On Sep 10, 2013, at 5:45 PM, Perry E. Metzger <[email protected]> wrote:
>> [DBRG] seemed like a really weird place to put a backdoor, because
>> it was insanely slow, and it seemed unlikely to get any significant
>> use.
> As an aside, this is just the instance we know about, partially
> because they screwed up, partially because the New York Times saw fit
> to let us have confirmation of what was suspected in public....
Also keep in mind that we're not seeing the full documents exfiltrated by
Snowden. Snowden may have marked some material as "not for public release"
when he gave it to the papers; the papers themselves go over it; and the papers
have told us that they also talk to the government and sometimes are asked not
to release certain material - though they may ignore the request. I would also
assume that the newspapers have gotten some technically competent people
involved to advise them as well.
It's possible that the original documents hinted at other places that the the
NSA mounted such attacks. This is getting very close to "means and methods",
and the government may have requested that none of this be released. But the
newspapers could well have pushed back and decided that the fact of such
attacks is too important to suppress completely, so they compromised by only
mentioning an attack with little practical import.
-- Jerry
PS After the harassment of David Miranda in the UK, Glenn Greenwald responded
that in retaliation he would now release even more material than he had
previously planned. And, in fact, there's been some recent trend for the
material leaked to be more specific. I have my doubts that personal pique
should have a role in the journalistic process, but Greenwald is only human.
We're in an unprecedented situation - though one much discussed in many spy
thriller and science fiction books in the past - where a small group of
individuals has (apparently well protected) access to information that can do
really serious damage to a large organization. One wonders if the intelligence
community has quite come to grips with what a dangerous position they have
found themselves in.
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