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So the recent news is bad for the cloud but it’s also bad for the intelligence agencies, themselves, because they’ve been busted. Who benefits from that? The re

So the recent news is bad for the cloud but it’s also bad for the intelligence agencies, themselves, because they’ve been busted. Who benefits from that? The regular military Cringely, too, is getting trapped in a false choice fallacy. Of course, there's the debate that's already been going on about how much beneficial information really came out of these programs. But on top of that, he's assuming that if we want intelligence, then this is the way to accomplish it. But that's not even close to true. We could still use the established, Constitutionally-approved method of warrants; there's no need to throw the baby out with the bathwater. And that's not all. He's stuck in the modern era's shift away from HUMINT (human intelligence), focusing almost exclusively on SIGINT (signals intelligence). Sure, in the rest of the world it's clear that big data can yield lots of information. But again, babies and bathwater. It's not the only choice we've got, and despite the sexy allure of technology, history shows much greater returns from HUMINT. And HUMINT can't encroach civil liberties anything like the NSA programs, because their scale is inherently limited.

munin 13y ago
> history shows much greater returns from HUMINT. except that signals intelligence won the battle of the north atlantic and the battle of the pacific and secured an allied victory over the axis powers in the second world war.
- CWuestefeld 13y ago
  Obviously you're right about WWII. However, it's my understanding that from the Cold War on, the story has been quite different.
- CWuestefeld 13y ago
  But how much of that was due to HUMINT? The German plugboard-equipped Enigma became the Third Reich's principal crypto-system. It was reconstructed by the Polish General Staff's Cipher Bureau in December 1932—with the aid of French-supplied intelligence material that had been obtained from a German spy. [1] I guess we could go on and on over which was thus more important. But it must be acknowledged that, at least, HUMINT is extremely important, and can't be discounted. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptanalysis_of_the_Enigma https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptanalysis_of_the_Enigma

munin 13y ago

> history shows much greater returns from HUMINT. except that signals intelligence won the battle of the north atlantic and the battle of the pacific and secured an allied victory over the axis powers in the second world war.

CWuestefeld 13y ago
Obviously you're right about WWII. However, it's my understanding that from the Cold War on, the story has been quite different.
CWuestefeld 13y ago
But how much of that was due to HUMINT? The German plugboard-equipped Enigma became the Third Reich's principal crypto-system. It was reconstructed by the Polish General Staff's Cipher Bureau in December 1932—with the aid of French-supplied intelligence material that had been obtained from a German spy. [1] I guess we could go on and on over which was thus more important. But it must be acknowledged that, at least, HUMINT is extremely important, and can't be discounted. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptanalysis_of_the_Enigma https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptanalysis_of_the_Enigma