Also, we will lie about what we are actually doing. I can understand taking some drastic measures to prevent epic disaster, however, I see no good reason to cover up what is actually going on; threats and countermeasures. By lying, they are forcing us to assume the worst.
And if you assume the worst, they don't (and shouldn't) care. This isn't a popularity contest for them, and the NSA operates as if there is a legitimate national security purpose to what they're doing.
I don't like the fact that they're doing it, but presuming that they should operate in total transparency just so that the silicon valley "proper thinkers" won't assume the worst is fairly naive, IMO. They believe they're fighting a critical intelligence war, and secrecy is an integral and necessary part of that battle.
I wouldn't work there, but I respect the people who do, both for their technical ability and for their patriotism. (I may not agree, but I can respect.) In particular, they're making significant individual sacrifices in order to do the work they do. It's not the same sacrifice as doing IED patrol in Afghanistan, but anyone doing high level crypto for NSA could likely make more money and have a cushier life in the private sector.
In particular, they're making significant individual sacrifices in order to do the work they do. It's not the same sacrifice as doing IED patrol in Afghanistan, but anyone doing high level crypto for NSA could likely make more money and have a cushier life in the private sector.
Where does the funding come from? From the tax payers. Who gets spied on? Everyone and their dog. So yeah, they're making a sacrifice, but even bigger sacrifices are forced on just about everyone else.
>I don't like the fact that they're doing it, but presuming that they should operate in total transparency just so that the silicon valley "proper thinkers" won't assume the worst is fairly naive, IMO. They believe they're fighting a critical intelligence war, and secrecy is an integral and necessary part of that battle.
This would be a much more sensible argument if they weren't going around outright coercing Silicon Valley's tech companies into becoming their tools.
If the NSA wants to spy on everyone, they should do it the hard way!
There is a tradeoff between being selective and inclusive. If you are too inclusive (i.e. almost everyone fits) then you can't be very selective. On the other hand if you are very selective you must be definition not be very inclusive.
From what I know Valve is very selective. It seems that both Ellsworth and Valve thought it would be a good fit but for whatever reason it turned out it wasn't. While they lost out of her many talents they preserved their culture which has been very successful so far.
You make an interesting point that perhaps learning is NOT working. While learning can help you get more work done it is not work itself. In fact it is often an imitation of actual work - pretend or practice work: an essay the never get published, a program that never gets run or a calculation that never gets used.
This is an interesting distinction and depends on the exact definition of "work". However work is clearly not the same thing as learning.
This article confusingly referred to "qualified" investors but according to other reporting it is actually "accredited" investors [1]. This is particularly confusing because "qualified purchasers" is an even higher standard required for some investments [2].
This article makes it sound like free public transportation is a new idea. It pops up in Toronto every so often as if it was the first time it was every thought up(1).
In fact this has been tried numerous (perhaps hundreds) of times, both in the past and ongoing(2,3). You would think that the pluses and minuses would be well understood by now. Why is it so hard for transportation systems to learn from each other?
Fascinating issue and the rest of the Retraction Watch website is eye opening!
I rarely read academic journals anymore but I had always assumed the top journals did a good job of filtering out bad papers and quickly retracting those that were later disproven. Like every human activity it is not so simple.
Is all this secrecy just "security through obscurity" which is well know to be unreliable. In other words, would we be better off just letting everyone (citizens and enemies) know exactly what you are doing (e.g. tapping phones or not)?
The benefits are certain but the costs are uncertain.
The story was that they admitted this in a "secret briefing". I'm not sure if denying something in public refutes what you said in private.
Nadler seemed pretty sure on Thursday at the Committee meeting and when interviewed by CNET over the weekend but has now changed his story. The NSA released a very strangely worded denial. And in today's Q&A Snowden says this is exactly how it happens.
Not sure what to make of all this but is seems like we have been given a peek behind the curtain but not a long enough gaze to see exactly what is going on.
AFAIK, Rep. Nadler was not interviewed by CNET for the story and it was based entirely on the reporter's interpretation of his public remarks. (Please correct me if I'm wrong.) I think there's a good chance Rep. Nadler did not change his position and was simply misinterpreted. If you watch the video[0] of the exchange, it definitely seems like at least one of them is confused about what they're talking about.
Regardless, I think the implication that somebody must have "gotten to" Congressman Nadler and therefore we should continue to believe what we thought he said earlier rather than what he's saying unambiguously now is totally ridiculous.
No, the story was that Rep. Nadler said something confusing and ambiguous in a public hearing that referred to a secret briefing and that some reporters ran with the statements and assumed the worst.
For what it's worth, from what I've seen of Rep. Nadler in the past, he doesn't seem like the kind of craven politician who would either equivocate or be scared into submission.
tptacek why are you always defending ridiculous statements and behavior by the US administration and spy agencies? You seem willing to bend over backwards (or is it forwards) to justify any statement from the authorities but will attack the tiniest issue in a fellow HNers post.
Have you and/or your company ever worked for them? If so it would explain a lot.
We do no work whatsoever for the USG, or for any defense contractors. That's not an accident. There are other software security firms that do; Matasano does not.
Once again: I am not sticking up for NSA. I do not trust NSA. I probably share your opinion of NSA, modulo I might not mythologize their capabilities as much as other people on HN do.
I am sticking up for Google. I have friends who work there. I think very highly of their security group. From my vantage point, Google is in this instance fighting for the privacy of their users, at great expense, and getting shellacked in online forums by people who are happy to use the outrage over NSA overreach to tar Google, especially since Glenn Greenwald more or less defamed them in print.
When you say "that's not an accident" do you mean to imply you'd have ethical objections to it?
As you are one of the three most common defenders of the state that I have noticed on this site, that would be very surprising to me. But quite interesting if so, it would be some indication that your perspective on the issues and seeming constant defense is an indication of spiraling paranoia in counterparties to your arguments. Is this how you see it?
Yes, I have an ethical problem with doing the kind of work I do for defense contractors or for the USG. I'm not saying that doing work for USG, or even software security work for them, or even offensive software security for them is prima facie unethical; I only know that I don't feel qualified to navigate the ethical quagmire, and thankfully am not required to do so.
I'm also not a defender of the state. However, of the subset of HN users who are noisy enough to remember by name, I'm probably the most statist; believing in the utility of law enforcement probably puts me just slightly to the left of center among noisy HN'ers.
In the real world, I'm a liberal.
Be careful about assuming that you know what's in the heads of other people just from how they comment on HN. The things that spark arguments on HN aren't a realistic cross-section of policy debates in the real world.
Presumably doing Matasano-type appsec work for DoD if it were for internal DoD software would be fine (i.e. making sure the VA's medical records system is relatively secure against outside threats)?
I've had my differences with <tptacek> in the past -- I think polite disagreements over policy -- but he is quite correct here in what he says about Google.
I doubt that he has a professional conflict in this case. He is nothing if not consistent, his point of view here is exactly what you would expect from reading his past posts on other issues.
