NSA leaker Edward Snowden: U.S. targets China with hackers
washingtonpost.com
washingtonpost.com
For anyone that doesn't know what I'm talking about, I strongly suggest you spend some time in any of Honduras, Panama, Chile, Peru, Bolivia, Argentina, etc.
People in those countries don't "Hate Americans because of their Freedom(TM)", they dislike America for what it's done to their countries for decades.
Americans need to know about this kind of action being taken by their government so they can have input on whether it should continue or not.
EDIT: Yes, I meant "Kind of action" ... thanks.
Can you elaborate? I have no idea what you are talking about. And I already live in one of those places.
In Panama you could look at the shooting of unarmed, civilian students by American soldiers[1], or the invasion of Panama[2], an act that was condemned by the UN.
In Chile you could look at the ongoing intervention by the USA [3] - read the whole article, I especially like the quote "A White House press release in November 2000 acknowledged that "actions approved by the U.S. government during this period aggravated political polarization and affected Chile's long tradition of democratic elections...""
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martyrs%27_Day_%28Panama%29#The...
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_invasion_of_Panam...
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_intervention_in_C...
China is a target of US hacking. The US is a target of Chinese hacking. And so on and so forth for any other country's names you can swap in or any other intelligence gathering mechanism you can replace "hacking" with.
One part of this story that has always seemed baffling is his shock that espionage, the act of stealing secrets or convincing someone to betray their oaths and steal secrets for you, requires some less-than-moral activities.
And by disclosing that he possesses documents that he says describe U.S. hacking against China, he appeared to be trying to win support from the Chinese government.
This seems to be transitioning from leaking to let Americans know how their civil rights are being violated into something else.
So now he is using the secrets he learned to buy favor from the Chinese government?
The beneficiary of this information is the U.S. public, so they can actually have a real discussion about cyber warfare, rather than simply believing the government line of "China hacks us, and we only defend...". How can we have a real discussion about our role in the world if we're told only about foreign aggression and not our own?
They're a large, modern communist nation, competing with us politically and economically. There's a lot of political capital to be made playing them up as the successor to the Soviet Union in American minds. The next Red Menace.
If China was a predominantly Muslim country, plug 'terrorists' into the same socket, it would amount to the same difference, in terms of the rhetoric. If we found out Britain was spying on us (ECHELON aside), or Germany or Poland, whomever, it wouldn't have nearly the same sort of ominous sense of 'the other' that the spectre of China/Russia/the Middle East do.
I certainly didn't mean to imply anything tacit about China being communist having anything to do with their attempts to expand their influence or anything. It's what they should be doing.
It's like Kennedy and the non-existent "missile gap" that was used to justify a hawkish defense policy in the Cold War.
Furthermore, cyber-attacks against civilian infrastructure veer into the realm of "acts of war", depending on what they're trying to accomplish. If the NSA is mounting an aggressive paramilitary campaign against Chinese infrastructure that's definitely something that should be made known to the American people.
Something else far different indeed.
China is not an evil country but they are not pure as the driven snow either. They are aggressively pushing to gain access to resource-rich ocean areas that do not belong to them under UNCLOS.
On the other hand China almost certainly knows better than Snowden does how they are doing against NSA attempts, if only because of their own counterintelligence. So if I were Snowden I wouldn't think of giving China that kind of intel, it can only harm his standing here at home (and with those Asian countries under China's guns...) and wouldn't even help China as much as he seems to think anyways.
P.S. Why is no one pushing for a criminal investigation regarding the process used to give computer geeks security clearances? :)
Could you tell us how exactly you know that Snowden almost certainly couldn't have had access to intelligence that China would find useful?
(After all, it is plain enough that China looks at the issue as one such that it has to find out what vulnerabilities the United States government and private businesses have.)
From the article: "Snowden’s claims could not be verified, and U.S. officials did not respond to immediate requests for comment."
Suddenly, a guy who has had this information for several years decides that NOW is the moment he must step forward with his revelations. He runs off to China (yes, Hong Kong is China), and "confesses" that his agency has been cyberattacking China.
How remarkably convenient this must be for China at this moment, and how remarkably coincidental that he chose China to run away to. Coincidences happen, of course, but I'm not ready to gush about Snowdon's patriotism just yet.
How much would the propaganda value of China being able to shirk its label as human rights invasion of internet privacy by showing that the USA is doing the same thing be worth? China protecting freedom of expression online...
Snowden is very clearly signalling that he has a lot more secrets, and would like to get some kind of special consideration from china. in particular he seems to be claiming he has a lot of info on US cyber attacks on China, which in no way are 'protecting the US constitution' and in everyway are good old fashion espionage.
... then again wonder if Snowden is going to be the justification for even stronger snooping once he turns out to be a spy.
He has said the U.S. is cyber-attacking China. This is important information for the U.S. public to know when the U.S. government is criticizing China for cyber attacks. How can people hold the executive branch accountable when they're basically being lied to? ("The Chinese are cyber-attacking us, and we only defend...") Is there a primary aggressor in the cyber war? It's an important question.
Suggesting he is a spy for revealing very non-specific information that the Chinese government already knows but the American people do not is ridiculous.
or if he is a very slick operative and this whole thing is part of a propaganda operation as he defects to China.
All I can say is he stole all kinds of classified documents, revealed some to cause an uproar in the US and paint himself as a hero, immediately flew to the one other super power in the worlds sphere of influence and started advertising he needs help and has a whole lot more documents that would be of keen interest to said super power
I don't really know how I feel about this either ethically or as a strategy, but it certainly could play out to Snowden's personal advantage after a bit of time on the international stage. I'd imagine some pretty senior level guys will get involved, and they will decide what to do with Snowden.
That said, regardless of his ultimate fate, this does seem like a legitimate and probably successful tactic for him to buy himself a bit more time in Hong Kong. The Chinese government will probably want to know what he knows, but they will presumably also have to wait for him to reveal what he is willing to over time.
Keep in mind Snowden has already hinted he knows some pretty "dirty secrets" and given his crypto background, etc. it is possible he has some sort of other treasure trove of documents that he hasn't handed over to the reporters yet -- this is sort of an ugly and dangerous game, but I'm sure he knew that from the moment he set things in motion.
He has revealed to the American people that they are taking an offensive rather than merely defensive role in a hacking war with China. This is important for the American people to know--how can anyone come to a reasonable conclusion about the issue if they only hear the government line that China is hacking and the U.S. is just defending?
China has also received this information, but it's ridiculous to believe they didn't already know there were hacking attempts.
If this is the case, it's difficult to believe the government of China doesn't already know...
Regardless to what value he provides to China with this, his motives are confusing. Is he seeking to save American's civil liberties or attempting something else?
But I do take your point, reading the article in detail along with the original article it references, seems like he might just be spouting off generalities about the US hacking and then was specifically asked about Chinese hacking since the original paper is chinese and he said yup...
The question I really dont know is if he is really really naive and easily lead into making these statements by the reporters or if this is carefully orchestrated propaganda...
Either way now that dude is saying these kind of things he has probably 72 hours or less before he gets delta forced up.
Additionally, to me it seems very possible that this is part of the smear that Snowden will have to endure, the point of this post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5868853.
I honestly don't understand how this could have change your opinion on him based on something you not only acknowledge is true, but also as "obvious".
This does make the government look bad in the eyes of US citizens--why are we crying foul at China when we are doing exactly the same thing, and may even be the more aggressive party?
If we are conducting this sort of warfare, the citizenry needs to know. It's probably a better issue to face publicly than to let it slowly morph into a new cold war espionage situation with China.
When you look at Keith Alexander's profile, just what do you think "Operations" are?
It appears to my jaded eye that Snowden copied everything possible while in the NSA, revealed a certain amount to rile up the public opinion in his favor and to cover over the fact he was copying everything in sight.
He seems to be positioning himself as a literal espionage agent right now, giving operational secrets or at least implying he is willing to reveal operational secrets for special treatment from china... and no doubt money.
The tone of his statements seem to be like a chinese propaganda mouth peice right now... funny how things are never as simple as they look at first glance
Could you please offer citation?
> And by disclosing that he possesses documents that he says describe U.S. hacking against China, he appeared to be trying to win support from the Chinese government.
China is known to be active in hacking attempts against US government and US industrial targets. They would therefore be greatly interested in any inside information they could get about US defenses against such attempts.
The NSA would likely have information on those defenses.
I would expect, then, that China would be quite interested in getting their hands on any NSA employee with a high security clearance in order to question them about those defenses. Snowden is publicly known to be a person. He likely has information that would also help China with their own internal spying programs.
And now, Snowden is letting China know that he's got even more valuable information of particular interest to them.
Given this, WHY did he pick Honk Kong to flee to? If China wants that information (and it is hard to see how they could not want it), their best move is to kidnap him and blame it on foreign agents (hinting that they think the US took him--which many people would find quite believable) and make him turn over his information to them.
Or maybe you meant we're actually in 'a weird post-post-modern dystopia epoch' and you're not simply ignorant of history and being hyperbolic...
Many people's log files say differently.
> You never considered the possibility that the US may be doing the same to China, but much worse?
What makes you think I never considered the possibility?
China might get more information out of him by being friendly. Sure, they could kidnap him, but they could also offer him asylum, a comfortable life, perhaps even a rewarding career in a field that interests him. That could loosen his lips more than simple bush-league torture.
Seems he's trying to build a platform and turn into a pundit/commentator. A whistleblower should just hand over documents and attest to what he's seen personally from his/her inside position.
So a tiny fraction are aimed at China, and this is the headline that's chosen? Did Snowden himself specifically call out China or is it just the reporter doing that?
It is a HK paper, so maybe the local angle is being pushed. And it doesn't have direct quotes from him about Chinese hacking. Still, it is an odd thing to even bring up and provide documents regarding considering how much it would call his credibility into question. Especially with how much control he had over the interview.
Snowden is a courageous, smart guy who is making a BIG point about the hypocrisy of the US government. He's making one of the biggest statements of the century, and he's put his life on the line to do it. Recognize!