John McAfee: We Are 20 Years Behind China and Russia

[RossMadness]

Maximum PC scored a great interview with John Mcafee and discussed today's cybersecurity issues.

http://www.maximumpc.com/john-mcafee-we-are-20-years-behind-china-and-russia-fbi-apple-iphone-san-bernardino/

 

He goes into more than just his offer to decrypt the San Bernadino shooter's iPhone. He talks about the current state of America's national security when it comes to cyber warfare. If his claims are legitimate, then America is massively behind other world powers. The biggest threat he sees is on mobile phones since their use is ubiquitous now and can be used to gather data and interpret the data gathered. He claims the FBI/NSA are gathering data but have no means to parse through it all and use any of it, but the Chinese and Russians do.

Give the whole article a read. It's very interesting.

[Enderman]

yeah theyve been gathering data for years

and people get upset about windows 10 lol

[zacRupnow]

China definitely, but Russia can't even get their people to stop driving on the sidewalk.

[PCgamer324]

this is exactly why I think some people over-react to the NSA

 

yeah they have your data, but its buried in exabytes of drives that no-one has any way of indexing

[Misanthrope]

Hard not to picture Alex Jones screaming "The red tiiiide will overtake us all this is the Illuminati at work!"

[spartaman64]

7 hours ago, PCgamer324 said:

this is exactly why I think some people over-react to the NSA

 

yeah they have your data, but its buried in exabytes of drives that no-one has any way of indexing

the point is not that they have our data the point is that they violated our rights and if you let that go without a fight then all our rights are pointless. and also im not worried about me. im worried about the whistle blowers out there trying to keep the government in check and the NSA's potential to discover who they are and shut them down meaning we have less people fighting for our rights

[Admiral Naismith]

14 hours ago, PCgamer324 said:

this is exactly why I think some people over-react to the NSA

 

yeah they have your data, but its buried in exabytes of drives that no-one has any way of indexing

Again, it's not just about what they may do with the data, but rather that they have it in the first place. 4th Ammendment is there for a reason. The NSA needs transparency and needs to stop being the near-cult-like agency they are. They should never have been allowed to do mass data collection in the first place much less not get proper warrants (I do not consider the warrants given by their 'secret courts' as proper warrants).

[DXMember]

22 hours ago, PCgamer324 said:

this is exactly why I think some people over-react to the NSA

 

yeah they have your data, but its buried in exabytes of drives that no-one has any way of indexing

what happens when they get compromised and the data gets stolen and indexed afterwards by people that know what they're doing?

A couple of months ago some government facility leaked fingerprints and social security numbers for all of their employess as well as social security numbers of all of their relatives - wifes, husbands, children

 

Was it okay for that government to store family member's SNs ? By your argument - yes, because they didn't have any means to use it.

[PerfectTemplar]

Why do people still care about what this crazy guy thinks? Isn't this the one that probably murdered his neighbour? 

[Katorice]

1 hour ago, PerfectTemplar said:

Why do people still care about what this crazy guy thinks? Isn't this the one that probably murdered his neighbour? 

..probably..

 

innocent until proven guilty? not like the US abides by that anyway.. but i get it.

[Coaxialgamer]

This is called big data.  But quantum computers excel at sorting through large databases. 

[PerfectTemplar]

6 hours ago, Katorice said:

..probably..

 

innocent until proven guilty? not like the US abides by that anyway.. but i get it.

It's not really like their system works in convicting people of crimes they ACTUALLY committed. They tend to enjoy convicting people of crimes they didn't commit them.

[ZestyJalapeno]

I don't know if this source is accurate, but it states that the US 2015 Intelligence Budget was $69 Billion...don't tell me that they're decades behind if the amount of spending is that high.

 

https://fas.org/irp/budget/

[RossMadness]

16 hours ago, Dogeystyle said:

I don't know if this source is accurate, but it states that the US 2015 Intelligence Budget was $69 Billion...don't tell me that they're decades behind if the amount of spending is that high.

 

https://fas.org/irp/budget/

If you've ever worked technology for Enterprise or Education, you can see how much money is spent on equipment or software that's never used or is implemented improperly. For example, the US Government is paying Microsoft to keep supporting Windows XP because they have too many systems running it that they don't want to replace the hardware or software. It's not a question of how much they're spending but what they're spending it on.

[samcool55]

On 2/24/2016 at 4:43 PM, zacRupnow said:

China definitely, but Russia can't even get their people to stop driving on the sidewalk.

 i love stop a douchebag. For people that don't get it, go to youtube and search "stop a douchebag"

 

Anyway, i'm also thinking about going with my data to the chinese dudes. At least they won't give it to everyone like it's christmas.

And why should they, the info they have is info america wants, and i'm sure they don't want to give information to them just 4 lolz or whatever.

[patrickjp93]

7 hours ago, RossMadness said:

If you've ever worked technology for Enterprise or Education, you can see how much money is spent on equipment or software that's never used or is implemented improperly. For example, the US Government is paying Microsoft to keep supporting Windows XP because they have too many systems running it that they don't want to replace the hardware or software. It's not a question of how much they're spending but what they're spending it on.

Yeah, yet at the university level we just use everything open source to defray costs unless it's for specific clients on our supercomputer.

[BuckGup]

John is a scary dude. Brazil or whatever still is trying to arrest him for murder

[zacRupnow]

13 hours ago, samcool55 said:

 i love stop a douchebag. For people that don't get it, go to youtube and search "stop a douchebag"

 

Anyway, i'm also thinking about going with my data to the chinese dudes. At least they won't give it to everyone like it's christmas.

And why should they, the info they have is info america wants, and i'm sure they don't want to give information to them just 4 lolz or whatever.

I wanted to link the one where they say "Do you know you are in a traffic jam on the sidewalk." for context but couldn't find which episode it was.

[Serin]

Scare campaigns work when attempting to stir up votes?

[callum92]

A couple of statements that stood out:

Quote

McAfee: Have you ever been to Defcon or Hack Miami or any hacking group? Well you see what people look like. Mohawks a half mile high, pierced ears, face tattoos. And every one of them is going to demand that they smoke weed on the job. Now, the government isn't going to hire those people. But I promise you, if you went to China, or Russia, and knocked on the doors of the Kremlin or the equivalent in China, and said, "I'm the world's greatest hacker, will you hire me," they'll say absolutely! And you say "Well wait a minute, I need to smoke weed," they'll say "Perfect, we'll put you in the basement and you can smoke as much as you want." Why? Because they're smart! We're stupid.

Quote

Tuan: So do you think the Russians and Chinese already have the tools to decrypt the iPhone?

 

McAfee: That's common knowledge in the hacking community—absolutely. And not just decrypt the phone! The Chinese and Russians have the ability to bring our society to its knees. With the push of a button, the Chinese can terminate our electrical production and put us permanently without power. This is a known fact in the hacking community. We are so far behind that it's incomprehensible that we still call ourselves a world power.

[suxen]

On 2/24/2016 at 2:20 PM, RossMadness said:

Maximum PC scored a great interview with John Mcafee and discussed today's cybersecurity issues.

http://www.maximumpc.com/john-mcafee-we-are-20-years-behind-china-and-russia-fbi-apple-iphone-san-bernardino/

 

He goes into more than just his offer to decrypt the San Bernadino shooter's iPhone. He talks about the current state of America's national security when it comes to cyber warfare. If his claims are legitimate, then America is massively behind other world powers. The biggest threat he sees is on mobile phones since their use is ubiquitous now and can be used to gather data and interpret the data gathered. He claims the FBI/NSA are gathering data but have no means to parse through it all and use any of it, but the Chinese and Russians do.

Give the whole article a read. It's very interesting.

Love Mcafee.  Total weirdo but he's great.  I also hope he is correct.  The "USA, USA, USA" needs to open its eyes to what a global laughing stock it is.  Flight tickets to the USA are very expensive circus tickets.