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    gilbertkittensAdrian Chen
    11/01/13 11:13am

    Look, I think that Snowden's NSA revelations were valuable. I am in the camp that thinks that he should have stuck around to become a figurehead/martyr that could have advanced the cause of privacy more than Greenwaldian harangues ever will (personal opinion alert), but that doesn't detract from the importance of the information. Still, isn't it ironic that he is now working for a company that aims to disseminate personal information to the widest possible audience? I know it's not exactly the same, the abuse are different, etc. etc. still . . . Snowden lovers, doesn't this seem a little funny?

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      flavortowngilbertkittens
      11/01/13 11:17am

      Can that company put you in jail? Pass laws that criminalize behavior and scan for compliance? Can you 'opt out' of dealing with that company easier than you can your own country?

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      gilbertkittensflavortown
      11/01/13 11:19am

      I just said that they were different, OK?

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    Graby SauceAdrian Chen
    11/01/13 12:19pm

    Adrian,

    Here's an interesting story about how Snowden's revelations have undermined efforts to get China to back off their espionage.

    "Snowden couldn't have played better into China's strategy for protecting its cyber activities if he had been doing it on purpose,'' one American intelligence official says.

    Snowden's revelations quickly veered away from what he called the NSA's "domestic surveillance state" to overseas espionage by the United States. After fleeing to Hong Kong, he provided local reporters with NSA documents and told them the United States was hacking major Chinese telecommunications companies, a Beijing university and the corporate owner of the region's most extensive fiber-optic submarine cable network. That information, government officials and industry experts say, is now used by the Chinese to deflect criticisms of their hacking, both in meetings with the administration and at cyber security conferences.

    The activities of the two sides, however, are vastly different in scope and intent. The United States engages in widespread electronic espionage, but that classified information cannot legally be handed over to private industry. China is using its surveillance to steal trade secrets, harm international competitors and undermine American businesses.

    "Snowden changed the argument from one of 'The Chinese are doing this, it's intolerable' to 'Look, the U.S. government spies, so everybody spies,' '' says Richard Bejtlich, chief security officer at Mandiant, the firm that linked hacking intrusions in America to the Chinese military. "Of course the U.S. spies, but none of what the U.S. is doing is benefiting American business, and pretty much everything the Chinese are doing is benefiting Chinese businesses."

    China does not limit its computer espionage to America: All of western Europe, Australia, Japan, and other industrialized nations have been targeted, a fact the Obama administration had hoped to leverage into unified international pressure against Beijing. But subsequent Snowden disclosures about American surveillance of allied countries and world leaders (including German Chancellor Angela Merkel) have robbed the United States of the ability to persuade other countries to join it in condemning China.

    "I don't think that point is going to win the day with Angela Merkel anymore,'' says Jason Healey, director of the Cyber Statecraft Initiative at the Atlantic Council, a national security think tank in Washington. "Certainly no one cares anymore about our whining about Chinese espionage. The time we had for making the case on that is long gone. Internationally, I don't see how we recover.''

    Some security industry and former intelligence officials say they originally believed Snowden's apparent outrage at espionage by governments might lead him to expose activities by the Chinese, who use their hacking skills not only for economic competition but to track and damage dissidents overseas and monitor their citizens. There was good reason to believe Snowden had plenty of details about Beijing's activities - he has publicly stated that as an NSA contractor he targeted Chinese operations and taught a course on Chinese cyber counterintelligence. And while he says he turned over his computerized files of NSA documents to journalists in Hong Kong, he boasts that he is so familiar with Chinese hacking techniques that there is no chance the government there can gain access to his classified material.

    But outside of American intelligence operations conducted there, Snowden has revealed nothing about surveillance and hacking in China, nor about the techniques he asserts he knows so well.

    And there is plenty to disclose. The threat of Chinese espionage is so large that Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, D-Rhode Island, who chaired the Intelligence Committee's Cyber Task Force, proclaimed it to be part of "the biggest transfer of wealth through theft and piracy in the history of mankind."

    It is an interesting note that Snowden claims to know so much about Chinese hacking that he can thwart all their efforts to gain access to the info he has, but he, Greenwald, and others have only revealed espionage information about the US espionage. If spying is bad, then why are they not taking the opportunity to criticize the biggest perpetrator of it?

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      Ladybug2Graby Sauce
      11/01/13 1:45pm

      Oh, this is gonna be good. watching and waiting

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      Graby SauceLadybug2
      11/01/13 1:52pm

      We'll have to see if the media actually cares about any of this or are they only interested in following Greenwald's lead.

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    MeanMrMustardAdrian Chen
    11/01/13 11:23am

    What good has Snowden done? He's hurt the United States, by handing over our secrets and tactics to enemies and allies. That's called treason. So he committed a major felony and then went underground to be protected by our old enemy in order to avoid a trial in the US. He has helped nothing, only harmed. He is a two-bit fuckhead spy like the others. I hope he's captured soon.

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      YintrosMeanMrMustard
      11/01/13 3:23pm

      Yikes. If by "hurt the United States" you mean "hurt the reputation of the government," then yes. Has he given other countries anything that they didn't already know? What technology? Our enemies already worked under the assumption that all of this was occurring. The only revelation is that the NSA was collecting so much data on American citizens. That helps us, not other countries.

      Those of you who blindly support Obama can border on psychotic. He's just a man, folks. He's fallible. If it makes you feel any better, much of this went into effect under Bush.

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      MeanMrMustardYintros
      11/01/13 4:13pm

      I support the protection of the United States. We have enemies who want to kill all of us.

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    ThewalkingdudeAdrian Chen
    11/01/13 11:01am

    I'm sure the Russian Facebook isn't going to be up to anything Snowden will find disagreeable. Nothing by ethical smooth sailing from here.

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      ChunkLovesSlothThewalkingdude
      11/01/13 11:10am

      And I'm sure he really brings something of value to the Russian Facebook. That Russia's intelligence didn't arrange this job offer and Snowden isn't going to become dependent and beholden to them for all their help.

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      deadpetsocietyThewalkingdude
      11/01/13 11:31am

      Do you understand the difference between voluntarily disclosing personal information to a social media site and having your phone tapped by the state without consent? Perhaps you were preoccupied with thinking of your next witty slam against Snowden, maybe about how he's supporting the imprisonment of Pussy Riot by paying taxes that fund the Russian state apparatus.

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    peiweihermanAdrian Chen
    11/01/13 11:04am

    At some point he has to start thinking this blew up in his face. He's now stuck living in Russia, where human rights, freedom of the press, etc... is far worse than the US. He's away from his girlfriend. He's separated from his family. In the end, he's left with an endless supply of Popov Vodka and a funny winter hat.

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      corvidaepeiweiherman
      11/01/13 11:12am

      He did the right thing, and he doesn't want to wind up like Chelsea Manning. Because he's a brave person with ethics and character, internet smartass.

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      GoalieLaxcorvidae
      11/01/13 11:27am

      lying, stealing, fleeing, hiding.

      the ethics of the 21st centurey. how fucking sad.

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    G SAdrian Chen
    11/01/13 11:18am

    This is hilarious considering how shady VK is. They don't respond to DMCA notices and it's full of IP theft from the US and other countries.

    Their DMCA policies posted on the site actually spell out how they don't pay attention to them.

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      Bichon60Adrian Chen
      11/01/13 11:12am

      They're going to wring him dry and toss him out. You know they don't give a rat's ass about him.

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        GoalieLaxAdrian Chen
        11/01/13 11:13am

        I'm sure "russian facebook" has great privacy settings

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          ttyymmnnAdrian Chen
          11/01/13 11:13am

          What if this whole Snowden thing is really an elaborate plot to get one of our guys into Russia?

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            KitebroAdrian Chen
            11/01/13 2:38pm

            I thought he'd be working on a book by now. Lord knows he could get big bucks for it. Does anyone else think he may have Clinton era spying docs, as well? I mean, the first World Trade Center bombing happened in year one of his first term. The NSA has been around for decades. Espionage didn't begin in this century. Only time will tell, I suppose.

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