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Comment by ihsw | Hacker News Reader

Forget surveillance data -- we have a veritable treasure trove of zero-day exploits. The US Gov (and many other's) are very active in the zero-day market with an impressive stockpile.

We have so much effort into offence that we ended up forgetting about defence, and losing the latter makes the former largely ineffective. This completely destroys the credibility of the NSA's argument that they deserve ever-more expanding powers to reach around the globe, especially given that we will have hands following the neat trail that we have behind ourselves.

Why do we give them the power to act with impunity and without oversight, trusting them to reach around the globe, when we expose ourselves the whole length of the way?

It's like leaving the door open at Fort Knox because we're too busy spying on our neighbours.

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Give them the power? No that's not how it works in the USA.

Companies have free reign to do what they will, its up to us the people to demonstrate why / decide what they are doing is illegal and demand laws around it.

I think the question is why aren't more people pissed off about this? Some would say its apathy, I would say its simple lack of knowledge and understanding. Nobody wants to be spied on.

This isn't an argument in favor of the espionage state, upfront clarification. People typically aren't afraid of things they haven't yet personally been given a reason to be afraid of.

Americans are told the spying makes them safer. Americans fear terrorism, and they're told the focus of the spying is terrorism. Very, very, very few Americans have seen negative repercussions from the spying (so far as they personally notice or 'feel' going about their daily lives). So far, to that typical American, it's almost all theoretically helpful and not harmful.

I agree that a lack of understanding - properly comprehending the full historical scope and risks of such power - is at the root of why it's tolerated. I think inside of most Americans, you'll find a belief that their government can't be fundamentally evil (thus they don't fear the really bad potential outcome scenarios of such spying), even if it occasionally does something bad.

You've noted something very interesting. People in the West seem to have forgotten the essence of government. Government is not a charity. For better or for worse, it's a monopoly on violence. Any action it takes is ultimately predicated on the threat (or use) of force. IMHO the sooner people realize this, the better.

Under mass surveillance no-one voices dissent.

Pew reports most Americans have modified their online behaviour since Snowden.

An illusion of consent produced by fear.

I imagine the zero days, or at least their existence, are also vulnerable to this group.

Point is that if a group breaks-in and steals all the zero days, backdoor access, etc. - they very might be able to end the world if they wanted to do so. Further, by not focusing on defense, which is assumed by the fact that APT6 was able to get in, there's the remote chance that this might happen; hell Snowden likely could have done this if he wanted, but didn't.

How can you call them zero-day exploits when the people who "have them" can't even keep their "top secrets" secret?

I expect the other guys have them as well.

We count from when the majority of the good guys hear about them, not from when some bad guys do. The term is about response time, not exploit time.

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