Wired Magazine September Issue Features Undesirable #1 Edward Snowden

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Edward Snowden, whom we are guessing everyone at the NSA calls Undesirable #1(Harry Potter reference) is covering the September issue of WIRED magazine. Interviewed and written by James Bamford, the former National Security

On the documents he stole,
Snowden speculates that the documents he stole—most of which he has not read—may contain a bombshell disclosure that would wreak havoc on the careers of senior government officials.
“I think they think there’s a smoking gun in there that would be the death of them all politically,” Snowden says. “The fact that the government’s investigation failed—that they don’t know what was taken and that they keep throwing out these ridiculous huge numbers—implies to me that somewhere in their damage assessment they must have seen something that was like, ‘Holy shit.’ And they think it’s still out there.”

Snowden refuses to comment directly on the widespread speculation that his whistle-blowing has inspired others within the US intelligence community to release secret documents to the press, but in discussing a recent revelation in Der Spiegel that was not attributed to the documents, he says of the NSA:
“They still haven’t fixed their problems. They still have negligent auditing, they still have things going for a walk, and they have no idea where they’re coming from and they have no idea where they’re going. And if that’s the case, how can we as the public trust the NSA with all of our information, with all of our private records, the permanent record of our lives?”

He was recently granted a stay extension in Russia. He also reveals,

Snowden reveals that the NSA has a program called MonsterMind that not only has the capability to detect incoming cyberattacks but also the ability to counterattack with no human intervention.
Programs like this had existed for decades, but MonsterMind software would add a unique new capability: Instead of simply detecting and killing the malware at the point of entry, MonsterMind would automatically fire back, with no human involvement. That’s a problem, Snowden says, because the initial attacks are often routed through computers in innocent third countries. “These attacks can be spoofed,” he says. “You could have someone sitting in China, for example, making it appear that one of these attacks is originating in Russia. And then we end up shooting back at a Russian hospital. What happens next?””
You can read more of the interview HERE
*image credit: Platon/WIRED