This is garbage. There is easily enough information to uniquely identify him (lamb of god, religious convictions, recently left the NSA, social media), which calls into question the entire premise of the article.
The NSA can ID him. It's not just the NSA he'd want to be anonymous from. "Famous" NSA Hacker guy - target for every wannabe braggart script-kiddie etc. He might be comfortable with the NSA knowing who he is and that he's talking the intercept but not comfortable with his local shopkeeper, his kid's grade-school teacher, priest knowing the same.
Maybe he didn't want it comming up when HR departments do background checks.. But another possibility is that the real person that corresponds to the leaked messages isnt such a perfect shill, but he can't complain as this PR imposter never claimed to be him.
How so? I'm sure he revealed exactly as much as he intended to by his surroundings. He's not exactly leaking classified info, just contributing a personal opinion.
In the context of my comment, I meant someone deeply involved in the technical implementation of collection techniques or strategy. The interviewee comes across as someone who is skilled at a small process but doesn't seem to be the person who discovered the exploit or did a significant part of the creative thinking involved in the exploit.
For the purposes of an article like this, I don't think technical prowess would be very useful. He's providing an opinion informed by speaking with a variety of people with clearance speaking freely about their work. That's pretty rare in its own right.
While you are correct, my intent was to serve as a counterpoint to statements like this in the article, "He identified himself and his highly trained colleagues at the NSA as a breed apart — a superior breed, much in the way that soldiers look down on weekend paintballers. Perhaps this shouldn’t be altogether surprising, because arrogance is one of the unfortunate hallmarks of the male-dominated hacker culture."
The problem with spies of any stripe is that you can never know if they're lying. Le Carre's books do the best job of communicating this depressing fact, I think.
So if you can't know whether they're lying, any information they provide is just noise ultimately, because you'll very rarely (like never) beat them at their game; and if you do, they'll change the game.
I would bet even within the agency (assuming he's real) this guy is an exception. most of the feds i've met at "FedCon" are actually pretty normal people and seem genuine in the interests and motivations (even if people disagree with their roles). The whole article comes off a bit braggadocios for this insider and more of a fluff piece by the Intercept to push more viewers.
I wonder why the interviewee is so confident that the world will always be a place of conflict. I can think of no rational, or no necessary, reason why multiple conflicting powers should exist based on the lines on a map.
Perhaps it's for the same reason he is religious (i.e. he's just wrong sometimes, like every human).
A conflict between two people only needs one of them to start it. The FBI does not consent to the existence of crime, nor did the Crown consent to the existence of the US. A crushingly-powerful global omni-state could only win battles, not end the game.
If you tried to prevent conflict by making people afraid to start it, then you would really just end up holding yourself in perpetual conflict with everyone.
All great apes have hierarchical, territorial, aggressive societies.
Most don't have maps though.
Humans primarily distinguish themselves by their creative abstractions and rationalizations to justify fighting/killing other tribes...also imaginary friends in the sky who demand it, nonexistent differences in DNA, etc., etc. Territorial disputes are the least imaginary of the lot.
Do we perform any action that is not "in our nature"? Do you feel the same way about slavery which, until relatively recently, was the natural order of things?
Slavery is still very much alive, it's just no longer publicly supported. Saying something is in our nature doesn't justify it, it's merely an explanation why something still is. As long as resources are scarce, man will fight, that is the way of things.
> Slavery is still very much alive, it's just no longer publicly supported.
That misses the point, but I can pin the example down if that helps: ... publicly supporting slavery, until relatively recently, was the natural order of things. The point is that saying "something is in our nature" doesn't justify it or explain it - because everything everybody has ever done or will do is something in our nature.
> As long as resources are scarce, man will fight...
This is better than the nature angle, but not by much - as pretty much anything (including adherents to a religion) can be called "resources". We just need to crack the whole post-scarcity thing... kind of a silver lining.
I understand your position, but I guess I've failed to communicate mine effectively - because you don't seem to understand me when I've said in two different ways that your nature argument is tautological.
Ok, better to just say that, but I still don't agree.
> Do we perform any action that is not "in our nature"?
Of course we do, much of culture isn't in our nature, but is learned. Advanced mathmatics isn't in our nature, it is learned. "in our nature" essentially means because it's human, and that isn't tautological imho. The OP could think of no reason humans would have conflict over land, human nature is a reason, this is not tautological.
Yeah we definitely aren't going to see eye to eye on this, because we don't even agree on what it is to be human. Whereas I include the direct consequences for biological imperatives in the definition, "Advanced mathmatics" is a direct and logical consequence of curiosity and the capacity for relatively high level cognition, you seem to restrict the definition to only include the biological imperatives... which leaves me to wonder at how you differentiate the species from the rest of the animals.
> The OP could think of no reason humans would have conflict over land, human nature is a reason, this is not tautological.
That fits the very definition of a tautology: humans fight over land because it is human nature to fight over land. You can substitute one or both instances of "land" with "scarce resource" if you like, but it is still a tautology - because land is a resource that is scarce :)
Your definition of human nature includes anything humans do as natural which is a completely useless definition of natural. Natural, to have any real meaning, means not man made; mans culture is man made, our religions are man made, these things are not natural in that sense and that's the only meaningful use of that word in this context.
Advanced mathmatics are not natural, they are a development of culture, our brains are in no way optimized for it and learning to do it often requires letting go of common sense. We're so bad at it that stupid machines are a bazillion times faster at it. Maths is not in our nature, it is a product of cultural evolution that could easily be lost should the wrong people die and could be reinvented with entirely different braches the next go around if at all.
When someone is talking about human nature, we're talking about those behaviors that always naturally emerge in individual human development like language, aggression, mating habits, etc, not things that may or may not happen like the development of science or math which are artifacts of particular cultures, not of humans in general.
> which leaves me to wonder at how you differentiate the species from the rest of the animals.
Why do I need to differentiate them, we're animals like any other, we do some things far better than other animals and many things far worse than animals, none of our abilities are unique in the animal kingdom, they're only unique in the level at which we can perform them, animals think, humans think better; we're only special when we choose to judge by things we ourselves are good at and we rig the contest by setting ourselves as the bar on something we happen to be good at and that's no different than a dolphin judging themselves superior to us because we're terrible in water and can't echo locate. It's hubris, nothing more.
> That fits the very definition of a tautology: humans fight over land because it is human nature to fight over land.
We'll just agree to disagree, I think you're rephrasing is a strawman, and now we're beating a dead horse.
> ...includes anything humans do as natural which is a completely useless definition of natural.
Useless for your purposes, where you are comparing things of the same kind - you use behavior for that, not nature. Nature is used for comparing things of a different kind, like humans vs sea slugs. Also, nature is not the same word as natural...
> ...always naturally emerge in individual human development like language...
How is that any different from "Advanced mathmatics"? No known humans have had a written language but no numbering system, and speculation about the earliest humans without a written language is just that, speculation.
> Why do I need to differentiate them...
So that you can quantify, classify, compare, understand, intelligently discuss, etc.
> I think you're rephrasing is a strawman...
Eh, it conveyed the exact same meaning - it just more clearly demonstrated the logical flaw.
> ...and now we're beating a dead horse.
Maybe, but I will say that your last post communicated your thoughts on the matter very clearly - I never would have known otherwise that we disagree on about five other fundamental concepts.
I'll use whatever I choose to use when I'm making my point. You don't get to define my choice of differentiation.
> Also, nature is not the same word as natural...
That's just absurdly pedantic and a ridiculous point; I defined what I meant, take it or leave it but don't be obtuse.
> How is that any different from "Advanced mathmatics"? No known humans have had a written language but no numbering system, and speculation about the earliest humans without a written language is just that, speculation.
I think I was more than clear, naturally emerge in individual human development; i.e. all humans naturally develop it as part of their normal life-cycle. Language for example, this is vastly different than advanced mathematics which may not ever emerge until certain levels of culture are accomplished. Mathematics are not a natural part of the development of the individual human lifecycle.
> So that you can quantify, classify, compare, understand, intelligently discuss, etc.
Which can all be accomplished without said differentiation, so no, try again.
> Eh, it conveyed the exact same meaning - it just more clearly demonstrated the logical flaw.
Lets start with the absolutely obvious - there are not enough resources for everyone. Oil, gas, water and food supply are national security interests of the highest order with zero or very small elasticity and long market response delays. A crunch in any of those leads to internal or external instability.
Free market in supply crunch is great for the people that have the money or the supply. The ones that only have demand can either go to war or get destroyed as a nation.
The arab spring was not caused by the sudden love for democracy. It was caused because of the massive spike in commodities and staples' prices across north of Africa and parts of the middle east.
