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NSA director heckled on stage at Black Hat security conference

339 points by tjaerv 13y ago

generj 13y ago
I think this underscores Defcon's decision to exclude the Feds this year.
- jenandre 13y ago
  Defcon and Blackhat were founded by the same dude. Why didn't they exclude feds from BlackHat as well? Guessing it was probably because that is their big money maker with all the corp/fed support.
  - flyt 13y ago
    BlackHat is a more "professional" event for the security industry. People that ostensibly work in the security industry go there just like people go to o'reilly conferences for various technical areas. DEFCON is a community event for anybody and is totally anonymous (entry fee is only payable by cash in person) and has a more freewheeling, community feel.
podperson 13y ago
No idea how accurate a depiction of the speech this is, but the article is -- contrary to the title -- portraying the speech as having been warmly received, applauded, with one lone heckler. Now, whether or not one agrees with General Alexander, there are more courteous and productive ways to express yourself than yelling "bullshit".
- sp332 13y ago
  "Heckler" usually refers to one or a few people in a crowd. Getting booed off the stage would be different.
- ferdo 13y ago
  How does a guy that makes excuses to spy on us all and lies to Congress deserve any courtesy?
  - mseebach 13y ago
    Well, maybe he doesn't, but you're the bigger man so you do it anyway. Turning the other cheek and all. Also, the organisers invited him because they thought you might want to hear what he has to say, so you do it out of respect for them.
    - ferdo 13y ago
      Politicians and bureaucrats won't change until people start treating them with contempt, both socially and professionally. Playing nicey-nice with people that have little to no conscience doesn't work as a method of political change.
      - mseebach 13y ago
        Being rude also doesn't work as a method of political change? It doesn't, and in addition you alienate people who thing being civilised is a good thing. Politicians are already one of the most reviled groups around, and that doesn't discourage them. Stage effective, organised opposition that will actually threaten their plushy careers, then they'll listen.
        ferdo 13y ago
        There's nothing civilized about being polite to people that are actively undermining our rights. Politeness is reserved for society, not for antisocial personalities.
    - MarcScott 13y ago
      If we keep "turning the other cheek" we'll end up with broken jaws. I'm a polite individual but politeness will only get you so far. At some point people have to make a stand and say what is actually on their minds in as powerful a way as they know how.
- fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
  > portraying the speech as having been warmly received, applauded, Disappointing if true. I can't imagine anything that Keith Alexander would say that is deserving of applause. The guy deserves no quarter.
  - diminoten 13y ago
    Why, because you elected people who put him in charge? Who really deserves no quarter here?
- tomelders 13y ago
  Well it's not like anyones going to make a salient and logical point and the NSA is going to turn around and say "You know what, you're right, this is wrong. We'll stop it immediately". So shouting "bullshit" at the top of your voice has the same effect, which is no effect at all. So no one is any worse off for this kind of behaviour. That said, I think the audience should have received him with absolute silence. No applause, no heckling, nothing to betray the mood of the crowd. Let's see how the General Alexander feels about a thousand eyes scrutinising him with no clue as to what they're thinking or planning. Then maybe he'll have an idea about what it feels like to be on this side of the equation.
- methehack 13y ago
  > there are more courteous and productive ways to express yourself than yelling "bullshit". I disagree. When chatting with Faust, I think it's better to avoid the drawn out conversation and just tell him to fuck off. This Alexander guy is a liar and a felon (lying under oath to congress) and has earned our collective disrespect. He deserves a lot more than "bullshit!" He's a domestic terrorist that's infiltrated the government as far as I'm concerned.
  - mturmon 13y ago
    It does not matter what Alexander deserves. What matters is choosing a strategy that will be effective in exposing this intel-gathering to public scrutiny. One person shouting is not such a strategy. It's the difference between individual catharsis and effective political strategy that produces an outcome.
    - tomelders 13y ago
      So what would be a winning strategy in this scenario? I don't think there is one. So let him know you think he's an arsehole while you have the chance because nothing you can say or do is going to change the general's stance on this issue. He's above the law and completely unaccountable. But he's not beyond being called out for being a bad person by another person, and I suspect that's the closest you're going to get to justice on this issue.
      - jackpirate 13y ago
        Standing up and turning your back to him, and remaining in that position would have been a classy way to let the general know you disagree.
        tomelders 13y ago
        I wholeheartedly agree, and I made a similar point in another comment. But no matter what you do, it's totally futile. The NSA knows what you think, and they don't care.
northwest 13y ago
> “No, I’m saying I don’t trust you!” shouted McCoy. I believe that's pretty central here. I don't see how we can ever be able again to trust an organism such as the NSA - or even the government. Transparency is the only solution here. Will we get it? If we don't, the only other solution would be to cut budgets so drastically that such an enterprise will simply not be possible financially, anymore. And maybe, as a general improvement: Decentralize the government and give the States back their autonomy (and here you have your link between technology and politics - see the recent cry for less "political posts" on HN).
- joering2 13y ago
  > I believe that's pretty central here. I don't see how we can ever be able again to trust an organism such as the NSA - or even the government. We won't. This cancer is a one-way street. It will kill the organism and kill itself with it. And they know it. That's why they buy billions of ammunition rounds and dispatch lightweight tanks throught the states borders. They know that history repeat itself and they don't want another fourth of July to be celebrated in 500 years now (this time US 2.0 that bunch of clever people used GIT to form a better government). NSA systems are not in place to save you and your family from terrorist -- terrorism needs to be wisely guided; some need to leak through so that you and your family keep being scared, submit to the State and pay more taxes for more "safety". Terrorism is not on their agenda. Had they not let shoe bomber and Boston bombers do what they did, me and you would protest against more surveillance (with Boston bombers officials were inconveniently kept notified by russian government) because we would have been felt safe. > Transparency is the only solution here. Will we get it? We won't and we can't. They will oppose it saying that if we tell you what we do, bad guys will use it. Nothing will change this approach. Manning did a huge leak of gov docs and military officials said many lives will be lost as a result; other than Arab spring that did not happen on US soil, nothing happened at all. It was a bluff that they will continue using. > If we don't, the only other solution would be to cut budgets so drastically that such an enterprise will simply not be possible financially, anymore. Its not that simple. Even President of United State does not know how many black-ops agencies exist within the goverment. Some entities of the gov sponsor themselves God only knows doing what. If you cut their air supply, they will go to CIA and say: "here are the tapes when you and other officials are negotiating deals with drug cartels in Afganistan, here is a conversation where smuggling is being organized to move tons of heroine into US on a military aircraft, sponsor our venture or we will leak the info". And there you have it. Most likely dirty branches of gov do not need public money but of course they will take it anyways.
godgod 13y ago
Does anyone have Jon McCoy's contact information? Twitter? I want to send this guy a big thank you for standing up for our privacy.
dutchbrit 13y ago
Audio here: https://soundcloud.com/larrymagid/nsa-director-general-keith https://soundcloud.com/larrymagid/nsa-director-general-keith
- UVB-76 13y ago
  The exchange in question starts around 33:40
  - EvanAnderson 13y ago
    I listened starting a couple minutes before that and felt like I was going to fall asleep. I'm sure it loses something not being there in person but Mr. Alexander's delivery sure seems ponderous.
- dragontamer 13y ago
  Thank you for sharing. I'll be sure to listen in later. While everyone else on this subject is going to be armchair-debating whether or not the article is a fair representation of what happened... I'm going to just listen into the audio myself and make my own opinion.
northwest 13y ago
> “I haven’t lied to Congress,” Alexander responded And WTF was that, now? EDIT: I guess this is true because actually, he lied to the chairs in the room. Or some coffee mugs that were also present. Is that how one evades a lie detector, btw? It really can't get any sicker. We have now reached the bottom.
- deleted 13y ago
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- mpyne 13y ago
  Last I checked he wasn't James Clapper (they guy who lied to Congress). But maybe I'm wrong.
  - moxie 13y ago
    First he said this in congressional testimony: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmBAxEWxDFs&feature=youtu.be&t=1h29m50s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmBAxEWxDFs&feature=youtu.be... Then this came out later: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57589495-38/nsa-spying-flap-extends-to-contents-of-u.s-phone-calls/ http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57589495-38/nsa-spying-fla... And now this: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/31/nsa-top-secret-program-online-data http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/31/nsa-top-secret-...
  - whiddershins 13y ago
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYNXVgYhPOc#at=61 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYNXVgYhPOc#at=61
    - northwest 13y ago
      Just watched it again - it's so instructive to see how Keith Alexander is well equipped to function and lie like probably only psychopaths can. And then, is Obama part of the same category? The contrast between how he's been selling to us and what's really happening is just too much.
tptacek 13y ago
This entire event was a staged press op. Keith Alexander is a ~30 year veteran of SIGINT, electronic warfare, and intelligence, and a Four-Star US Army General --- which is a bigger deal than you probably think it is. He's a spy chief in the truest sense and a master politician. Anyone who thinks he walked into that conference hall in Caesars without a near perfect forecast of the outcome of the speech is kidding themselves. Heckling Alexander played right into the strategy. It gave him an opportunity to look reasonable compared to his detractors, and, more generally (and alarmingly), to have the NSA look more reasonable compared to opponents of NSA surveillance. It allowed him to "split the vote" with audience reactions, getting people who probably have serious misgivings about NSA programs to applaud his calm and graceful handling of shouted insults; many of those people probably applauded simply to protest the hecklers, who after all were making it harder for them to follow what Alexander was trying to say. There was no serious Q&A on offer at the keynote. The questions were pre-screened; all attendees could do was vote on them. There was no possibility that anything would come of this speech other than an effectively unchallenged full-throated defense of the NSA's programs. Even the premise of the keynote was calculated to wrong-foot NSA opponents. However much you might want to hear Alexander account for the activities of the NSA, the NSA itself is not the real oversight mechanism for the NSA! My guess is that no pol with meaningful oversight over NSA would have consented to address a room full of technology professionals about NSA's programs; they were happy to send NSA's own supremely well-trained figurehead to do that for them. I think a walkout might have been effective, had it been organized well enough in advance (perhaps with some of the same aplomb as the [I think misguided] opposition to CISPA); at least you'd get some stinging photos.
- kunai 13y ago
  Agreed; his extensive infosec background and smooth-talking politician talents meant that he probably had full knowledge of how this was going to go down. What's interesting is why he attempted PR reconciliation at a relatively niche conference. Black Hat doesn't have much connection to the mass public, and trying to make yourself look good in front of a mass of angry hackers is pointless anyhow because hackers tend to stay angry about topics like privacy. Now, if he had a full blown press conference with civilian attendees, then, well...
mjfl 13y ago
I don't care whether the director of the NSA is a bad guy, it just makes you look bad if you heckle someone on stage. There are probably few more scrutinizing audiences for the director of the NSA than a professional security conference. I would rather have him say what he has to say and be analysed by the many bright minds at the conference than for him to be childishly interrupted and waste time that could be spent talking about the actual role of the NSA in the security of the nation.
- northwest 13y ago
  > it just makes you look bad if you heckle someone on stage. It also takes a lot of courage to do just that. And people with courage are rare. They need our support. People who are 2 inches away from getting loud need our support. Because they are the people who can start the chain reaction that is so urgently needed now and that will not happen if we collectively shut up and just stay polite. We have been seriously betrayed and we have now every reason, right and duty to break free from the rules which were appropriate for the times "when things were good". So I think he did just what everybody should have done - in a perfect world.
  - rthomas6 13y ago
    It takes courage to be a whistleblower, or to make any decision different from your peers. It does not take courage to heckle someone on a stage from the safety of a crowd. It happens at almost every comedy show, concert, and sporting event. Heckling someone on stage when you're in the crowd isn't rare at all.
    - moxie 13y ago
      I disagree. This was a situation where a four star general was standing on stage in military uniform, flanked by secret service, with local security also making a visible show of force. It was an intimidating situation amidst a crowd that was largely unsympathetic to critique, and I think it took a certain amount of courage to be the first to yell something. I thought everything but the "read the constitution!" heckle was well timed and on point. I only wish that more had joined in.
JonFish85 13y ago
All things considered, it seems like Keith Alexander did a pretty good job of handling the situation. Personally I think the heckler sounded like a douche ("read the Constitution" sounds like a dumb thing to say to a 4 star general who probably has better knowledge of it than your average hacker), even if he (the heckler) had some good points. It would have been easy for the situation to devolve into something much uglier, but fortunately it seems like things stayed pretty calm!
- emhart 13y ago
  I feel like we could do with some ugly right about now.
- wavefunction 13y ago
  I'm curious why you claim that a 4-star general would have a better knowledge of the Constitution than an average hacker? Especially one who seems to be running an illegal and unconstitutional program like Gen. Alexander.
  - jessaustin 13y ago
    Well he's got it printed on a roll of paper that hangs next to a seat he occupies twice a day, so he's had ample opportunity to read it.
  - mindslight 13y ago
    For the same reason that an average hacker would have a much better knowledge of the code for various daemons than the sysadmins who administer them - they're reading critically and looking for vulnerabilities where the actual semantics differ from the purported ones. I've no doubt that what the NSA does actually is "constitutional" under the common corrupted interpretations of it - government programs are structured to avoid mortal conflicts with the constitution, sympathetic or even just probabilistic courts then assert that specific facets aren't actually over the line, and severable agents acting "independently" informally make up the difference. Law is akin to code, and suffers from the same complexity-induced limitations that end up as the halting problem. With enough indirection, meanings and definitions divert wildly from what they purport. This divergence starts as soon as abstraction enters the picture - for example the widespread tendency to see rights as "primitives" that are acceded when forming higher-level emergent structures. Participation in the higher-level structure becomes de facto mandatory, and those purported rights end up nowhere to be seen. And once this erosion process starts, it becomes harder and harder for anybody to see that their rights should apply universally, rather than just in a nondescript wood shack on unincorporated land in Wyoming.
deleted 13y ago
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norswap 13y ago
Hackers applauded Alexander? He really has played them like pipes. You can argue all you want, but in the end, some boundaries have to be set. What the NSA did (does actually) is way past that boundary for most people, and I think with reason, but that's another debate. He hasn't supplied any argument that would make us reconsider the boundaries. All this terrorist talk is bullshit.
- deleted 13y ago
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- mcescalante 13y ago
  They weren't applauding Alexander, they were applauding for the conference goers who were shouting out loud at him (and their messages).
  - jaekwon 13y ago
    Were you there? That would be a terrible reporting job by Andy Greenberg.
    - tlrobinson 13y ago
      You be the judge: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvVIZ4OyGnQ&feature=youtu.be&t=52m50s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvVIZ4OyGnQ&feature=youtu.be...
      - jaekwon 13y ago
        Sounds like they were applauding Alexander. I'm not liking the vibe of the audience there.
    - mcescalante 13y ago
      I hadn't seen the footage, and the piece did a poor job conveying what they applause was for. After watching the video it looks like he drew at least some (if not all) of the applause. Not sure if I like that from Black Hat or not.
JumpCrisscross 13y ago
"Ninety-eight percent of society has issues with this" "The national survey by the Pew Research Center, conducted July 17-21 among 1,480 adults, finds that 50% approve of the government’s collection of telephone and internet data as part of anti-terrorism efforts, while 44% disapprove. These views are little changed from a month ago, when 48% approved and 47% disapproved." http://www.people-press.org/2013/07/26/few-see-adequate-limits-on-nsa-surveillance-program/ http://www.people-press.org/2013/07/26/few-see-adequate-limi...
- tomelders 13y ago
  I think it's possible for some people to broadly approve of the collection, but still have issues with it. Not sure where that 98% number comes from, but I think the 50% "approval" number is misleading on its own.
- dmix 13y ago
  I highly recommend reading "The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies" [1]. Even if polling shows a lack of discontent, it does not mean they were voting rationally. The emotional fear machine of terrorism will always sway towards totalitarianism policies. But if the majority of those citizens were honestly questioned about having their phones (and their entire families) monitored, I doubt they would be for it. Irrationality and logical fallacies are flourishing on both ends of the spectrum (citizens and politicians), and there are few vocal voices in between correcting the bullshit. What's missing are leaders (aka media) evaluating and promoting policies based on rationality reasoning rather than what emotional ploys that sell. [1] http://www.amazon.com/Myth-Rational-Voter-Democracies-ebook/dp/B007AIXLDI/ http://www.amazon.com/Myth-Rational-Voter-Democracies-ebook/...
  - fragsworth 13y ago
    > What's missing are leaders (aka media) evaluating and promoting policies based on rationality reasoning rather than what emotional ploys that sell. Leaders in media have no external incentive to promote rationality. They make money by appealing to their audience, to increase the size and loyalty of that audience. There is no solution.
rbanffy 13y ago
I find particularly hard to believe the "6,000 NSA cryptologists who have deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq" part. Why would anyone want to deploy cryptologists into a war zone? I also found disheartening the applause given to the general for his clever answers. "I have. So should you"?! I expected more from the Black Hat crowd. And, finally, I applaud Jon McCoy for his sacrifice. His willingness to endure all the cavity searches he'll be subjected to before and after every flight inspires us all.
- cenazoic 13y ago
  In the Air Force I was a 'cryptologic Russian linguist' (it had nothing to do with code-breaking, although it was an intelligence field). I wonder if he was referencing linguists.
- omegaham 13y ago
  Military here. They aren't really the same cryptologists that we think of, and they aren't the same guys who are writing programs to go through our phone records. The majority of cryptologists who are forward deployed are there to ensure that the cryptography is used correctly. Despite many years of attempts to make it easier to use, cryptography. especially for portable radios, is a pain in the ass to use. People have to be trained. Areas have to be made where crypto equipment is stored and secured. Deficiencies in use have to be identified. That's what those people are for. With the fact that we've had more than two million troops deployed during the War on Terror, I'm actually surprised that the number of NSA cryptologists is at 6,000. They must be very senior people.
dmix 13y ago
> Alexander also noted the 6,000 NSA cryptologists who have deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq, 20 of whom were killed in the line of duty according to Alexander. “Think about people willing to go forward to Iraq and Afghanistan, to make sure our soldiers, airmen and marines get the intelligence they need,” he said. “I believe these are the most noble people we have in this country.” Having lost a brother who deployed as a signals operator in Afghanistan (to an IED), it always makes me cringe whenever they use forward-deployed soldiers as a defense of the higher-level states "nobility". There is nothing noble about mass surveillance or the invasion of privacy of non-enemy combatant nations/citizens. The fact citizens signed up to risk their lives in combat-zones at the bottom end of the chain does not legitimize the actions of those at the top.
- jessaustin 13y ago
  Hear, hear! When the top brass evoke these deaths, it's like they're saying "if our sainted dead soldiers followed these orders, how can you possibly disagree?" Frankly, the last general worthy of making that sort of comparison was Eisenhower, and he would have been the last man in the military to do so. He was already sickened at this leadership culture when he was President. If he were alive today he would cross the street to avoid a conversation with Alexander.
- rhizome 13y ago
  it always makes me cringe whenever they use forward-deployed soldiers as a defense of the higher-level states "nobility" In another context they might be called human shields. Shields in the PR war. I'm sorry for your loss.
replax 13y ago
Wow, I am really, really surprised. Especially as Gen. Alexander gave the keynote speech to DEFCON last year, and explicitly said, when asked after his speech: Q: "[..]Does the NSA really keep a file on anyone? [...]" A: "[..] Frist, no, we don't [...]" Absolutely astonishing! listen/watch here: http://youtu.be/tz0ejKersnM?t=33m2s http://youtu.be/tz0ejKersnM?t=33m2s
abalone 13y ago
In fairness, the title could just as well be "NSA director applauded on stage at Black Hat security conference". The crowd's reaction was definitely mixed.
IanDrake 13y ago
>the four-star general presented a timeline of terrorist attacks around the world, from the 1993 World Trade Center bombing to the Boston Marathon attack. Can anyone speak as to why, with the NSA's systems, they were not able to thwart an attack by the ass clowns in Boston? Russia even warned us about them and they made frequent contact with foreigners. I'm sorry, but that terrorist event seems like low hanging fruit if their system really works to protect us.
- northwest 13y ago
  The question is: Did they want to thwart the attack? One obvious possibility is that the system that has been erected simply needs fear to be able to continue to exist. Let some attacks happen (and some Taliban prisons break) from time to time and people can be and will be manipulated via fear, so the powerful stay powerful and the rich become richer. Same old, same old... Next stop: Middle Class Gone. Then, people will have nothing to lose again and wake up. Next, we'll have riots and one day, the old system is dead and history will repeat itself once more. So much for the long term.
  - lukifer 13y ago
    In wartime, it's not uncommon to not act on intel to stop an attack, so as to preserve its strategic value and save more lives later. For any insiders who truly believe in the NSA's mission (which is being generous), "let a few die today to preserve a system that will save thousands tomorrow" is not a big leap.
- nhaehnle 13y ago
  The obvious conclusion to draw from this - and really, that anybody should be able to draw - is that the system doesn't work to protect regular people. This shouldn't really come as a surprise, either. Surveillance is not effective for preventing crimes. It is somewhat more useful for investigating crimes after they've happened.
- McGlockenshire 13y ago
  > Can anyone speak as to why, with the NSA's systems, they were not able to thwart an attack by the ass clowns in Boston? Dzhokhar and Tamerlan were granted legal permanent residence in 2007. Dzhokhar became a nautralized citizen in 2012. Tamerlan's application was on hold due to the DHS being a little suspicious of him. If the system is working as it should, the NSA could have been prohibited from monitoring the brothers.
YellowRex 13y ago
I hate Forbes - interstitial ads and persistent headers are super annoying. Can we stop posting Forbes links? Boing Boing has the same coverage with a much more reader-friendly site design: http://boingboing.net/2013/07/31/nsa-capo-heckled-at-black-hat.html http://boingboing.net/2013/07/31/nsa-capo-heckled-at-black-h...
- YellowRex 13y ago
  Grrr, the Boing Boing article just links to Forbes.
wil421 13y ago
From the article: “Everyone’s thinking this, but no one’s saying it public, so everyone thinks they’re alone,” he said. “Ninety-eight percent of society has issues with this…But no one speaks up.” While I think some people don't how to speak up, beside calling/writing my congress person, many don't care either way. In fact, many older people I have talked to (I am in my twenties) dont have a problem with what the NSA is doing. They dont really mind if their data is being sifted through as long as its being used to "Find Terrorists or what have you." My problem is the lack of oversight and the fact court that has approved 1,789 out of 1,748 requests (97.7%!!!!). Not only that but they have legal justifications for what they are doing, therefore since its legal its allowed, forget the morals/ethics involved. Who's to say they won't turn this around on the public at large because it will prevent smaller crimes instead of terrorists. Also whats to stop the government from calling people who oppose their views terrorists and then just spy directly at American people.
vijayboyapati 13y ago
Funny how Alexander says he's read the Constitution, and implores the heckler to do the same. If one can read the Constitution and square the NSA's mass surveillance with the 4th amendment then one can square a circle. There really is no point in debating people like this on the technicalities of the Constitution. What they understand is power. He has it and we don't. He knows how to pull the levers that matter, and which Congressman and executive branch bureaucrats to lean on to make sure his bailiwick is not reduced by a single inch. The rest of us, sadly, are left flailing around hoping that pointing to a piece of paper is an effective check on evil.
- lukifer 13y ago
  My understanding is that their Constitutional dodge is rooted in Scalia's originalism: the 4th says "papers", which means specifically physical pieces of paper, not phone calls or emails. What I've been wondering about though, is the legal definition of "effects" (noun, not verb). That term seems very broad to me, and should include emails, but I'm not a lawyer.
  - talmand 13y ago
    They don't need a dodge, they just ignore the law or get new laws that circumvent previous laws. With little or no oversight this is easily accomplished. Especially since the group that requires oversight is gathering information and information is power. This is nothing new, read up on J. Edgar Hoover with his wiretapping and files on almost everybody. Sometimes with White House knowledge and approval, sometimes without. All this while completely ignoring that quaint document down the street called the Constitution. Doing things like that is easy if you can hand over a note to someone that starts out "It'd be a shame if people found out about [insert criminal/embarrassing act here]." Information is power.
    - lukifer 13y ago
      Oh, I agree. But they do successfully maintain the veneer. Regardless of how, the Supreme Court is complicit, and they engage in some tortured linguistic judo in the process.
deleted 13y ago
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rinon 13y ago
Video seems to be up at https://www.blackhat.com/us-13/archives.html#Alexander https://www.blackhat.com/us-13/archives.html#Alexander
- stevenrace 13y ago
  *Note the above links to an MP4. The 2013 Keynote is now on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvVIZ4OyGnQ&t=5m https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvVIZ4OyGnQ&t=5m -- Alexander begins at 5 minutes in -- no slides visible in video -- 'heckling' @ 39minutes in) -- TLDR: One cropped screenshot of 'telephone metadata', assurances of internal audits, a thumbup from a Senate sub-committee. Slides: https://media.blackhat.com/us-13/us-13-Alexander-keynote.pdf https://media.blackhat.com/us-13/us-13-Alexander-keynote.pdf
kyzyl 13y ago
Looks like I'm a little late for this comment party, but I'd just like to highlight one comment from the Forbes website that I thought was good: "In general I agree with McCoy in his ad-hoc debate with Gen Alexander as well as his post presentation remarks about the distorted perspective of national security. At the same time, I do conceed that the NSA is acting in good faith and ‘within the law’ as presented to them via the Patriot Act. I have similar feeling about the value of TSA, but whereas the TSA is a publicly disclosed program, my most pressing concern with the NSA is the secrecy of it. First, the secrecy presents an extremely high degree of risk (in terms of both the probabilty of occurance as well as the dangers) of mission creep. I doubt Congressional nor FISC oversight are adequate to mitigate this risk. Second, secrecy is not really a valid tool for deterence. Anti-terrorism programs are like a doomsday devices: it’s a good deterence only if it is widely known about (see Dr Strangelove). Moreover, while secret programs might be good for support of kill/capture programs, it is far from clear that such efforts reduce terrorism. For all I know, the government spy/drone program is to terrorists as a hammer is to an ant colony. If you have a spilled pot of honey in the kitchen, it doesn’t matter how good you are at spotting and smashing ants. I want to know these things, so that I can help shape public policy through the ballot box." --uspatriot2001 I think that's a good assessment of the high-level picture, and it's much more informative than "NSA BAD! Freedom good!" (not to belittle anyone's comments here) in that it reflects a road forward.
etiam 13y ago
Keith Alexander's way of bending words, and his facility with swinging a crowd and lying skillfully under pressure once again reminds me disturbingly of accounts I've read about psychopaths, and of probable psychopaths I've encountered. Those patterns could of course be stuff you pick up anyway as a top player for power, but I find the parallels highly worrisome. For those who have never read anything about the subject, may I suggest browsing e.g. "Without conscience" by Robert D. Hare. The sections with court proceedings in particular illustrate well what I mean.
losethos 13y ago
War is supposed to be fun. Navy games... something about Navy games. If you had a perfectly real space war game... cyber stuff Are you sure you can't just make uncrackable codes pretty easy. No! They might have flaws. Use a good one. God says... C:\TAD\Text\QUIX.TXT be it to strive to become a king, and make me a count." "So it shall be," answered Don Quixote, and raising his eyes he saw what will be told in the following chapter. CHAPTER XXII. OF THE FREEDOM DON QUIXOTE CONFERRED ON SEVERAL UNFORTUNATES WHO AGAINST THEIR WILL WERE BEING CARRIED WHERE THEY HAD NO WISH TO GO Cide Hamete Benengeli, the Arab and Manchegan author, relates in this most grave, high-sounding, minute, delightful, and original history that after the discussion between t
jotm 13y ago
“And if you disagree with what we’re doing, you should help us twice as much.” Right, so they end up like Snowden...
leke 13y ago
All this bad press is a great incentive for people to develop encryption skills. I'm now looking into javascript client to client encryption of certain social sites and services using greasemonkey to organise the contacts and keys database.

339 points by tjaerv 13y ago

generj 13y ago

I think this underscores Defcon's decision to exclude the Feds this year.

jenandre 13y ago
Defcon and Blackhat were founded by the same dude. Why didn't they exclude feds from BlackHat as well? Guessing it was probably because that is their big money maker with all the corp/fed support.
- flyt 13y ago
  BlackHat is a more "professional" event for the security industry. People that ostensibly work in the security industry go there just like people go to o'reilly conferences for various technical areas. DEFCON is a community event for anybody and is totally anonymous (entry fee is only payable by cash in person) and has a more freewheeling, community feel.

podperson 13y ago

No idea how accurate a depiction of the speech this is, but the article is -- contrary to the title -- portraying the speech as having been warmly received, applauded, with one lone heckler. Now, whether or not one agrees with General Alexander, there are more courteous and productive ways to express yourself than yelling "bullshit".

sp332 13y ago
"Heckler" usually refers to one or a few people in a crowd. Getting booed off the stage would be different.
ferdo 13y ago
How does a guy that makes excuses to spy on us all and lies to Congress deserve any courtesy?
- mseebach 13y ago
  Well, maybe he doesn't, but you're the bigger man so you do it anyway. Turning the other cheek and all. Also, the organisers invited him because they thought you might want to hear what he has to say, so you do it out of respect for them.
  - ferdo 13y ago
    Politicians and bureaucrats won't change until people start treating them with contempt, both socially and professionally. Playing nicey-nice with people that have little to no conscience doesn't work as a method of political change.
    - mseebach 13y ago
      Being rude also doesn't work as a method of political change? It doesn't, and in addition you alienate people who thing being civilised is a good thing. Politicians are already one of the most reviled groups around, and that doesn't discourage them. Stage effective, organised opposition that will actually threaten their plushy careers, then they'll listen.
      - ferdo 13y ago
        There's nothing civilized about being polite to people that are actively undermining our rights. Politeness is reserved for society, not for antisocial personalities.
  - MarcScott 13y ago
    If we keep "turning the other cheek" we'll end up with broken jaws. I'm a polite individual but politeness will only get you so far. At some point people have to make a stand and say what is actually on their minds in as powerful a way as they know how.
fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
> portraying the speech as having been warmly received, applauded, Disappointing if true. I can't imagine anything that Keith Alexander would say that is deserving of applause. The guy deserves no quarter.
- diminoten 13y ago
  Why, because you elected people who put him in charge? Who really deserves no quarter here?
tomelders 13y ago
Well it's not like anyones going to make a salient and logical point and the NSA is going to turn around and say "You know what, you're right, this is wrong. We'll stop it immediately". So shouting "bullshit" at the top of your voice has the same effect, which is no effect at all. So no one is any worse off for this kind of behaviour. That said, I think the audience should have received him with absolute silence. No applause, no heckling, nothing to betray the mood of the crowd. Let's see how the General Alexander feels about a thousand eyes scrutinising him with no clue as to what they're thinking or planning. Then maybe he'll have an idea about what it feels like to be on this side of the equation.
methehack 13y ago
> there are more courteous and productive ways to express yourself than yelling "bullshit". I disagree. When chatting with Faust, I think it's better to avoid the drawn out conversation and just tell him to fuck off. This Alexander guy is a liar and a felon (lying under oath to congress) and has earned our collective disrespect. He deserves a lot more than "bullshit!" He's a domestic terrorist that's infiltrated the government as far as I'm concerned.
- mturmon 13y ago
  It does not matter what Alexander deserves. What matters is choosing a strategy that will be effective in exposing this intel-gathering to public scrutiny. One person shouting is not such a strategy. It's the difference between individual catharsis and effective political strategy that produces an outcome.
  - tomelders 13y ago
    So what would be a winning strategy in this scenario? I don't think there is one. So let him know you think he's an arsehole while you have the chance because nothing you can say or do is going to change the general's stance on this issue. He's above the law and completely unaccountable. But he's not beyond being called out for being a bad person by another person, and I suspect that's the closest you're going to get to justice on this issue.
    - jackpirate 13y ago
      Standing up and turning your back to him, and remaining in that position would have been a classy way to let the general know you disagree.
      - tomelders 13y ago
        I wholeheartedly agree, and I made a similar point in another comment. But no matter what you do, it's totally futile. The NSA knows what you think, and they don't care.

northwest 13y ago

> “No, I’m saying I don’t trust you!” shouted McCoy. I believe that's pretty central here. I don't see how we can ever be able again to trust an organism such as the NSA - or even the government. Transparency is the only solution here. Will we get it? If we don't, the only other solution would be to cut budgets so drastically that such an enterprise will simply not be possible financially, anymore. And maybe, as a general improvement: Decentralize the government and give the States back their autonomy (and here you have your link between technology and politics - see the recent cry for less "political posts" on HN).

joering2 13y ago
> I believe that's pretty central here. I don't see how we can ever be able again to trust an organism such as the NSA - or even the government. We won't. This cancer is a one-way street. It will kill the organism and kill itself with it. And they know it. That's why they buy billions of ammunition rounds and dispatch lightweight tanks throught the states borders. They know that history repeat itself and they don't want another fourth of July to be celebrated in 500 years now (this time US 2.0 that bunch of clever people used GIT to form a better government). NSA systems are not in place to save you and your family from terrorist -- terrorism needs to be wisely guided; some need to leak through so that you and your family keep being scared, submit to the State and pay more taxes for more "safety". Terrorism is not on their agenda. Had they not let shoe bomber and Boston bombers do what they did, me and you would protest against more surveillance (with Boston bombers officials were inconveniently kept notified by russian government) because we would have been felt safe. > Transparency is the only solution here. Will we get it? We won't and we can't. They will oppose it saying that if we tell you what we do, bad guys will use it. Nothing will change this approach. Manning did a huge leak of gov docs and military officials said many lives will be lost as a result; other than Arab spring that did not happen on US soil, nothing happened at all. It was a bluff that they will continue using. > If we don't, the only other solution would be to cut budgets so drastically that such an enterprise will simply not be possible financially, anymore. Its not that simple. Even President of United State does not know how many black-ops agencies exist within the goverment. Some entities of the gov sponsor themselves God only knows doing what. If you cut their air supply, they will go to CIA and say: "here are the tapes when you and other officials are negotiating deals with drug cartels in Afganistan, here is a conversation where smuggling is being organized to move tons of heroine into US on a military aircraft, sponsor our venture or we will leak the info". And there you have it. Most likely dirty branches of gov do not need public money but of course they will take it anyways.

godgod 13y ago

Does anyone have Jon McCoy's contact information? Twitter? I want to send this guy a big thank you for standing up for our privacy.

dutchbrit 13y ago

Audio here: https://soundcloud.com/larrymagid/nsa-director-general-keith https://soundcloud.com/larrymagid/nsa-director-general-keith

UVB-76 13y ago
The exchange in question starts around 33:40
- EvanAnderson 13y ago
  I listened starting a couple minutes before that and felt like I was going to fall asleep. I'm sure it loses something not being there in person but Mr. Alexander's delivery sure seems ponderous.
dragontamer 13y ago
Thank you for sharing. I'll be sure to listen in later. While everyone else on this subject is going to be armchair-debating whether or not the article is a fair representation of what happened... I'm going to just listen into the audio myself and make my own opinion.

northwest 13y ago

> “I haven’t lied to Congress,” Alexander responded And WTF was that, now? EDIT: I guess this is true because actually, he lied to the chairs in the room. Or some coffee mugs that were also present. Is that how one evades a lie detector, btw? It really can't get any sicker. We have now reached the bottom.

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mpyne 13y ago
Last I checked he wasn't James Clapper (they guy who lied to Congress). But maybe I'm wrong.
- moxie 13y ago
  First he said this in congressional testimony: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmBAxEWxDFs&feature=youtu.be&t=1h29m50s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmBAxEWxDFs&feature=youtu.be... Then this came out later: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57589495-38/nsa-spying-flap-extends-to-contents-of-u.s-phone-calls/ http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57589495-38/nsa-spying-fla... And now this: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/31/nsa-top-secret-program-online-data http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/31/nsa-top-secret-...
- whiddershins 13y ago
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYNXVgYhPOc#at=61 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYNXVgYhPOc#at=61
  - northwest 13y ago
    Just watched it again - it's so instructive to see how Keith Alexander is well equipped to function and lie like probably only psychopaths can. And then, is Obama part of the same category? The contrast between how he's been selling to us and what's really happening is just too much.

tptacek 13y ago

This entire event was a staged press op. Keith Alexander is a ~30 year veteran of SIGINT, electronic warfare, and intelligence, and a Four-Star US Army General --- which is a bigger deal than you probably think it is. He's a spy chief in the truest sense and a master politician. Anyone who thinks he walked into that conference hall in Caesars without a near perfect forecast of the outcome of the speech is kidding themselves. Heckling Alexander played right into the strategy. It gave him an opportunity to look reasonable compared to his detractors, and, more generally (and alarmingly), to have the NSA look more reasonable compared to opponents of NSA surveillance. It allowed him to "split the vote" with audience reactions, getting people who probably have serious misgivings about NSA programs to applaud his calm and graceful handling of shouted insults; many of those people probably applauded simply to protest the hecklers, who after all were making it harder for them to follow what Alexander was trying to say. There was no serious Q&A on offer at the keynote. The questions were pre-screened; all attendees could do was vote on them. There was no possibility that anything would come of this speech other than an effectively unchallenged full-throated defense of the NSA's programs. Even the premise of the keynote was calculated to wrong-foot NSA opponents. However much you might want to hear Alexander account for the activities of the NSA, the NSA itself is not the real oversight mechanism for the NSA! My guess is that no pol with meaningful oversight over NSA would have consented to address a room full of technology professionals about NSA's programs; they were happy to send NSA's own supremely well-trained figurehead to do that for them. I think a walkout might have been effective, had it been organized well enough in advance (perhaps with some of the same aplomb as the [I think misguided] opposition to CISPA); at least you'd get some stinging photos.

kunai 13y ago
Agreed; his extensive infosec background and smooth-talking politician talents meant that he probably had full knowledge of how this was going to go down. What's interesting is why he attempted PR reconciliation at a relatively niche conference. Black Hat doesn't have much connection to the mass public, and trying to make yourself look good in front of a mass of angry hackers is pointless anyhow because hackers tend to stay angry about topics like privacy. Now, if he had a full blown press conference with civilian attendees, then, well...

mjfl 13y ago

I don't care whether the director of the NSA is a bad guy, it just makes you look bad if you heckle someone on stage. There are probably few more scrutinizing audiences for the director of the NSA than a professional security conference. I would rather have him say what he has to say and be analysed by the many bright minds at the conference than for him to be childishly interrupted and waste time that could be spent talking about the actual role of the NSA in the security of the nation.

northwest 13y ago
> it just makes you look bad if you heckle someone on stage. It also takes a lot of courage to do just that. And people with courage are rare. They need our support. People who are 2 inches away from getting loud need our support. Because they are the people who can start the chain reaction that is so urgently needed now and that will not happen if we collectively shut up and just stay polite. We have been seriously betrayed and we have now every reason, right and duty to break free from the rules which were appropriate for the times "when things were good". So I think he did just what everybody should have done - in a perfect world.
- rthomas6 13y ago
  It takes courage to be a whistleblower, or to make any decision different from your peers. It does not take courage to heckle someone on a stage from the safety of a crowd. It happens at almost every comedy show, concert, and sporting event. Heckling someone on stage when you're in the crowd isn't rare at all.
  - moxie 13y ago
    I disagree. This was a situation where a four star general was standing on stage in military uniform, flanked by secret service, with local security also making a visible show of force. It was an intimidating situation amidst a crowd that was largely unsympathetic to critique, and I think it took a certain amount of courage to be the first to yell something. I thought everything but the "read the constitution!" heckle was well timed and on point. I only wish that more had joined in.

JonFish85 13y ago

All things considered, it seems like Keith Alexander did a pretty good job of handling the situation. Personally I think the heckler sounded like a douche ("read the Constitution" sounds like a dumb thing to say to a 4 star general who probably has better knowledge of it than your average hacker), even if he (the heckler) had some good points. It would have been easy for the situation to devolve into something much uglier, but fortunately it seems like things stayed pretty calm!

emhart 13y ago
I feel like we could do with some ugly right about now.
wavefunction 13y ago
I'm curious why you claim that a 4-star general would have a better knowledge of the Constitution than an average hacker? Especially one who seems to be running an illegal and unconstitutional program like Gen. Alexander.
- jessaustin 13y ago
  Well he's got it printed on a roll of paper that hangs next to a seat he occupies twice a day, so he's had ample opportunity to read it.
- mindslight 13y ago
  For the same reason that an average hacker would have a much better knowledge of the code for various daemons than the sysadmins who administer them - they're reading critically and looking for vulnerabilities where the actual semantics differ from the purported ones. I've no doubt that what the NSA does actually is "constitutional" under the common corrupted interpretations of it - government programs are structured to avoid mortal conflicts with the constitution, sympathetic or even just probabilistic courts then assert that specific facets aren't actually over the line, and severable agents acting "independently" informally make up the difference. Law is akin to code, and suffers from the same complexity-induced limitations that end up as the halting problem. With enough indirection, meanings and definitions divert wildly from what they purport. This divergence starts as soon as abstraction enters the picture - for example the widespread tendency to see rights as "primitives" that are acceded when forming higher-level emergent structures. Participation in the higher-level structure becomes de facto mandatory, and those purported rights end up nowhere to be seen. And once this erosion process starts, it becomes harder and harder for anybody to see that their rights should apply universally, rather than just in a nondescript wood shack on unincorporated land in Wyoming.

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norswap 13y ago

Hackers applauded Alexander? He really has played them like pipes. You can argue all you want, but in the end, some boundaries have to be set. What the NSA did (does actually) is way past that boundary for most people, and I think with reason, but that's another debate. He hasn't supplied any argument that would make us reconsider the boundaries. All this terrorist talk is bullshit.

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mcescalante 13y ago
They weren't applauding Alexander, they were applauding for the conference goers who were shouting out loud at him (and their messages).
- jaekwon 13y ago
  Were you there? That would be a terrible reporting job by Andy Greenberg.
  - tlrobinson 13y ago
    You be the judge: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvVIZ4OyGnQ&feature=youtu.be&t=52m50s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvVIZ4OyGnQ&feature=youtu.be...
    - jaekwon 13y ago
      Sounds like they were applauding Alexander. I'm not liking the vibe of the audience there.
  - mcescalante 13y ago
    I hadn't seen the footage, and the piece did a poor job conveying what they applause was for. After watching the video it looks like he drew at least some (if not all) of the applause. Not sure if I like that from Black Hat or not.

JumpCrisscross 13y ago

"Ninety-eight percent of society has issues with this" "The national survey by the Pew Research Center, conducted July 17-21 among 1,480 adults, finds that 50% approve of the government’s collection of telephone and internet data as part of anti-terrorism efforts, while 44% disapprove. These views are little changed from a month ago, when 48% approved and 47% disapproved." http://www.people-press.org/2013/07/26/few-see-adequate-limits-on-nsa-surveillance-program/ http://www.people-press.org/2013/07/26/few-see-adequate-limi...

tomelders 13y ago
I think it's possible for some people to broadly approve of the collection, but still have issues with it. Not sure where that 98% number comes from, but I think the 50% "approval" number is misleading on its own.
dmix 13y ago
I highly recommend reading "The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies" [1]. Even if polling shows a lack of discontent, it does not mean they were voting rationally. The emotional fear machine of terrorism will always sway towards totalitarianism policies. But if the majority of those citizens were honestly questioned about having their phones (and their entire families) monitored, I doubt they would be for it. Irrationality and logical fallacies are flourishing on both ends of the spectrum (citizens and politicians), and there are few vocal voices in between correcting the bullshit. What's missing are leaders (aka media) evaluating and promoting policies based on rationality reasoning rather than what emotional ploys that sell. [1] http://www.amazon.com/Myth-Rational-Voter-Democracies-ebook/dp/B007AIXLDI/ http://www.amazon.com/Myth-Rational-Voter-Democracies-ebook/...
- fragsworth 13y ago
  > What's missing are leaders (aka media) evaluating and promoting policies based on rationality reasoning rather than what emotional ploys that sell. Leaders in media have no external incentive to promote rationality. They make money by appealing to their audience, to increase the size and loyalty of that audience. There is no solution.

rbanffy 13y ago

I find particularly hard to believe the "6,000 NSA cryptologists who have deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq" part. Why would anyone want to deploy cryptologists into a war zone? I also found disheartening the applause given to the general for his clever answers. "I have. So should you"?! I expected more from the Black Hat crowd. And, finally, I applaud Jon McCoy for his sacrifice. His willingness to endure all the cavity searches he'll be subjected to before and after every flight inspires us all.

cenazoic 13y ago
In the Air Force I was a 'cryptologic Russian linguist' (it had nothing to do with code-breaking, although it was an intelligence field). I wonder if he was referencing linguists.
omegaham 13y ago
Military here. They aren't really the same cryptologists that we think of, and they aren't the same guys who are writing programs to go through our phone records. The majority of cryptologists who are forward deployed are there to ensure that the cryptography is used correctly. Despite many years of attempts to make it easier to use, cryptography. especially for portable radios, is a pain in the ass to use. People have to be trained. Areas have to be made where crypto equipment is stored and secured. Deficiencies in use have to be identified. That's what those people are for. With the fact that we've had more than two million troops deployed during the War on Terror, I'm actually surprised that the number of NSA cryptologists is at 6,000. They must be very senior people.

dmix 13y ago

> Alexander also noted the 6,000 NSA cryptologists who have deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq, 20 of whom were killed in the line of duty according to Alexander. “Think about people willing to go forward to Iraq and Afghanistan, to make sure our soldiers, airmen and marines get the intelligence they need,” he said. “I believe these are the most noble people we have in this country.” Having lost a brother who deployed as a signals operator in Afghanistan (to an IED), it always makes me cringe whenever they use forward-deployed soldiers as a defense of the higher-level states "nobility". There is nothing noble about mass surveillance or the invasion of privacy of non-enemy combatant nations/citizens. The fact citizens signed up to risk their lives in combat-zones at the bottom end of the chain does not legitimize the actions of those at the top.

jessaustin 13y ago
Hear, hear! When the top brass evoke these deaths, it's like they're saying "if our sainted dead soldiers followed these orders, how can you possibly disagree?" Frankly, the last general worthy of making that sort of comparison was Eisenhower, and he would have been the last man in the military to do so. He was already sickened at this leadership culture when he was President. If he were alive today he would cross the street to avoid a conversation with Alexander.
rhizome 13y ago
it always makes me cringe whenever they use forward-deployed soldiers as a defense of the higher-level states "nobility" In another context they might be called human shields. Shields in the PR war. I'm sorry for your loss.

replax 13y ago

Wow, I am really, really surprised. Especially as Gen. Alexander gave the keynote speech to DEFCON last year, and explicitly said, when asked after his speech: Q: "[..]Does the NSA really keep a file on anyone? [...]" A: "[..] Frist, no, we don't [...]" Absolutely astonishing! listen/watch here: http://youtu.be/tz0ejKersnM?t=33m2s http://youtu.be/tz0ejKersnM?t=33m2s

abalone 13y ago

In fairness, the title could just as well be "NSA director applauded on stage at Black Hat security conference". The crowd's reaction was definitely mixed.

IanDrake 13y ago

>the four-star general presented a timeline of terrorist attacks around the world, from the 1993 World Trade Center bombing to the Boston Marathon attack. Can anyone speak as to why, with the NSA's systems, they were not able to thwart an attack by the ass clowns in Boston? Russia even warned us about them and they made frequent contact with foreigners. I'm sorry, but that terrorist event seems like low hanging fruit if their system really works to protect us.

northwest 13y ago
The question is: Did they want to thwart the attack? One obvious possibility is that the system that has been erected simply needs fear to be able to continue to exist. Let some attacks happen (and some Taliban prisons break) from time to time and people can be and will be manipulated via fear, so the powerful stay powerful and the rich become richer. Same old, same old... Next stop: Middle Class Gone. Then, people will have nothing to lose again and wake up. Next, we'll have riots and one day, the old system is dead and history will repeat itself once more. So much for the long term.
- lukifer 13y ago
  In wartime, it's not uncommon to not act on intel to stop an attack, so as to preserve its strategic value and save more lives later. For any insiders who truly believe in the NSA's mission (which is being generous), "let a few die today to preserve a system that will save thousands tomorrow" is not a big leap.
nhaehnle 13y ago
The obvious conclusion to draw from this - and really, that anybody should be able to draw - is that the system doesn't work to protect regular people. This shouldn't really come as a surprise, either. Surveillance is not effective for preventing crimes. It is somewhat more useful for investigating crimes after they've happened.
McGlockenshire 13y ago
> Can anyone speak as to why, with the NSA's systems, they were not able to thwart an attack by the ass clowns in Boston? Dzhokhar and Tamerlan were granted legal permanent residence in 2007. Dzhokhar became a nautralized citizen in 2012. Tamerlan's application was on hold due to the DHS being a little suspicious of him. If the system is working as it should, the NSA could have been prohibited from monitoring the brothers.

YellowRex 13y ago

I hate Forbes - interstitial ads and persistent headers are super annoying. Can we stop posting Forbes links? Boing Boing has the same coverage with a much more reader-friendly site design: http://boingboing.net/2013/07/31/nsa-capo-heckled-at-black-hat.html http://boingboing.net/2013/07/31/nsa-capo-heckled-at-black-h...

YellowRex 13y ago
Grrr, the Boing Boing article just links to Forbes.

wil421 13y ago

From the article: “Everyone’s thinking this, but no one’s saying it public, so everyone thinks they’re alone,” he said. “Ninety-eight percent of society has issues with this…But no one speaks up.” While I think some people don't how to speak up, beside calling/writing my congress person, many don't care either way. In fact, many older people I have talked to (I am in my twenties) dont have a problem with what the NSA is doing. They dont really mind if their data is being sifted through as long as its being used to "Find Terrorists or what have you." My problem is the lack of oversight and the fact court that has approved 1,789 out of 1,748 requests (97.7%!!!!). Not only that but they have legal justifications for what they are doing, therefore since its legal its allowed, forget the morals/ethics involved. Who's to say they won't turn this around on the public at large because it will prevent smaller crimes instead of terrorists. Also whats to stop the government from calling people who oppose their views terrorists and then just spy directly at American people.

vijayboyapati 13y ago

Funny how Alexander says he's read the Constitution, and implores the heckler to do the same. If one can read the Constitution and square the NSA's mass surveillance with the 4th amendment then one can square a circle. There really is no point in debating people like this on the technicalities of the Constitution. What they understand is power. He has it and we don't. He knows how to pull the levers that matter, and which Congressman and executive branch bureaucrats to lean on to make sure his bailiwick is not reduced by a single inch. The rest of us, sadly, are left flailing around hoping that pointing to a piece of paper is an effective check on evil.

lukifer 13y ago
My understanding is that their Constitutional dodge is rooted in Scalia's originalism: the 4th says "papers", which means specifically physical pieces of paper, not phone calls or emails. What I've been wondering about though, is the legal definition of "effects" (noun, not verb). That term seems very broad to me, and should include emails, but I'm not a lawyer.
- talmand 13y ago
  They don't need a dodge, they just ignore the law or get new laws that circumvent previous laws. With little or no oversight this is easily accomplished. Especially since the group that requires oversight is gathering information and information is power. This is nothing new, read up on J. Edgar Hoover with his wiretapping and files on almost everybody. Sometimes with White House knowledge and approval, sometimes without. All this while completely ignoring that quaint document down the street called the Constitution. Doing things like that is easy if you can hand over a note to someone that starts out "It'd be a shame if people found out about [insert criminal/embarrassing act here]." Information is power.
  - lukifer 13y ago
    Oh, I agree. But they do successfully maintain the veneer. Regardless of how, the Supreme Court is complicit, and they engage in some tortured linguistic judo in the process.

deleted 13y ago

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rinon 13y ago

Video seems to be up at https://www.blackhat.com/us-13/archives.html#Alexander https://www.blackhat.com/us-13/archives.html#Alexander

stevenrace 13y ago
*Note the above links to an MP4. The 2013 Keynote is now on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvVIZ4OyGnQ&t=5m https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvVIZ4OyGnQ&t=5m -- Alexander begins at 5 minutes in -- no slides visible in video -- 'heckling' @ 39minutes in) -- TLDR: One cropped screenshot of 'telephone metadata', assurances of internal audits, a thumbup from a Senate sub-committee. Slides: https://media.blackhat.com/us-13/us-13-Alexander-keynote.pdf https://media.blackhat.com/us-13/us-13-Alexander-keynote.pdf

kyzyl 13y ago

Looks like I'm a little late for this comment party, but I'd just like to highlight one comment from the Forbes website that I thought was good: "In general I agree with McCoy in his ad-hoc debate with Gen Alexander as well as his post presentation remarks about the distorted perspective of national security. At the same time, I do conceed that the NSA is acting in good faith and ‘within the law’ as presented to them via the Patriot Act. I have similar feeling about the value of TSA, but whereas the TSA is a publicly disclosed program, my most pressing concern with the NSA is the secrecy of it. First, the secrecy presents an extremely high degree of risk (in terms of both the probabilty of occurance as well as the dangers) of mission creep. I doubt Congressional nor FISC oversight are adequate to mitigate this risk. Second, secrecy is not really a valid tool for deterence. Anti-terrorism programs are like a doomsday devices: it’s a good deterence only if it is widely known about (see Dr Strangelove). Moreover, while secret programs might be good for support of kill/capture programs, it is far from clear that such efforts reduce terrorism. For all I know, the government spy/drone program is to terrorists as a hammer is to an ant colony. If you have a spilled pot of honey in the kitchen, it doesn’t matter how good you are at spotting and smashing ants. I want to know these things, so that I can help shape public policy through the ballot box." --uspatriot2001 I think that's a good assessment of the high-level picture, and it's much more informative than "NSA BAD! Freedom good!" (not to belittle anyone's comments here) in that it reflects a road forward.

etiam 13y ago

Keith Alexander's way of bending words, and his facility with swinging a crowd and lying skillfully under pressure once again reminds me disturbingly of accounts I've read about psychopaths, and of probable psychopaths I've encountered. Those patterns could of course be stuff you pick up anyway as a top player for power, but I find the parallels highly worrisome. For those who have never read anything about the subject, may I suggest browsing e.g. "Without conscience" by Robert D. Hare. The sections with court proceedings in particular illustrate well what I mean.

losethos 13y ago

War is supposed to be fun. Navy games... something about Navy games. If you had a perfectly real space war game... cyber stuff Are you sure you can't just make uncrackable codes pretty easy. No! They might have flaws. Use a good one. God says... C:\TAD\Text\QUIX.TXT be it to strive to become a king, and make me a count." "So it shall be," answered Don Quixote, and raising his eyes he saw what will be told in the following chapter. CHAPTER XXII. OF THE FREEDOM DON QUIXOTE CONFERRED ON SEVERAL UNFORTUNATES WHO AGAINST THEIR WILL WERE BEING CARRIED WHERE THEY HAD NO WISH TO GO Cide Hamete Benengeli, the Arab and Manchegan author, relates in this most grave, high-sounding, minute, delightful, and original history that after the discussion between t

jotm 13y ago

“And if you disagree with what we’re doing, you should help us twice as much.” Right, so they end up like Snowden...

leke 13y ago

All this bad press is a great incentive for people to develop encryption skills. I'm now looking into javascript client to client encryption of certain social sites and services using greasemonkey to organise the contacts and keys database.