Compare And Contrast
Via Corrente, a long Edward Snowden question and answer session that involved anyone who saw the notice and posted their question.
It gives you a good feel for who he is and why he did what he did.
Then Digby has the wisdom of the former Director of NSA, and then the CIA, General Michael Hayden.
General Hayden believes that the biggest threat to networked computing is not governments or criminals, but hackers, who he characterizes as dwelling in their mothers’ basements, and who are anarchists.
After reading the two posts consider this question: who would you trust with the power of NSA – Snowden or Hayden?
Aside: just once I would like real confirmation that someone, somewhere actually does something while wearing their pajamas and using a computer in their mother’s basement. Extra points if Cheetos are included.
8 comments
Hmm. Well, kinda difficult here. Basements aren’t big here. Tend to get flooded etc. Though, we do have some of the best hackers in the World. 😉 😀
Do pajamas’s, my bedroom and Cheezels, pizza & coke (Cheeto’s not big here either) count? 😉 🙄
Some of the biggest US Corp’s think this Aussie kid is #1. I’d bet he could own (I should use correct hacker speak: ‘pwned’) the US Gov net’s in no time if he wanted.
Best job ever? Aussie teen paid thousands to hack tech giants
The first hacker is (arguably I guess) Konrad Zuse. 🙂 He built the World’s first programmable Computer in his parents apartment in 1938 (I think). Then the German Gov. paid him to build the Z3, which was completed in 1941, and is considered the *Mother* of modern computers. 🙂
BTW, did you know The Woz (Steve Wozniak) was a hacker – or ‘phreaker’ to be more precise, before the *Apple* days? He decided to try to make a better ‘blue box’ than the one created by ‘Captain Crunch’ (John Drapper) who he met at a ‘Homebrew Computer Club’ meeting. If it wasn’t for that, Apple Computer may not exist today. 🙂 The story goes something like this: Steve Jobs saw the marketing potential in the device Wozniak created, and the two Steves began their first joint venture together. With the proceeds from their blue boxes as well as selling Wozniak’s cherished HP calculator and Jobs’ VW van, Wozniak created the Apple I in ’76. Then multimillionaire Mike Markkula provided funding and some essential business expertise, and Apple was incorporated. During the first 5 years, they had a 700% growth rate / annum. 🙂
Hard to imagine that one of the biggest US Corp’s was founded by *questionable means*. Oh, wait… 😉 😈
OH, in answer to your question… Snowden! Without a single doubt, and by a margin in the order of about infinity:1! 😆
who would you trust with the power of NSA – Snowden or Hayden?
neither.
Badly worded question, Hipparchia, as I really wouldn’t ‘trust’ myself with that kind of power.
Doesn’t count, Kryten, it has to be your mother’s basement, which leaves out the possibility of a large area of the US that doesn’t have basements, and most of the former Eastern Bloc because people live in apartments.
Almost all coders have existed on the pizza/cola diet, so that can’t be useful.
Most of the current corporations wouldn’t/shouldn’t pass a background check for a law enforcement job. This is nothing new.
Time for a laugh! ROFL
US charges security check firm that vetted Edward Snowden with fraud
OMG!! The irony! The irony! It’s killing me… LMAO
And I am absolutely certain NOBODY in the US Gov will get it! LMAO
I’m gonna be PMSL for a week! 😆 😆 😆
“pizza/cola”
That’s in Florida, right?
If the basement is a requirement, there must be very few if any hackers in Houston. Never assume that New Orleans is the only major city below the water line! Basements here tend to become unsanitary indoor swimming pools after the first good rain. The Texas Medical Center complex used to have basements and passageways between them, connecting a half-dozen or more large buildings, not far from a major bayou. Then sometime in the mid-Seventies came the first really big rain, and guess what… suddenly the buildings’ basements were isolated from each other but not from the bayou, and one of the main power control facilities… yes, it was in a tunnel between basements… suddenly demonstrated that electricity and dirty water don’t mix to good effect.
For over a century, it was a truism that Houston couldn’t have basements. Then somebody felt compelled to prove it. Sigh!
That was a totally predictable result of privatizing a government function, Kryten. The same pattern keeps occurring and they continue to do it. Snowden shouldn’t have been a contract employee, because NSA should never have used contract employees. USIS should never have been involved in background checks, because the government is the only group that should ever be involved in government background checks.
It is all part of the fairy tale that the private sector does everything cheaper, faster, and more accurately than the government. Hell, under state laws I couldn’t have provided a USIS investigator any information if they requested it when I was in law enforcement. They would have needed a court order. I could talk to other government employees. The entire concept is stupid.
The only people with ‘basements’ here are those who wanted an indoor pool. There was one local house that did have a ‘basement’, but it was built on a bluff and the floor of the ‘basement’ was well above sea level. It was built at ground level and back-filled on three sides, so it wasn’t wasn’t a real basement.
Yeah, Katrina taught New Orleans about the fallacy of putting electrical equipment in the basement.
Yeah… basements anywhere below sea level are a really stupid idea!
Here’s another giggle! I’m sure you had your share of *bogeyman* posters in your mess and living areas Bryan? We did. The image changes, but the message is the same (for the particular time). Apparently though, the current US Army thinks this is new and a really good way to combat terrorists & hackers! Yeah! That’ll work for sure! LOL
I’ll post the Twitter feed rather than just the pic because I liked the comments also. 😉 😀
Bizarre new mess hall posters from US army, that’ll keep @wikileaks out
Still PMSL!
That looks so much like the standard Soviet ‘The enemy is listening’ posters that someone should sue over it. I would think that whoever owns the copyright on the V mask should also join in. The government can’t go around ripping off other people’s work like that. That’s piracy, that is! 😉
The other problem is that the majority of the ‘spies’ are working for NSA, and the others wouldn’t be breaking in if NSA secured networks as they are supposed to under their mandate.