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The NSA called me after midnight and requested my source code (2018)

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Re: The NSA called me after midnight and requested my source code (2018)

#211

Post by ycombi3 »

duncan_bayne wrote: post #189
marcus_holmes wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No they didn't, but they proved who they were to the OP's satisfaction, and left it to him to decide whether he should help them or not. To me, this is a bit of a no-brainer. A government agency wants my help to do something. Do I trust them? Do I help them? Well... yes. They're the government. Incompetent sometimes, irrelevant a lot of the time, inefficient, sure. But ultimately there to provide a service for me as…

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_syphilis_experiment https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM_(surveillance_program) Those two spring to mind immediately, and I'm not American, I'm Australian. Personally, I don't understand why anyone trusts their Government more than the bare minimum required to support the rule of law.

You can lead a horse to water.... People are way to trusting.

Re: The NSA called me after midnight and requested my source code (2018)

#212

Post by Jenz »

tephra wrote: post #188
jacobush wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They just like to point it out. :-D I suppose they are afraid someone would take them for a Swede, that'd be embarrassing.

Not so long ago there were people who were born when Sweden and Norway were in a union together.

That was ages ago, from my perspective

Re: The NSA called me after midnight and requested my source code (2018)

#213

Post by outworlder »

jaywalk wrote: post #194
pantheon wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every country has a Department of Defense.

But it's not necessarily called the Department of Defense. That's literally the name of it in the US.

Wasn't it the Department of War, a long time ago?

Re: The NSA called me after midnight and requested my source code (2018)

#214

Post by outworlder »

netsharc wrote: post #162
vaguesortof wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean 'id as a DOD box'? Do you mean hostname/splash screen/ip .... I'm missing something

Kids these days ;) . Before ssh there was telnet, and a telnet server can write a greeting text before asking for your username (it can even be configured to skip the login and just show you a shell), e.g.: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tno79Q2X-Sg&t=31 In that video it says "User Access Verification", he probably changed his to "Dept. of Defense"...

Get off my lawn!

Telnet requires a functioning network stack.

Before we had that, we had modems, which I assume was the case since wardialing is mentioned. They could run ANY protocol - or indeed none at all. You could tie it directly to the text I/O of any program(easy on unix systems, not as easy on MSDOS or early Windows versions). Many "BBS" systems worked this way.

EDIT: also early "multiplayer" games, which would talk to the modem directly. I've spend hours playing Descent over a 9600bps modem connection. That was only running... whatever protocol Descent used. You kids and your fancy packets.

If a file was being transferred you could do nothing else. If you were specially high-tech, you would use ZModem for the transfer. If not, you would be using something like XModem, or even Kermit or something proprietary.

Re: The NSA called me after midnight and requested my source code (2018)

#215

Post by dx034 »

vl wrote: post #105
code4tee wrote: post #13

Interesting story, but wouldn’t be surprised if the real play here was to get his source code so they could get some bad guys to use a modified version that the NSA could crack. Put a back door in and then intercept traffic trying to download the encryption app to download the back-doored version. The fact that the NSA has to call him in the middle of the night to learn that the free version didn’t use strong encrypt…

Whatever they used source code for, it just a shortcut - they could do the same thing by just disassembling and binary patching (like all hackers and agencies do all the time). Basically they would never do it and risk exposure if they didn’t want to get result extremely fast.

Maybe they had the opportunity to get someone to use their patched software but only had a day or so to create a fake copy. In that case the source could would be very valuable.

Re: The NSA called me after midnight and requested my source code (2018)

#216

Post by dx034 »

meowface wrote: post #75
code4tee wrote: post #13

Interesting story, but wouldn’t be surprised if the real play here was to get his source code so they could get some bad guys to use a modified version that the NSA could crack. Put a back door in and then intercept traffic trying to download the encryption app to download the back-doored version. The fact that the NSA has to call him in the middle of the night to learn that the free version didn’t use strong encrypt…

I doubt it. For one, how could they expect to distribute it in a way that a bad guy was more likely to download than by going to the official site? But also, if they did want to do that, they could probably backdoor it pretty easily just by patching the binary a bit. Reverse engineering and changing binaries is way easier than cracking encryption, and they probably have some of the world's top reverse engineers. The…

That happened in 2000, I doubt the page was served via https. MITM shouldn't be too hard then.

Re: The NSA called me after midnight and requested my source code (2018)

#217

Post by dx034 »

mesozoic wrote: post #167
remcob wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know it's a joke but: Mugs have a tendency to be put in microwaves, making them a dangerous place for electronics. If you find yourself receiving a questionable mug, time for a glass of warm milk.

Surely the listening device was just installed in the house by the delivery person.

Or while he was on vacation?

Re: The NSA called me after midnight and requested my source code (2018)

#218

Post by bjoli »

filoleg wrote: post #203
downerending wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I miss the days when you could do stuff like this without ending up in prison.

You were running a lower risk of getting caught, but if you got caught, you could easily get slammed with all kinds of outlandish stuff back then, mostly due to the general public ignorance of computing and hacking. These days, you have a way higher chance of getting caught, but the punishment is more reasonable and fair imo (even though it is still way overblown most of the time). What instantly came to my mind was…

I don't know, maybe Kevin was a real whistling virtuoso.

Raymond Chen could scream the 300 baud carrier tone: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20111111-00/?p=91...

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