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CBS 60 Minutes: NSA Speaks Out On Snowden, Spying
An anonymous reader writes "This week CBS New's 60 Minutes program had a broadcast segment devoted to the NSA, and additional online features. It revealed that the first secret Snowden stole was the test and answers for a technical examination to get a job at NSA. When working at home, Snowden covered his head and screen with a hood so that his girlfriend couldn't see what he was doing. NSA considered the possibility that Snowden left malicious software behind and removed every computer and cable that Snowden had access to from its classified network, costing tens of millions of dollars. Snowden took approximately 1.7 million classified documents. Snowden never approached any of multiple Inspectors General, supervisors, or Congressional oversight committee members about his concerns. Snowden's activity caught the notice of other System Administrators. There were also other interesting details, such as the NSA has a highly competitive intern program for High School students that are given a Top Secret clearance and a chance to break codes that have resisted the efforts of NSA's analysts — some succeed. The NSA is only targeting the communications, as opposed to metadata, of less than 60 Americans. Targeting the actual communications of Americans, rather than metadata, requires a probable cause finding and a specific court order. NSA analysts working with metadata don't have access to the name, and can't listen to the call. The NSA's work is driven by requests for information by other parts of the government, and there are about 31,000 requests. Snowden apparently managed to steal a copy of that document, the 'crown jewels' of the intelligence world. With that information, foreign nations would know what the US does and doesn't know, and how to exploit it."
We know who your friends are we know where your children go to school, keep quiet and it will all be aright......
So it sounds like it will be pro-NSA spin-doctoring from our crony-corporatist media.
The character assassination of Snowden begins.
>Snowden never approached any of multiple Inspectors General, supervisors, or Congressional oversight committee members about his concerns.
Good idea too. Everyone else who did (that we know of) was fired and investigated. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Andrews_Drake
>The NSA is only targeting the communications, as opposed to metadata, of less than 60 Americans. Targeting the actual communications of Americans, rather than metadata, requires a probable cause finding and a specific court order.
We don't believe you, and quit targeting my metadata without a warrant.
Who in their right mind would believe anything the NSA says? They have lied to everyone about everything.
"The ferrets, they're every where I tell you!"
Could this be more biased in favour of the NSA? I don't think so. It reads as pure propaganda.
The fact is - the NSA, and the US government, has consistently been lying to the American people. Consistently. The Guardian publishes one thing, the US responds, and then the Guardian publishes another clearly indicating how the US government lied. Time and time again. How many times do we have to go over this?
NSA considered the possibility that Snowden left malicious software behind and removed every computer and cable that Snowden had access to from its classified network, costing tens of millions of dollars.
Because next time I write a virus, I will use it to infect a UTP cable.
PlusFive Slashdot reader for Android. Can post comments.
Does this just seem like the heaviest kind of propaganda on how bad snowden is. the whole thing is just emphasizing how 'horrible' he is and making no mention of how unacceptable Almost all NSA actions are. Its when I post to these articles that I wonder how much slashdot articles get red flagged.
Isn't stealing the answers part of the exam to get into a spy agency?
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Never asked the obvious questions. "If you really aren't storing all our emails and phone calls, then why do you need to build a new $1.5 billion facility to hold exabytes of data storage? Either you're lying or you're guilty of a SERIOUS misappropriation of funds. So which is it?"
The cow says "Moo." The dog says "Woof." The Timothy says "Thanks, valued customer. We appreciate your input."
Other than lies, lies and more damn lies, what else can NSA come up with ?
No matter how slick or how polished their lies be, NSA's lies are still LIES.
NSA has betrayed America.
NSA has betrayed the Constitution.
NSA is a rogue organization within the government of the United States of America.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Not having access to 60-minutes in the UK, it would seem the main thrust of the NSA's argument is that the system has checks and balances for exactly this sort of situation, and that Snowden should have notified the right people about his findings rather than go public. What it doesn't seem to mention is that these very same people should already have known about this - everyone whose responsibility it was to either refrain from these actions or say "No" when someone else asked if they were allowed had already said "Yes" so I think removing the system's responsibility for self-regulation by public release in that context is exactly the right thing to do.
By trying to paint Snowden's actions as irresponsible by failing to follow the preapproved script for this sort of violation, they are also trying to cover the arses of the self-regulators by claiming ignorance of the matter on their behalf. It's simultaneously a smear-attack on Snowden and an attempt to save the faces of the people he's made like utter f***wits. The logic-fail in this case is that they can't cover up what we already know from their own documents happened, so the ignorance play only makes the self-regulation argument even weaker as, prior to Snowden's releases, it had already comprehensively failed to protect those in it's charge over a long period of time.
So an organization whose existence is predicated on lying, and whose employees, from the top of the food chain to the bottom of the food chain, have done nothing but lie to their country, from the top of the food chain to the bottom of the food chain, goes on a national TV show and says stuff that we are supposed to believe?
Either the NSA is staffed by utter morons, or they think we are the utter morons. There is a huge believability deficit in that agency, and an enormous cognitive disconnect among its leaders. It's yet another federal agency that needs a large funding reduction, and whose leaders need many years of therapy.
It always cracks me up when whsiteblowers are criticized for not contacting their superiors with the information first--as if it's not THOSE VERY SAME SUPERIORS who aren't the ones PERPETUATING THE WRONGDOING IN THE FIRST PLACE.
"Sir I think this Adolph Hitler may be nuts!"
"Well, then you must report this concern to Herr Hitler immediately!"
The cow says "Moo." The dog says "Woof." The Timothy says "Thanks, valued customer. We appreciate your input."
They probably figured it would be less 'obvious' if the so-called liberal media supported them instead of the 'obviously' biased Foxnooze.
will work for dragon quest localization
Nothing that has been revealed so far shows any wrongdoing. Hell, half the civil libertarians probably wanted to find something to impeach Obama with, that is there whole interest in this.
Having a computer store metadata that you don't try to hide from private companiees just isn't that big of a deal. And it sure doesn't warrant one story a day from Slashdot...
"Joslyn: So the idea here is we’re looking at a sequence of numbers, and we want to determine whether they’re random or not random.
John Miller: How are you approaching that? Can you show me?
Joe: We are looking at this data here and it is a bunch of random numbers on the screen.
John Miller: That looks a tad overwhelming.
Joe: It is."
They are trying to determine if the numbers are random by looking at them on the screen? If this was how they were doing cryptoanalysis at the NSA, we could all sleep better. Of course, as noted above, there's no reason to believe any information provided in an obvious propaganda piece like this one.
Sounds like he was channeling Joseph Smith.
In the balance of power/abuses, I'd still consider the NSA more appropriate than say... the Chinese/Russian equivalent ...
Just look at the modus operandi of the apologists ...
They are actually TRYING VERY HARD to compare an apple to an orange !
RUSSIA and CHINA are NOT democratic countries.
THEIR GOVERNMENTS are RUTHLESS and VERY AUTOCRATIC, and they have the power to PERSECUTE, and even EXECUTE their people WITHOUT REASON.
I am from China. I know what I am talking about !
On the other hand, the United States of America is supposed to be A DEMOCRATIC COUNTRY - where *LAWS* are obeyed, and even the government has to OBEY THE LAWS.
NSA is NOT an apparatus of the Russian nor an apparatus of the Chinese government.
NSA is a branch of the government of the United States of America.
Which means, NSA has the OBLIGATION to operate ACCORDING TO WHAT HAS BEEN CLEARLY STATED IN THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
Has NSA done that ?
Nope.
NSA has VIOLATED the CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA !
Apologist, you are forewarned !
We will hunt you down, no matter where the fuck you are !
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Having a computer store metadata that you don't try to hide from private companiees just isn't that big of a deal.
Actually many people do try to hide them from private companies. But even if this statement was entirely true, there is a big difference between what a corporation can do with the metadata vs what the government can do. Last time I checked, Google isn't able to send out a drone to extrajudicially kill a US citizen.
Regardless of CBS' political leanings, you'd have thought that the idea of CBS using John Miller, an ex-employee of the director of National Intelligence, and someone touted to be in the running for a top NYPD intelligence job, to be the interviewer would have stunk to high heaven. There was no criticism, no pushback and no attempt to suggest that the NSA has been doing anything wrong. Holy crickey ... did the NSA simply script this and hand it to CBS?
DaveyJJ
Clear signal that they are still lying. The director of the NSA had no problem nor consequences for lying to the congress, and Obama had no problem lying to the people multiple times. And you are trusting everything to people that intentionally is lying to you, and trying at all cost to catch the person that could inform you what the truth behind all those lies?
The LOVEINT scandal is one of the perfect examples of how that statement is patently bullshit. Unless they're going to claim that the FISA court is giving out LOVEINT warrants now.
Plus they got an utter insider to pretend to be a journalist.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Miller_(journalist)
" He is the former Associate Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Analytic Transformation and Technology.[1] Prior to that, he was an Assistant Director of Public Affairs for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), where he was the bureau's national spokesman."
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
[Amber is being introduced to the audience as a special guest 'runner'] ...Later, she cheated on College exams. Then she had sexual relations with three, sometimes even four men within a single year. Then came Mad Dog Ben Richards, her *Confederate*, her LOVER!
Phil Hiton:
Amber: That's a lie!
Damon Killian: Let's reunite these two lovebirds!
[audience cheers]
Damon Killian: [Amber is sent down to the game zone]
"
Left and Right parties don't really exist in the USA. Both sides are basically moderate with some takes on eachother's side. It's a misnomer to think that they are any different than tea party or libertarians, either. Some people believe there's a divide, but when it comes to corporatism all sides are willing to sell out to the same sources.
Any news source associated with the above will out tea party messages, it's just a question of how obfuscated. Is it that CBS re-broadcasts's faux news, or is it that they just quote some random person who quoted the original tea party person? This is not unheard of. see http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/11/10/1035294/-Creepy-15-Media-Outlets-Use-Exact-Same-Phrase for an example.
This episode of 60 minutes was brought to you by NSA
Strange bedfellows and all that. I bet there were some surreal scenes when the anti-NSA protest groups gathered, met their usual opposition, read each other's placards and banners, did a double take, then started checking their directions to make sure they were at the right protest. Hell, you want to really freak them out, get Tammy Baldwin and Sarah Palin on the same soapbox denouncing the NSA, it'll be the most ambivalent crowd in history.
But seriously folks, between the UK and the US, I don't think there's one decent, credible politician with even the slightest scrap of meaningful power making themselves heard right now.
Snowden never approached any of multiple Inspectors General, supervisors, or Congressional oversight committee members about his concerns.
Ya, because he'd rather spend the rest of his life a fugitive, essentially exiled from his home country and family under fear of rotting in solitary confinement in a military prison without charge. He'd rather do this than simply follow the perfectly effective checks and balances this completely innocent organization is government by.
How stupid do they think we are?
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
sorry, here's the 2006 link:
http://yahoo.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-05-10-nsa_x.htm
From TFA:
The National Security Agency has been secretly collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans, using data provided by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth, people with direct knowledge of the arrangement told USA TODAY.
Thank you Dave Raggett
NSA considered the possibility that Snowden left malicious software behind and removed every computer and cable that Snowden had access to from its classified network, costing tens of millions of dollars.
The fact that they think such an attack could take place and that their best defense would be to take every piece of equipment that could be tainted and kill it with fire tells me that the NSA's IDS systems are extremely weak, its NIDS especially. I think this is the first bit of news that compromises security at the NSA, and they admitted it willingly. Sounds like the NSA is VASTLY better at attack than defense, which apparently consists of carefully screening everything that's allowed on their network (down to their TEMPEST-proof HQ) and then crossing their fingers.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
No, seriously - can anyone offer a reason why we should believe what they say?
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
You have got to be kidding. NSA specifically targeted an American company and copied their inter-data-center traffic for surveillance purposes, thereby stealing the personal information and papers and effects of millions of US citizens. You try that and let me know how prison treats you -- it's prohibited from both a civil rights and constitutional standpoint. It's a criminal act.
Snowden has shown the incompetance of the NSA. Not only did he betray their trust and make off with millions of incriminating documents. He showed their entire selection process flawed and insecure apparently. If I got this straight, he hacked and stole their exame so that he could qualify for entrance into the NSA.
Well if Snowden is just a stupid twit as the NSA likes to put forth, then anyone could of done this, and the NSA is in really sore shape.
And it won't matter (though I at least appreciate that you're calling out the false assumptions). Have you read through the commentary on this thread? There's no trust anymore. Just about everyone posting on this forum thread has lost trust in the US government, and ultimately, in each other. Each comment builds upon the paranoia of the previous, and I find myself wondering--what's the end result? A world without trust? If we can't trust our government, then we can't trust each other. And if we can't trust each other, what then? What kind of world is that, where we're so paranoid about corruption and about those in power that we don't allow anyone to be in power? That's not enlightened anarchy, that's the fall of civilization right there.
Here's to hot beer, cold women, and Glaswegian kisses for all.
The BIOS attack mentioned in the article was really telling about how the spin machine works: To Quote:
This is the BIOS system which starts most computers. The attack would have been disguised as a request for a software update. If the user agreed, the virus would’ve infected the computer.
John Miller: So, this basically would have gone into the system that starts up the computer, runs the systems, tells it what to do.
Debora Plunkett: That's right.
John Miller: --and basically turned it into a cinderblock.
Debora Plunkett: A brick.
John Miller: And after that, there wouldn't be much you could do with that computer.
Debora Plunkett: That's right. Think about the impact of that across the entire globe. It could literally take down the U.S. economy.
First off, a BIOS attack? Really? Welcome to the 1980's!
Secondly, Request for software update to attack BIOS? Have you tried to update your BIOS? It aint that easy and any bios made since the late 80's has safeguards to prevent BIOS updates in the way that's described.
Thirdly, to brick enough computers to ruin the US economy using a bios update would be practically impossible. Never mind that such an attack would have to target people stupid enough to apply updates to systems in locked server rooms. Good luck with that!
Finally, this whole article just demonstrated how they just don't 'get it'. They collect data on you and your loved ones but they don't "look" at it because "that" would be illegal. And if they get caught well then it's "their PR" which is bad, not their actions.
And surely hacking the answers to cheat on a test to be a spy surely qualifies you for the job by default?
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
but privacy is the culprit here. The NSA can go rogue because they have way too much privacy of a certain type, the "it never happened" type privacy, not the "no one knows what we are now talking about " privacy.
They can plan and plot in a dark so dark no one can ever know what was said. That has to go. Every single they do, speak, write , everywhere they go, every access to every computer system anyone there ever avails themselves of has to be memorialized into an incorruptible audit trail which can "replayed" and otherwise analyzed by investigative authorities given the proper authorization to do so.
To start with the premise that "we don't need this surveillance" is to concede the argument before it's even begun.
You can't win an argument starting with a false picture of reality. We DO need this level of surveillance. We DO need these systems and we will need them even more going forward. That is a highly unpleasant fact about reality. We need new thinking here.
So how do we stop an agency with that much assymetrical information from leveraging it into domestic political or global economic power and thus consuming on the one had our democracy and on the other our legitimacy as a world power?
The answer is to make it impossible to abuse the system AND ALSO get away with it, both.
The people in charge there now need to be moved out. People like Binney and Drake and Snowden - all true patriots- who KNOW how this technology can and is abused need to be put into positions of power. The old guard would never ever permit that , even to the point of staging a coup d'tat . Obama needs his own, legitimate, Sunday Night Massacre (Nixon 1973) there and he needs to move all at once and very suddenly with a clear vision of how that agency is going to be going forward.
Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. We need the NSA and what it does. We need more of the same from the NSA in fact. But we need the contingency of ironclad transparency into the organization also.
If you take the long view, it was predictable even obvious that the individuals who "came of age" in the NSA during the digital revolution would attempt to leverage their newly invented and secret powers into an position of untouchability and engage in lawlessness. These guys have a god complex the size of a mountain, and they can have and will continue to demonize, including in their own minds, anyone who opposes their personal vision of what their careers and lives are all about, what their mission is and the best way to achieve that mission.
No point in picking their psychology apart, the point is they need to be relieved of duty and also we need to implement totalitarian-level of accounting within the organization that any lawbreaker will fear, even as we continue to spy as we have been, pushing the technological limits of what can be uncovered on our very real enemies.
So he broke into a secure environment, serruptitiously obtained confidential and/or classified information, and used his take to successfully gain a competive advantage over his peers? And somehow this makes him unsuitable for employment at the NSA?
I guess it's a good thing he wasn't a state sponsored spy... I mean, just imagine what would happen if there were multiple powerful nations with "cyber armies" that wanted at that data and the gall to infiltrate and spy on the USA / NSA. Why, all that data would just be ripe for the taking, like a huge single point of failure. The NSA would be a huge threat to national security. I mean, wow, Snowden was a contractor; Just imagine if he had been a really bad guy trained in computer exploitation and given a big budget to buy any zero-day exploit on the black market he needed? Wow, scary stuff NSA. I guess they'll be shutting down now that the biggest threat to national security has been identified as the NSA itself... right?
Yes, the public is dumb. However, the NSA had their secret rooms in telco-buildings slurping up the data for decades, Omnivore, Carnivore, ECHELON, Five-eyes, etc. Google it. the PATRIOT Act retroactively granted immunity to the ISPs for their assistance in breaking the 4th amendment prior to 9/11.... Ahem... prior to 9/11. So, they had decades of warrantless wiretapping and failed to prevent 9/11, then we gave them carte blanche spying capability and they failed to prevent the Boston Marathon bombing. Hell, the spying has failed to prevent every terrorist attack since it's been in place in the 60's. It's expensive and useless, and should be routed out. I mean, you're four times more likely to get hit by lightning. Four hundred times more folks die from accidents and heart disease than a 9/11 scale attack, every year. NSA budget should be 1/400th of what we spend on these threats. The terrorist threat is just the new bogieman now that we have cowed the large adversarial nations via mutually assured destruction.
Yes, the public is dumb as rocks for believing the exaggerated threats and scaremongering. We're wasting so much in maintaining and expanding the police state and military industrial complex, trillions on pointless wars on false pretenses, hundreds of thousands of civilians killed in retaliation for a few thousand, ugh. Atrocious. The media won't report on what's coming down the pike. Not like we haven't seen it play out before. The USSR over extended itself the same way. Now the cold war is against the very people themselves, it can never just end on its own. One day you'll wake up and the dollar will suddenly be utterly destroyed, taking "news" agencies by surprise. There will be economic chaos. The people have lost their power over Washington and the Corporations are next on the chopping block -- all according to plan. Anyone can see it coming a mile away; Like what happened to Chile in the 1970's. Eisenhower tried to warn us of everything that's come to pass. You'd have to be a fool to think it wasn't going down this way on purpose.
It's too bad the public are morons. We can't trust anything the NSA says now that they've lied to congress. Since we've allowed such secrecy and corruption we can't even prove whether a terrorist attack is real or not. I mean, it's not like military strategists who need a disaster to polarize the people wouldn't set up bait too good to ignore and sacrifice Americans by letting it happen -- Like in Perl Harbor, etc. You really believe strategists were inept enough to leave that many ships in that tight of a space... or that US air superiority couldn't handle protecting at least the Pentagon on 9/11? Not like we didn't have jets on notice 24/7 that we can scramble at a moment's notice...
Plausible deniability does not eliminate undeniable plausibility.
"How many acres of hard drives would it take to store everyone's cellphone conversations?"
That can be answered with a few assumptions and some basic math.
First, let's say "everyone" consists of all US citizens. Let's say there are 320M citizens in the US. Let's add another 30 million tourists and/or illegal aliens bringing the total to 350M.
Now let's say everyone talks to each other 1 hour per day on average. That would total 175M hours of conversation to record per day, or 10,500,000,000 minutes. MP3 can easily store about 1Mb/minute. Therefore, it would take about 10,500Mb or 10Pb per day to store every conversation for a day. That would mean you need ~ 3650Pb to store a year's worth of conversations. That could be stored on about 1M 4 TB drives. If you can get them for $200 a pop, that could be bought for about $200M plus the hardware to park them in. I suspect you could do this where it's searchable, raided, and usable for well under $400M and store it all in a medium sized facility. It would take about 4000 racks to store it all, but that could be a 62x62 configuration. To answer the original question, this could all be stored on a single acre.
In reality, you would need a lot less space. Everyone doesn't have a phone. Everyone doesn't talk on the phone for an hour. I suspect the average is 1/10 of that. I'm doing good to talk an hour a month.
Ninjas don't carry tic tacs
You forgot these possibilities:
WE ALL forgot to do what any rational Slashdot audience would do, abandon thread for a moment to set up a Boolean decision tree and NSA morality geek code so that further discussion becomes logically precise, generally incomprehensible to outsiders and confusing in whole new ways.. so from this little sub-thread so far we have
Prefix: NSASnowJob:
thouHastSinned+-: Did the NSA do something wrong?
IseeSaidTheBlindMan+-: Did anyone notice?
deweyDefeatsTruman+-: Did anyone report it?
whoIsJohnGalt+-: Did anything change?
area51+-: Did someone make shit up?
texasSuicide+-: Did someone die mysteriously?
itWasTheDogThatFarted+-: Does everyone do it (no big fucking deal)?
[[NSA:SnowJob::]] We intend to begin on the first of February unrestricted submarine warfare [thouHastSinned+++] We shall endeavor in spite of this to keep the United States of America neutral. [IseeSaidTheBlindMan++++] In the event of this not succeeding, we make Mexico a proposal of alliance on the following basis: [deweyDefeatsTruman++] make war together [whoIsJohnGalt++++] make peace together [Snoden=texasSuicide----] You will inform the President of the above most secretly as soon as the outbreak of war with the United States of America is certain [no excuse itWasTheDogThatFarted--] and add the suggestion that he should, on his own initiative, invite Japan to immediate adherence and at the same time mediate between Japan and ourselves. [credibility zero area51----] Signed, ZIMMERMANN.
<blink>down the rabbit hole</blink>