Snowden: NSA Working On Autonomous Cyberwarfare Bot

WIRED published a long piece on Edward Snowden today (worth a read on its own), and simultaneously broke news of "MonsterMind," an NSA program to monitor all network traffic and detect attacks, responding with a counterattack automatically. From the article: Although details of the program are scant, Snowden tells WIRED in an extensive interview with James Bamford that algorithms would scour massive repositories of metadata and analyze it to differentiate normal network traffic from anomalous or malicious traffic. Armed with this knowledge, the NSA could instantly and autonomously identify, and block, a foreign threat. More than this, though, Snowden suggests MonsterMind could one day be designed to return fire — automatically, without human intervention... Snowden raised two issues with the program: the source of an attack could be spoofed to trick the U.S. into attacking an innocent third party, and the violation of the fourth amendment since the NSA would effectively need to monitor all domestic network traffic for the program to work. Also in Bamford's interview are allegations that the NSA knocked Syria offline in 2012 after an attempt to install intercept software on an edge router ended with the router being bricked.

Comments

Snowden's comments at odds with his actions

[Zontar_Thing_From_Ve]

I find Snowden to be a typical pampered, ego-centric product of his generation. If he actually surrendered himself to US authorities unconditionally, I'd think he just might be insane. So I totally get why he is in Russia. I'm not saying I approve of what he did as I don't, but I get why he felt the need to hide under protection to do what he did. But he undermines his credibility with statements in the article like this:
I told the government I'd volunteer for prison, as long as it served the right purpose,” he says. “I care more about the country than what happens to me."
Yeah. Right.

Re:Snowden's comments at odds with his actions

[Virtucon]

His 15 minutes are fucking up already. He's just discrediting himself publishing this kind of drivel. Next thing you'll hear from him is about his anal probing at the hands of aliens in Area 51. It's out there.

Re:On come on now Edward

[Virtucon]

I think a prosecutor could make that case considering where he wound up. He's become a mouthpiece for the Russian Government like Russia Today. In three years the Russians will dump him and he'll probably wind up in the Ecuadorian Embassy. Sound familiar?