In 2013, whistle blower Edward Snowden told us about the NSA’s extreme surveillance programs. Snowden revealed the NSA was listening in on our smartphones and reading our computers. Now there’s been another revelation.
But this one might be a more welcome one. It’s called Monster Mind. Monster Mind is supposed to be a cyber defense system that fights and neutralizes foreign cyber attacks against the US. It can also launch an attack against perpetrators. This program can find malicious international tracking and find, then blocks threats from around the globe. One computer science professor says if the NSA knows how malicious calculations can lead to a cyber attack, and I do believe they have the knowledge, then they can be stopped before they get started. Remember the 20th century Cold War era? They had programs that could allegedly shoot down and stop potential nuclear missiles. Monster Mind would be similar to that in the Internet world. Let’s say international hackers built malware to wipe out US banks of billions of dollars, or build codes to rob the FBI or other US agencies of security secrets, or a worm was built to disrupt the air traffic controller system or train system or highway grid system. The NSA’s Monster Mind system can counter that before any damage can be done.
Not only that, Snowden believes Monster Mind can launch a counter attack with no human intervention. Not surprising, the NSA refuses to comment about Monster Mind, or if it’s even real. On paper, this sounds like a great concept. Let’s not be naive: there are hackers out there who would love to do us harm. So if we can stop the madness before it stops, we should..or should we? Snowden brings up ethics to Monster Mind. In order to spot the malicious traffic, all traffic would have to be analyzed and watched, which could violate the US Constitution’s Fourth Amendment. So is the NSA’s Monster Mind program a good deal?