General Alexander wearing EFF shirt | Hacker News Reader

General Alexander wearing EFF shirt

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109 pointsFredericJ40 comments

Context:

"Nicole Smith, an associate attorney at Tully Rinckey PLLC in Washington, D.C., and a former security clearance investigator"[1]

"In a photograph posted online after Snowden revealed himself, his laptop displays a sticker touting the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a longstanding advocate for online rights and staunch opponent of government surveillance. That would have been enough of a warning sign to make it into his file, Smith says"[1]

And the EFF respond by showing a picture of the director of the NSA wearing an EFF T-Shirt.

[1] http://nation.time.com/2013/06/15/potential-blind-spots-in-c...

More Context: It looks like he was wearing it at devcon to help recruit hackers. I wonder how that worked out for him.

http://money.cnn.com/2012/07/27/technology/defcon-nsa/index....

Two things from the article that I want to comment on:

>>"In this room, this room right here, is the talent our nation needs to secure cyberspace," Alexander told the standing-room-only audience at DefCon, a grassroots gathering in Las Vegas expected to draw a record 16,000 attendees this year. "We need great talent. We don't pay as high as everybody else, but we're fun to be around."

There was an EFF talk at Defcon a long while back where they told us about how the RIAA was recruiting talented hackers to join their ranks. Their warning was that the RIAA wasn't just a bunch of goons. They were hiring among us and we should be more careful about covering our assets. Not completely related but possibly relevant.

>>Alexander's appearance is a milestone for DefCon, a hacker mecca with an often-uneasy relationship with the feds.

It's not quite as serious as they're describing. With the "Spot the Fed" game being the most obvious nod that there isn't a real uneasiness but rather the rebellious "us vs. them" feeling of hackers vs. government. All very friendly though. I'd imagine most people thought it was neat to be in the same room as the NSA Director.

Doesn't hurt that most of the organizers work for the DoD now...

I guess this would be the talk:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tz0ejKersnM

and this would be the counterpoint:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqIz-RNUL1g

The context here is a Time Magazine piece by Andrew Katz suggesting that the EFF sticker on Snowden's laptop should have been a warning sign to Booz Allen, and should have been recorded in his personnel file.

Nobody at NSA (or anywhere else in the Executive branch) has cast public aspersions on EFF, at least that I know of.

appropriate plug:

Get your T-shirt or sticker at https://supporters.eff.org/shop

Someone here on HN thought the tor stickers on Snowden's laptop was a reason to believe in tor's security:

"Snowden had Tor stickers on his laptop, that sort of lends credence to the fact that NSA doesn't have it down yet on how to id Tor users and it is still a good and reliable anonymity tool." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5880474

That's from when General Alexander gave a speech at DefCon last year.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-57481689-83/nsa-director-fi...

He's also wearing a Casio F-91W on that picture ;-)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casio_F91W#Claimed_use_in_terr...

Almost as bad as George Lucas in a Han Short First t-shirt with Harrison Ford[1]

[1]http://tshirtwebsites.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/07/han-shi...

The NSA throwing suspicion on EFF, perhaps. Or flashing colors of an NSA honeypot. Or he's just fucking with all of us. Maybe he just likes the shirt.

Why is a dude wearing a shirt on the front page?

Probably because he's the most powerful person on the planet wearing a t-shirt which signals that he stands for the very value's most assume he disregards?

Great, now I'm totally reassured.

... it's still interesting

Most powerful guy on the planet? I hadn't heard of him until now.

Most powerful guy on the planet? I hadn't heard of him until now.

He's probably heard of you and that's the real power. He may have to do a few searches but he definitely knows more about you than you know about about yourself (you can forget what you said, how you felt or what did--the computer does not)

He is still subservient to the government. And really you would only know the most mundane stuff about me by seeing my google searches.

Dude, he IS the government.

No, he's an employee.

"No, he's an employee" ... who likely has access to all his bosses' communications.

In the sense that J. Edgar Hoover was an "employee," perhaps.

go date him if you feel this strongly

lul, the computer doesn't see into the mind or the soul, and that's exactly what a guy like this would want you to believe.

you're ridiculous if you think a person can be reduced to a model derived from algos

"Why is a dude wearing a shirt on the front page?"

Not sure if...

"Most powerful guy on the planet? I hadn't heard of him until now."

OK. Troll.

huh?

Most powerful guy on the planet? I hadn't heard of him until now.

Do you think that your having heard of him, or not, has anything to do with how much power he wields? The guy commands the NSA and a big chunk of US military forces. See: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/06/general-keith-alexa...

"Keith B. Alexander (born December 2, 1951) is the current Director, National Security Agency (DIRNSA), Chief, Central Security Service (CHCSS) and Commander, United States Cyber Command."

-wikipedia

This is Keith Alexander[0], the current director of the NSA. It's ironic that the person wearing a shirt from a group that strives for digital rights, including privacy, is worn by the Director of an agency that is trying to snoop on all communication.

0: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_B._Alexander

In addition to the SIGINT/spying mission, they also want to secure US (government and private) infrastructure, and need a technically competent workforce to do both missions. So not that hard to understand.

I sense a slight conflict of interest.

Internal to NSA that's called the "equities debate". Pretty much fought through the 1990s -- the defense guys won once credit cards needed to be processed online, and 1998-2001 was kind of the golden age, then the Saudis crashed their planes and pretty much from 9/11 on it's been all the offense/SIGINT.

Within the government, there were a lot of big pushes through the 2000s (and to today) to do things like disconnecting government from the commercial internet except via specific gateways, get host based intrusion detection on all DoD computers ("HBSS"), ban USB keys (after the Russians started putting nice factory shinkwrapped ones full of malware in the on-base markets in Afghanistan...), etc. I.e. bringing government up to the level of a well-secured private organization.

Of course you could argue that those aren't necessarily separate missions.

http://articles.latimes.com/2009/jul/14/opinion/oe-radack14

Most of the COMSEC mission is getting secure software/algorithms/protocols/standards speced, written, and deployed, not secure IDSes and stuff operational (that's generally been done at the service level or below). And generally the NSA's contribution to commercial security has been via their advisory role to NIST in the process to develop or select things like AES, SHA, etc. (and various FIPS, like 140-2, required to sell to government, but also used by private industry).

The "NSA run CERT/IDS/etc." is obviously problematic, but I'm pretty happy to have NSA/NIST advising on algorithm selection, as long as the algorithms also are liked by the open community (giving NSA a veto, even a secret veto, seems fine as long as there are enough options.)

Wired had a pretty good article about him the other day.

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/06/general-keith-alexa...

HN went full retard and it isn't coming back.

Let's tone down the criticism. the NSA can be hipsters too right?

Poser.

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