Schneier on Security

Nick P • June 24, 2015 5:54 PM

Seems that few commenters get the situation with Hayden. He’s actually a smart guy and solid manager that turned an incompetent defense-related organization a full 180. That’s hard to do in any organization, esp government or military. Their SIGINT capabilities grew quite a lot. His successor is possibly smarter given his engineering background and the results in the Snowden leaks. The two of them have heavy conflicts of interest on the pro-DOD side. So, they intentionally mislead or even act dumb about both the legal and technological risks. Hayden is both more active at this and easier to spot. Yet, even I rarely mock them given that they handed almost the whole Internet and security community’s asses to them.

Note: Rogers, on the other hand… mock at will.

Brings me to the other issue. That comment he made was on purpose. It’s a habit that many of the elites along the lines of Rockefeller developed. They know they’re dominating the battle so well and against such submissive/clueless people that they straight up insult those people by talking more directly. They do it because they can: all the abuses didn’t lead to shit in legal response despite massive publicity. So, Hayden straight up tells the Wall Street Jr how little the response matters. And so we saw Americans rush Congress to force concessions on all the other programs, right?

Nope. Hardly a blip on their radar. Just as one expects in a thoroughly subverted and apathetic democracy. He’s just rubbing our sides nose in it knowing he’ll get hateful comments on the Internet while his side continues winning in practice, including getting those comments before the web sites themselves. 😉

Nick P • June 24, 2015 10:42 PM

@ Special Olympians

By 180, I mean the NSA was totally failing as an organization. He noted all its problems and then did enough about them that they’re… not quite failing (see Snowden). There has to be hundreds to thousands of ticket-punchers that get nothing done for every one Hayden or Alexander. I know enough of these organizations to give them due credit on that. You can only beat an enemy once you’re fully aware of what they’re capable of. That so many laugh at the winning side is just stupid to me. It’s not a laughing matter: their schemes are working. People wanting to beat them need to assess their strengths in every area, assess weakness, come up with a plan, and then double down acting on it.

Far as the law, it’s the military intelligence complex so those parts of your posts are just funny. He’ll get what’s coming to him? Like Obama? Like Bush Jr? Like Bush Sr? Like Johnson? Like anyone else? No, they didn’t. Pretty much none of them. Anonymous people hoping for justice never achieved anything. They’re all mocking you equally I guarantee that. There’s smart people fighting them legally. They recently achieved whats in the video Bruce linked to. Hayden’s definitely laughing at them, you and everyone else.

Fortunately, certain public, private, and international groups have been trying other routes than legal battle with quite a bit of success. Each little gain can be combined into strategies that might achieve something against them. For now, though, they are mostly laughing with very few causing them headaches.

Nick P • June 25, 2015 9:53 PM

@ AlanS

The one’s deserving to be mocked are the people that tolerated that and still do even when they learn they’re being robbed/deceived/sold-out. Hayden and his pals are actively mocking them. Those people getting defeated and robbed repeatedly need to do something in response more effective than mocking. Something that changes their situation. I’ll be more amused if they do that while also mocking their newly desperate opponents.

Note: A tiny few are amusing. 😉

Nick P • June 26, 2015 3:28 PM

@ AlanS

Thanks for the link. That is the most honest and true thing he’s ever said. Second would be his claim that whatever box they put his operation in he’ll go right to the edges. Second because I’m sure he draws a slightly larger box around theirs and goes to its edges. 😉

Lawfare article had fair points. First, top nation-states can only sometimes be stopped with black program security with best personnel, physical, and information security. OPM… is on a bit lower level of the game and will get smashed in myriad ways. Second, those with the mandate or skill to do something didn’t seem to even try. Third, OPM would have to run their own software on their own systems through a highly assured guard to even begin to have protection or user accountability. Even keeping legacy, that would require a huge investment with specialist security engineering that I doubt they were given. Fourth, which might apply to OPM, there’s government policies on COTS acquisitions that might prevent their use of secure GOTS tech or push them in a preferred (insecure) contractor’s direction.

So, OPM was set up to fail against a High Strength Attacker from the beginning. If we judge them, it should be on the baseline and effort made. Then figure out who to push for a better situation. So, I agree with Wittes here.

Also a nice quote there that describes the NSA’s actual INFOSEC job I keep telling people about:

“NSA’s Information Assurance Directorate (IAD) protects and defends National Security Information and Information Systems, in accordance with National Security Directive 42. National Security Systems are defined as systems that handle classified information or information otherwise critical to military or intelligence activities.”

Even if they develop strong INFOSEC, they only have to deliver it to the organizations processing classified information or certain defense contractors. That’s why we should look to reputable people in industry, academia, and other funding organizations (i.e. DARPA, NSF) for solutions.