6 ms·

Meet the Spy Chief Leading Us Into Cyberwar

133 points by clicks 13y ago

MortenK 13y ago
Fear mongering at its best. "Cyber-kinetic attacks", give me a break
- wavefunction 13y ago
  We'll get them with "mind bullets" (that's telekinesis, Kyle!)
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
cup 13y ago
I had this strange thought occur half way through the article. The US government is storing, analysing and recording all internal electronic transmissions so that US civilians can be protected from external aggressors. Doesn't that then provide a hypothetical aggressor a simplified target. If they can access these data hubs then havent they hit the motherload? I wonder how secure the governments facilities are in retrospect. Furthermore, doesn't this make the task of detecting or hunting non-state aggressors that much harder now that they know all electronic transmissions are recorded (and thus forcing them into an electronic darkness where they can't be spied upon). I think PRISM and all these internal external spying facilities are inevitable but the ramifications of their public knowledge are going to be interesting. Edit: Im also surprised by the complete lack of interest by the general US population. Maybe because HN readers are educated and technical they understand the implications but you would think there would be some kind of public uproar over this, especially considering the myths that Americans are brought up upon (freedom from tyranny etc.)
- youngerdryas 13y ago
  You must be Dutch where surveillance is assumed.
  - cup 13y ago
    Not Dutch but I have lived in a few places around the world and never assume I have any privacy, unfortunately. Im sure any HN readers from the Middle East, Eastern Europe or Asia would probably know the feeling.
    - vastinfest 13y ago
      I'm from former soviet country and even I personaly am a bit too young to have experienced full force of soviet surveilance - all this current NSA crap hits quite close to home. And I do feel that i have more privacy. My governmet is rather to busy trying to shoot itself in the legs repeatedly to implement surveilance of any significant scale. My online presence probably end's up in NSA hands though. Since it is rather insignificant (i don't use facebook or any other "social" crap) I don't think much of it. It DOES annoy me, don't get me wrong.
    - yen223 13y ago
      I'm from an Asian country, and I have always assumed I have privacy, but that's only because my government is too incompetent to set up any reliable surveillance system.
      - cup 13y ago
        May I ask which country?
- krapp 13y ago
  I wonder how secure the governments facilities are in retrospect. We'll find out, I imagine, as soon as Anonymous gets their press briefing finalized. But I wouldn't say there's a complete lack of interest. For most Americans,this is just another in a series of scandals that play out on television, abstracted from their real lives. And as someone pointed out to me recently, almost no one seems to care when facebook and gmail mine your data. If it weren't for social media, I don't think PRISM would have been as acceptable culturally. Although I am a bit disturbed that the threat of affordable healthcare seems to have been far more revolting to people than this.
iharris 13y ago
I love the Threat Level articles that Wired produces, but if I see the word "cyber" one more time, I am going to go nuts.
- tripzilch 13y ago
  cybernuts?
mquander 13y ago
Do any of the representatives passing these inflated budgets have any idea what their five billion dollars is buying? I have to imagine that all of our elected officials hear about our "cybertroops" supplying "cyber-fire support" enacting "cyber-kinetic attacks" and they might as well be hearing about stealth bombers without knowing what radar, explosions, or airplanes are. Are there some kind of Congressional training sessions where basic information about computers is disseminated and explained, or is it all really just a bunch of hand-waving for all the individuals involved? I assume the latter, but I'd love to be pleasantly surprised.
- asperous 13y ago
  From watching the C-SPAN video that was on the front page of HN, I take from it that different senators and congressman have different levels of understanding. Senator Mary Landrieu (D-Lousiana), for example, had pretty much no idea what was going on ".gov is a coke bottle" ".com is the room surrounding the coke bottle." (paraphrasing). While Jeff Merkley (D-Oregon) had a better idea of what was going on "How did we get from the reasonable grounds, relevant authorized investigations, statement of facts, to all phone records, all locations, all the time." (@ time 1:22:05)
  - u2328 13y ago
    > Senator Mary Landrieu (D-Lousiana), for example, had pretty much no idea what was going on ".gov is a coke bottle" ".com is the room surrounding the coke bottle." (paraphrasing). I saw that too. She was completely dumbfounded, and apparently just defaulted to the attitude, "well, I don't understand what the hell is going on, and I trust you guys are doing a good job, so... good job!" It's terrifying. We need more computer-literate people in Congress, because the current crop are dinosaurs.
    - marshray 13y ago
      At least no one was actively joking and boasting about their computer illiteracy the way so many do. ("I have to ask my kids for help to turn the thing on").
mikegioia 13y ago
I just don't understand how the NSA can even have the technical capacity to store all of this data. If their total operating budget is a few billion dollars, that doesn't even really come close to buying enough disk to store what some claim they are storing (all network traffic, social data, images, emails, voice, etc).
- b6 13y ago
  Where are you getting that budget? Supposedly, the new Bluffdale facility alone will cost at least $2B. Do we have any way of knowing what their real budget is? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah_Data_Center https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah_Data_Center
  - mpyne 13y ago
    That money will likely be split over multiple years, if I'm remembering my Federal Acquisition Rules training correctly.
- damian2000 13y ago
  You'd imagine they'd be able to remove a good amount of it by removing duplicate data? e.g. video, audio and images
  - marshray 13y ago
    Haha, yeah I bet the kind of data they collect dedupes and compresses pretty well. They probably sometimes collect the same packet many times on its journey.
- adventured 13y ago
  It's not a few billion dollars. The best speculation I've seen on the matter is that the NSA's budget is between $12 and $15 billion, but that was several years ago, it might be much higher now with the emphasis being placed on all of these programs (with the NSA effectively being turned into a military asset). We can extrapolate a floor on their budget by looking at the FBI and CIA, with it being publicly known that the NSA is far larger than both. The FBI's 2014 budget request is for $8.4 billion, with 37,000 permanent employees. The NSA is thought to be at least two to three times larger than the FBI.
hooo 13y ago
He probably has so much dirt on the politicians that they have to do his bidding.
- adventured 13y ago
  Spy kings at the point of large inflections in power and technology always do. See: J Edgar Hoover.
adventured 13y ago
I think it's every bit as likely that the NSA will be responsible for instigating and elevating (arms race) the very cyber war they claim the private sector won't be able to defend itself against (eg Stuxnet, and I'd hate to know what they've been up to since). Self-fulfilling prophecy.
- marshray 13y ago
  It really sounds a lot like the run-up to World War I. Kings and militaries running around gearing up and thumping their chests, polarizing their populations, with only the dimmest understanding of the utter hell which they were about to unleash upon themselves. Thankfully, we people are awake now and can put a limit on the foolishness before it gets too late. But this is why a free and open internet is so important.

133 points by clicks 13y ago

MortenK 13y ago

Fear mongering at its best. "Cyber-kinetic attacks", give me a break

wavefunction 13y ago
We'll get them with "mind bullets" (that's telekinesis, Kyle!)

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

cup 13y ago

I had this strange thought occur half way through the article. The US government is storing, analysing and recording all internal electronic transmissions so that US civilians can be protected from external aggressors. Doesn't that then provide a hypothetical aggressor a simplified target. If they can access these data hubs then havent they hit the motherload? I wonder how secure the governments facilities are in retrospect. Furthermore, doesn't this make the task of detecting or hunting non-state aggressors that much harder now that they know all electronic transmissions are recorded (and thus forcing them into an electronic darkness where they can't be spied upon). I think PRISM and all these internal external spying facilities are inevitable but the ramifications of their public knowledge are going to be interesting. Edit: Im also surprised by the complete lack of interest by the general US population. Maybe because HN readers are educated and technical they understand the implications but you would think there would be some kind of public uproar over this, especially considering the myths that Americans are brought up upon (freedom from tyranny etc.)

youngerdryas 13y ago
You must be Dutch where surveillance is assumed.
- cup 13y ago
  Not Dutch but I have lived in a few places around the world and never assume I have any privacy, unfortunately. Im sure any HN readers from the Middle East, Eastern Europe or Asia would probably know the feeling.
  - vastinfest 13y ago
    I'm from former soviet country and even I personaly am a bit too young to have experienced full force of soviet surveilance - all this current NSA crap hits quite close to home. And I do feel that i have more privacy. My governmet is rather to busy trying to shoot itself in the legs repeatedly to implement surveilance of any significant scale. My online presence probably end's up in NSA hands though. Since it is rather insignificant (i don't use facebook or any other "social" crap) I don't think much of it. It DOES annoy me, don't get me wrong.
  - yen223 13y ago
    I'm from an Asian country, and I have always assumed I have privacy, but that's only because my government is too incompetent to set up any reliable surveillance system.
    - cup 13y ago
      May I ask which country?
krapp 13y ago
I wonder how secure the governments facilities are in retrospect. We'll find out, I imagine, as soon as Anonymous gets their press briefing finalized. But I wouldn't say there's a complete lack of interest. For most Americans,this is just another in a series of scandals that play out on television, abstracted from their real lives. And as someone pointed out to me recently, almost no one seems to care when facebook and gmail mine your data. If it weren't for social media, I don't think PRISM would have been as acceptable culturally. Although I am a bit disturbed that the threat of affordable healthcare seems to have been far more revolting to people than this.

iharris 13y ago

I love the Threat Level articles that Wired produces, but if I see the word "cyber" one more time, I am going to go nuts.

tripzilch 13y ago
cybernuts?

mquander 13y ago

Do any of the representatives passing these inflated budgets have any idea what their five billion dollars is buying? I have to imagine that all of our elected officials hear about our "cybertroops" supplying "cyber-fire support" enacting "cyber-kinetic attacks" and they might as well be hearing about stealth bombers without knowing what radar, explosions, or airplanes are. Are there some kind of Congressional training sessions where basic information about computers is disseminated and explained, or is it all really just a bunch of hand-waving for all the individuals involved? I assume the latter, but I'd love to be pleasantly surprised.

asperous 13y ago
From watching the C-SPAN video that was on the front page of HN, I take from it that different senators and congressman have different levels of understanding. Senator Mary Landrieu (D-Lousiana), for example, had pretty much no idea what was going on ".gov is a coke bottle" ".com is the room surrounding the coke bottle." (paraphrasing). While Jeff Merkley (D-Oregon) had a better idea of what was going on "How did we get from the reasonable grounds, relevant authorized investigations, statement of facts, to all phone records, all locations, all the time." (@ time 1:22:05)
- u2328 13y ago
  > Senator Mary Landrieu (D-Lousiana), for example, had pretty much no idea what was going on ".gov is a coke bottle" ".com is the room surrounding the coke bottle." (paraphrasing). I saw that too. She was completely dumbfounded, and apparently just defaulted to the attitude, "well, I don't understand what the hell is going on, and I trust you guys are doing a good job, so... good job!" It's terrifying. We need more computer-literate people in Congress, because the current crop are dinosaurs.
  - marshray 13y ago
    At least no one was actively joking and boasting about their computer illiteracy the way so many do. ("I have to ask my kids for help to turn the thing on").

mikegioia 13y ago

I just don't understand how the NSA can even have the technical capacity to store all of this data. If their total operating budget is a few billion dollars, that doesn't even really come close to buying enough disk to store what some claim they are storing (all network traffic, social data, images, emails, voice, etc).

b6 13y ago
Where are you getting that budget? Supposedly, the new Bluffdale facility alone will cost at least $2B. Do we have any way of knowing what their real budget is? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah_Data_Center https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah_Data_Center
- mpyne 13y ago
  That money will likely be split over multiple years, if I'm remembering my Federal Acquisition Rules training correctly.
damian2000 13y ago
You'd imagine they'd be able to remove a good amount of it by removing duplicate data? e.g. video, audio and images
- marshray 13y ago
  Haha, yeah I bet the kind of data they collect dedupes and compresses pretty well. They probably sometimes collect the same packet many times on its journey.
adventured 13y ago
It's not a few billion dollars. The best speculation I've seen on the matter is that the NSA's budget is between $12 and $15 billion, but that was several years ago, it might be much higher now with the emphasis being placed on all of these programs (with the NSA effectively being turned into a military asset). We can extrapolate a floor on their budget by looking at the FBI and CIA, with it being publicly known that the NSA is far larger than both. The FBI's 2014 budget request is for $8.4 billion, with 37,000 permanent employees. The NSA is thought to be at least two to three times larger than the FBI.

hooo 13y ago

He probably has so much dirt on the politicians that they have to do his bidding.

adventured 13y ago
Spy kings at the point of large inflections in power and technology always do. See: J Edgar Hoover.

adventured 13y ago

I think it's every bit as likely that the NSA will be responsible for instigating and elevating (arms race) the very cyber war they claim the private sector won't be able to defend itself against (eg Stuxnet, and I'd hate to know what they've been up to since). Self-fulfilling prophecy.

marshray 13y ago
It really sounds a lot like the run-up to World War I. Kings and militaries running around gearing up and thumping their chests, polarizing their populations, with only the dimmest understanding of the utter hell which they were about to unleash upon themselves. Thankfully, we people are awake now and can put a limit on the foolishness before it gets too late. But this is why a free and open internet is so important.