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

reuters.com

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

#131

Post by colejohnson66 »

SauciestGNU wrote: post #126
colejohnson66 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not Cisco’s fault if the NSA has compelled them to add those “bugs”

It absolutely is. There can be a duty to resist. People get killed based solely on data collected from signals intercepts. More people and companies should take the brave stand Lavabit did, rather than be complicit in oppression and state-sponsored killings.

While I dislike the NSA as much as practically everyone else here, I’m not aware of any state-sponsored killings done by the NSA. Sure, the executive branch has ordered killings, but the branch is so large, lumping it all together makes no sense. The NSA, FCC, FTC, EPA, etc. don’t kill.

Now, you should resist, yes, but most people don’t. It takes a very brave soul to resist and hope the Supreme Court will side with you. Civil disobedience generally also requires vast public support who would rally behind you. Practically everyone knows Rosa Parks, but polls have shown only about 60% of Americans have even heard of Snowden. Public support is a fraction of that.

Cisco’s executives would also end up being involved in some massive lawsuits if they shut down the company to take a stand. Lavabit, OTOH, was multiple orders of magnitude smaller than Cisco is, and they could afford the backlash. It also didn’t help that Lavabit catered to tech people who would understand why they shut down. Cisco, OTOH, is used by virtually every large business; many of the employees of which would not understand why they shut down.

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

#132

Post by 542354234235 »

mindslight wrote: post #119
craftinator wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That second part is the primary reason why they aren't being wholesale shut down Two thoughts: 1) Even if most Americans decided they needed to be shut down, how would we enact that? It seems to me there are very few people who have that power, and even if a great majority of us wanted it, we have no way to enact it (and no way of knowing if it was actually enacted; we could be told it had been done, but that could…

> If they were actually shut down, what would the people who worked there do? Prison time, like any other criminal enterprise.

This is kind of ridiculous. These are high level conflicts between equally valid government entities about how they should operate as well as nebulous questions on how constitutional law applies. I would assume there are legal memos, signed authorizations, etc. for what is going on. We could argue that secret authorizations for these kinds of things shouldn’t exist, but the fact is they do. If the president authorizes something, and years later, a court decides this action was unconstitutional, the employees are not criminally responsible. This isn’t a Nuremburg trial situation where crimes against humanity are committed under the guise of “just following orders”. This is a case of following orders because the best legal experts cannot 100% agree on constructional law and how it applies to different circumstances and different powers given to the various branches of government.

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

#133

Post by russh »

Darkphibre wrote: post #102
pilsetnieks wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know, I've heard so many variations of those "USB drives in the parking lot" stories, I wonder if that isn't a cover for something else. Or maybe just someone covering their asses and not willing to take blame for something else. "USB drives in the parking lot" could be the tech industry's Korean fan death.

> In one test of how well a USB scam can work, Trustwave planted five USB drives decorated with the targeted company’s logos in the vicinity of the organization’s building. Two of the five “lost & found” drives were opened at the organization. One of the openings even enabled the researchers to glimpse software employed to control the organization’s physical security. https://www.redteamsecure.com/blog/usb-drop-attac…

I have a friend who does pentesting and she collects many cool and interesting looking usb flash drives for this very purpose. She says "60% of the time, it works every time."

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

#134

Post by malaya_zemlya »

lern_too_spel wrote: post #104
Bender wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 i…

But that is not what the NSA monitoring meant. They do not get to see pictures of your SO's junk. They do know who you called and when but not tied to your name.

according to Snowden, they did:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/27/gchq-nsa-webca...

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

#135

Post by nkrisc »

worker767424 wrote: post #90
boomboomsubban wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

That's exactly the argument those who implemented those maligned poll tests made. They were made to keep the wrong people from voting on the basis they didn't know what was best.

That's why they're a bad idea and should not return.

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

#136

Post by nerdponx »

matthewdgreen wrote: post #10
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #2

Is anyone actually surprised of a "we can neither confirm nor deny" type of answer coming from intelligence agencies?

Yes. After the Snowden leaks and Shadowbrokers/Vault7/WannaCry disasters, the agencies put a lot of effort into reassuring the public that US technology was trustworthy. This included things like making public the Vulnerabilities Equities Process [1], and other work to restore trust in cryptographic standards agencies like NIST [2]. It also included more public engagement with industry to report serious vulnerabiliti…

I guess the news here is that the NSA didn't learn very much from these episodes, or at least, it no longer feels like it needs to repair the damage.

This seems to be a common thread in American political corruption. After a certain point, the public just doesn't remember or can't be bothered to care or feels powerless to do anything. Then you can basically do whatever you want as long as you stay quiet enough to avoid another wave of media outrage.

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

#137

Post by mindslight »

542354234235 wrote: post #132
mindslight wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If they were actually shut down, what would the people who worked there do? Prison time, like any other criminal enterprise.

This is kind of ridiculous. These are high level conflicts between equally valid government entities about how they should operate as well as nebulous questions on how constitutional law applies. I would assume there are legal memos, signed authorizations, etc. for what is going on. We could argue that secret authorizations for these kinds of things shouldn’t exist, but the fact is they do. If the president authorize…

The straightforward way to eliminate the ambiguity is to submit the programs to democratic oversight, including by The People. But instead they've worked hard to do the exact opposite, going so far as to blatantly lie to congress. This points to a criminal conspiracy, regardless of how many employees are working to craft dubious legal justifications. Usually criminals don't get to just say "my bad" and walk away after being caught, and I don't see why higher crimes should carry less punishment.

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

#138

Post by rapind »

worker767424 wrote: post #90
boomboomsubban wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

I sympathize with the frustration, but the tests themselves will just be another attack vector for voter suppression (history proves this).

Probably better off spending resources on improving education and political awareness.

I personally think that if we aren’t going to let someone vote then we shouldn’t ask them to pay tax either.

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

#139

Post by xxpor »

_jal wrote: post #54
derefr wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly what have they got, if you never connect it to a network afterward, either? A key-log that never makes it back to them? (I’m presuming here that the laptop is openable, and that you will do so and physically remove any wi-fi M.2 card from it — and associated antennae — since you won’t be using it. There might be some sort of extra surface-mount snooper chip left onboard that could replicate the same function…

Perhaps with something like this? https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2014/03/ragemaster_ns... Or this? https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2014/03/cottonmouth-i... If you have actually attracted the attention of the NSA, pulling your NIC is playground stuff.

Ignoring the larger context, but just technologically, RAGEMASTER sounds freakin' sweet. Like that's actually amazing.

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

#140

Post by NikolaeVarius »

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.

I dont think this is a given. Not a perfect source, but man this was depressing

https://youtu.be/XEVlyP4_11M?t=422

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