Obama Admin. admits to surveillance methods: Beating a Dead Horse Pt. 74

[luke viia]

"there's is absolutely no way you or i or anyone on watmm can possibly come close to revealing some significant facts about such program if it even existed, especially the people or countries behind it, are you at least capable of understanding this ? that the most you can get is some speculation ?

what possible serious proof can you bring to back the idea that stuxnet is the most irresponsible program since manhattan project ? some snippets of some "experts" from rt news talking about ?"

lol what, why are you acting like stuxnet is some sort of wild undocumented conspiracy? can we agree that it's a bit ridiculous to act as if there could be "proof" that one program is more irresponsible than another? how would you even quantify that? suggesting that JE needs to prove something like that just shows that you're either trolling him or trying to bait him in to "proving" an opinion, and this is just an anthropological observation from a libertarian guy, but you know better than to ask someone to do that

[luke viia]

also, i find all that chat-log-mining of snowden's conversations from 4 years ago rather voyueristic and pretty irrelevant. why are people more interested in the guy than in the leaks? even compson is posting those ars techinca IRC logs over on bdb as some sort of persuasive aid to the idea that snowden is an ideologue/traitor. too bad the IRC logs of a bored 22 year old have very, very little to do with the legitimacy of the NSA leaks. :P

[eugene]

how would you even quantify that? suggesting that JE needs to prove something like that just shows that you're either trolling him or trying to bait him in to "proving" an opinion

good question ! it's not me making this comparison, did you read this part of the post of his?

 

The consequences of Stuxnet being released, just to disrupt IRanian nuclear enrichment is one of the most irresponsible things the US has ever been a part of since the Manhattan Project.

 

 

so im just questioning his knowledge and sources on which this ridiculous statement is based.

[luke viia]

i see your point i guess, though it's his opinion, like your idea that US health care is a more important diss on obama than guantanamo. not really worth dedicating a discussion to, just something to shrug off or accept or counter with actual info, but yeah. i would agree that stuxnet was malicious and irresponsible, regardless of the government behind it - US, Israeli, whoever.

[Plarkreluke Banloboh]

On a deeper level there is no terrorism, it is a negligible afterthough compared to the real terrorism being conducted daily by those same people that have set up and run this sinister system. Therefore even if you were to accept the paranoid logic behind such a system, there still is no justification for the system, well unless they dispenced their ability to keep secrets, allowing us to track and monitor the goings on of today's true terrorists.

Exactly, imagine if it had been revealed that there was a terrorist organisation intercepting and storing all private electronic communications and data. We are told that if you're doing the right thing that it won't need to be looked at, it will only come into use if you are an enemy of the state. Meanwhile the state has no qualms about becoming an enemy of it's citizens - how else would you describe someone who steals all your stuff, other than as an enemy?

 

On the other hand, one area where I could see all this storage being useful is for future historical study (more the domain of librarians and archivists rather than military and security). There may be rare instances of human genius in this era than will only come to be regarded in their full significance after hundreds of years have passed, like with Shakespeare or Da Vinci. When historians study and write about the details of Leonardo Da Vinci's life, they try to gather as much information as possible about his upbringing and influences so that we can better understand how he could possibly make scientific and engineering breakthroughs so far ahead of the curve. I doubt they give much thought to his privacy hundreds of years after the fact (but then again maybe they should?).

[goDel]

also, i find all that chat-log-mining of snowden's conversations from 4 years ago rather voyueristic and pretty irrelevant. why are people more interested in the guy than in the leaks? even compson is posting those ars techinca IRC logs over on bdb as some sort of persuasive aid to the idea that snowden is an ideologue/traitor. too bad the IRC logs of a bored 22 year old have very, very little to do with the legitimacy of the NSA leaks. :P

Only one post in this thread, yo! And hardly as a tool for proving something as well.

 

I do however find it relevant in the sense that it could be an indicator for some sort of smearing campaign. Like you say, it can draw away attention from the actual content. The article does fall into place with the administration suddenly calling him a hacker. I'm not saying arstechnica dances to the governments wishes, but i do think it's good to be aware of where the general story tends to go and how the minds of the general public are pointed into certain directions.

 

And besides, it does give an interesting background into the person itself. And yes, I'm completely being voyeuristically dirty about it.

[goDel]

Also, lol

[awepittance]

"there's is absolutely no way you or i or anyone on watmm can possibly come close to revealing some significant facts about such program if it even existed, especially the people or countries behind it, are you at least capable of understanding this ? that the most you can get is some speculation ?

what possible serious proof can you bring to back the idea that stuxnet is the most irresponsible program since manhattan project ? some snippets of some "experts" from rt news talking about ?"

lol what, why are you acting like stuxnet is some sort of wild undocumented conspiracy? can we agree that it's a bit ridiculous to act as if there could be "proof" that one program is more irresponsible than another? how would you even quantify that? suggesting that JE needs to prove something like that just shows that you're either trolling him or trying to bait him in to "proving" an opinion, and this is just an anthropological observation from a libertarian guy, but you know better than to ask someone to do that

he is trolling me, and I keep falling for it. I just have to remember that most of this information is out there and able to be found by people who aren't lazy.

 

the denial is also astounding, when he says that no one could possibly know who made Stuxnet, well sorry to break it to you dude, they've admitted to it. I don't know how much more clear cut it can get than that. I get the impression that there are a lot of people out there who after denying blatant reality resort to anger and ridicule as a coping mechanism so they don't have to face documented facts. The part about me saying it's as irresponsible as the Manhattan project is my opinion, but everything else I said is not really conjecture or up for debate, it's all out there as plain as day. Everything else I laid out is part of a world-wide consensus on what Stuxnet actually is and does.

[awepittance]

My bad. Apparently it causes JE to cringe real hard. Probably a thing to do with fear.

i think it's just a not very clever way of wrapping an ad hominem fallacy in a pseudo intellectual wrapper, something you are quite good at.

[goDel]

?

 

edit. nevermind.

[eugene]

 

"there's is absolutely no way you or i or anyone on watmm can possibly come close to revealing some significant facts about such program if it even existed, especially the people or countries behind it, are you at least capable of understanding this ? that the most you can get is some speculation ?

what possible serious proof can you bring to back the idea that stuxnet is the most irresponsible program since manhattan project ? some snippets of some "experts" from rt news talking about ?"

lol what, why are you acting like stuxnet is some sort of wild undocumented conspiracy? can we agree that it's a bit ridiculous to act as if there could be "proof" that one program is more irresponsible than another? how would you even quantify that? suggesting that JE needs to prove something like that just shows that you're either trolling him or trying to bait him in to "proving" an opinion, and this is just an anthropological observation from a libertarian guy, but you know better than to ask someone to do that

he is trolling me, and I keep falling for it. I just have to remember that most of this information is out there and able to be found by people who aren't lazy.

 

the denial is also astounding, when he says that no one could possibly know who made Stuxnet, well sorry to break it to you dude, they've admitted to it. I don't know how much more clear cut it can get than that. I get the impression that there are a lot of people out there who after denying blatant reality resort to anger and ridicule as a coping mechanism so they don't have to face documented facts. The part about me saying it's as irresponsible as the Manhattan project is my opinion, but everything else I said is not really conjecture or up for debate, it's all out there as plain as day. Everything else I laid out is part of a world-wide consensus on what Stuxnet actually is and does.

 

who admitted what exactly ? some anonymous people who didn't even go into specifics. what if they wanted to admit it for some reasons you don't even understand, is this even a variable in your conclusions ? do you honestly not understand how complex it can get, and that things don't necessarily fall into your "america is a monster" theory all of the time ? do you seriously not realize that you don't have the tiniest bit of credible facts to come to the sort of conclusions you're presenting here ?

you really have a problem differentiating between facts and speculations, and this condition of yours hasn't improved during all these years you've been posting political stuff on watmm.

[Plarkreluke Banloboh]

Talk about ignoring the facts, it's clear you haven't even been reading the thread Eugene.

[SR4]

Eugene, some reading:

 

US officials confirm Stuxnet was a joint US-Israeli OP:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/06/01/stuxnet_joint_us_israeli_op/

 

Obama Order Sped Up Cyberattacks against Iran:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/01/world/middleeast/obama-ordered-wave-of-cyberattacks-against-iran.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

 

Confirmed: US and Israel created Stuxnet, lost control of it:

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/06/confirmed-us-israel-created-stuxnet-lost-control-of-it/

 

Obama Admin admits the USA was behind Stuxnet:

http://news.techeye.net/security/obama-administration-admits-the-usa-was-behind-stuxnet

 

there are at least a dozen other articles. please take a second and relax. this is not hearsay.

[eugene]

i didn't say it was complete hearsay and that stuxnet didn't exist or anything like that, it's just that in such spy-games and it's extremely difficult to come up with some strong conclusions, the necessary facts usually only come out many years after.

btw, all of the articles you linked lead to a single source, the nyt piece, a single narrative, that is again mostly based on the info by a bunch of "anonymous officials". that's just not enough for me.

[SR4]

i didn't say it was complete hearsay and that stuxnet didn't exist or anything like that, it's just that in such spy-games and it's extremely difficult to come up with some strong conclusions, the necessary facts usually only come out many years after.

btw, all of the articles you linked lead to a single source, the nyt piece, a single narrative, that is again mostly based on the info by a bunch of "anonymous officials". that's just not enough for me.

 

 

oh its not enough for you. sorry I misinterpreted your criticisms.

[eugene]

why, is it enough for you ? aren't the standards supposed to be higher in your field ?

[awepittance]

why don't you employ some deductive reasoning here? Most computer software experts who've looked at this (again not based on the NY times admission) say that it would have taken the resources of a very well financed organization that also had the motive to stop Iran's nuclear ambitions. It is over 20x more complex code-wise than any previously known virus in computer history. Who else besides the United states would be able to afford a hundred million dollar expenditure on a computer virus that uses *actual* authentic stolen security certificates? Other viruses used spoof/faux security certificates because they don't have inside knowledge of the actual real encryption codes, someone like the US could probably get it from these companies out of 'national security'. It's just sort of weird, but sadly not surprising to me that you're fighting against a widely held consensus on what Stuxnet is, who made it, and what it's world wide future implications are. Look up any computer coder/scientist writings on the subject, especially one with expertise in viruses to confirm every single thing I've said about Stuxnet in this thread. And I'll be the first to admit I can be hyperbolic, but this is not one of those times.

so back to my original point, the US are hilarious hypocrites for saying anybody else are 'cyber terrorists' after they've launched one of the most extreme cyber attacks in the history of computers

[eugene]

most of the countries in the world want iran not to have nukes, some have more direct interest than others, and many of them are very rich and resourceful. so no, i don't understand how an aggregation of speculations and anonymous reports becomes a solid consensus in your mind.

[SR4]

why, is it enough for you ? aren't the standards supposed to be higher in your field ?

 

no. everything we write is based upon conjecture and anonymous sourcing.

[Guest cult fiction]

Is The Tuss really RDJ? I mean, despite it having his signature style, expensive analog synths, and being credited to him by the BMI, can we really know for sure?

[goDel]

"Who else besides...?"

I can follow your logic and all, but there are still a lot of unexplored possibilities, imo. The virus was specifically written for a certain computer/ program, right? I'm rough about source material here, but I thought it was aimed at material made by Siemens. Lets say this was true, how likely would it be that Germany was involved, as well? Not impossible, right? And what about all the other countries who consider themselves opposed to Iran?

 

I'm not saying this is fact, or anything. Just that the reality here can be a lot more messy than some deductive reasoning can verify . So, although I think your point is likely close to reality (US were involved in development and are probably hypocrites), it'd be a stretch to present this as something which would hold in front of a court as fact. IMO.

 

Also the "one of the most extreme cyber attacks in the history of computers" part seems highly subjective and " they've launched" seems like a stretch. Going from likely "involvement" (my term, not yours) to obama almost pressing enter on a computer in iran - yes, i exaggerate to make a point here - would be an unprovable jump. The implied action is unknown and the implied responsibility/accountability is still clouded by a lack of facts, imo. At this point, I 'd call the term "launched" undefined. Someone writing a check? Some official signing a document? Someone getting the virus on a computer? And does it even matter in the end?

 

IMO, you don't need this particular example as proof for the US being hypocrites. We're all well aware of the various practices the US has been doing in the past. But whether they are bigger hypocrites than other countries is highly subjective. What do you think about Russia's involvement in Syria? Or in hiding Snowden at a Russian airport? Are they suddenly defenders of freedom of speech? What about China? How well versed are they in "cyber attacks"? What about their international policies? Or Great Brittain copying all the data which is going through the wires which are on the bottom of the Trans Atlantic? I don't see why the US needs to be singled out, here.

 

If you want to single them out, you could start and finish with the size of their "defense" budget. Those are well established facts which require hardly any deductive reasoning whatsoever. This budget is so big, the Stuxnet case is hardly relevant, even if it was a well established fact.

 

Imo, this seems like a case of hating the player, where it should be more about hating the game itself. There arent many countries which havent done things worthy of being some sort of evil empire. So if you want to discuss why you hate the game, by all means do so. But if you want to stick to hating on the US... Well you have every right to. But don't call people stupid for approaching this from another perspective. And the same holds in the opposite direction, btw. ( meaning: eugene should be playing nice as well)

 

 

Posts a kiss and makeup pic

/Bronie out and yes im too stupid to even type this all out...

[SR4]

[awepittance]

Quote

 

Imo, this seems like a case of hating the player, where it should be more about hating the game itself. There arent many countries which havent done things worthy of being some sort of evil empire. So if you want to discuss why you hate the game, by all means do so. But if you want to stick to hating on the US... Well you have every right to. But don't call people stupid for approaching this from another perspective

 

 

I obviously don't tolerate denial well, although i just want to point out I never called anyone stupid. It was Eugene who repeatedly did that. It's also not a matter of a 'different perspective'. Did you also just totally ignore what I wrote? It's been admitted that the US and Israel made Stuxnet....did you see that? Or can you somehow find a way to deflect that as well as some kind of 'different perspective' ?

 

You guys continually impress me by always managing to find a 'different perspective' that somehow always takes the blame away from the US military and government. The Pentagon would pay good money to have both of you create like 100 sock puppet accounts to defend them across the net. Have you considered that type of employment? I mean you're already doing the work for free might as well start getting paid

 

 

 

 

I don't see why the US needs to be singled out, here.

odd, once again either you totally ignored everything i said about Stuxnet or you literally didn't read it.

 

anyone who cares to take the time, scroll above to see what I wrote about Stuxnet, where it has been widely regarded as the most dangerous computer virus in the world simply because of the unintentional damage it could cause when it spreads to unintended targets. It can inadvertently shut down entire factories and power grids.

 

So maybe i didnt make myself clear enough but no other country in the world has made a cyber weapon this powerful or expensive that is capable of creating this much damage in it's wake. Do you understand why I'm singling the US out now? Or do i need to copy and paste all the text from my stuxnet posts

[Guest theSun]

we just need to get away from networked computers guys

[kcinsu]

So say we all!