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> At the very minimum it fosters distrust. why? how is someone who has been vetted by the IC as a trustworthy keeper of their secrets become less trustworthy?

• samstave 10y ago
  >why? how is someone who has been vetted by the IC as a trustworthy keeper of their secrets become less trustworthy? once any single person enters the IC, they have lost trust of anyone outside of the IC... simple - and answers your other question as well...
• rl3 10y ago
  >why? how is someone who has been vetted by the IC as a trustworthy keeper of their secrets become less trustworthy? Because their loyalties may lie with their former employer. National security matters tend to take priority over private sector loyalty for many people, and I'd imagine especially so for former IC types since they tend to be extremely patriotic. I mean that as a compliment, not an insult. >what kind of "relationships" are you talking about here? Personal relationships. Say Joe retires for private sector work. He's good friends with Bill, who's a case officer. Later when some national security matter comes down the pipe requiring access at Company Y, Bill knows Joe who works there. Seeing that Bill and Joe have been through some shit together, that relationship is probably going to supersede loyalty to any private sector employer when there are underlying national security motivations involved. It's not tinfoil hat conspiracy allegations, just basic human dynamics.
  • linkregister 10y ago
    Again, I'm glad you're engaging. I'm not down voting you. > Because their loyalties may lie with their former employer. By that logic, Apple shouldn't hire any employees from Google, because they might reveal iOS secrets. > Personal relationships... that relationship is probably going to supersede loyalty to any private sector employer Sure, anything could happen. In your example, Joe gets nothing except enormous risk of public humiliation and expensive litigation in exchange for the favor to Bill. Any employee that is involved in this would almost certainly speak to someone. This isn't like a National Security Letter; there's no force of law to compel silence. It would be a foolish move for Joe. Then Bill gets a call on his gray phone from his boss. "Why is the CIA in the newspapers for attempted backdooring of Cisco products?" We don't hear about this stuff because it doesn't happen like this. People that are so loyal to the CIA don't leave for a pure private sector company. They go to a contractor so they can stay in the ecosystem. People going to Cisco are (1) physically moving away from Northern Virginia, (2) losing access to secrets. Besides, it doesn't sound very patriotic to insert backdoor that's not even protected by a secret (e.g. key escrowed Clipper Chip, P and Q in Dual_EC) that goes into hardware purchased by more Americans than anyone else in the world.
    • rl3 10y ago
      >By that logic, Apple shouldn't hire any employees from Google, because they might reveal iOS secrets. Apple and Google are on the same playing field though. They're fundamentally the same type of entity. An intelligence agency vs a pure private-sector company is not. >Any employee that is involved in this would almost certainly speak to someone. This isn't like a National Security Letter; there's no force of law to compel silence. It would be a foolish move for Joe. While certainly risky, I'm not saying Joe wouldn't be legally protected. His favor very well could be under the auspices of an official program. Heck, IANAL but it possibly could even be in the form of an NSL. As far as I'm aware they're the legal equivalents of blank slates and don't necessarily require informing the upper echelon of a company of their issuance, but I could be wrong on that. I know that it is at least customary to do so, however. Either way, let's say the government wants to issue a NSL requesting a very specific, perhaps even temporary backdoor to a Bay Area company. The normal route would likely start a veritable war with that company's legal department, and runs a non-insignificant chance of being leaked by those who know about it. Contrast that scenario to issuing the NSL directly to Joe, who they know in advance is solid. If Joe happens to be an engineer, mission accomplished. If he isn't technical, then maybe he just happens to bring a USB stick to the office one day and plugs it in. If that sounds far-fetched, keep in mind that the NSA compromised Google's internal network during the course of their operations, so network exploitation against U.S. companies isn't even off the table. >People that are so loyal to the CIA don't leave for a pure private sector company. They go to a contractor so they can stay in the ecosystem. People going to Cisco are (1) physically moving away from Northern Virginia, (2) losing access to secrets. All good points, but it doesn't mean they're cutting ties and shunning their former life either. >Again, I'm glad you're engaging. I'm not down voting you. Thanks. :)
      • linkregister 10y ago
        > Apple and Google are on the same playing field though. They're fundamentally the same type of entity. An intelligence agency vs a pure private-sector company is not. Good point; my analogy fails. > NSA compromised Google's internal network News stories that used that phrasing were being inaccurate; the collection was of plaintext traffic between international Google datacenters. The Intercept explains it pretty well. > As far as I'm aware they're the legal equivalents of blank slates and don't necessarily require informing the upper echelon of a company of their issuance, but I could be wrong on that. I know that it is at least customary to do so, however. The point I'm making is that it's rational for people not well-versed in the minutiae of foreign intelligence regulations to think that intelligence agencies can and do intrude however they please on private companies. In reality, its with great caveats and with a (perhaps insufficient) legal process that introduces friction. It is far more overt and less cloak-and-dagger than would ordinarily be desired. The most clandestine way possible to spy would be with the badass methods we talked about earlier. > Either way, let's say the government wants to issue a NSL requesting a very specific, perhaps even temporary backdoor to a Bay Area company. The normal route would likely start a veritable war with that company's legal department, and runs a non-insignificant chance of being leaked by those who know about it. NSLs aren't a magic spell that gives the government whatever it wants. They go through a company's legal department and are subject to limitations. Several companies have successfully defeated the gag order portions of their NSLs. Having an inside man wouldn't be particularly advantageous since the company lawyers must get involved (the U.S. hasn't yet prohibited a person's legal representative from viewing writs). At the end of the day, the government has a monopoly on violence and can sent the Army to invade Cisco or anyone else it doesn't like. But due to the conscientious individuals that make up the government, and the public relations and legal risks that are involved, this is unlikely to happen. What I'm describing is a series of norms that are unlikely to be broken in the course of spying business. There are far cheaper, easier, and less risky ways to accomplish espionage than a covert, mass-distributed, plaintext backdoor. I do wish that the credibility of U.S. companies was taken into account more often when espionage decisions are made. The terrible optics behind PRISM made it look like companies were volunteering information, when the government was coercing them through the NSL program.