Re:Snowden says Israel, U.S. created Stuxnet virus that atta...
by s_q_b on Tuesday July 16, 2013 @11:53AM
(#6052674)
File permissions aren't nearly enough here. He had access to their network systems, so you'd need encryption in transit as well, and a thousand other safeguards at both the software and hardware level.
Not to mention, Snowden was an offensive cybersecurity researcher. He knew the NSA's safeguards in and out, and thus was intimately familiar with their weaknesses. He could most likely plant malware wherever he wanted. If you think security at that level is as trivial as file permissions, you haven't thought through the problem realistically.
This is all of course, speculation. My main point is that, regardless of the reasoning or other theoretical designs, current NSA systems do not appear to have fine grained unbreakable access control.
Not to mention, Snowden was an offensive cybersecurity researcher. He knew the NSA's safeguards in and out, and thus was intimately familiar with their weaknesses. He could most likely plant malware wherever he wanted. If you think security at that level is as trivial as file permissions, you haven't thought through the problem realistically.
This is all of course, speculation. My main point is that, regardless of the reasoning or other theoretical designs, current NSA systems do not appear to have fine grained unbreakable access control.