Snowden: NSA Working On Autonomous Cyberwarfare Bot 194
WIRED published a long piece on Edward Snowden today (worth a read on its own), and simultaneously broke news of "MonsterMind," an NSA program to monitor all network traffic and detect attacks, responding with a counterattack automatically. From the article: Although details of the program are scant, Snowden tells WIRED in an extensive interview with James Bamford that algorithms would scour massive repositories of metadata and analyze it to differentiate normal network traffic from anomalous or malicious traffic. Armed with this knowledge, the NSA could instantly and autonomously identify, and block, a foreign threat. More than this, though, Snowden suggests MonsterMind could one day be designed to return fire — automatically, without human intervention...
Snowden raised two issues with the program: the source of an attack could be spoofed to trick the U.S. into attacking an innocent third party, and the violation of the fourth amendment since the NSA would effectively need to monitor all domestic network traffic for the program to work. Also in Bamford's interview are allegations that the NSA knocked Syria offline in 2012 after an attempt to install intercept software on an edge router ended with the router being bricked.
A digital version of the "Doomsday Machine" (Score:5, Insightful)
Where the fuck is the EU? (Score:3, Insightful)
Every US citizen is yelling for their constitutional rights broken by the NSA. But no Europeans complain about what the NSA is doing to THEM. Which is even worse. EU, fucking wake up.
Re:On come on now Edward (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Snowden's comments at odds with his actions (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you understand what he means? He is saying that if there was some real, genuine change due to his actions he would be willing to return and give evidence in open court, to help with that change, even if it meant a prison sentence due to the letter of the law.
That seems amazingly charitable, considering he should really get a presidential pardon and be welcomed back as the heroic guy who did the right thing to expose law breaking and billions of constitutional violations.
Re:Should we really be worried? (Score:5, Insightful)
Incompetence is never good.
Incompetence in collecting and acting on information just means that the wrong people will be targeted and the "bad guys" will be missed.
A powerful, secretive, incompetent organization is the worst of all possible worlds.
Re:On come on now Edward (Score:3, Insightful)
You should look up what Treason means. Because that's not what it means.
I did... per the constitution:
"Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court."
Base on that definition, neither are traitors under the constitution.
Per the English dictionary:
"the crime of betraying one's country, especially by attempting to kill the sovereign or overthrow the government."
The NSA is clearly, and without a doubt violating the constitution. So I'd say by that definition, they are guilty. But it's not a legal definition, it's just descriptive. The NSA behaves in a "Treasonous" manner but they are not guilty of legally defined Treason.
Re: On come on now Edward (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Snowden's comments at odds with his actions (Score:2, Insightful)
That seems amazingly charitable, considering he should really get a presidential pardon and be welcomed back as the heroic guy who did the right thing to expose law breaking and billions of constitutional violations.
If the only thing he did was expose the illegal spying being done on Americans, I'd agree with that. But he indiscriminately takes everything he can get his hands on and reveals perfectly legal programs, like this one. "Identifying and blocking foreign threats" is the NSA's job, and why wouldn't that include cyber attacks? What justification does he have for revealing this?
I think we should specifically pardon him for for the relevant whistleblowing, to encourage other people in those positions to do the right thing. But we should sure as hell prosecute him for everything else he's leaked.
Re:Snowden's comments at odds with his actions (Score:5, Insightful)
"Identifying and blocking foreign threats" is the NSA's job
Sure, but that doesn't extend to knocking Syria off the internet [arstechnica.com] or inserting back-doors into encryption standards or failing to report known vulnerabilities and the like. How about recording every single phone call in made in two countries? Some spying on foreign countries is expected and acceptable, but not the lengths the NSA has gone to. Spying on your allies, like Merkel, is definitely something America should be ashamed of and that the German people have a right to know about.
Knowing what is happening and their capabilities is essential for us to re-build the internet to be bulk-surveillance proof. There is zero chance of the NSA and GCHQ stopping what they are doing, so the only solution is technological.