12 ms·
NSA Coworker Remembers Edward Snowden: "A Genius Among Geniuses"
- salient 13y agoWith great power comes great responsibility. I'm glad Snowden saw it that way, too. Same goes for William Binney who was a higher-up in NSA, and also in charge of creating some of its most important/dangerous surveillance software, before he decided to become a whistleblower.
- Edmond 13y agoNothing in that piece to suggest Snowden was a "A Genius Among Geniuses"...on what basis does his genius rest? AFAIK there is no record of Snowden doing any kind of work out there that'll suggest he knew anything about computing security. It seems people have forgotten that there are a ton of freely available computer security tools out there that any body can take and do a lot of damage with.
- sp332 13y agoIt doesn't mention anything about security. There's a backup system, and a web front-end. Whatever his work was, it was impressive enough to get him an invite to the Tailored Access Operations. Not all work at the NSA was cutting-edge encryption.
- Edmond 13y agoHow did you miss that? the whole article speaks to his supposed security prowess: * Snowden had been brought to Hawaii as a cybersecurity expert working for Dell’s services division but due to a problem with the contract was reassigned to become an administrator for the Microsoft intranet management system known as Sharepoint.
- sp332 13y agoAnd the next sentence starts Impressed with his technical abilities, Snowden’s managers decided that he was the most qualified candidate to build a new web front-end So whatever he did that was impressive, it wasn't security-related.
- ZoF 13y agoHow can you tell from that statement that his impressive act was 100% not security related.... All you can really say is that it wasn't necessarily security related.
- chris_mahan 13y agoAnyone building a web front-end needs to have a lot of security-related knowledge (implement https correctly, cross site scripting and other js vulnerabilities, sql injection, buffer overflows in your apps, etc.)
- astine 13y agoThat quote is apparently the opinion of one of the NSA staffers that worked with him. Apparently he was more talented than most of the other employees and contractors.
- Cthulhu_ 13y agoIndeed; a statement like that is either reflective of Snowden's skill level, or the average skill level of his co-workers. I haven't personally seen anything out of the ordinary yet for a generic sysadmin/developer/hacker/internet freedom fighter character.
- jere 13y agoIn the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.
- pessimizer 13y ago>...on what basis does his genius rest? It rests on some of his co-workers thinking he was very smart. Is there anything wrong with that? >AFAIK there is no record of Snowden doing any kind of work out there that'll suggest he knew anything about computing security. But how far do you know, exactly, about the work that Snowden was doing, or how good he was at it?
- Zikes 13y agoThe basis for his genius appears to be the opinion of his colleague, which you're free to accept or reject. If his colleague's claims are to be believed, his activities and accolades within the NSA would be sufficient record of his computing security experience. Not everyone has to publish a white paper or open a GitHub account in order to be taken seriously.
- Edmond 13y agoWhen people are labeled geniuses, independent evidence is important, especially when they've become a cause célèbre. Geniuses generally have a body of work to stand on, not just a friend/family/colleague opinion.
- geetee 13y agoBody of work? Perhaps you may have heard about his NSA leaks?
- louthy 13y agoIndependent evidence is clearly going to be thin on the ground if he was doing work for the NSA. As mentioned before, it's the opinion of his co-worker. Now that co-worker may have been an incompetent and saw everything that Snowden did as 'genius'. Or, it may be the case that he really was one. Who knows, but at least it's a slightly different viewpoint on the thing.
- jonknee 13y agoI would say being a self-taught computer expert who out-smarted the most technically advanced intelligence agency in the history of the world at their own game would lend itself to being a body of work. He also outmaneuvered the State Department and as a lone actor has been able to thumb his nose at the most powerful people in the world while his data has been front page news in dozens of countries around the world for months. It's all quite surreal and I would not underestimate the man.
- chris_mahan 13y ago
- fnordfnordfnord 13y agoIt's a character reference from a co-worker, not a declaration of objective fact. >It seems people have forgotten that there are a ton of freely available computer security tools out there that any body can take and do a lot of damage with. I used to think that sort of thing would be noticed pretty quickly at the NSA. Nowadays, I am not so sure.
- podperson 13y agoHe could configure sharepoint AND backup systems. May not seem like much but in a federal government department that's like being Jesus and, I don't know, Buddha at the same time.
- vidarh 13y agoFrankly, someone who knows how to wield Sharepoint qualifies more as a Marquis de Sade to me.
- Pengu 13y agoadds more to the hollywood story
- kushti 13y agoThe difference between Snowden and other NSA employees is that Snowden is the real U.S. patriot, not just government worker.
- skrebbel 13y agoI don't understand that. Why is doing the right thing somehow "patriotic"? You don't need to "love your country" to want to make it a better place.
- k__ 13y agoProbably the other way around. If you do something for the people of a country you're patriotic.
- skriticos2 13y agoHm, national patriotism seems shortsighted in the post-modern age. Can we please be global patriots in the age of Internet and global communication and commerce?
- randallsquared 13y agoWanting to make your country a better place is evidence that you love your country, at least.
- kordless 13y agoA patriot does for his country what its government will not, or cannot.
- maigret 13y agoNo. (Ideally) a patriot does what is good for his country, whatever the government does, good or bad. That can include helping the government do what is right for the country and its citizen.
- Theodores 13y agoSnowden differs from many of the whistleblower ilk in that there is nothing to dislike about his character (yet). The media have not dished any dirt, none of his friends/family/ex-lovers have came forward with anything untoward about him and he hasn't shown any signs of being deluded. Even if you try your hardest to 'believe', a lot of whistleblowers have been deluded one way or another. They can be overly indoctrinated in their 'mission', so, whilst bringing to light useful information they have also been a bit keen to believe the propaganda that goes with The War Against Terror, e.g. Coleen Rowley. They can also be deluded in their importance, to be less than convincing, e.g. Sibel Edmonds. They can also fully jump the shark, e.g. David Shayler. Then there is Assange, 'deluded' in my opinion for thinking leaks could be monetized. Unless I am missing something, Edward Snowden has taken a stand for truth and not allowed his character to be compromised in any way whatsoever. He has not made any mistakes, there is nothing where you could think he could have done better. Am I being deluded in thinking this?!?
- hosh 13y agoYou're not deluded. I expect we'll see more of this kind of thing and these kind of people to appear.
- samstave 13y agoI'd be interested to see if they attempt to fake people who know him...
- cryoshon 13y agoThe idea that the character of the whistleblowers themselves has anything to do with the quality or impact of the information they leak is a propaganda trick enforced by the media-- a leak with a face can be discredited if the face can be discredited, and in the 21st century, everyone has skeletons in the closet. Additionally, if your aim is to obscure, it's far easier to focus on the flaws of the person behind the leaks than the leak itself. A discussion of the leaker is a discussion that is not entirely focused on the meaning of what they leaked.
- 13y ago
- fit2rule 13y agoIf there is one thing that we should all be taking away from the Snowden episode, it is the fact that all human activities are utterly arbitrary. We decide to live in a free society, and then we do the things necessary to live in that society as we have defined it should be. The definition keeps changing. One minute, its just not a free society unless you can keep slaves, the next minute its not a free society unless women vote, the next .. well, you get the point. Society is only as good as it declares its intentions and then carries them out; nowhere, alas, in the entire miasma of American law, is there the requirement that one has to always try their best to do well, and to operate on the principle of the greater good - in face of all opposition. This too, is arbitrary, and the point where it becomes reality instead, is when an individual voice in the crowd stands up and says "this is how things should be!", gaining a little more volume than everyone else, and getting a bit more agreement, in the face of all the worlds cannibalism, that it might be good to cook things slightly differently. Snowden, and others out there working in their own, utterly non-arbitrary ways, are always going to be necessary to remind us that just when you think you are safe, because status quo, the new safe realm is the as-yet completely unexplored ..
- soulrain 13y agoThis is true but you have to admit over time the means of oppression have become more nuanced and complicated. Few people realize that most companies are little more than intellectual property, a network to collaborate on expand said IP and the corp's ability to secure information. Large corps and govt's not only understand this, they are defined by it, thus the need for whistle blowers more now than ever as the foot on your throat is not as apparent.
- fit2rule 13y agoEducation always will be, and currently is, the tip of the spear. If you can deem to educate someone, you can deem to educate another. Once you gain a mass, education becomes lesser than the whole. This is why: we humans constantly need new means by which we can enlighten ourselves. Within a generation, todays enlightenment becomes de rigeur, de jour, de jure. This is the nature of the trap we find ourselves; escaping it requires one abandon the dialectic of our masters, and embrace the constant new. For as long as we have hackers, we are safe.
- kriro 13y agoSeems like the source for this article was male.
- ww520 13y agoIt's sad that keeping a copy of the constitution is seen as a sign of eccentricity.
- talmand 13y agoI find it particularly sad since I have a copy sitting on my desk at this moment. It's an interesting read, I would suggest it to anyone that hasn't yet. It also has the Declaration of Independence at the end as well. Doubly eccentric?
- theandrewbailey 13y agoPeople might think I was eccentric if I kept toilet paper on my desk, too.
- tootie 13y agoThe fact that the NSA needed help to setup Sharepoint fills me with confidence that they have no idea what they're doing. I'm guessing the password to the call log metadata is on a post-it note somewhere.
- pmorici 13y agoThe government's workforce is made of of a very large percentage of contractors 50%+. The article makes it seem like he was a unicorn but that probably wasn't the case. Contractor employees often get paid more than a government counter part doing the same job[0]. If I had to venture a guess as to why this is I'd say it is because those contractors turn around and make political donations where as many government employees are limited in their political activity, especially in the defense sector. [0] http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/3311:guess-what-it-is-cheaper-to-use-federal-government-employees-than-contractor-employees http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/3311:guess-what-it-is-che...
- jsumrall 13y agoI think its more because their contract has an expiration date. They get paid more because there is a "risk" that they could be unemployed for some time before they find a new contract (not likely for programming jobs, but speaking about contractors in general...) whereas a gov't employee has a huge amount of job security. Its a choice of Money vs. Job security.
- tootie 13y agoGovernment hires contractors for the same reason private companies do. They can easily ramp up headcount then ramp it back down. It's doubly valuable when your full-time workforce are protected by numerous legal and union regulations. When a project needs 100 technical resources asap, recruiting that many people is very difficult and expensive. Even for a private company without regulations on pay and hours. There are only a handful of IT services companies out there capable of staffing that many people at once, so bidding is less than competitive. If funding is cut for that project, just fire the contractor and you're free and clear.
- 13y ago
- herbig 13y agoI like how they say he "cheated" on the entrance exam to the NSA by stealing the questions and answers from their servers, as if that doesn't just make him more qualified for the job..
- daned 13y agoYes, this cracks me up. He was joining an organization of cheats and snitches and they got mad when he cheated.
- sliverstorm 13y agoas if that doesn't just make him more qualified for the job Maybe. Maybe not. Do we want the NSA to be rule-breaking cowboys that get the job done, or do we want them to have a rigid code of ethics? I honestly don't know. Rigid ethics impair their effectiveness; cowboyism gives us what we have now.
- dragonwriter 13y ago> Rigid ethics impair their effectiveness Does it? How, specifically? > cowboyism gives us what we have now. Which also impairs effectiveness at doing anything that is legitimate role of any component of the US government, which necessary includes adhering to rather than subverting the Constitution of the United States.
- sliverstorm 13y agoDoes it? How, specifically? As I do not work for the NSA, I hope you will understand my lack of real-life NSA examples. But surely you have experienced the ways bureaucracy can drag down a good project.
- dragonwriter 13y ago> But surely you have experienced the ways bureaucracy can drag down a good project. Surely I have -- and all of those have been about personal empire building, which wasn't the issue being discussed.
- nexttimer 13y ago> “I won’t call him a hero, but he’s sure as hell no traitor.” No hero? What does it take for you then? Actually, he's not a hero, he's more like Jesus of our times, giving away his (perfect) life for us (who - of course - don't even appreciate his sacrifice, let alone act).
- eplanit 13y agoYou should paint a new rendition of the Last Supper with Snowden as your Jesus, and you can have Assange, Manning, ..., (choose 10 more of those types) as his disciples. Have fun.
- siliconc0w 13y agoThe problem with this article is the author has no idea what is actually a genius security/cryto/computery act. Lazy reporting.
- soulrain 13y agoIf you can't put the veracity of the revelations of Snowden on trial I guess you attack his character and/or means. The NSA is in a lose, lose situation. They are painting Snowden to be an idiot...an idiot they were dumb enough to hire and allow to revamp major system. Oh but he cheated on their test to get hired! If the NSA cannot secure a test what can they secure? Oh but a comp sci guy was quirky and eccentric! Ya well maybe tell ole' Keith not to recruit at DefCon what kind of people are you trying to hire? The idea that there is mass data store somewhere and it will not be utilized for say insider trading or blackmail is naive to say the least. If Snowden had access so do many, many others and I am sure they tell themselves they are good people but human nature is what it is... What weapon, and mass info is indeed a weapon, has ever been created and never used especially a stealthy tool which can always be denied being used hidden behind secrecy and patriotism?
- tamersalama 13y agoSomething tells me that due to Snowden's leaks - nothing will ever get accomplished at the NSA. Not anymore. Imagine of all the additional security and authorization measures that they will add. Imagine how this would be a hurdle in both day-to-day and new projects.
- lafar6502 13y agoI suppose they're trying to persuade us that Snowden is a superhuman, and only his superpowers allowed him to get access to all the information. It has nothing to do with incompetence of his coworkers and bosses, nobody could have prevented that and it's nobody's fault.
- batgaijin 13y agoI bet he knew more acronyms than anyone