[yeahyeah]

This is exactly what the NSA should be doing. Everyone (rightfully IMO) complains about overly broad data collection happening within the USA, but here (as with stuxnet) you have the exact opposite, a targeted foreign activity conducted with care and targeting. I know it's not for everyone (not least because not everyone is in the states, huh), and it could be considered a bad precedent, but it's not like Iran asked our permission before they launched their nuclear program, or other states are actually waiting on the US's example to have their own intelligence services do their jobs. If you hold that something like 9/11 should be prevented, and that (actual) WMD programs should be stalled, then it follows that this is a fine way to go about it.

[cortesoft]

You make a good point, but the part about Iran asking for our permission before starting the nuclear program doesn't really add much. Of course they didn't ask, just like the US didn't ask before starting our nuclear program. A nation state is an autonomous entity, and doesn't ask permission before making any action within its own borders.

The US, and any other nation state, will of course conduct covert operations, including spying on other nation states. I don't find anything inherently wrong or immoral about this, but I don't think anyone can act surprised or indignant if other nation states don't like being spied on or hacked. You don't gain the moral high ground by pointing out they didn't ask for our permission to build something in their own borders.

Yes, we spy on other nations, and we probably should; but the consequence of that is that other nations will trust you less when you are caught, and that is just the natural consequence of spying.

[dannypgh]

As a signatory to the NPT, which has been ratified by the United States and is therefore law, Iran is legally entitled to have a nuclear energy program.

It's not particularly easy to tell facilities for making enriched uranium (viable as fuel) from facilities making weapons-grade HEU.

[doczoidberg]

I am from germany and I hope most of americans don't have this point of view.

1. give up freedom for some stupid terrorist attacks? why should we? We've lost the keystone of freedom when we do this and they have already won.

2. Do you really think these extensive intelligences do stop terror? (maybe they do sometimes, but terrorists will find new ways)

3. IS and others are the result of the Iraq war which was a offensive war from the US justified by a lie (Sadam had no weapon of mass destruction). Do you still think that America is the world police? The reputation of the US has gone rapidly down in the last decade. For the most here in germany the US are not the good ones any more. Other countries have their own way of life. America has to accept that.

[andrewfong]

> "give up freedom for some stupid terrorist attacks?"

What level of freedom is lost here? We're NOT talking about mass surveillance generally but the targeted access described by the OP. It's the difference between the police parking a van outside a suspected gang hideout (hopefully after getting a warrant), and parking a van outside every home in America. Most Americans are OK with the former and NOT OK with the latter. And, IMHO, that's a valid trade-off to make in a democratic society.

You might object to a particular surveillance target (Merkel), which is understandable. But would you object to spying on Putin? I suspect even Germany (especially Germany) would be okay with the NSA conducting targeted surveillance of senior members of the Russian military with ties to Eastern Ukraine.

In an ideal world, there would be no surveillance or any surrender of liberty in any scenario. But the world is not ideal and compromises are made. Germany is not immune to this. Case in point: Hate speech is illegal in Germany, which is understandable given German history, but a violation of free speech rights in the U.S. The challenge is not to reject all infringements of freedom wholesale but to identify where lines can be drawn between what can be tolerated and what must not.

[orbifold]

The difference between the NSA and German Intelligence is that the reach of NSA is larger than that of the BND. Other than that the BND also is not required to afford foreign nationals any privacy protections and is known to regularly intercept metadata in Germany. Unrestricted surveillance of foreign nationals is regulated in the G10-law, named after the article in the Grundgesetz it circumvents, but the BND has simply overreached its power and also collects data on German nationals. The control committees are also secret, just like the US FISA courts.

So before we get all high and mighty, we should probably clean up our own act here in Germany. Of course the G10 laws were dictated by the Military control committee, when they relinquished direct control in the 70s. For that reason it will be somewhat hard to simply change, especially because our interior ministers have had an unblemished record in support of more mass surveillance.

[krschultz]

I think if you start with the assumption that it would be unacceptable for the US government to do nothing about protecting the American people from terrorist attack, the kinds of targeted cyber-espionage described in the article sound pretty reasonable.

They're better than launching entire wars that kill hundreds of thousands of people, cost unfathomable amounts of money, and last for over a decade, without really achieving the objective of making the country safer.

They're better than torturing people.

They're better than mass surveillance of the entire population of the country - if not the world.

Of all the things the government could be and should be doing, spying on people that in high likelihood are a threat to the US sounds like the one I'm OK with them continuing. You have to admit, slowing down another country's nuclear weapons program with a computer virus is vastly preferable to pretty much any other option on the table - even including "peaceful" sanctions which end up having a human cost.

[ingler]

Most Americans are apathetic. Of those of us not apathetic, those opposed to the widespread espionage of the three letter agencies are in the minority.

It's been heartbreaking watching the American reputation decline worldwide while also watching the inverse rise of the amoral and unrepentant technocrat here in America. It's a Golden Age for technology and a Dark Age for culture.

[dsuth]

1. I don't think the scope of these efforts are based solely around terrorist activity. They are very wide-ranging in scale, and seem to be a natural extension of the USA's foreign policy. In an ideal world it would be nice if neighbours didn't spy on each other, but in the real world, everybody spies.

2. Yes, clearly they do, and also alter the course of some very dangerous activities a la Stuxnet and Iran's nuclear program. Just because it's possible to circumvent these measures, doesn't mean they shouldn't be use either. Firstly, you've made it more difficult for terrorists and other parties to communicate effectively, which is already a win. Secondly, they will of course be updating their methods as well. I doubt very much that what we're seeing here is the be all / end all of NSA's capability. This is implied in the article, where the group hands down certain exploits / technologies for actual implementation, but tends to keep things back. A blow, to be sure, but I doubt we've seen it all yet.

3. ISIS are not the result of the Iraq war. It's very important to understand that ISIS are simply the most recent manifestation of a fundamentalist Islamic sect known as Wahhabism [1]. As convenient as it is to blame them on simple cause and effect, the reality is, as always, far more complex. Essentially this is a group of ultra-fundamentalist muslims, who have for a long time been part of Saudi's political structure. What we are seeing now is a return to their radical roots, backed by disenfranchised and poorly educated muslims across the Middle East. These are people who were left out of the massive oil money influx during Saddam's regime, and are now fighting tooth and nail against any and all transgressors - muslim and Westerners alike.

If anything this makes a case for the NSA's activities, not against it. It's not the US's meddling that caused these issues (although it certainly hasn't helped); these are deeply ingrained philosophies in Middle Eastern culture. I don't know about you, but I'd rather have a very good understanding of their power structure and where they're putting out feelers, than not.

[1] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alastair-crooke/isis-wahhabism...

[vasilipupkin]

It's not just terror. We've got Mr. Putin out there, who at best can be described as someone willing to pursue his own interests no matter the cost. So, should we have no capabilities to defend against him. Sorry to say, but since Europe spends so little as a percent of GDP on defense, it effectively outsources defense to us, while simultaneously making fun of us for our low spending on social programs. You cannot pretend there is no tradeoff here.

[jashephe]

> "Do you really think these extensive intelligences do stop terror?"

I was under the impression that stuxnet had a demonstrably negative impact on the capacity of the Iranian nuclear program to enrich uranium. Of course, there's a whole different argument on whether or not that's in support of "terror".

[dskhatri]

Germany has a sophisticated spy program of its own: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/oct/04/german-...

[happyscrappy]

Wake me up when Germany starts closing US military bases on German soil. As long as Europe is in America's pocket the status quo will remain.

[rosenjon]

The problem is it undermines trust in American technology products in general. If the Snowden revelations were that the United States was bugging Iran, Libya and North Korea and monitoring all their communications, that would be one thing. However, we know now that EVERYONE is under surveillance. Therefore, how do we know they aren't doing this to everyone as well?

[yeahyeah]

Fair enough - although with this set of revelations at least it's been credited at least to mail interdictions. I was responding in a limited matter to this project, this is an example of what I'm personally fine with them doing. Other people may very well have more trouble mentally compartmentalizing the broad range of activities that the NSA (and other digital espionage agencies within the US government) are up to. Many of which are clearly unconstitutional and should be (and appear to, in some cases) now being scaled back.

In any case, to answer the specific question, we can be pretty sure that our we're not infected with official US government 0day malware by the practical considerations - they go to pretty considerable lengths to keep the spread limited (per the reporting) because once Kaspersky or any other researcher gets their hands on it the utility of the toolsets goes away or becomes highly limited.

[junto]

Exactly. See this as a case in point: http://www.windpowermonthly.com/article/960011/trans-atlanti...

[Estragon]

Yes, who's going to plug removeable media from the US into their machine after reading this story about the conference CDs?

[FeeTinesAMady]

This statement is the most upvoted piece of propaganda I've ever seen on Hacker News. I think the shills that Greenwald told us all about are all over HN too.

There's no point in praising anything the NSA does unless you are perfectly happy with them destroying security for the entire world and spying on everybody at all. The NSA has the power to blackmail politicians and run the country. They lied to congress. They are a completely rogue agency. And you praise them!

[ForHackernews]

You need to pick your battles. Nobody is going to listen to your serious concerns about NSA overreach if you're freaking out any time the NSA does anything at all. If you hope to rein in the NSA, impose real oversight, and limit its power, you're going to have to start by acknowledging that "shut down all US intelligence agencies" is not a real policy proposal and not everyone who thinks the NSA has some legitimate role to play in US security is a paid government shill.

[qnr]

Yep, it is exactly the same rhetoric, word for word as used in other NSA-praising comments on HN. Posted by a 1-year old account that had exactly 1 comment in their history until today.

[walod]

It's not propaganda, it's a reasonable observation about the NSA's duties, and it's not meant to tell the whole story. The conspiracy types need to tone down a bit so that a thought-out and nuanced discussion can take place. You're just ranting and throwing Alex Jones and Greenwald buzzwords around, disabling any real insight.

[dsuth]

> There's no point in praising anything the NSA does unless you are perfectly happy with them destroying security for the entire world and spying on everybody at all.

That is a ridiculously absolutist statement. Do you really stand by this? It's not possible that some things the NSA does are good and beneficial, because other aspects of that organisation are questionable?

I'm sorry, but your entire post comes off as very partisan - and quoting Greenwald plays into this as well. Hell, I am left-leaning by nature, but I've had to unfollow him on twitter recently, as he portrays everything in the worst, most dramatic light possible. Don't get caught up on the hate train.

[Alex3917]

> It's not like Iran asked our permission before they launched their nuclear program

You do realize the U.S. helped launch Iran's nuclear program, right?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_program_of_Iran

[jfoutz]

Those atoms were for peace, dammit.

[yeahyeah]

Well if it's on the US then they should have stopped when we asked nicely, right?

[javert]

The US already has the responsibility to end Iran's nuclear program, which threatens the safety of US citizens and the world.

But if the US also helped start the program, I guess it is even "more" responsible, if that is even possible.

[GauntletWizard]

No, we helped the Pahlavi dynasty launch a nuclear program, whereas the Iranian Republic is now launching a nuclear program using what they've scavenged from that one.

You are conflating two different nations that happen to share a name and borders. The US trades technology with the Fourth Republic of Germany; The US did not with the Third Reich.

[diego_moita]

From an American perspective you might be right. But, as a Brazilian, I'd say this is the perfect reason why the rest of the world should stop buying technology from the U.S. You are not trustworthy.

Yes, I know that "everyone does it, get over" but it doesn't make you better or even acceptable.

[SEJeff]

As an American eho actually agrees with your comment wholeheartedly, I'd love to see a Brazilian Cisco, a German Microsoft, an Icelandic Bell Labs, and a Swiss Apple. Sadly it seems like the US does come up with a lot of tech that is worldwide dominant. Perhaps it has to do with the way the U.S. culture + government can, in some scenarios be conducive to startups, or perhaps it is luck over and over and over again. I highly doubt luck has anything whatsoever to do with it.

All of this being said, capitalism is a game played by multiple parties. If other countries were able to make things like mentioned above as good or preferably better and sell to. Global audience the whole world would be better off. I just wonder why so much tech used everywhere is made in America originally. DARPA has a huge part of what makes this happen I think and like it or not they are part of the security establishment who made things like the Internet.

[moe]

If you hold that something like 9/11 should be prevented, and that (actual) WMD programs should be stalled

Except nothing like 9/11 was ever prevented by broad data collection.

And: There is no "terrorist threat" to begin with, unless you also believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny.

You are still more likely to be killed by a lightning strike than by a terrorist. There's still plenty more and plenty more violent killing going on in Africa than in Middle East. But there's no oil and no convenient media narrative to be had from the former.

then it follows that this is a fine way to go about it

Non sequitur.

[user_0001]

Which countries did ask permission before starting their nuclear programs?

The countries that have nuclear weapons, who do they ask to be allowed to keep them?

[lazaroclapp]

Each other and the U.N., sort of... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_on_the_Non-Proliferatio...

Essentially: "no more countries get nukes, those that have them should get rid of them at an unspecified point in the future but get to keep them for now". It is not an ideal solution, nor a particularly fair one, but much better for human survival than "everybody gets a nuke". Unfortunately, it would work better if powerful countries didn't threaten less powerful ones to the point that violating the NPT and getting nukes seems like the only rational response for preserving their own security. Which brings us to why the U.S. unilaterally launching attacks (cyber- or otherwise) against other countries runs counter to non-proliferation goals, whereas coordinated U.N. sanctions/incentives/inspections/interventions have at much better chance of working.

[wongarsu]

>The countries that have nuclear weapons, who do they ask to be allowed to keep them?

Well, the 5 official Nuclear Weapon States (with capital NWS) asked nicely with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which is signed by just about anyone. Not that there ever was a chance of them just giving up their nuclear weapons, but they did ask and the world said yes.

[higherpurpose]

How is infecting a whole telecom company like Belgacom, which then allows them to get data on everyone, a "targeted" attack?

[mb0]

To play devil's advocate, maybe they were only going to adjust the routing behavior of a certain netblock? Still very out-of-bounds if you ask me.

[rbehrends]

Two problems I'm having with this argument:

(1) This does not actually look particularly targeted to me, but more like a shotgun approach. While Russia and China are the primary targets, there are also plenty of allied nations on that map. Unless, of course, you're trying to say that all non-US targets are fair game.

(2) The NSA targeting medical institutions (presumably hospitals) makes me particularly queasy, because what they are doing is not exactly passive listening, and when they screw something up there (like the router in Syria that they crashed), that could endanger human lives.

[jrochkind1]

If the U.S. can do it, other entities can do it too.

I'd rather that the NSA were disclosing the vulnerabilities they discover to vendors, so they can be fixed.

Failing that, we rely on white hat researchers like those here (not to mention Snowden). They're doing really important, socially valuable, work. I wonder where they get their funding, we need a lot more of them. It's our job as software/hardware engineers to create secure software.

[aw3c2]

Maybe it is what it should be doing for you. But this is exactly what the IT community should work against. We should be able to trust our devices.

[yeahyeah]

I definitely agree with the second part. It's always going to be a back and forth. As for non-US, well, I don't think we can claim a monopoly on espionage.

[teraflop]

According to the report, researchers within the USA were infected with Equation Group malware too.

[grrowl]

Of course, it's necessary to achieve a certain critical mass to make infecting your target effective and mask the true source of the attack.

[mabbo]

I really appreciate it when someone presents and argument that is from a differing point of view than mine, but is well stated and very convincing. Thank you for that.

That said, I'm not certain I agree. The part where they're intercepting mail of citizens without warrants, without much oversight, that scares me. It's one thing to be talented hackers trying to fight the good fight digitally rather than violently, but when we allow the government organizations to violate privacy to further unstated goals, we set a precedent that can be used as a basis to go further next time.

The NSA can do incredible things like this, but they need better oversight, a publicly stated set of rules that they must follow when they do their work.

[plorg]

I'd have to look back at the article, but I believe the mail interception took place during the Bush-era warrant-less wiretapping. The FISA courts were created to remedy the warrant-less part of that, though they don't really seem to have done much for the oversight concern that you mention.

By this I mean to suggest that such interdiction may not necessarily be truly warrant-less if performed today, even if it is still shady and lacking in accountability.

[discardorama]

> but it's not like Iran asked our permission before they launched their nuclear program

Why should they? Who died and made us the "World Police" ?

[krschultz]

22% of world GDP, the world's largest & most effective military, the permanent seat on the UN security council, & the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_on_the_Non-Proliferation...

I agree we shouldn't go barging into other countries unilaterally, but are there really people that want to argue it's wrong for the US to use its power to stop other countries from obtaining nuclear weapons?

[zmanian]

1. The NSA uses all of these offensive information security technologies in mass surveillance as well as targeted attacks. See Belgacom.

2. The more concerning thing is their appropriation of civilian infrastructure and targeting of civilians using offensive attacks.

3. The vast offensive capabilities of the US government undermine their ability to be trusted in the development of improved defensive capabilities. Defensive research and product development funded by the US govt will produce systems that undermine offensive capabilities that are a key form of US hegemony.

[sehugg]

I'm not sure I'd hold up Stuxnet as an example -- it did little to impact the Iranian nuclear program and only invited retaliation: http://www.techtimes.com/articles/32209/20150211/edward-snow...

[blazespin]

this is horrible and devastates the American information technology industry because there is no chance that any foreign government is going to buy anything from the US that could be infiltrated by the NSA.

[nikster]

Your argument sounds semi-reasonable.

It's not though. Everyone hates the USA by now, and that's because they're spying on everyone (even allies), they think they can tell everyone what to do, else they use their military to intervene.

The USA is currently the world bully. For the military aggression, hopefully Americans will at some point realize that fighting the world can only end in tears - the USA is drained financially and simultaneously breeding new terrorists through the drone war which should be classified a war crime as there is no telling how many innocents have been killed.

Karma's a bitch, friends. This is how empires fall.

Really, the USA needs to re-evaluate its foreign policy. Spend half the military budget for 2015, that's $300Bn, on education and hospitals and bingo, you're once again the #1 nation in the world.

Then, instead of making war everywhere, make friends and trade partners and watch the money pour in, the soldiers stay home and stay alive. Fight terrorists with gestures of goodwill and they will go away all on their own - as opposed to killing random children in Pakistan, so their fathers, uncles, and other relatives may justifiably become new terrorists with a life-long grudge against the USA.

And tell the NSA to focus on defense - keep out the baddies, keep out the Chinese and Russian hackers, keep American businesses and business interests safe, stop others from hacking in the USA. But don't go out and listen to everyone's phone calls and hack allies, and enemies alike, and have secret laws like the Nazis did - because honestly, all that shit will get back to you eventually. Do something bad - somebody will find out. That's the new reality we live in, all facts will be discovered.

That Kaspersky was able to uncover the most sophisticated hacker group in the world is a case in point. The internet is the perfect paper trail, no matter how good you are.

The ostensibly noble, good goals that secret laws and secret operations supposedly lead up to never materialize. The ends that the means supposedly justify never arrive. So keep the means good, keep it clean. This whole idea that you must deceive, cheat, and betray in order to survive is a wrong idea, and it's proven again and again until the lesson is learned. Your choice when to learn it.

Karma is a bitch, friends.

[timrs2998]

"... indicate that the NSA used Regin to infect the partly state-owned Belgian firm Belgacom." Do you like their targets? The FBI and CIA frequently target dissent as terrorism while the NSA frequently targets economic forums and large companies. And do you not care about the effects of hoarding (and purchasing) 0-days?

[JoachimS]

Millions of harddrives, millions of infected machines all over the world. Sound very targeted to me.

[elchief]

Ya, except the other Four Eyes are doing the same and trading your info back to the NSA

[chez17]

>If you hold that something like 9/11 should be prevented

Nice strawman.

[guelo]

So China should be reading Obama's emails, right?

[LLWM]

If they can, they would be stupid not to. And the NSA should be doing everything in their power to stop them from doing so.

[shit_parade]

This comment reads very much like astroturfing. I hope the admins of HN take a look at who registered this account and who up-voted this comment to make it the current top comment in this thread. As mentioned by others, this account is nearly a year old with one silly comment before that.

[javert]

Imagine Superman actually fighting criminals and keeping America safe.

Now imagine Superman sneaking laxative into criminals' sandwiches so they are slightly inconvenienced, but allowing them to continue to kill people in the long run.

The US government is Superman. But it is the second version, while it can and should be the first version.

---

We know who the enemies are. We know who funds and harbors terrorism. We need to take them out, not spy on them.

---

And no, I am not advocating Vietnam III (note: Iraq/Afghanistan was Vietnam II). That was a purely self-sacrificial program to bring "democracy" to people who didn't want it. I am advocating warfare in the classic sense: Destroy the enemy. I am advocating what we did to the Nazis and Japanese.

[krapp]

> I am advocating what we did to the Nazis and Japanese.

That was a world war if I recall, and the US didn't even care about the Nazis, or Japan until they were forced to. "we" didn't stop the Nazis, the world stopped the Nazis, with our help.

Don't be so quick to call for World War III, because i'm not at all certain we would have more allies than enemies if we unilaterally decided to declare open war against the rest of the world, which is what it would amount to. Because the truth is, most of the world 'harbors' and 'funds' terrorism to some degree, including the US. And we've already proven to the rest of the world that we're willing to drag it into a war on false pretenses, so I doubt they would be eager to throw themselves into another one on our behalf. That political capital has already been spent.

Which is, of course, why we don't do what you suggest.

[lotsofmangos]

We know who funds and harbors terrorism.

Well, from the IRA to the Mujahadeen, it's largely been the folk with the most money to spend.

However most of them live in the USA, so perhaps a local criminal investigation would do to start with before breaking out the tanks on a jolly abroad.

[sfk]

Are you a sockpuppet trying to derail the discussion or is this serious?