Dailydave mailing list archives
Re: I am the reason we cannot have nice things on the Internet.
From: Michal Zalewski <lcamtuf () coredump cx>
Date: Wed, 22 Oct 2014 16:08:12 -0700
http://www.businessinsider.com/expert-here-are-4-things-edward-snowden-gets-wildly-wrong-about-the-nsa-2014-10
Oh boy! So... I'm decidedly ambivalent toward Edward Snowden. I found some of his disclosures troubling; but I also felt that many more of them were reported in a misguided way, ultimately unsurprising, and probably deeply harmful to the US. I am also an unabashed westerner. Having grown up in a culturally western country turned into a Soviet satellite state, I am very pragmatic in seeing the US as a force for good - and compared to the alternatives, I'm quite happy with my current country of residence having the upper hand in the world's affairs. But I also think that the article misses the point a bit. Some of Snowden's revelations are unsettling to many people because they expose a fearsome piece of secret machinery that, in principle, could be used to cause tremendous harm to political enemies. It's best to assume good intentions, but with the Cold War era checkered by developments such as the Watergate affair, the House Un-American Activities Committee, or any number of questionable assassination attempts, coups, and sometimes secret proxy wars orchestrated by the United States, it's not hard to see where the concerns are coming from. Such worries obviously can't be addressed by insiders - Dave included - coming forth and assuring the public that everything is in order, based on their own knowledge of classified policies or the degree of oversight provided by secret courts. If anything, it seems like a sure way to anger the critics =) Now, I think that most of the post-Snowden criticisms of the intelligence community do run into a fundamental problem: it is not particularly clear what are the alternatives; in the world of international affairs, there are very few real rules, and very little to be gained by taking a principled stand.
From a very pragmatic perspective of a guy working in the private
sector, I don't like two things about where we are right now: 1) I don't enjoy having to look at the NSA as a very unique adversary who will not necessarily stop at attacking or undermining the security of the systems I'm working on to get to their target. 2) I think that the specific practice of stockpiling 0-days is ultimately harmful to the Internet, especially since there is probably no deterrence effect to having a greater number of unfixed bugs. /mz _______________________________________________ Dailydave mailing list Dailydave () lists immunityinc com https://lists.immunityinc.com/mailman/listinfo/dailydave
Current thread:
- I am the reason we cannot have nice things on the Internet. Dave Aitel (Oct 22)
- Re: I am the reason we cannot have nice things on the Internet. Andreas Lindh (Oct 22)
- Re: I am the reason we cannot have nice things on the Internet. Thomas Quinlan (Oct 22)
- Re: I am the reason we cannot have nice things on the Internet. Thomas Quinlan (Oct 22)
- Re: I am the reason we cannot have nice things on the Internet. Parity (Oct 28)
- Re: I am the reason we cannot have nice things on the Internet. Michal Zalewski (Oct 22)
- Re: I am the reason we cannot have nice things on the Internet. Andreas Lindh (Oct 22)