On Tue, 11 Aug 2015 19:56:10 -0600 Mirimir <mirimir@riseup.net> wrote:
I have no problem with calling bullshit. Not at all. But if nothing is workable, government criminals have won, and we're fucked.
If that's the case, shooting the messenger will solve nothing. But that's not even what I said. Somebody asked about a particular idea and I commented on it.
What information is out there?
Methods, exploits, vulnerabilities, account credentials, passwords, etc, etc, etc. I'm not into that shit, but I know that it's out there.
Governments have point-and-click wiretapping capabilies for instance. Are you saying that any script kiddy has the 'passwords' to those systems?
Are you missing the point on purpose? The networks are 'owned' by the government and friends, and there obviously is no fucking way for joe six pack to use their infrastructure to 'watch' his masters.
Yes, the networks are owned by governments and their friends. But that doesn't mean that they're unusable.
Usable/unusable for what? It seems quite obvious that 'network administrators' can spy on users whereas users can't spy on networks administrators. The system is hierarchical by nature and design. And a rogue system administrator switching sides is not the same thing as users having power.
Free agents do get pwned, for sure. But all too often, it's bad OPSEC that gets them. Loose lips, mostly.
And yes, "joe six pack" isn't doing that. But once stuff has been put online, anyone can check it out.
And before the internet, people read the newspapers. Newspapers that 99% of the time worked (and work) for the powers that be. I don't think the discussion was about publishing information but about surveillance anyway. There may be some overlap but it's two different things.
But it doesn't get posted on open mail lists. Results are put online, via WikiLeaks, Cryptome, pastebins,
Not what I was getting at, not to mention, the amount of stuff that gets posted is (pretty) small.
What were you getting at? We've seen some amazing shit from Snowden. It's too bad that he was too patriotic to just drop the whole wad somewhere, however. So it goes.
That's fine and dandy, but getting and publishing some secrets doesn't counter the surveillance capabilities of the system. Also, there were (many) people who correctly assumed that the 'programs' that Snowden leaked information about, were already in place. You know, people who wore tin foil hats... But now that the information is 'officialy' public, has the nature of the surveillance mechanisms changed? Can we now track the movements of the millions of state employees? Listen to their calls? Browse their 'metadata'? Read their mails? I don't think so.
Oh, and let me know when the nsa really gets 'hacked' as opposed as having one employee betray them.
They've been betrayed several times, that we know of. Mostly it's for money, and we rarely hear about that, even when people get busted. Have you read James Bamford's books on the NSA?
No. I'll see if I get a copy.