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Before he was known for the NSA leaks he was still a privacy activist who helped teach people about cryptography. It's not totally unrelated, especially since Z

Before he was known for the NSA leaks he was still a privacy activist who helped teach people about cryptography. It's not totally unrelated, especially since Zcash's selling point is that it offers more privacy than Bitcoin. https://www.forbes.com/sites/runasandvik/2014/05/27/that-one-time-i-threw-a-cryptoparty-with-edward-snowden/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/runasandvik/2014/05/27/that-one...

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
bogomipz 9y ago
>"Before he was known for the NSA leaks he was still a privacy activist ..." So he was a privacy activist while he worked at the NSA? Isn't this a bit like being a healthcare activist and working for McDonalds?
- j2bax 9y ago
  Well, we all know how well that worked out!
- kobeya 9y ago
  Yes, he led some GPG training meetups where he taught best practices for securing yourself while he was stationed in Hawai'i, at the very least.
- geofft 9y ago
  I thought it was reasonably widely believed that he took the job at the NSA specifically so he could figure out what they were doing wrong and leak it.
  - bogomipz 9y ago
    I had not heard this, what is the basis for that belief? Also he worked for the CIA prior to the NSA: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Snowden https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Snowden
  - dna_polymerase 9y ago
    Yeah sure, people believe what they want to believe. Or we could just accept that until 2013 he was just another wheel in the giant machinery that is the NSA and that his morals changed - for whatever reason. But he was with the bad guys.
    - Fnoord 9y ago
      > Yeah sure, people believe what they want to believe. Or we could just accept that until 2013 he was just another wheel in the giant machinery that is the NSA and that his morals changed - for whatever reason. His motives and how he ultimately ended up leaking information is well documented in the 2014 documentary Citizenfour [1] and the 2016 movie Snowden [2]. > But he was with the bad guys. Are there shades of grey or nuances or is the NSA the root of all evil? Its impossible to care about security as NSA employee? Teaching US civilians how to use GPG means you're trying to protect civilians against the NSA? The world isn't black and white. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizenfour https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizenfour [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowden_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowden_(film)
      - bogomipz 9y ago
        His motives? He worked happily for the CIA from 2007 - 2009. Then he worked for Booz Allen Hamilton/NSA from 2009 to 2013. That's seven years of employment in the security-industrial complex. Was he playing the long game then? >"Its impossible to care about security as NSA employee?" I don't think the question is security but privacy and no, it's hard to imagine sincerely caring about other's privacy and working for an organization that regularly disrespects it as a matter of course. Documentaries like autobiographies are often a vehicle for revisionist history. In regards to [2], Hollyood is not really considered a good source of historical accuracy.
        Fnoord 9y ago
        > His motives? He worked happily for the CIA from 2007 - 2009. Then he worked for Booz Allen Hamilton/NSA from 2009 to 2013. That's seven years of employment in the security-industrial complex. Was he playing the long game then? Your question is answered in depth in the documentary, in the movie, and in various interviews (written, as well as videos). Imagine someone who's patriotic at heart, who picks up signs where he's starting to doubt the things he's doing are patriotic (e.g. on the longer term, or in their specific targets). That's Snowden in a nutshell. You're also seemingly unaware Snowden attempted to disclose the information before. Furthermore, elsewhere in this thread HN user sig links to an article where he admits he did join "Booz Allen to gather evidence of surveillance". > I don't think the question is security but privacy Semantics, both are entwined in case as GPG. The latter depends on the former, and GPG is very much related to security just as well. > Documentaries like autobiographies are often a vehicle for revisionist history. And often they're not. They're used to tell one side of the story. The other one's the US government's take on the matter. > In regards to [2], Hollyood is not really considered a good source of historical accuracy. Not a statement of much, if any, value. It wasn't the sole source I stated. If you'd have a look on Wikipedia article, you could learn how the movie was made (research-wise there's quite some details). If you'd have seen both docu and move you'd know how close the movie is to the docu (although also dramatised as mentioned in the movie itself, btw).
  - slg 9y ago
    It isn't just "widely believed", it is something he admitted to doing. I am not sure why you are being downvoted for saying it. >For the first time, Snowden has admitted he sought a position at Booz Allen Hamilton so he could collect proof about the US National Security Agency's secret surveillance programmes ahead of planned leaks to the media. >"My position with Booz Allen Hamilton granted me access to lists of machines all over the world the NSA hacked," he told the Post on June 12. "That is why I accepted that position about three months ago." >...Asked if he specifically went to Booz Allen Hamilton to gather evidence of surveillance, he replied: "Correct on Booz."[1] Coworkers started to become suspicious of his intentions years earlier when he was with the CIA. >Just as Edward J. Snowden was preparing to leave Geneva and a job as a C.I.A. technician in 2009, his supervisor wrote a derogatory report in his personnel file, noting a distinct change in the young man’s behavior and work habits, as well as a troubling suspicion. >The C.I.A. suspected that Mr. Snowden was trying to break into classified computer files to which he was not authorized to have access, and decided to send him home, according to two senior American officials. [2] [1] - http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1268209/snowden-sought-booz-allen-job-gather-evidence-nsa-surveillance http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1268209/snowden-s... [2] - http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/11/us/cia-warning-on-snowden-in-09-said-to-slip-through-the-cracks.html http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/11/us/cia-warning-on-snowden-...
    - __s 9y ago
      This is only saying he sought to seek more once he had decided to whistle blow. It isn't like the Booz job was his first job with the NSA
      - slg 9y ago
        The next sentence in that linked article states the documents leaked were from Booz Allen. He didn't have any proof to leak until he took the job. Therefore "he took the job at [Booz Allen] specifically so he could figure out what they were doing wrong and leak it." That is a fact. We don't know when he became intent on trying to whistleblow and whether it was while he was with the CIA or Dell, but it was clearly before working at Booz Allen. He never worked directly at the NSA.
- rinchik 9y ago
  love it. Why can't i upvote you twice (like claps in Medium), also please pardon for unconstructive comment.
- firethief 9y ago
  Except a healthcare activist has poorer options to make a difference at McDonalds...
  - asciimo 9y ago
    They can make strong arguments to consumers that they should spend their money elsewhere.
    - firethief 9y ago
      Try it. Report back with "minutes until fired".
EGreg 9y ago
ZCash is only as secure as you trust 9 people and their ceremony. There's gotta be a way to do consensus about zero-knowledge proofs that's a little more... you know ... decentralized. https://petertodd.org/2016/cypherpunk-desert-bus-zcash-trusted-setup-ceremony https://petertodd.org/2016/cypherpunk-desert-bus-zcash-trust... https://www.reddit.com/r/Monero/comments/6a26rh/peter_todd_having_doubts_about_zcash_ceremony/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Monero/comments/6a26rh/peter_todd_h... Before you guys start saying, banks don't trust Bitcoin either because transactions are controlled by like 5 mining pools and the occasional lucky lottery winner. If they blacklist your address, your "permissionless" currency starts looking a lot more like a frozen bank account. There are better ways :)
- steeleduncan 9y ago
  Yes, as interesting a development as zcash is, you need more trust in the 9 people at that one-off ceremony than you do in a central bank. Monero's ring signatures have their drawbacks, but they don't require trust. It is hard to see his rationale for referring to it as an "amateur effort".
  - ewillbefull 9y ago
    There is a tradeoff here that keeps being missed. Ring signatures with small anonymity sets have very serious privacy drawbacks, but they have more sensible assumptions for protecting the monetary base integrity. zk-SNARKs are the opposite: they don't compromise on privacy at all, but require stronger assumptions to protect the monetary base.
    - steeleduncan 9y ago
      ZCash has unsolveable issues, Monero has solveable issues. I don't see that as a tradeoff. zk-SNARKS have no privacy issues, but to trust ZCash you require absolute trust in the zcash ceremony. This is an issue for many, including me. This ceremony has happened, there is no way for me to prove to myself that the private keys were not stored somewhere. Although I can prove to myself it is decentralised and private, I can't see how I could ever prove to myself that noone can cheat and generate coins with minimal effort, thus devaluing mine. I just have to trust the founders. Monero's Ring signatures require no trust, but they have privacy problems in the case of small rings. This is solveable by restricting to large rings (as a hard fork will enforce this September[1]), and at that point, I can see how to convince myself that the system is decentralised, private, and noone can generate coins without appropriate mining effort. [1] https://getmonero.org/2017/09/13/september-15-2017-protocol-upgrade-hard-fork.html https://getmonero.org/2017/09/13/september-15-2017-protocol-...

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

bogomipz 9y ago

>"Before he was known for the NSA leaks he was still a privacy activist ..." So he was a privacy activist while he worked at the NSA? Isn't this a bit like being a healthcare activist and working for McDonalds?

j2bax 9y ago
Well, we all know how well that worked out!
kobeya 9y ago
Yes, he led some GPG training meetups where he taught best practices for securing yourself while he was stationed in Hawai'i, at the very least.
geofft 9y ago
I thought it was reasonably widely believed that he took the job at the NSA specifically so he could figure out what they were doing wrong and leak it.
- bogomipz 9y ago
  I had not heard this, what is the basis for that belief? Also he worked for the CIA prior to the NSA: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Snowden https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Snowden
- dna_polymerase 9y ago
  Yeah sure, people believe what they want to believe. Or we could just accept that until 2013 he was just another wheel in the giant machinery that is the NSA and that his morals changed - for whatever reason. But he was with the bad guys.
  - Fnoord 9y ago
    > Yeah sure, people believe what they want to believe. Or we could just accept that until 2013 he was just another wheel in the giant machinery that is the NSA and that his morals changed - for whatever reason. His motives and how he ultimately ended up leaking information is well documented in the 2014 documentary Citizenfour [1] and the 2016 movie Snowden [2]. > But he was with the bad guys. Are there shades of grey or nuances or is the NSA the root of all evil? Its impossible to care about security as NSA employee? Teaching US civilians how to use GPG means you're trying to protect civilians against the NSA? The world isn't black and white. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizenfour https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizenfour [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowden_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowden_(film)
    - bogomipz 9y ago
      His motives? He worked happily for the CIA from 2007 - 2009. Then he worked for Booz Allen Hamilton/NSA from 2009 to 2013. That's seven years of employment in the security-industrial complex. Was he playing the long game then? >"Its impossible to care about security as NSA employee?" I don't think the question is security but privacy and no, it's hard to imagine sincerely caring about other's privacy and working for an organization that regularly disrespects it as a matter of course. Documentaries like autobiographies are often a vehicle for revisionist history. In regards to [2], Hollyood is not really considered a good source of historical accuracy.
      - Fnoord 9y ago
        > His motives? He worked happily for the CIA from 2007 - 2009. Then he worked for Booz Allen Hamilton/NSA from 2009 to 2013. That's seven years of employment in the security-industrial complex. Was he playing the long game then? Your question is answered in depth in the documentary, in the movie, and in various interviews (written, as well as videos). Imagine someone who's patriotic at heart, who picks up signs where he's starting to doubt the things he's doing are patriotic (e.g. on the longer term, or in their specific targets). That's Snowden in a nutshell. You're also seemingly unaware Snowden attempted to disclose the information before. Furthermore, elsewhere in this thread HN user sig links to an article where he admits he did join "Booz Allen to gather evidence of surveillance". > I don't think the question is security but privacy Semantics, both are entwined in case as GPG. The latter depends on the former, and GPG is very much related to security just as well. > Documentaries like autobiographies are often a vehicle for revisionist history. And often they're not. They're used to tell one side of the story. The other one's the US government's take on the matter. > In regards to [2], Hollyood is not really considered a good source of historical accuracy. Not a statement of much, if any, value. It wasn't the sole source I stated. If you'd have a look on Wikipedia article, you could learn how the movie was made (research-wise there's quite some details). If you'd have seen both docu and move you'd know how close the movie is to the docu (although also dramatised as mentioned in the movie itself, btw).
- slg 9y ago
  It isn't just "widely believed", it is something he admitted to doing. I am not sure why you are being downvoted for saying it. >For the first time, Snowden has admitted he sought a position at Booz Allen Hamilton so he could collect proof about the US National Security Agency's secret surveillance programmes ahead of planned leaks to the media. >"My position with Booz Allen Hamilton granted me access to lists of machines all over the world the NSA hacked," he told the Post on June 12. "That is why I accepted that position about three months ago." >...Asked if he specifically went to Booz Allen Hamilton to gather evidence of surveillance, he replied: "Correct on Booz."[1] Coworkers started to become suspicious of his intentions years earlier when he was with the CIA. >Just as Edward J. Snowden was preparing to leave Geneva and a job as a C.I.A. technician in 2009, his supervisor wrote a derogatory report in his personnel file, noting a distinct change in the young man’s behavior and work habits, as well as a troubling suspicion. >The C.I.A. suspected that Mr. Snowden was trying to break into classified computer files to which he was not authorized to have access, and decided to send him home, according to two senior American officials. [2] [1] - http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1268209/snowden-sought-booz-allen-job-gather-evidence-nsa-surveillance http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1268209/snowden-s... [2] - http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/11/us/cia-warning-on-snowden-in-09-said-to-slip-through-the-cracks.html http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/11/us/cia-warning-on-snowden-...
  - __s 9y ago
    This is only saying he sought to seek more once he had decided to whistle blow. It isn't like the Booz job was his first job with the NSA
    - slg 9y ago
      The next sentence in that linked article states the documents leaked were from Booz Allen. He didn't have any proof to leak until he took the job. Therefore "he took the job at [Booz Allen] specifically so he could figure out what they were doing wrong and leak it." That is a fact. We don't know when he became intent on trying to whistleblow and whether it was while he was with the CIA or Dell, but it was clearly before working at Booz Allen. He never worked directly at the NSA.
rinchik 9y ago
love it. Why can't i upvote you twice (like claps in Medium), also please pardon for unconstructive comment.
firethief 9y ago
Except a healthcare activist has poorer options to make a difference at McDonalds...
- asciimo 9y ago
  They can make strong arguments to consumers that they should spend their money elsewhere.
  - firethief 9y ago
    Try it. Report back with "minutes until fired".

EGreg 9y ago

ZCash is only as secure as you trust 9 people and their ceremony. There's gotta be a way to do consensus about zero-knowledge proofs that's a little more... you know ... decentralized. https://petertodd.org/2016/cypherpunk-desert-bus-zcash-trusted-setup-ceremony https://petertodd.org/2016/cypherpunk-desert-bus-zcash-trust... https://www.reddit.com/r/Monero/comments/6a26rh/peter_todd_having_doubts_about_zcash_ceremony/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Monero/comments/6a26rh/peter_todd_h... Before you guys start saying, banks don't trust Bitcoin either because transactions are controlled by like 5 mining pools and the occasional lucky lottery winner. If they blacklist your address, your "permissionless" currency starts looking a lot more like a frozen bank account. There are better ways :)

steeleduncan 9y ago
Yes, as interesting a development as zcash is, you need more trust in the 9 people at that one-off ceremony than you do in a central bank. Monero's ring signatures have their drawbacks, but they don't require trust. It is hard to see his rationale for referring to it as an "amateur effort".
- ewillbefull 9y ago
  There is a tradeoff here that keeps being missed. Ring signatures with small anonymity sets have very serious privacy drawbacks, but they have more sensible assumptions for protecting the monetary base integrity. zk-SNARKs are the opposite: they don't compromise on privacy at all, but require stronger assumptions to protect the monetary base.
  - steeleduncan 9y ago
    ZCash has unsolveable issues, Monero has solveable issues. I don't see that as a tradeoff. zk-SNARKS have no privacy issues, but to trust ZCash you require absolute trust in the zcash ceremony. This is an issue for many, including me. This ceremony has happened, there is no way for me to prove to myself that the private keys were not stored somewhere. Although I can prove to myself it is decentralised and private, I can't see how I could ever prove to myself that noone can cheat and generate coins with minimal effort, thus devaluing mine. I just have to trust the founders. Monero's Ring signatures require no trust, but they have privacy problems in the case of small rings. This is solveable by restricting to large rings (as a hard fork will enforce this September[1]), and at that point, I can see how to convince myself that the system is decentralised, private, and noone can generate coins without appropriate mining effort. [1] https://getmonero.org/2017/09/13/september-15-2017-protocol-upgrade-hard-fork.html https://getmonero.org/2017/09/13/september-15-2017-protocol-...