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Snowden: WikiLeaks document dump on CIA hacking capability 'looks authentic'

25 points by sverige 10y ago

lern_too_spel 10y ago
Has anybody asked Snowden if the Uber greyballing documents look authentic yet? This is just lazy journalism at its laziest.
- btilly 10y ago
  There is no reason to expect him to have any particularly valuable insight on that.
  - lern_too_spel 10y ago
    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 10y ago
      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.
      - lern_too_spel 10y ago
        > 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.aspx?m=1 https://fcw.com/articles/2015/10/01/cia-digital-directorate.... 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-cipher-brief-snowdens-boss-shares-lessons-learned-1095 https://www.thecipherbrief.com/article/exclusive/first-ciphe... and his failed analyst test in https://news.vice.com/story/exclusive-snowden-tried-to-tell-nsa-about-his-concerns https://news.vice.com/story/exclusive-snowden-tried-to-tell-... and subsequent success after getting the answer key off the intranet), I can understand why he gets so many things wrong.

25 points by sverige 10y ago

Has anybody asked Snowden if the Uber greyballing documents look authentic yet? This is just lazy journalism at its laziest.

btilly 10y ago
There is no reason to expect him to have any particularly valuable insight on that.
- lern_too_spel 10y ago
  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 10y ago
    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.
    - lern_too_spel 10y ago
      > 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.aspx?m=1 https://fcw.com/articles/2015/10/01/cia-digital-directorate.... 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-cipher-brief-snowdens-boss-shares-lessons-learned-1095 https://www.thecipherbrief.com/article/exclusive/first-ciphe... and his failed analyst test in https://news.vice.com/story/exclusive-snowden-tried-to-tell-nsa-about-his-concerns https://news.vice.com/story/exclusive-snowden-tried-to-tell-... and subsequent success after getting the answer key off the intranet), I can understand why he gets so many things wrong.