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It's important to remember that the NSA isn't why the world was insecure. The NSA discovered the flaw. That's their job. We need the NSA just like we need a mi

It's important to remember that the NSA isn't why the world was insecure. The NSA discovered the flaw. That's their job. We need the NSA just like we need a military. As an offensive cyberweapon, this exploit was operationally one of the most effective weapons that the NSA had at its disposal. Most of the world runs unpatched Windows systems, as Stuxnet showed us. This would've been the perfect tool for a similar operation. Unless your stance is that computers should never be used by a state actor to intentionally cause harm, like the military, then you can't logically also hold the position that the NSA should voluntarily neuter its own arsenal. I don't like it either. But the alternatives seem objectively worse.

godmodus 9y ago
Them working with the industry on making your country secure doesnt seem like a bad alternative.
- sillysaurus3 9y ago
  Iran becoming a nuclear superpower seems objectively worse. And it was thanks to cyberweapons that this was delayed.
  - godmodus 9y ago
    Sure, lets ignore deplomacy failures and the CIAs misdoings in actually enabling and even partially triggering that pathway and make sure we endanger the whole planets network to get an edge in a war were too proud\patriotic to think differently about. That way of thinking is whats making us need cyber weapons. Not to mention it shapes foriegn policy.
  - syshum 9y ago
    Iran becoming nuclear is a direct result of US Intervention in the region. so yes if we did not have a CIA then Iran likely would not be attempting to become Nuclear today CIA is attempting to clean up their mess
csydas 9y ago
I agree, but I also think it's an incomplete answer to the situation. I think that it's unreasonable to expect there not to be some sort of acting technology strike force within the US government, on the sole basis that they wouldn't let themselves fall behind as a super power in this manner. For the sake of one-upmanship alone I imagine this is happening. But as to what it should be doing? That needs to be reviewed. Cyber weapons aren't traditional weapons - cyber weapons are nigh-infinitely replicable, easier to lose control over, fast and easy to redistribute, and they're just as harmful to US civilian targets as they are to political/miiltary targets. They're unconventional warfare in that once you let it go, it's almost impossible to reel it back in, and the current state of technology just lends itself to so much collateral damage by the nature of software dependencies. A lot of places have no control over the dependencies for their mission critical software, and either no money for better alternatives or legitimately no alternative. Cyber weapons are going to be a weird thing for a very long time, since they have the same uncontrollable nature that a lot of banned weapons have, but they don't have the same immediate impact or lasting effect [1] that munitions, chemicals, and so on have. The lack of an immediate real world impact (read: a 'boom' or something toxic) is going to make it a challenge for people to see how damaging this an really be. [1] - I mark this because I think it's arguable how lasting the impact for any given bit of malware can be. There can be a lot of long-lasting damage if major infrastructure pieces are targeted, or downing entire networks, ruining small to medium businesses, and so on.

godmodus 9y ago

Them working with the industry on making your country secure doesnt seem like a bad alternative.

sillysaurus3 9y ago
Iran becoming a nuclear superpower seems objectively worse. And it was thanks to cyberweapons that this was delayed.
- godmodus 9y ago
  Sure, lets ignore deplomacy failures and the CIAs misdoings in actually enabling and even partially triggering that pathway and make sure we endanger the whole planets network to get an edge in a war were too proud\patriotic to think differently about. That way of thinking is whats making us need cyber weapons. Not to mention it shapes foriegn policy.
- syshum 9y ago
  Iran becoming nuclear is a direct result of US Intervention in the region. so yes if we did not have a CIA then Iran likely would not be attempting to become Nuclear today CIA is attempting to clean up their mess

csydas 9y ago

I agree, but I also think it's an incomplete answer to the situation. I think that it's unreasonable to expect there not to be some sort of acting technology strike force within the US government, on the sole basis that they wouldn't let themselves fall behind as a super power in this manner. For the sake of one-upmanship alone I imagine this is happening. But as to what it should be doing? That needs to be reviewed. Cyber weapons aren't traditional weapons - cyber weapons are nigh-infinitely replicable, easier to lose control over, fast and easy to redistribute, and they're just as harmful to US civilian targets as they are to political/miiltary targets. They're unconventional warfare in that once you let it go, it's almost impossible to reel it back in, and the current state of technology just lends itself to so much collateral damage by the nature of software dependencies. A lot of places have no control over the dependencies for their mission critical software, and either no money for better alternatives or legitimately no alternative. Cyber weapons are going to be a weird thing for a very long time, since they have the same uncontrollable nature that a lot of banned weapons have, but they don't have the same immediate impact or lasting effect [1] that munitions, chemicals, and so on have. The lack of an immediate real world impact (read: a 'boom' or something toxic) is going to make it a challenge for people to see how damaging this an really be. [1] - I mark this because I think it's arguable how lasting the impact for any given bit of malware can be. There can be a lot of long-lasting damage if major infrastructure pieces are targeted, or downing entire networks, ruining small to medium businesses, and so on.