8 ms·

There's enough wrong with what the NSA has been doing, and enough reasons to encourage people to take an interest in how to curtail, or at least better police,

There's enough wrong with what the NSA has been doing, and enough reasons to encourage people to take an interest in how to curtail, or at least better police, their actions without resorting to tawdry conspiracy theories. The NSA doesn't "protect" anyone. They are an intelligence agency. Their mandate is to collect information. The group you're thinking of, the one that's actually supposed to "protect" the network, is US Cyber Command: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Cyber_Command http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Cyber_Command

lawnchair_larry 13y ago
USCC doesn't protect anyone either. They, like most of the Department of "Defense", are almost entirely offense in nature.
- ihsw 13y ago
  The best defence is a good offence.
  - mousefad 13y ago
    A catchy sound byte, but in almost all practical situations, the best defence is avoiding conflict. In fights: flee. In international affairs: diplomacy.
    - javert 13y ago
      That is disasterous. That logic is why Chaimberlain allowed Hitler to get more and more and more power. ("Surely they'll agree to peace if we just let them have Poland.") It is also why my generation (I'm 27) will eventually have to fight a nuclear war that pits Iran against Israel and possibly the US. That war will potentially kill millions. And whose fault will it be? Obama's and Bush's. They will (if history is just and we don't change course) go down in history as potentially making mistakes that killed millions, just as Stalin and Hitler did. Or we could insist now (or, ideally, a few years ago) that Iran not develop nuclear weapons capability, if necessary fighting a minor tactical war to stop them. (There is NO reason to have Vietnam IV, where Afghanistan and Iraq are Vietnam II and III. Except of course socialism for defense contractors and altruism as we throw away trillions "re-building" the latter two countries.)
      - jjoonathan 13y ago
        > That is disasterous. You should have hedged with "can be" instead of "is." Fighting preemtive wars can be disastrous too. > my generation (I'm 27) will eventually have to fight a nuclear war that pits Iran against Israel and possibly the US Do you seriously believe that? Sure, Iran will get to throw their weight around a bit more with nuclear power, but they're not that desperate or stupid. > Obama and Bush ... will go down in history ... just as Stalin and Hitler did No. > a minor tactical war [would] stop [Iran from developing nuclear weapons] Maybe. You complain about "throwing away trillions" fighting silly wars and re-building countries. You do realize that the exact same sell (fight a minor war, stop the terrorists!) was used for the last two multi-trillion-dollar debacles, right? Either we give them a bloody nose and they just try again (keeping their cards closer to their chest this time) or we spend trillions trying to install another puppet government.
      - atmosx 13y ago
        USA made a war claiming that Iraq had Nuclear weapons. Apparently it didn't. The only one who gained anything from Iraq war, were 7 USA-based oil companies. Iran has lost the war vs Iraq a some years ago. As a European, I don't see Iran as a threat. But you probably do...
        aioprisan 13y ago
        That's wrong. We do know that they had been trying to develop nuclear weapons for years. The first reactor was bought from France in the 70s and the Israelis bombed Iraq a few times to stop them from developing nuclear weapons. The same will happen with Iran if they do not stop enriching uranium above energy-related levels. Back to Iraq, there was evidence that was presented to Congress, and if you ask most of the people who voted to authorize the war based on the evidence, such as Hillary or John Kerry, they say they have no regrets in voting that way (i.e. http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/04/21/iraq.hillary/ http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/04/21/iraq.hillary/). Now, in hindsight, whether all that evidence was correct is an entirely different debate.
        atmosx 13y ago
  - fsck--off 13y ago
    Asymmetric warfare with multiple adversaries doesn't work that way. For example, Stuxnet did not make U.S power plants safe from malicious attackers. I recommend reading Ralph Langner's op-ed in the New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/06/04/do-cyberattacks-on-iran-make-us-vulnerable-12/why-attack-when-we-cant-defend http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/06/04/do-cyberatta...
    - smsm42 13y ago
      It did make word temporarily safer from Iran nuclear bomb though. Of course, it is only temporary, but almost everything you do is. As for the article, it claims that Stuxnet "opened the Pandora box", but it did nothing of the sort. Stuxnet by itself did not enable anything that wasn't possible before - it was possible for malicious actors to create attacks on US networked infrastructure, and it still is. Stuxnet changed nothing there. Criminals and security professionals know the possibilities for a long time. And are using them. Making it sound as if the evil US has again spoiled the paradise for everyone makes no sense, and the author, being the expert in the field, should have known better, but looks like his political views overcame his professional judgement here.
      - lostlogin 13y ago
        Does anyone series believe that Iran is a threat to the world. How about basing threat levels on previous actions? For example, who invades countries most often? Or who's military kills the most people? I've heard about WMD threats before - and who did the invading and killing in the end? That saga ended with almost everyone looking bad.
        drivingmissm 13y ago
        Yes, Iran's totalitarian leadership is a threat to its neighbors, particularly Israel.
        andy_ppp 13y ago
        A war between Israel and Iran would be an epic disaster; too bad to even consider leaders of either country being that stupid. I think the arming of Israel with nuclear weapons is probably the biggest mistake the US has ever made... If Israel didn't have nuclear weapons there would be no way I'd consider Iran trying to get them (at almost any cost - we should have aiming for a nuclear free world), but with the situation as it is I wholly sympathise with their position.
  - coldtea 13y ago
    Not if you're a 800-pound gorilla against 30kg monkeys... Then offense is just offence.
    - smsm42 13y ago
      Enough monkeys could take even 800-pound gorilla. In fact, it is considered a common knowledge that some bipedal monkeys regularly took 16000-pound mammoths, ate them and made dwellings out of their bones. So if I were a gorilla I wouldn't underestimate 30kg monkeys. Especially if they have advanced weaponry.
      - coldtea 13y ago
        In theory maybe. In actual life, the 800-pound gorilla is beating the shit out of monkeys, invades their villages, pushes them diplomatically, installs his lackey-monkeys in power in their jungles, and steals their resources. And he counts any nick or scratch on his body (inflicted by the monkeys tiny hands) as worthy of the lives of 10,000 monkeys -- which he considers almost subhuman and even talks openly of "bombing them back to stone age". Oh, and he maintains that he's the righteous and good one in all this, and it's doing it for their own good.
        smsm42 13y ago
        If you look at what happens in the jungles, all this was happening before the colonial powers came in, and is still happening when they left. So, without going too much into appropriateness of calling these people "monkeys", I'd suggest maybe the gorilla is not the biggest problem they face.
  - pizza234 13y ago
    We're not talking about fistfights here. The best solution is to prevent the problems; I hope you understand while reading this article (which went here on HN some time ago): http://news.yahoo.com/german-police-used-only-85-bullets-against-people-155155175.html http://news.yahoo.com/german-police-used-only-85-bullets-aga...
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
nitrogen 13y ago
"As part of the National Security Presidential Directive 54/Homeland Security Presidential Directive 23 (NSPD 54), signed on January 8, 2008 by President Bush, the NSA became the lead agency to monitor and protect all of the federal government's computer networks from cyber-terrorism." [Emphasis added] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSA#Mission https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSA#Mission
- snowwrestler 13y ago
  Yes but their funding is not dependent on how secure RSA tokens are. NSA did this to advance their mission, not to make a few extra bucks.
  - nitrogen 13y ago
    The point is that it advanced the intelligence gathering half of their mission while seriously compromising the protective half of their mission.
001sky 13y ago
White House: NSA and Cyber Command to stay under one boss http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/12/white-house-nsa-and-cyber-command-to-stay-under-one-boss/ http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/12/white-house-nsa-a...
rdl 13y ago
NSA IA is actually the lead for all IT/technical intelligence defense for both USG and other US entities vs. foreign intelligence/military agencies.
pdkl95 13y ago
No conspiracy theory requried, as it does not require /intention/ on the part of the NSA. This can simply be Pavlov-style reinforcement: misguided ideas get amplified by rewarding the behaviour with budget increases.
- coldtea 13y ago
  >No conspiracy theory requried Conspiracy doesn't mean aliens and Disney being frozen. It just means people/organisations doing something together in secret. What the NSA and partners have done is very much a conspiracy -- by definition. As the great writer Gore Vidal once put it, "Americans have been trained by media to go into Pavlovian giggles at the mention of 'conspiracy' because for an American to believe in a conspiracy he must also believe in flying saucers or, craziest of all, that more than one person was involved in the JFK murder."
  - pdkl95 13y ago
    My point being they that the conditioning/feedback-loop may exist even in the case where the people involved are not aware of it. It is possible to have agents working independently, on their own compartmentalized pieces of the larger mission, each being influenced in a (apx) similar manner.Given the history of the NSA (and FBI) I would wager there probably is a significant amount of conspiracy in the department. Money is a powerful conditioning force, and humans miss the "obvious" things that are influencing them all the time.

lawnchair_larry 13y ago

USCC doesn't protect anyone either. They, like most of the Department of "Defense", are almost entirely offense in nature.

ihsw 13y ago
The best defence is a good offence.
- mousefad 13y ago
  A catchy sound byte, but in almost all practical situations, the best defence is avoiding conflict. In fights: flee. In international affairs: diplomacy.
  - javert 13y ago
    That is disasterous. That logic is why Chaimberlain allowed Hitler to get more and more and more power. ("Surely they'll agree to peace if we just let them have Poland.") It is also why my generation (I'm 27) will eventually have to fight a nuclear war that pits Iran against Israel and possibly the US. That war will potentially kill millions. And whose fault will it be? Obama's and Bush's. They will (if history is just and we don't change course) go down in history as potentially making mistakes that killed millions, just as Stalin and Hitler did. Or we could insist now (or, ideally, a few years ago) that Iran not develop nuclear weapons capability, if necessary fighting a minor tactical war to stop them. (There is NO reason to have Vietnam IV, where Afghanistan and Iraq are Vietnam II and III. Except of course socialism for defense contractors and altruism as we throw away trillions "re-building" the latter two countries.)
    - jjoonathan 13y ago
      > That is disasterous. You should have hedged with "can be" instead of "is." Fighting preemtive wars can be disastrous too. > my generation (I'm 27) will eventually have to fight a nuclear war that pits Iran against Israel and possibly the US Do you seriously believe that? Sure, Iran will get to throw their weight around a bit more with nuclear power, but they're not that desperate or stupid. > Obama and Bush ... will go down in history ... just as Stalin and Hitler did No. > a minor tactical war [would] stop [Iran from developing nuclear weapons] Maybe. You complain about "throwing away trillions" fighting silly wars and re-building countries. You do realize that the exact same sell (fight a minor war, stop the terrorists!) was used for the last two multi-trillion-dollar debacles, right? Either we give them a bloody nose and they just try again (keeping their cards closer to their chest this time) or we spend trillions trying to install another puppet government.
    - atmosx 13y ago
      USA made a war claiming that Iraq had Nuclear weapons. Apparently it didn't. The only one who gained anything from Iraq war, were 7 USA-based oil companies. Iran has lost the war vs Iraq a some years ago. As a European, I don't see Iran as a threat. But you probably do...
      - aioprisan 13y ago
        That's wrong. We do know that they had been trying to develop nuclear weapons for years. The first reactor was bought from France in the 70s and the Israelis bombed Iraq a few times to stop them from developing nuclear weapons. The same will happen with Iran if they do not stop enriching uranium above energy-related levels. Back to Iraq, there was evidence that was presented to Congress, and if you ask most of the people who voted to authorize the war based on the evidence, such as Hillary or John Kerry, they say they have no regrets in voting that way (i.e. http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/04/21/iraq.hillary/ http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/04/21/iraq.hillary/). Now, in hindsight, whether all that evidence was correct is an entirely different debate.
        atmosx 13y ago
- fsck--off 13y ago
  Asymmetric warfare with multiple adversaries doesn't work that way. For example, Stuxnet did not make U.S power plants safe from malicious attackers. I recommend reading Ralph Langner's op-ed in the New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/06/04/do-cyberattacks-on-iran-make-us-vulnerable-12/why-attack-when-we-cant-defend http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/06/04/do-cyberatta...
  - smsm42 13y ago
    It did make word temporarily safer from Iran nuclear bomb though. Of course, it is only temporary, but almost everything you do is. As for the article, it claims that Stuxnet "opened the Pandora box", but it did nothing of the sort. Stuxnet by itself did not enable anything that wasn't possible before - it was possible for malicious actors to create attacks on US networked infrastructure, and it still is. Stuxnet changed nothing there. Criminals and security professionals know the possibilities for a long time. And are using them. Making it sound as if the evil US has again spoiled the paradise for everyone makes no sense, and the author, being the expert in the field, should have known better, but looks like his political views overcame his professional judgement here.
    - lostlogin 13y ago
      Does anyone series believe that Iran is a threat to the world. How about basing threat levels on previous actions? For example, who invades countries most often? Or who's military kills the most people? I've heard about WMD threats before - and who did the invading and killing in the end? That saga ended with almost everyone looking bad.
      - drivingmissm 13y ago
        Yes, Iran's totalitarian leadership is a threat to its neighbors, particularly Israel.
        andy_ppp 13y ago
        A war between Israel and Iran would be an epic disaster; too bad to even consider leaders of either country being that stupid. I think the arming of Israel with nuclear weapons is probably the biggest mistake the US has ever made... If Israel didn't have nuclear weapons there would be no way I'd consider Iran trying to get them (at almost any cost - we should have aiming for a nuclear free world), but with the situation as it is I wholly sympathise with their position.
- coldtea 13y ago
  Not if you're a 800-pound gorilla against 30kg monkeys... Then offense is just offence.
  - smsm42 13y ago
    Enough monkeys could take even 800-pound gorilla. In fact, it is considered a common knowledge that some bipedal monkeys regularly took 16000-pound mammoths, ate them and made dwellings out of their bones. So if I were a gorilla I wouldn't underestimate 30kg monkeys. Especially if they have advanced weaponry.
    - coldtea 13y ago
      In theory maybe. In actual life, the 800-pound gorilla is beating the shit out of monkeys, invades their villages, pushes them diplomatically, installs his lackey-monkeys in power in their jungles, and steals their resources. And he counts any nick or scratch on his body (inflicted by the monkeys tiny hands) as worthy of the lives of 10,000 monkeys -- which he considers almost subhuman and even talks openly of "bombing them back to stone age". Oh, and he maintains that he's the righteous and good one in all this, and it's doing it for their own good.
      - smsm42 13y ago
        If you look at what happens in the jungles, all this was happening before the colonial powers came in, and is still happening when they left. So, without going too much into appropriateness of calling these people "monkeys", I'd suggest maybe the gorilla is not the biggest problem they face.
- pizza234 13y ago
  We're not talking about fistfights here. The best solution is to prevent the problems; I hope you understand while reading this article (which went here on HN some time ago): http://news.yahoo.com/german-police-used-only-85-bullets-against-people-155155175.html http://news.yahoo.com/german-police-used-only-85-bullets-aga...
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]

nitrogen 13y ago

"As part of the National Security Presidential Directive 54/Homeland Security Presidential Directive 23 (NSPD 54), signed on January 8, 2008 by President Bush, the NSA became the lead agency to monitor and protect all of the federal government's computer networks from cyber-terrorism." [Emphasis added] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSA#Mission https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSA#Mission

snowwrestler 13y ago
Yes but their funding is not dependent on how secure RSA tokens are. NSA did this to advance their mission, not to make a few extra bucks.
- nitrogen 13y ago
  The point is that it advanced the intelligence gathering half of their mission while seriously compromising the protective half of their mission.

001sky 13y ago

White House: NSA and Cyber Command to stay under one boss http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/12/white-house-nsa-and-cyber-command-to-stay-under-one-boss/ http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/12/white-house-nsa-a...

rdl 13y ago

NSA IA is actually the lead for all IT/technical intelligence defense for both USG and other US entities vs. foreign intelligence/military agencies.

pdkl95 13y ago

No conspiracy theory requried, as it does not require /intention/ on the part of the NSA. This can simply be Pavlov-style reinforcement: misguided ideas get amplified by rewarding the behaviour with budget increases.

coldtea 13y ago
>No conspiracy theory requried Conspiracy doesn't mean aliens and Disney being frozen. It just means people/organisations doing something together in secret. What the NSA and partners have done is very much a conspiracy -- by definition. As the great writer Gore Vidal once put it, "Americans have been trained by media to go into Pavlovian giggles at the mention of 'conspiracy' because for an American to believe in a conspiracy he must also believe in flying saucers or, craziest of all, that more than one person was involved in the JFK murder."
- pdkl95 13y ago
  My point being they that the conditioning/feedback-loop may exist even in the case where the people involved are not aware of it. It is possible to have agents working independently, on their own compartmentalized pieces of the larger mission, each being influenced in a (apx) similar manner.Given the history of the NSA (and FBI) I would wager there probably is a significant amount of conspiracy in the department. Money is a powerful conditioning force, and humans miss the "obvious" things that are influencing them all the time.