NSA leaker Edward Snowden: U.S. targets China with hackers

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/snowden-wants-people-of-hong-kong-to-decide-my-fate/2013/06/12/a69e94ee-d370-11e2-a73e-826d299ff459_story.html

by zwieback • 13 years ago

93 94 13 years ago

washingtonpost.com

apalmer6• 13 years ago

But it has been clear for a while that Snowden is not in it strictly for the heroism... the tone/slant and other circumstantial info to my mind seems to align him more with espionage than true whistleblowing.

ollysb2• 13 years ago

I've yet to see an opportunity for much personal gain on his part, what's caused you to cast him in that light?

Kylekramer2• 13 years ago

This is still early in the story, but you don't see how Snowden stands to gain by holding inside information about America's Chinese hacking whilst in a territory controlled by China?

apalmer6• 13 years ago

ummmm lets play devils advocate, how much would China pay Snowden for the design documents, specifications, etc for an advanced system for monitoring and extracting an entire nations online and phone habits? keep in mind china fairly recently got busted stealing of cybersitters net nanny software to power their national green dam project.

How much would the propaganda value of China being able to shirk its label as human rights invasion of internet privacy by showing that the USA is doing the same thing be worth? China protecting freedom of expression online...

Snowden is very clearly signalling that he has a lot more secrets, and would like to get some kind of special consideration from china. in particular he seems to be claiming he has a lot of info on US cyber attacks on China, which in no way are 'protecting the US constitution' and in everyway are good old fashion espionage.

... then again wonder if Snowden is going to be the justification for even stronger snooping once he turns out to be a spy.

betterunix• 13 years ago

Espionage is typically conducted in secret. Snowden publicly released the documents and publicly announced his role as the leaker.

apalmer6• 13 years ago

I mean i don't know if he is a very naive dude who came up with his own (bad) way of trying to work his way into the chinese good graces...

or if he is a very slick operative and this whole thing is part of a propaganda operation as he defects to China.

All I can say is he stole all kinds of classified documents, revealed some to cause an uproar in the US and paint himself as a hero, immediately flew to the one other super power in the worlds sphere of influence and started advertising he needs help and has a whole lot more documents that would be of keen interest to said super power

brown9-23• 13 years ago

Isn't this sort of the entire purpose of an signals intelligence agency?

China is a target of US hacking. The US is a target of Chinese hacking. And so on and so forth for any other country's names you can swap in or any other intelligence gathering mechanism you can replace "hacking" with.

One part of this story that has always seemed baffling is his shock that espionage, the act of stealing secrets or convincing someone to betray their oaths and steal secrets for you, requires some less-than-moral activities.

And by disclosing that he possesses documents that he says describe U.S. hacking against China, he appeared to be trying to win support from the Chinese government.

This seems to be transitioning from leaking to let Americans know how their civil rights are being violated into something else.

krapp5• 13 years ago

Even with all of this going on, affront to liberty that it is, I'd be more upset if we weren't trying to hack China. An up and coming communist superpower, and a potential military and technological rival? Of course we're trying to hack the bejesus out of them. Everything we accuse them of doing - penetrating our media, penetrating our infrastructure, whatever, we're trying to do. This is not even controversial, this is the part of their job they're supposed to be doing, 'owning other countries.'

brown9-23• 13 years ago

This isn't even that much of a reveal by Snowden considering 1) the Chinese would already know about this and 2) a lot of details about NSA's TAO group have already been published (http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/06/10/inside_the_...).

So now he is using the secrets he learned to buy favor from the Chinese government?

abraininavat2• 13 years ago

Not controversial? Obama certainly characterizes it as controversial when he talks about China conducting cyber-attacks on the US.

rollo_tommasi• 13 years ago

While its impossible to say what exactly his motives are here, there is definitely some civic value in having this information out there. The tremendous growth in the 'cybersecurity' apparatus - a massive hiring boom for contractors and military personnel, the development of an entirely new military command structure, a raft of new legislation - is justified by the enormous threat supposedly posed to U.S. infrastructure and national security by Chinese hackers. If it turns out that we actually have parity - or an advantage - then the justification for massively increased military budgets and authority is diminished.

It's like Kennedy and the non-existent "missile gap" that was used to justify a hawkish defense policy in the Cold War.

Furthermore, cyber-attacks against civilian infrastructure veer into the realm of "acts of war", depending on what they're trying to accomplish. If the NSA is mounting an aggressive paramilitary campaign against Chinese infrastructure that's definitely something that should be made known to the American people.

mpyne4• 13 years ago

This seems to be transitioning from leaking to let Americans know how their civil rights are being violated into something else.

Something else far different indeed.

China is not an evil country but they are not pure as the driven snow either. They are aggressively pushing to gain access to resource-rich ocean areas that do not belong to them under UNCLOS.

On the other hand China almost certainly knows better than Snowden does how they are doing against NSA attempts, if only because of their own counterintelligence. So if I were Snowden I wouldn't think of giving China that kind of intel, it can only harm his standing here at home (and with those Asian countries under China's guns...) and wouldn't even help China as much as he seems to think anyways.

P.S. Why is no one pushing for a criminal investigation regarding the process used to give computer geeks security clearances? :)

abraininavat2• 13 years ago

It's comical to me that everyone in this forum all of a sudden is an expert on Chinese-US cyber-espionage.

Could you tell us how exactly you know that Snowden almost certainly couldn't have had access to intelligence that China would find useful?

josh2600• 13 years ago

This isn't news.

When you look at Keith Alexander's profile, just what do you think "Operations" are?

http://www.nsa.gov/about/leadership/bio_alexander.shtml

apalmer6• 13 years ago

This is absolutely true, but it doesnt seem to be in line with the 'whistleblower' image that has been projected so far, and more in line with plain espionage.

It appears to my jaded eye that Snowden copied everything possible while in the NSA, revealed a certain amount to rile up the public opinion in his favor and to cover over the fact he was copying everything in sight.

He seems to be positioning himself as a literal espionage agent right now, giving operational secrets or at least implying he is willing to reveal operational secrets for special treatment from china... and no doubt money.

The tone of his statements seem to be like a chinese propaganda mouth peice right now... funny how things are never as simple as they look at first glance

tdirect8• 13 years ago

giving operational secrets or at least implying he is willing to reveal operational secrets for special treatment from china... and no doubt money

Could you please offer citation?

tokenadult• 13 years ago

I should hope so. At a minimum, even in a time of peace between China and the United States, the United States should be aware of what online vulnerabilities China has, whether to advise China on how to reduce those during an alliance, or whether to make use of those during a conflict.

(After all, it is plain enough that China looks at the issue as one such that it has to find out what vulnerabilities the United States government and private businesses have.)

From the article: "Snowden’s claims could not be verified, and U.S. officials did not respond to immediate requests for comment."

Jd2• 13 years ago

A bizarre play by Snowden, who seems to have gone to Hong Kong in order to be in the strange space that currently exists between the US and China right now, where despite the normal standard of extradition from HK to the US, there exists the possibility of a Chinese veto. Here, I think Snowden is primarily stalling for time, saying that if China helps his cause (i.e. not allowing him to be extradited) he might do something that helps China.

I don't really know how I feel about this either ethically or as a strategy, but it certainly could play out to Snowden's personal advantage after a bit of time on the international stage. I'd imagine some pretty senior level guys will get involved, and they will decide what to do with Snowden.

That said, regardless of his ultimate fate, this does seem like a legitimate and probably successful tactic for him to buy himself a bit more time in Hong Kong. The Chinese government will probably want to know what he knows, but they will presumably also have to wait for him to reveal what he is willing to over time.

Keep in mind Snowden has already hinted he knows some pretty "dirty secrets" and given his crypto background, etc. it is possible he has some sort of other treasure trove of documents that he hasn't handed over to the reporters yet -- this is sort of an ugly and dangerous game, but I'm sure he knew that from the moment he set things in motion.

aswanson• 13 years ago

I'm not so certain he thought things through as far you give him credit for. He seems to be just playing it by ear; not the long-term consequence type thinker. How noble is it to give up state secrets from a country that monitors its citizens to a country that more heavily monitors its citizens, actively represses the flow of information into its borders, and allows only one political party. He's starting to look stupid and short-sighted if this is true.

Jd2• 13 years ago

I agree "if it is true," but the interview makes him look like a fairly smart sort of fellow and he has obviously been considering this for a long time (5+ years), so at the very least he's probably thought through the details more than anyone currently discovering this story via Hacker News.

tdirect8• 13 years ago

I don't think he has given any information from one country to another.

He has revealed to the American people that they are taking an offensive rather than merely defensive role in a hacking war with China. This is important for the American people to know--how can anyone come to a reasonable conclusion about the issue if they only hear the government line that China is hacking and the U.S. is just defending?

China has also received this information, but it's ridiculous to believe they didn't already know there were hacking attempts.

tomjen3• 13 years ago

Hmm, it is one thing to leak secrets that may be relevant for the public at large. It is quite another to give secrets to your countries competitors.

tdirect8• 13 years ago

That the U.S. may be the cyber aggressor is very important information for the American people.

If this is the case, it's difficult to believe the government of China doesn't already know...

Kiro• 13 years ago

Not a big fan of this guy tbh.

tzs2• 13 years ago

I am very puzzled:

And by disclosing that he possesses documents that he says describe U.S. hacking against China, he appeared to be trying to win support from the Chinese government.

China is known to be active in hacking attempts against US government and US industrial targets. They would therefore be greatly interested in any inside information they could get about US defenses against such attempts.

The NSA would likely have information on those defenses.

I would expect, then, that China would be quite interested in getting their hands on any NSA employee with a high security clearance in order to question them about those defenses. Snowden is publicly known to be a person. He likely has information that would also help China with their own internal spying programs.

And now, Snowden is letting China know that he's got even more valuable information of particular interest to them.

Given this, WHY did he pick Honk Kong to flee to? If China wants that information (and it is hard to see how they could not want it), their best move is to kidnap him and blame it on foreign agents (hinting that they think the US took him--which many people would find quite believable) and make him turn over his information to them.

youngerdryas3• 13 years ago

Even better he turns himself over to them in exchange for a Communist party position.

apalmer6• 13 years ago

because its simpler to pay him instead of kidnapping him. he is a spy thats all there really is to it it seems

diminoten4• 13 years ago

Because he's a traitor, that's why. And not your Bradley Manning, "fuzzy lines" kind of whistleblower.

rdouble4• 13 years ago

He's only a traitor if the American public is now the enemy.

mpyne4• 13 years ago

Well... let's wait until he actually leaks something sensitive before we go throwing that around. It's not impossible he's a traitor based on what else he's given to Greenwald, but I personally wouldn't make that call at this time.

taktix2• 13 years ago

All you have heard is US media propaganda about being hacked by the Chinese. You never considered the possibility that the US may be doing the same to China, but much worse?

diminoten4• 13 years ago

I've also considered the possibility that I might be a smart robot. Lacking evidence for this, however, I don't give it much thought.

tzs2• 13 years ago

All you have heard is US media propaganda about being hacked by the Chinese.

Many people's log files say differently.

You never considered the possibility that the US may be doing the same to China, but much worse?

What makes you think I never considered the possibility?

mullingitover2• 13 years ago

"Given this, WHY did he pick Honk Kong to flee to? If China wants that information (and it is hard to see how they could not want it), their best move is to kidnap him and blame it on foreign agents (hinting that they think the US took him--which many people would find quite believable) and make him turn over his information to them."

China might get more information out of him by being friendly. Sure, they could kidnap him, but they could also offer him asylum, a comfortable life, perhaps even a rewarding career in a field that interests him. That could loosen his lips more than simple bush-league torture.

mpyne4• 13 years ago

Breaking news from NSA leaker Snowden: "Water is wet, Cubs won't win the Series."

skwirl2• 13 years ago

While the facts of the statement would not be surprising to anyone, making these kind of statements are not going to help Snowden as he is viewed in the United States. I don't view this at all as a noble leak. This particular leak seems to be blatantly self serving and he seems to be outright threatening to harm U.S. national security to keep the U.S. off his back and to keep in favor of the Chinese government.

joonix• 13 years ago

And his systems administrator position in Hawaii for a contractor gives him access to records of this hacking? If so, where are the documents?

Seems he's trying to build a platform and turn into a pundit/commentator. A whistleblower should just hand over documents and attest to what he's seen personally from his/her inside position.

wissler• 13 years ago

"According to Snowden, the NSA has engaged in more than 61,000 hacking operations worldwide, including hundreds aimed at Chinese targets. Among the targets were universities, businesses and public officials."

So a tiny fraction are aimed at China, and this is the headline that's chosen? Did Snowden himself specifically call out China or is it just the reporter doing that?

Kylekramer2• 13 years ago

This is the article WaPo is taking its info from: http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1259508/edward-sn...

It is a HK paper, so maybe the local angle is being pushed. And it doesn't have direct quotes from him about Chinese hacking. Still, it is an odd thing to even bring up and provide documents regarding considering how much it would call his credibility into question. Especially with how much control he had over the interview.

tome4• 13 years ago

Well, I supported Snowden till now. What was the point of saying this? Firstly, it's obvious. Secondly, it's not in the national interest of US citizens to have this openly talked about.

jstedfast• 13 years ago

if it was so obvious, why did it turn you against him? did your delicate sensibilities get hurt or something?

I honestly don't understand how this could have change your opinion on him based on something you not only acknowledge is true, but also as "obvious".

tome4• 13 years ago

Because it changes my impression of what he's in this game for. My first impression was that he wanted to make the US government look bad in the eyes of US citizens, so the citizens could fix the problem. Now my impression is that he wants to make the US look bad in terms of its foreign policy, which is something entirely different.

skygazer• 13 years ago

My sympathy erodes as he diverges from whistle-blower to indiscriminate national secret revealer. He's now distracting from, and deminishing the impact of the primary story: the government massively trampling our personal privacy. Perhaps he's trying to raise support in Hong Kong, but he may well lose it in the US.

noiseapple• 13 years ago

Edward Snowden joined the communist?

grecy2• 13 years ago

While many in the tech community won't see this as news, I think it's important for the American people to realize what the government is doing to other countries on their behalf.

For anyone that doesn't know what I'm talking about, I strongly suggest you spend some time in any of Honduras, Panama, Chile, Peru, Bolivia, Argentina, etc.

People in those countries don't "Hate Americans because of their Freedom(TM)", they dislike America for what it's done to their countries for decades.

Americans need to know about this kind of action being taken by their government so they can have input on whether it should continue or not.

EDIT: Yes, I meant "Kind of action" ... thanks.

Fishkins• 13 years ago

I've never been in any of those countries, but I totally agree with the sentiment. By the way, you meant "kind of action," right? Unless that was irony.

smtddr2• 13 years ago

^ This right here is why I don't even bother debating some issues with some people. I just know feelings/pride is going to be hurt and people will be offended. I just wish I could somehow tell them, without telling them, that if they only knew the stuff American-corp/gov does to other countries directly and in-directly they would know what's really behind "Hate Americans because of their Freedom(TM)". But alas, any site that I get my news from will probably considered "Extremist Propaganda Against America" by the folks I'm thinking of.

jafaku2• 13 years ago

Would you mind sharing some of those news sites?

jafaku2• 13 years ago

For anyone that doesn't know what I'm talking about

Can you elaborate? I have no idea what you are talking about. And I already live in one of those places.

grecy2• 13 years ago

Sure.

In Panama you could look at the shooting of unarmed, civilian students by American soldiers[1], or the invasion of Panama[2], an act that was condemned by the UN.

In Chile you could look at the ongoing intervention by the USA [3] - read the whole article, I especially like the quote "A White House press release in November 2000 acknowledged that "actions approved by the U.S. government during this period aggravated political polarization and affected Chile's long tradition of democratic elections...""

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martyrs%27_Day_%28Panama%29#The...

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_invasion_of_Panam...

[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_intervention_in_C...

skwirl2• 13 years ago

In the context of China, this is a red herring. China is not a poor little country being bullied around by the United States. China is a major power and has a long history of engaging in cyber attacks against the US government and US companies, including many companies that people here work for. This is a serious PITA for the tech industry and has resulted in data being stolen from hundreds of companies. We expect our government to do something about it, and Snowden leaking the details of how they are doing it is not benevolent in any sense, in my opinion.

youngerdryas3• 13 years ago

There is no China angle where it is easy to hate America. Not that I blame people, there is no credible peer.

guelo2• 13 years ago

We get mad at China for hacking us so shouldn't the Chinese get mad about us hacking them? Really it needs to stop on all sides but each side, government and civilians, believe that they are entitled to hacking foreigners.

grannyg00se• 13 years ago

Is it really necessary to spend time in those countries to learn what the government is doing? I prefer to read about it I think. Is there an easy to read "international offences" type of list somewhere?

youngerdryas3• 13 years ago

This being the top comment on a thread about how HN's new golden boy, Snowden, is just another scumbag says a lot about what HN is now. We have had vapid ranting articles up voted for the last two days in some circle jerk because people who I assume are usually intelligent have temporarily lost all capacity for critical thought in some deluded quest to take down the US. My brother thinks he is taking down the government by not paying taxes but he is only slowly shooting himself in the foot. I am not downplaying the importance of proper oversight of intelligence.

Skalman2• 13 years ago

Many on this thread are suspiciously skeptical of Snowden. I could easily see this as the Washington Post trying to portrait him as cooperating with China. I can't imagine China being interested, and I highly doubt Snowden would think they are. The only value to China would be PR.

brown9-23• 13 years ago

Why is our skepticism suspicious? A few of us have been suspicious all along.

Regardless to what value he provides to China with this, his motives are confusing. Is he seeking to save American's civil liberties or attempting something else?

mullingitover2• 13 years ago

Perhaps he's seeking to save America's civil liberties without becoming a martyr needlessly?

tdirect8• 13 years ago

What is confusing about his motivations? Nothing has been suspicious about the revelations he has made thus far or in his stated intent. The only thing slightly suspicious is that he chose Hong Kong, but there are many explanations for how it's a reasonable choice (The asylum application process is currently being reworked and he likely can't be extradited before that's complete, it's a major media capital from which he can engage with the story, it has one of the few governments that is in a position to stand up to the U.S. and that could cause major implications if anything fishy happened...)

apalmer6• 13 years ago

Its not suspiciously skeptical, its just downright skeptical.

But I do take your point, reading the article in detail along with the original article it references, seems like he might just be spouting off generalities about the US hacking and then was specifically asked about Chinese hacking since the original paper is chinese and he said yup...

The question I really dont know is if he is really really naive and easily lead into making these statements by the reporters or if this is carefully orchestrated propaganda...

Either way now that dude is saying these kind of things he has probably 72 hours or less before he gets delta forced up.

Skalman2• 13 years ago

I found it suspicous because in most other threads I've seen a large portion commenters are more worried about the details of the surveillance than Snowden's motives - here it seems reversed.

Additionally, to me it seems very possible that this is part of the smear that Snowden will have to endure, the point of this post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5868853.

taktix2• 13 years ago

Americans have been so distracted with US propaganda on how bad China is with human rights, they didn't notice their own freedoms being pickpocketed. Now look at how bad it is.

Snowden is a courageous, smart guy who is making a BIG point about the hypocrisy of the US government. He's making one of the biggest statements of the century, and he's put his life on the line to do it. Recognize!

tptacek• 13 years ago

Every network security professional in the US believes the US sponsors, coordinates, and executes online attacks against China (as China clearly does to the US). This is a little like a "revelation" from a sysadmin for a drone C&C site that the US does indeed engage in drone strikes.

tikums• 13 years ago

Emperor's New Clothes. By openly restating something that has been "obvious", "implicit" or "well known", we've been served with a wake-up call.

peripetylabs• 13 years ago

Although this wasn't news to most people here, keep in mind that the US has always denied doing economic espionage, against China or anyone else. The Snowden leak also revealed that the largest target of US espionage in Europe is Germany -- I can't think of any reason for that other than economic espionage. This certainly raises questions.

NSA leaker Edward Snowden: U.S. targets China with hackers

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