Schneier on Security

Skeptical • June 5, 2014 10:03 AM

A colorful statement indeed on security through obscurity!

Though on a second look, I see now that there’s an award involved. And that there are other people in the photograph. 🙂

@Gerard: A full pardon for Snowden is out of the question. I think he can probably win some years off his sentence and a better set of conditions in prison (a private laptop might be nice) if he:

(i) demonstrates awareness that major parts of his actions were deeply wrong, harmful to his country, and a betrayal of everyone who serves that country; and (ii) cooperates in a truly extraordinary manner.

Even then, there are three major components working against him. First, he did massive damage and he must have understood the likely extent of the damage when he embarked on this course. Second, one of the functions of criminal law is deterrence, and serving that function implies that Snowden’s punishment should be significant. Third, he seems to have taken an almost entirely adversarial approach to the USG and the NSA. These three things can be somewhat mitigated by the two steps I described.

There is a positive aspect to what he’s done of course, and although the positive aspect can weigh in his favor, the real problem is that much of what he did was not necessary to accomplish the positive aspect. If the attorney who leaked information about the so-called “Terrorist Surveillance Program” had gone as far beyond whistle-blowing as Snowden has, that attorney would never have walked away without a criminal charge.

For reasons which I’m tempted to speculate on, but won’t, I think Snowden chose an all-in strategy at the start: commit fully to achieving the optimal outcome for himself (lifetime asylum in a nice country) by winning public and legislative support and perhaps also by the leverage that comes with the information he took.

It’s an all-in strategy because it requires actions which make second, third, etc., best outcomes for himself much more difficult to achieve if that first, optimal outcome cannot be reached. And life can be sometimes be uncompromising with those who do not compromise.

Skeptical • June 5, 2014 2:07 PM

@Gerard: Separate Snowden’s actions into two parts.

Part A: Documents to substantiate claims of policies and programs that are arguably illegal and unethical;

Part B: Documents about policies and programs that are unarguably legal and ethical.

There’s a viable argument that, with respect to Part A, Snowden is a whistle-blower. Personally, I have a lot of doubts even about this, but I can understand the other side.

But with respect to Part B, there’s no defense and no question of whistle-blowing. At best Part B is about leverage.

Imagine for a moment that the DOJ attorney who leaked the TSP to the New York Times in 2005 didn’t just leak that program.

Suppose he also grabbed documents detailing highly sensitive, legitimate, ongoing operations and investigations by the FBI. There are undercover operations, specific wiretaps, enough information to identify informants, etc. And then suppose he fled the country with all those things to Russia. Suppose that he gave a large portion of his trove to various journalists and organizations across the world. The journalists did their best to be responsible, some more than others, but there’s enormous pressure on journalists to publish, and so a fair amount of information was released that, while certainly interesting, didn’t reveal any wrongdoing. Meanwhile, what does the DOJ do about all the operations, personnel, assets, techniques, etc., that have at a minimum been compromised? They have some hard choices to make.

So although I think it’s fine to just talk about Part A for various purposes, if we’re going to talk about what Snowden himself deserves then we’re going to need to talk about Part B as well.

And let’s be clear on what Part B means, because it’s often described clinically, in a detached way that may be useful to certain modes of thought but which doesn’t convey the true cost of the compromise.

Let’s say Part B includes assets deployed to facilitate access to protected systems in hostile parts of the world. In some cases putting the equipment in place to get that access – whether it’s a sensor in the ground or a USB stick in a pocket – would have involved putting personnel in dangerous situations. When that access is compromised, you can look at in a narrow sense as a loss of intelligence capability. The true cost though is not just the loss of capability, but the undermining of the risks and sacrifices made by personnel to achieve that capability. And those risks and sacrifices won’t appear in any of those powerpoint presentations. They’ll describe the intelligence gathered from sensors 1 through 2048 in the desert and how to view it; they won’t talk about the men who died getting them there (or just training to get them there).

Mr. Snowden is free to return to the United States to accept, in person, everything he is merited, awards and otherwise, for Part A and Part B of his actions.

Skeptical • June 5, 2014 4:49 PM

@Gerard: That’s very courteous of you, and I did not find your other comment to be hard.

I went back and read your original comment (because, like everyone, I’ll often focus on parts that interest me and defocus parts that don’t). When you refer to the parts I didn’t talk about, are you referring to the danger Snowden would face in the US from a vigilante of some kind?

I’d agree with that assessment. If the scenario you posit actually happened (he receives a full pardon and returns to the US), he might need official protection for a period of time. That said, I’m not sure how much anger Snowden really sparks among the public (I’ve seen polls that tend to show a roughly divided public, but I haven’t seen any polling that attempts to measure the intensity of opinions held).

Just to be clear, regardless of whether he were pardoned, I’d be outraged at any attempts on his life. We have a legitimate system of law, however ugly it often is, and Snowden would be as deserving of its protection as anyone else.

I haven’t seen or heard rhetoric of the sort you’re describing. That doesn’t mean it’s not out there and significant, but I try to avoid outlets selling that kind of garbage.

@DB: I think Nick raised a good suggestion with the Squid thread. I can say with high confidence that my beliefs don’t border on “Nazism”, though I know far less about a turnip’s morals (good turnip intelligence is hard to come by) and wouldn’t want to unfairly disparage them. If you want to discuss, let’s do so over there.

@Nick: Fair enough, and I’d agree that your skepticism is warranted given how little we know about what has been withheld. But those who have seen some of it have indicated that it contains information at least of the type I imaginatively described. I’ll see if I can grab a few references and reply over at the Squid thread.