Snowden criticises Amazon for hiring former NSA boss | Hacker News Reader

Snowden criticises Amazon for hiring former NSA boss

bbc.co.uk

133 pointsironyman44 comments

The former NSA boss was hired to close future deals between Amazon and the DOD for AWS. The DoD, and the NSA in particular, have had a close relationship with Microsoft going back to the 80s so the Pentagon selecting Microsoft for JEDI was always the default in my mind. Hiring Alexander is an attempt to make inroads with the active duty brass to spread the Good News about AWS. Even at a salary in the seven figures it’s a lot less expensive than advertising and litigation.

This is probably related to Bezos's buying of the Washington Post, too and their "NSA/CIA friendly reporting" subsequent to its puchase:

https://theintercept.com/2016/11/26/washington-post-disgrace...

What is CIA/NSA friendly about that article?

Also, The Intercept made a mountain out of a molehill here by spending an entire article ranting about an organization the WaPo mentioned only in passing in it's article.

Are you asking what's CIA/NSA friendly about smearing news publications which are critical of thr CIA/NSA?

Aside from the obvious it feeds their desire to foment fear and hatred of Russia which is good for the one thing they truly care about - budget increases to counter whatever seems like the most plausible threat.

> Are you asking what's CIA/NSA friendly about smearing news publications which are critical of thr CIA/NSA?

No, I'm asking what is CIA/NSA friendly about the WaPo article mentioned. The only news publications smeared in that article are RT and Sputnik, and they weren't smeared because they were criticial of the CIA/NSA but because they were spreading fake news.

Seven figures does not seem typical for a board seat. Where are you getting your salary info, and how do you know his role is to close deals? That would also not be common for that role. It is usually advising and maybe introductions.

Amazon is a behemoth, not a typical company. I'd assume the "salary" is a stock award and public data considering AMZN is a public company.

It’s not public information right now. It sounds like everybody is just making things up to be honest. But I was giving the benefit of the doubt, maybe a different article had it.

“Inroads”? They’ve been in bed together for awhile.

https://aws.amazon.com/federal/us-intelligence-community/

Yeah Amazon was arguably the first real cloud style platform that worked within the IC (even with it being a private cloud in a private datacenter).

Amazon is in no way an underdog in any way shape or form within the IC. It's simply bringing on people as any contractor does.

It seems strange that this article does not actually embed the tweets mentioned, nor do they link to his Twitter page. Other recent stories seem fine using that technique.

My cynical side wonders if Snowden's other recent tweets denouncing Assange's ongoing show trial are to blame.

> It seems strange that this article does not actually embed the tweets mentioned

That's because a tweet can be deleted by the owner of the tweet, and the embed won't show it in the article anymore. Embedding tweets in an article is usually bad practice, and it also slows down the page with unnecessary Javascript.

Frankly I see nothing wrong with just copying and pasting a Tweet, so now you have a verbatim copy of what was said. Then there is the issue of edited tweets which apparently are coming soon, giving another troll tool to users of Twitter.

They could still link to it without embedding. I don't see a reason for not doing it because even the "deleted" message is a message. It doesn't break the experience but ads information to it. In this case: the author didn't want to have this up anymore.

The utter lack of linking in internet articles is terrible. I understand that it's like free advertisement sometimes but hell...you're already reporting and the traffic from your page would ENCOURAGE potential ad clients to run ads on your page if it generates so much traffic...

I often wish there were more direct citations in journalistic articles. I hate to say this, but often when trying to find sources it is cluttered up by news articles.

So why is embedding and linking multiple tweets from a variety of sources fine when announcing Dame Diana Rigg's death but unacceptable in this story?

I would guess the tech reporters have different policies than the Hollywood reporters...

Then why quote and link to Elon Musk's tweets but only quote Snowden?

If anybody is interested in the tweets - https://twitter.com/Snowden/status/1303841107697168384

Thank you for looking this up.

So Big Tech, under anti-trust pressure, getting more in bed with the government. The case seems to not only be: "if you break us up, you leave room for foreign (ie Chinese) competitors, which is bad for national security", but also, "you should spend more money on security, too, so give us more contracts."

Where is the government going to buy computing resources from if not some sort of large American company? I feel like people would complain no matter the vendor. If they bought a bunch of Intel servers it would be "wow, wasting taxpayer dollars on an antique 14nm process". If they went AMD, it would be "wow, might as well just shut down the IRS and let TSMC collect taxes directly." At the end of the day, the federal government needs servers so people can download 1040 forms or whatever. I don't think it's that bad to pick Amazon, Microsoft, or Google for that.

Going deeper, no matter which cloud provider hosts their servers, it's up to the people to elect representatives that put forth the public policy programs they desire. I am sure AWS is just as happy to host some computer program that frees people that have been wrongly convicted of crimes as it is to host a computer program that uses machine learning to round up undesirables.

The antitrust case against Amazon is weaker than some of the other tech giants because there's pretty robust competition in both ecommerce and cloud computing (and groceries). The biggest issues I can see with Amazon is some of its practices with marketplace merchants.

here's to hoping Gab hires the retires patriot Admiral Mike Rogers to its board of directors to help protect the Qanon ecosystem as Gab expands into competing against Youtube and Facebook. ;)

I respect Snowden but his opinion on most matters these days is no more credentialed than “man on the street.” Whether I agree with him or not (here, I do) it’s not clear why he’s a trusted authority.

Can someone explain why this is newsworthy, or why Snowden's words in particular are valuable?

He's the guy who informed us all that Alexander is a criminal. Having paid a pretty full price for doing that he's definitely allowed to express an opinion on Alexander now cashing in embracing the corruption in big tech and with the sellers of the "Amazon Microphone" [1]

He's got a right to be bitter when he's defended the interests of the people at considerable personal cost from this criminal, who is now getting filthy rich rather than defending charges in a court of law. Beyond that, he actually knows something about surveillance and the surveillance state. He's followed it pretty closely. So far his opinions on the subject that I've noticed have been utterly sensible, well informed, well reasoned and worthy of serious consideration by anyone interested in the topic.

[1] Amazon PR apparently hate their listening device being called the "Amazon Microphone" It seems to convey what it is quite well to people who get bamboozled when recent tech is involved.

I think you are setting a very low bar for “filthy rich”.

Eye of the beholder. I think you're delusional in the extreme if you think a million bucks a year for attending a couple of meetings doesn't. It surely isn't his way of supporting the American people. He's doing it for the cash.

What percentage of people do you think earn a million (for the most part time of part time gigs)? Would any of them be "poor" ?

So now what percentage of those with military careers? Do you think on the standards of the military, ie his standards, a million a year isn't filthy rich? It seems to me like a lot more than they report those spying for foreign powers got paid!

Snowden is seen as a hero to many for fighting back against the “big guy” (US government). He was a nobody who embarrassed the government and now they want revenge. By not treating him fairly (such as refusing to guarantee a fair and public trial) and leaving him exiled in Russia for almost a decade, he’s become a martyr or sorts. It doesn’t help that the government has also intimidated people he’s been affiliated with (eg. Laura Poitras). As such, some view his words as having more weight than some Joe Shmoe on the street.

Put simply: he fought back against the schoolyard bully

Not everyone buys that narrative.

Surely enough "buy that narrative" to make it newsworthy yes?

I’m curious what about my “narrative” is incorrect? The only opinion part in that post was speculation on why those facts would cause people to value what he says.

Snowden leaked documents from the NSA revealing illegal mass surveillance. See here for more info: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Snowden

I'm aware of what he did. That doesn't make him an authority on anything.

If a person of Snowden's reputation is not enough for you, who is?

I don’t get this logic. What does his reputation have to do with what the parent is saying? Nothing that Snowden is saying here draws on any particular expertise or inside information. The point is that this is no different than you or I criticizing the hiring decision.

Why would you not want to at least hear someone's opinion, even if you discard it immediately thereafter?

Nobody, because they don't want the issue discussed, so they are going to attempt to discredit.

"If a person of Snowden's reputation is not enough for you, who is?"

I don't think anyone seems to grasp the OP's question.

Snowden is a low level analyst who leaked some relevant information. He seems like a smart guy. But none of this makes a person's opinion particularly informed or newsworthy, especially on these kinds of board level, inner circle type dealings.

Apart from his actions, he's very good at his job and argues and formulates his ideas and thoughts very carefully.

He's a leading thinker in our time, because he puts his thoughts out there in a new way, he's making well-reasoned arguments and he has a platform to spread his ideas.

It’s hard to square this response with what his tweets actually say. Did you read it?

It turns out "Hey Alexa" is short for "Hey Keith Alexander." Yes, the Keith Alexander personally responsible for the unlawful mass surveillance programs that caused a global scandal. And Amazon Web Services (AWS) host ~6% of all websites

That’s it. There is no new information or insight or “thought leadership” in that comment. We all known who Gen. Alexander is. It might as well be from anybody.

The question I'm answering is why Snowden's words in particular are valuable?, and it's not about any particular tweet. That they are short, comes with the medium.

But the whole article is specifically about his tweet. That was the parent’s point.

Reminding the world at large what Gen. Alexander actually did is important, the world has a short attention span.

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