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> No, the Snowden leaks showed that NSA did do something, not that it does every malicious thing that people accuse it of. How does it help anything by making u

> No, the Snowden leaks showed that NSA did do something, not that it does every malicious thing that people accuse it of. How does it help anything by making unfounded accusations? It shows they'll do anything within their power, legal or illegal, in order to get at more people's data. Of course they have involvement with this, why wouldn't they? > Historically, Australia has heavily interfered in PNG affairs. Should you be accused of espionage or subversion if you decide to hike a portion of the Kokoda Trail? > Would it be appropriate for Indigenous People to accuse you of attempting to steal their children, a practice that occurred until the 1970s? Bizarre points in support of your initial comment I think.

linkregister 9y ago
They have zero context for an American, but the parent poster was Australian. If I had used American analogies, the point would have been lost. You're right that anyone else should be mystified.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
linkregister 9y ago
> Of course they have involvement with this, why wouldn't they? I think you give them too much credit and unnecessarily slander Intel, which has little reason to go along with NSA (no large DoD contracts, almost all consumer and B2B market). Also, you overestimate the amount of resources NSA has. If they have enough money to overcome Intel's appetite for risk, then why doesn't the NSA just run every single internet and hardware service out there? Your threat model needs to have bounds. It's worthless if you expect the adversary to have unlimited resources.
- ekianjo 9y ago
  Overestimate the amount of resources? Wikipedia: > In 2012, the NSA said more than 30,000 employees worked at Fort Meade and other facilities.[2] In 2012, John C. Inglis, the deputy director, said that the total number of NSA employees is "somewhere between 37,000 and one billion" as a joke,[4] and stated that the agency is "probably the biggest employer of introverts."[4] In 2013 Der Spiegel stated that the NSA had 40,000 employees.[5] More widely, it has been described as the world's largest single employer of mathematicians. Let's assume they have 30 000 employees and the large majority of them are highly educated, that would make it into one of the largest organization on Earth in terms of intellect capital. In terms of actual budget it's obviously classified but estimations are probably around 10 billions USD per year. https://www.globalsecurity.org/intell/library/budget/index.html https://www.globalsecurity.org/intell/library/budget/index.h... That's not a small budget by any feat, and we know they operate huge data centers for surveillance, so they are certainly not a "passive" intelligence agency.
  - linkregister 9y ago
    Wal-Mart has more employees, is it more powerful? Number of employees is a negative metric. It means the NSA has less ostensible secret bribe money. Throwing up a big number is dazzling, but when you look at what the NSA does with that $10B, there is a limit. For example, the supposed 40k employees already eat up $3.2B, assuming an extremely charitable average fully-loaded cost of $80k per employee. Including facilities and supercomputer costs, this rapidly dwindles. That leaves maybe $5B for bribes, according to your accounting. Is that enough to subvert everybody? > they are certainly not a "passive" intelligence agency What is this addressing? Are you attempting to change the goal posts? The topic is ostensible unlimited NSA resources to corrupt every proprietary technology.
    - ekianjo 9y ago
      > Wal-Mart has more employees, is it more powerful? I doubt wal-mart has as many highly educated employees as the NSA. Numbers don't mean anything by themselves, but if you hire thousands of mathematicians they are bound to deliver more than Wal-Mart in the datascience and cryptography department. > Including facilities and supercomputer costs, this rapidly dwindles. Well, considering the overall surveillance budget of all secret agencies constantly increases, it does not seem that they will ever lack funding. > That leaves maybe $5B for bribes, according to your accounting. Is that enough to subvert everybody? Why would you need bribes when you have the Law and the full might of government power behind you? If you can convict of high treason anybody who speaks publicly about what the NSA does, why would anyone at Google, Microsoft or other companies working with the NSA have any incentive to say anything? > The topic is ostensible unlimited NSA resources to corrupt every proprietary technology. Resources is not only money. When you work for the government (and furthermore of the military establishment), as I said earlier, you can bring down a whole new level of pressure that money itself cannot buy. If that were not the case, then a bunch of secrets (take for example everything related to nuclear testing in the US) that were only revealed way, way after the facts, would have emerged much earlier in all likelihood.
      - linkregister 9y ago

linkregister 9y ago

They have zero context for an American, but the parent poster was Australian. If I had used American analogies, the point would have been lost. You're right that anyone else should be mystified.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

linkregister 9y ago

> Of course they have involvement with this, why wouldn't they? I think you give them too much credit and unnecessarily slander Intel, which has little reason to go along with NSA (no large DoD contracts, almost all consumer and B2B market). Also, you overestimate the amount of resources NSA has. If they have enough money to overcome Intel's appetite for risk, then why doesn't the NSA just run every single internet and hardware service out there? Your threat model needs to have bounds. It's worthless if you expect the adversary to have unlimited resources.

ekianjo 9y ago
Overestimate the amount of resources? Wikipedia: > In 2012, the NSA said more than 30,000 employees worked at Fort Meade and other facilities.[2] In 2012, John C. Inglis, the deputy director, said that the total number of NSA employees is "somewhere between 37,000 and one billion" as a joke,[4] and stated that the agency is "probably the biggest employer of introverts."[4] In 2013 Der Spiegel stated that the NSA had 40,000 employees.[5] More widely, it has been described as the world's largest single employer of mathematicians. Let's assume they have 30 000 employees and the large majority of them are highly educated, that would make it into one of the largest organization on Earth in terms of intellect capital. In terms of actual budget it's obviously classified but estimations are probably around 10 billions USD per year. https://www.globalsecurity.org/intell/library/budget/index.html https://www.globalsecurity.org/intell/library/budget/index.h... That's not a small budget by any feat, and we know they operate huge data centers for surveillance, so they are certainly not a "passive" intelligence agency.
- linkregister 9y ago
  Wal-Mart has more employees, is it more powerful? Number of employees is a negative metric. It means the NSA has less ostensible secret bribe money. Throwing up a big number is dazzling, but when you look at what the NSA does with that $10B, there is a limit. For example, the supposed 40k employees already eat up $3.2B, assuming an extremely charitable average fully-loaded cost of $80k per employee. Including facilities and supercomputer costs, this rapidly dwindles. That leaves maybe $5B for bribes, according to your accounting. Is that enough to subvert everybody? > they are certainly not a "passive" intelligence agency What is this addressing? Are you attempting to change the goal posts? The topic is ostensible unlimited NSA resources to corrupt every proprietary technology.
  - ekianjo 9y ago
    > Wal-Mart has more employees, is it more powerful? I doubt wal-mart has as many highly educated employees as the NSA. Numbers don't mean anything by themselves, but if you hire thousands of mathematicians they are bound to deliver more than Wal-Mart in the datascience and cryptography department. > Including facilities and supercomputer costs, this rapidly dwindles. Well, considering the overall surveillance budget of all secret agencies constantly increases, it does not seem that they will ever lack funding. > That leaves maybe $5B for bribes, according to your accounting. Is that enough to subvert everybody? Why would you need bribes when you have the Law and the full might of government power behind you? If you can convict of high treason anybody who speaks publicly about what the NSA does, why would anyone at Google, Microsoft or other companies working with the NSA have any incentive to say anything? > The topic is ostensible unlimited NSA resources to corrupt every proprietary technology. Resources is not only money. When you work for the government (and furthermore of the military establishment), as I said earlier, you can bring down a whole new level of pressure that money itself cannot buy. If that were not the case, then a bunch of secrets (take for example everything related to nuclear testing in the US) that were only revealed way, way after the facts, would have emerged much earlier in all likelihood.
    - linkregister 9y ago