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Comment by ttyyzz | Hacker News Reader

Yes, it also states: "[...] We should also remember that 85-90% of the most powerful cyber-threat intelligence lies in the hands of those other than the United States government, which brings me to a final point about partnerships: Not one of our past—or future—disruptions is possible without exceptional partnerships [...]."

I didn't expect so much honesty, I would have expected "We and only we are the greatest and best".

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I think this is not correct and perhaps a deliberate downplay. The US Govt theoretically and in many cases provably has backdoors in the very fabric of the internet itself, and has tendrils in products of many of the companies and entities responsible for everything from transistor to application.

It is however, in the US govts interest to not present this, so as not to encourage people away from US tech.

You way over estimate the US gov. Those backdoors and tendrils exist because of individuals and groups that developed the features. This isn’t the Smoking Man. The partnerships delivered the boots on the ground resources to detain, arrest, and prosecute the criminals.

This is different because it's not about espionage. The NSA can do tons of stuff that normal police forces can only dream about. But the NSA doesn't have to worry about courts or juries or even evidence. It's a totally different game when you want to crack down on criminals using the law vs dropping bombs on terrorists and military targets.

There's this thing called parallel construction

It works like this: NSA brings the illegal evidence, and agencies like FBI and DEA launders it, building a fake case that omits the illegal evidence but includes other evidence that were obtained from it, rewriting history to make it seem like the investigation never ever used illegal means.

It's like git rebase, but for criminal investigations.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction#By_the_U...

While parallel construction is usually dodgy as hell, it still requires that there be sufficient evidence obtainable through legal means to build a case.

It's kind of like a journalist getting information off the record from a source. They can't use that for a story, and the only way they can write about it is if they can find enough on the record or on background sourcing or data to be able to back it up.

They didn't say they weren't the best, they only said that the intelligence lied in other hands.

They are (subtly) saying cyber criminals are all from / in other countries.

The only way I can see one expecting "We and only we are the greatest and best" sentiment is if one has been marinating in the "America Bad" online misinformation trend.

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