NSA Hacked Huawei, Stole Source Code 287
Charliemopps (1157495) writes "New documents from Snowden indicate that the NSA hacked into and stole documents, including source code, from the Chinese networking firm Huawei. Ironically, this is the same firm that the U.S. government has argued in the past was a threat due to China's possible use of the same sort of attacks."
No irony (Score:5, Insightful)
That's probably how the US govt knows Huawei is a threat...
Re:No irony (Score:5, Insightful)
The US Gov has never articulated exactly how Huawei is a threat with any specificity. The NSA slides don't give any information either. Nothing released to the public has shown that Huawei was ever guilty of any of the things said about them, but on the other hand, the US Gov itself is guilty as hell as far as engaging in the sort of tactics we've accused Huawei of.
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and the rest of the world is learning how untrustworthy the USA is.
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The couch vegetables don't count when discussing these issues. What they think only ever matters once every few years at voting time and what they think can be easily installed with scandal, BS and appealing to their bias - so not that much at all really.
Those that are not the vege type are too small in number to matter as a group.
You can call me a foolish cynic all you want
Re:No irony (Score:5, Insightful)
Nope. Most of the rest if the world is dirt poor, and yet many of these dirt poor folks have the common sense to understand that this is not entirely unrelated to the West being filthy rich. Wealth distribution is pretty much the opposite of what you'd expect looking at natural resource distribution.
Similarly, even though we in the privileged comfort of our Western sofas like to pretend we're mostly a force for Good in the world, those at the receiving end somehow tend to remember who is propping up the violent and corrupt regimes whose boot rests on their faces.
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While I empathise with their plight and wish it was different I really cannot agree with the rose coloured glasses people view those in poorer countries with. The motivations will be a form of jealously and lack of exposure to the PR machine that people who can afford a TV are exposed to.
It works like this:
- An impoverished person is just a poor person without the basic means for survival
- A poor person is just a middle-class person without sufficient income
- A middle-class person is just a rich pers
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The motivations will be a form of jealously and lack of exposure to the PR machine that people who can afford a TV are exposed to.
It seems to me these are consequences, not causes (or motivations as you put it).
It works like this:
- An impoverished person is just a poor person without the basic means for survival
- A poor person is just a middle-class person without sufficient income
- A middle-class person is just a rich person without the surplus cash
- A rich person is just a millionaire without the millions
- A millionaire is just a billionaire.....
You are describing how it is very difficult to hide "upwards" class differences (everyone is acutely aware of the things that are just out of their reach) because so much wealth is spent on advertising same. Conversely it seems this is easy in the other direction (wealthy individuals tend to spend much of it on "downward" insulation, gated communities, exclusive social occasions).
Re:No irony (Score:4, Insightful)
This is what tends to happen...
Re:No irony (Score:5, Interesting)
I've heard that belief that the US is rich and the rest of the world is poor very many times. I've travelled to a few countries and can tell you without a doubt that although there are plenty of poorer places there are plenty of richer places too. There are lots of countries with better infrastructure and better standards of living.
The US has a very positive self-image. That's a great thing. But sometimes it can cover up things that are wrong and could be fixed.
Re:No irony (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:No irony (Score:5, Interesting)
and the rest of the world is learning how untrustworthy the USA is.
Which country of any consequence is trustworthy? Russia? China? In the EU, Great Britain, France, Spain, Germany, etc. don't exactly have spotless histories. Anyone in South or Central America?
Places like Denmark, Iceland and New Zealand seem to be pretty trustworthy to me. But for some reason this just doesn't scale very well. From what I can see, and I very well may be wrong, there is some kind of tipping point when a country's population crosses over the 10-20 million mark. Obviously there are exceptions. Perhaps government simply gets too large to manage at that point and it is no longer possible to maintain oversight on everything.
Re:No irony (Score:5, Interesting)
You know, just like trying to discredit PGP.
Re:No irony (Score:5, Informative)
Your theory has one fatal flaw. [phenoelit.org]
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You ar ecorrect.
Without Industrial Espionage, the Elite can never hold on to their power.
Threats must be identified and neutralized, primarily through the stealing of industrial secrets to insure the Federal Reserve note is secure world wide.
Re:Wow !! (Score:5, Funny)
Huawei so serious?
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Um, nice revisionist history there. Unfortunately reality and the internet disagree with you.
he's pretty much right. gas and milk are $4/gal. if the dollar were even with the peso and there were a zombie apocalypse, fox news would be blaming obama and illegal immigrants.
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Uh...yeah...no
The lowest the Canadian dollar has ever been was 61.79 cents US.
Re:No irony (Score:5, Insightful)
UM, does anyone else feel like saying F--- Snowden at this point?
No.
Re:No irony (Score:5, Insightful)
UM, does anyone else feel like saying F--- Snowden at this point?
Free Snowden? Yeah I'll second that.
Personal Liberty! (Score:5, Insightful)
Wait,... isn't this the purpose of the NSA?
Re:Personal Liberty! (Score:5, Insightful)
Wait,... isn't this the purpose of the NSA?
Yep, if Snowden continues along this path he is moving into 'Traitor" territory. I only support him because he releases information on Domestic spying - this is completely within the realm of a FIA.
Re:Personal Liberty! (Score:5, Informative)
Snowden isn't releasing anything. He just dumped what he had on some journalists; they are the ones doing these slow staged releases.
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In this case to the benefit of China.
Snowden claimed to be an expert about China and espionage. When do you think we'll see some information about that? Or will the trend of only releasing information the compromises intelligence methods and activities of the US, UK, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and their allies continue?
He is indeed the rarest of "patriots," exposing only the intelligence plans of his own country and its allies, and not those of its adversaries.
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There is a meaningful difference between a general idea of it and specific knowledge of what happened or was accessed.
Think of the difference between, "somebody in the city doesn't like you," and "your neighbor Bob plans to burn down your house while you are asleep at 11:30 PM tomorrow using a case of Molotov cocktails that are already prepared and are sitting in his garage." Do you think there is a difference in the action you could take based on those two scenarios?
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To reiterate: Snowden is not releasing anything. He took what he got from the NSA internal networks, and handed that over. The way it gets released is subject only to the whim of the journalists who have the dump now. I would imagine that NSA significantly more information about how they spy on everyone, including China, than they have on how China is spying on them. For the latter, we'd need a Chinese Snowden equivalent.
By the way, why are you guys still on this? Every time one of you NSA assholes opens yo
Re:Personal Liberty! (Score:5, Interesting)
I know that there are plenty of misguided people who are not really affiliated with the organization that they effectively propagandize for, but in your case I'm having serious doubts about that. You're always in very early on any story that even tangentially mentions any US security agency, and particularly NSA, or on any comment along those lines even in otherwise unrelated stories. It's almost as if you had an RSS filter for those keywords.
Mind you, I'm not saying that your boss at NSA is paying you for it. You're likely some kind of very small fish there anyway (not menial work, though - you have to be actually doing something relevant to the core mission of the organization to feel personally offended about Snowden and what he represents). And the only reason why you're posting here is some kind of perverted esprit de corps, where your employer being ridiculed automatically translates to some personal butthurt for yourself, and an itch to post all these "rebuttals" of yours.
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There is no useful "analysis" in that post. Your "BS" detector apparently needs calibration since the post you responded to is almost entirely BS and you didn't detect that.
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He doesn't have enough credibility to be intimidating, to be honest, so it just comes off even more ridiculous. And, of course, by now any sensible person with modpoints just mods down everything "cold fjord" as Flamebait on sight, so you only see those posts if you jump on the article early, or have a habit of reading at -1 as I do.
Re:Personal Liberty! (Score:4)
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> As to being an "NSA asshole," I truly hope that you someday break the conditioning of your Soviet youth to realize that not everyone thinks alike in the West. Some of us are actually right even if we are not a member of "the party," an apparatchik, or a member of the "dark forces."
For someone who is neither from a communist country nor was a subject of cold war era, anti-communist conditioning in the West, I must say that after JTRIG revelations, it is getting kinda hard to distinguish NSA ethos from c
Re:Personal Liberty! (Score:5, Insightful)
This is the most BS I have seen in this article. I almost want to think you get paid for this.
> In this case to the benefit of China.
The point of the article is not whether it benefits China. The point is that US has been accusing other countries of doing things that it itself does many times over... things that it implied that it would find so abhorrent that it would never consider doing. This news would have been a lot less depressing if it was found that China broke into Cisco... because China does not lecture the world on digital principles.
As a non-american, I actually want US to be the bearer of high values in cyber space so that we have someone to point to and say - that is how things are supposed to be done. It has been incredibly disappointing to follow these revelations. Fortunately, the US tech community still holds high values, even if the corporates clearly don't.
The case of Huawei isn't just about China. It's products are used the world over. Attacking them is an attack on the communications of the world in general, not an attack on someone you can conveniently label as a communist enemy. There is no cold war here.
> Snowden claimed to be an expert about China and espionage. When do you think we'll see some information about that?
Snowden is a counter-intel guy on China. He does not have policy documents on China. Why is this even hard for you to grasp?
What you are demanding is like China asking when Ai Weiwei and Chen Guangcheng will criticize US, rather than just China. That's not their responsibility.
> Or will the trend of only releasing information the compromises intelligence methods and activities of the US, UK, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and their allies continue?
First, he can only disclose what he had direct access to. If you want China docs, get a Chinese whistleblower.
Second, none of the disclosures are considered “methods”. The journalists have been cautious to not disclose them.
> He is indeed the rarest of "patriots," exposing only the intelligence plans of his own country and its allies, and not those of its adversaries.
Please provide a list of these non-rare patriots that expose intelligence plans on both sides.
Re: Personal Liberty! (Score:5, Insightful)
> I'm not sure who you've been listening to but if you think the US pretends not to spy you really are unaware of the world around you.
Are you dense? Where do you think the outrage in the world is coming from if this was all understood as typical espionage activity.
Let me answer that for you. This isn't simple foreign spying. No one expected NSA to be spying on entire populations of the world. There is no spy agency in the world that does that. It is legitimate to do targeted espionage. Every country does that. This is not about nabbing a foreign terrorist or spying on diplomats.
People simply expected US to do a better job at targeted espionage than anyone else. No one also expected NSA to be engaged in character assassinations of conspiracy theorists and social manipulations of hactivists. US always promoted the rhetoric that these things as abhorrent and incompatible with its values and for the rest of the world.
And don't answer with an attitude that US can do what it wants and that it is up to foreign governments to protect their civilians either. US purports itself to be the leader of the free world and these actions are incompatible with that role. If it wants to simply be an imperial power - fine. Unless US addresses these issues, the world will reconfigure itself to such an implicit declaration in time.
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Read all that. We all know our Chomsky. I know how to pick my media, thank you.
The CIA adventurism was supposed to have been largely reined in by the congress in the 70s. The Internet stuff is new. Again, where do you think the new outrage is coming from. The world knows the history of US spy agencies.
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My point is that if you want to judge Snowden, you already have all the facts necessary to do so. There's no "continuing along this path" here - he already walked all the way, like it or not.
Re:Personal Liberty! (Score:5, Insightful)
Y'know what? Fuck you. This whole 'outrage over domenstic activity, but foreign-spying is a-ok' attitude has got to stop.
I'm not American. The notion a foreign power can root through my data, without my or my governments consent, with no repercussions and the full support of people like you, is abhorrent to me.
Traitor? The man becomes more of a hero with every tidbit like this he releases. A Hero to the rest of us. Because you no longer count.
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You completely missed the real point, however. Americans can object to this, though it will take time. They will draw a line at some point and say this is legit, that's not. From a foreign perspective you can be angry all you want, but this is not something that Americans will get angry about.
Your opinion does not matter, unless you happen to be a policy maker in China. And then it does not matter to the Americans who object to the NSA, and are deciding whether the next revelation us a big deal.
If there wer
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You don't need to be at war with another nation in order to spy on them or their companies.
I agree that it hurts the whole country but not because it happened, because it was disclosed that it happened.
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No, the guy said we are not at war with China implying that was was necessary for spying. You are damn straight that I made the point they are unrelated because they are no dependent on each other.
lol.. what? Of c
Here we go again (Score:4, Insightful)
Please show your working.
I'll bet it's an amusing little bit that skates around some view that Snowden was betraying a King for his country and North betraying his country in the way he served his King. I really don't get why people like you want to spit in the face of George Washington and go back to King George.
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There's my answer then - King before country and fuck the constitution. So why do you make so much noise about being a patriot?
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Like I said, all in your mind. Now please go take your meds and call your shrink before posting any more.
Re:Here we go again (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Here we go again (Score:4, Insightful)
What a pathetic attempt to weasel out and not take responsibility for your own words.
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Is a newspaper a foreign nation now?
Re:Personal Liberty! (Score:5, Informative)
American companies have been hurt to the tune of billions of dollars. US intelligent efforts overseas have been crippled.
And before they profited to the tune of billions thanks to trade secrets that just happened to find their way from NSA into their spotless hands.
I understand your point about the difference of revealing domestic vs foreign spying, but even the latter category of leaks has demonstrated that NSA are operating way beyond it's stated purpose (which is security not economic superiority) at a huge cost to US taxpayers. In other words, still bona fide whistleblowing as far as I'm concerned.
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Why do you thing the NSA wants to crack huawei?
1) Because the want to find out of there are deliberate holes left by the Chinese in their equipment that they should warn their own people about.
2) Because they want a head start on cracking the equipment to spy on everyone, foreign and domestic.
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Just as much as it is the job of the army to invade foreign countries and kill their people. Unless we're actively at war with that country, then no, they shouldn't be doing it, and it is an illegal act of aggression. That, and I'm not really sure how a company that isn't involved in anything military should be considered any different from a civilian; NSA doesn't give a fuck about any boundaries.
Plus, might I remind you, the NSA is also attacking American citizens.
Act of war... according to US (Score:5, Insightful)
> Wait,... isn't this the purpose of the NSA?
According to US government, hacking communication infrastructure of a country by another government is an "act of war", not regular espionage. They said this very loudly just before Snowden revelations began. So NO. They are not supposed to be doing that.
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"Act of war" is not a catchall for all hacking, only certain acts.
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Why don't you go ahead and define what is and what isn't an "act of war", exclusively using statements by US officials on this matter, rather than your personal opinions that suit your worldview.
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Actually, it was the Pentagon who claimed hacking was an act of war. I can't seem to find any law maker, presidential statement, or law making it so.
Granted, the Pentagon is a government agency, but they cannot act lawfully without the civilian government giving them permission. So obviously, an act of war is subject to interpretation.
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I am not sure what you are disagreeing with.
- Pentagon officials are US officials.
- I did not say that an act of war isn't subject to interpretation, although I fail to see how you reached that conclusion, given your prior propositions.
- Nor does it make sense for cold fjord to insinuate that I implied that all hacking falls under acts of war. He was making a strawman argument.
But I am asking what is it that was an "act of war" about Chinese hacking of US that wasn't the same about US hacking of Chinese. Th
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I'm not really in disagreement with anything, just stating that different people have different opinions about it and the one you seem to be relying on is an underling of the people with the power to actually decide what is and what isn't an act of war against the US. This means they can say a lot of things and it doesn't make it so.
Yes, and they are under higher up officials who make those decisions. They also administrate the
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I think you argued for your position quite well here. It just did not connect in the earlier post since I cannot read your mind.
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> Wait,... isn't this the purpose of the NSA?
According to US government, hacking communication infrastructure of a country by another government is an "act of war", not regular espionage. They said this very loudly just before Snowden revelations began. So NO. They are not supposed to be doing that.
Ah, but when we do it, it is a glorious action undertaken for freedom, truth, and to protect innocent children.
But when those foreigners do the same thing, it is because they are mean, slinking, low scoundrels.
There's a world of difference. Anyone can see that!
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That all depends on what you want your government to be doing. You could just as easily argue the Vietnam war was the purpose of the military.
pot/kettle storyline (Score:2)
NSA validated in their concerns? (Score:5, Interesting)
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"NSA targets sysadmin personal accounts to exploit networks" (March 21, 2014)
http://www.zdnet.com/nsa-targe... [zdnet.com]
i.e. a long list of ways in shared with 5+ other nations, their contractors, ex staff, former staff.
Anyone able to afford contractors, ex staff, former staff for the methods gets in too
Thats the problem with weak global security in any networking pro
Retaliation is fair game (Score:2, Interesting)
The Chinese have been hacking American military stuff since the 1980s.
Not only that, they were the source of the vast majority of the weapons used against us in the Vietnam war, and fought directly against us in Korea.
They're bad guys.
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Fucking kool-aid drinkers.
The USSR was fail (Score:5, Insightful)
Which, given what a social, political, environmental and cultural wasteland the Communists left behind wherever they gained authority, was a justifiable and in fact laudable goal.
Re:Retaliation is fair game (Score:5, Insightful)
Merely fighting against America does not necessarily make them bad guys, in a reasonably objective sense. If you are American, then anyone fighting against you would seem to be bad guys from your point of view, but from an outsider's point of view, it's just "these guys" and "these other guys".
Some might argue that them hacking makes them bad guys by some measure, but the US has been doing the same thing, so I'd consider that inconclusive at best and hypocrisy at worst. Others might argue that the stuff done to Americans during the Vietnam War makes them bad guys, but given everything done by the Americans during the Vietnam War... well, same conclusion.
With that said of course, the Chinese government has had a history of doing some very shitty things to a lot of people. On the other hand, so has the US government...
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Right.
However I have some Chinese friends who aren't too happy with the history of their government. The remember things like relatives being bundled off to the provinces to never be seen again.
Remember the empty chair.
http://www.economist.com/blogs... [economist.com]
America has plenty of problems but....
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There is no comparison my friend. You need to read about the glorious peoples' revolution in china. You need to read about 30 million people dying to famine because of Mao. When people compare the USA with China or the Soviet Union, it just shows how ignorant they are of history.
Why prent to be that stupid? (Score:3)
Now do you understand how STUPID your attempted goalpost shift above is.
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i.e. you get into a typing pool or low security mil network or its a massive well crafted hone
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Vietnam was fighting for its independence. In fact had it been granted after WWII as France had promised they would have likely become a capitalist country like the rest of Indochina.
Instead we cornered them into a communist corner by bombing them and their children with napalm and they are the "bad guys" because the Chinese gave them some rifles?
No - Korea was a draw (Score:2)
Huawei source code, take 2 (Score:3, Funny)
#include "cisco.h"
sigh...
The jokes on you NSA (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:NSA validates the right to steal source code (Score:5, Funny)
IPv4 or IPv6?
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Round and round we go (Score:2)
So, in essence, the NSA stole the stuff Huawei originally stole from Canada's Nortel.
NSA (Score:2)
Entertaining quote (Score:2)
NSA workers not only succeeded in accessing the email archive, but also the secret source code of individual Huwaei products. Software source code is the holy grail of computer companies.
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China faced years of efforts from the USA, UK and Soviet Union to try and understand its nuclear tests and later rapid mil advances via help from diverse private EU/US/Canadian contractors.
China knew every longer range radio transmission of any kind was been saved by sites in surrounding nations and via sat efforts.
China knew to harden all communications surrounding is nuclear tests.
i.e. British sigint in Hong Kong was a massive undertaking even with th
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Thats the big question - how did the NSA get in...
Through the holes in the source code that Huawei stole from Cisco? (which were placed there by the NSA in the first place?)
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China vs NSA. (Score:2)
Repeat after me: China = bad! NSA = good!
well... (Score:2)
...isn't that kinda what we pay them to do?
seriously, the last time i checked China was a communist country with no rule of law and no true free elections...isn't it then part of the national security interests of the United States to do what they can to keep tabs on all sorts of stuff?
don't we know that Chinese hackers have infiltrated *our* corporations? do you really think microsoft has never been hacked or the windows source code downloaded and sold to players all over the globe?
i mean, really...is wha
Re:Good for NSA (Score:5, Insightful)
No. Huawei is a commercial company. Not a government.
This is our government engaging in corporate espionage.
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Re:Good for NSA (Score:5, Insightful)
I guess you missed the part where it's in China. Communist/fascist regimes don't have distinctions like that.
Neither do US corporations either... Microsoft, Google, Apple, Yahoo, RSA & others all collect data for the NSA.
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When China engages in spying on corporate America, they spy on companies like Valspar for the formula the US Navy uses to protect warships from rust. They then give that information to Chinese firms to make durable paint for their own navy, and to turn a huge profit.
When the NSA spies on Huawei, they use the information to discover vulnerabilities they then go on to internally use to exploit the infrastructure of those who use them. They do not give the information to Cisco in order to make more efficient A
Re:Good for NSA (Score:4, Interesting)
Maybe they do. One odd thing to come out was taxpayer funded industrial espionage of Indonesian clove cigarettes for "US commercial clients". I wonder how much commercial spying is going on and what the kickbacks to the intelligence agencies or those issuing the orders are.
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That's what they were paid for. Good job, NSA.
Yes, but that sort of thing tends to be more valuable when it isn't publicized.
Re:Good for NSA (Score:4)
So NSA does its job by stealing documents from China. Chinese do their job by stealing documents from the US. Snowden as a whistleblower does his job by exposing the documents. Its win-win-win for all.
Re:Good for NSA (Score:5, Insightful)
That's what they were paid for. Good job, NSA.
Except that they just undermined their government's protests and Chinese hacking. Unlike US allegations against China which are pretty thin the Chinese now have concrete evidence of international law-breaking and industrial espionage against them. Expect it to be used against the US at the WTO and whenever the US tries to make any complaints about hacking in the future.
It will be interesting to see how the US government tries to spin this. They said in the past that hacking could be considered an act of war, retaliated against with conventional weapons as well as cyberattacks. It's pretty much open season on the US now, and you can expect to see virus attacks on US infrastructure in the future. All thanks to the NSA.
Re:Good for NSA (Score:5, Funny)
It will be interesting to see how the US government tries to spin this.
"It was not theft, it was copyright infringement."
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It's pretty much open season on the US now, and you can expect to see virus attacks on US infrastructure in the future. All thanks to the NSA.
I wouldn't mind getting some new infrastructure. Burn it all down.
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So, we're now talking about the NSA backdoors in routers made by US companies?
No he did the right thing (Score:3)
He releases in between Dancing With the Starts to catch people attention before they go back to the next reality tv show.