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Re:A Backdoor in Skype for Mac OS X by gr3yh47 on Tuesday December 13, 2016 @04:03PM (#13170990)
Does any NSA surveillance vulnerability stand up to logical scrutiny?

No, because introducing security vulnerabilities to keep us secure is inherently illogical.

Re:A Backdoor in Skype for Mac OS X by tptacek on Tuesday December 13, 2016 @04:07PM (#13171037)
If this comment made sense to someone else who could rephrase it for me, I'd be grateful.
Re:A Backdoor in Skype for Mac OS X by angry_octet on Tuesday December 13, 2016 @05:54PM (#13172020)
I think he means 'if nsa were logical actors, they would patch vulnerabilities, not leave them to be exploited by anyone, and they would use NSLs/collaborators/special NSA Voodoo to get their data'.

This idea is built on the assumption that (1) they think their defensive role is as vital as their offensive one, (2) there is plenty of special NSA voodoo to go round. Which is false. In particular, it is better that a hack come from a vendor vuln that anybody could find than from crypto wizardry (e.g. Logjam or signed drivers with md5 collisions).

Re:A Backdoor in Skype for Mac OS X by tedunangst on Tuesday December 13, 2016 @09:48PM (#13173387)
The NSA did an illogical thing, therefore everything they do is illogical. It is illogical to create a backdoor that requires already owning the machine, therefore the NSA did exactly that.
Re:A Backdoor in Skype for Mac OS X by curried_haskell on Wednesday December 14, 2016 @09:05AM (#13175985)
This is also the biggest fallacy in economic, and even political theory. The assumption of rational actors.