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The NSA Furby Documents

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Re: The NSA Furby Documents

#91

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

j-wags wrote: post #27
Pwntastic wrote: post #13

The FOIA documents are up on archive.org now: https://archive.org/details/nsa-furby-memo/ I'm amused at page 8 of the listserve doc, in which someone points out that the ongoing discussion may at some point be released to the public under FOIA and to consider how it might look after showing up on the front page of a news site

It's interesting to see how quickly the norms around cybersecurity changed. In 1999 the NSA was worried about avoiding ridicule for banning simple electronics in secure areas. In 2010 Stuxnet was introduced via simple electronics into a secure area and set back the Iranian nuclear program by several years. Some of the people receiving these furby emails were probably already conceiving of (or actively working on) Stu…

The IR transmit capability of the Furby was a legitimate threat. PalmPilots of the era were permitted inside a SCIF providing they had their IR ports covered by an opaque sticker and weren't a model with a radio.

Re: The NSA Furby Documents

#92

Post by WatchDog »

sandworm101 wrote: post #45
hiatus wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It isnt simple. Getting a normal phone line to passively carry an encrypted call is a bit of a hack. How so? It would seem fairly trivial considering we have ways of sending data over phone lines as sound for decades.

Because the signal transmitted over normal phones has to be encrypted. That encrypted signal will then be digitized/compressed by the standard phone line. Any artifacts in the phone line digitization might turn the encrypted signal into gibberish. Its like compressing a jpeg too many times. So you need an encryption method that isnt simple digitization. You need something that is encrypted but essentially sounds like…

We all used this kind of advanced technology to connect to the internet back in the 90s.

Re: The NSA Furby Documents

#93

Post by ClassyJacket »

refulgentis wrote: post #3

Context: Furbys were the toy for a year or two, and were actively marketed as learning from speech, had an active mic, and did adjust their speech based on what they heard, "learning" to speak English from Furbish. [^1] It's not so different from the fundamental fear of Alexa/Assistant/microphones that's fairly well diffused now. Except the Furby actively claimed to learn how to speak based on your speech, and had a…

That confirms what I remember from that time - kids were convinced you could teach it to say things, but I never saw any of them succeed. I think a big toy company would be somewhat averse to having their flagship product spew racial slurs.

Re: The NSA Furby Documents

#94

Post by IAmLiterallyAB »

Fun fact: the 2016 model Furby uses an obscure ISA you've never heard of (and if you have, let me know!) called µnSP. I managed to get Pong running on a Furby a few years ago and by far the hardest part was figuring out that completely undocumented instruction set.

Wrote added support for it to Ghidra which was a cool learning experience

Re: The NSA Furby Documents

#95

Post by rezonant »

duskwuff wrote: post #32
kube-system wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many voice assistants do record your voice and send those recordings elsewhere: e.g. https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html%3FnodeI...

The Furby came out in 1998. Less than 50% of US homes even owned a computer at the time, let alone had Internet access (and that was usually dialup if they did). Cellular networks were largely voice-only and quite expensive. In short: even if Furbies had some way to record data (which they didn't), there would have been no practical way for them to exfiltrate it.

On the other hand,

Ooh, looks like this Furby has learned the English words "new", "nuclear", "facility" and "Ohio"!

/s

Re: The NSA Furby Documents

#96

Post by sandworm101 »

WatchDog wrote: post #92
sandworm101 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the signal transmitted over normal phones has to be encrypted. That encrypted signal will then be digitized/compressed by the standard phone line. Any artifacts in the phone line digitization might turn the encrypted signal into gibberish. Its like compressing a jpeg too many times. So you need an encryption method that isnt simple digitization. You need something that is encrypted but essentially sounds like…

We all used this kind of advanced technology to connect to the internet back in the 90s.

Not really. The phone lines were not compressed then.

Re: The NSA Furby Documents

#97

Post by wolverine876 »

sandworm101 wrote: post #76
wolverine876 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NSA is a military agency; their norm has always been to protect US assets and attack others.

It is no more a military agency than NASA or the USGS. Having military customers doesn't make an agency or company part of that military.

NSA is in the Department of Defense, commanded by a uniformed officer, employing many (how many?) members of the military.

Re: The NSA Furby Documents

#98

Post by jandrewrogers »

halJordan wrote: post #68
wolverine876 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NSA is a military agency; their norm has always been to protect US assets and attack others.

The NSA is not a military agency. It is within the dod, it provides combat support. But it is emphatically not a military agency.

You are incorrect. There are two categories of intelligence agencies in the US as a matter of law, with significantly different legal authority and structure.

Intelligence agencies like the CIA, FBI, et al are non-military. NSA is explicitly a military agency and operates under military authority. The easiest way to tell the difference is that the Director of military agencies is always an active military flag officer. It isn't just a superficial distinction, they operate quite differently.

Re: The NSA Furby Documents

#99

Post by callalex »

halJordan wrote: post #68
wolverine876 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NSA is a military agency; their norm has always been to protect US assets and attack others.

The NSA is not a military agency. It is within the dod, it provides combat support. But it is emphatically not a military agency.

It’s important to remember that “DOD” is a pathetic rebranding attempt of what it was originally founded as and continues to operate as: the Department of War.

Re: The NSA Furby Documents

#100

Post by wolverine876 »

halJordan wrote: post #68
wolverine876 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NSA is a military agency; their norm has always been to protect US assets and attack others.

The NSA is not a military agency. It is within the dod, it provides combat support. But it is emphatically not a military agency.

How are you defining "military"?
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