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Just going to add a small bit of extra context to this from the eyes of the intelligence community because that doesn’t seem to ever get a look at on Hacker New

by mdhb 2y ago

Just going to add a small bit of extra context to this from the eyes of the intelligence community because that doesn’t seem to ever get a look at on Hacker News where for many years there has been a more or less unquestionable assumption that he is some kind of hero. But from their point of view, it’s really in no way obvious that this wasn’t an operation from the very start. The FBIs chief spy catcher was actually working as a liaison officer in Moscow when this happened and he talks about it in some detail here in this interview (will update with timestamps later if I can find it) https://www.youtube.com/live/0NSGOJs150w https://www.youtube.com/live/0NSGOJs150w but in his experience this is actually EXACTLY what he would expect an operation like that to look like and there has never been any clear evidence in the years since that would put a meaningful dent in that theory. The other point I wanted to make was that because people tend to have no real idea beyond movies as to how intelligence agencies actually function in real life they have no context for where he fit into the bigger picture. But Snowden was never some super spy or anything like that, he has zero operational experience or context he was just a Microsoft SharePoint administrator who had a security clearance. He demonstrated numerous times since then that he actually had no meaningful context as to what he was actually leaking for into the wider operational picture or what kinds of controls were in place around its usage. He made a unilateral decision to take as much classified information as he could possibly get his hands on and then leak it with no regards to the consequences that came with it. There are legitimate reasons to be upset with certain actions of the US intel community I am not here to do some wholesale defence on their behalf but this image he has built for himself as some heroic whistleblower is built on incredibly flimsy evidence. There is a reason why he has essentially zero defenders inside the intelligence community and I would put it to you that it’s not simply because “they are all evil”.

racional 2y ago
Can you explain in your own words what kind of "operation" are we talking about here? The video sounds interesting, but I won't be able to give it a look for quite some time. Plus I'd like to know what your view specifically is on the matter.
- mdhb 2y ago
  Sorry just to be clear the accusation is that he was effectively working for the Russians knowingly and the plan was to leak as much source and methods style information as widely as possible but under the cover of an independent whistleblower with the explicit goal of degrading US capabilities as much as possible. Essentially that his motivations were something entirely different to his version of events. It’s ultimately an impossible question to answer most likely. His stated motivations make sense on the surface for sure but I think there are still some big questions around assuming it’s all true, what steps did he take along the way to minimise unnecessary damage and I can’t recall much on that front worth pointing to.
  - DANmode 2y ago
    > what steps did he take along the way to minimise unnecessary damage He left that for a proper class of journalists. Articulate what (even category) of damage you feel he did, that wasn't also about .gov actions that were outright illegal, and/or being hidden from the very citizens paying the bill, and maybe you'll have a discussion here.
hulitu 2y ago
> He made a unilateral decision to take as much classified information as he could possibly get his hands on and then leak it with no regards to the consequences that came with it. As we used to say on /.: "Citation needed".
- mdhb 2y ago
  It was widely reported at the time that he literally wrote a crawler to grab as much stuff on the network as possible specifically and tweaked it to look for the most classified stuff he could find if I recall correctly.
- racional 2y ago
  That he grabbed as much as he could is reasonably clear. But it's objectively false to say that he simply "leaked it" with no precautions or regard to the consequences.
  - mdhb 2y ago
    It’s been years since I looked at that case in detail it’s totally possible I’m misremembering things but can you tell me what steps he took in any detail?
    - racional 2y ago
      Likewise here, but as I recall from a mix of interviews, articles, and at least one documentary the main steps were: (1) being reasonably picky about the journalists he chose to reach out to; (2) making sure they were savvy enough to work with, and understand the imperative need to work with basic encryption tools; (3) encouraging these journalists to be very cautious in their handling of the material; and (4) destroying any physical copies of the data he had before boarding the plane to Moscow. Perhaps some aspects of the above have been challenged or questioned in the interim. But that's my recollection of the precautions he took, or at least said he took, according to those sources.
      - mdhb 2y ago
tiberious726 2y ago
As I recall, there wasn't a single thing in the leaks that wasn't already widely known in security circles. Hell, a few months before them I had IBM in my offices proudly telling me that they were the suppliers for the Utah datacenters. I'm still pretty convinced the whole thing was a US operation, to shut up the people who would insist everyone who knew about these things was a crackpot. Could the current push for NIST 800-171/CMMC have really happened without Snowden, or something much worse?
- mdhb 2y ago
  I really can’t emphasise enough how wrong that interpretation is. It was hands down the worst intel failure by a considerable margin. Worse than the time they lost the name of every CIA officer in the OPM hack.
  - tiberious726 2y ago
    What are some examples of things that were in the leaks that were actually new information? PRISM is basically the only thing the Utah datacenter could have been used for back then. Cisco firmware having backdoors wasn't even really considered to be on the crackpot side of things pre leaks. I remember people being surprised at the scope of their shipping-intercept program when the leaks were new, but that's about it. Didn't they lose all biometric info for all federal employees in the OPM hack? Fingerprints and retinal images (for those who had them) too?
    - DANmode 2y ago
      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010s_global_surveillance_disclosures https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010s_global_surveillance_di... Everyone can just keep reading until they find the parts they haven't heard about, now.

by mdhb 2y ago

racional 2y ago

Can you explain in your own words what kind of "operation" are we talking about here? The video sounds interesting, but I won't be able to give it a look for quite some time. Plus I'd like to know what your view specifically is on the matter.

mdhb 2y ago
Sorry just to be clear the accusation is that he was effectively working for the Russians knowingly and the plan was to leak as much source and methods style information as widely as possible but under the cover of an independent whistleblower with the explicit goal of degrading US capabilities as much as possible. Essentially that his motivations were something entirely different to his version of events. It’s ultimately an impossible question to answer most likely. His stated motivations make sense on the surface for sure but I think there are still some big questions around assuming it’s all true, what steps did he take along the way to minimise unnecessary damage and I can’t recall much on that front worth pointing to.
- DANmode 2y ago
  > what steps did he take along the way to minimise unnecessary damage He left that for a proper class of journalists. Articulate what (even category) of damage you feel he did, that wasn't also about .gov actions that were outright illegal, and/or being hidden from the very citizens paying the bill, and maybe you'll have a discussion here.

hulitu 2y ago

> He made a unilateral decision to take as much classified information as he could possibly get his hands on and then leak it with no regards to the consequences that came with it. As we used to say on /.: "Citation needed".

mdhb 2y ago
It was widely reported at the time that he literally wrote a crawler to grab as much stuff on the network as possible specifically and tweaked it to look for the most classified stuff he could find if I recall correctly.
racional 2y ago
That he grabbed as much as he could is reasonably clear. But it's objectively false to say that he simply "leaked it" with no precautions or regard to the consequences.
- mdhb 2y ago
  It’s been years since I looked at that case in detail it’s totally possible I’m misremembering things but can you tell me what steps he took in any detail?
  - racional 2y ago
    Likewise here, but as I recall from a mix of interviews, articles, and at least one documentary the main steps were: (1) being reasonably picky about the journalists he chose to reach out to; (2) making sure they were savvy enough to work with, and understand the imperative need to work with basic encryption tools; (3) encouraging these journalists to be very cautious in their handling of the material; and (4) destroying any physical copies of the data he had before boarding the plane to Moscow. Perhaps some aspects of the above have been challenged or questioned in the interim. But that's my recollection of the precautions he took, or at least said he took, according to those sources.
    - mdhb 2y ago

tiberious726 2y ago

As I recall, there wasn't a single thing in the leaks that wasn't already widely known in security circles. Hell, a few months before them I had IBM in my offices proudly telling me that they were the suppliers for the Utah datacenters. I'm still pretty convinced the whole thing was a US operation, to shut up the people who would insist everyone who knew about these things was a crackpot. Could the current push for NIST 800-171/CMMC have really happened without Snowden, or something much worse?

mdhb 2y ago
I really can’t emphasise enough how wrong that interpretation is. It was hands down the worst intel failure by a considerable margin. Worse than the time they lost the name of every CIA officer in the OPM hack.
- tiberious726 2y ago
  What are some examples of things that were in the leaks that were actually new information? PRISM is basically the only thing the Utah datacenter could have been used for back then. Cisco firmware having backdoors wasn't even really considered to be on the crackpot side of things pre leaks. I remember people being surprised at the scope of their shipping-intercept program when the leaks were new, but that's about it. Didn't they lose all biometric info for all federal employees in the OPM hack? Fingerprints and retinal images (for those who had them) too?
  - DANmode 2y ago
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010s_global_surveillance_disclosures https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010s_global_surveillance_di... Everyone can just keep reading until they find the parts they haven't heard about, now.