&gt;<i>But at the same time, we technologists as a class knew academically that these capabilities could be abused, but nobody actually believed they would be abused. Because why would you do that? It seemed so antisocial as a basic concept.</i><p>What&#x27;s with &#x27;we?&#x27; The various classes of technologists that I&#x27;ve been a member of - from the teen hax0r BBS days thru the crypto lists and Usenet groups to actual working professionals have absolutely believed this. It takes a truly spectacular amount of naivety to believe the contrary.<p>I have a deep and profound respect for Snowden, who has certainly sacrificed any possible semblance of a normal life in his native culture and likely narrowly escaped a worse fate, something he must certainly have known was a risk. It is his very naivety that made him such a perfect whistleblower : he&#x27;s in there looking around and he&#x27;s like &quot;Holy crap! These guys are into some profoundly bad shit! I have to tell everyone!&quot;<p>There&#x27;s probably a hiring policy moral for black ops shops in there somewhere.