Where's Snowden?
Since I’ve been working in the Cyber Security space I don’t think a day has gone by where I haven’t read an article on Edward Snowden. He’s been appearing on Twitter, on LinkedIn, on DarkReading.com, on IBTimes, on projects and now he’s got a film dedicated to his life in 2013.
For those who are new to the name, Snowden took classified information from the NSA regarding global surveillance programmes (pretty much a more sinister Big Brother on a global scale), left his position, hopped on a plane to Hong Kong, leaked the NSA documents to journalists, hopped on another flight to Russia and has been there on asylum ever since. He’s got the US Government hunting him (picture the Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote), yet he still operates from his hiding place; reaching worldwide fame as a whistle-blower and earning $200,000 from speaking events in the US in 2015.
This week more evidence has come to light (The NSA 16 character string buried in code for tracing malicious software - https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/new-snowden-documents-confirm-leaked-cyberweapons-do-belong-nsa-1577099) further confirming that the archive of NSA hacking tools, exploits and implants are real.
Now I want to get one thing straight, this blog isn’t going to provide a treasure map to Edward, it’s not going to become a Scooby Doo merry-go-round and I definitely have no idea where he is (apart from Russia but that’s pretty common knowledge) I just find the whole thing incredible and it started to make me think.
Snowden, the well-known whistle-blower of the modern era, runner-up for TIME’s person of the year, has managed to evade detection for several years. He’s hidden below the radar (little bit of thanks to Russia from him I’m sure!) but has still managed to get a tidy sum in his back pocket. But he must be the best type of criminal (in my opinion) who doesn’t want to be found. If the worldwide governments can’t find Snowden, who keeps popping up for various conferences, how are they going to find the malicious among us; the one’s stealing for power from companies on a daily basis, the one’s hacking into bank accounts for financial gain, the one’s hacking PokemonGo for enjoyment…!
When I first learnt the meaning of globalisation I was told it was a way of keeping people together, bringing people from different societies closer and living in a more interconnected world. Na?ve as it may be, at the time I assumed this meant it would be harder for criminal activities to go unnoticed and easier for these individuals to be brought to trial for their crimes. Oh how I was wrong. Snowden has put it brilliantly by saying that “"I don't live in Russia, I live on the internet" and I think this is true for all of us today.
We may say “I’m from London”, “I live in New York” but really we all live on the internet, in an interconnected playground where all of our footprints are stored on file, where we are much easier to be found, much easier to be manipulated and all without us knowing. This is why, it’s crucial to be as protected as possible, to be aware (Cyber Aware if that floats your boat!) of what is going on and what protection we need. On a daily basis there are more hacks, more activists taking down company infrastructures and more ways of us being unsecure.
This is why it is so important to be Cyber Secure, to be Cyber Streetwise (queue obligatory link - https://www.cyberstreetwise.com/cyberessentials/). Throughout me writing this I’ve had the picture of Where’s Wally in my head. At the start Wally was Snowden; hidden in a sea of irrelevant people, some looking very similar to him but making it impossible to track down. Wally and the rest have no connection, he’s just using them as a shield so he can hide in the best place possible. At the end of writing this, there’s been a slight shift. Wally is still Snowden, or Snowden is still Wally, everyone around him still don’t have tangible connections and he’s still using them to hide like a pro. But the person looking for Wally (the government, the companies) are missing the other issues on the page; the DDOS, the Malware attacks and the unpatched software.