[gandalftb]

There have been questions regarding how Snowden harvested so much data, using thumb drives, etc. NSA and Booz Allen laptops have no USB ports for thumb drives.

What Snowden did was remove the entire hard drive from a laptop, install that drive in his own laptop and upload to an encrypted cloud that only he can access from anywhere. No need for thumb drives. Low tech and no alarms, amazing that security never thought of any counter-measures such as a laptop case alarm monitored by a different dept.

Booz Allen knew what he did for two weeks while Snowden bailed out to Hong Kong. Snowden was only stopping over in Hong Kong on his way to Russia, then Tehran, then Damascus and then Venezuela. He got stuck in Hong Kong on a temporary passport hold that expired. When we messed up the paperwork, he bailed to Russia.

Booz Allen not only fumbled online security but was doing only phone call interviews for background, that's how Snowden got in.

The reason there are so many system administrators subbed out to Booz Allen and others, is that occupation is a major destination for retiring intel and military personnel. Unfortunately, the hiring was so sloppy, the Snowden's got in also.

Anyway, it's scandals like this that tip government over and bring them, kicking and screaming and holding their breath, into the real world. I call it the Flintstone Syndrome.

[gandalftb]

Thou art pinged.

[2ndDivisionVet]

They can claim that they’re putting all their employees on cruise ships or a moon base but since there is no way of checking, we’ll never know, will we?

[Enterprise]

"NSA to cut system administrators by 90 percent to limit data access"

That's nice. But it isn't going to stop the Obama Administration from using all the agencies of the Government, including the NSA, from spying on citizens and persecuting them.

[GOP Poet]

something is rotten in Denmark . . .

[Vince Ferrer]

I am actually more concerned about the people that have “legitimate” access to all this data.

[Fai Mao]

Snowden wouldn’t even have to have swapped the hard drives.

I have seen a so called secure laptop that had no USB ports but did have a VGA port to plug up a larger monitor. All he really needed to do was to be able to plug the USB port less laptop up to a larger monitor. The information could then be siphoned off as video capture. Not as clean in some ways but if the laptop was able to be plugged into a larger monitor through a video port it could be done. The soft ware for doing this is readily available and widely used to convert personal DVD’s to non-disk copies. How hard would it be to get split cable?

[desertfreedom765]

“What Snowden did was remove the entire hard drive from a laptop, install that drive in his own laptop and upload to an encrypted cloud that only he can access from anywhere. No need for thumb drives. “

---

Any proof of this or is it just speculation.

I suspect/speculate that Snowden is just a front man for an inside group. The fact that the NSA is going to eliminate 90% of the SysAdmins indicates that I am probably right about this.

[wastedyears]

LOL!

[bgill]

So, how much will them changing job titles cost us?

[LyinLibs]

They’re “removing 90% of the SysAdmins?”

In other words, they’re relocating them to a secure facility to join the thousands of analysts they’re hiring to pore over our emails and social media posts all day.

That’s why every email I send contains a footer that says “BOJINKA ECHELON PRISM” followed by Soetoro’s stolen Connecticut SSN starting with ‘042’ the prefix for CT SSN’s.

Sometimes I even attach a photo of his mother’s B&W porno pics from the 1960’s.

[CivilWarBrewing]

In another announcement, the NSA will increase the IR&D department's access to top secret eavesdropping information by 90%. /s

Shell game BS.

[onyx]

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[driftdiver]

I’m more concerned with the shredding of the constitution.

[Lazamataz]

The only upside to this, is that it will likely make the NSA less able to handily spy on US citizens without adequate legal reason.

[silverleaf]

Skynet

[Flick Lives]

Using technology to automate much of the work now done by employees and contractors would make the NSA's networks "more defensible and more secure,"...

"Open the Tea Party File, Hal".

"I'm sorry, Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that".

[Buckeye McFrog]

so.....the remaining 10% are willing to pick up all of that overtime?

I don’t think so.

[wrencher]

Wouldn’t removing 90% of the SA’s result in the remaining 10 being overworked and more prone to making errors? Either data loss or a large security oversight could result.

This news sounds like managers talking (maybe liberal managers since reality is being denied) and scrambling to save their positions with pie-in-the-sky pipe dreams. This size reduction would seem impossible in practicality.

[Ghost of SVR4]

Uhhh...There is some crazy talk on here, VGA ports?
LOL

. Just an RJ45 cross over cable and sshd on the un-secured laptop. He could easily get his secured laptop IP, assign the un-secured laptop in the same subnet; transfer. Easy peasy..

[VerySadAmerican]

They’ll be transferred to the IRS. The IRS needs lots of people so they can continue to spy on citizens.