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I dunno. Before Snowden, a lot of nasty stuff that we now take for granted the intelligence community does, was seen as "tin foil hat." After Snowden, I no long

I dunno. Before Snowden, a lot of nasty stuff that we now take for granted the intelligence community does, was seen as "tin foil hat." After Snowden, I no longer doubt the possibility of any realistically imaginable attack, ie, assume that if they have the physical ability to do it, you should assume they do it and are not stopped by any ethical concerns. Our intelligence apparatus has cried wolf too many times, in terms of denying they do something and then it turns out they do it, to be trusted anymore. They've lost the benefit of the doubt and if they don't want people believing all the tin foil hat things, maybe they should stop doing so many of them.

Analemma_ 10y ago
> Before Snowden, a lot of nasty stuff that we now take for granted the intelligence community does, was seen as "tin foil hat." This is true, but using it as a justification for "And therefore, my theory about what the intelligence community is doing is correct and does not need evidence" is a non sequitur fallacy that has become depressingly common in recent years. You still need evidence for individual allegations. To show you what I mean, suppose I were to say, "The NSA has a constellation of mind-control satellites built with help from the lizard men!", and then responded to the deserved skepticism with "A lot of things that used to be tinfoil hat theories we now know to be true thanks to Snowden, so this is too!". That's obviously fallacious reasoning, but it's exactly what people are doing when they toss around allegations of backdoors with no proof. Again: there's no shortcut around the need for evidence. > After Snowden, I no longer doubt the possibility of any realistically imaginable attack ie, assume that if they have the physical ability to do it, you should assume they do it and are not stopped by any ethical concerns. I agree completely, but that's not what I, or the person I replied to, was talking about. The issue I was addressing in my comment was whether their backdoors are being built with the knowledge and cooperation of the vendors, which is very much unknown. Attacks like taps on cables are orthogonal to what I was saying.
- MawNicker 10y ago
  There's merit in just pondering. This is a message board not a legal proceeding. What you're saying isn't totally orthogonal. I'm often surprised at how terrible modern software is. I suspect they actively subvert and displace popular software that they can't hack. Most hacks are probably generic exploits of library code. I imagine they economized. They wanted Total Information Awareness. I can't prove any of this; It just seems sensible. He's doing a red team analysis. It's not of the same form of thought. You can't invalidate it with the arguments you're making except for in some logical domain or something. It's not a true/false statement. It's not even fuzzy.
  - Analemma_ 10y ago
    I agree! And I don't mind pondering, as long as it's clearly marked as such. I do mind statements like "Practically every major piece of software and hardware that's not open source has a backdoor embedded" presented as established fact when they are not.
    - MawNicker 10y ago
      A vulnerability is a back door. The only problem I have with that statement is it's exclusion of open-source software. It's got more back doors embedded in it than closed-source software. Jimmy: a short crowbar used by a burglar to force open a window or door. He didn't necessarily say it was collusion but I suppose it's fair to clarify. It seems narrow to suggest it's just a stash of 0-days. I suspect they've been heavily yet covertly involved in the popular software tool-chains and computing hardware.
- galdosdi 10y ago
  Not what I said. I said "realistically imaginable attack" ie ethics is the only thing hypothetically stopping them, not lack of fantasy technology. See if you can come up with a counterexample that actually meets that hurdle. Mind control satellites and lizard men are both so far away from our current science and technology that even assuming the NSA could be a few years ahead, it's not worth considering. If there really were mind control sattelites or similar precursor technology available or in research today, and there were lizard men who had a history of being good at working with those and willing to sell their skills, then I would agree that it's plausible they're doing it. Also, I'm more interested in the /practical/ applications of this knowledge of whether the intelligence community does a certain thing X, not the philosophical certainty of whether they do a thing X. You lock your doors because someone /might/ break in /maybe/, not because you're certain John Doe is planning on doing so at 4:30am tonight. Even if no one ever does, it's certainly technically possible, so if locks are cheap it's a reasonable tradeoff, even if you'll never be sure if they really helped. You're probably right though that I'm moving the goalposts around! :-) I'm not trying to have a formal debate, just idly shooting the shit on the net, so I'm OK with that.
kobayashi 10y ago
>assume that if they have the physical ability to do it, you should assume they do it and are not stopped by any ethical concerns. Prepare for that scenario as a possibility, but there should still be a burden of evidence before possibility is accepted as reality.

Analemma_ 10y ago

> Before Snowden, a lot of nasty stuff that we now take for granted the intelligence community does, was seen as "tin foil hat." This is true, but using it as a justification for "And therefore, my theory about what the intelligence community is doing is correct and does not need evidence" is a non sequitur fallacy that has become depressingly common in recent years. You still need evidence for individual allegations. To show you what I mean, suppose I were to say, "The NSA has a constellation of mind-control satellites built with help from the lizard men!", and then responded to the deserved skepticism with "A lot of things that used to be tinfoil hat theories we now know to be true thanks to Snowden, so this is too!". That's obviously fallacious reasoning, but it's exactly what people are doing when they toss around allegations of backdoors with no proof. Again: there's no shortcut around the need for evidence. > After Snowden, I no longer doubt the possibility of any realistically imaginable attack ie, assume that if they have the physical ability to do it, you should assume they do it and are not stopped by any ethical concerns. I agree completely, but that's not what I, or the person I replied to, was talking about. The issue I was addressing in my comment was whether their backdoors are being built with the knowledge and cooperation of the vendors, which is very much unknown. Attacks like taps on cables are orthogonal to what I was saying.

MawNicker 10y ago
There's merit in just pondering. This is a message board not a legal proceeding. What you're saying isn't totally orthogonal. I'm often surprised at how terrible modern software is. I suspect they actively subvert and displace popular software that they can't hack. Most hacks are probably generic exploits of library code. I imagine they economized. They wanted Total Information Awareness. I can't prove any of this; It just seems sensible. He's doing a red team analysis. It's not of the same form of thought. You can't invalidate it with the arguments you're making except for in some logical domain or something. It's not a true/false statement. It's not even fuzzy.
- Analemma_ 10y ago
  I agree! And I don't mind pondering, as long as it's clearly marked as such. I do mind statements like "Practically every major piece of software and hardware that's not open source has a backdoor embedded" presented as established fact when they are not.
  - MawNicker 10y ago
    A vulnerability is a back door. The only problem I have with that statement is it's exclusion of open-source software. It's got more back doors embedded in it than closed-source software. Jimmy: a short crowbar used by a burglar to force open a window or door. He didn't necessarily say it was collusion but I suppose it's fair to clarify. It seems narrow to suggest it's just a stash of 0-days. I suspect they've been heavily yet covertly involved in the popular software tool-chains and computing hardware.
galdosdi 10y ago
Not what I said. I said "realistically imaginable attack" ie ethics is the only thing hypothetically stopping them, not lack of fantasy technology. See if you can come up with a counterexample that actually meets that hurdle. Mind control satellites and lizard men are both so far away from our current science and technology that even assuming the NSA could be a few years ahead, it's not worth considering. If there really were mind control sattelites or similar precursor technology available or in research today, and there were lizard men who had a history of being good at working with those and willing to sell their skills, then I would agree that it's plausible they're doing it. Also, I'm more interested in the /practical/ applications of this knowledge of whether the intelligence community does a certain thing X, not the philosophical certainty of whether they do a thing X. You lock your doors because someone /might/ break in /maybe/, not because you're certain John Doe is planning on doing so at 4:30am tonight. Even if no one ever does, it's certainly technically possible, so if locks are cheap it's a reasonable tradeoff, even if you'll never be sure if they really helped. You're probably right though that I'm moving the goalposts around! :-) I'm not trying to have a formal debate, just idly shooting the shit on the net, so I'm OK with that.

kobayashi 10y ago

>assume that if they have the physical ability to do it, you should assume they do it and are not stopped by any ethical concerns. Prepare for that scenario as a possibility, but there should still be a burden of evidence before possibility is accepted as reality.