5 ms·

I am really glad people (or at least some) saw right through them. I caught only like 10 minutes of it, but one of the NSA official was talking about how they

by vinhboy 13y ago

I am really glad people (or at least some) saw right through them. I caught only like 10 minutes of it, but one of the NSA official was talking about how they discovered a state sponsored malware that could infect your BIOS and brick your computer. I was like, wait, what? So you spy on our phone and internet communication so you can protect us from computer viruses? But if you were to view that as a lay person, what the NSA official said about cyber attacks must have sounded really damn scary. After hearing something like that, most people would accept that the NSA's actions are justifiable.

tbrake 13y ago
IMO we're past the point of the layperson being so technically hopeless they'd swallow this whole. I grant the numbers are still out there, but I think the people convinced/reassured/calmed by this kind of PR are that way because they genuinely think it's worth it. Maybe even a "better the devil you know" scenario?; it's worth "our guys" having their hands on all of this power, with its potential for abuse, than the "other guys". What I don't get is why, if you're the NSA, would you go through the PR effort for people already on "your side"; you're not going to sway a large swath of the population and there surely can't be that many fence sitters on this issue.
- busterarm 13y ago
  So their supporters can point to something that appears legitimate when they're trying to "win hearts and minds" of their friends and family.
- yardie 13y ago
  A college friend of mine that works in DC defended the NSA in a FB comment by saying, "we sort of knew all along they were doing this anyway." So, because they haven't done anything bad that we know of they should continue the course. This is a college educated, engineer grad defending NSA practices. I feel the layperson knows this is wrong but feels mentally, outgunned by all the smart people telling them they are right in doing this.
  - cglace 13y ago
    Why would someone being an engineer make them more hostile to NSA spying? There are tons of engineers working for the NSA.
    - yardie 13y ago
      He doesn't work for the NSA, he could work for an NSA contractor but I wouldn't know. That's the thing. Like most liberals he doesn't have a problem with this administration and spying. We'd be on the same side if this was a republican administration but because he is a democrat and canvases for the DNC he sees nothing wrong with what this administration is doing. To me it's really frustrating. It's like trying to argue with Diane Feinstein over the intelligence bill.
  - doktrin 13y ago
    > "we sort of knew all along they were doing this anyway." In the wake of the original leaks, reading this particular snippet on FB posted by otherwise intelligent friends was one of my ultimate pet peeves. It neatly encapsulates both self-affirmation ("oh I totally knew this was going on, because I'm wicked smaht") and a shocking degree of complacency.
    - mindslight 13y ago
      .. Or just disgust at the complacency pre-Snowden and continuing adoption of broken technologies stemming from lack of critical forethought. The centralized data silos of web 2.0 were and are never not going to be used against you.
  - dragonwriter 13y ago
    I've noticed that there is considerable overlap between those who derided as unsupported the claims of NSA abuses pre-Snowden and those who minimize the same abuses as "we all knew that they were doing that, what do you expect them to do" after the Snowden leaks.
  - grecy 13y ago
    > "we sort of knew all along they were doing this anyway. That's an interesting way of justifying actions: We sort of knew Hitler was killing millions anyway. We sort of knew the CIA was testing nasty diseases on the Guatemalan population anyway. We sort of knew North Korea was violating a ton of human rights anyway. etc. etc.
mtgx 13y ago
Many people haven't realized this yet, but that's exactly what they're saying. Their thinking is that they're like an "anti-virus", and they can protect everyone if you just let them infiltrate everything. They've had this thinking since at least 2010 when I saw them talking about it in a public debate with Bruce Schneier, but probably much earlier, since it already seemed like a planned thing. Unsurprisingly perhaps, it came soon after US Cyber Command was formed, and then merged with the NSA. That's when this corrupted idea (probably from Keith Alexander himself) started emerging, and why it's so dangerous to keep them merged (something Obama keeps defending, even after his own non-independent review panel suggested him to separate the two). So their idea of security, isn't actually having secure systems (anymore?!), but for them to have backdoors into everything, which of course is nonsense, and they are creating more problems than solving. But for all we know that's exactly how they like it, much like the war on terror, which keeps being prolonged by creating more terrorists, and keeping the Military Industrial Complex well fed and profitable. Or they think all the data they are collecting about the whole world is well worth risking having compromised systems, even at home, but they present the idea of themselves having to do this to "protect Americans" as a lie to cover for that, and because they know it sounds better to the public and (some) politicians.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
MichaelApproved 13y ago
And didnt the BIOS virus require admin interaction to activate the attack? An admin would have to OK a firmware update. So, its not like this would ripple through entire systems. An admin might approve the first update, see the hardware just got bricked and stop. Virus or not, if an update bricked my computer, I'm not going to try it again on the thousands of machines that I manage. They made it seem like this exploit could have knocked out every computer in the nation. What was the real risk here?
- rbobby 13y ago
  Which is why escalation of privilege attacks are as important as remote code execution. A sophisticated attack will use multiple exploits.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
easyfrag 13y ago
I was curious with how they claimed they worked with manufactures to fix the exploit. Presumably this meant a mass update of the BIOS of hundreds of thousands of computers across the financial industry.
- sdoering 13y ago
  Haven't seen this, sitting in Germany. But do I understand it right, that NSA told everybody, the helped/messed with BIOS-Versions from different vendors, to "help us all (TM)". Do I really want the NSA to dabble in the BIOS of my computer? [tinfoilhatoff]

by vinhboy 13y ago

tbrake 13y ago

IMO we're past the point of the layperson being so technically hopeless they'd swallow this whole. I grant the numbers are still out there, but I think the people convinced/reassured/calmed by this kind of PR are that way because they genuinely think it's worth it. Maybe even a "better the devil you know" scenario?; it's worth "our guys" having their hands on all of this power, with its potential for abuse, than the "other guys". What I don't get is why, if you're the NSA, would you go through the PR effort for people already on "your side"; you're not going to sway a large swath of the population and there surely can't be that many fence sitters on this issue.

busterarm 13y ago
So their supporters can point to something that appears legitimate when they're trying to "win hearts and minds" of their friends and family.
yardie 13y ago
A college friend of mine that works in DC defended the NSA in a FB comment by saying, "we sort of knew all along they were doing this anyway." So, because they haven't done anything bad that we know of they should continue the course. This is a college educated, engineer grad defending NSA practices. I feel the layperson knows this is wrong but feels mentally, outgunned by all the smart people telling them they are right in doing this.
- cglace 13y ago
  Why would someone being an engineer make them more hostile to NSA spying? There are tons of engineers working for the NSA.
  - yardie 13y ago
    He doesn't work for the NSA, he could work for an NSA contractor but I wouldn't know. That's the thing. Like most liberals he doesn't have a problem with this administration and spying. We'd be on the same side if this was a republican administration but because he is a democrat and canvases for the DNC he sees nothing wrong with what this administration is doing. To me it's really frustrating. It's like trying to argue with Diane Feinstein over the intelligence bill.
- doktrin 13y ago
  > "we sort of knew all along they were doing this anyway." In the wake of the original leaks, reading this particular snippet on FB posted by otherwise intelligent friends was one of my ultimate pet peeves. It neatly encapsulates both self-affirmation ("oh I totally knew this was going on, because I'm wicked smaht") and a shocking degree of complacency.
  - mindslight 13y ago
    .. Or just disgust at the complacency pre-Snowden and continuing adoption of broken technologies stemming from lack of critical forethought. The centralized data silos of web 2.0 were and are never not going to be used against you.
- dragonwriter 13y ago
  I've noticed that there is considerable overlap between those who derided as unsupported the claims of NSA abuses pre-Snowden and those who minimize the same abuses as "we all knew that they were doing that, what do you expect them to do" after the Snowden leaks.
- grecy 13y ago
  > "we sort of knew all along they were doing this anyway. That's an interesting way of justifying actions: We sort of knew Hitler was killing millions anyway. We sort of knew the CIA was testing nasty diseases on the Guatemalan population anyway. We sort of knew North Korea was violating a ton of human rights anyway. etc. etc.

mtgx 13y ago

Many people haven't realized this yet, but that's exactly what they're saying. Their thinking is that they're like an "anti-virus", and they can protect everyone if you just let them infiltrate everything. They've had this thinking since at least 2010 when I saw them talking about it in a public debate with Bruce Schneier, but probably much earlier, since it already seemed like a planned thing. Unsurprisingly perhaps, it came soon after US Cyber Command was formed, and then merged with the NSA. That's when this corrupted idea (probably from Keith Alexander himself) started emerging, and why it's so dangerous to keep them merged (something Obama keeps defending, even after his own non-independent review panel suggested him to separate the two). So their idea of security, isn't actually having secure systems (anymore?!), but for them to have backdoors into everything, which of course is nonsense, and they are creating more problems than solving. But for all we know that's exactly how they like it, much like the war on terror, which keeps being prolonged by creating more terrorists, and keeping the Military Industrial Complex well fed and profitable. Or they think all the data they are collecting about the whole world is well worth risking having compromised systems, even at home, but they present the idea of themselves having to do this to "protect Americans" as a lie to cover for that, and because they know it sounds better to the public and (some) politicians.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

MichaelApproved 13y ago

And didnt the BIOS virus require admin interaction to activate the attack? An admin would have to OK a firmware update. So, its not like this would ripple through entire systems. An admin might approve the first update, see the hardware just got bricked and stop. Virus or not, if an update bricked my computer, I'm not going to try it again on the thousands of machines that I manage. They made it seem like this exploit could have knocked out every computer in the nation. What was the real risk here?

rbobby 13y ago
Which is why escalation of privilege attacks are as important as remote code execution. A sophisticated attack will use multiple exploits.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

easyfrag 13y ago

I was curious with how they claimed they worked with manufactures to fix the exploit. Presumably this meant a mass update of the BIOS of hundreds of thousands of computers across the financial industry.

sdoering 13y ago
Haven't seen this, sitting in Germany. But do I understand it right, that NSA told everybody, the helped/messed with BIOS-Versions from different vendors, to "help us all (TM)". Do I really want the NSA to dabble in the BIOS of my computer? [tinfoilhatoff]