Schneier on Security

Skeptical • February 8, 2014 6:33 PM

One bit of speculation from me:

Greenwald spoke effusively at one point about how well organized Snowden’s documents were.

I don’t think it’s possible for Snowden to have put eyes on 1.7 million documents and organized them in the time available.

But, if Snowden simply copied directory trees and contents… it all comes nicely organized and labeled for you, perhaps.

Skeptical • February 8, 2014 7:36 PM

@Black Angel – What? I did not understand anything in your last few posts. Could you explain?

@name.withheld – the country that worships the creative destruction of capitalism, the military of which relies on a technological edge preserved by the continued brilliance of engineers and thinkers across the US, the laws and culture of which celebrate and protect individualism and freedom of expression, is secretly plotting to use the NSA to somehow “filter” creative personalities from society? Come on. You don’t really think that’s even possibly true, do you?

As to your allegory, I think it may obscure your argument more than it clarifies it. I understand you to be saying that the US is engaging in cyberwarfare preemptively, and that it is, or seeks to, utilize private systems and persons as part of that effort.

While I don’t entirely agree with that, there’s a lot in that line of analysis that is interesting. But MAD isn’t really an apt analogy, since the game-theoretic structure of cyberwarfare is significantly different than that of nuclear warfare. As I understand your post, you’re using MAD to illustrate the similarities and differences in US offensive/defensive posture between the Cold War and today, but MAD is a quintessentially game-theoretic concept, so once you introduce it that becomes the focus of your audience.

Skeptical • February 9, 2014 7:47 AM

@Clive:

I didn’t say one word about anyone “returning stolen documents.” Very little in your comment seems to be actually directed against what I had written.

I linked to a New York Times article reporting on Snowden’s method of retrieval (sounds like a glorified wget), and asked whether this sounded technically plausible. You should read the article.

Now, if he were using such a tool to retrieve files, then I wonder whether he simply retrieved entire directories and sub-directories, and left them organized as such. This would provide him with out-of-the-box organization and labeling, with which Greenwald was so impressed.

As to Snowden not confirming whether he has taken 1.7 million documents, the consequences of forcing the US to operate under a worst-case scenario assumption is completely on him. This has nothing to do with Snowden returning documents. It has to do with him taking basic steps to minimize harm.

Legally, he’s done. His attorneys know that. The first year law student gazing in caffeinated befuddlement at his casebook knows that. There’s no question of lack of evidence. Clive, he’s confessed multiple times, and journalists have reported on confessing statements multiple times, in addition to whatever forensic evidence they have, in addition to the huge amount of circumstantial (which is not pejorative) evidence.

Snowden’s best hope is a deal. I think he knows that much. What I don’t think he realizes is the importance of showing good faith, and winning additional public support. The USG is never going to like Snowden; but they could possibly respect him if he made an effort to limit the damage.

So why does Snowden not limit the damage?

I suspect someone is whispering to him that it is more important that the US have absolutely no idea what journalists may report upon. If they do, these whispers continue, the US can suddenly change programs, can release documents ahead of the journalists with its own spin, and somehow control things. As to the costs, including the human costs, of forcing the US to operate under a worst-case assumption, these whispers say little, because those whispers quite frankly don’t know what the fuck they’re talking about. When special operations have to be cancelled or modified, it is sometimes the case that human beings must bear an increased amount of risk because of that, for example.

Snowden knows better. The only ones who benefit from him not minimizing harm by indicating at least what documents were actually taken are: (1) Wikileaks and journalists who do not want their “exclusives” to be any less so, and (2) enemies of the United States. If the government tries to spin a story the wrong way, then journalists working on these stories already have the information necessary to correct that spin.

The other part of the case being made by those whispering to him undoubtedly is that he needs to hold back minimizing harm in order to maximize his leverage. Whether that is true depends on information I don’t have, specifically whether his attorneys are negotiating with the DOJ and what the DOJ has indicated with respect to a deal. If however the DOJ has indicated that they won’t do a deal at the point of a gun, that’s likely true; and Snowden then needs to switch tactics by engaging in good faith minimization efforts, which will win him some credibility and which will also make the DOJ more inclined to negotiate.

Skeptical • February 10, 2014 6:17 AM

@Clive: Now in many juresdictions copyright violation is not a criminal offence just a civil offence […] Thus even if the country Ed Snowden ends up in has an extradition treaty with the US the chance of the US getting Mr Snowden extradited is minimal, and I’m sure the US DoJ is aware of this as are the legal types at the NSA.

Copyright has nothing to do with this.

Snowden violated US espionage laws, specifically 18 USC 793, 18 USC 794, and 18 USC 798. These are major felonies, and are covered in general by extradition treaties.

Thus to get Mr Snowden extradited they have to show he’s commited a crime that is sufficient for extradition to be granted. At the moment very few of the –supposed– 1.7million documents has been revealed, none of which show methods or sources that have any value as far as extradition is concerned.

The documents and Snowden’s own recorded statements widely reported upon are more than sufficient to sustain charges under the Espionage Act. These charges in turn would form the basis of a valid extradition request under most US extradition treaties.

As I’m certain Snowden’s attorneys have already told him, and as I’m sure he was well aware before that, the evidence available to the public is ample and sufficient to bring charges under the laws I referenced, and to enable a conviction.

The only way in which it may be to Snowden’s advantage to not take action to minimize harm is under the theory that this withheld knowledge may help him in bargaining with the US. Whether that is actually the case depends on facts I don’t have.

In other words, Snowden’s leverage with the USG consists in two things: information he has that the USG wants, and public support.

By not taking basic minimization of harm steps, though, he may find himself vulnerable on the public support front, and may for different reasons burn any chance of the USG being able to support a deal for him.

I strongly suspect that his current strategy is a mistake prudentially; I am certain that his current strategy is a mistake morally.

Skeptical • February 10, 2014 7:03 AM

@skepticredulous: The US Stasi’s most sensitive secret is not sources and methods or National Technical Means. Their best-kept secret is CCPR Article 17, …

Um, no. You won’t find a court anywhere in the world, much less the United States, who agrees with your legal arguments. And an attorney who presented those arguments would be committing malpractice.

Incidentally, it is curious to me that while many are willing, even eager, to speculate on how the NSA does things, few, if any, seem to willing to speculate on how Snowden took files.

Skeptical • February 10, 2014 7:18 AM

Last post as I’m out of time:

@lost: Not LE, not written for or directed to Snowden. I simply enjoy thinking things through and talking about them. As do most of us, I think.

Skeptical • February 10, 2014 8:53 PM

@Mike: Indeed – multiple drivers – so I was thinking maybe the ideological (for want of a better word) driver in Snowden’s case may be rather stronger than anything else – certainly on past form this seems likely given what he appears to have given up in order to do what he chose to do. My point, I think, was that sometimes when people find his actions/statements incompatible with self-preservation and/or a return to a semblance of normal life – as indeed you did in your prior post – perhaps more sense could be made of what he says and does when viewed through the prism of an often overriding ideological motivation.

I think in some respects that’s is the best explanation of what he’s done, but I don’t think ideology takes priority over self-interest with respect to everything.

Ideology to some extent explains the decision to engage in leaking documents at all (though mixed with self-interest, which I do not mean in a pejorative sense). But self-interest is the best explanation for many of the actions following.

He’s also rationalized those self-interested actions. According to him, the self-interested actions he’s taken are only for the sake encouraging future “whistleblowers.”

But that’s a pretty thin rationalization. Even if he were to “win” (to use the words he used in his communication to The Washington Post), the only lesson he’ll have imparted to future whistleblowers is “take information that will truly damage your country’s national security, and those of many others, and use it as a bargaining chip.” The lesson will not be “reveal the information you truly think to reveal criminal acts, take care not to endanger non-whistleblower information, and if your judgment is good, you will emerge bruised but successful.”

Skeptical • February 11, 2014 12:11 PM

@Buck: Good reference. But the Privacy Protection Act still allows documents a journalist has received from someone else to be compelled; the government simply must use a subpoena before using a warrant (unless certain circumstances apply). The journalist’s work product is a little more protected, but that wouldn’t apply to the actual documents transferred by Snowden.

@Mike: well, I see what you’re saying, but not sure I completely agree about the lesson. There has been lots of talk about striking a plea bargain with Snowden in exchange for his cooperation. The letter to Brazil, along with leaks about US intelligence collection against targets in Brazil, seems motivated by non-ideological reasons, as does the show-and-tell with the South China Morning Post before he was allowed to depart for Moscow.

You’re right that neither of us (as far as I know) knows what he has, but it seems a fair bet that he’s taken much more than is intended for publication or that includes whistleblowing material. Even if the rationale about not blunting the impact of reporting were correct (and I have doubts about this, as I’ve yet to hear of a story being blunted in impact by the government having advance knowledge of it, unless we count the scrambling that the US did to secure certain affected persons before the Wikileaks cables dump), there’s nothing blunted by persuasively telling the US that certain directories having little to do with the NSA were not removed from the site.

Also… this is a really heavy cost to impose on the US just for the sake of a possibly bigger splash on publication. We could be talking about cancelled operations, modified operations that include less reliance on possibly compromised assets or plans and that as modified are less timely or more dangerous, etc. Regardless of what one thinks about the threat of terrorism, there is no doubt that there are lots of military men and women from the US and other countries deployed to some distinctly non-tourist hotspots. Given the importance of OPSEC to the activities they’d be engaged in, I’m concerned about the probability that their work is going to get much more dangerous if they can’t rely on certain things.

And we haven’t even begun to talk about the price that the possibility of compromise would have on human intelligence operations in hostile or non-permissive environments.

All that for a little bigger splash?

Skeptical • February 12, 2014 11:19 AM

@skepisomething:

You’ve missed the point of my reply. This was your initial contention:

Their best-kept secret is CCPR Article 17, supreme law of the land equivalent to federal statute, with which domestic law at all levels must be brought into compliance; and UDHR Article 12, federal and state common law and customary international law of all nations; Articles V, IX, and X of the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man, binding in the jurisprudence of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and in the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights; and the American Convention on Human Rights Article 11, binding as conventional international law for states parties in the OAS. The right to privacy.

Contrary to the Juche of the NSA’s Songun Pioneers, surveillance, “whether electronic or otherwise, interceptions of telephonic, telegraphic and other forms of communication, wire-tapping and recording of conversations” are to be prohibited, according to the Human Rights Committee, which has interpretive authority over US jurisprudence under ICJ Statute Article 38. National-security antiterror nonsense doesn’t justify US government panty-sniffing, either: surveillance in war suspends the rights and actions of the nationals of the hostile party, a war crime in itself under Rome Statute Article 8.2.b.xiv and equivalent universal-jurisdiction law.

Because of this, you claimed, “legally, the NSA is done.”

After I noted that this is absurd, and that no court would recognize the argument as valid, you cited in response the prosecution of several persons in connection with an extraordinary rendition (or, as the Italian prosecutor termed it, kidnapping), Garzon, and Ocampo.

Now what do any of those three things have to do with whether a court would recognize your argument as valid? Obviously the Italian prosecution has nothing to do with international law (the crimes were committed on Italian soil and were prosecuted under Italian law), the Spanish law that enabled Garzon to conduct his actions has since been limited (and so is irrelevant here), and I really don’t know why you mentioned Ocampo.

Let me make this even clearer. Your argument is that nations around the world have by agreement (conventional international law, outside certain crimes like genocide and torture, which are proscribed regardless) and by practice (customary international law) decided that signals intelligence collection is a war crime.

You can see why that’s ridiculous, right?

I’ll bow out now. Please have the last word.

Skeptical • February 12, 2014 11:48 AM

@Mike: You are the one who is suggesting that his primary motivation is, as you put it, prudential – but in light of this you also find his actions to be self-defeating; you conclude that he is being stupid/unwise and/or is receiving bad advice. You may be correct – and the longer this goes on perhaps the more likely this is to be the case. I am simply trying to find an alternative explanation for this apparent contradiction based on the idea that his ideology may be a stronger driver than prudence.

That’s fair, although (small point) my argument isn’t that he’s being stupid even if withholding information is prudentially motivated. I can see how a reasonable person might believe such a withholding is advantageous. From a prudential vantage, I just think the considerations are too narrow; it’s like a chess strategy that is well thought through, except that it forgot to take into account that rook on the 7th rank which for various reasons may have been obscured to the strategist.

But I agree that there’s an ideological explanation as well. Perhaps we’ll learn more in the future.

You also say: Nor do I see how the government having advance notice will reduce the impact of news stories.
I think we’re just going to have to agree to disagree on that one. For sure, there are probably examples where you are correct, but all other things being equal it is surely going to be of advantage to be the first mover in these sorts of situations. I am also drawn to idle speculation about all the stories we may have never heard about because the leaker responsibly forewarned the leak-ees of the impending leak – though obviously such things are going to be difficult to quantify and use as examples!

Sure, this is something reasonable people can disagree about.

I can think of examples where a news organization went to the government, asked for the comment, and the government argued that the news organization should withhold the story.

Sometimes the news organization agrees, and does so (The New York Times on SWIFT monitoring). Sometimes the news organization disagrees and doesn’t do so (The New York Times on the location of a base used to launch UAVs).

But, for the US, I can’t think of any examples in the last several decades where the government forced a news organization not to publish or managed to somehow reduce the impact of the story by having advance knowledge.

You’re right that if the government somehow managed to completely suppress a story, and also managed to keep the suppression itself completely secret afterwards, we’d just never hear about it. But you’d think we’d also have heard about failed attempts if that were the case, and I can’t think of any (which may not mean much, since it’s just an application of the availability heuristic).