6 ms·

How Latest Snowden Leak Is Headache for White House

46 points by justcommenting 12y ago

DickingAround 12y ago
I use Gemalto, and not just in my cell phone. The cyber-war the While House is waging on the tech community is ill advised. If anyone at in the federal government is smart enough to read hacker-news I hope they see that they're attacking the wrong people.
- mc32 12y ago
  They are not actually 'attacking' it. They's just using them as tools. Whether they're American, European or Asian technologies. It would appear that they are an equal opportunity tool user --whatever gets them in. So, in that respect, no technology purveyor can say, we're not American, so we're not affected --well, they might say that, but they'd be wrong.
- nullrouted 12y ago
  Can I ask you a serious question? I don't condone the government hacking at all and find it atrocious but...How is this any different than China, Russia, Israel, UK, Germany, etc. who all try to breach tech companies to gain information? I agree that this is very illegal but at the same time I also question making the US the villain when every country is trying to do the same thing. Companies should invest in security to prevent these things from all actors whether they be hacked for profits or government backed.
  - fit2rule 12y ago
    Its different in that America pitches itself as a land of freedom, equality, liberty. This is no longer true at all - you cannot have liberty, egality, freedom, if you cannot trust your own lines of communication - and because of the heinous apparatus constructed by the Five-Eyes nations (its not just the US, its also its disgusting partners) you no longer have true freedom, liberty, egality. These repressive dictators have granted themselves the only freedom to communicate safely, they have granted themselves full liberty over the right to alter others' communication, and they are well and truly on their way to creating an imbalance of power guaranteed to enslave us all. You simply cannot trust your own communications any more. What you write, may not be what others read. If you're a journalist or a rising author, or perhaps just a leader of opinion in a broad public base, you can no longer trust that your communications will not be tampered with, altered, intercepted, interfered with. Of course this has always been the case, except that in the last 2 decades of Internet ascendency, we've all been relatively hopeful that the world is changing because our lines of communication are open wider. Alas, this is no longer the case. All hope has been dashed by the Five-Eyes oppression designed to reign in their own citizens - not find terrorists, but rather give these heinous organs of repression the ability to interfere in any industry they choose, with any person they sight, for any reason whatsoever. What was once a dream of hope is now an incredible nightmare, and America - loudest of all the arrogant Western nations claiming moral high ground, proud proclaimer of its own exceptionalism, can no longer do so. The fact is: there IS no difference, any more, between the oppression felt by the Chinese, or that now enacted on any member of the Five-Eyes state. The door has been slammed shut on freedom, equality, liberty.
bsimpson 12y ago
> “It’s hard for me to imagine that there are a lot of technology executives that are out there that are in a position of saying that they hope that people who wish harm to this country will be able to use their technology to do so,” What horseshit! Calling out the government for blatantly overreaching the constitutional authority it claims grants its power isn't even a little bit the same as hoping terrorists choose _your_ technology to harm people. That claim is not only intellectually dishonest, but it distorts the discourse to utter nonsense (which is precisely why they frame it like they do).
- bigiain 12y ago
  Indeed. I'm trying to work out if the correct response to that is to mention The Chewbacca Defense, or to ask if Josh Earnest has stopped beating his wife yet?
- fit2rule 12y ago
  This whole story is pitched in the most dialectic terms - you're either with us, or against us. But this fails to indicate there is a third way - we can use technology to make peace far more readily and easily than we use it to make war. I've got more Syrian, Iranian, and Libyan friends than ever before - and it would not be possible without technology being used to overcome cultural barriers to understanding. Yet the hatred and vitriol still flows. We are expected to be nationalist/patriot members of society, but when we personally make the decision to extend that society beyond the artificial borders constructed by the state to which we grant sovereign control, obviously someone is going to lose out. In the case of technology being used peacefully, its those who profit from war machines - military-industrial producers of hate and violence - who we must stand up to. Until such a time as the Western public is dissolved of its subservience to thugs and criminals - those who run the military-industrial establishment which corrupts all of humankind - we will continue to be oppressed between two forks of the same argument.
- zzalpha 12y ago
  Honestly, when I read that, I couldn't help but be impressed! I mean, there's horseshit, and then there's this brand of 100% pure, grade A, organic, grass-fed horseshit. I'm only disappointed it was delivered in such a hamfisted way. When I'm served horseshit, for god sake, dress it up a little! Just throwing it on a plate, ungarnished like this... it's insulting to my sensibilities!
Create 12y ago
We begin therefore where they are determined not to end, with the question whether any form of democratic self-government, anywhere, is consistent with the kind of massive, pervasive, surveillance into which the Unites States government has led not only us but the world. This should not actually be a complicated inquiry. http://snowdenandthefuture.info/events.html http://snowdenandthefuture.info/events.html Surveillance is not an end toward totalitarianism, it is totalitarianism itself. http://www.bbc.co.uk/democracylive/europe-24385999 http://www.bbc.co.uk/democracylive/europe-24385999
sandworm 12y ago
> "...there are opportunities for the private sector and the federal government to coordinate and to cooperate on these efforts, both to keep the country safe, but also to protect our civil liberties." Sure. Corporations often cooperate with the hackers caught climbing around their systems. "I see you've already taken my keys. Perhaps we can come to some sort of key-sharing arrangement?"
- bigiain 12y ago
  Remember when they shut down all domestic airliner manufacture after those private sector company's products were misused back on 9/11? Oh, that's right, politicians and government bureaucrats care about being able to fly easily - it's just _your_ privacy they don't give a damn about.
dang 12y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9076351 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9076351

I use Gemalto, and not just in my cell phone. The cyber-war the While House is waging on the tech community is ill advised. If anyone at in the federal government is smart enough to read hacker-news I hope they see that they're attacking the wrong people.

mc32 12y ago
They are not actually 'attacking' it. They's just using them as tools. Whether they're American, European or Asian technologies. It would appear that they are an equal opportunity tool user --whatever gets them in. So, in that respect, no technology purveyor can say, we're not American, so we're not affected --well, they might say that, but they'd be wrong.
nullrouted 12y ago
Can I ask you a serious question? I don't condone the government hacking at all and find it atrocious but...How is this any different than China, Russia, Israel, UK, Germany, etc. who all try to breach tech companies to gain information? I agree that this is very illegal but at the same time I also question making the US the villain when every country is trying to do the same thing. Companies should invest in security to prevent these things from all actors whether they be hacked for profits or government backed.
- fit2rule 12y ago
  Its different in that America pitches itself as a land of freedom, equality, liberty. This is no longer true at all - you cannot have liberty, egality, freedom, if you cannot trust your own lines of communication - and because of the heinous apparatus constructed by the Five-Eyes nations (its not just the US, its also its disgusting partners) you no longer have true freedom, liberty, egality. These repressive dictators have granted themselves the only freedom to communicate safely, they have granted themselves full liberty over the right to alter others' communication, and they are well and truly on their way to creating an imbalance of power guaranteed to enslave us all. You simply cannot trust your own communications any more. What you write, may not be what others read. If you're a journalist or a rising author, or perhaps just a leader of opinion in a broad public base, you can no longer trust that your communications will not be tampered with, altered, intercepted, interfered with. Of course this has always been the case, except that in the last 2 decades of Internet ascendency, we've all been relatively hopeful that the world is changing because our lines of communication are open wider. Alas, this is no longer the case. All hope has been dashed by the Five-Eyes oppression designed to reign in their own citizens - not find terrorists, but rather give these heinous organs of repression the ability to interfere in any industry they choose, with any person they sight, for any reason whatsoever. What was once a dream of hope is now an incredible nightmare, and America - loudest of all the arrogant Western nations claiming moral high ground, proud proclaimer of its own exceptionalism, can no longer do so. The fact is: there IS no difference, any more, between the oppression felt by the Chinese, or that now enacted on any member of the Five-Eyes state. The door has been slammed shut on freedom, equality, liberty.

bsimpson 12y ago

> “It’s hard for me to imagine that there are a lot of technology executives that are out there that are in a position of saying that they hope that people who wish harm to this country will be able to use their technology to do so,” What horseshit! Calling out the government for blatantly overreaching the constitutional authority it claims grants its power isn't even a little bit the same as hoping terrorists choose _your_ technology to harm people. That claim is not only intellectually dishonest, but it distorts the discourse to utter nonsense (which is precisely why they frame it like they do).

bigiain 12y ago
Indeed. I'm trying to work out if the correct response to that is to mention The Chewbacca Defense, or to ask if Josh Earnest has stopped beating his wife yet?
fit2rule 12y ago
This whole story is pitched in the most dialectic terms - you're either with us, or against us. But this fails to indicate there is a third way - we can use technology to make peace far more readily and easily than we use it to make war. I've got more Syrian, Iranian, and Libyan friends than ever before - and it would not be possible without technology being used to overcome cultural barriers to understanding. Yet the hatred and vitriol still flows. We are expected to be nationalist/patriot members of society, but when we personally make the decision to extend that society beyond the artificial borders constructed by the state to which we grant sovereign control, obviously someone is going to lose out. In the case of technology being used peacefully, its those who profit from war machines - military-industrial producers of hate and violence - who we must stand up to. Until such a time as the Western public is dissolved of its subservience to thugs and criminals - those who run the military-industrial establishment which corrupts all of humankind - we will continue to be oppressed between two forks of the same argument.
zzalpha 12y ago
Honestly, when I read that, I couldn't help but be impressed! I mean, there's horseshit, and then there's this brand of 100% pure, grade A, organic, grass-fed horseshit. I'm only disappointed it was delivered in such a hamfisted way. When I'm served horseshit, for god sake, dress it up a little! Just throwing it on a plate, ungarnished like this... it's insulting to my sensibilities!

Create 12y ago

We begin therefore where they are determined not to end, with the question whether any form of democratic self-government, anywhere, is consistent with the kind of massive, pervasive, surveillance into which the Unites States government has led not only us but the world. This should not actually be a complicated inquiry. http://snowdenandthefuture.info/events.html http://snowdenandthefuture.info/events.html Surveillance is not an end toward totalitarianism, it is totalitarianism itself. http://www.bbc.co.uk/democracylive/europe-24385999 http://www.bbc.co.uk/democracylive/europe-24385999

sandworm 12y ago

> "...there are opportunities for the private sector and the federal government to coordinate and to cooperate on these efforts, both to keep the country safe, but also to protect our civil liberties." Sure. Corporations often cooperate with the hackers caught climbing around their systems. "I see you've already taken my keys. Perhaps we can come to some sort of key-sharing arrangement?"

bigiain 12y ago
Remember when they shut down all domestic airliner manufacture after those private sector company's products were misused back on 9/11? Oh, that's right, politicians and government bureaucrats care about being able to fly easily - it's just _your_ privacy they don't give a damn about.

dang 12y ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9076351 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9076351