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Snowden Claims That NSA Collaborated With Israel To Write Stuxnet Virus
andrewa writes "In an interview with Der Spiegel Snowden claims that the NSA, amongst other things, collaborated with Israel to write the Stuxnet virus. Not that this is news, as it has been suspected that it was a collaborative effort for some time. When asked about active major programs and how international partners help, Snowden says: 'The partners in the "Five Eyes" (behind which are hidden the secret services of the Americans, the British, the Australians, New Zealanders and Canadians -- ed.) sometimes go even further than the NSA people themselves. Take the Tempora program of the British intelligence GCHQ for instance. Tempora is the first "I save everything" approach ("Full take") in the intelligence world. It sucks in all data, no matter what it is, and which rights are violated by it. This buffered storage allows for subsequent monitoring; not a single bit escapes. Right now, the system is capable of saving three days’ worth of traffic, but that will be optimized. Three days may perhaps not sound like a lot, but it's not just about connection metadata. "Full take" means that the system saves everything. If you send a data packet and if makes its way through the UK, we will get it. If you download anything, and the server is in the UK, then we get it. And if the data about your sick daughter is processed through a London call center, then ... Oh, I think you have understood.'"
Or maybe it's not as compartmentalized as you theorise.
Or maybe Snowden was working at a higher level than the US government has admitted.
Or maybe Snowden simply used the skills he was taught to use against the Chinese against his own government.
Either way, what he says has enough validity that world leaders are listening and issuing formal statements over it, and the US isn't denying it, so it's obviously got a reasonable degree of validity to it and isn't just about parroting speculation like you claim.
I knew that pretty much from the get-go. Only the truly deluded didn't immediately realize that Mossad and/or the CIA were behind that. Of course, there are always those idiots out there who reflexively deny that the U.S. government is behind ANYTHING--who seem to think that the tens of thousands of employees of the CIA and NSA just sit and stare at walls all day, I guess.
The cow says "Moo." The dog says "Woof." The Timothy says "Thanks, valued customer. We appreciate your input."
They can't because the world one learns about in law school, where courts are impartial arbiters of justice and where any tort deserves compensation, doesn't exist. We live in a world where Bush/Cheney's lawyers wrote the flimsiest of legal justifications for torturing prisoners and got away with it not because of their justifications but because of who they are.
Mossad is the sort of organization that will drive up next to you on a motorcycle in traffic and throw a magnetic grenade on your car. What are you going to do, sue them for wrongful death?
Yeah it's BS and he made it up, that's why they're hunting him.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
An amazingly well written worm designed to target a particular brand of hardware PLCs that most hackers have never even heard of (and certainly couldn't afford), and not only target them, but target them in a way specifically designed to destroy the attached equipment under a VERY specific set of curcumstances.
That has "nation state" written all over it.
Not only that but it has "very high tech nation state" written all over it.
Basically about the only people with the will, the resources, and the ability are US + Israel. There's basically no one else that was likely to have done it.
But honestly, it was one of the most amazingly awesome high tech attacks ever perpetrated. I mean seriously they managed to successfully target machines that weren't connected to the public internet and physically destroy them.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
You're so silly. Rules are for the little people.
Why? Because it stopped 9/11 or the Boston Marathon bombing...oh wait....
At this point, I'd say he's proven himself to be a credible source. Confirming something that was already believed to be true doesn't change that, or make it any less true.
Its important to clarify what this system is intended to do, as im certain the government will furiously refute this new round of allegations...presuming mainstream media feels like covering this one
This is not, nor has it ever been about terrorism. Its about the maintenance of power, wherein terrorism is a convenient excuse as it directly challenges and undermines a governments authority. All legitimate challenges, be they from disenfranchised middle eastern nationals or occupy protestors, are now taken very seriously. The middle east questions everything from the well established narrative of american freedom in the context of guantanamo bay to the carter doctrine of foreign imperialism and Israeli occupation each time a bombing or attack is successfully affected. People begin to ask why we are being attacked, and the excuse that terrorists "hate our freedom" becomes less effective with each blast that rocks a city as more of its citizens learn about the home state of the bomber, her motives and objectives and most dangerously, the full context under which america became a part of it.
the occupy protests question the narrative of the american dream in the context of class stratification that is so rife with inequality it guarantees forty percent of a worlds wealth is concentrated amongst one percent of its wealthiest inhabitants. Bank foreclosures and unemployment can only be explained by "economic downturn" and "irresponsible homeowners" so many times before the answers do not work anymore, and with each march or sit-in a protest gains momentum to change this class stratification. protests like occupy work to force a ruling class to remain under scrutiny or crush dissent. Crushing dissent is a force multiplier however, like water on a grease fire, and merely galvanizes your opponents. Ruling plutocracies cannot tolerate sustained scrutiny.
the middle of the road is simply surveillance. Find the organizers, topple them first, and the dissent never has an opportunity to interrupt the american "dream." pre-emptive detention of G8 protesters, flypapering articles about how much americans think Snowden is a traitor, and manufacturing crimes against peaceful demonstrators is much more efficient and effective. you contol the outcome of the detentions, and without a rally point protestors are supplanted by media reports of valiantly thwarted attacks by the TSA or FBI. Snowdens security state, as its been exposed, also serves also to galvanize more severe convictions against protestors by providing nearly infinite evidence of any crime the prosecution so wishes. its a slightly larger padlock by which political and social unrest is quelled. it is our form of political prisoner.
to fix it not only requires expunging elected leaders but cutting the feed bag from a society that largely reviles the poor and champions the rich, and consents to warrantless search so long as they have enough room on the DVR to still make it home in time to catch up on Big Bang Theory. We must begin to ask uncomfortable questions: Why are people rich, what is the longstanding history of our foreign policy and its potential future ramifications, why should corporations be given say in politics, and why do we need a deep-rooted surveillance system to combat something that kills orders-of-magnitude fewer people each year than heart disease?
Good people go to bed earlier.
Stop fucking focusing on the person and look at the facts instead. If what he has leaked harms the US government or any other government, so be it - you reap what you sow. Snowden would not have any means to harm the US if the US had not conducted itself in a way that left it open to harm. Shut the fuck up with this person pro/con agenda.
... whatever
Russia views him as not their problem...
And indeed he isn't. Nor should he in fact be a problem to the US. After all, a government that is doing nothing wrong has nothing to fear from whistleblowers.
Although I'm not a US voter, I am mightily disappointed in Obama's stance on this issue. His election platform was supposed to represent transparency in Government dealings, but instead he has perpetuated and compounded the worst excesses of the former Republican administration.
Not that I'm surprised, mind you. An election promise is as empty as a politician's soul.
Maybe they are hunting him down for divulging information about the email surveillance program that he was under contract to interpret the information. This one fact that he revealed doesn't make the other facts any more credible.
Of course it does, that is the basis of all human trust relationships. If you tell me true things, and I've never caught you in a lie, then that makes you more believable. It doesn't make me automatically accept everything you say as fact, but it means that I trust you more than I otherwise would. So in fact that one fact does make the other facts more credible. However, it wasn't just one fact. He got the EU to search all their offices for bugs. If they had found nothing, I'm sure there would be a lot of European countries who would be happy to score a mountain heap of brownie points with the US by saying so and thereby discrediting Snowden. They haven't said so. He so far has a perfect record. He is now the single most believable source on secret government spying that you have ever had access to. That could change, but for now it hasn't.
Comments like this aren't actually cynical anymore. The rule of law is breaking down all over the Western world as connected people are increasingly allowed to live outside it.
May the Maths Be with you!
You don't ask allies to close their airspace just because somebody broke an NDA.
"Breaking down" implies that they were, at some point int he past, stronger. This would tend to disagree with the recent leaked document detailing a comment by Henry Kissinger: http://www.salon.com/2013/04/08/wikileaks_dumps_1_7_million_kissinger_cables/
Was this comment the only evidence that the past was anything but the story of the rule of law being strong and the government restrained in its activities, then I might brush it off, but I see little evidence that this has been anything but the standard MO throughout history.
Law is for the public, and things done in public. Law exists to be applied to the little people, as it is convinenet or profitable to do so.
What has changed is the little people, or at least the ones who care too, are able to see so much more than ever before. Over time, the ability of individuals to store and share information globally has reached a point that secrets are much much harder to keep, and so....when secrets get out we now get to view things that we never got to see before.
As we have seen with the legitimization of indefinite detention and dogged persual of whistle blowers is simply the result of a desire to not change but, to turn back time to a situation where the powerful could act with impunity and public opinion be damned and maliciously manipulated to the ends of those in power.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"