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

Post by pulse7 » Wed, Oct 28, 2020, 3:48 PM UTC

fsflover wrote: post #61

bayindirh wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> - Your Intel system runs a special version of Minix on its Management Engine. A version of Minix customized for Intel by its original developer Not on all systems. It's neutralized and disabled on my Librem 15: https://puri.sm/learn/intel-me/ .

Post by boomboomsubban » Wed, Oct 28, 2020, 3:52 PM UTC

abvdasker wrote: post #57

dancemethis wrote: post #30

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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 pilsetnieks » Wed, Oct 28, 2020, 4:08 PM UTC

aborsy wrote: post #35

bayindirh wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

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…

Post by bulletsvshumans » Wed, Oct 28, 2020, 4:09 PM UTC

Liquix wrote: post #37

jdndbfbf wrote: post #13

The director of the NSA lied while under oath to congress, and nothing happened. As far as I'm concerned, what 3 letter agencies say publically is irrelevant.

It's an interesting case of cognitive dissonance. Most will admit when pressed a bit that the CIA/NSA/FBI do not have our best interests at heart and are out of control. They have repeatedly lied under oath, lied to congress, lied to the public, run human experiments on unwitting citizens, collect data on all of us, etc with complete impunity. However many people somehow simultaneously hold the belief that these agen…

Post by kube-system » Wed, Oct 28, 2020, 4:17 PM UTC

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #59

dmurray wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Couldn't they just have said "no we have no backdoors"? NSA would look good, Congress would look good for asking the tough questions. When eventually new evidence comes to light that they do have backdoors, they have the choice then between continuing to deny deny deny, or pointing to national security interests.

>Couldn't they just have said "no we have no backdoors"? No, because once their backdoors are (inevitably) going to be found/leaked, they'll come off as liars. Plus, if they would have said no, nobody would buy that or would think they're asleep at the wheel.