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Comment by streetnigga | Hacker News Reader

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streetnigga

"does anyone seriously have a problem with this?"

Yes.

"there isn't really a domestic/whistleblower angle"

As if Chinese goods don't get sold within the US[0].

[0] http://www.huaweideviceusa.com/

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They don't backdoor all the Huawei devices. That's not how it works.

Good thing I didn't say they did. I referenced Huawei USA as to highlight there are indeed domestic facets to this story. I am going to guess given your comment you can with authority detail what devices are and are not backdoored. If you cannot I don't see what your comment is meant to convey other than that 100% of Huawai hardware has not been subverted.

Don't start this tactic of distorting someone's commentary again, the last time you decided to respond to me you went about aggressively making up bull-cock as if that is what I wrote. When it was pointed out and asked of you to address the subject instead of bringing up unrelated rubbish you only dug in changing to a belittling tone.

Overall I would rather you not respond to me at all. Thanks.

Your comment doesn't make any sense unless you believe NSA backdoors all the Huawei devices. NSA's implants aren't limited to Huawei; Cisco and Juniper implants have already been disclosed. I figured you believed they were backdooring all of them; after all, you also believe "you have NSA affiliates like Palantir mucking about with firms like Hunton & Williams. Teaming up to do attack work on generally anyone who opposes the persons who make up the facade that is US Chamber of Commerce".

I don't care who you want to reply to you or not. You're writing to the thread, not just to me, and vice versa.

How on Earth are you parsing my comment where highlighting a Chinese hardware maker's US arm is stating that 100% of the hardware has been backdoored by the NSA? I didn't even mention the agency. Just US domestic operations of a Chinese hardware maker.

I was nice enough to cite the persons and companies involved in that previous thread, including the detained Barret Brown. You addressed his drug use without the topic at hand that he reported on? I mention an article written by Michael Hastings that referenced Brown, and you insert bullcrap as if I said intel agencies killed him? You went on further to bring up Monsanto and Nickelback?

I ask you to not engage me anymore for a reason. You are a prick, tptacek. You are a prick.

I think the misunderstanding is this: targeted compromise of individual units, post-installation (tptacek), vs. compromise of all units of one or more models in the factory (you).

"compromise of all units of one or more models in the factory (you)"

_What_

I never mentioned anything like that. tptacek suggested that is what I meant, I directly said that was not. I've said I think subverting or weakening hardware/software for surveillance would be bad thing, not that the NSA has backdoored 100% of Huawei's products. I asked tptacek to stop making distortions because of this right here. I am running out of different ways to state this, why is is tptacek a primary source for what others say?

Back onto the comment I responded to initially, Chinese hardware makers do sell to the US so methods to subvert their devices do have US domestic ramifications. This would be contrary to what parent comment suggested.

Sorry, I didn't mean to put words in your mouth. I did say "one or more models in the factory," i.e. not 100%, because you clearly stated you didn't mean that. I just thought it wasn't completely clear that you weren't both talking about compromise in the factory. I guess I misunderstood you.

No problemo. On the topic of TAO I highly doubt subversion at the factory. Though I do believe the monolithic designs of the day from Samsung and Apple surely delight intel agencies like the NSA. Must shorten delays in redirecting shipments substantially!

This exchange is pretty hilarious...

It's not the most positive exchange but I have yet to have one with him that didn't result in the insertion of distortions or focus on the people carrying a message instead of the message. This was made clear with Hastings and Brown themselves being focused upon instead of the content of their articles.

After things like Nickelback started to be brought up.. I stopped believing responses were being made in good faith. Fast forward to now and apparently I am saying 100% of that maker's devices are backdoored by the NSA, any other interpretation "doesn't make sense."

While I acknowledge this is a public forum I would hope tptacek would also acknowledge I asked him not to engage me anymore previously, before he announces the forum's open presence as his mandate to respond.

He does seem to have a habit of only engaging when he can nitpick or twist the argument, which is the definition of bad faith.

So weird that I never seem to engage with the arguments I don't see issues with. What mental illness must cause that, I wonder?

It's the difference in mindset between having a discussion versus an argument.

In one case you are more likely to work for a mutually beneficial outcome, in the other it's a zero sum game where distorting your opponent's views becomes a common rhetorical tactic.

I'm not going to make grand claims, I just saw a lot of the latter from you recently.

No, that's not accurate. If you and others are having a discussion based on false premises, correcting those premises does in fact move the discussion forward.

Do you object to the very capability to exploit such commercial technologies? Or do you object to the NSA's exploitation of such capabilities?

I think many systems commercial and otherwise will be open to exploitation. I don't necessarily object to the NSA or another government's intel service hunting those bugs either to protect against or to exploit. I do object overall to the creation of exploits or the weakening of systems.

In the absence of a perfect system of governance I feel we should default to not giving unspeakable power to a concentrated few. The slides on the tools were leaked out of a for-profit firm that contracts for the NSA, next the tools themselves like music industry cohort MediaDefender[0] had happen to them? Or even worse a leak of a database the tools sift through like the Assad regime's BlueCoat[1] logs on political/sexual/religious targets?

Another US firm Palantir was itself tangled in a scheme Glenn Greenwald reported pre-Snowden regarding the targeting of political activists via a solicitation of work through Hunton & Williams made by the US Chamber of Commerce[2]. I can't trust the US intel community as far as I can toss it when conflicts of interest are apparent at every level of clearance given to contractors. So I will probably frown upon most alphabet boys exploitation of capabilities.

[0] http://thepiratebay.se/torrent/3819529/Mediadefender_-_ANTI_...

[1] http://bluesmote.com/

[2] http://www.salon.com/2011/02/15/palantir/

Considering the scale of funding the NSA and other government agencies enjoy, I think that any focus on "cyber warfare" is going to lead to a "weakening of systems". But this is inevitable when you give state actors a monopoly on extralegal means. Like you said, the onus should be on a robust system of legal and regulatory restraints on this power, which is what the Snowden leaks and others have shown we definitely lack.

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