Yeah, at this point Rand Paul is pretty much running as Hillary Clinton-lite. You see, through various intelligence programs, the US government is able to identify foreign terrorist organizations. When those terrorists then contact folks in the United States, we have legitimate reason to know who they’re talking to, so NSA has developed means of sifting that information.
And yet here we are, 13 and change years after 9/11, a “Republican” Senator Rand Paul cheering with Democrat Barack Obama that they tag-teamed to kill the program.
Continue reading »
Part of the USA PATRIOT act ensured NSA could spy on conversations foreigners were having, that involved data passing into America. After 9/11, when terrorist cells came here and murdered many Americans, we understood the need for that.
Well, some Republicans remembered, but Rand Paul forgot, and it sounds like Paul won.
I wonder if the Islamic State will send flowers to thank him.
Continue reading »
So the US Congress is debating whether to renew the part of the USA PATRIOT act that ensures NSA can watch the communications of foreign terror cells that set up shop in the US, and communicate back home with their terror networks. That’s a good debate to have. We need to debate legislation before passing it.
Continue reading »
I’ve said it pretty regularly in this space: the Internet isn’t for kids. However the scary thing is that even if you don’t realize you’re putting your kids online, you really might be, as those parents with an online service-based nanny cam found out.
Be careful out there. NSA does the dirty work, but there’s only so much they can do.
Continue reading »
A long running theme of Tech at Night is that people don’t care about privacy, and we know this by their actions. That’s why the NSA critics are all wrong. Abolishing the NSA would leave everyone still vulnerable to spying, and just eliminate the agency that exists to counter the other guys.
It’s up to us to protect our own privacy. Therefore, government actions contrary to that, are actually things to be opposed.
Continue reading »
People don’t really believe how much damage a determined state-backed attacker can do to us online. And yes, the attack on Sony Pictures was an attack on us. North Korea’s attack on that studio, and let’s be clear, it was North Korea, not a domestic malcontent, was their way of cheaply doing millions of dollars of damage to our economy.
It used to take bombs to do that. Not anymore. That’s why we need NSA.
Continue reading »
People keep trying to diminish the possibility that North Korea was behind the attack on Sony, which I don’t get. An online attack is not like a nuclear weapon, needing a massive capital investment and scarce domain expertise. Computer experts are much easier to develop, and the investment to make such attacks is well within the budget of even a backward country like North Korea.
So some other group may be claiming responsibility, but that’s not necessarily the ned of the story. If private groups can commoditize online attacks, then North Korea can make them.
Continue reading »
So Barack Obama denies it’s an act of war for a foreign country, North Korea, to attack American Internet resources, those of Sony Pictures. It is war though, as surely as an embargo is an act of war, though it is war by a new means.
I hope South Korea is taking it seriously, because it looks like somebody is. NSA? Sounds like them, shutting it down to neutralize a threat.
Continue reading »
It’s not often a Tech at Night issue gets wide play on the Internet, but this one has. North Korean attackers broke into Sony systems in the US (Sony being a Japanese firm but Sony Pictures Studios being a major US-based movie studio, at the old Paramount lot) in order to intimidate them into pulling a movie, The Interview.
Some are trying to dismiss this as an actual foreign threat, but there’s no reason not to think they could do it, and this is every reason why we need a strong NSA.
Continue reading »
As much as the extreme left wants you to fear anything other than a socialist Internet, Obamacare-style where your only choices are government dictated, the future is in innovation like subsidized data.
The fact is, government will always make this stuff worse if we try to “fix” it.
Continue reading »