4 ms·

Hong Kong was a stopover. It was the US gov made him stay there and blocked his travel to anywhere but Russia.

dragontamer 12y ago
I doubt it. Part of Snowden's treasure trove was him revealing to China about US hacking into Chinese Universities. http://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2013/06/22/u-s-hacked-china-universities-mobile-phones-snowden-tells-china-press/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2013/06/22/u-s-hacked-... Snowden explicitly collected how the US was spying on China, went to China, and then "publicly" gave out those details. I think he was expecting the Chinese Government to take him in and protect him after the big reveal. For whatever reason, China didn't want him. Probably because China has enough issues with their own whistle blowers. Or maybe China already knew the information Snowden had, so they didn't value him at all. Russia apparently values Snowden very much. They like him if only because he serves as an anti-US rallying cry.
- dreamfactory2 12y ago
  It's a matter of record that the US prevented him travelling after he got to Hong Kong. Your original comment claims he was a double agent for China and Russia. Now you speculate that he was a failed wannabe Chinese asset. Wild speculations aside, you might want to consider the revelations on their own merits rather than a ham-fisted smear against the source. The fact remains that they have been confirmed as true and are therefore not some kind of black propaganda. More worrying in some ways is that it seems he got everything using wget and further that there was no audit trail to understand what he got. If we believe as we are told that he was a relatively low level external contractor, that means internal security is non-existent and you can guarantee that any other competent agency also has everything (at least confirming part of your China theory above).
  - dragontamer 12y ago
    > Wild speculations aside, you might want to consider the revelations on their own merits rather than a ham-fisted smear against the source. The fact remains that they have been confirmed as true and are therefore not some kind of black propaganda. Fair enough. I'm more interested in the political implications anyway. So what do we do about Swatters? Metadata collection seems to be the only useful tool against them.
    - cheald 12y ago
      Swattings still happen on a regular basis despite pervasive metadata collection. Is your argument that we're not collecting enough to stop them?
      - dragontamer 12y ago
        > Swattings still happen on a regular basis despite pervasive metadata collection. Is your argument that we're not collecting enough to stop them? Actually, I don't believe that the local police are taking advantage of their resources. I think better organization needs to be done around the metadata that is collected so that it is better distributed between the police officers in the case of a swatting incident. But actually _having_ metadata is a necessary first step to beginning any swatting investigation. Or do you not think that the first step is figuring out the phone number that the Swatter called from? Next: I'm not entirely sure that Swatting will ever be stopped. Nonetheless, I'd like to punish those who are swatting, and I think that if they are removed from society... that is one step towards fixing the problem. If a swatter gets caught and his criminal record is updated such that everyone knows he is a swatter, then society will benefit from it overall.
  - dragontamer 12y ago
    > It's a matter of record that the US prevented him travelling after he got to Hong Kong. Also, bull!@#!. _CHINA_ prevented the US from traveling after he got to Hong Kong. If the US had its way, then Snowden would be in jail right now. CHINA prevented him from traveling after he got to Hong Kong. The US had very little power over the whole issue at that point. There are other parties at play here.
    - anonbanker 12y ago
      [citation needed]
      - dragontamer 12y ago
        http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/24/us-usa-security-hongkong-idUSBRE95N07K20130624 http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/24/us-usa-security-ho... China had an extremely important role with Snowden. They didn't care about the "passport", they were buying time looking for some other country to take him in. I guess Russia took him in after that (Snowden didn't want to go to Russia. So I doubt that Snowden is a Russian spy... but if he knew what was good for him, he probably was forced to give some of his secrets to the Russians under the table.)
        thesz 12y ago
        China does not have extradition treaty with US. There couldn't be any extradition embarrassment then.

I doubt it. Part of Snowden's treasure trove was him revealing to China about US hacking into Chinese Universities. http://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2013/06/22/u-s-hacked-china-universities-mobile-phones-snowden-tells-china-press/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2013/06/22/u-s-hacked-... Snowden explicitly collected how the US was spying on China, went to China, and then "publicly" gave out those details. I think he was expecting the Chinese Government to take him in and protect him after the big reveal. For whatever reason, China didn't want him. Probably because China has enough issues with their own whistle blowers. Or maybe China already knew the information Snowden had, so they didn't value him at all. Russia apparently values Snowden very much. They like him if only because he serves as an anti-US rallying cry.

dreamfactory2 12y ago
It's a matter of record that the US prevented him travelling after he got to Hong Kong. Your original comment claims he was a double agent for China and Russia. Now you speculate that he was a failed wannabe Chinese asset. Wild speculations aside, you might want to consider the revelations on their own merits rather than a ham-fisted smear against the source. The fact remains that they have been confirmed as true and are therefore not some kind of black propaganda. More worrying in some ways is that it seems he got everything using wget and further that there was no audit trail to understand what he got. If we believe as we are told that he was a relatively low level external contractor, that means internal security is non-existent and you can guarantee that any other competent agency also has everything (at least confirming part of your China theory above).
- dragontamer 12y ago
  > Wild speculations aside, you might want to consider the revelations on their own merits rather than a ham-fisted smear against the source. The fact remains that they have been confirmed as true and are therefore not some kind of black propaganda. Fair enough. I'm more interested in the political implications anyway. So what do we do about Swatters? Metadata collection seems to be the only useful tool against them.
  - cheald 12y ago
    Swattings still happen on a regular basis despite pervasive metadata collection. Is your argument that we're not collecting enough to stop them?
    - dragontamer 12y ago
      > Swattings still happen on a regular basis despite pervasive metadata collection. Is your argument that we're not collecting enough to stop them? Actually, I don't believe that the local police are taking advantage of their resources. I think better organization needs to be done around the metadata that is collected so that it is better distributed between the police officers in the case of a swatting incident. But actually _having_ metadata is a necessary first step to beginning any swatting investigation. Or do you not think that the first step is figuring out the phone number that the Swatter called from? Next: I'm not entirely sure that Swatting will ever be stopped. Nonetheless, I'd like to punish those who are swatting, and I think that if they are removed from society... that is one step towards fixing the problem. If a swatter gets caught and his criminal record is updated such that everyone knows he is a swatter, then society will benefit from it overall.
- dragontamer 12y ago
  > It's a matter of record that the US prevented him travelling after he got to Hong Kong. Also, bull!@#!. _CHINA_ prevented the US from traveling after he got to Hong Kong. If the US had its way, then Snowden would be in jail right now. CHINA prevented him from traveling after he got to Hong Kong. The US had very little power over the whole issue at that point. There are other parties at play here.
  - anonbanker 12y ago
    [citation needed]
    - dragontamer 12y ago
      http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/24/us-usa-security-hongkong-idUSBRE95N07K20130624 http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/24/us-usa-security-ho... China had an extremely important role with Snowden. They didn't care about the "passport", they were buying time looking for some other country to take him in. I guess Russia took him in after that (Snowden didn't want to go to Russia. So I doubt that Snowden is a Russian spy... but if he knew what was good for him, he probably was forced to give some of his secrets to the Russians under the table.)
      - thesz 12y ago
        China does not have extradition treaty with US. There couldn't be any extradition embarrassment then.