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The logical conclusion of that is that they should deliberate leak some of their best exploits to rival agencies, so I think that argument has to be flawed. Fu

by caf 10y ago

The logical conclusion of that is that they should deliberate leak some of their best exploits to rival agencies, so I think that argument has to be flawed. Furthermore, they can't really keep using them after exposure for the same reason the Russians didn't start using them: everyone who knows about them can watch for them being exploited and so gain useful intelligence on their rivals.

meowface 10y ago
>The logical conclusion of that is that they should deliberate leak some of their best exploits to rival agencies, so I think that argument has to be flawed How do we know they don't? Or at least, some of their exploits. Also, that's not necessarily the only conclusion. This leak could have have been more harmful than no leak, yet thought to be less harmful than publicly burning every exploit. >Furthermore, they can't really keep using them after exposure for the same reason the Russians didn't start using them: everyone who knows about them can watch for them being exploited and so gain useful intelligence on their rivals. True, but they could possibly change them in a way to make them less detectable. The Russians could have done the same, but maybe their reason for believing it'd be helpful for fourth-party collection is that they already had access to some of Russian intelligence's communications and compromised hosts, devices, and networks. Anything could be possible here, though. We're all speculating pretty blindly.
kwhitefoot 10y ago
> and so gain useful intelligence on their rivals. The principal rival in the short term for any department whether of government or inside a company is other departments not the corresponding department in another company. In fact it is plausible to think that at least some of the people within agencies like the NSA have more in common and a substantial degree of fellow feeling with their nominal rivals in, for instance, Russia than they have with other US agencies.

by caf 10y ago

meowface 10y ago

>The logical conclusion of that is that they should deliberate leak some of their best exploits to rival agencies, so I think that argument has to be flawed How do we know they don't? Or at least, some of their exploits. Also, that's not necessarily the only conclusion. This leak could have have been more harmful than no leak, yet thought to be less harmful than publicly burning every exploit. >Furthermore, they can't really keep using them after exposure for the same reason the Russians didn't start using them: everyone who knows about them can watch for them being exploited and so gain useful intelligence on their rivals. True, but they could possibly change them in a way to make them less detectable. The Russians could have done the same, but maybe their reason for believing it'd be helpful for fourth-party collection is that they already had access to some of Russian intelligence's communications and compromised hosts, devices, and networks. Anything could be possible here, though. We're all speculating pretty blindly.

kwhitefoot 10y ago

> and so gain useful intelligence on their rivals. The principal rival in the short term for any department whether of government or inside a company is other departments not the corresponding department in another company. In fact it is plausible to think that at least some of the people within agencies like the NSA have more in common and a substantial degree of fellow feeling with their nominal rivals in, for instance, Russia than they have with other US agencies.