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I have to say, although I can only appreciate at a distance the level of skill needed to pull something like this off, reading articles about it blows my fricki
by acron0 14y ago
I have to say, although I can only appreciate at a distance the level of skill needed to pull something like this off, reading articles about it blows my frickin' mind. It is both fascinating and terrifying that there are people out there who can do these kinds of things. This, imo, is the stuff that really separates the wheat from the chaff when it comes to hackers. And just look how the media frenzied over the likes of LulzSec. I hope they never have to grasp, first hand, just how deep that rabbit hole can go. Really, money and political whim aside, a large portion of our freedom can be attributed to these individuals. That is damn scary. I hope they're kept on a very tight leash, anyway.
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- weavejester 14y ago> Really, money and political whim aside, a large portion of our freedom can be attributed to these individuals. How so?
- gaius 14y agoI assume he means the code breakers at Bletchley Park who were instrumental in preserving freedom in WW2.
- dfc 14y agoWe won the cold war.
- Danieru 14y agoThe soviets had an economic crash. The USA did not win the cold war, the USSR lost it.
- dfc 14y agoWow, I never thought about it like that. Imagine how much earlier the cold war would have ended if American actions effected the allocation of Soviet resources? ;)
- morsch 14y agoDo you ever question that narrative? I know it's a widespread one, and it seems to make sense, but I'm wondering how many of those who bring it up have retraced the research or have the background to even be able to retrace it. This is not a dig at you -- who knows maybe you did do the research, and if not, it's a probably a good and reliable strategy to trust the consensus narrative by default.
- dfc 14y agoI appreciate your comment, in fact I think a lot of this thread is based off blind adherence to the popular narrative (just look at the attention given to who leaked and why). I have done a lot of research and reading in this area. The intelligence/military arena is a hobby/fetish of mine. Just look at the impact of the Stinger and the broader US involvement with Russia's occupation of Afghanistan (Ghost War is the canonical reference). For further evidence of the US's awareness of the importance of economics take a look at the grain subsidies and the discussions for and against.
- Danieru 14y agoYou mean somehow applying resources even less efficiently than soviet economic planners? Is that even possible? I bet if the USA had tried such a tactic all that would have happened is a more efficient allocation. Imagine the covert spy economists giving a policy 'recommendation' talk. "We should take all the grain a farmer grows over a certain threshold. Thus the farmer will not be blinded by greed and will work hard to increase production for the good of the people. And just to be sure that said farmers have stately love in their hearts, let us cause a great famine in our bread bowl." would say the American spys as they outlay their plan to ruin the Soviet Union. The soviet economists upon hearing their own plans recited word for word would realise how brilliant said plan was not. They would then roll a D20 and come up with a marginal better plan.
- kyrra 14y agoThere are a lot of hands involved in something like stuxnet and flame. You have code breakers looking at standard hash and encryption algorithms, looking for weaknesses. You have coders that are writing all the data gathering tools. Other teams working on propagation. A team doing c&c server setup, development. Plus who knows what else. A lot of the research done for stuxnet and flame are probably more general, but were applied for these attacks. This was executed by a number of researchers and developers. Led and organized by managers. Welcome to the inside of the NSA, where a lot of bright math and compsci grads work.
- sliverstorm 14y agoWelcome to the inside of the NSA, where a lot of bright math and compsci grads work. How it should be, IMO. Seems to me the NSA is on the short list of places you would absolutely want to staff with (some of) your best-and-brightest.
- nitrogen 14y agoHow it should be, IMO. Seems to me the NSA is on the short list of places you would absolutely want to staff with (some of) your best-and-brightest. Assuming, of course, that you agree with the mission and methods of the NSA.