Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

"I sitting at my desk certainly had the authorities to wiretap anyone from you or your accountant to a federal judge to even the president if I had a personal email"

"I had access to the full rosters of everyone working in the NSA, the entire intelligence community and undercover assets all around the world, the locations of every station, we have what their missions are"

Wow, is this guy for real? It sounds crazy.



erm he pointed out his level of access to illustrate that what he did wasn't to harm the US but to inform the people. He is saying look I could have done anything with the access I had, literally anything, but what I choose to do was take some specific info I felt would be relevant to the public and disclose it in a way that didnt put operatives at risk or put people in harms way. Its the whistle blower equivelant of "I have nuclear tech, and instead of building a bomb, I built a power plant".


But how could a 29-year-old sysadmin have access to all this. Isn't it crazy? It sounds crazy to me.


Who's going to have root access to the machines but the sysadmins?


Yeah I know ... for some reason I thought the NSA machines would somehow be ... more special than that, somehow.


Yeah that part made me shutter, why the hell would he bring that up? Is he trying to bait the US Gov somehow?


Do you honestly think his employers aren't aware of that fact? LISTEN to what he's trying to say: no one - not even POTUS - is safe from being spied on.


It does read like a shot across the bow.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: