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pnwmom

(108,980 posts)
Tue Jul 16, 2013, 05:52 PM Jul 2013

Snowden must be an amazing guy, if you believe his latest claims,

smarter than all the professors who no longer bring laptops into China (even though they have access to encryption) and smarter than all the hackers in Russia and China. Wow. We know the secrets in the four laptops are all safe because he says so. What other assurance could we possibly need?

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/17/education/barrage-of-cyberattacks-challenges-campus-culture.html?pagewanted=1&hp

Some universities no longer allow their professors to take laptops to certain countries, and that should be a standard practice, said James A. Lewis, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a policy group in Washington. “There are some countries, including China, where the minute you connect to a network, everything will be copied, or something will be planted on your computer in hopes that you’ll take that computer back home and connect to your home network, and then they’re in there,” he said. “Academics aren’t used to thinking that way.”

Bill Mellon of the University of Wisconsin said that when he set out to overhaul computer security recently, he was stunned by the sheer volume of hacking attempts.

“We get 90,000 to 100,000 attempts per day, from China alone, to penetrate our system,” said Mr. Mellon, the associate dean for research policy. “There are also a lot from Russia, and recently a lot from Vietnam, but it’s primarily China.”

Other universities report a similar number of attacks and say the figure is doubling every few years. What worries them most is the growing sophistication of the assault.

SNIP

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quinnox

(20,600 posts)
1. Amazing is being mild. Snowden is an American hero, riding to warn the nation
Tue Jul 16, 2013, 05:54 PM
Jul 2013

of danger and potential tyranny on the horizon.

 

quinnox

(20,600 posts)
16. I'm completely serious
Tue Jul 16, 2013, 08:23 PM
Jul 2013

I think I may even start posting this more often. I admit I did steal the whole concept from another duer, but I love it!

 

gcomeau

(5,764 posts)
3. Well gosh, it sure is a mystery...
Tue Jul 16, 2013, 05:58 PM
Jul 2013
“We get 90,000 to 100,000 attempts per day, from China alone, to penetrate our system,”


...why the NSA might be monitoring Chinese computer networks. The scandal! The outrage! Who do they think they are, some kind of agency tasked with defending the nation against espionage or something???

KurtNYC

(14,549 posts)
5. Killing the messenger never gets old.
Tue Jul 16, 2013, 06:02 PM
Jul 2013

Plus it proves that his message can be safely ignored!

At least we still have the 3rd Amendment which is good because my guest bedroom is a mess.

pnwmom

(108,980 posts)
7. When the messenger is a Russian defector,
Tue Jul 16, 2013, 06:11 PM
Jul 2013

it makes sense to take his claims with a grain of salt.

 

Arctic Dave

(13,812 posts)
9. I can't wait for all the information to come out. Fuck the NSA, the MIC and
Tue Jul 16, 2013, 07:48 PM
Jul 2013

all their authoritarian loving shitbag followers.

pnwmom

(108,980 posts)
12. I would feel very differently about Snowden if he'd limited himself
Tue Jul 16, 2013, 07:56 PM
Jul 2013

to disclosures about internal US surveillance.

It's in switching to disclosures about the NSA and CIA spying on other countries that he's crossed the line -- and damaged his overall credibility and caused the focus of the public to shift away from a debate about internal US surveillance.

 

DesMoinesDem

(1,569 posts)
17. Why would he ever connect those computers to any network?
Tue Jul 16, 2013, 08:52 PM
Jul 2013

If I had documents that I knew hackers would try to get I would put them on a computer that didn't even have the hardware to connect to a network. And of course those computers would be encrypted. He can use one of the laptops to connect to the internet and the others to store encrypted documents.

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