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My current opinion on government hacking is, that I actually want democratic government to be the biggest meanest hackers of them all. The alternative, unfortu

My current opinion on government hacking is, that I actually want democratic government to be the biggest meanest hackers of them all. The alternative, unfortunately, is that either organized crime or non-democratic governments (or a combination of both) would be the biggest meanest hackers. And hacking doesn't really scale. Mass surveillance just through attacking individuals with malware isn't possible, because of limited "talent" and a fear for exposing the tools, like just happened. Building backdoors into systems or encryption schemes, on the other hand, isn't exactly hacking but does scale well to undiscriminate spying on millions of people. The main issue is that intelligence and law enforcement agencies in the western world aren't bound to judicial control as tightly as they should. It also seems that a majority of voters either consent to these powers, or don't care. When politicians want to appear "acting decisively" after terrorist attacks, or foreign hacking incidents, it's not just because they like to do so. They know that, if they don't, voters will disapprove.

peterkelly 12y ago
Or, you know, they could concentrate on defense rather than offense
- bayesianhorse 12y ago
  How can they provide adequate defenses without having the best offensive hackers? At the very least, penetration testing is an indispensable tool in cyber security. Also, surveillance of criminal and terrorist organizations without offensive capabilities is impossible.
  - spuz 12y ago
    The NSA have been accused of discovering vulnerabilities in systems and software but keeping them undisclosed so that they can exploit them themselves. A defensive security agency could be actively trying to secure these systems protecting us not just from government surveillance but all types of nefarious hackers.
  - Wilya 12y ago
    I have a hard time seeing how spying on European officials will help identify criminals and terrorists.
    - bayesianhorse 12y ago
      Again, you seem to not understand how I discriminate between means and their use. Spying on European officials is a problem with oversight, not with capabilities. Arguably, European officials are a lot softer targets than a crime cartel or terrorists in this regard.
      - john_b 12y ago
        > "Spying on European officials is a problem with oversight, not with capabilities." Snowden has showed this to be absolutely false. "Oversight" has been the nominal preventative for spying on our allies for decades, and it has always failed because these are spy agencies we are talking about. Their nature (and job description) is to do things in secret. You cannot oversee what you cannot see. The NSA has a fundamental incentive to hide as much of its activities as possible, and American politicians have a fundamental incentive to look the other way lest they appear "soft on terrorism" or some such nonsense. What few laws constrain the behavior of the NSA, GCHQ, etc are routinely ignored or "interpreted" to their own favor. You cannot let the technological genie out of the bottle and expect a close watch on the genie to keep it under control. Mass surveillance technology is a pandora's box that you can't control.
        bayesianhorse 12y ago
        Snowden and others have also shown that other countries' intelligence agencies will happily take over from the NSA and spy on you. For example the Chinese and Russians. Hacking tools are not mass surveillance technology. Trojans just don't work for that. And if you can't control how these agencies use their abilities, how do you propose to take these away from them? Adequate oversight is easier to achieve.
        12y ago
  - peterkelly 12y ago
    Having offensive hackers, and using them for penetration purposes - that is "white hats", is fine by me. Using them for "black hat" purposes is not. That makes them the bad guys. They should be using their capabilities to increase the security protections they have in place. For example, if they discover a vulnerability, they should work to get it fixed, instead of leaving it there so everyone is vulnerable, just so they can use it to attack others.
rantanplan 12y ago
I am confused in just about everything you said. So what do you endorse and what do you mean by "biggest meanest hackers"? How would that fit in a democratic government?
- bayesianhorse 12y ago
  It depends on just who you are attacking. Terrorist groups, criminal organizations or criminal individuals are legitimate targets of a cyber attack, just as they could and should be put under conventional surveillance. If government agencies attack ordinary citizens or companies, without legitimate authorization, than it's not a problem of means or tools but rather a problem with democratic or judicial oversight on these organizations.
  - spuz 12y ago
    It can be argued that leaving systems vulnerable to attack as the NSA have been accused of doing actually facilitates more crime than it prevents.
  - bayesianhorse 12y ago
    Providing these backdoors isn't government hacking on legitimate targets, but rather a sort of lazy surveillance or intrusion on its citizens.
    - rantanplan 12y ago
      You comment here sort of answers my question above. So basically you don't agree with attacking or weakening crypto/security systems. The thing is that without those "competitive advantages", I fail to see how they can have an advantage over the bad guys. Playing offense, when the need arises, won't cut it. You're gonna have to "lay the foundations" so to speak, for you to be a successful attacker. So basically we reach the old, but not so tired, question of how much of your freedom you're willing to sacrifice, for your government to be the "meanest of them all"
      - 12y ago
kgarten 12y ago
I don't get it. The NSA is not a democratic government ... It's not elected by the people. The US people have no control over the NSA. There are also good reasons to argue that the US is not democratic: http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-27074746 http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-27074746
- bayesianhorse 12y ago
  The U.S. government, for all its weaknesses, is providing their citizens with freedom and liberties as good or better than most other countries. The NSA does have democratic oversight. It is controlled by the executive, legislative and judicative branches of the system. That this control is inadequate in our view, doesn't matter for the question whether or not the NSA is part of a democratic system.
  - amirmc 12y ago
    > "That this control is inadequate in our view, doesn't matter for ... a democratic system." It absolutely matters. Without those controls you have a democracy in name only. You could quite happily rig elections, arrest opponents, suppress the population etc, while still claiming to be 'democratic'.
    - bayesianhorse 12y ago
      That omission of a few crucial words from my comment is almost malicious. I didn't say that the inadequacy doesn't matter for the democratic system, but rather that it doesn't matter for the question if the NSA is a part of such a system.
      - john_b 12y ago
        You may be technically and structurally correct, but I think most people care far more about how effective democratic checks and balances are being applied to the NSA (hint: not much) rather than classifying it as part of one type of system or the other.
    - 12y ago
virtualritz 12y ago
Define 'democratic government'. This term is a euphemism nowadays in the West. E.g.: http://www.salon.com/2013/08/17/chomsky_the_u_s_behaves_nothing_like_a_democracy/ http://www.salon.com/2013/08/17/chomsky_the_u_s_behaves_noth...
- raverbashing 12y ago
  I wonder if Chomsky would have that liberty of critique in any other country...
  - Padding 12y ago
    What difference does freedom make if society is engineered accordingly so that anything but the party line will be lost in the noise? Other than for possible riots, bloodshed and long-term sustainability, is that in any way distinguisable from a "non-free" form of government? Besides, freedom is only necessary for democracy, not sufficient. So his points all remain valid.
  - pXMzR2A 12y ago
    > I wonder if Chomsky would have that liberty of critique in any other country... Yes, he would have. And in many, he would not need it.
    - ptaipale 12y ago
      What does it mean that someone does not "need" a liberty?
  - vidarh 12y ago
    He certainly would in quite a lot of countries. Chomsky is a lot less controversial in a lot of countries outside the US than he is in the US. I'm sure there are countries where he'd be unable to say what he wants, but there are also a lot of countries (e.g. in Europe) where his political views are reasonably close to mainstream, to the extent where he's no more controversial than the average left wing politician and his main problem would be that he'd be one of many voices saying similar things.
teamhappy 12y ago
Not sure why people vote you down for sharing your opinion. Having said that, your logic is fundamentally flawed. Governments have to either focus on attacking or defending. Focusing on attacking means keeping a lid on vulnerabilities, which weakens the security of citizens and corporations inside their own country. Focusing on defending means disclosing those vulnerabilities in order to protect everybody, which also means those vulnerabilities can't be used in attacks anymore. You can't really have both.
- LLWM 12y ago
  The best defense is a good offense.
  - teamhappy 12y ago
    I just explained to you why that's not true. Let me try again: Attacking a computer means finding a bug and keeping it secret until you use it to attack said computer. Defending a computer means finding a bug and disclosing/fixing it so that nobody can use it to attack said computer. I hope it's obvious to you that these two ideas contradict each other. Please let me know if you have questions. This is very important and not intuitive at all. I'd love to help you understand it better.
    - LLWM 12y ago
      Attacking someone who is attacking you is also a form of defense. Please let Sun Tzu know if you have questions. This is very important and not intuitive at all, though I don't particularly care about helping you to understand it better since it's considered common knowledge in the modern era.
      - teamhappy 12y ago
        I can do this all day: In order to be able to attack somebody who's attacking you, you need exploits available to you. If you have exploits available to you, you're making yourself attackable. Do you really not see the problem here?

peterkelly 12y ago

Or, you know, they could concentrate on defense rather than offense

bayesianhorse 12y ago
How can they provide adequate defenses without having the best offensive hackers? At the very least, penetration testing is an indispensable tool in cyber security. Also, surveillance of criminal and terrorist organizations without offensive capabilities is impossible.
- spuz 12y ago
  The NSA have been accused of discovering vulnerabilities in systems and software but keeping them undisclosed so that they can exploit them themselves. A defensive security agency could be actively trying to secure these systems protecting us not just from government surveillance but all types of nefarious hackers.
- Wilya 12y ago
  I have a hard time seeing how spying on European officials will help identify criminals and terrorists.
  - bayesianhorse 12y ago
    Again, you seem to not understand how I discriminate between means and their use. Spying on European officials is a problem with oversight, not with capabilities. Arguably, European officials are a lot softer targets than a crime cartel or terrorists in this regard.
    - john_b 12y ago
      > "Spying on European officials is a problem with oversight, not with capabilities." Snowden has showed this to be absolutely false. "Oversight" has been the nominal preventative for spying on our allies for decades, and it has always failed because these are spy agencies we are talking about. Their nature (and job description) is to do things in secret. You cannot oversee what you cannot see. The NSA has a fundamental incentive to hide as much of its activities as possible, and American politicians have a fundamental incentive to look the other way lest they appear "soft on terrorism" or some such nonsense. What few laws constrain the behavior of the NSA, GCHQ, etc are routinely ignored or "interpreted" to their own favor. You cannot let the technological genie out of the bottle and expect a close watch on the genie to keep it under control. Mass surveillance technology is a pandora's box that you can't control.
      - bayesianhorse 12y ago
        Snowden and others have also shown that other countries' intelligence agencies will happily take over from the NSA and spy on you. For example the Chinese and Russians. Hacking tools are not mass surveillance technology. Trojans just don't work for that. And if you can't control how these agencies use their abilities, how do you propose to take these away from them? Adequate oversight is easier to achieve.
        12y ago
- peterkelly 12y ago
  Having offensive hackers, and using them for penetration purposes - that is "white hats", is fine by me. Using them for "black hat" purposes is not. That makes them the bad guys. They should be using their capabilities to increase the security protections they have in place. For example, if they discover a vulnerability, they should work to get it fixed, instead of leaving it there so everyone is vulnerable, just so they can use it to attack others.

rantanplan 12y ago

I am confused in just about everything you said. So what do you endorse and what do you mean by "biggest meanest hackers"? How would that fit in a democratic government?

bayesianhorse 12y ago
It depends on just who you are attacking. Terrorist groups, criminal organizations or criminal individuals are legitimate targets of a cyber attack, just as they could and should be put under conventional surveillance. If government agencies attack ordinary citizens or companies, without legitimate authorization, than it's not a problem of means or tools but rather a problem with democratic or judicial oversight on these organizations.
- spuz 12y ago
  It can be argued that leaving systems vulnerable to attack as the NSA have been accused of doing actually facilitates more crime than it prevents.
- bayesianhorse 12y ago
  Providing these backdoors isn't government hacking on legitimate targets, but rather a sort of lazy surveillance or intrusion on its citizens.
  - rantanplan 12y ago
    You comment here sort of answers my question above. So basically you don't agree with attacking or weakening crypto/security systems. The thing is that without those "competitive advantages", I fail to see how they can have an advantage over the bad guys. Playing offense, when the need arises, won't cut it. You're gonna have to "lay the foundations" so to speak, for you to be a successful attacker. So basically we reach the old, but not so tired, question of how much of your freedom you're willing to sacrifice, for your government to be the "meanest of them all"
    - 12y ago

kgarten 12y ago

I don't get it. The NSA is not a democratic government ... It's not elected by the people. The US people have no control over the NSA. There are also good reasons to argue that the US is not democratic: http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-27074746 http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-27074746

bayesianhorse 12y ago
The U.S. government, for all its weaknesses, is providing their citizens with freedom and liberties as good or better than most other countries. The NSA does have democratic oversight. It is controlled by the executive, legislative and judicative branches of the system. That this control is inadequate in our view, doesn't matter for the question whether or not the NSA is part of a democratic system.
- amirmc 12y ago
  > "That this control is inadequate in our view, doesn't matter for ... a democratic system." It absolutely matters. Without those controls you have a democracy in name only. You could quite happily rig elections, arrest opponents, suppress the population etc, while still claiming to be 'democratic'.
  - bayesianhorse 12y ago
    That omission of a few crucial words from my comment is almost malicious. I didn't say that the inadequacy doesn't matter for the democratic system, but rather that it doesn't matter for the question if the NSA is a part of such a system.
    - john_b 12y ago
      You may be technically and structurally correct, but I think most people care far more about how effective democratic checks and balances are being applied to the NSA (hint: not much) rather than classifying it as part of one type of system or the other.
  - 12y ago

virtualritz 12y ago

Define 'democratic government'. This term is a euphemism nowadays in the West. E.g.: http://www.salon.com/2013/08/17/chomsky_the_u_s_behaves_nothing_like_a_democracy/ http://www.salon.com/2013/08/17/chomsky_the_u_s_behaves_noth...

raverbashing 12y ago
I wonder if Chomsky would have that liberty of critique in any other country...
- Padding 12y ago
  What difference does freedom make if society is engineered accordingly so that anything but the party line will be lost in the noise? Other than for possible riots, bloodshed and long-term sustainability, is that in any way distinguisable from a "non-free" form of government? Besides, freedom is only necessary for democracy, not sufficient. So his points all remain valid.
- pXMzR2A 12y ago
  > I wonder if Chomsky would have that liberty of critique in any other country... Yes, he would have. And in many, he would not need it.
  - ptaipale 12y ago
    What does it mean that someone does not "need" a liberty?
- vidarh 12y ago
  He certainly would in quite a lot of countries. Chomsky is a lot less controversial in a lot of countries outside the US than he is in the US. I'm sure there are countries where he'd be unable to say what he wants, but there are also a lot of countries (e.g. in Europe) where his political views are reasonably close to mainstream, to the extent where he's no more controversial than the average left wing politician and his main problem would be that he'd be one of many voices saying similar things.

teamhappy 12y ago

Not sure why people vote you down for sharing your opinion. Having said that, your logic is fundamentally flawed. Governments have to either focus on attacking or defending. Focusing on attacking means keeping a lid on vulnerabilities, which weakens the security of citizens and corporations inside their own country. Focusing on defending means disclosing those vulnerabilities in order to protect everybody, which also means those vulnerabilities can't be used in attacks anymore. You can't really have both.

LLWM 12y ago
The best defense is a good offense.
- teamhappy 12y ago
  I just explained to you why that's not true. Let me try again: Attacking a computer means finding a bug and keeping it secret until you use it to attack said computer. Defending a computer means finding a bug and disclosing/fixing it so that nobody can use it to attack said computer. I hope it's obvious to you that these two ideas contradict each other. Please let me know if you have questions. This is very important and not intuitive at all. I'd love to help you understand it better.
  - LLWM 12y ago
    Attacking someone who is attacking you is also a form of defense. Please let Sun Tzu know if you have questions. This is very important and not intuitive at all, though I don't particularly care about helping you to understand it better since it's considered common knowledge in the modern era.
    - teamhappy 12y ago
      I can do this all day: In order to be able to attack somebody who's attacking you, you need exploits available to you. If you have exploits available to you, you're making yourself attackable. Do you really not see the problem here?