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Going Through Snowden Documents, Part 1
- dadrian 10mo ago[flagged]
- hulitu 10mo ago> Surely, this time we'll find something! You won"t.
- CamperBob2 10mo agoWe saw plenty, but nobody cared. Let's see how that works out for us in the long run.
- hulitu 10mo agoPeople forget. Easily. Just bombard their brains with something else and everything is fine.
- timschmidt 10mo agoReminds me of the 49s mark of the first song on Dispepsi by Negativland: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyDL1I6D8Hg&list=OLAK5uy_lGCnp5XnmATXNu9UIwZIJaRIf-FIyXDkI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyDL1I6D8Hg&list=OLAK5uy_lGC... "You can actually cause the consumer to forget something he has previously learned... by putting into his head a newer and stronger concept... You can actually remove an advertising story from his memory, and in it's place you can substitute one of your own... as we seize a larger and larger share of the consumer's brain box..."
- squigz 10mo agoI'm always happy to be reminded that HN users are not part of "people"
- bagels 10mo agoThere were plenty of somethings found at the time.
- jeffbee 10mo agoHa, right on target. The scariest thing in there was that they managed to tap an undersea cable and find a protobuf that they didn't know how to parse. Profound mismatch between the reputation of the NSA, their willingness to undertake daring physical intrusions, and their total inability to profit from that.
- asdefghyk 10mo agoSome what (vaguely) related to this topic About surveillance. I recall a local political and business figure making statements you and/or I are being surveilled by the government. Everyone thought that's not likely , its not possible, he is a bit imbalanced.. After the dumping of documents' from Snowden and Assange it was shown to be possible Things like, if its even possible , it could plausibly be happening. The government has somewhat infinite resources. The altered software for hard drive hacking for example. Wow. Intercepting packages in mail and altering the software ...
- wood_spirit 10mo agoThe Soviets planted listening devices in American embassy typewriters between October 1976 and January 1984 - by intercepting them in the mail! Really sophisticated devices: https://www.cryptomuseum.com/covert/bugs/selectric/ https://www.cryptomuseum.com/covert/bugs/selectric/
- zewper 10mo agoI love the internet. For all its drawbacks lately, deep down at its core, there are still hidden gems out there like this website. There goes my afternoon.
- aschla 10mo agoWow, back in the 70s the bugs were only detectable by x-ray scan. Makes you wonder what kinds of things can be hidden in the ICs of today.
- ginush 10mo agoWe know now that communications are being intercepted in bulk as a matter of intelligence gathering, but that does not equate to everyone being surveilled by the government. What this actually provides, first and foremost, is the capability to perform targeted surveillance more rapidly, and to do so temporally by reaching into datasets already recorded. Obviously this provides a much-needed capability for legitimate investigations, where the target of interest and their identifying markers may not yet be known.
- walletdrainer 10mo agoIt’d be nice if someone released the 99% of Snowden documents that remain unreleased
- radicaldreamer 10mo agoIt's weird how the journalists who have access to these files basically stopped reporting on them and joined or started "independent" outfits with massive salaries (500k+ USD) https://www.cjr.org/business_of_news/layoffs-the-intercept.php https://www.cjr.org/business_of_news/layoffs-the-intercept.p...
- jjordan 10mo agoIf you've ever watched the movie "Enemy of the State", which came out in 1998, I don't know how you can come away from that movie thinking anything other than someone in that script writing pipeline had some insider knowledge of what was happening. So many of the things they talk about in the film were confirmed by the Snowden releases that it's kinda scary. Today, it's almost a national societal resignation that "you have no privacy, get over it." I wish that weren't the case, but I'd like to see more representation embrace privacy as the basic right it should be again.
- sharttone 10mo ago[dead]
- jazzyjackson 10mo ago:) I've long held that a useful counterintelligence strategy is to weave real operations into fictional films, such that if someone catches on and tries to tell people about it, the response is simply "you schizophrenic - that's the plot of Die Hard 4!" Slightly less conspiratorial version is that agents and clerks with knowledge of operations get drunk at the same bars as Hollywood script writers
- hopelite 10mo agoThat is largely correct, even if not for that specific purpose/reason. Those people are largely self-discrediting, among other things.
- Terr_ 10mo ago> that's the plot of Die Hard 4 I must admit, the plausibility of corrupt government officials triggering a disaster to irreversibly steal bajillions of tax dollars hits a little differently today, 18 years later. Not just due to the dramatis personae in charge, or the existence of cryptocurrencies, but also the real-world overlap of the two.
- ProllyInfamous 10mo agoRight before Snowden, I met a "fiction" author whose DefCon presentation was about government attempts at management of conspiracy theorists. His SciFi writings were the technically-dense ramblings you'd expect from somebody who'd spent much of his early decades contracting for secretive government agencies. During both his speech and in the introduction to his book Mindgames, he mentions that most DoD-funded personnel (staff or contract) sign agreements which give Agency-censorship, even after employment ends. Richard suggests that a method to reduce overall censorship is to write "fiction" books that contain less than 90% truth. The secret, he maintains, is to not distinguish between truths and embellishments. ---- I listened to most of Richard's speech, some fifteen years ago, with my eyes rolling around in my head (yeah... sure... okay...). It wasn't until my IBEW apprenticeship, primarily working inside large data centers during the Snowden revelations, that I realized the orchestrated lies narrating our headlines. Don't carry the internet in your pocket with you everywhere; use cash; spend some unmonitored time reading real books purchased from actual stores; pet your cat for just one more minute. [*] Note: I belive Richard's surname was Thiele or Thieme, but cannot locate his book at the moment — he was an absolute nut, but 80% of his publications seem to have proven truthful to-date.
- wood_spirit 10mo agoHow can Snowdon possibly feel as the international situation changes so totally since he fled? It boggles the mind.
- ok123456 10mo agoProbably, that he did the right thing at the right time.
- ginush 10mo agoI hope he's still not deluding himself into thinking he did anything positive.
- hopelite 10mo agoThat's rather harsh. Exposing illegal, objectively treasonous activities by the government is not exactly not something positive, regardless of whether the regime has only gotten worse and more totalitarian and tightened its noose even more around the neck of humanity. By objective measures, having the courage he did to do what he did was courageous, albeit possibly foolish, since his understanding of the USA did not actually match the reality of what the USA long has been, because he has been drinking the Kool-Aid too. Ironically, the system depended on and somewhat still depends on the very kind of belief in the system that Snowden had, even if he just believed it far more and actually took it serious.
- ginush 10mo agoHe sought revenge after not getting a desired job promotion. There was nothing noble about his intentions, just narcissistic fury with what he, in his narrow world view, saw as unfairness towards himself. I find it amazing how many people have been taken in by the bullshit narrative he concocted about human rights and privacy. So gullible. He helped our adversaries on an immense scale, and even went to live under the protection of one of them. Some patriot he is, gladly embracing the Russian regime.
- reeeli 10mo ago[flagged]
- tolerance 10mo agoI can’t tell if it’s the author(s) or the content of the actual report but I found this to be underwhelming.
- ForOldHack 10mo agoIs there a mirror for this? my library has FortNight blocking it. ( bad certificate, leads them to believe its a spam site...).
- lucb1e 10mo agoWhat's FortNight? I tried looking it up but got fortnite as the top result, and forcing a literal search with quotes just brings up the dictionary definition. Sadly I don't know of a way to do a case-sensitive web search
- pseudalopex 10mo agoThey meant Fortinet possibly.
- lucb1e 10mo agoOh, that garbage. Should have known it would be a corporate firewall
- wiredpancake 10mo ago[dead]
- libroot 10mo agoWeird, the certificate should be fine. Here's a link for Web Archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20251211220119/https://libroot.org/posts/going-through-snowden-documents-part-1/ https://web.archive.org/web/20251211220119/https://libroot.o... We also have Tor onion site: http://librootfuuucybrkpvarmpswsxnbsakf2oqqzxncvsqrvc2j73kuufqd.onion/ http://librootfuuucybrkpvarmpswsxnbsakf2oqqzxncvsqrvc2j73kuu... And I2P: http://xvqmnhevx32br7m4e7g3yoxfirizo4m3uktym3wnuntbgbr5bvna.b32.i2p/ http://xvqmnhevx32br7m4e7g3yoxfirizo4m3uktym3wnuntbgbr5bvna....
- sunaookami 10mo agoThis comment section is strange, a lot of people trying to discredit Snowden, saying he shouldn't have released the files, should be in prison, etc. 12 years ago this was HUGE news and had a major impact on the internet and everyone thanked Snowden for these documents! I certainly am thankful. Disappointed in my country that they literally said that "spying between friends is a no-go" but then did nothing and intimidated journalists and legalized it instead. And thanks to the author for giving the documents another look, found it very interesting. There is also part 2: https://libroot.org/posts/going-through-snowden-documents-part-2/ https://libroot.org/posts/going-through-snowden-documents-pa...
- bandofthehawk 10mo agoMy memory is that Hacker News comments were even more anti-Snowden at the time, but I could be mistaken. I would have thought people here would be very supportive of his whistle blowing, but I think a lot of people on this site unfortunately have a strong loyalty to the government organizations that were exposed.
- GuinansEyebrows 10mo agoi think a lot of people on this site work on the same types of projects snowden worked on and blew the whistle over, for the same organizations, and feel good about it. i wonder how many users here are happily employed by booz allen hamilton?
- nasaeclipse 10mo agounrelated, but I recently saw an ad by booz allen that proudly said "Stopping Fentanyl" as part of their mission. Like, really? Are people really that gullible to believe that?
- DANmode 10mo agoThe people that didn’t know the name before the ad? Yeah.
- SamDc73 10mo agoThe Wyden–Daines Amendment in 2020: a huge privacy amendment that would’ve limited surveillance missed the Senate by literally one vote. It would’ve stopped the government from getting American's web browsing and search history without a warrant. And honestly, I still have zero respect for anyone who voted against it. If you need a warrant to walk into my house, you should need a warrant to walk into my digital life too. What Snowden exposed more than 10 years ago, none of that was addressed, the surveillance machine just got worse if anything
- yogurtboy 10mo agoAgreed. Here's the result of the vote, in case anyone notices these representatives running for reelection: https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_votes/vote1162/vote_116_2_00089.htm#position https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_votes/vote1...
- hypeatei 10mo agoIt's quite surprising that Bernie didn't vote on that bill considering he was vehemently against the Patriot Act. Disappointing.
- shakna 10mo agoHe was recovering from a heart attack at the time, and remote voting was prohibited.
- culi 10mo agoWow it's disorienting to see a vote that's not cleanly split across party lines. Things worked differently back then.
- bnolsen 10mo agoAnd they tried to hang him for it. I wasn't particularly pleased with some actions he took after he ran off but the government reaction was truly out of hand and forced him into full survival mode. This part of government is full of weird power crazed spooks.
- 31337Logic 10mo agoWe're so fucking apathetic. Organizations that wish to strip your privacy should be treated the same as organizations who commit atrocities towards the planet or their fellow inhabitants. Expose them all. Shame them. Vote against them. Pass laws to weekend their power, etc. We've totally been down this road before with alcohol, cigarettes, climate control, pollution, trans fats, guns (in some countries), etc. It's completely possible to do it again for online privacy. Use your voice now, before you find you are unable to do so at all.
- intelec1 10mo ago[dead]
- inthegreenwoods 10mo ago[dead]
- tehjoker 10mo agoVery interesting and useful analysis. I am looking forward to more. It was very strange that the Snowden documents didn't get more analysis than they did (even though there was some significant analysis). I wonder what this organization is though. The stated purpose seems a little anachronistic, similar to the ideas of the early 2010s, which were amply covered by Surveillance Valley: The Secret Military History of the Internet (2018). A number of organizations of that type ended up being funded by U.S. intelligence as it ended up benefiting military intelligence in various ways, e.g. the Tor Project is funded like this and provides chaff cover for intelligence operations (if all Tor traffic was military, there would be little point to it since it would stick out like a sore thumb) and e.g. NSA can de-anonymize Tor traffic since they can correlate entry and exit traffic with total system awareness (an asymmetric capability no other nation or sub-national organization has). There's a great podcast + transcript with Chris Hedges and author Yasha Levine about this book here: https://consortiumnews.com/2025/04/13/chris-hedges-report-the-military-history-of-the-internet/ https://consortiumnews.com/2025/04/13/chris-hedges-report-th... Doing this analysis is a great way to get some credibility, but it also doesn't reveal anything that wasn't publicly available. Nonetheless, I still appreciate it!
- jokoon 10mo agoI've read people say that some of the documents were fake to sensationalize the story. With Putin and China, honestly I prefer feeling like the US has the best cyber weapons available, and I am not even american. "Privacy" is different in the digital age. Computers make it easier for criminals to do what they do, so it's fair if the government tries to peek into it.
- Hikikomori 10mo agoWhats china invading again?
- culi 10mo agoThis is a good idea and I'd love to see a series going through the, arguably more significant, Paradise Papers. Part of the problem there was the sheer size of the leak. Now that I think about it, this would actually be a great application of modern AIs for parsing
- arminiusreturns 10mo agoWhere are the rest of them? Glen Greenwald has never answered that question well enough for me.
- notepad0x90 10mo agoSince it's been a while now, what are the thoughts on the snowden leaks contributing to the rise of distrust in the government and governmental institutions in the US? I'm wondering if trump could have ever succeeded without that path being prepared for him by snowden's leaks and occupy wallstreet. I'm not saying snowden did anything wrong, to the contrary, he thought things would change and they didn't, I'm wondering whether that contributed to the feeling of americans feeling disenfranchised. Relations with europe also started souring around that time. I think snowden did the right thing, but like many in tech (especially here on HN), he didn't understand that American's didn't care about what's in the leaks all that much. it wasn't his burden to weigh the pros and cons, his burden was to do what he thought was right. But looking back, nothing good came out of the leaks, I wish they didn't happen to begin with. Of course if you're not an American lots of good things came out of it. I'm certain we have less privacy now, more governmental spying, and even more support for it. at least before we had the illusion that we had some rights to privacy from the government. Now that they're exposed and gotten away with it, I fear they've become more emboldened. I guess I am glad the whole thing was exposed, but I am regretful of how things turned out. Would it have been better if there was more trust in governmental institutions, and if the US IC kept their capabilities secret for longer? would they have been able to interfere with russian influence campaigns in 2015-16 if so? Is the world better of now? I suppose in 5-10 more years these things will be historical events and historians might answer these questions with a more objective perspective.
- keiferski 10mo agoThe trends that elected a populist leader were more economic in nature and can be more traced to the 2008 crisis. I doubt the average person can even name Snowden or what he did.
- raxxorraxor 10mo agoFor me personally it certainly contributed. I don't see Trump as an opposition to this, but it made clear that the current administrative landscape in most western nations is hostile, corrupt and criminal. Not only politicians, it is the whole administrative level as well. I do think that the leaks did something good and we have more of a focus on government being a hostile data proprietor and schooled people to take more care. Perhaps not the masses, but for those that deal with hot information. Trust in government is low. An achievement that took a lot of work, I guess. The Russian influence campaign was at least partially made up as well, government disinformation. Propaganda is mostly a domestic issue.