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Edward Snowden Says NSA Engages In Industrial Espionage

Maow writes "Edward Snowden has been interviewed by a German TV network and stated that the NSA is involved in industrial espionage, which is outside the range of national security. He claims that Siemens is a prime example of a target for the data collection. I doubt this would surprise AirBus or other companies, but it shall remain to be seen what measures global industries take (if any) to prevent their internal secrets from falling into NSA's — and presumably American competitors' — hands." AirBus is a good example of a company that has experienced spying from both sides.

14 of 212 comments (clear)

  1. A symbiotic relationship by rmdingler · · Score: 5, Insightful
    This actually makes perfect sense.

    There has existed a perception that large corporate compilers of information reluctantly acquiesced to the full might of national security orders and subpoenas..

    What's in it for me? is a sweet, sweet incentivizer, too.

    --
    Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.

    Ernest Hemingway

    1. Re:A symbiotic relationship by TheRaven64 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It's not normally the same companies. Mostly defence contractors get the benefits, which sort-of makes sense as much of the US military depends on the products from these industries, and so if you squint enough it looks like a national security concern.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
  2. German transcript by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Can be found here http://www.tagesschau.de/snowden-interview-deutsch100.pdf

  3. Re:Outside the range? by SirGarlon · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If you accept that argument, then all economic activity falls under the umbrella of national security, and the Constitution goes out the window.

    Oh, I see what you did there.

    --
    [Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
  4. It's a free market ! by Taco+Cowboy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's a free market all right, it's a free "to spy on everybody and steal their secret" market !!

    --
    Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
  5. Re:Outside the range? by Xest · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Well that depends, if you got a situation where America is artificially taking work away from other nations by simply stealing their knowledge, product designs and so forth then that might mean those nations become less stable and more likely to want to hurt America when they find out the only reason they're poor and unemployed is because America stole from them.

    Not to mention the harm this does for it's ability to partake in international politics, how silly will it look telling China off for manipulating it's currency to it's benefit when America has similarly been artificially propping it's economy up simply by stealing from everyone else? It's a dangerous game as if America wants to get in a race to the bottom it's going to lose hard because countries like India and China will be able to cope with reduced living standards far more than Americans will be able to without rising up and rioting. Those countries also have far less scruples about stealing from the US. You think China will now have any reservations about hacking US companies? It was supposedly doing so before but now it doesn't even need to care if it gets caught as it can just say it's fair play whilst America if it wants to be taken seriously still needs to retain some semblance of decency.

    Or in other words, engaging in this sort of subversive manner against foreign states might be exactly the sort of thing that starts World War 3 creating such instability and such threat to the US in the first place.

  6. Even friends and allies do it among each other by vikingpower · · Score: 5, Funny

    I once worked for one of the companies involved in the JSF project. As soon as we knew that Lockheed Martin had a web app for performing a certain task, I was asked by my boss to get the entire web app's jar files, reverse engineer it, and tell him how good or bad LM's implementation was. The company for which I worked then went on to steal LM's implementation and incorporate it into its own commercial product.

    Which, and this is the best part, they then sold. To Lockheed Martin.

    --
    Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
  7. Re:Outside the range? by AmiMoJo · · Score: 5, Interesting

    That's not what the stolen information is used for. It just saves US companies from having to spend money on R&D to develop their own solutions, or helps them win contracts overseas.

    Besides which the NSA made sure that American products are compromised by weakening security protocols and not notifying companies about backdoors. Worse still since Snowden was able to gain access to all this information relatively easily it is probably safe to assume that foreign agencies have their own spies collecting it too, so know all about the NSA backdoors and vulnerabilities they discovered.

    --
    const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
    SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  8. Keep the love coming! by LF11 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This just gets more and more rich as time goes. So what if every spy agency does it? That does not make it right. It is time for ordinary people to figure out whether they want this kind of action being done by their governments.

    I am very happy Snowden is choosing to release this material one drop at a time. It is like Chinese water torture against the intelligence apparatus. Please, keep the love coming!

    I think after the Murrah bombing, 9/11, and the marathon bombing, we have established that the security agencies are not capable of stopping actual terrorist activity against American citizens. Not when every supposed thwarting is really just an FBI set-up. So it is time for us to really consider what these agencies are actually doing, since they are apparently not stopping terrorism.

  9. Snowden interview in english by I)_MaLaClYpSe_(I · · Score: 5, Informative

    German sender ARD/NDR has now published the english interview in OV after substantial criticism.

  10. Re:What's next? by Maritz · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Being deceptive and manipulative works out great when everyone thinks you're legit. Once you're outed as a conniving liar though, the consequences aren't always fun. I suspect the NSA/USA's 'spy-on-everyone-including-your-friends' tactic is in the process of backfiring spectacularly.

    --
    I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
  11. Re:why the soap opera ? by LoRdTAW · · Score: 5, Informative

    The idea is that if everything is released at once then the story will ruffle some feathers for only a few weeks/months and die out quickly.

    By releasing their dirty secrets one at a time and once a month, the story can be kept in the media for years (or so Snowden says). This ensures the pressure is kept on the NSA and government to do something. Though, so far the crooks are trying to justify everything they do and are quite defiant in defending their practices.

  12. U.S stealing trade and tech by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's funny to hear U.S gov and confused Americans say the Chinese are stealing technology, a discussion and argument that bears no logic whatsoever, but at the same time they're doing everything they can to get information and secrets on trade, technology etc. while saying it's to protect the U.S. Hilarious.

  13. Re:why the soap opera ? by BobMcD · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Not to mention further revelations exposes the lies of excuses from each previous round of revelation.

    This, here, is the real trick.

    There has been a lot of this:

    1) Assert 'A'
    2) Government denies 'A'
    3) Prove 'A'. Assert 'B'.
    4) Government admits to needing to do 'A', but says it would never do 'B'.
    5) Prove 'B'. Assert 'C'. ...and so on...

    The fact that the government FELL FOR IT for so very long this summer and fall says a lot about their arrogance. Well that and how little they know about what he actually took.