4 ms·

Lots of valid points but to me the premise is flawed. Seems more plausible this is CYA blame shifting - “I didn’t make a mistake, the journalist hacked signal”.

Lots of valid points but to me the premise is flawed. Seems more plausible this is CYA blame shifting - “I didn’t make a mistake, the journalist hacked signal”. Think about that premise - a journalist is now obtaining vulnerabilities to Signal? [1] suggests that the price of a 0-day is $1M. I don’t believe journalists have that kind of cash and definitely not the skill to discover this themselves, not to mention the dangers of treason hacking into government war planning would land you. I’m disappointed that Schneier didn’t challenge the premise even a little [1] https://heimdalsecurity.com/blog/zero-day-exploit-prices-signal-skyrocket/ https://heimdalsecurity.com/blog/zero-day-exploit-prices-sig...

mindslight 2y ago
There are also the larger flawed premises that this autocratic administration actually cares about digital security or is working for the larger interests of the United States. I certainly understand Schneier's desire to push for more secure systems, and hoping to use the current political winds to do that. But autocrats only reference higher ideals as a cover for their actual agenda of power and control - they're frustrated they can't (yet) just pull this journalist's fingernails out for having embarrassed them. Treating their announcements as if they contain earnest statements of universal values we can work with is actually just validating their propaganda and supporting them. What we need to be doing is mocking them instead. Like, really, "I didn’t see this loser in the group" ? Maybe the problem was that he was only expecting to see a list of fellow losers like himself? And maybe this loser-who-failed-upwards needs to listen to his grandkids when they try to tell him that a cell phone works a little differently than TV remote? Discussions of digital security are better when they are focused around how us citizens can protected ourselves from the government, and that goes so much more with this current government.

mindslight 2y ago

There are also the larger flawed premises that this autocratic administration actually cares about digital security or is working for the larger interests of the United States. I certainly understand Schneier's desire to push for more secure systems, and hoping to use the current political winds to do that. But autocrats only reference higher ideals as a cover for their actual agenda of power and control - they're frustrated they can't (yet) just pull this journalist's fingernails out for having embarrassed them. Treating their announcements as if they contain earnest statements of universal values we can work with is actually just validating their propaganda and supporting them. What we need to be doing is mocking them instead. Like, really, "I didn’t see this loser in the group" ? Maybe the problem was that he was only expecting to see a list of fellow losers like himself? And maybe this loser-who-failed-upwards needs to listen to his grandkids when they try to tell him that a cell phone works a little differently than TV remote? Discussions of digital security are better when they are focused around how us citizens can protected ourselves from the government, and that goes so much more with this current government.