Nobody (especially in the HN echo-chamber) wants to entertain the idea that what snowden did endangered hundreds of people directly, and the entire US indirectly, by leaking what he did. It is truly amazing to read the rationales on here avoiding this idea.
For me I wouldn't say that you have to be blindly accepting of the good of what Snowden did to be critical of this article. It lacks anything beyond the claims of a single unnamed source with absolutely no back-up. That's not good journalism regardless of the story that's being run.
Also the timing of this story is odd, to me. Surely any changes to the operational procedures of the american and UK agencies in question would have happened immediately they realised they lost control of the documents (two years ago), and they wouldn't wait around till there was evidence that Russia/China had decrypted them?
So why a story now in June 2015 about this?
As to the harm/benefit of Snowdens actions, I think it very much depends on who you are and your role as to your perspective.
From the perspective of a non US citizen it has shone a light on what a "friendly" government considers an appropriate level of spying on its allies and clearly shows that all governments are engaging in "offensive" operations on IT systems, and the lengths that they'll go to to achieve that goal.
Given the context (national/international security) is that really surprising? People who have their necks on the line aren't jumping out of the woodwork to comment? C'mon, think.
> changes to the operational procedures of the American [you had a typo] and UK agencies in question would have happened immediately
If you're an intelligent person (and I would like to assume you are) changing policies on a dime, esp. when it comes to govt. policy, doesn't happen in a day, or even a year. I think everyone reading this knows better than that. That is a weak argument.
>As to the harm/benefit of Snowdens actions, I think it very much depends on who you are and your role as to your perspective.
No shit. If you want to harm the US, its not a negative action. Else, its a goddamn negative action. I'm trying really hard to figure out why else you would make that argument.
> From the perspective of a non US citizen it has shone a light on what a "friendly" government considers an appropriate level of spying on its allies and clearly shows that all governments are engaging in "offensive" operations on IT systems, and the lengths that they'll go to to achieve that goal.
Imagine what non "friendly" governments are doing.
> Given the context (national/international security) is that really surprising? People who have their necks on the line aren't jumping out of the woodwork to comment? C'mon, think.
No, you really need to do a bit more thinking. A journalist shouldn't just publish what an anonymous source says without corroborating their story with other evidence. You can keep your source anonymous, but they need to provide some physical evidence or you need to confirm it some other way.
Exhibit A, how Greenwald handled Snowden. Every story he had was based off documents provided that could be examined and published as evidence. Everything was based on physical evidence collected by Snowden, not just some stories he told. If a journalist just took anonymous sources stories at face value w/o evidence anyone associated with an intelligence agency could feed in false information whenever they... oh wait, could that be happening here??
And Greenwald himself goes into a lot more detail about it here, just got on the frontpage on HN:
> No shit. If you want to harm the US, its not a negative action. Else, its a goddamn negative action. I'm trying really hard to figure out why else you would make that argument.
How hard have you tried? Do you honestly think nothing good can come out of this for US citizens?
>Given the context (national/international security) is that really surprising? People who have their necks on the line aren't jumping out of the woodwork to comment? C'mon, think.
I am thinking, I'm thinking that a single unnamed source from a government with no back-up isn't a reliable source, just the same as a single unnamed source from a non-government angle isn't. I can claim anything you like came from a single unnamed source :)
One of the points of jounalists is that they're meant to get other information to corroborate or disprove the things they are told, that's kind of the point. If all they do is print things one person tells them, they're just really propaganda agencies. If one source tells them this, they should have other sources they can ask to confirm/deny.
>> changes to the operational procedures of the American [you had a typo] and UK agencies in question would have happened immediately
>If you're an intelligent person (and I would like to assume you are) changing policies on a dime, esp. when it comes to govt. policy, doesn't happen in a day, or even a year. I think everyone reading this knows better than that. That is a weak argument.
I don't think they can change on a dime as you put it but I do think that if agents were at serious risk of harm it wouldn't be two years down the line that this would be the case. are we seriously suggesting that the UK gov. left their agents out on a limb for two years at risk of compromise?
>>As to the harm/benefit of Snowdens actions, I think it very much depends on who you are and your role as to your perspective.
>No shit. If you want to harm the US, its not a negative action. Else, its a goddamn negative action. I'm trying really hard to figure out why else you would make that argument.
ahh consider the perspective of a European country. You consider yourself an ally of the US/UK etc only to find out that for spying purposes you're not much of an ally at all, you're a target. People say "well they're spies that's what they do", problem is that people assume that their friends don't spy on them. And also remember that the spies aren't just looking for terrorists, they're working to create advangage for their corporations. So the europeans found out that the US considers them a valid target for economic espionage, I'd imagine that they're quite happy about that as they can now change their actions accordingly.
>> From the perspective of a non US citizen it has shone a light on what a "friendly" government considers an appropriate level of spying on its allies and clearly shows that all governments are engaging in "offensive" operations on IT systems, and the lengths that they'll go to to achieve that goal.
>Imagine what non "friendly" governments are doing.
Indeed they're all at it. What irritates me personally is the double standards. Right before Snowdens revalations, the US were decrying Chinese spying and demanding a common standard of behaviour on the Internet which precluded that kind of thing. Then it turns out that they're up to their necks in exactly the same kind of behaviour.
I'm in IT security and for me this is really sad, as there's a real risk that government "offensive cyber operations" or whatever they want to call it, will have a seriously bad long term effect. It funnels loads of money into people working out how to compromise IT systems and places economic incentives on not fixing security issues, so those issues can be used to attack other countries.
You pull out the standard argument of authoritarian types in your last sentence. Fear. You are unconcerned about the decline of human rights in your country because some anonymous government source has conjured up some sinister foreign boogeyman.
Unfortunately, nobody (especially in the intelligence community echo-chamber) wants to entertain the idea that some of what they have been doing endangers thousands of people directly, and all the Five Eyes and beyond indirectly, by deliberately sabotaging infrastructure they use themselves in an effort to "master the internet". It is truly amusing to read some of the bullshit posted by JTRIG and CESG supporting their ideas.
This is truly embarrassing work: half-baked propaganda, with overt lies in it. Shameful and disappointing.
"It is truly amazing to read the rationales on here avoiding this idea."
No its not. If you read the original article or this link dissecting it, it raises so many questions it makes any free thinking person skeptical. Please read the link and then explain to me how the HN rationales expressed here are "truly amazing".
I think the question is if Snowden recklessly (i.e. without careful consideration of consequences) endangered the lives of <insert arbitrary people group here>.
Information is power. Snowden leaked damaging information about corruption in one of the most powerful and important surveillance groups. The public <replace with Russian, Chinese, child pornographers for emotional poignancy> has access to said damaging information.
The OP and the Times article are evaluating whether certain groups have 'privileged' access to the Snowden archive and that considerable harm has been done to British intelligence operations.
I think it's more damaging to not critically evaluate claims made by the Sunday Times article than to dismiss the HN discussion because of reverb in the echo chamber.
This article is full of downright lies. If you have such proof, please present it otherwise there is no reason at all to believe anyone was endangered.
Nobody (especially in the security theatre echo-chamber) wants to entertain the idea that what Snowden did alerted the public to the growing trend towards the establishment (presumably by mistake?) of all the apparatus of tyranny in countries like the US and the UK and to the dangers contained therein.
Hello Ernest Voice. Nice to meet you. (For those that don't know Ernest Voice is an NSA bot that posts stuff like this on forums.)
EDIT I doubt that this particular poster is actually such a bot. I am suggesting that his post is based upon not actually reading any of the facts and merely taking an opinion.
It's not ok to make swipes like this in HN comments. The implication of shilling is out of line, and even if someone hasn't read any facts, posting a comment that is itself factless doesn't help.
> We the willing, led by the unknowing, are doing the impossible for the ungrateful. We have done so much, with so little, for so long, we are now qualified to do anything with nothing.
Actually no this comment and this policy are not OK. Shilling happens on this forum and it is never called out. It needs to be otherwise it will in time kill the forum.
