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NSA Official Warned About Threat 17 Years Before Snowden
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- clockworkelf 13y agoSnowden is not a threat.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- pmorici 13y agoThis article is silly. The title suggests that if they had only listened to some guy stating the obvious 17 years ago all this could have been prevented as if "don't let your sys admin steal all your sensitive files" is some deep insight. The problem is more likely that their IT staff is woefully inept and either weren't bothering to look or didn't notice what was going on right under their noses.
- XorNot 13y agoNot even that. If the problem didn't eventuate for 17 years, then it was hardly an insipient problem. A lot changed for the internal structure of these organizations over 17 years, particularly due to 9/11.
- at-fates-hands 13y agoAgreed. It was the same thing with 9/11. There was a senator (Alan J. Dixon) in 1986 who wrote an article in Playboy called, "The Terror Next Time. The cochairman of the senate antiterrorism caucus argues that a major attack in the U.S. is inevitable." Although he points out the lack of information sharing between intelligence agencies, he was sure it would be a US based group like the KKK or Aryan Nation then some terrorist group from the Middle East. It's an interesting article either way as hindsight is always 20/20, right?
- rangibaby 13y agoHe was right about domestic terrorists in a way. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oklahoma_City_bombing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oklahoma_City_bombing [1] http://www.rotten.com/library/bio/crime/terrorists/timothy-mcveigh/ http://www.rotten.com/library/bio/crime/terrorists/timothy-m...
- dredmorbius 13y agoIf the problem didn't eventuate for 17 years That we know of. Snowden took the data public. Anyone who did otherwise wouldn't have appeared to the public eye. That's another key risk of surveillance data: we know at at least one guy walked off with it. We don't know who else could have.
- joe_the_user 13y agoOh Gawd... It's not "NSA Official Warned About ... the threat to freedom that is the NSA" It's "NSA Official Warned ... that a low level employee might warn the world about the threat to freedom that is the NSA"
- mindslight 13y agoThat was predictable given the site. The business world fundamentally seeks predictability over everything else, and only cares about individuals' rights if they effect short-term efficiency.
- meowface 13y agoIt's still an interesting point he makes. One sysadmin in any powerful organization can likely gain access to that organization's deepest, darkest secrets, and abuse that access for anything they like, whether good or bad.
- dllthomas 13y agoUnless you have good processes involving mandatory access controls (like the NSA added to Linux), multiple eyes on everything, and audit. Crazy overkill for most situations, but more or less what I'd expected from the NSA. Key management is comparatively easy inside a military style hierarchy.
- vinceguidry 13y agoFeatures will always be prioritized over security.
- tantalor 13y agoFor an agency with "Security" in their name, they really prioritized security very low. I loved the part about printers. They have printers?!
- glasz 13y agoi'm with you, nsa. very sad indeed.
- PythonicAlpha 13y agoSometimes laziness beneficial for the world. Maybe not for the agency.
- zeeed 13y agoin other news: Some random official warned about threat decades before Fukushima, Chernobyl. Government agencies, by their very nature, might have never entered the realm of common sense and proper risk management. There are a lot of good hypotheses for reasons for that. One better realized the fact and dealt with it instead of crying "I/He told you so".