Spy agency ducks questions about 'back doors' in tech products

Post by boomboomsubban » Wed, Oct 28, 2020, 3:35 PM UTC

duxup wrote: post #29

boomboomsubban wrote: post #9

>Three former senior intelligence agency figures told Reuters that the NSA now requires that before a back door is sought, the agency must weigh the potential fallout and arrange for some kind of warning if the back door gets discovered and manipulated by adversaries. Meaning that before, they were free to plant as many back doors as they pleased without any concern for the consequences. And even now, they just need…

"Meaning that before, they were free to plant as many back doors as they pleased without any concern for the consequences." Kinda. There apparently is some approval process and such but I'm not sure everyone at he agency was able to make such requests in the first place... I'm with your gist, I'm just not sure we know how widespread it really was. I'm not inclined to agree that it must have been ultra widespread.

Post by peteretep » Wed, Oct 28, 2020, 3:41 PM UTC

bayindirh wrote: post #42

aborsy wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stuxnet is interesting. Apparently, the US and Israeli agents threw away a number of USB devices around target facilities. What do you do when you find a USB stick? Well, eventually someone working in an air gapped facility picked up one and used it inside. The NSA apparently perfectly aligned 4 zeros days in Siemens and Microsoft products to spread the malware from USB into the Iranian LAN (shared printers, industri…

Its more nuanced than that. Didn't read the book completely but read a long report. What I remember: - They got exact hardware details and topology of the centrifuges somehow. - They've stolen Realtek's driver signing keys. - The virus looks like a simple worm which can infect other USB devices and doesn't unpack beyond a certain point if it can't find the SCADA equipment and the correct device ID & topology (It's li…

Post by fsflover » Wed, Oct 28, 2020, 3:41 PM UTC

imglorp wrote: post #31

hanniabu wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hope you have your bluetooth also turned off

And your mic and speaker. And the light sensors while you're at it. All can be used for exfiltration.

Post by kevin_thibedeau » Wed, Oct 28, 2020, 3:45 PM UTC

abvdasker wrote: post #57

dancemethis wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They totally still call you paranoid. Snowden unfortunately meant nothing to the general technology consumer mass. They're more than happy to defend tooth and nail their jails. See Discord or Zoom as prime current examples. It is ridiculous that he had to go through this just for people to shake their shoulders and keep on, except for the few that already were inclined to care.

Look, my estimation of "general technology consumer mass" is incredibly low, but I promise you nearly every American adult knows who Edward Snowden is and probably has at least a vague idea of what he was trying to communicate. I agree that many — maybe even most — people don't understand the issue very well, but I think it did have a pretty large impact at the time and since.

Post by jimbob45 » Wed, Oct 28, 2020, 3:47 PM UTC

bayindirh wrote: post #28

warent wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has always been true that any computer connected to the internet could be accessed by an unauthorized party, even before the leaks. Disconnect from the internet and nobody is getting in, including the NSA.

> Disconnect from the internet and nobody is getting in, including the NSA. Oh boy. That's some serious delusion in 2020. Wireless cards and higher end network interface cards are independent computers. Your processor has another processor (Intel ME and others) in it. Baseband Management Controllers are also independent computers on their own right. With closed firmware and wireless capabilities, you can never know w…