Ok the claim is the CPU was compromised and they were using ARM based tech. Is then ARM compromised? Cavium is now Marvell Technology.
Or other elements of an SoC. Biased RNG would be a good bet.
Snowden leak: Cavium networking hardware may contain NSA backdoor
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Re: Snowden leak: Cavium networking hardware may contain NSA backdoor
#272Earlier quoted context omitted.
or you know, just don't connect your computer online.
And ensure it's not by any windows, the case HD LED doesn't blink nor does the FAN make any noise.
Hardware and software backdoors does scale.
Data exfiltration through audio / fan speed / LEDs blinking / power draw / etc. simply doesn't.
I think that a discussion about metric shitloads of networking gear being compromised is not the place to make fun of the few that didn't compromise on security.
There's a place for offline/airgapped devices and private keys (PGP keys, seeds, whatever) being generated by throwing dice.
If anything all these backdoors do show that math/cryptography do work. The NSA's budget may be 100% of the US GDP, they still wouldn't be changing Sun's gravity or the math behind cryptography.
The joke today is on those who kept making fun of those who didn't trade security for convenience.
Re: Snowden leak: Cavium networking hardware may contain NSA backdoor
#273How the NSA successfully manage to prevent the Washington Post and friends from discovering and reporting on this malicious backdoor? They've been sitting on these documents for a decade. Are the journalists just that *uncurious* about the deep contents of the documents they hold exclusive access to? Was this some kind of organizational failing?
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Re: Snowden leak: Cavium networking hardware may contain NSA backdoor
#274Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a general rule when criminal conspiracies are taken to task, they don't retain a right to privacy for their communications that aren't about the criminal conspiracy. Rather it all comes out in court. I understand why Snowden released the way he did, and given how it kept attention on the subject for longer than Binney/Klein it was probably the right call. But there should have also been an escrow/intent to dump th…
>As a general rule when criminal conspiracies are taken to task, they don't retain a right to privacy for their communications that aren't about the criminal conspiracy. Rather it all comes out in court. That doesn't seem to be true. There are many court cases involving criminal conspiracies where you cannot find unrelated information about the involved people.
"in court" may have been a bit too strong, but police do generally have carte blanche to the entirety of someone's private life. For most people the police show up, confiscate anything that might possibly be evidence, damaging it or at least denying its use for several years. Never mind what happens to people, who often get arrested first and then sorted out later.
Due to the severe corruption of our institutions, the investigators in this case are the public. A time period of a decade is more than enough time to recall all the HUMINT assets that might be harmed by such disclosure.
Re: Snowden leak: Cavium networking hardware may contain NSA backdoor
#275For anyone wondering "what's the big deal" it's worth remembering the NSA has a bad track record of keeping their own hacking tools secure. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shadow_Brokers
It infuriates me the NSA actively works to undermine American security. Their brief is to protect us, not plant backdoors and then lose the keys.
Re: Snowden leak: Cavium networking hardware may contain NSA backdoor
#276How the NSA successfully manage to prevent the Washington Post and friends from discovering and reporting on this malicious backdoor? They've been sitting on these documents for a decade. Are the journalists just that *uncurious* about the deep contents of the documents they hold exclusive access to? Was this some kind of organizational failing?
In the US, we have this passionate fantasy about Woodward and Bernstein and the Post and the Pulitzer and the movie and Redford and Hoffman and the Academy Award, about how the Press played the part of the "fourth estate" as the Founders intended, and rooted out a corrupt politician, and forced him to resign. It's all bullshit. The people who broke into the Watergate Hotel were CIA, Woodward was formerly CIA, and "Deepthroat" was a Deputy Director of the FBI. It was all a deep state plot to get rid of Nixon. Any time the deep state wants to get rid of a politician, the "press" does its "job" by exposing things. When the deep state likes a politician, the "press" ALSO does its "job" by covering things up. Look absolutely no further than Hunter Biden. The hypocrisy is utterly astounding, even to someone who is deeply cynical at this point. The rest of the US needs to wake up to the fact that the press is just another branch of the deep state, and stop pretending that there's ANYTHING useful being fed to us through ANY of the large media corporations.
Re: Snowden leak: Cavium networking hardware may contain NSA backdoor
#277Very impressive work by the NSA, if true. Both from a political and technical perspective. It's good to know that our intelligence services are doing what they're supposed to, and doing it well. However, as interesting as this revelation is, it's unfortunate that Snowden decided to defect to the Russians and share his stolen cache of top secret documents with them and China, using Western journalists as ideological c…
This is the thing that rubs me the wrong way about Snowden - had he stayed and faced the music as a true whistleblower, he would've earned my respect for sticking to principles and acting as a loyal citizen acting in the interest of the country, even in the face of persecution. He did not do that. Instead, he's living a comfortable life in the bowels of a country that is committing vicious, daily war crimes. I don't…
As a contractor he didn't qualify for whistleblower protections at the time.
He would just be in solitary confinement for the rest of his life, and there's a much better chance the leak to the public would have never been completed in the first.
Re: Snowden leak: Cavium networking hardware may contain NSA backdoor
#278Very impressive work by the NSA, if true. Both from a political and technical perspective. It's good to know that our intelligence services are doing what they're supposed to, and doing it well. However, as interesting as this revelation is, it's unfortunate that Snowden decided to defect to the Russians and share his stolen cache of top secret documents with them and China, using Western journalists as ideological c…
Being stranded in Moscow because the State Department cancels your passport while you're en route to Ecuador = "defection"? Cute.
Re: Snowden leak: Cavium networking hardware may contain NSA backdoor
#279Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is the thing that rubs me the wrong way about Snowden - had he stayed and faced the music as a true whistleblower, he would've earned my respect for sticking to principles and acting as a loyal citizen acting in the interest of the country, even in the face of persecution. He did not do that. Instead, he's living a comfortable life in the bowels of a country that is committing vicious, daily war crimes. I don't…
I think this is incredibly rich. Snowden is undoubtedly on the US' "really, really naughty" list -- would you, personally, sit back and be imprisoned for the rest of your life (and possibly be tortured), or live comparatively freely elsewhere? > I don't hear him make a peep about kidnapped Ukrainian children, or the civilians that Russia tortures and kills. Can you really not see why that would be a bad idea? He's ki…
Snowden's past actions were never heroic, that is just spin manufactured by journalists with a vested interest in constructing a narrative.
He's been arrogantly self-serving from the start, and it's rather disappointing that some people still haven't grown out of their juvenile phase of blind hero worship.
Re: Snowden leak: Cavium networking hardware may contain NSA backdoor
#280Another tragic blow to the environment and economy. We treat these stories as if they were simple matters of politics and tech. But the blast radius is huge. When this happened to Cisco, and their value dropped to about 7% of the market they created, I passed massive dumpsters of Cisco gear in the car park, prematurely torn out of racks and consigned to crushing as e-waste. Has anyone done a serious cost analysis of…
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