say to us.
  - tptacek 10y ago
    Chelsea Manning took vast numbers of documents she never read and then sent them to a stranger on the Internet who happened to have branding congenial to her politics. I think the handling of the Snowden leak was also irresponsible and, from the vantage point of doing the most public good with the disclosure, has for the most part been a fiasco (notice how much more we learn about the contents of these documents after attacks and incidents become public?). But Snowden's leak handling was surgical compared to the shitshow surrounding the Manning leak.
    - thoughtifnot 10y ago
      Yes, and; while Snowden gives conference talks from exile, she's facing charges and indefinite solitary confinement as punishment for a suicide attempt. Naive and misguided, perhaps, but you really can't argue she didn't risk (and lose) far more while basically trying to do the right thing.
      - tptacek 10y ago
        People who bomb abortion clinics also believe they're doing the right thing. We need to be careful about judging actions solely by motivations.
        dragonwriter 10y ago
        > People who bomb abortion clinics also believe they're doing the right thing. We need to be careful about judging actions solely by motivations. The second sentence may not be true, but is unrelated to the first, which illustrates more that we need to be careful about judging actions solely by accord with the alignment to the actors' view of "the right thing" than anything else.
        thoughtifnot 10y ago
        If we lived in the same moral universe as them, they would be doing the right thing. The thought does give me pause, from time to time. But the point is not to redeem Manning's actions in a utilitarian sense. The facts are that she saw something (war) she found unconscionable, she wanted to do something about it, and she sacrificed about as much as she possibly could without dying-- maybe more, now that she's one of the least free people on the planet. It's not that hard to comprehend a moral philosophy where she does actually deserve points for effort. If you're asking me to just look at utility, it's very hard for me to get around the fact that the book is still being written. I can see the argument that indiscriminate leaking causes damage, and damage to well-functioning systems is bad, but I can also see the argument that the historical record is full of state secrets kept for banal or evil reasons and the proper functioning of the current intelligence apparatus may be doing more harm in a human sense than could possibly be justified, if we just knew it were happening. The irony is that ultimately, I just have to trust that there are enough people with good hearts working in the system that if something unconscionable is going on, it won't stay secret for long. So in these circumstances I'm actually much more worried about not judging by intentions enough, lest the well-intentioned decide to stay home.
jMyles 10y ago
I assert that, whether someone agrees or not, Snowden was doing something that was actually right.
- tombert 10y ago
  I don't disagree, but I know that the issue is divisive; my point is that his intentions were clearly pure regardless.
  - jMyles 10y ago
    Yeah yeah, absolutely I agree. I'm also saying that (or at least putting the idea out to test drive it) it's a good time for us to shift our language to talk about things that, in some deeper way, are politically and civically just.
  - jomamaxx 10y ago
    "my point is that his intentions were clearly pure regardless." I would tend to concur, but we don't know that. Also - intentions are not that important. Manning's motivations I surmise were probably innocent, but his incredible naivte of releasing gigabytes of information of information when he didn't even know what the contents were ... were seriously damaging. Tons of undredacted cables in there meaning a number of Afghan and Iraqi citizens helping the US were needlessly put at risk, for example.
    - jMyles 10y ago
      Listen, I don't mean to dismiss the kind of sober thinking you are putting forward here. There is a reality to these sorts of actions that, for the perhaps most optimistic or utopian among us, bears repeating mention of. However, this: > Tons of undredacted cables in there meaning a number of Afghan and Iraqi citizens helping the US were needlessly put at risk, for example. ...reads to me like a celebration of opposite day in the bizarro world. Manning did nothing to put these people at risk; the state put them at risk with its murderous and greedy tendencies and foreign policy errors. Announcing someone's name and affiliations, in the case of a decent, non-violent, dare I say "everyday" person does not in any way put them at risk. It is only because these people are touched by the long finger of empire that the appearance of their name in a text file is compiled into danger. Manning's heroism tends toward ending that empire and making these people (and those in a similar role in generations to come) safer and freer.
progressive_dad 10y ago
I feel as though I've been sent to sit in the corner with a dunce cap for daring to criticize a piece of journalism that equates releasing NSA spy tools on the black market with government whistleblowing. As long as we're all stuck in the "Breakfast Club" for veering away from "the facts" might as well read something relevant: http://www.openculture.com/2015/03/huxley-to-orwell-my-hellish-vision-of-the-future-is-better-than-yours.html http://www.openculture.com/2015/03/huxley-to-orwell-my-helli...

mst 10y ago

If you re-read the post a little more carefully, that's a reference to the ANT leak, followed by a "well, it could maybe be the same person" about the malware auction. Seems more likely to me that the ANT leak gave the auctioneers an idea what to look for to exfiltrate once they got hold of an NSA staging server.

drvdevd 10y ago
Brilliant. I believe from this vantage the whole situation becomes much less clear which is of course very interesting.

DigitalJack 10y ago

I had the same thought, but I'm thinking that the person(s) auctioning the stuff aren't the same person(s) that obtained it in the first place. It was taken years ago, and just now found its way to the auction block. I think there is an interesting story about the intervening years we are missing.

dang 10y ago

Ok, we s/Snowden/leaker/'d the title in the hope of making it a little more neutral.

Bud 10y ago
Not sure how that helps, since the real article still bears its original title. How does it help to misrepresent the actual article?
- dang 10y ago
  When an article's title is misleading or linkbait, the HN guidelines call for it to be changed. Alas we can do nothing about misleading titles in the big wide world, but we can at least tend to our little corner of the internet.
- colechristensen 10y ago
  Removing the clickbait title from an article that is otherwise valuable is a good thing.