Thread

Classified estimates show the NSA is paying billions to test AI models

178 points · 108 comments · rdmuser

bhouston · 1790350930 · focus · HN ↗
"Testing"? Sure, Jan.
They would have to be incompetent if they were not using them both for security penetration as well as social engineering / election meddling as everyone else is.
1. vrganj · 1790351081 · focus · HN ↗
  Midterms are coming up in the US :-)
  1. bhouston · 1790351328 · focus · HN ↗
    I am not sure the NSA has been turned inward at this point.
    I was thinking more of the Alberta Separatist referendum (<a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/12069878/foreign-influence-watchdog-aware-of-concerns-alberta-referendum/" rel="nofollow">https://globalnews.ca/news/12069878/foreign-influence-watchd...) as well as against leftist politics in South America (<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/sep/24/trump-brazil-election-interference" rel="nofollow">https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/sep/24/trump-brazil-e...)
    Although there is evidence Israel was targeting US elections, including trying to harm Mamdani's chances: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BlackCore_election_interference_scandal" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BlackCore_election_interferenc...
    vrganj · 1790351732 · focus · HN ↗
    Those are definitely a thing - also don't forget about elections in the EU, with the open support for the far-right there as well as the US National Security Strategy officially talking of wanting to undermine the EU.
    But the NSA has been turned inward a long time ago. Don't forget Snowden - all it takes is some fun legalisms.
    [deleted] · 1790351900 · focus · HN ↗
    [deleted]
    [deleted] · 1790352192 · focus · HN ↗
    [deleted]
    786562354238 · 1790355525 · focus · HN ↗
    [dead]
    1htaa · 1790356024 · focus · HN ↗
    Indeed, out of character for Israel:
    <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/mossad-chief-top-general-visited-qatar-begged-it-to-pay-hamas-liberman-says/" rel="nofollow">https://www.timesofisrael.com/mossad-chief-top-general-visit...
    bigyabai · 1790356166 · focus · HN ↗
    Israel's pet-peeve isn't justification to violate sovereign democracies.
    arcticfox · 1790356935 · focus · HN ↗
    Branding anyone against Israel's actions "a Hamas supporter" is just so vapid. Mamdani has repeatedly condemned Hamas.
    jdkfkgmgm · 1790357802 · focus · HN ↗
    [dead]
    throwawayffffas · 1790360256 · focus · HN ↗
    You are thinking of the CIA. The NSA mission is primarily inward focused.
    While the NSA may have it's fingers in any of these cases. As far as i understand the agencies roles these would be jobs for the CIA.
    derektank · 1790365150 · focus · HN ↗
    >The NSA mission is primarily inward focused.
    This is simply false. Only domestic law enforcement agencies like the FBI can conduct domestic investigations. Law enforcement or counter-intelligence agents might be given access to intelligence the NSA collects if they have a warrant, but it is not in the remit of the agency to intentionally collect information on US persons, it’s only allowed incidentally when conducting foreign intelligence collection
    pstuart · 1790369619 · focus · HN ↗
    What makes you think that the NSA cares about rules or laws?
    Snowden showed that was the case, and that was a long time ago. Lots more compute and toys for them to play with now.
    throwawayffffas · 1790370947 · focus · HN ↗
    Oh I thought their primary focus was direct threats to the US as opposed to more general adverseries but I may be thinking of DHS.
    nmeagent · 1790410349 · focus · HN ↗
    On the night when the first large batch of "domestic terrorists", selected by some fucking LLM filtering of mass surveillance data that should never have been allowed to be collected by NSA in the first place, are rounded up by ICE and taken to the camps, I just know that there will be some jackwagon on the ride in or in the cells after making some completely irrelevant point about the separation of foreign vs. domestic surveillance, as if this matters in practice to an increasingly desperate fascist regime.
2. [deleted] · 1790351330 · focus · HN ↗
  [deleted]
3. rafale · 1790351926 · focus · HN ↗
  I don't think NSA meddles in politics. CIA sure. NSA is more about communications, hacking, signal intelligence and spying in general. They give you the information. If you want to do dirty stuff with that info, the CIA is there for that.
  1. MSFT_Edging · 1790352706 · focus · HN ↗
    CIA manipulates foreign elections which in turn gets their lackeys in office that go on to manipulate domestic elections.
    NSA collects who you're voting for and everything else you've ever said online in case they need to invent a reason to black-site you.
    FBI convinces the autistic son of your Pakistani neighbors down the street his life only has meaning if he becomes a Jihadist.
  2. bakies · 1790359839 · focus · HN ↗
    thanks for the laugh
4. oefrha · 1790362797 · focus · HN ↗
  They would have to be incompetent if they didn’t have assets embedded in the companies and have a direct hand in the models’ development.

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