Spy agency ducks questions about 'back doors' in tech products • Hacker News Board

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

#81

Post by Cthulhu_ » Wed, Oct 28, 2020, 4:24 PM UTC

pulse7 wrote: post #5

"The tactics drew widespread attention starting in 2013, when Snowden leaked documents referencing these practices." So this is what Snowden has done: he "drew widespread attention to these tactics". Before Snowden they would call you "paranoid" if you would allow yourself to mention it. Today they can not call you paranoid anymore. And yes, it has hurt US industry reputation. Many don't trust Intel processors and Ci…

In my country, law enforcement (police) apparently uses or has used hardware to allow secure / encrypted communications, whose encryption was supplied by a Swiss company (Crypto AG) which was secretly owned by the CIA which built in backdoors since the 70's.

So basically the CIA and by extension the US government has compromised their allies' communications. I hope there are massive consequences, but probably not.

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

#82

Post by pjc50 » Wed, Oct 28, 2020, 4:28 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…

> Perhaps it's just too exhausting to consider the extent of corruption in the USA.

Abolish the (secret) police?

It's basically the same debate; people need to feel that the threat from the "protectors" is greater than the threat they are allegedly protecting against before something gets done. And, realistically, being spied on by the CIA is fairly low down the average person's list of problems. Even the citizens who are most directly threatened by American policing would prefer dealing with the immediate threat of street violence and gunshot murders by the police than the distant, nebulous threat of the CIA plane over the protests.

Having your candidate spied on by the CIA, FSB, Met police, or Jim-Bob's Laptop Repair Shop is more of a problem.

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

#83

Post by goatinaboat » Wed, Oct 28, 2020, 4:32 PM UTC

seibelj wrote: post #56

Operate under the assumption that government is reading all of your text messages, internet history, payment history, and phone calls. Then when you need privacy, enhance as needed. Even if privacy technologies like VPN or Tor are compromised, the government is less likely to reveal in order to keep the fact they can do it secret. Good luck out there! It's an unfair and scary world, once you try to do anything non-co…

Even if privacy technologies like VPN or Tor are compromised, the government is less likely to reveal in order to keep the fact they can do it secret

That is what parallel construction exists for. Also known as fruit of the poisoned tree.

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

#84

Post by nostoc » Wed, Oct 28, 2020, 4:36 PM UTC

peteretep wrote: post #64

bayindirh wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> It's possibly the most sophisticated hacking campaign when social and technical aspects combined. It’s the most sophisticated one _we know of_

And it's 10 year old now...

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

#85

Post by parliament32 » Wed, Oct 28, 2020, 4:37 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…

Morality aside, the whole system was a work of art.

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

#86

Post by firmnoodle » Wed, Oct 28, 2020, 4:42 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…

> - They've stolen Realtek's driver signing keys.

I have been to Realtek's offices in Hsinchu many times. While the other efforts may have taken major resources I don't think getting their private keys would have been hard at all. Especially back then. IMHO the building and some people could be easily compromised and I suspect they didn't really care much about security.

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

#87

Post by alexilliamson » Wed, Oct 28, 2020, 4:43 PM UTC

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #68

abvdasker wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

They don't know who he is. American adults are uninformed about most issues and will just parrot what they're told to believe in. Mass media paints him as a bad person so that's his public image.

N = 1 blah blah, but my Dad is a West Virginian factory worker who couldn't name one current Supreme Court Justice (including the one just appointed), but he has spoken positively about Snowden for years.

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

#88

Post by disown » Wed, Oct 28, 2020, 4:45 PM UTC

pulse7 wrote: post #5

"The tactics drew widespread attention starting in 2013, when Snowden leaked documents referencing these practices." So this is what Snowden has done: he "drew widespread attention to these tactics". Before Snowden they would call you "paranoid" if you would allow yourself to mention it. Today they can not call you paranoid anymore. And yes, it has hurt US industry reputation. Many don't trust Intel processors and Ci…

> Before Snowden they would call you "paranoid"

No. They'd call you a "conspiracy theorist". By "they", I mean the news/media would call you a "conspiracy theorist".

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

#89

Post by Bender » Wed, Oct 28, 2020, 4:49 PM UTC

boomboomsubban wrote: post #73

abvdasker wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>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 highly doubt this. In 2015, only 60% of Americans had some idea of who Snowden was, and only half of those had a positive opinion of him. I doubt this has improved over the past five years either. https://www.aclu.org/snowden-poll-results

The best example of the Snowden fallout and the apathy around it was when John Oliver interviewed both Snowden and many people on the street. People on the street did not comprehend what NSA monitoring meant and did not care until John put it in terms they could understand. "So you are ok with the NSA seeing pictures and videos of your significant others junk you text (sext) back and forth?" "Oh, I would be furious if they were seeing that". That was how nearly every conversation went.

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

#90

Post by worker767424 » Wed, Oct 28, 2020, 4:51 PM UTC

boomboomsubban wrote: post #73

abvdasker wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>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 highly doubt this. In 2015, only 60% of Americans had some idea of who Snowden was, and only half of those had a positive opinion of him. I doubt this has improved over the past five years either. https://www.aclu.org/snowden-poll-results

> only 60% of Americans had some idea of who Snowden was

It's things like this and people who believe the moon landing was faked that convinced me universal suffrage isn't a good thing, and we need some sort of poll test to make sure people are educated on issues before voting. I realize the US has a bad history with "literacy" tests, but it's clear that most people have no business voting.