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This idea of 'post Snowden' world makes little sense. The idea that you have to agree to everything your government does smacks of jingoism and is inherently an

by throw2016 8y ago

This idea of 'post Snowden' world makes little sense. The idea that you have to agree to everything your government does smacks of jingoism and is inherently anti democratic. It's far more important to stand up for fundamental democratic values and protect whistle blowers like Snowden who stood by these values, than fight imaginary battles with a 'siege mentality'. This whole idea of 'us vs them' and this narrative of constant threat has always been a tool of despots everywhere.

dogma1138 8y ago
Nothing the GP said implies having to agree or blindly follow but no one with any shred of sense can argue that Snowden's leaks have not caused significant harm to US (and to an extent 5-Eye/NATO/western) SIGINT/Cyber operations. Whether our society would benefit more from the exposure than the potential damages form exposing intelligence operations and crippling both defensive and offensive capacity is a completely separate argument. And it's not just Snowden, Vault7 which included public source code disclosure and The Shadow Broker / Equation Group leaks also did quite a bit of harm. Like it or not the digital realm is a fully fledged domain of modern warfare and maintaining superiority in it is just as important as maintaining all those fancy carrier strike groups.
- tptacek 8y ago
  "The digital realm is a fully fledged domain of modern warfare" is one of those things that DoD-types like to say, and that the consulting industry likes to echo, that doesn't really mean anything. In the airless vacuum of message board reasoning, everything is a domain of modern warfare.
  - dogma1138 8y ago
    I'm not going to argue with you I know who you are (I don't mean it in a negative way). But at least from my previous experience beyond intelligence gathering and information warfare "cyber" has been a key component of military operations. Anything from SEAD to hacking into civilian and critical infrastructure for direct support of an operation is a common place, it was in so about a decade ago which is my last privileged exposure to such activities and it so still now. Tracking enemy combatants via their mobile devices, breaking into mobile carriers disturbing C&C/C4/C3I networks and kinetic payloads to disrupt both temporary/field deployed (I have a few anecdotes about Mitsubishi generators and their TELYS control panels) and permanent infrastructure are not limited to the presale decks that Lockheed Martin presents to the DoD. My exposure is also completely devoid of any contact with any US defense contractors or an other US organization but rather through an MNNA.

dogma1138 8y ago

Nothing the GP said implies having to agree or blindly follow but no one with any shred of sense can argue that Snowden's leaks have not caused significant harm to US (and to an extent 5-Eye/NATO/western) SIGINT/Cyber operations. Whether our society would benefit more from the exposure than the potential damages form exposing intelligence operations and crippling both defensive and offensive capacity is a completely separate argument. And it's not just Snowden, Vault7 which included public source code disclosure and The Shadow Broker / Equation Group leaks also did quite a bit of harm. Like it or not the digital realm is a fully fledged domain of modern warfare and maintaining superiority in it is just as important as maintaining all those fancy carrier strike groups.

tptacek 8y ago
"The digital realm is a fully fledged domain of modern warfare" is one of those things that DoD-types like to say, and that the consulting industry likes to echo, that doesn't really mean anything. In the airless vacuum of message board reasoning, everything is a domain of modern warfare.
- dogma1138 8y ago
  I'm not going to argue with you I know who you are (I don't mean it in a negative way). But at least from my previous experience beyond intelligence gathering and information warfare "cyber" has been a key component of military operations. Anything from SEAD to hacking into civilian and critical infrastructure for direct support of an operation is a common place, it was in so about a decade ago which is my last privileged exposure to such activities and it so still now. Tracking enemy combatants via their mobile devices, breaking into mobile carriers disturbing C&C/C4/C3I networks and kinetic payloads to disrupt both temporary/field deployed (I have a few anecdotes about Mitsubishi generators and their TELYS control panels) and permanent infrastructure are not limited to the presale decks that Lockheed Martin presents to the DoD. My exposure is also completely devoid of any contact with any US defense contractors or an other US organization but rather through an MNNA.