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Spy Chief Complains That Edward Snowden Sped Up Spread of Encryption By 7 Years (theintercept.com)
An anonymous reader cites an article on The Intercept: The director of national intelligence on Monday blamed NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden for advancing the development of user-friendly, widely available strong encryption. "As a result of the Snowden revelations, the onset of commercial encryption has accelerated by seven years," James Clapper said. The shortened timeline has had "a profound effect on our ability to collect, particularly against terrorists," he said. When pressed by The Intercept to explain his figure, Clapper said it came from the National Security Agency. "The projected growth maturation and installation of commercially available encryption -- what they had forecasted for seven years ahead, three years ago, was accelerated to now, because of the revelation of the leaks." Asked if that was a good thing, leading to better protection for American consumers from the arms race of hackers constantly trying to penetrate software worldwide, Clapper answered no. "From our standpoint, it's not ⦠it's not a good thing," he said."Of all the things I've been accused of," Snowden said, "this is the one of which I am most proud."
Fantastic. Well done.
Thank you, Mr. Snowden. Countless around the world are in your debt.
Boohooo, we actually have to work now, that's not fair!
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Even more important than just the spread of Encryption itself, but the fact that more and more of the non-tech community is becoming acquainted with it and why it's important. It's exciting to see people who clearly prescribe to the "I just want my technology to work" thought process to be actually caring about the underlying processes.
The fact is, the US hasn't been hit by a major attack since 9/11. That doesn't prove the security measures are effective or necessary, but it certainly doesn't discredit them. It's necessary for law enforcement to combat terrorism. There is no reason that facing terror attacks should be the price for freedom. Slashdot commenters are happy to criticize law enforcement but fail to offer better solutions to stop terrorism. If you don't like what law enforcement is doing now, what's your solution to keep terror attacks at least as infrequent as they are now?
The inconvenient thing about everyone's life becoming infinitely more visible in our little digital village is that everyone's life is infinitely more visible. Those who have the inclination can know as much as any expert in any field is willing to share, and those who have the inclination can use that expertise as they see fit.
Tread lightly, you weary giants of flesh and steel. Wading head first into /dev/null is sure to fill the bitbucket in inconvenient ways.
Encryption != zika virus
Snowden is not responsible for this.
Clapper and his friends in the intelligence agencies have been abusing their spy powers for years with overreaching dragnet surveillance operations.
If they were not such abusive, power hungry megalomaniacs, most people would not consider encryption a necessity.
Clapper needs to take responsibility for his own actions, and not blame people who actually do something to protect and defend the constitution that he uses as toilet paper/
Death has been proven to be 99% fatal in lab rats.
Just change the fucking name to National Spying Agency. Strong encryption and better security practices are the best thing for national security, especially given that the USA is the world's biggest economy.
It was at great peril and disregard to himself and his personal safety that Edward Snowden went into hiding due to proving yet again the danger of a government left unchecked, unquestioned and ungoverned. It is my hope that he is allowed to safety one day return to the US and take his place among the countless heroes there.
I wouldnt trust any "spychief". They will complain about it, when they can already decrypt it.
By making encryption more widespread, Snowden has done more for national security than the NSA has in the same time. Why don't we just give him Clapper's job?
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
-3 + 7 = 4
What a bunch of entitled whiners, probably makes their grandparents sick.
"oh investigating crimes is too hard" "why won't you let me read your email" "if you're doing nothing wrong you've got nothing to hide"
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Short answer to your question: Swartz is a douche and so are you for mentioning him, and ESR is just a guy, ya know? Neither one of them changed the world view literally over night.
Long answer to your question:
Because they are both hardly worth mentioning douchebags who get FAR more attention then they deserve.
Swartz was nothing more than a common thief who couldn't deal with the consequences of his actions. When you bring up Swartz as if he's a martyr you lose any and all credibility instantly. It shows everyone that you're just an uppity idiot who wants to rant and rave about something you completely don't understand the facts about.
Get this through your heads people: Aaron Swartz was nothing more than a common criminal. Stop romanizing a selfish thief. Best of Yet, he couldn't even cope with the consequences of his own actions and he was plenty old enough to fucking know better since ... IT WASN'T HIS FIRST FUCKING OFFENSE.
ESR is just a guy who writes software and knows a few things and is an all around intelligent guy. You only mention him because you're a noob who doesn't realize that OSS was huge before anyone knew who ESR was. He didn't tell us anything we didn't already know through just looking at history. He just said it about a different technology, one that you now know and care about. Nothing wrong with him, but he didn't change the world.
Snowden, good OR bad, changed the world over night. Could have been anyone really. Snowden isn't special either, other than having the balls to do it and deal with the aftermath (something Swartz didn't).
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
Funny how there is enough broad historic and current data in order to analyze this trend, but they can't (will not) provide a rough estimate of how many people have their comms/metadata sucked up into their data centers... funny that.
I didn't minimize their accomplishments.
Four years ahead, not seven.
His job is not to complain. His job is information gathering and information warfare. Remember something else: all warfare is deception. This is not my paranoia. This is established understanding of how the world works. Now see what follows if you adapt this premise.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
The question "was [that] a good thing, leading to better protection for American consumers from the arms race of hackers constantly trying to penetrate software worldwide" is off base, hackers could care less if day to day communication is encrypted, they attack a completely different set of vulnerabilities. It [widespread encryption] is good for keeping secrets, no more and no less. Ultimately, it will force the NSA and similar agencies to ignore gobbling up plaintext or building supercomputers to crack weak algorithms, and instead focus entirely on software vulnerabilities exactly the same way malicious hackers do.
The thing to realize (and the way to view) these technology-based impacts to social/public policy is that power flows back and forth between the protagonists and antagonists over decades. And the newfound power that ordinary people now have (or just began to realize) is a gradual shift from government unsupervised/unchallenged intelligence, to protection in the hands of ordinary people.
It's a refreshing public realization of what we've been giving up, unawares, because we didn't know any better. And note that it may not even last. People may forget why we need privacy, and vigilance against an all-pervasive state. They may choose to give it up in the name (not even reality) of security. Maybe there'll be another event that changes public opinion in favor of more surveillance. Or, people might gradually see the extent that stupidity/invasiveness has reached, and continue to make decisions with their wallets and votes.
But as long as this issue has been around, the balance of power has, and will continue to, ebb and flow between the struggling parties on either side. (And note, the good guys / bad guys are not always definitively on the public/individual vs. government sides -- that can swap too.)
It would not surprise me in the slightest if this was just an attempt to make the masses believe we are more secure than we actually are. In the phone world at least, yes, Facebook have enabled e2e encryption by default and google push out regular security updates but, like a recent post spoke about, the updates are not filtering down to the end user instantly like they should be. Also, one minute I hear iOS is rock-solid and impenetrable, next it's been split apart worse than a bride on the wedding night, then it's secure again. Is this just yet another attempt at public manipulation? Or are they (3 letter acronyms) actually as fucked as 'The Clapper' implies?
Remember kids: What's right isn't as important as what's profitable.
"The projected growth maturation and installation of commercially available encryption -- what they had forecasted for seven years ahead, three years ago, was accelerated to now, because of the revelation of the leaks."
That reads like the revelations only pushed it ahead by 4 years.
Clapper is a moron who is totally failing to see the bigger picture.
Didn't they establish that the most recent attacks were done using burner cell phones, and no encryption was involved at all?
The shortened timeline has had "a profound effect on our ability to collect, particularly against citizens of the world," he said.
FTFY.
You see, Mr. Clapper, no one believes you, specially considering the fact that we don't know of any terrorists or their plots that you've been able to expose for the past 20 years. None. However we approximately know your budget and how terrorism is basically a non-issue for people 'cause the number of people dying of other causes is several magnitudes higher. This "war" on terrorism is a plot against people, not for people.
Clapper lied, under oath, to congress.
He was given the questions he would be asked, in writing, before hand.
He lied when asked those questions.
When asked afterwards, in writing, if he wanted to amend any of his answers, he declined.
He only admitted the truth after it came out in the Snowden revelations.
Why would anyone now believe anything he says?
Note that this probably refers to civilian encryption being accelerated by seven years. Most likely many sensitive US government databases, such as the personnel database, still have the password "admin", with no encryption at all.
Because James Clapper is a man of integrity, high moral character, and a credit to wrinkly-head bald men the world over. Thanks James Clapper!
James Clapper can eat a dirty sweaty d*ck with a shot of Vitamin C.
Somebody call a waaambulance! People want encryption!
Technically it was the warrantless access by government that drove Snowden, which drove this.
And sloppy, logless, no-tracking warrantless access at that.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
The underlying reasons for terrorism and whatever other perverted activities initiated by humans are not addressed, not even is the ability to look at those and recognize what is going on is remotely present!
If one group says "A", the next group says no, it is "B", where the eliminating causes actions are "C".
This Mr. Clapper is right in the middle of the blame/manipulate/denial/stroking his own butt game.
And yeah, the idea that black holes could be gateways to other universes helps a lot...
The Federal government Alphabet Agencies are the cause for this.
Snowden just let the puppies that they were going to drown out of the bag.
Snowden still deserves a lot of gratitude, but let's be honest here. If the NSA/CIA/FBI weren't performing illegal/treasonous actions, Snowden wouldn't have had anything to blow the whistle on.
So let's get all the people that gave Snowden something to report, line them up for an Execution^H^hve Branch Party.
and the DOJ is fair and just?
35 years for downloading information that is free in the civilized parts of the world.
there is no crime America can commit that is not supported by the ignorant masses 100%
What happened to tommy Chong was also Justice? it only cost you a few million.
If "The Cathedral and the Bazaar" were the only thing ESR had ever written, people might remember him more fondly. Crediting him with creating "open source software as we know it today" is a wonderful troll though.
Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
Anyone who thinks this tension isn't a simple issue, I think I can help you with this: Read the Bill of Rights, but feel free to gloss over exactly what it says. Instead, look at how it's said, and who it's talking about, and whose side it picks when there's a conflict.
Among America's adversaries, and indeed America's most important adversary which needs (by far) the most attention, is America's government.
Clapper is on the other team. He is one of the "bad guys" from our country's standpoint. Nothing personal; it's just that he's with the gummint, and those people need to be cracked down on. Go ahead and read it again, and tell me the government isn't considered an untrustworthy antagonist.
So yes, we get it: from the government's point of view, limitations on government power are not a good thing. Every time you ask government to solve a problem, one of the proposed solutions should be "hey, let's infringe our citizens' rights!" And that's ok: we expect that from you people. And we still want you and need you; we very reluctantly do not live in an anarchy, because we have to admit that anarchy would be worse. But we're not exactly happy about this "hey, let's have a government" solution even though we acknowledge that it turned out to be the best-known strategy. And so you're one of our solutions but also chief among our problems, and we have decided (not in 2013, but over two centuries earlier) that WE ARE MORE IMPORTANT THAN YOU. Our needs and rights are more important than you being able to do whatever the hell we asked you to do. You have to work within certain constraints or else there's no point in having you.
Clapper isn't lying (here), but you do need to understand that he is trying to advance basically un-American values. And even that, as nastily as I just put it, isn't really bad. It's expected. If you're in the American government, then you're not quite really American. You're not one of us; you're "the help." So when he complains, just remember: that's what those people do, and when they don't complain, that's when you know something is going wrong and "the help" is probably embezzling or something like that.
(For the paranoid, I suppose that means you need to worry about whether or not his complaining is sincere.)
CORRECTION Your blanket, warrentless spying is the reason for the mass adoption of Encryption. If you had developed a program that was honest, forthcoming with clear and strong safeguards instead of running a clandestine black-ops style program then people would not have been so shocked and appalled and rushed to defend themselves and their communications from your greasy fingers
Is turning random characters into an a with a circumflex[1] a form of encryption?
[1] That thing you call a "chinaman hat", manishs.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
ie, why keep giving CLAPPER more air time and press time?
he's a traitor (by many definitions of the term) and he's definitely anti-freedom and I dare say, anti-american. he's a pox upon us.
why keep giving this idiot more and more air-time?
WE SHOULD BE IGNORING HIS BULLSHIT.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
A bigger reason is hardware accelerated encryption is now available on most devices. If we had only software encryption available, the adoption would still be very low.
Swartz broke an obscure law that did nothing but line the pockets of a few to the damage of many. Swartz probably did not even consider that such a thing was possible. Hell, when I read it I had a hard time imagining that this is actually illegal in a country like the US, until I realized that profit trumps any right you might think you have.
What happened afterwards can only be described as legal bullying.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
So, all the talk of wanton espionage by the Chinese wasn't enough to motivate increased cyber security. It's the evil USA whom does the motivating. Snowden did speed up use of encryption by ISIS and al qaeda, so, I still think Snowden is a traitor. I want Congress to stop Verizon from selling its users' data off to the highest bidder. It's regulating time!
The shortened timeline has had "a profound effect on our ability to collect, particularly against terrorists," he said
We are all glad it had a profound effect on your ability to collect against the other people, you know, us, the innocent that you used to lie about not collecting anything.
particularly against terrorists
How would you know? It's encrypted. Unless the communication was from a know terrorist (like one featured in a magazine), in which case not doing anything but complain about their encryption is plain and simple failing at your job.
Anyway, we know you collected the communications of the terrorists you let do the attack in Paris, it was not encrypted.
I could not begin to list all of the crazy things ESR has written, especially since CatB. Rationalwiki has a collection, and they do mention his non-batshit writing, but essentially everything in the last fifteen years has been a stain on his character. Honestly, even before that he was a little unhinged. He has his place in open source history, but the best that you can say about him these days is that no one listens to him.
Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
How can encryption have "a profound effect on our ability to collect, particularly against terrorists" when they never found any terrorists to begin with?
We can only assume that the justification for bulk collection has little to do with terrorism.
(next cycle, after he turns 35)
Snowden stopped the wholesale abrogation of civil rights, seven years sooner than the spies would like?
Give that man the Medal of Freedom, HE earned it!
I don't known if it's the proper word here: smells sensationalism (just saying...)
James Clapper said. The shortened timeline has had "a profound effect on our ability to collect, particularly against terrorists,"
Huh? What?
Is it "terrorists" that are the primary users of encryption?
Dear Jimmy Clap: "[Citation Needed]"
More women working has weakened the US.
You think it is a coincidence that 40 years of feminism coincide with 40 years of increasing income inequality, increasing debt by everyone except the rich, skyrocketing govt. debt, crumbling infrastructure, and so on?
Used to be a family could live rather well on one working class income. Now 2 or 3 or 4 incomes are needed. There is a glut of labor, and again real wages have stagnated or gone down for virtually all workers.
It's all a con by the oligarchs to increase control and squeeze more blood from us stones.
Now feminists complain about pay inequality. Much of that is poor statistical analysis, but let's grant women are paid less. The oligarchs will fix that right quick. How? By paying men less.
Everybody happy now?
An obscure law? The dude broke into a closet and wrote customized software to make copies of things he was not authorized to copy and give them to other people who were not authorized to view them and, in the process, caused major issues to two different networks of computers. This is not the act of some petty offender who has broken an obscure law and then been hammered for it. Hell, I think they offered him something like six months?
To even mention him, in connection with Snowden, is to do Snowden a disservice. One's a common criminal and the other one is accepting the consequences of his actions. What's that? Well, the consequences are that he's a wanted man and now has to live in *RUSSIA* for the rest of his life and only so long as he is politically useful. His life and freedom hang on a thread - he's got the Sword of Damocles hanging above him and, surely, ulcers the size of lamprey mouths.
One's an attention whoring coward and the other as close to a hero as you can get without actually getting the title.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
They offered him something like six months. He turned them down. Had he taken it to trial and lost, even after not accepting the plea agreement, he'd have gotten six months with a couple of more years of supervised release - maybe up to a year. He was a coward and a shame to the Institution. Yes, yes I am biased. I admit it. However, it doesn't change the reality. Trying to paint the reality as something other than what he was is not only intellectually dishonest, it's outright dishonest.
Including him, in any mention of Snowden, is disgusting. They're not even remotely comparable.
I don't know if I'd agree with the GP in calling him a "gutless fucking cunt" or anything but gutless certainly applies. I don't have a whole lot of liking left in me for those who would be cowards. Maybe, just maybe, if he'd not strung up then I'd have held a tiny amount of respect for him. Maybe - doubtful but maybe. I'd have certainly respected him for accepting the consequences.
And yes, yes he did deprive others. (Then again, so didn't Snowden. To which I say, good.) No excuses, no forgiveness. To even think of them in the same light is intellectually dishonest and bordering on idiocy. Let's hope you've learned something today and adjust so that the future can be a marginally better place.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
I am all for encryption but I would like to point out the flaw in this argument. Gun can take lives while encryption cannot.
If three years ago their prediction for encryption use in seven years exists today, then it's only accelerated by four years.
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that the state security apparatus expends most of their efforts spying on their own people, under the bogus pretext of protecting us from the 'terrorists'.
Clinton is a square shooter
with his other criminal buddies.
It sure wasn't the unwarranted spying that did it. No sir, Snowden all the way.
That is our story, and we are sticking it onto whoever is dumb enough for it to stick to.
"Terrorists"
LOL are we still seriously using the terrorist boogeyman after 15 fucking years? Jesus Christ.
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man." --George Bernard Shaw
Casteism
Grab a copy of Tails, Tor Browser Bundle, Orbot, etc.
distrowatch.com
Learn shit. Don't listen to cunts.
"As a result of the Snowden revelations, the onset of commercial encryption has caught up with years of setbacks due to meddling from counter-intelligence agencies' lack of fore-sight."