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Is the NSA on Hacker News?

9 points by dangero ↗ HN
We know that in the past the NSA has embedded themselves into technology communities and also that they have attempted to sway public opinion. Since Hacker News is a large technical community where opinions are created and discussed about relevant topics, would that not suggest that the NSA probably has agents monitoring and commenting on threads?

What got me thinking about it was this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6881380

If rand_s is flawed, then most every communication online could be read even if encrypted since most client machines use Windows. I don't mind if people disagree with my ideas, but the thread was full of hand waving dismissals. Where was the typical Hacker News paranoia? We know Microsoft has let the NSA install Windows back doors in the past. We also know that an audit of the Windows 2000 version of rand_s found major flaws. Not one shred of evidence was presented to challenge my concern. I'm not suggesting that everyone in that thread is an NSA agent, but rather that I would be naive to think that there are not NSA agents attempting to sway opinion on this site in general. If you were the NSA would you not do the same? Thoughts?

12 comments

[ 4.5 ms ] story [ 41.4 ms ] thread
visakanv
You've caught us, dangero.

Hacker News IS the NSA.

dangero
Why the snark? Is it not a legitimate question?
visakanv
Okay, you got me. I'm actually an NSA agent trying to pursuade you that Hacker News ISN'T the NSA.
w_t_payne
I think these guys probably have better things to do, and suggesting that they would spend any significant effort on this forum is egotism and hubris of the worst sort.

Of course, you can never rule anything out in it's entirety ...

dangero
I was not suggesting that Hacker News is particularly special. I think it's probably naive knowing what we know now to believe that the largest information intelligence organization in the world does not use part of its resources to monitor and guide discussion related to sensitive topics such as random number generation back doors.

More what I picture is that they filter the web for conversations happening of relevance and go from there. Hacker News could be one of 10,000 sites they monitor for such conversation. Private companies do similar things, so why wouldn't the NSA?

kr4
There's only one way you can find out whether or not an hn'er is from NSA and that is ... you also need to be from NSA.
dangero
That's a good point and the other side of the coin is that it seems very likely there are people on HN that work for the NSA and just read HN in their free time for fun.
brudgers
Swaying opinion is not what the NSA does. It does signals intelligence, and propaganda production is the purview of other organs.

Going further, I doubt it does much with HN other than tracking use. HN is text and accessible directly from the web and tends toward stable content. There's nothing upon which to construct a potential conspiracy and thus justify an operation.

dangero
Given the recent Snowden leaks about the NSA collecting information to discredit "radicalizers" that is pretty funny. The NSA very clearly was holding information that they did not want getting out such as back doors in encryption chips. Why would you believe that they would not monitor and anonymously involve themselves in conversations happening around the web by people who may have been close to discovering their back doors?

http://warincontext.org/2013/11/27/top-secret-document-revea...

runjake
> Is NSA on Hacker News?

Yes. CNE (computer network exploitation) and information warfare (formerly cryptology) people. They're into the same stuff as the rest of us, of course.

> I would be naive to think that there are not NSA agents attempting to sway opinion on this site in general.

I dunno. The NSA folks I'm aware of are just geeks looking for news and discussion, the same as everyone else.

What you were talking about I believe would fall under "psychological operations" and I do not believe that is a mission goal of NSA/CSS.

Disclaimer: I am not NSA, nor associated with the government currently :)